Please help! I just deleted a major group of files on my WD LIVE 6TB DUO (RAID)

WD Legacy Products My Book Live
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I’ve done similar things before but only on a small scale. Darned Windows, the “rename” and “delete” choices on the directory context menu are right next together!!! I curse Bill Gates!!!

Okay so you know what happened, I have my 6TB DUO set up as RAID, I deleted a directory with a bunch of sub-directories that I had a lot of time invested in. (Same sad story.)

I will be deliriously happy if I could just get the sub-directory names from the deleted directory. It’s stuff I can replace (it will take days) but I’ll be happy enough with that. Even better if I can get the files back too but whatever I do I DO NOT WANT TO RISK ANY OTHER FILES ON THIS SERVER! I’d rather just cry a few hours and get on with my life than risk losing anything else. And it would take probably days to copy this 3TB RAID volume’s contents over to my 4TB RAID volume. (Yes I like these WD products!)

What I have available as tools are my Win7 notebook, but it too has too much important stuff to risk, and I have an old clunky desktop PC running Win2k. It’s ancient but I do have a SATA adapter that in theory I can remove one of my 3TB RAID drives and connect it to the PC, although I have no idea if the BIOS can handle 3TB. (A good reason why I haven’t tried it!)

I’ve played a bit with my WD 3TB, my 6TB DUO and my 8TB DUO, and I can ssh into the servers just fine. Is there a way I can just read the deleted file names?

Also, I read this topic:

http://community.wd.com/t5/My-Book-Live/Data-recover-on-a-My-Book-Live-2TB-HELP/td-p/430120

and I downloaded this R-Linux for Windows software and it does run on the ancient desktop:

http://www.r-tt.com/free_linux_recovery/Download.shtml

I decided that I’m way over my head here so rather than do any more research and risk doing stupid and losing ALL my data (not just the deleted files) I’ll appreciate if somebody can tell me if what I want to do is possible.

First objective: recovering the file names is good enough! I won’t mind spending a day or two re-downloading the files.

Second objective: it would be nice to recover the actual directory, subdirectory and files, but not if there is the slightest risk of losing any more data.

I think it’s important that I DO NOT want to recover the files on the drive itself. It’s RAIDed and that looks like opening a whole new can of worms. I have plenty of places to copy the deleted files to on other local and NAS drives but I hope I wont have to image the whole 3TB RAID onto my 4TB RAID (which is mostly empty…).

So when I realized what had happened it was in the middle of another download to the 4TB RAID. I pulled the network PLUG ASAP so maybe some of the deleted files were written over, maybe not, but it was the best I could do. I’m going to connect it back up and poke around with ssh but I guess I’m stuck not writing to the drive until I get some advice whether there is anything I can recover.

Thanks folks, I’ll appreciate your advice, and if the advice is “forget it” then please let me know. This drive is an important resource and it’s going to be a major hassle to do without its services.

p.s. I can install a Linux distro on the ancient desktop if that would help. I’ve got HDDs laying all over the place so I can just put a spare in the clunk PC and install Linux, if that would help.

Please excuse me now. I’m going to see how many times it takes punching my forehead into my wall until it breaks a head sized hole in it.

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Have not much to say about your files, however, I recommend you take the time to read and fully understand the concept of BACKUPS. Here is a good link… Jsut read the Backup section.

http://howto.cnet.com/8301-33088_39-57556308/digital-storage-basics-part-3-backup-vs-redundancy/

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Shabuboy I think you have this canned reply that you repeat on the same subject every time somebody posts a topic about losing files.

YOUR REPLY IS TOTALLY USELESS!!!

I don’t have space on my local computer to store these media filles. It would take hours to copy these media files over to another media server, perhaps even days!

So quit sounding like a canned reply and either give some useful information or at least lose your canned reply. All you are accomplishing is to make people who have lost files feel bad, and at the same time making yourself sound superior.

The best solution is to have WD implement a Recycle Bin feature for their My Book Live products, so that mistakennly deleted files can be reinstated with a few mouse clicks.

Your advice is useless, and I’ve read your exact same reply to over a dozen topics, and I haven’t read ALL the lost data posts, so I bet you post this exact same reply to dozens of topics a week.

Get off your high horse and either quit posting the same response or at least post something useful instead of your canned reply.

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Banned  to be candid the device asks you to confirm yes or no when you are about to delete files if you’re dumb enough to click yes and still expect the device to know what not to delete you neeeeed to read Shabuboys futile and canned response. I don’t know why anyone would trust a single device with all their files. I don’t want a recyle bin on a NAS thats just asinine. Learning how to use one and also learning a thing or two about backups will ensure you don’t suffer from data loss. 

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Well the good news is that I figured out how to recover all my files, so mark this topic solved. Thanks for the help!

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HAHAHAHA!

And no, I do not feel superior, I am just trying to assist people. I might do not know how to recover your files, but I know what backups are and how not to depend on one media only.

And yes, will keep repeating the answer, cause I know, someone will be glad I pointed it out.

Also watch your attitude, this is a forum in which we are all just regular users like you, trying to help other users. If you do not like an answer, fair enough. Just do not attack us for trying to assist people out of our free time.

By the way, share your solution, this is a forum, as I mentioned above. Some users might benefit from it. Heck, even me!!!

I believe you have to mark it “solved” as well.

Merry xmas and happy new year!