Reading data Raid1 on another PC

WD Legacy Products My Book Live Duo
1

Hi, So my MBLD is raid 1 and I believe that I require linux program (any tutorials available on how to do this) to retrieve this data so that I can read it in another PC.

If I use back up from the usb port of the MBLD will it then be in a readable format plugged into any PC USB?

Thanks

Mike

2

Hi,

If you do a safe point on a USB drive, you will be able to read the backed up information on a computer. let’s see if another user can share some information or tips on this matter.

3

Easy peasy. RAID has nothing to do with it. Except you get two chances of course! A RAID HDD out of the box is just another HDD.

Read the other posts about plugging your HDD into a desktop, or use a USB caddy, run the program on your desktop that allows you to read (but not write) your MBL HDD. I did it with a Win7 notebook and caddy. I just didn’t have the patience because USB is so slow. Better if you have a desktop where the speed will be much faster.

Or boot from a Lunux live rescue CD on any desktop. Copy to USB drive. Get it started, come back next day. Or maybe copy it to another HDD in your desktop. The procedure might be a bit tricky but certainly doable.

4

I am still working through my issue.

I want to be able to read a HDD plugged into a MAC or PC etc with the data that is contained on my MBLD Raid drive.

I have begun by plugging in a USB Caddy containing a 2Tb HDD to the rear of the MBLD .

I then did a copy paste of the primary MBLD drive to this USB.

It states the city will take approx 28 days - still going after 3 days and barely copied the 1.5TB.

I was told a copy would be readable BUT this is not a practical time effacement process.

I will cancel this and try a safe point and see what happens.

Forum member ‘Banned’ steed to plug my HDD into a desktop or caddy - I assume he means the raid second drive? But I want to be able to have this data read and write so I’m not sure I follow him on this suggestion.

Any other advice?

Mike

5

A caddy operates at USB2 or USB3 speeds. That is vastly slower than IDE or SATA. I myself gave that up when I realized it would take days to copy my data. Believe me, you don’t want to use a caddy on your SHARES. You might successfully use a caddy on the boot sections, but you’ll be an old codger if you try to do that with a few TB of data…

You gotta mount that drive in a DESKTOP via SATA. Use a SATA-IDE converter if your desktop doesn’t have SATA (mine doesn’t, it’s an old 386).

Whatever I said, a caddy is a LAST RESORT.

6

So… To clarify… I need to get the primary drive? or the raid - 2nd drive from the MBLD and connect it to a SATA connection on a PC.
Correct?

I will try this but when i did this some time back I got jibbersih from memory because of the encryption that WD uses.

Thats when I was told about using Ubuntu or linux or something such which is way over my head.

Can you re explain what I ned to do to get the entire data from the primary drive in a readable format for other PC’s etc.

Cheers

Mike

7

As the data on both drives is healthy it does not matter which drive.

I warn you, if you use a caddy and depending on the amount of data it could take a week to copy over.

The Windows program is called R-Linux. You will find it mention elsewhere in this forum or Google is your friend.

The very best bet is to use a desktop and Linux Rescue CD. That part is explained in the topic something like “Debrick your DUO.” (Which I followed and it worked well. You can adapt that procedure to use a USB HDD instead of a thumb drive, then at the point of restoring your system partition, mount the data partition instead (the big one) and just cp using Linux directory names. If you actually mount your MBL HDD in the desktop system this might take a few hours (guessing) to copy your entire data section.

Trust me though, the caddy is a bad, bad idea, useful only if you have just a laptop. The best solution is to connect a sufficiently large HDD to your desktop (inside) and your MBL HDD (inside) and the Linux rescue CD to boot from and then mount both drives and begin your copy.

You may have to learn a bit of Linux. I am sorry this is so complicated. It was not my invention, not even my discovery, but this method WILL WORK if your data is intact.

8

WD does NOT use encryption on the MBL product line. The only encryption is your lack of understanding of the operating system. The data is in clear text, binary or whatever it was when you copied it there.

Using a USB caddy is a fools errand because USB operates at a data transfer rate of perhaps 1/1000 of normal IDE or SATA speeds if the HDD is mounted inside a desktop. Yes it could take a week, or longer, if you use a caddy, depending on how much data you have.

Again, RAID drives are identical. It makes no difference which one you use as long as both are healthy.

Having any USB drive anywhere in the process is a VERY LAST RESORT because as I said it could take a week or more to complete the process. Capisce?