There was another post with the same title from earlier this januari, but i couldn’t reply to it.
So i’ve got about 1.7TB of files i want to recover on my cloud, which is proving to be problematic. I can’t use regular file recovery programs because they only work on local drives. I can’t find any working free alternatives for NAS drives, so i’m asking here.
Is there freeware out there, that can scan and recover lost files on a NAS disk?
If not, does the WD My Cloud work with a file structure my windows rig will understand, so i can pull the HD out of the cloud device and plug it into my pc and do a recovery that way? Or would i be required to format it before i could get it to work, meaning the cloud device wouldn’t recognize it after i plug it back in?
Is there freeware out there, that can scan and recover lost files on a NAS disk?
None that I’ve ever heard of… AFAIK, it’s impossible, as the NAS protocols lack the low-level storage BIOS calls needed to be able to access the file system at a low level.
L1feless wrote:
If not, does the WD My Cloud work with a file structure my windows rig will understand, so i can pull the HD out of the cloud device and plug it into my pc and do a recovery that way? Or would i be required to format it before i could get it to work, meaning the cloud device wouldn’t recognize it after i plug it back in?
Thanks
No, Windows does not recognize the EXT4 partition type by default. You’d need to add drivers such as LinuxInternals to allow it to recognize that.
But even then, I doubt the WIndows-based recovery tools would work on anything other than NTFS / FATxx file systems, but your mileage may vary.
If you reformat the whole drive, you’ve just destroyed the NAS, as that also erases all the operating system and configuration. But it wouldn’t do you any good. Even if you reformat the disk, the underlying “erased” partition is still structured as EXT4, so it still wouldn’t be recoverable that way.
Have you tried Photorec / TestDisk ? It’s pretty sreightforward to install it on your NAS and recover most files. TestDisk can be a tool to recover a whole partition and Photorec for individual files. Take into account that it recovers a lot, so it’s a good idea to edit the filters you use before startign recovery. Also make sure to recover the files to a different physical drive so you don’t keep erasing the files you’re trying to recover (you can do that by mounting a second file system on the nas or mounting the nas on another device).
I am uncertain how to install Photorec / TestDisk on my NAS. Can it be installed over the network, or do I need to pull the HD out and connect it to a computer? Any instructions would be appreciated. Thanks
jrevenson,
You need to install TestDisk package on your device. You can do this do this via SSH.
Stop any activity which might overwrite deleted files on your device (ie, don’t copy any new files to your device)
Log into your webinterface and activate SSH. (SSH allowes you to interface with your device via command line)
Connect via SSH to your device. This can be done from windows using Putty. Enter "Root"for username and “welc0me” is the default password.
Install TestDisk package using apt-get (package management for debian): “apt-get install testdisk”
after installation you can run PhotoRec from command line: “photorec”
You should recover lost files to another drive than the one you are recovering from. This can be done either by plugging in a usb drive or by mounting a remote drive. Plugging in a usb drive is the simplest and safer option.
if you have limited storage capacity on the destination device and/or don’t want to be waiting a long time for photorec to finish and/or only want to recover some specific files and formats, make sure to change the photorec settings to recover the file types you are interested in.
If you want to recover the entire partition you might be best off using TestDisk.
Thanks again. I was able to get putty working and login as noted. From the shell it shows the root directory, but no files or other directories at all. I was expecting to see other directories where I have files. Is this normal? I want to make sure before I install the other software. Thanks again - JRE
Thanks again for the assist. I was able to get testdisk to run but it did not see the deleted files or directories. I am running the analyze tool to search deeper, but my optimism is fading. Thanks again.
@Drunk.Mod: I’ve recovered a lot of files from my own bricked ext4 devices using Photorec. Naturally some files are damaged since they’ve been partially overwritten but if you haven’t made many changes to files since deleting those files most should still be intact. You just have to figure out the file name. Maybe professionals have better tools to recover even older erased files that have been overwritten, but simple undelete is also possible to us common users.
@jrevenson: How is recovery going ? What file types are you trying to recover and which settings did you use for photorec?
I followed your instructions. On the WDCloud command line, I type “photorec” and I get the error message “Killed”. Same thing with testdisk. I enter the command at the following prompt:
hi - I have the latest firmware, I think. Version 4.0.0.something. I do not know the full version because the Dashboard is acting on me. I can access the My Cloud from the My Cloud application. I can access it through SSH. I can ping it. But when I try to access the Dashboard, I get nothing in Chrome and a 500 error message in IE,
Note: the Dashboard was working yesterday after installing photorec.
Well it could be the new version is teminating photorec when it tries to run. There were reports of version 4 not letting user added packages run (like transmission), so you might consider downgrading to another version.
Unfortunately the dashboard is still acting on me even after a soft reset. Do you know of a way to downgrade the firmware without using the Dashboard at all (only via SSH). I could find partial instructions but they still use the Dashboard at a point in the process.
I have followed all your instructions untill the part I have to install testdisk through apt-get. How can I do that? I am using windows and I have download testdisk but how I can install via SSH? Sorry for the question but it is the first time using SSH and Putty.
