TeraStation TS-RX4.0TL/R5 has lost all settings after firmware update

[sirdurable]

Hello...

 

My TeraStation TS-RX4.0TL/R5 rackmount unit had been rebooted and came back up in EMERGENCY MODE - NO ARRAY INFO , and would not allow login to the web UI, nor could I access the shares over the network. Regardless of reboots or other attempts, I could not get the unit out of EM mode.

 

After looking around, I found the recommendations here to update the firmware to recover from EM mode. My unit was on 1.10, and I saw that the latest was 1.57, so I figured that would be a good plan.

 

Using my MAC laptop, I was able to update the firmware to 1.57. After the firmware completed, I realized to my horror, that the firmware update removed everything - all user, group, share, settings information were now gone. The drives now show up on the outside of the unit and in the UI as 0% usage.

 

Is there any way for me to recover the array on this unit? The data should all be there. Please help!

 

Thanks!

[sirdurable]

Attempting the 'Restore TeraStation' did not work. Booting the system without drives (one at a time) did not work, and actually seemed to make matters worse as the drives all flash red now. And I'm surely not going to send out my drives to DriveSavers or whatever it is that you guys keep recommending to me. I do appreciate the support I've gotten from Buffalo, and I apologize if I sound negative.

 

I finally found out about UFS Explorer. Why Buffalo does not have something like this as a free utility that their customers can download to repair their systems is beyond me.

 

Using UFS Explorer, the data shows up across the drive array, and I can recover those files.

[PCPiranha]

"I finally found out about UFS Explorer. Why Buffalo does not have something like this as a free utility that their customers can download to repair their systems is beyond me"

 

To my knowledge, not many (if any) hardware manufacturers offer software for disaster recovery.  To me that's like saying that Toyota needs to offer their own car insurance in case you get into an accident.  That being said, I'm glad that you were able to recover the data and UFS Explorer is a great option.

[sirdurable]

Toyota is a horrible example. :) You know what Toyota does when they determine they have a problem with their products? They bend over backwards to make it right with the customer.

 

I'm not here to complain, as much as I am unhappy that I have to go through a bunch of work to recover data that got misplaced by a firmware upgrade. Totally my fault for not making sure we had a backup of certain data.

[PCPiranha]

"Toyota is a horrible example. :) You know what Toyota does when they determine they have a problem with their products? They bend over backwards to make it right with the customer"

 

If it's a manufacturer fault then, sure they would bend over.  Your device going into EM mode is actually the opposite of a manufacturer defect, it is there so that you can load the firmware back in case of corruption (think safe mode for Windows) or to prevent further hardware damage.  The most common cause for EM mode that I have seen is power inconsistencies which is something that Buffalo can not help you with.  I would suggest making sure the NAS is on a UPS and I would pay more attention to the problems causing the NAS to go into EM mode than the unit itself.

 

Bottom line: Toyota won't help you if a tree limb falls on your car and Buffalo can't do anything to guarantee the sanctity of your data.  Both of them will bend over backwards to fix hardware related issues covered by the warranty though.

 

 

"Totally my fault for not making sure we had a backup of certain data."

 

Good, we can at least agree on the root cause :)