Cant find my files after reflashing the firmware on Linkstation Pro Duo

[ic01b1s00]

   

Hi, My linkstation went into EM mode after a power cut, so I re-flashed the firmware and it seems to be working O.K but now I can't find my files or folders. I ran tech support and we went through a few things but nothing helped. I have removed one of the hard drives and have run a file recovery program, it found 200gb of files which seems about right for the amount of data I had on there, however because the drives were in raid mode it don't seem to recover all the data whole. Any way I was thinking if the data is still on the drive is there a way to recover the data using the linkstation that I may have missed. the firmware version I used was 3.09.

Any help would be appreciated

[PCPiranha]

In terms of software you can try UFS explorer (it specializes in RAID ecovery), but updating the firmware shouldn't selete the data.  Did you try simply initializing it?

[ic01b1s00]

   

Thanks for that, I'll try UFS explorer. I tried initialization a few times. I was told to recreate the folders I had before it went west, however I tried the root folder only because there was no way I could remember each and every folder and it's position within the directory structure. It didn't work. I am surprized however that this system doesn't have a feature for finding broken file links or lost data. the only thing I can think that may be causing this, is the setting for the raid array has changed due to the firmware update, and I can't remember the setting prior to the failure.

Anyway thanks for your help so far, Im gonna try that software now.

[buscha]

   

ufs explorer can help you but you may need to recover the super block before ufs explorer can see the complete filesystem tree your linksys just flashed over.  This happened to me, and i did not try to flash before it changed my raid1 to an empty raid0.

 

see this thread if ufs explorer doesn't work right away.

 

http://forums.buffalotech.com/buffalo/board/message?board.id=0101&thread.id=3583&view=by_date_ascending&page=2

Message Edited by buscha on 07-07-2009 07:51 PM

[ic01b1s00]

   

Thanks for your response, However Im not sure what you mean by super block. Can you elaberate. Im assuming you mean recover the data on both drives.

I've run ufs explorer and its found a lot of mp3 files but they have no file names or directory structure that I recognise.

Also the linkstation pro duo is setup as raid0, and I dont think I changed it when I first recieved the unit, so I assume the firmware update left it as it was.

I need to recover my data with its original directory structure if thats possible because it would be a long drawn out task to restructure all my music files manually.

Thanks in advance for any and all your assistance.

[kevin]

Did you try Forcing Updating the Firmware?

Does the LS see the shares the listed and missing the data under that or missing the shares all together?

Have you tried recreating the folders the data is in? I do not necessarily recommend this as it can either reconnect the directory or make a new causing further damage!

You want to make sure that software knows to look at it as a RAID0 configuration (be careful not to rebuild the array, but tell it your already running one).

When it comes to data recovery I always recommend using some form of Linux (especially for a drive with this XFS filesystem). 

[ic01b1s00]

   

Thanks for your response.

I downloded the firmware from Buffalo around 100mb, ran the exe file and it automatically installed.

the link station see's only the default shares.

I recreated the original shares as directed by tech support and the folders were empty.

It was originally configured as raid0 and Im using ufs explorer to hopfully recover my files , unfortunately I'm a little unclear on how to use usf explorer, I have slaved both drives into my win xp system and run a scan to find lost file systems, and it has found around 4 fat32 partitions on each drive along with the xfs partitions, next I'm gonna run a data recovery scan on each drive and if it finds anything, I was gonna rebuild a virtual raid array to see if it looks anything like the data I had on it.

But I can't realy understand how every went wrong to begin with. 

[Dustrega]

I would recommend looking into the XFS partitions since that is what the RAID is formatted in. Usually, RAID failure occurs due to power fluctuations to the device. Since the PSU isn't as hardy as most it can't stand a whole lot of stress on power current variations. Hope this clarifies a little.

[ic01b1s00]

   

Thanks guys for all your help so far however I'm strugling to use UFS explorer.

Can someone give me some pointers on how to go about recovering my data.

This is what I intend to do: Advance Scan both drives for lost file, then rebuild virtual raid from the results. However there are quite a few partitions, so which ones do I use?

After this, should I see something that looks like my directory structure?