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[LazyLazyBug]

Hi, I'm new to this forum, so I probably would have broken some (if not all) of the forum's rules already... I apologize in advance.

Before posting, I have read up this post http://forums.dlink.com/index.php?topic=42184.0 but it doesn't seem to describe my situation entirely. Hence I'm posting my problem and what I did so far. Hope someone can shed some light on this. I apologize for the long post too, as I try to give as much information as I can on the onset. Thanks for bearing with me.

Problem:

After replacing a HDD into the right bay, the NAS continuous sync the data in the RAID 1 configuration, but doesn't stop. It would show that it'll take about 240mins to sync, then about 4 hours later, after it shows 1 min to sync, it will suddenly jumps back to 240mins (or maybe 23000mins, depending on its mood).

Here's is a step-by-step guide on how I achieve this problem (as well as I can remember anyway).

• First, specs of my system: DNS-323 with two 1.5TB HDD set up on RAID 1. Firmware is 1.08. The NAS is connected directly to a router via LAN, but my computers are connected wirelessly. My main machine is a Mac.
• I bought two 2TB HDD in the hope of upgrading the two 1.5TB currently in my NAS.
• I was stupid enough not to have backed up my data on the NAS before I proceed. I blame this on myself.
• Powered off the NAS, pulled out HDD in right bay, and plugged in a new 2TB HDD. Power back up.
• NAS recognized the new HDD, and requested to rebuild the RAID 1. OK. So the 2TB ended up having 1 "drive" of 1.5TB to be used for RAID 1 and another 0.5TB for JBOD.
• I don't like this, as I was hoping for a 2TB RAID 1, not 1.5TB. So I power down the NAS via the GUI after the syncing of the data has started but not before it finishes. (Another piece of stupidity!?  )
• In the interim, I connected the 1.5TB I just pulled out via a HDD dock. My Mac asks me to initialize the HDD, which I didn't. I ejected the HDD from my Mac OS using the proper method.
• Pulled out the 2TB HDD, and replace the 1.5TB into right bay. Power up.
• Once powered up, the NAS thinks the 1.5TB in the right bay is a new drive, and asked to rebuild the RAID 1 and sync the data. I was thinking that it should be OK since the HDD in the left bay was never touched so data should be intact. Clicked OK to go ahead.
• RAID 1 rebuilt OK. Then the problem starts with the never-ending syncing as described above.
• Further, I am unable to access any of my files on the NAS despite the GUI shows that about 800GB of the disk space is used with about 600GB available (which is correct before I started mucking around with the NAS). I tried to access via my Mac, a Windows, my Android, and my iPad, but none can get through. All it shows are 2 folders - a BT_1 and a web_page (or something similar) folder.

As mentioned in the other post, I can (but haven't yet) try to fire up a version of Ubuntu and plug in the 1.5TB to see if the files are still there (and backup onto one of my new 2TB along the way). But, I'm suspecting that the data on my right HDD (the one I pulled out) is probably gone, and I don't particular want to pull out the left HDD  (the one is not (physically) touched at all) in the fear that the data on this HDD is corrupted as well.

Would some NAS expert out there be able to provide assistance into (a) what caused the syncing to loop over itself; and (b) how best to access the files on the left HDD so that I can back it up?

Once the data is backed up, I aim to just set one 2TB into the NAS, set up a RAID 1, copy the data into it before inserting the 2nd 2TB into the NAS to complete the RAID 1 configuration.

Many thanks for your help!

[ivan]

OK so you know you need a backup and that is the first thing you need to do. 

The safest way of doing this is to put the good 1.5 TB drive into a USB caddy or USB/SATA adapter and connect it to a computer that can read Ext2/3 formatted disks. 

I would advise that you use the 1.5 TB disk you have been using to test this setup and once you know it works remove the other one - label it so you know which one it is - then insert your two 2 TB disks and prepare them as a RAID 1 array.

The way you propose fixing the RAID 1 array will not work.  Setting up the array will format the disks so if you use the 2 TB disk with your recovered data on it that data will be erased and you can't set up a RAID array with only one disk.

Then use the good 1.5 TB disk in the USB caddy or adapter and transfer the files from it to the NAS.  Be aware that if your 1.5 TB disk is almost full this will take a loooong time.

The advantage of doing this is that you have the 1.5 TB disk as a backup.

[LazyLazyBug]

Hi Ivan, thank you for your advice.

My problem is that the I am unable to access the files on the NAS now. I haven't tried pulling out the right HDD to see if I can see the files as part of a degraded RAID 1 set up.

Do you know if there is any risk of losing data if I pull out the left HDD out of the NAS now and attaching it to USB/SATA adapter to connect to a Linux system? As you can imagine, I don't want to risk stuffing up the left HDD too.

Thanks once again for your advice.

[JavaLawyer]

This following sticky post describes several third party products for mounting DNS-323 HDDs in a Windows machine: DNS-323 - Data Recovery (Windows PCs).

To answer your question, there's always a risk of rendering a HDD unreadable by a ShareCenter if the HDD is removed and mounted in client PC. If the client PC performs any modifications to the filesystem, the ShareCenter may not be able to identify the HDD.

[ivan]

Hi LazyLazyBug.  Once you start chopping and changing disks there will always be a problem in trying to use the NAS to read your data, usually because the NAS is simple minded and gets confused easily. 

This is why I outlined the procedure that I did, it gives you a chance to check what you are doing by using the suspect drive first.

As JavaLawyer says there is always the potential to mess up and loose some of your data if the computer writes to the hard disk - again my saying use the suspect disk first.

I don't think you will have much joy trying to use the NAS to read your data as things stand.  If you were a client of ours that brought in the NAS and disks, the first thing we would do is pull the disks - after marking - and put them into what amounts to a USB/SATA adapter (OK, we have a rather special one we made that allows us to just plug in either 3.5" or 2.5" drives into the computer) and then copy the data to our storage system.  Having done that we would setup your larger drives as a RAID 1 array and transfer the data back to the NAS.  Then the choice is to either format one of the smaller drives a NTFS and copy the data to that and then put it into an external USB case or to put both smaller drives into storage cases.  We normally recommend the external USB case because this allows you to have direct access to your backed up data and add more as necessary.

The only other thing I can say is THINK about what you are doing - don't just click on 'OK' in a dialogue box, read what it says and use 'Cancel' if necessary and you should be able to recover most, if not all, of your data.  I say the last bit because there might be problems with the good disk that we don't know about.