[Soopahmahn]

We lost our power twice with Irene and my Buffalo NAS seems to have shat itself in the process. :facemelt: The original Z: map is no longer readable by Windows; just can't access the drive from any angle.

I can run the NasNavigator software that the device came with - it finds the device on the network, and allows me to log in and make modifications to the system parameters and preferences.

There, I find that the RAID1 (mirroring) array I had set up... is no longer set up. The drives appear to be alive and well (I think... I didn't run checkdisk yet) but they are no longer in an array. Rebooting the device didn't fix anything.

What I really need to know is how to save my data. Presumably, each of my drives has a full copy of everything that was stored on the device. It's possible there's a few corrupt files from the power going out, but I think it's unlikely that the data is completely trashed. However, if I set up a RAID array right now I think it will format everything. Is there some kind of recovery program to run, or do I need to install one of the drives in my computer to get all the files off?

I know Chris is pretty pro with these things, and Zepp and a few others own them now. I can take screenshots of things later when I get home from work if it helps.

 

[79]

Do you have a spare computer to throw it in, by chance? If so, you could run Spinrite with it, to see if it can recover the drive, and then use a Linux Live boot CD to recover the data. I'm not familiar with the Buffalos in particular, but generally these devices use some sort of Linux-friendly file system, such as EXT3 or 4.

 

[Soopahmahn]

No, I've got this Windows box and we have a MacBook. I have friends and family with extra machines, but I was hoping to resolve it myself.

Google indicates that my device probably uses the XFS file system.

I'm just confused about how the drives are no longer in an array.

FWIW, this is/was my redundant system to store... everything. All of my music, pictures, movies. Everything except my recordings, which I was going to start backup up to this device. Guess I should have had it on a UPS too.

 

[darren]

Yank the drives and hook them up to one of your computers using one of these:

drivewire - universal hard drive adapter

They're awesome and a HUGE life-saver if you're having issues with an enclosure and don't have anything else to put the drive into.

 

[1]

Wirelessly posted (Metal Shop \m/: Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_5 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8L1 Safari/6533.18.5)

I'd contact buffalo before pulling your drives out. Without seeing the thing, it's hard to say what the issue is. Check the logs?

 

[noodles]

Something called Buffalo failed? Gee, who woulda thunk it? :lol:

 

[1]

Wirelessly posted (Metal Shop \m/: Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_5 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8L1 Safari/6533.18.5)

Best devices out there if you ask me, everyone I work with, and two professional photographers that I know.

The fail here is leaving an unprotected array up and running in a hurricane with no UPS. That said, I'd be surprised if it's not an easy recover. Soop - whatever you do, do NOT rebuild the array, that will wipe both discs. Does the NAS see the drives?

 

[Soopahmahn]

I believe it does. Will report back when I'm at the ranch.

 

[1]

If it's mirrored, you should be able to see the data if you just mount the drive in a USB enclosure, etc.

I'd be more interested in finding out what happened. I don't have NN in front of me, but there should be a log viewer somewhere in there that will tell you what happened to the NAS itself, and why it's not recognizing the array.

You don't want to just fix it, you want to figure out why it happened first, so that it doesn't happen again.

 

[Soopahmahn]

I can't find any log file or info in the web settings manager.

On second look, the device doesn't know what the fuck is attached to it. No model, serial number, capacity, anything from the drives. It does remember that they're set as "Array 1," but doesn't know what the fuck that is.

My share drive is there, along with the way I had it set up...

But it can't be accessed from Windows Explorer. "Info" can, it has some setup files and such related to the device, so perhaps that's in some other kind of memory in the NAS.

 

[1]

It sounds like your array did indeed go down, it may have been in the middle of a write when the power went out. Did you lose power more than once?

Array not configured after power failure - Buffalo Tech Forums

If you had it mirrored, you should be able to pull one of the drives and get the data off of it. I use one of these, it's awesome.

Newegg.com - Thermaltake BlacX N0028USU External Hard Drive SATA Enclosure Docking Station 2.5" & 3.5" USB 2.0

I've never had an array die, but it's weird that it sees the settings and sees the array, but doesn't know about the drives. :scratch:

 

[Soopahmahn]

Power went down twice. And you know it's a dirty fail when it happens, too, so it might have pissed off the CMOS or whatever the fuck is running inside.

I was wondering if I did a firmware update/restore if it would unfuck itself.

 

[1]

Actually, are there any lights flashing on it? Have you turned it off/on? It MIGHT be just that it needs to resync the array after the power failure.

 

[1]

This is what I see in the admin IF for my Quad. Firing up the duo now.

Did you setup the email features? If something went wrong w/the array, it should have emailed you right as it came up.

 

[Soopahmahn]

Actually, are there any lights flashing on it? Have you turned it off/on? It MIGHT be just that it needs to resync the array after the power failure.

No light codes of any kind, only the network access light flickering occasionally.

I have rebooted the device as well as switched it off and unplugged for like 10 seconds. Nada.

Did not set up email features.

 

[1]

No light codes of any kind, only the network access light flickering occasionally.

I have rebooted the device as well as switched it off and unplugged for like 10 seconds. Nada.

Hmm. It's very possible that it wants to resync the array, which will take a while. If the power went down, it's going to want to do the equivalent of a chkdsk on the volume before it lets you access it.

Arrays really don't like being hard-powered down like that, but the good news is that your data is probably fine.

 

[Soopahmahn]

Yeah unless one of the read heads crashed or something, it should be fine physically, or at worst have a few garbage sectors.

Thing is, "Run Checkdisk" is grayed out for the individual drives. And I can't hear it accessing the drive at all, so I can't imagine that it's running any sort of disk diagnostics, right?

 

[Soopahmahn]

Any reason to get any other UPS than an APC?

 

[1]

System > Maintenance > Email notifications for the emails on what's going on. You can use any POP account (even GMail, I think).

 

[1]

Any reason to get any other UPS than an APC?

Nope.