LS-WVL Raid / Array Failure after Firmware upgrade to 1.73

[NickAu]

Hello all,

I've had a LS-WVL with 2x 1TB disks in a RAID 1 set operating for a few years.
I've had no problems with it....Until yesterday.

The Linkstation has been flashing an orange info light for a while and the web interface tells me that a firmware update was available, it was on 1.62 and the latest was 1.73.
I read up on the update notes for each version and there were some bug fixes and improvements to SMB, so I thought it might be worth doing. Wrong.

I decided to update the firmware through the web interface.
I saw the info light pattern indicated that there was a firmware update taking place, but after it rebooted, it was flashing the info light Red 3 times!  From a diagnostic light table, this seems to indicate a disk error.

The firmware update webpage which says "don't refresh or close this page" never updated itself.
After 20-30 minutes, I checked with another device and the website was showing 1.73, so I then refreshed the page.

HOWEVER, when I logged back into the web interface to see what the error message could be, I saw that it now shows storage "Not Available" and Raid Mode "not configured"!
There are no shares available.
It also says that disk 2 Error.

None of these issues was apparent before I did the firmware update this morning!  I SO wish I hadn't bothered.

I had a Raid 1 set, so I would have thought that even if one disk had failed (doubt it - the timing is too coincidental), that the shares and data should still be available.

Can anyone hazard a guess at what could be done to reverse this situation so that my 2 disks can form a happy RAID 1 set again and I get all my data back?

I have read elsewhere that in order to read the data from one of the disks to create a copy, I would need to use a linux implementation, say knoppix, and then mount it in there somehow to get the data off to another device, which sounds like a smart move.  There's about 600GB data on it. 

I did try a restart of the Linkstation, but it came back the same.
I have now shut it down while I wait for advice and formulate a plan.

I have attached a screenshot of the web interface. <- Nope, I couldn't see how to do this, there isn't an option in the "Attachments and other options" section.

It's pretty sad that a firmware update caused a huge problem rather than fixing some 

[davo]

Sounds like you had RAID0 instead of RAID1

[NickAu]

Hi Davo,
Thanks for the reply.
I'm sure I had RAID 1, not RAID 0 as I just wanted a simple mirror which is the most basic fault tolerant setup and usually easier to recover (in the Windows world, anyway).  I can easily remove a drive and see if they are both 1TB , as the total usable was 1TB.
So in the scenario that it was RAID 1, any ideas what it did & how I recover it?

[NickAu]

Yep, I pulled the disks out and confirmed that they are 1TB WD disks, which also confirms that I was using a RAID 1 array.

Anyone able to suggest how the firmware upgrade caused the RAID Mode to become "not configured" and my Disk 2 to go into Error status?
More importantly, anyone got any suggestions as to how I can recover this?

I still can't see how to insert an image into this post, so here is a link to an image

https://flic.kr/p/21n3HTR

[nealk77]

I have the same model device, and have a very similar problem.
Raid 1 with 2 3TB drives.  Been running them fine for about a year and a half.  My Sunday night backup failed, so I checked it out.   It was showing Drive 2 in a status of "error".  The only option I really had on the internal website was to delete the array, which of course I didn't do.

One item to note - when both drives are in the device, I can't view my files.  If I take "drive 2" out, I can see my files.

I took Drive 2 and placed it in an external dock and although I couldn't see my files, the drive checked out fine.  Just for grins, I went ahead and formatted it in the dock.  I placed it back in the Buffalo device but it still didn't help. Same result of Drive 2 "error". I ended up taking Drive 2 out and just leaving Drive 1 in so I could access my files. 

This morning, I noticed the NAS was turned off.  When I went to turn it back on, it would start up very briefly, but then turn off.  When I take Drive 1 out of the NAS (leaving no drives installed), it boots up ok.  If I try putting another hard drive in there that was never part of my NAS, it won't turn on at all, although the light on the ethernet port lights up.

So confused.  I really hope I didn't lose my data.

[NickAu]

Hi NeilK,
That is quite similar, though not identical.
Did you also do a firmware update to 1.73?  What version of firmware is your LS-WVL running?
Doing the firmware update is what caused my issue.  I have tried to contact support, but have had no response whatsoever.

I hadthe option to shut down if RAID is degraded selected, so perhaps yours is doing that?
(I chose that config option as I did not set up email alerting, so if the RAID failed it would shut down and draw my attention to it.  )

I have not yet removed the "error" drive and added it to an external dock, as one needs a computer running linux to be able to mount the disk, as from reading this forum I believe it will use the XFS file system.  If you mounted it with windows, that's why you couldn't see anything.  Same as why formatting it using windows (NTFS) won't have helped you. 
http://au.faq.buffalo-global.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/5618
There is a post somewhere about the steps needed to prepare a drive for adding into a linkstation.

For now, my recommendation is be Very careful with your Disk 1, as that is obviously the only place your data now exists.
It is probably still possible to save your data.
If you 1). check the raid-shutdown option I mentioned above, and if the NAS stays powered up long enough, copy your data to another location.
or 2). read up Very carefully, then use a linux machine to mount your disk 1 and copy the data to another location
3). You did say that your Sunday night backup failed, so I presume you have a backup prior to that with most of your data, minus the delta between that and your failed backup.

As far as getting your linkstation fully operational with both disks in a mirror, I can't make any suggestions.

I would love someone knowledgeable to comment on what could be wrong, and how to fix it so I can also get my NAS back up, with my data intact.

[NickAu]

Happy New Year 2018!

I'm back from Christmas holiday and this problem remains to be solved.

<rant> After 1 week of silence from buffalo support, and a reminder email from me, I have a reply to say that my device is out of warranty and there is no support.
So, to make it painfully clear, they will release a firmware update that will kill the storage device but offer no help to fix it.
Thanks for nothing buffalo. 
</rant>

So, @NeilK, how did you get on with solving your similar problem, and @everyone else, got any experience or suggestions on solving the now defunct raid array on this device? Oh, without losing the data (I reckon I can achieve that on my own, no problem!)


Thanks all

[davo]

Log onto the admin page as the admin user, press Ctrl+Alt+Shift+b, save the file, upload it to some sort of hosting site and PM me the link.

It's the full log for the unit and should shed some light on the situation.

[NickAu]

That's a great keystoke tip Davo!
I've PM'd a URL to you.
Many thanks,

[davo]

You definately have disk2 failing according to the log anyways, it looks like it was set to RAID1 though but this wouldn't explain why the RAID itself failed, there were some logical errors on disk1 also but not enough (i think) for the RAID to fail.

[NickAu]

Yeah, unfortunately it does seem to have been the firmware update that killed the RAID array. 
I mean it's not just that the array has failed; it's gone, which seems unlikely to happen just because of a failing disk.

Do you know if the disk format type would be XFS? (when I try to remove one to mount in some version of Linux)

I plan to remove the failing disk 2 to extract the data.  Failing, not failed, so should give a good chance of being mountable, while exposing my data to less risk of a foul up by me as I still have the healthier disk 1 untouched.

Sound like a plan?

[davo]

I'd try and recover the data from disk1, not disk2, it's showing alot less errors and would give you a better chance. The file system is XFS, try UFS Explorer on Windows to recover the data, should be handy enough.