Boot up problems - no green light

[kgee5]

My 4TB LiveDuo suddenly disappeared from the network showing a flashing blue light and now won’t boot up correctly.

After restarting, the front LED remains Blue and keeps flashing but never goes Green. There is no sound from the drive at all. The LEDs at the back seem to flash once when applying power but then nothing.

The router confirms the device is not connected.

I have tried the reset button when powered on and further reboots but to no avail.

Is there anything else to try before I send this back to WD and also what’s the simplest solution to recovering my data from these drives - The manual is rather lacking in detail about what to do if this disaster recovery device has a disaster of it’s own !!

Any help would be appreciated

[ThePizzaMatrix]

I’d check the power adapter, still requires a call to WD.

Easy way to recover the data depends on your RAID type. if it’s RAID 0 then kiss it good-bye, id it’s RAID 1 then connect one of the two drives inside the box to a Linux computer or a Windows computer using a Linux files sytem emulator that allos for Windows to read EXT3 drives, which is something Windows doesn’t natively do.

[kgee5]

Thanks for the reply.

Yes, I had it configured as RAID 1 therefore assumed there would NEVER be a situation where I would loose data.

Unfortunately when the enclosure fails it’s essential that the data can be recovered from one or other of the drives.

Since the drive is still under warranty WD are going to supply a new unit. 

In the meantime just as you suggested I attempted to recover the data using the following programs which were recommended by WD.

  Explore2fs, DiskInternals Linux
Reader, and the Ext2 Installable File System
For Windows

Unfortunately non of them worked - whilst I could see the drive I couldn’t open it or see any of the files / folders.

Reading many more articles on this I can see this isnt unusual and there doesn’t seem to be a cast iron way of recovering data back into a usable Windows format.

What really annoys me about this is why WD don’t supply the software - after all it’s their technology and if they are going to use Linux then they should provide a method of converting it back into Windows format if this type of situation arises.

What’s the point of RAID 1 if you can’t get data back from at least 1 of the drives !

The only other issue I thought I might have encountered was that I don’t have a PC tower with spare SATA so had to use a SATA to USB connection.

Not sure whether this affects the process but any further help would be appreciated.

Thanks

[tnynyn]

WD does not use Windows, they use their own custom linux based OS so if an issue occurs, why does it have to be converted to WIndows format (NTFS)? Get yourself a linux box and mount the volumes manually or have someone with linux knowledge to help you out.

[kgee5]

Why should WD provide a means of converting data back to Windows NTFS format ?

Very, very simple - because virtually every customer who uses one of these products use it on a network with Windows machines and therefore WD should have an obligation to provide robust software to be able to recover data in a useable format if this type of failure occurs.

If not it should NOT be marketed for use with Windows

It should be a warning to anyone using a NAS device ( because WD are not alone ) that the use of a custom OS probably based on Linux because it’s cheap ( or free because they don’t want to pay the royalties ) could render their whole network storage useless.

I just can’t believe you could expect WD customers to buy Linux boxes or become technical specialists in Linux file structures.

This is a consumer product that should be made fit for purpose.

[TonyPh12345]

kgee5 wrote:

…WD should have an obligation to provide robust software to be able to recover data in a useable format if this type of failure occurs.  If not it should NOT be marketed for use with Windows

It should be a warning to anyone using a NAS device ( because WD are not alone ) that the use of a custom OS probably based on Linux because it’s cheap ( or free because they don’t want to pay the royalties ) could render their whole network storage useless.

Did Apple provide you a way to get all your data off your iPhone / iPad when it’s dead?  (Even if you don’t own Apple, I think you get the point.)

[kgee5]

Yes, iCloud or iTunes PC backup.

Works perfectly.

Never, ever lost data with an Apple device.

WD simply don’t have a robust solution to protect customers data when their hardware fails - even with their most secure RAID 1 configuration.

[TonyPh12345]

kgee5 wrote:

Yes, iCloud or iTunes PC backup.

Works perfectly.

Excellent!  You backed it up.   

So on the WD, just restore your backups.