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[hotshot79]

Hello all I have this unit with 1.01 firmware.  It's not the greatest computer equipment I've used or owned but having said that EVERYTHING I have is on it and I can't access it....Can someone please helpl and tell me how to recover my files?

[mrveronn]

The DNS-345 stores data on the hard drives in EXT4 format. If your unit is not functioning at all, then one option to look at is to install the DNS-345 hard drives in your computer, and use a program that can read EXT4 drives. There is a post in this forum http://forums.dlink.com/index.php?topic=47326.0 that lists a few programs that can do this, even with drives in a few different RAID configurations. Have a look at that posting...

[ivan]

First thing, how was your drive set up, RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 5,  JBOD?  I ask because if it was RAID 0 then unless you have a backup of your data it is gone.

If it was RAID 1 or 5 then you stand a chance of getting your data back assuming the disks are functional and the data itself has not been damaged.

As mrveronn says, there are installable file systems for windows that will allow reading of Ext4 file systems.  You will also need either a USB SATA caddy or adapter to attach the drive to your computer rather than installing the drive in your computer.

If you manage to recover your data make sure you have reliable backups in the future because any form of RAID is not a backup, it is only a system that keeps data available in the event of disk failure - the exception being RAID 0.

[hotshot79]

It was set as RAID 5 - I have to say I'm really disjointedness in this...all brand new 1TB WD drives...I'll see if I can get anything back.  What a waste of money.

[hotshot79]

Thanks for all your help

[JavaLawyer]

A common misconception is the idea that RAID-5 is a backup, it is not.  RAID-5 provides redundancy, but is not a backup for your data.  Please see the following sticky post: DNS-345 - Data Backup vs. Redundancy

[hotshot79]

So for some reason I was able to access the webpage for a little while after I rebooted the NAS last.  Is there anything I can do to if I can access the page to get it back up and functional?

[hotshot79]

On another note - if I remove all of the drives I can access the NAS over the network

[JavaLawyer]

This approach is pure conjecture (and I can't speak to the consequences), but you can try powering down the DNS-345 and removing one HDD from the array and reboot. Perhaps the volume will come up as degraded. You can try repeating this approach for all four HDDs. Perhaps there's one bad apple in the bunch that's causing the issue.

[hotshot79]

@ Java et al

Thanks to all for your help.  It's greatly aperciated that you took the time to respond to my questions.  In the end nothing worked and I will have to try to recover thu lixux or one of the windows applications suggested....Which brings me to my next question....

I took one of the drives out and put it in a caddy...booted into my linux live usb and this drive is readable...yippie....but where will i find my files in this file system?  Also if I save the data (Mostly media: pics and video) to another windows formatted drive that I can read in linux will i be able to read it once i boot back into Windows?.....

Urgh....I'm so disappointed with all of this especially considering that the stupid DNS 345 is less than a month old.  It's just something that should not happen with a piece of hardware that is built for what this is built and advertised for....grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.......

[ivan]

OK, if you can read the drive and copy your data from it it should not matter what you copy it to, be it a linux or windows PC, it will be readable by that operating system.

Once you have your data safe you should get the drive manufacturers disk test software and use it to test each of your drives.

I can understand your frustration when things go bad - I see it often with our clients, but you need to look at the problem to try and find out what went wrong.

We have a DNS-345 and as part of the tests we did on it before putting it into service on our network we deliberately cut power to check that it would restart when power was restored - it did.  We also removed a drive while the unit was running to check how it handled that - again no problems.

In your case I think you might have suffered either a disk failure - we have seen disks fail within 5 minutes of first use - or there may have been a spike on the power line that got through the power supply and corrupted something in the system which prevents you using the raid array.

If all of your disks test out as OK, I would start replacing them one at a time and see what you get on the web interface.  If you get that far and run into problems get back here and ask.  It depends on what results you get what you might need to do.