You are welcome, but mainly I am totally delighted that you got it to work! It is a wonderful feeling to retrieve data that you thought you’d never see again!
Give yourself a big pat on the back, too. You hung in there and got the job done. BRAVO!
Guys, Im getting increasingly concerned over how to get my MBL Duo resolved.
I spoke to WD following a Yellow (Lime) solid light and no network registration…they advised me to mount the disk and back it up and then arrange an in warranty replacement.
First of all Id rather fix this myself, Im a techy but only really windows / basic mac osx and have had no experience of linux commands before and really need a link or someone that can point me in the right direction.
I have a My Book Live Duo, it was set to RAID 1 (mirror) and on Sunday when I went to the dashboard it was showing a firmware message but kept looping the web portal page.
I restarted the device then got the above light…
Ive got the disks out of the enclosure and attached them to Mac OSX & Ubuntu to try and get my head around things but I cant even mount them to look at the structure.
What do I need to do to A: Backup the Data B: Restore the System Firmware / Code so that the MBL works again whilst restoring the data.
Id appreciate any help possible as a lot of my data is currently stuck on this device.
Many Thanks
Hi,
For some general ideas, look at the first page of the Guide thread we are currently in.
http://community.wd.com/t5/My-Book-Live-Duo/GUIDE-Debrick-a-MyBookLive-DUO/td-p/544860
Is your Ubuntu machine something that can boot from a Linux Live CD? You could try System Rescue CD, found here-
http://www.sysresccd.org/SystemRescueCd_Homepage
or, my favorite, Hiren’s Boot CD, found here-
http://www.hirensbootcd.org/download/
Both of these provide menu-driven booting into different setup choices. Presumably, you don’t need to repair or recover anything-you just want to read them. I have used Hiren’s more, and have had one amazing data recover experience with it.
In any case, the way I have gone about such things is to connect only the Source (MBL Duo, Disk A (I hope)), and Destination disk to avoid any mistakes with drive designations under Linux. If you know there are only two physical drives, it is easy to know which is which by size or by volume labels. When your two drives are hooked up, boot from the Hiren’s CD, and select the default Linux w/gParted Magic. This takes you to a graphical desktop with menu accesses to different types of utilities. I am hopeful that with this environment you can transfer files from the NAS RAID 1 Drive A.
There are a few utilities put out front, such as a Mount, a drive Status, and a File Manager. Your target disk should be able to be whatever partitioning and formatting is appropriate to your needs. In my case it is mostly NTFS, but I think there are many alternatives in there regarding volume types. I honestly am not sure about the Mac file system capabilities, since that was not my focus, but this is a Swiss Army Knife of computer rescue.
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Thanks for your help, ive got an update on the progress for other users…after plenty of various failed attempts!!
-
Installed Windows 7 on PC
-
Installed Linux Reader
-
Attached WD drive via Sata cable to main board
-
Ran Linux Reader
-
Recovered data to Windows drive C:\
I now have my data fully viewable on the desktop (All 275GB!!)
Next stage - restoration of WD - update soon!
Ok all done and complete fresh build ready for me to put my data on!
That guide is the dogs danglies!
I had some errors when I first booted the drive up advising the drives had failed but I think Id missed the part where you were to do a factory restore.
Restore complete and now updating settings to personalise! inc RAID options again!!
So Happy!!! 
That is excellent news! Congratz! The credit really belongs to NFODIZ for the guide, and to you for the patience to follow through. I am really happy that I sent you to the right place.
Best Regards,
Kieren
I wonder if I can make this procedure on my mac ?
thanx
Great guide. Just little question for a non technical guy like me…can I connect my drive in step three simply through a USB bay, rather SATA to SATA, or eSATA to SATA?
Great Guide, and from the feedback I hope it is going to save my proverbial with my wife (all our photos are in limbo).
I am having problems with Guide 1.
Everything goes as described until part way through Step 5.
When I type
mdadm -S /dev/md0
I get
mdadm: error opening /dev/md0: No suh file or directory
I don’t know what to do from here as my Linux skills start and end with being able to spell Linux
****HOLD THE PHONE**** :flushed:
Sitting here thinking about it, so I turned it all off and started at the start. This time I got through all the terminal entries, and the debricking is running now.
I will keep you posted.
nfodiz if I was a kissing sort of guy I would kiss you. Back up and running, had to do another firmware update, but all good.
Everything with Tech should be this painless
LOL, i couldn’t have done it without the tremendous help I received from the people in this thread and the private messages back and forth with several folks in this wonderful community. Glad you’re back up and running!
Hello WD Community and ty for this thread! :smiley:
I replaced the original 3 TB from my MBLD with two new (unpartitioned and without GPT) WD Red 4 TB. So I selected guide 2 but I got some trouble with it:
-
If I type in SSH:
mdadm --create -e 0 --verbose /dev/md2 --level=raid1 --raid-devices=2 /dev/sda3 /dev/sdb3
I got (but I done this step very often so I dont now if it worked in the first time):
mdadm: super0.90 cannot open /dev/sda3: Device or resource busy
mdadm: /dev/sda3 is not suitable for this array.
mdadm: super0.90 cannot open /dev/sdb3: Device or resource busy
mdadm: /dev/sdb3 is not suitable for this array.
mdadm: create aborted
- By creating the swap I dont get an error received but I dont see an active swap
MyBookLive:~# swapon -s
Filename Type Size Used Priority
- In the dashboard I don´t see “Storage”
The LED of my NAS is green and I can acess my shares but I dont know if it ist working correctly (RAID & Partitions).
Please help me & excuse my bad english.
Please help me!!
I have a MBLD from a friend with yellow colout led steady. My friend boutght the MBLD from ebay without any HD, he bought a 2T HD(only one) and we have the following questions:
1 The MBLD can be work with only one HD? or in other case we need 2 HDs.
2 I can connect by ethernet with the MBLD, is possible to connect wihtout any HD fixed?
Thanks in advance!!
I couldn’t see if anyone answered you yet. Yes, a dou live will work with just one drive as long as it is slot A. The problem you are going to run into is that the NAS requires a custom Western Digital OS which is install on the Drive “A”. So you have to have a drive with it previous installed or try one of the procedures listed on this board. There is no official Western Digital Support when the OS is lost.
Hi,
It is my first time to post in this community and I’d like to share my experience 
I’ve been reading this thread for a couple of weeks and I am right now in the middle of powering up the MBLD after following STEP 5 (DEBRICKING DISK A)
BTW, here’s what happened
root@sysresccd /mnt/usb % mdadm -S /dev/md0
mdadm: stopped /dev/md0
root@sysresccd /mnt/usb % mdadm -S /dev/md2
mdadm: stopped /dev/md2
root@sysresccd /mnt/usb % mdadm -S /dev/md3
mdadm: stopped /dev/md3
root@sysresccd /mnt/usb % ./debrick.sh rootfs.img /dev/sda
**********************DISK **********************
script will use the following disk:
Model: ATA WDC WD20EARX-00P (scsi)
Disk /dev/sda: 2000GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/4096B
Partition Table: gpt
Disk Flags:
Number Start End Size File system Name Flags
3 15.7MB 528MB 513MB primary raid
1 528MB 2576MB 2048MB ext3 primary raid
2 2576MB 4624MB 2048MB ext3 primary raid
4 4624MB 2000GB 1996GB primary raid
is this REALLY the disk you want? [y] y
**********************IMAGE **********************
IMPLEMENTATION
everything is now prepared!
device: /dev/sda
image_img: rootfs.img
destroy: false
this is the point of no return, continue? [y] y
mdadm: /dev/sda1 appears to contain an ext2fs file system
size=1999808K mtime=Thu Jan 1 00:00:12 1970
mdadm: size set to 1999808K
mdadm: creation continuing despite oddities due to --run
mdadm: array /dev/md0 started.
mke2fs 1.42.8 (20-Jun-2013)
Filesystem label=
OS type: Linux
Block size=4096 (log=2)
Fragment size=4096 (log=2)
Stride=0 blocks, Stripe width=0 blocks
125184 inodes, 499952 blocks
24997 blocks (5.00%) reserved for the super user
First data block=0
Maximum filesystem blocks=515899392
16 block groups
32768 blocks per group, 32768 fragments per group
7824 inodes per group
Superblock backups stored on blocks:
32768, 98304, 163840, 229376, 294912
Checking for bad blocks (read-only test): 0.00% done, 0:00 elapsed. (0/0/0 errdone
Allocating group tables: done
Writing inode tables: done
Creating journal (8192 blocks): done
Writing superblocks and filesystem accounting information: done
mdadm: added /dev/sda2
synchronize raid… done
copying image to disk…
3999616+0 records in
3999616+0 records out
2047803392 bytes (2.0 GB) copied, 289.132 s, 7.1 MB/s
mdadm: stopped /dev/md0
all done! device should be debricked!
root@sysresccd /mnt/usb %
The MBLD LED is yellow blinking… I think it is rebuilding the Span…
My question is, how will I do this “Check Storage Settings in your dashboard to get a % complete on the array build”?
Thanks in advance
Hello,
I really hope that this topic is still alive and would be grateful for some help. I’ve spent 3 days trying to debrick my MBL using different boot CDs and virtual machines with no luck. At this point, I have no ideas left and would really appreciate your help.
Unfortunately, boot CD provided here gave me “Kernel panic” on 3 different PCs so I had to try GRML boot CD ( http://grml.org/)..) I tried to use Guide 2, so I deleted all the partitions from my MBL in Windows Disk Management. Then I booted the PC using GRML live CD and the first attempt gave me many errors, here is the complete output (some strange things are highlighted with red):
After that, I rebooted and tried again. This time everything was better however, some errors were still there. For example, I again saw the message: “./debrick.sh: line 280: gc: command not found”, mdadm –S /mnt/md0 again gave me an error. Anyway this time mdadm worked better but I saw some messages that I did not see in normal script output from other users (highlighted with yellow on the screenshots below) – maybe they are there since I ran the script the second time after the failed first attempt. At the end, I again got messages about swap (highlighted with green) and that’s it. The problem is that when I connect my MBL the led is still yellow. Below is the complete script output of my second attempt.
Here is how the drive is recognized in Windows after running the script:
I’ve tried it many times on 2 different PCs (1-st is a laptop with SATA-USB interface, the 2d one is a PC and MBL was connected via SATA interface directly). The result is always the same and I always have to do 2 attempts.
As I mentioned, I’ve also tried to run the script on a VM running Ubuntu 12. I didn’t get the error message about line 280 in this case but mdadm gave me message like this:
destroying was done, would you like to continue with installation? [y] y
mdadm: super0.90 cannot open /dev/sdb1: Device or resource busy
mdadm: /dev/sdb1 is not suitable for this array.
mdadm: create aborted
mke2fs 1.42 (29-Nov-2011)
Filesystem label=
OS type: Linux
…… (some other stuff that for me is looking fine)
mdadm: Cannot open /dev/sdb2: Device or resource busy
synchronize raid… done
I’ve also tried finnix boot CD but it gave me even more errors.
Please help, your assistance is much appreciated! And please accept my apologies for my English.
Regards,
Vladimir Lyapunov
Please, disregard my post above. After trying 2 more Linux Live CDs Knoppix worked perferctly. Now sure what was wrong with others but now everything works fine. Great thanks for the guide!
1 Like
A big THX to nfodiz and MKranjc.
After praparation it just needs 2.5 hours to get my Duo back to life, Attention I needed 2 runs because I first used “apnc-024303-022-20130916.deb” which is for Live Book. For Duo “ap2nc-024303-022-20130916.deb” is needed. But after both runs data was still there. Greets from Germany.
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My MBLD have two 3T disks spanning. After the step of guide 1:
./debrick.sh rootfs.img /dev/sda
The partition table display unknown ,not GPT .So I check my disk A by Gparted:
But it’s normal by DiskGenius :
I ignore all error messages and going on:
All setps finish, MBLD even don’t work.I could ping IP of MBLD and 80 port open that’s as the same of debrick before.
I speculate that img did’t write disk A.
If GPT of disk A is missing，MBLD don’t connect by ping.
Could you help me , nfodiz ? Thank for your post.
GUIDE 1 don’t fix MBLD in the spanning mode!!!
I don’t still solve it ，I consider all partitions(spanning mode) aren’t finded unless I plugg both disk A and B in PC to use gparted，maybe It’s correct using only disk A in RAID 1 array.I consider MBLD has 4 mirror boot partitions about 1945M that twos in disk A and twos in disk B.If MBLD start up,it firstly according to files on the second 1945M partition in disk B,when it’s failure,then according to other partitions in disk A.My MBLD of spanning mode was fixed by following GUIDE 1,it could start up only plugg disk A,it didn’t start up plugg both disk A and B!!!My MBLD just wasn’t visited the home page other file system were good in past.So I reseted it by reset button on the MBLD backboard.I finded the file \Linux Ext Volume\var\www\index.html was damaged on the second 1945M partition disk B when I plugged disk A and disk B in PC,other the same files on other three 1945M partitions were correct.Maybe that’s the reason the home page wasn’t visited. So I guess MBLD work on using files on the second 1945M partition disk B，if we don’t click the power down button by the manage pages，instead，power supply is shutting down suddenly， maybe someone file was damaged that often happens in Linux. I attempt to fix the spanning partition disk A crossing disk B by parted tool.That’s failure. I want to know how to fix spanning partition,how to mount the spanning partition when system start up.I appreciate that！
Why WD dosn’t design a physical power button for MBLD?
Hello WD Community,
this is my first time in this forum, and I just wanted to say THANK YOU Nfodiz and everyone else that helped contribute to this guide. I know it’s been out there for a while now, but I just wanted to let you know you saved me countless hours of struggling with my MBLD.
I was bricked, and followed this guide to a T and it worked PERFECTLY. It’s guides and support like this from the community that inspires me to keep pushing my limits to learn as much as I can. Hope to return the favor some day.
Thanks,
R0ck0n
