LS-QVL RAID Rebuild Help - No Option to Rebuild

[Starrplatinum]

Hi there everyone - I hope I can get some help on this. Any assistance is greatly appreciated.

Basics:
Linkstation Quad
All 4 drives are 3TB
RAID 5+1

First, I received notice that Disk 1 was failing so I immediately shut down the NAS from within the Administration interface.

I ordered a replacement drive of the same size (3TB) and replaced the reported failing drive. I then powered up the NAS with the new drive installed.

Checking the Admin interface, I saw the drive was detected correctly and the option to rebuild the RAID Array was available so I selected it. After only about 2 minutes, the rebuild process was reported as complete. I knew that couldn't be the case considering the amount of data contained within the RAID (~5TB) and sure enough, when I attempted to access the array there was nothing there - not even the directory structure I had created prior to the reported drive failure.

I again used the admin interface to shut the NAS down - I then removed the replacement drive and then reconnected it, thinking perhaps it was not initially seated properly.

I started it up again and this time it showed my previous directory structure and allowed me to navigate it, but all the paths were empty:



Now I have no option to rebuild the array even though the LS-QVL is showing errors. What's incredibly frustrating here is that "ARRAY 1" is listed under Disk 1 Status, but there are no Arrays listed below:



Is there a method by which I can force the NAS to rebuild the array, or perhaps connect all 4 drives to a Linux box and edit/rewrite the information that allows for rebuilding?

The data is still in there - I just don't know how to go about rebuilding the array, and I'm fairly certain the LS-QVL has become defective/unreliable. It is several years old and the behavior described above suggests it is failing as hardware.

Any suggestions or assistance is sincerely appreciated!

[1000001101000]

I'll start with the usual disclaimer: If you have data on the device that you can't afford to lose, you should consider the help of a professional data company.

As you said, you should be able to poke around with mdadm in a linux environment and figure out what's going on. If you have a system where you could connect all four drives for that purpose you should be able to do so even with a "live" Linux environment.

I suspect the device isn't actually failing but has just gotten into a state the web interface can't handle. If you don't have a system with space for 4 drives handy you could also connect to the command line of the LS-QVL and investigate from there.

You can temporarily enable root access over telnet using:
https://github.com/1000001101000/acp-commander

You can look at the status of each data partition to see what arrays they are part of and what their status is:

Code Select Expand

mdadm -E /dev/sd[abcd]6

Hopefully that can tell you something about what is going on. The syslog may also have information about failed attempts to rebuild/etc. There's plenty of information online about how to rebuild a raid5 array with mdadm. Again, if there's data you can't afford to lose you may want to hire a professional for that part.

[Starrplatinum]

Thanks for the info, 1000001101000.

I'm going to try the telnet root-access route first to see what I can see. Hopefully that will give me some insight as to what needs to be done when I connect the drives to a Linux box.

I hope I won't have to ask for more help, but I appreciate that you replied  :)

Cheers!

[1000001101000]

Good luck!

[dewcansam]

Basics:
Linkstation Quad
All 4 drives are 3TB
RAID 5+1

From Wikipedia:

RAID 5 consists of block-level striping with distributed parity. Unlike RAID 4, parity information is distributed among the drives, requiring all drives but one to be present to operate. Upon failure of a single drive, subsequent reads can be calculated from the distributed parity such that no data is lost. RAID 5 requires at least three disks. .... Rebuilding an array requires reading all data from all disks, opening a chance for a second drive failure and the loss of the entire array.

Being new to all this ... my guess is that it did not rebuild the array correctly (duh).
The only way to recover is to pull them and either use Linux and testdisk or Win and GetDataBack
I have had some good luck with both methods.