Author Topic: Help : Raid5 disks are now unformated after a power shutdown  (Read 2338 times)

CSOSOG

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Help : Raid5 disks are now unformated after a power shutdown
« on: January 15, 2020, 10:59:07 AM »
Last night, there was a general power shutdown in my neighborhood. In the morning, I restarted the modem, the PC and the NAS.

The NAS Navigator indicates (in the lower sub-window) that the Raid5 disk is not formated anymore !!!

Using Firefox I see on http://192.168.0.100/static/root.htm under Shared folders/Folder setup that my folde'rs (shared, DVDs, Films, Series_TV) still exist :
Several lines like : shared | Array 1 | Read & Write | v | Windows, Apple | x

Using Windows Explorer, I see the TS-XL7FA  machine with his folders  (shared, DVDs, Films, Series_TV plus the info folder) but when I try to access a folder, I receive a message saying that "Windows can not accesss \\TS-XL7FA\DVDs"

Are my data definitively lost ?

HELP !!!

Coys55

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Re: Help : Raid5 disks are now unformated after a power shutdown
« Reply #1 on: January 16, 2020, 07:50:48 AM »
No back up?

CSOSOG

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Re: Help : Raid5 disks are now unformated after a power shutdown
« Reply #2 on: January 16, 2020, 09:32:00 AM »
Backup the Raid5/NAS ??? It IS my backup machine !

Texturtle

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Re: Help : Raid5 disks are now unformated after a power shutdown
« Reply #3 on: January 16, 2020, 11:16:37 AM »
If this is the backup, then the original data still exists elsewhere. If this is the only copy you have of the data, then by definition it is not a backup.

RAID is NOT a backup.

https://forums.buffalotech.com/index.php?topic=25534.0

I assume you've tried another reboot. Is the UI accessible?

CSOSOG

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Re: Help : Raid5 disks are now unformated after a power shutdown
« Reply #4 on: January 16, 2020, 02:23:53 PM »
I have copied the DVDs that I have (and I have a lot) in the DVDs folder. I still own the DVDs but I know, by experience, that DVDs are fragile. I consider that the DVDs folder IS a backup.
The two other folders (Films and Series_TV) contain a copy of the movies and series that are stored on several 0.5 to 2 TB hard disk. If you prefer, call that a copy for safety.
I was beliving from my readings that reliability was increasing when using HD instead of DVD and Raid5 instead of standard HD.
In 20 (twenty!) years of use, I only experienced ONE crash (an USB disk fell on the ground). But I know that "natural" crashes (heads scrashing the disk,...) exist.
But if (as indicated in the article) the probability of crashing a disk in the interval of 3 years is between 1% and 3%, the probability of crashing more than one disk in a set of four (classic organizaition of Raid5) during the same period is between 0.06% and 0.52 %.
But enough with terminology and probabilities let us try to solve the problem.

To answer to your question : yes I made a reboot of the NAS (and of the PC) and, as indicated supra,
- Using Firefox I see on http://192.168.0.100/static/root.htm under Shared folders/Folder setup that my folde'rs (shared, DVDs, Films, Series_TV) still exist :
Several lines like : shared | Array 1 | Read & Write | v | Windows, Apple | x
- Using Windows Explorer, I see the TS-XL7FA  machine with his folders  (shared, DVDs, Films, Series_TV plus the info folder) but when I try to access folder DVDs, I receive a message saying that "Windows can not accesss \\TS-XL7FA\DVDs" (same for the other folders)
« Last Edit: January 16, 2020, 02:27:02 PM by CSOSOG »

Texturtle

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Re: Help : Raid5 disks are now unformated after a power shutdown
« Reply #5 on: January 16, 2020, 03:00:05 PM »
It certainly sounds like the power issue may have caused a problem with the RAID. You will probably need to re-create the RAID and copy all data back to the unit unfortunately. I would recommend looking into a UPS to try and protect against problems like this in the future.

CSOSOG

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Re: Help : Raid5 disks are now unformated after a power shutdown
« Reply #6 on: January 16, 2020, 03:10:12 PM »
But my PC was also working when the power failure occured and his HD is OK.
Do you mean that a Buffalo device is LESS SAFE than a Windows machine ???

Texturtle

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Re: Help : Raid5 disks are now unformated after a power shutdown
« Reply #7 on: January 16, 2020, 03:29:41 PM »
It simply means they were affected differently. I've seen systems work fine through power loss plenty of times, then have a problem with the next one. It can be unpredictable.

1000001101000

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Re: Help : Raid5 disks are now unformated after a power shutdown
« Reply #8 on: January 16, 2020, 03:38:28 PM »
Most electronics are susceptible to issues from sudden power loss, hard drives in particular have moving parts that wear out over time. The TS-XL was released in 2009, 11 years between issues seems like a pretty good track record to me.

If you'd like there tools available that would allow you to poke around from the command line and try to figure out what happened to your raid array. You could also remove the disks and connect them to a PC running linux and try to recover the array that way.

No matter what you do I'd suggest assessing the health of the drives before re-creating the array or re-installing the firmware in case drive failure has something to do with the array disappearing. 

CSOSOG

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Re: Help : Raid5 disks are now unformated after a power shutdown
« Reply #9 on: January 16, 2020, 05:15:25 PM »
Here is the log of the indications on the panel of the TeraStation :
   (Power button flashing green)
   (Red background)
   (LAN1 led OFF)
00:03   DRAM TEST U-BootStart
00:04   Buffalo Version 2,06-1,00
00:05   Initialise Nand FLASH
00:06   (LAN1 led ON)
00:06   Initialise Boot FLASH
00:23   Detected NAND 512 MB
00:24   Initialize environement
00:26   Initialize ENV FLASH
00:26   Initialize Xor Engine
00:27   Initialize IDMA Engine
00:27   InitializePower Scheme
00:28   Initialize Enable interup
00:29   Hard disk HD 1 Power ON
00:32   Hard disk HD 2 Power ON
00:35   Hard disk HD 3 Power ON
00:38   Hard disk HD 4 Power ON
00:43   Initialize SATA 0Channel
00:43   Initialize SATA 1Channel
00:45   Initialize SATA 2Channel
00:47   Initialize SATA 3Channel
00:50   No Kernel File At HDD 2
00:51   No Init File At HDD 2
00:51   No Kernel File At HDD 3
00:52   No Init File At HDD 3
00:53   No Kernel File At HDD 4
00:54   No Init File At HDD 4
00:54   No Kernel File At HDD 5
00:55   No Init File At HDD 5
04:59   System ROM Checking ….
05:24   Welcome to TeraStation
05:27   (Blue background)
06:11   (Power button green stable)
06:15   LINK SPEED 1000Mbps
06:20   HD USED 1_2_3_4_
06:21   RAID I14 ARRAY1 Checking
06:22   (INFO led ON)
06:25   TS-XL Ver. 1.06
06:30   NETWORK2 10.xxx.xxx.xxx
06:31   LINK SPEED 1000Mbps
06:33   (INFO led OFF)
06:35   HD USED 1_2_3_4_
06:40   TS-XL7FA 192.168.0.100 F
06:45   HD 1-2-3-4 RAID5
06:50   DATE TIME 2020/1/15 22:02
06:55   TS-XL Ver. 1.06
07:00   NETWORK2 10.xxx.xxx.xxx
07:05   LINK SPEED 2 NO LINK
07:10   LINK SPEED 1000Mbps
07:15   HD USED 1_2_3_4_

Remarks of a newbie :
No "No Kernel/Init File At HDD 1" message aroud 00:47
"No Kernel/Init File At HDD 5" message aroud 00:54
Huge delay between 00:55 and 04:59


1000001101000

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Re: Help : Raid5 disks are now unformated after a power shutdown
« Reply #10 on: January 16, 2020, 09:18:28 PM »
It’s been a while since i’ve watched the lcd that closely, seems like it isn’t seeing boot partitions and is booting into EM mode from the internal NAND.

is is showing as EM mode in NasNavigator?

Coys55

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Re: Help : Raid5 disks are now unformated after a power shutdown
« Reply #11 on: January 17, 2020, 06:14:48 AM »
Backup the Raid5/NAS ??? It IS my backup machine !

Yes, I do mean backup the RAID5 NAS if it is the only place valuable data is held; RAID 5 can become corrupted (as you have discovered) and is not a backup in itself even though it can cope with a single drive failure.

All of my data is automatically backed up from my desktop PCs onto a mirrored Buffalo NAS using daily incremental backup software. That is a backup (the mirrored NAS drives alone are not a backup even though there are two of them) and will allow me to recover my PC data is the drive fails. The NAS itself is also backed up onto removable drives every six months or so for offsite storage. I wouldn't trust anything or anyone else with my data (and that includes 3rd party cloud storage).
« Last Edit: January 17, 2020, 08:17:57 AM by Coys55 »