It's a disaster darling ...

Bristolian

Bristolian

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Steve
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... when your NAS dies and leaves you feeling a bit of a chump because not everything is backed up :(

All my image files are safe - they're backed up multiple times but I've lost more than 60Gb worth of music and 20-odd movies. I thought they were being backed up but must have got the set-up wrong 'cos they aren't on the back-up drive. More importantly, my outlook.pst file was on the NAS and that wasn't being backed up either so all my emails are gone too :(

The hard drive in the NAS has croaked and Windows doesn't recognise it as being attached even if I put it directly into the computer so I can't use file recovery software.

Can anyone recommend a data recovery company? There are plenty on the Internet but I'd prefer a personal recommendation :)

Regards
Steve
 
mark richards said:
they will probably want a fortune to recover these files, is it really worth it? if they were photos , I would say differently.
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+1, memories can't be replaced but music and movies can be be redownloaded.
 
Thanks for your comments guys. I know this is going to be costly but aside from some irreplaceable original music which I personally recorded at jam sessions back in the 70's there is information in the emails that I am contractually required to keep too.
 
What sort of NAS - make etc? Has it raided drives and if so how are these raided, hardware of software or is it just a single drive? Some propriety Nas have their own OS making recovery difficult

If it's just a single drive, rather than multiple, then you may have a chance. Whats the failure, just won't be recognised, or is it making clunking noises?
 
After my expediences with data recovery I wouldn't bother again spent nearly £700 on it and all I've got its a hard drive full of files that won't open or don't exist and the companies response was tough
 
Need to discover what sort of device first, number of drives etc, then can make suggestions
 
Used Data Wreck in Stoke several years ago after a CF card crashed with a weird problem . They recovered 98% of the images. Charged £90 which I didn't think was excessive. ( Cheaper than a re shoot). They do ( did) free quotes
 
I know its too late, but something similar happened to me. I had my Asustor NAS in raid 0, one of the HDD's failed, but the SMART error flagged it before it fell over completely, I was able to back up to an external drive before it failed. I've since set it up as raid 1, half the space but more peace of mind.
 
d
Downton Mini said:
After my expediences with data recovery I wouldn't bother again spent nearly £700 on it and all I've got its a hard drive full of files that won't open or don't exist and the companies response was tough
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depends on what they have to work with, I have worked in IT for 30 years and when a hard drive goes really wrong like a massive head crash then there literally is F all that can be taken from the disk.

in extreme cases the platters are removed form the drive in a lab and analysed in jig with specialist equipment on a sector by sector basis.
Sometimes the drives electronics have just failed and the recovery agent can replace them and restore the drive to 100% functionality.
 
It's quite rare these days for the electronics to fail although that is one of the possible fixes. More likely is mechanical failure, but again, we need more information as to the setup, single/multiple drives, device, raid type (if any etc)
 
Byker28i said:
It's quite rare these days for the electronics to fail although that is one of the possible fixes. More likely is mechanical failure, but again, we need more information as to the setup, single/multiple drives, device, raid type (if any etc)
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by his own hand it seems it is a single disk

The hard drive in the NAS has croaked and Windows doesn't recognise it as being attached even if I put it directly into the computer so I can't use file recovery software.
 
Makes my somewhat anal 5x backup strategy look reasonable, even though they're (currently) all in my house. ;)
 
can you use recovery software that bypasses windows? I have had some success with that sort of thing in the past but i can't for the life of me remember what the name of the software was that i used. I can have a look later, the version i have is old enough that it probably won't work with NTFS formatted disks but the latest version has probably been updated to do so. Could be worth a try although i would warn you it is damned slow to run when i last used it.
 
jimgallaher said:
I know its too late, but something similar happened to me. I had my Asustor NAS in raid 0, one of the HDD's failed, but the SMART error flagged it before it fell over completely, I was able to back up to an external drive before it failed. I've since set it up as raid 1, half the space but more peace of mind.
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No raid is peace of mind without backing it up.
 
Byker28i said:
Need to discover what sort of device first, number of drives etc, then can make suggestions
Click to expand...

Sorry I haven't been able to get back to this thread today - work keeps getting in the way :(

So, the NAS is a Seagate GoFlex Home with a single 2TB SATA drive. It has two accounts on it with folders for Public, Personal and Backup for each account. The first symptoms were saving to the drive taking much longer than normal, followed by the contents of folders not displaying in Windows Explorer. This then moved on to the folders not showing up and finally the Seagate dashboard reporting that the drive wasn't connected to the base unit.

Since then the dashboard continually says the drive isn't fitted to the base. I took the drive out of the NAS box and connected it directly into my PC and power it up. Neither the BIOS nor Windows registers the drive as being present. I then put the drive into a caddy but there was no difference :( The drive doesn't make any horrible noises when running but doesn't sound "normal" either.

I took a spare drive and put it into the NAS and it showed up in both the dashboard and Windows Explorer.

Having had a check around last night, replacing the lost music files will cost me serious money even at download prices so trying recovery first isn't such a stupid move. Plus I have confidential contractual details in the lost email data file that I really need - as in I can't ask the client to send them again without opening a very nasty can of worms - I don't like those kinds of worms :(
 
Some years ago when I needed the assistance of a Data Recovery firm there was a clause 'No find - no fee', might be worth looking out for such an option. :)
 
Bristolian said:
Sorry I haven't been able to get back to this thread today - work keeps getting in the way :(

So, the NAS is a Seagate GoFlex Home with a single 2TB SATA drive. It has two accounts on it with folders for Public, Personal and Backup for each account. The first symptoms were saving to the drive taking much longer than normal, followed by the contents of folders not displaying in Windows Explorer. This then moved on to the folders not showing up and finally the Seagate dashboard reporting that the drive wasn't connected to the base unit.

Since then the dashboard continually says the drive isn't fitted to the base. I took the drive out of the NAS box and connected it directly into my PC and power it up. Neither the BIOS nor Windows registers the drive as being present. I then put the drive into a caddy but there was no difference :( The drive doesn't make any horrible noises when running but doesn't sound "normal" either.

I took a spare drive and put it into the NAS and it showed up in both the dashboard and Windows Explorer.

Having had a check around last night, replacing the lost music files will cost me serious money even at download prices so trying recovery first isn't such a stupid move. Plus I have confidential contractual details in the lost email data file that I really need - as in I can't ask the client to send them again without opening a very nasty can of worms - I don't like those kinds of worms :(
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The seagate NAS is most likely running a version of Linux and will be formatted using most likely ext2 file system. Windows won’t recognise this. Have a look on the seagate support site and determine for sure which file system the drive is using then get it back in your nas , log in and run the devices own diagnostics
 
gramps said:
Some years ago when I needed the assistance of a Data Recovery firm there was a clause 'No find - no fee', might be worth looking out for such an option. :)
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Hi Gramps, yes a couple of the companies I've been looking at have that clause ✓
 
Snapper67 said:
The seagate NAS is most likely running a version of Linux and will be formatted using most likely ext2 file system. Windows won’t recognise this. Have a look on the seagate support site and determine for sure which file system the drive is using then get it back in your nas , log in and run the devices own diagnostics
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Thanks Snapper, why didn't I think of that. Looks like I have something to keep me occupied today :)
 
Hence why asking what NAS and single or multiple drives. Single drive helps with the recovery, no raid in the way.
File scavenger works well with Windows and Linus partitions and has a trial version which will recover a few files. At least that way it's table before parting with money
 
keep us updated I'm interested to see how you get on
 
HI again folks, sorry I haven't been back but work sent me off on a trip around the universe :)

The company that work uses to outsource our IT to has the drive at the moment to see what they think.

@Byker 28i, thanks for the suggestion. I will give it a try if the IT bods can't get back what I want :)

In the meantime I have a new NAS. I bought a WD MyCloud Home - single 2TB drive - which appears to be working okay. Of course it functions completely differently to the Seagate one so I'm struggling with a bit of a learning curve and being away for the past week doesn't help.
 
Mr Bump said:
keep us updated I'm interested to see how you get on
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I will try, Mr Bump. At the moment our IT sub-contractors are having a look at the drive but judging by the blinkin' awful way they've got our office systems set up I don't hold out much hope :(
 
Bristolian said:
HI again folks, sorry I haven't been back but work sent me off on a trip around the universe :)

The company that work uses to outsource our IT to has the drive at the moment to see what they think.

@Byker 28i, thanks for the suggestion. I will give it a try if the IT bods can't get back what I want :)

In the meantime I have a new NAS. I bought a WD MyCloud Home - single 2TB drive - which appears to be working okay. Of course it functions completely differently to the Seagate one so I'm struggling with a bit of a learning curve and being away for the past week doesn't help.
Click to expand...


I'd definitely have been looking at a Synology solution if you were buying new in the meantime. I've been using a DS214 - since 2014 obvs :)
.
Solid bit of kit I initially purchased to record my cctv 24x7. 2 x 1TB drives with raid 1 (mirror) is perfect for most home systems.

Cheers,

Dougie.
 
just make sure you have a back of your new drive, preferably in the cloud,
 
Mr Bump said:
just make sure you have a back of your new drive, preferably in the cloud,
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Yep, sorted ... and checked that everything is backing up properly.

I thought the old one was set to back up everything but I had obviously got the setting wrong as the music directory and other small but important to me files weren't - d'oh!
 
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