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Seagate NAS Recovery – 2-bay and 4-bay
Wednesday, 20 January 2016 00:00

Seagate NAS Recovery – 2-bay and 4-bay

  Hard Drive Recovery
 
 
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Seagate Technologies offers a low end NAS solution for the power home user and small business owner who has fewer than 25 employees. The Seagate NAS 2/4-bay solutions are the bed rock answer for those who have a need for secure remote data access but want to remain conscientious in the area of cost. The NAS is outfitted with a Marvell 1.2 GHz processor and a minimal 512 MB of DDR3 memory. The NAS can be purchased as a shell for a little under $200.00 and the user may add their own drives. A standard 10 GB Seagate NAS 2-Bay device is in the neighborhood of $700.00. Purchasing all of the hardware from Seagate does offer a certain seamless feel to the mechanism especially since the drives that are installed in the system are designed specifically for their NAS device.

Each NAS device is tested individually to ensure quality control and a long lasting device. That being said there will still be occasions where the device fails and diagnosing the problem in a failure can in and of itself be a daunting task. In order to alleviate some of the guess work and stress when encountering a problem the Seagate NAS has a set of LEDs that offer instruction on the current problem. Each drive has its own LED and the device itself has a ‘STATUS’ LED for identifying the current state of the NAS. I offer the following as a guide to what to do if and when you have blinking warning LEDs from a Seagate NAS.

 

  • Status LED Alternate Red and White/Drive LED Alternate Red and White

This situation indicates that either the native OS (NAS OS 4) is being updated, there is a drive synchronization in progress, or there is a volume check in progress. All of these things mean that there are read and write operations in progress that will definitely affect the health of your NAS. If during the time of this status you lose power without the advent of a viable UPS the resulting power on could be catastrophic. There may be a file system check initiated that could in fact destroy data. If the operating system is being updated there is a possibility that the system will not boot at all and a full reset will be necessary in order to boot the device. A full reset can in fact wipe out all data in order to give the device a clean start.

If the data on the system is critical then I would pull each drive and make a sector by sector image onto another system before proceeding. If something does happen at least you will have saved the original state of the data and allow for a qualified Seagate NAS recovery company to attempt a full recovery.

 

  • Status LED Blinking Red/Drive LED Solid or blinking White

In this case the RAID is degraded and although functioning, has a drive out of the array. For the NAS 2-Bay this could mean one side of a mirror is out, and in a NAS 4-Bay a drive from a RAID 5 is out.

If it is one side of the mirror then there are two options, you can pull the bad drive, put in a new drive and follow the Seagate NAS recovery instructions to synchronize the mirror. Alternatively, you could pull the good drive, mount it outside in a USB caddy and pull the data off using data recovery software. In either case you should take the good drive and make a sector by sector image of it in case one of the other options goes wrong.

In the case of a RAID 5 you have the same alternatives which is to pull the offending drive and replace it with a working drive. Once completed simply follow the instructions that show you how to rebuild your RAID 5. With this being said, I can confidently tell you that from my many years of experience  this particular function is what causes an approximate 40 percent failure rate and a call to DTI Data. If you wish to try a rebuild then take the good drives out of the array and make sector level images of them in case the rebuild fails, or corrupts the data. At least you will have some recourse if something goes wrong.

 

  • Status LED Blinking Red/Single Drive LED Alternating Red and White

For this particular condition there is a drive that is currently being synchronized. Out of the four conditions I mention this is probably the most benign. It is assumed you have already swapped the bad drive from the Mirror or RAID 5 and the Seagate NAS recovery process has been started. Even if power is lost during this process you can start over or continue where you left off.

There is however a caveat to this procedure.

If the synchronization fails because of a bad read from the other drives then you should immediately shut down and contact a Seagate NAS recovery company.

There is a high possibility that you could lose the integrity of the raid and therefore all of the data. Great caution should be exercised if this condition arises.

 

  • Status LED Solid Red/Drive LED Solid White

This indicates that a file system check has failed and according to the Seagate website, “File system check failed; failed RAID and all data has been lost.” I am sure it goes without saying that this is ‘bad’. If this happens, shut off the device, call DTI Data, and let us recover the data for you. There are so many reasons why this happens that it is virtually impossible to offer a solution to the problem without evaluating it. The simplest, safest, and most reliable method to recover your data is to call DTI Data.

Hopefully, this little walkthrough will help those who are prudent enough to check their Seagate NAS 2/4 Bay device and check to see if there is a problem. If there is any question whatsoever as to the state of your device please feel free to call DataRecoup and one of our trained NAS specialists will help you diagnose the problem, and offer the most effective solution.

Reference: http://dtidatarecovery.com/seagate-nas-recovery-2-bay-and-4-bay/

Last modified on Wednesday, 20 January 2016 10:17
Data Recovery Expert

Viktor S., Ph.D. (Electrical/Computer Engineering), was hired by DataRecoup, the international data recovery corporation, in 2012. Promoted to Engineering Senior Manager in 2010 and then to his current position, as C.I.O. of DataRecoup, in 2014. Responsible for the management of critical, high-priority RAID data recovery cases and the application of his expert, comprehensive knowledge in database data retrieval. He is also responsible for planning and implementing SEO/SEM and other internet-based marketing strategies. Currently, Viktor S., Ph.D., is focusing on the further development and expansion of DataRecoup’s major internet marketing campaign for their already successful proprietary software application “Data Recovery for Windows” (an application which he developed).

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