Recovering all data from drive from failed DNS323 enclosure

sutton.don48 · Oct 4, 2017

I lost access to my Dlink DNS323 enclosure and the left drive light no longer lights. The setup software will still find the enclosure and I can perform operations on the drives so I think the drives (Raid 1) format are OK but for some reason there appears to be a fault with the enclosure. I recently installed another router in the network after the previous Netgear router refused to allow internet access although at the time everything was still visible on the network behind the router. The replacement router is a Dlink DSR 250N which has shifted the IP numbers xxx.xxx.xx.nn to xxx.xxx.xx.nnn. I am wondering if this might be a firewall issue as all items on the network are DHCP with the router being the DNS server. The DNS323 is quite old and early this year I upgraded the drives from 500GB to 1TB. I bought a QNAP TS231 which was on special and copied all wanted files from the 500GB while functioning to a partition on my PC before replacing the drives in the DNS323. The DNS323 has been functioning fine until the router malfunction. I am at a loss for the next step.
If I can't get the DNS323 to go online again how do I get the data off the drives? (it is just data since the 500GB ones were replaced with the 1TB drives so not a lot of data but enough to make it a nuisance. Can the drive/s be mounted in a PC running Linux Mint access them? Can I use a USB connected SATA housing to access them?

DR_Luke · Oct 4, 2017

Assuming that the drives are healthy, you should be able to access that data on them via Linux, yes. However, with the chance that the drives are failing, it is probably best to get a full sector-by-sector image (Guide to ddrescue) of each drive to a known healthy drive before you try anything.

If the drives are setup RAID 1, either drive (preferably the clone) should give access to the data, but there is a chance that one was offline longer than the other, resulting in outdated data. So, be sure to verify that the most current documents you are looking for are present and open.

If the drives are setup RAID 0, you will need both drives (preferably the clones) working and accessible in order to rejoin the stripe set. It may be easier to not bother trying to mount the RAID, rather just use a data recovery program to virtually rejoin the two and give access to recover the data out to another drive.

Good luck.

sutton.don48 · Oct 5, 2017

DR_Luke :

Assuming that the drives are healthy, you should be able to access that data on them via Linux, yes. However, with the chance that the drives are failing, it is probably best to get a full sector-by-sector image (Guide to ddrescue) of each drive to a known healthy drive before you try anything.

If the drives are setup RAID 1, either drive (preferably the clone) should give access to the data, but there is a chance that one was offline longer than the other, resulting in outdated data. So, be sure to verify that the most current documents you are looking for are present and open.

If the drives are setup RAID 0, you will need both drives (preferably the clones) working and accessible in order to rejoin the stripe set. It may be easier to not bother trying to mount the RAID, rather just use a data recovery program to virtually rejoin the two and give access to recover the data out to another drive.

Good luck.

sutton.don48 · Oct 5, 2017

Thanks Dr Luke. The drives I want to backup are less than 12 months old. This morning in a trial I fitted the original 500GB harddisk drives back into the cabinet and set the raid to standard in the web based setup program and removed the Volume 1 drive before formatting. I shut it down then reinserted the Volume 1 drive and rebooted. I found I had access to the drive from Windows. I already have a copy of the 500GB drive as I backed this up before fitting the new 1TB drives earlier this year. Boyed with idea that this has worked I thoght I will replace the Volume 1 drive with the 1TB drive and see if I can read that. Failed and drive not visible to either Windows or Linux. You can still access the enclosure with the web based setup tool and I used this to do a scan of the 1TB drive with a success result. It is baffling why neither Windows or Linux can access the drive even though it is visible by the setup program. As it stands now Volume 1 Right side facing front of enclosure 1TB drive the one I want to get the data off. Volume 2 is a 500GB drive reformatted with the conversion from raid 1 to standard and one of a pair of the original data drives. The setup reports both drives as file system standard and are formatted as ext 2 file system. The left side drive LED still does not light up and now suspect that this may be cactus. Wondering if I will have to put both 1TB drives back in and see what happens. If I can put one of the drives into my PC and read it using Linux I would be happy as this would be an easy copy to the QNAP NAS even though it may take a while.

DR_Luke · Oct 5, 2017

Assuming that the drives are EXT formatted, you can try to find and recover the files using R-Studio or R-Explorer, which also support XFS. Both of these programs have Windows, Mac and Linux versions and you can install and try the demo before making a decision to buy them, if they do the trick.

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