Suddenly all my files are gone - 1.5 TB lost

Hi folks,

I’ve also reported this via the support form but I hope I can maybe get some quicker help here.

Ive been using the 3 TB MyCloud for a while now, never had problems. Last saturday I did a system reset and upgraded the firmware afterwards. After this, I could normally watch and access files via app, ssh and dnla.

This morning though, when I wanted to copy something to my WD via app, all the folders were gone. I logged into the UI via browser and I was shocked: 2.9 TB free out of 3, all my files and folders were gone. In a hurry, about to go to work, I created a system report and sent it to WD.

Browsing the files via ssh I see that very few of my folders still exist under /shares, although there are not being displayed anywhere outside the shell. However, it appears only 3 empty folders have made it anyways.

So I checked everything, the notifications only indicate that there has been a successful firmware update in the meantime. Altough not stated, I have the fear that the cloud shut down during a firmware upgrade since it is attached to a time switch and crashed somehow.

What on earth am I supposed to do? Urgent help needed :slight_smile:

sic286 wrote:

…Last saturday I did a system reset and upgraded the firmware afterwards. 

Which of the three system resets did you do?

System only.

As I said, after the reset everything worked fine, all files were there.

no idea what could of happend. could someone else of deleted the files/share?

restore from backup is the best option but I am guessing you don’t have a backup

there are some threads on here about recovering deleted files, shearch for them. most involve removing the disk and connecing it to another Linux system. I think I saw one recently about insalling somthin on the mycloud to do it, be carefull as this could over write some of the files and if it for an older firmware could brick your mycloud

This thread is probably the one you were thinking of; it just popped up again, helpfully…

http://community.wd.com/t5/WD-My-Cloud/How-to-recover-deleted-files/td-p/741326

So I checked everything, the notifications only indicate that there has been a successful firmware update in the meantime. 

What, between you upgrading the software and your data going missing?  Is Firmware Auto-Update enabled (it might have been enabled when you did the system restore…)

I note that a firmware upgrade was announced yesterday; is this the version you now have installed?

http://community.wd.com/t5/WD-My-Cloud/New-Release-WD-My-Cloud-Firmware-Release-4-01-03-421-2-23-15/td-p/859053

Interestingly, my MyCloud is only telling me that there’s a 4-01-02-417 upgrade available…

cpt_paranoia wrote:

This thread is probably the one you were thinking of; it just popped up again, helpfully…

 

http://community.wd.com/t5/WD-My-Cloud/How-to-recover-deleted-files/td-p/741326

ive read through it already. my hope is that the files are not deleted but due to some falsy firmupdate the data tables are just somehow screwed up. but i dont know much about that…

cpt_paranoia wrote:

So I checked everything, the notifications only indicate that there has been a successful firmware update in the meantime. 

 

What, between you upgrading the software and your data going missing?  Is Firmware Auto-Update enabled (it might have been enabled when you did the system restore…)

 

I note that a firmware upgrade was announced yesterday; is this the version you now have installed?

 

http://community.wd.com/t5/WD-My-Cloud/New-Release-WD-My-Cloud-Firmware-Release-4-01-03-421-2-23-15/td-p/859053

 

Interestingly, my MyCloud is only telling me that there’s a 4-01-02-417 upgrade available…

 well, i did a system restore, installed the latest firmware update, everything worked fine. and yes, auto updates were enabled at that point. as i said in the beginning post, i fear that the time switch switched off electricity exactly when the wd was doing an upgrade. because when i found out everything was gone, a warning was there “new firmware available”.

but, all notifications say that no update was interrupted.

my fear (and hope) is that the files actually still exist, but somehow the allocation in the file databases are gone…

Given my bad experience of removing power from the MyCloud without shutting down, just once, I’m surprised you’ve survived this long without a problem if you have yours on a time switch…

A time switch and randomly-scheduled firmware auto upgrade sounds like russian roulette…

Firmware auto upgrade is a compromise choice for WD; balancing the risk of data loss due to failure of the upgrade against the risk of data loss due to some flaw or vulnerability in outdated software that users haven’t updated manually.  I choose to turn off auto update on any software I use, but I review updates regularly.  If possible, I try to download then upgrade, so I can revert, but that’s not always easy; impossible for iThings and difficult for Android.

Best of luck with the data recovery.  For the future, I think I’d remove the timer switch, do manual firmware upgrades and take backups before you upgrade.  Sorry, I know that’s not very helpful to you right now…

your data probably has been deleted as you can’t see it in Linux either

any shutdown of a computer, including the mycloud should be through the menus. not killing power to the device

if your power switch hasn’t killed power since this I would pull the plug on the running mycloud and don’t put it back on the switch. this will force a disk check on reboot and if it is an inconsistancy it could fix it. It can take anyware from a few minutes to over a day debending on issues found. be patient and wait for a solid blue light be for doing anything. I doubt if this will help but it won’t hurt at this point