HELP! How to salvage data from a failed RAID1 setup (Hammer MyShare)

[mindbender9]

Hello all,

Situation:
I purchased a 1 TB Hammer MyShare NAS *almost* a year ago and for some reason, the unit refuses to power on as of last night. The LED on the power adaptor brick is flashing on/off when I plug it into the NAS but is strangely solid green when it is removed.

Anyhow, I contacted Hammer's Tech Support and the tech is going to send a replacement cord out today for me to try. The problem is that I don't think that a new cord will fix things and the unit itself is bad.

My problem is that if I send it back for warranty coverage, Hammer's tech support will only send me a new unit and I lose all my data. The tech support rep said that my only other choice is to break the warranty seal and pull the drives out and have someone extract the data. Although $500 would go down the drain, I would still be able to keep all of my files (which is probably what I'm going to do).

Specifics:
Long story short, I had the NAS set up in a RAID1 configuration where data is mirrored on both drives. I've heard that you cannot simply plug a mirrored drive in and copy the data off to your PC. I'm afraid that there is a way to salvage the data with some specialized software but I don't know what to do.

Can someone help with this? The Hammer tech support cannot advise me how to do this (because it voids the warranty), and all they could say is that I have to take it to "someone who knows how to do this."

Help!
Please help! Oh, and I would avoid the Hammer product line if a NAS manufacturer cannot assist a customer in salvaging data on one of their units.

Thank you for your help!

[Unregistered]

Buy another of the same model, put your drives into that unit and salvage your data.

Then return the unit.

And remember that RAID is not a backup solution.

[mindbender9]

Can't remove the drives without breaking the warranty seal. So the manufacturer would know right away if I removed any drives.

Thanks though.

[scotty]

Try to get your hands on another unit. A lot of manufacturer's these days will send you a replacement before sending the old one back, so that might work for you. Call the Manufacturer's warranty department and explain your problem. Speak to a supervisor if you have to. That's an obvious problem that isn't going to be solved until your drives come out.

[mindbender9]

Their tech support was pretty insistent that opening the chassis would violate their terms of agreement regarding the warranty. I've read on some threads that BellMicro/Hammer will not honor any of their units which have been opened.

Which is crazy, because what NAS manufacturer prevents their users from accessing the drives? Don't buy any of their products if you can avoid them.

Thanks again for your help.

[jdabbs]

Thanks for the warning; sorry you had to find out the hard way.

[justin2net]

try runtime's raid reconstructor; i've heard good things about it. then i would try to get my hands on a replacement "chassis" to put your old drives in.

best of luck!

[mindbender9]

I'll look into Raid Reconstructor, and I appreciate your help.

I have a dumb question for everyone: Has anyone actually tried to unplug one of two RAID 1 hard drives and connect it directly to a PC? Does anyone know whether or not the contents of the drive are viewable?

Thanks.

[Grab485]

I'll look into Raid Reconstructor, and I appreciate your help.

I have a dumb question for everyone: Has anyone actually tried to unplug one of two RAID 1 hard drives and connect it directly to a PC? Does anyone know whether or not the contents of the drive are viewable?

Thanks.

I had such experience.
I have software RAID 1 on Ubuntu Linux (using mdadm).
When I disconnected one drive, it was impossible to mount the other one - the system reported "disk is already mounted" and, of course, there were no mounted disk.

BUT.... when I started Ubuntu LiveCD (without mdadm), it was very easy to mount one of RAID's disk - just mount bla-bla, and I can see it. I mean as a separate disk I can read and write.

Conclusion: there is something on your system what prevents only one RAID 1 disk mounting. But one can easily do it from another system or LiveCD.

[thiggins]

I have a dumb question for everyone: Has anyone actually tried to unplug one of two RAID 1 hard drives and connect it directly to a PC? Does anyone know whether or not the contents of the drive are viewable?
It depends on whether the manufacturer made any modifications to a standard filesystem. Your computer also must support the drive format.

For example, Linux-based systems tend to use ext2 or ext3 (which Windows doesn't natively support). But QNAP uses a modified version of ext3 in their NASes that prevent drives from being mounted in Linux systems.

[mindbender9]

Thanks to both of you for helping!

I had such experience.
I have software RAID 1 on Ubuntu Linux (using mdadm).
When I disconnected one drive, it was impossible to mount the other one - the system reported "disk is already mounted" and, of course, there were no mounted disk.

BUT.... when I started Ubuntu LiveCD (without mdadm), it was very easy to mount one of RAID's disk - just mount bla-bla, and I can see it. I mean as a separate disk I can read and write.

Conclusion: there is something on your system what prevents only one RAID 1 disk mounting. But one can easily do it from another system or LiveCD.

Unfortunately, I have no idea what Hammer uses for their MyShare NAS (although I'd have to guess it would be some form of embedded Linux). Either way, it looks improbable that I'll be able to salvage my data by just plugging one of the drives in.

It depends on whether the manufacturer made any modifications to a standard filesystem. Your computer also must support the drive format.

For example, Linux-based systems tend to use ext2 or ext3 (which Windows doesn't natively support). But QNAP uses a modified version of ext3 in their NASes that prevent drives from being mounted in Linux systems.

Tim, what if I got a 3rd party Raid Sata card (Adaptec?) and tried to connect the two Hammer drives to it? Would the Raid card recognize the Raid 1 array or would it force me to format them first (and lose all the data)?

[thiggins]

Tim, what if I got a 3rd party Raid Sata card (Adaptec?) and tried to connect the two Hammer drives to it? Would the Raid card recognize the Raid 1 array or would it force me to format them first (and lose all the data)?
RAID cards don't bring any magic to the RAID recovery party. The key is knowing what the drive file format is.
According to the review (http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/content/view/30056/75/1/5/), the filesystem is ext3. But Jim Buzbee did not try to mount a drive on a Linux system. So it's possible that Hammer might use a modified ext3. There is no way to know unless Hammer tells you or you try to mount a drive.

[Mr. Chenevert]

Can't remove the drives without breaking the warranty seal. So the manufacturer would know right away if I removed any drives.

Thanks though.

Don't be so fast to rule this out. You aren't asking for a warranty, you are returning a unit. If they give you a hard time, file a charge back with your credit card.

[mindbender9]

In case anyone was wondering what was happening with this situation, I received the replacement power cord today from BellMicro and sure enough... my Hammer myShare NAS still refuses to power on. The replacement cord is displaying the same activity that the original cord did.

So the unit still refuses to power on, and I have about a week left of warranty coverage. The tech rep stated that if the replacement cord didn't fix the problem, I have to send back the entire unit and they will replace it with another.

Here's the catch(22): I have personal data still on the drives, and the unit cannot be powered on. Therefore, how do I format the drives to prevent personal data (including billing info and job resumes) from being exposed? BellMicro has already stated that they won't salvage the data because they don't have the facilities to do so, but I have to return the unit without opening it if I want to get a replacement?

What's going to happen to my data?

This isn't right. BellMicro is saying that I (the customer) have to abide by their warranty policy and put my data at risk if I want a replacement unit. I don't know of any other NAS manufacturer that prevents its users from accessing the physical drives like this. In case of unit failure, the user's data cannot be erased and must be sent to the manufacturer without any assurances or guarantees that the data will be destroyed.

This should be addressed here. I would recommend that NO ONE buy any BellMicro/Hammer NAS products until they change this horrible policy. If a customer cannot be sure that their data will not be exposed if they do not break the warranty and format the drives, are they stuck with a dead unit (like myself)?

Here's my reply to the tech rep at BellMicro/Hammer:
Hello -------,

I received the power cord this afternoon and as I suspected, my MyShare NAS didn't power on with the replacement cord either. This means that the unit itself is defective and needs to be replaced since it is still under warranty.

My issue with this is that the current warranty policy requires the unit to be replaced, but in the process I'll also lose all data on the drives. In addition to losing the data, I am unable to format the drives since the unit doesn't power on. This results in my personal data (including resumes, and billing information) to be live and intact when it is returned to BellMicro.

As you can imagine, this is not acceptable under any circumstances. A customer's personal data cannot be compromised because of a warranty policy, and I will need to talk to someone in your company's management to address this. The idea of a manufacturer producing a NAS unit that will not allow customers access to that unit's drives is unacceptable.

I appreciate the assistance that you've provided, and I wish to state that your customer service was wonderful. But I have an issue with BellMicro's warranty policy and the potential problem with my data being compromised if I am forced to return this unit to your company without the opportunity to either salvage or erase the contents.

Please let me know how we can proceed. I have only a week left on my warranty period, and I only want my data back.

Thank you.

[thiggins]

Unfortunately, I don't have any contacts at Hammer that I can appeal to on your behalf.

You have two choices:
1) Try to escalate to a supervisor or other person higher up who would let you return the unit with the drives removed and still honor the warranty.

2) Chalk this up to experience, forget the warranty and remove the drives and try to recover the data.

There is a chance that you are going through this whole hassle for nothing. Depending on when the main board died, your array could be corrupt
and the data unrecoverable. The only way to know is to remove the drives and to try mounting them on a system that can read ext3. You could do this with any Linux "live CD" distro.

[Mr. Chenevert]

It's called Small Claims Court, and it only costs you $25 to file a claim.

I dont care what policies they have, you have the right to protect your personal data (and in this case retrieve it).

If they deny your warranty claim after you have discussed the matter with them, take them to small claims court for the amount of a new unit.

They wont even waste the time/money to show up to court, you will get a default judgement.

Then the company will contact you to figure out payment, you offer them a $100 discount if they pay within 2 weeks. This gives them motivation to pay quickly and not drag things out. They will most likely accept the offer.

You win.

[Mr. Chenevert]

Also, since Small Claims Court is intimidating to most people (it really shouldnt be though), many credit cards offer enhanced and extended warranties from the original manufacturer. You may want to contact the credit card company that you used to purchase the device and see what additional coverages they will offer.

American Express has been excellent in this regard for me.

[mindbender9]

I heard back from BellMicro's tech rep this morning, who offered to send back an empty NAS enclosure. This is so that I could move my drives there (and hopefully recover the data).

I'm more or less certain that I'll forfeit any warranty replacement, but I'm very happy that BellMicro's tech support were trying to help me more than what I was originally told.

Hopefully the new enclosure will recognize my existing RAID 1 array, and all will be good.

Thanks for everyone's advice and help!

[BriComp]

Hi,
I hope you are going to let us know how you got on, good or bad.

[mindbender9]

Thanks for inquiring about my situation with my dead Hammer MyShare NAS. It's Sunday night, 9/21, and I haven't yet received the replacement chassis from BellMicro. My one year warranty is also over as of the 17th, so this isn't getting any better.

I'll call them tomorrow and see what's happening, but considering there's been no action from BellMicro for 10 days... you can imagine my (lack of) satisfaction with this company.

If anyone is considering buying any Hammer products, please reread this thread before purchasing anything.

Thanks.

[vfreak]

I'm in exactly the same situation, but with a Lacie 1TB Ethernet Big Disk. The power supply infamously (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tTZ7EvSJnng) died and then the unit's connection panel/circuit board seems to have gotten damaged as a result. I think Lacie's policy is pretty much the same - if I open the chassis the warranty is voided. Luckily I have two of these Ethernet BDs, so do you suggest that I just put the two 500GB drives in my working one to salvage the data? Will it work?

I'll be eventually putting them in an XP NAS that I've decided is a much more durable solution to housing 24/7 media drives. I have no idea what file system the Lacie uses, the SNB review was hopelessly undetailed. ;) :D

Thanks for helping! This thread was really helpful since it's almost identical to my problem. I am very worried about losing my data though.

[mindbender9]

Wow, I'm sorry to hear that you're going through a similar situation, albeit with a different manufacturer.

All I can recommend that you contact Lacie and insist on a replacement chassis so that you can preserve your data (although you will lose the warranty). I used the "data theft" argument in my case because I didn't want my data to be sent back to the manufacturer without knowing it had been destroyed properly. BellMicro, manufacturer of my Hammer myShare NAS, would not have returned the hard drives and offers no data recovery services.

I also wouldn't recommend opening up your 2nd BD unless you're prepared to void that warranty also. Although it is nice that you can fall back on the second BD, I would exhaust every method you could with Lacie before breaking open your 2nd warrantied BD.

I think this second example should be a warning to anyone looking at a NAS to avoid all manufacturers who insist that their products be unopened to preserve their warranties. If you cannot access your hard drives directly, don't buy it. Trust us, you're going to regret it.

Stick with a NAS that offers RAID 5, while you're at it. RAID 0 or 1 will not help you when things go wrong (especially if you cannot access the drives).

[thiggins]

Stick with a NAS that offers RAID 5, while you're at it. RAID 0 or 1 will not help you when things go wrong (especially if you cannot access the drives).
RAID 5 arrays can also become corrupted if a power supply or controller board dies. It offers no further additional protection over RAID 1.
RAID 6 might offer an additional measure of protection due to its ability to handle two drives going bad in an array.

But the best security measure is to have a backup of any files that you can't afford to lose or re-create on a separate device (or medium) that is in a secure place.

[mindbender9]

Update: I still haven't received the replacement enclosure yet, but the tech has replied by email stating that their tech support is testing the enclosure before sending to me.

So let's see... how long has this NAS been down? And because of the delays (not on my part), I am now fully outside of the warranty period.

[darkhelmet]

Not meaning to 'hijack' this thread, but I found it interesting since we are curious about all aspects of NAS since we need a solution now.

If we purchase a QNAP product for example, and go through the same issue as mindbender9, using a Windows XP Pro desktop how would one access the data on a RAID setup hard drive? If the box takes a dump is it possible to copy off files to say the hard drive on the Windows machine?

[thiggins]

If we purchase a QNAP product for example, and go through the same issue as mindbender9, using a Windows XP Pro desktop how would one access the data on a RAID setup hard drive? If the box takes a dump is it possible to copy off files to say the hard drive on the Windows machine?
Most NASes are based on Linux or other open source OSes and use non-Windows filesystems.
You would be able to read a drive removed from the NAS if you add support for the filesystem used to the Windows system and if the drive is not corrupted.
An alternative approach would be to use a "live CD" of something like Ubuntu, which would probably be able to read the drive.

[mindbender9]

In case anyone is wondering, I STILL HAVEN'T RECEIVED MY REPLACEMENT ENCLOSURE FROM BELL MICRO/HAMMER. It's been two weeks since I last heard from the Bell Micro Tech Support (email), and I sent a blunt email to her and the entire Hammer Tech Support department this afternoon.

It's been nearly two months since my in-warranty unit failed and I'm almost a month out of warranty thanks to this company.

I cannot stress how disappointing this is to deal with a company like Bell Micro / Hammer. DO NOT PURCHASE THEIR PRODUCTS if you want to avoid situations like this. My hard drives are still in the dead enclosure and I'm debating whether to attempt a salvage as recommended previously.

Buyer beware.

[mindbender9]

In case anyone is still reading this thread... here's an update:

I finally got the replacement chassis today and after loading up the existing drives...

The old problem now occurs with the new chassis.

So the new enclosure refuses to power on... the LED on the power cord (all three - original plus two replacements) blinks off/on...

And if I hold the enclosure's power button down, the front LED's blink off/on in tandom with the LED on the power cord. Cute.

BUT I STILL CAN'T GET MY DATA OFF THE DAMN DRIVES! So short of a very irate call to Bell Micro's non-existent tech support tomorrow, I'm going to attempt to read the RAID 1 drives with the help of a OpenSuSE LiveCD (thanks Tim).

I'll say it again. DO. NOT. BUY. ANYTHING. FROM. HAMMER. OR. BELL-MICRO.

[mindbender9]

Ok. The LiveCD method didn't work, but I'm not sure how to do it in the first place. So...

Hey Tim! How exactly would I be able to read the contents of the RAID drives when using a LiveCD?

When I had it booted up, the LiveCD couldn't see the RAID drive or didn't have a way to read it. All the OS could see was itself (which is pretty much the CD-ROM drive).

So how would you use a Linux LiveCD to view the contents of these RAID-1 drives? Specifically, what would the steps be? Thanks.

[thiggins]

So how would you use a Linux LiveCD to view the contents of these RAID-1 drives? Specifically, what would the steps be? Thanks.
If the Linux distro that you are using supports the filesystem that is used on the drives that you are trying to recover, the drives should just mount and be accessible. The ext3 filesystem used by the Hammer is pretty standard, so if the drives are readable, they should appear.

Shut down and plug in a Windows formatted flash drive or hard drive, then reboot and see if the Distro mounts it as an experiment.

You could also try another distro like Ubuntu.

[vnangia]

The ext3 filesystem used by the Hammer is pretty standard, so if the drives are readable, they should appear.

If they are standard, and you are more comfortable with Windows, EXT2IFS (http://www.fs-driver.org/) may be a workable solution for you. It gives you the ability to read and write ext2 and ext3 formatted disks under Windows. I have used it myself for both personal and work related reasons, and have found it is pretty solid.

[mindbender9]

Thank you everyone, for your help and suggestions.

After a number of hours spent playing with the new enclosure, I somehow got it to power on and remain powered on. I was able to connect to the NAS via SMB and FTP, and pulled all of my personal data (and financial info, yes!) off of the two RAID-1 drives.

I was about to use the Ext2Ifs software that vnangia suggested, but this never had to happen. Thanks for the tip though!

The scary think is that I still don't know why it suddenly powered on and remained stable, but took three and a half hours to do so. It's remained on ever since and I'm debating on what to do next, especially since I now have an out-of-warranty two drive NAS that could power down permanently at any moment.

What I do want to say is "Thank You" to everyone on this forum for all of their suggestions and help regarding this issue. Although I also posted on a couple of other hardware-related sites, the only useful feedback that I got came from SmallNetBuilder.com. I don't know what I would've done without the tips and support I got from this site. So thanks again everyone!

[thiggins]

Glad you were able to recover your data. What I would to now is:
- Thank your lucky stars that you were able to recover the data.
- Junk the Hammer or sell it on eBay...now!
- Get two single-drive NASes that support NAS-to-NAS backup and
schedule them to replicate once a day
- Consider using an offsite backup service for essential files or periodic backup to a USB drive that is stored in a safe and secure place.

[Monkey]

Good advice from Tim there, I especially like the NAS-to-NAS backup rsync maybe? And the offsite backup options.

After reading the posts on these forums, I fear not many people are taking backup seriously, and rely on the raid capability of their NAS.
Is there a chance of a review on the NAS-to-NAS backup and online backup providers, so people can make a considered approach to buying a NAS along with a backup solution?

[mvitiello]

a nas-to-nas backup review would be awsome.

[crumpet75]

I agree. I'd love to see a discussion on NAS to NAS backup. And backup strategies in general. (ie offsite - via low cost internet host? or other internet accessible service?)

[vfreak]

Ok, well here's my positively weird update with my (http://forums.smallnetbuilder.com/showpost.php?p=3134&postcount=21) situation. I contacted Lacie, and they didn't want to send a replacement chassis, basically they don't care about their customers' data. Hopeless.

So I procrastinated the job, life got busy and I left left the poor, cold metal box sitting on a shelf for more than a month. I finally got round to dealing with it tonight, and I was about to open up my other identical Ethernet drive, swap the HDDs and salvage the data that way (thus voiding the warranty of BOTH my drives!).

But first I plugged the thing in one last time just in case it would miraculously work, even though I'd tried it a million times a month before after days of it having a rest at a time. And sure enough, it's suddenly working again, after a month of just sitting on the shelf! It seems the baby just needed a one-month vacation...figure that one out. :confused:

The question is, will it ever go on strike again like it did before? It was the power supply that went first, so I guess I know where to check in the future. I know that I do slog my NASes, and they AREN'T exactly server-grade equipment. I just hope it doesn't happen again.

[thiggins]

"Hoping" won't bring back your data next time. See Post 33 above.

[scotty]

The companies that make these things ultimately aren't that concerned about your data should the device go south. You really have to think about having alternate sources of storage, even if it's just a little cheap external hard drive for the odd backup. Even big, expensive storage solutions like SAN's (that have redudant everything) aren't a 100% safety net. There's a reason why tape backups are still so popular! At my company, we have a SAN with redundant everything, redundant switches and paths to every server behind 2 separate UPS systems, covered by a top-shelf 4 hour response warranty from HP, and a box of spare parts at the ready, and we STILL need to revert to tapes frequently... Ultimately, you just need to be prepared.

A NAS to NAS backup is never a bad idea. If nothing else, you can even set up an old PC and a file syncing program of some type to sync the files once an evening.

[vfreak]

"Hoping" won't bring back your data next time. See Post 33 above.
Huh? My data's fine, I'm only talking about the NAS enclosure housing it. There's at least two ways that I could extract the data without paying for data recovery if the Lacie happened to cark it again.

[thiggins]

You were lucky this time, vfreak. A NAS can fail in a way that will corrupt the drive data.

Never trust your data to a single device. And if you have reason to believe that a device that you are using is flaky, replace it.

[vfreak]

Ok, thanks for the advice. :)