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[NickPDX]

Today I booted up my computer and upon trying to access my DNS-323 it was not found.  I looked at the unit and it appeared to have activity with all lights blinking.  It would not respond to any button presses and I couldn't log into it in any ways.  I had to kill the power to it in order to get it to power down or reboot in anyway.  Upon turning it back on it gets most of the way there but the large center light and the right HDD light continuously blink.  I have found a number of posts in here where people have had the same issue but not many have followed through and posted their solutions or outcomes.

I read in the Data Recovery Sticky that people have recovered the data using come of those techniques after they have "exhausted all conventional options".  I was wondering what those "conventional options" would be?  At this point I have powered down the unit, I have popped the drives out and placed them back in to ensure they were seated correctly, I have attempted to boot without the network cable plugged in as well.  Nothing has had any effect thus far. 

I want to do whatever I can to recover as much of the data possible.  I am an idiot and have it setup as a RAID 0,  did this for maximum storage capacity because at the time I couldn't afford larger drives.  There are no clicks or knocks coming from the drives that wouldn't indicate a major HDD failure from what I can tell, so I am hopeful.

What else would you all suggest to try to get the NAS to start to respond again, keeping in mind that I want to retain the data.  Should I press the reset button on the back? If so should I do it with the drives in or out?  I do have a DNS-325 that is currently setup with a RAID 0 as well, what would happen if I swapped the drives into that NAS enclosure?

I appreciate any help I can get.  Thank you!!

[fordem]

It MAY be time to kiss your data goodbye, or, consider contacting a recovery service.

Watch the drive lights as the unit powers up - do they both flash initially?  What does the other drive light (the one that does not stay flashing) do - does it come on and stay on, or does it stay off?

Pull the drives and power the unit on - what you are attempting to do here is to determine if the problem lies with the unit or the drives - the unit should, assuming you are using a recent firmware version, boot all the way up without the drives, and you should be able to access the admin webpages.

If it does not come all the way up, you probably have a defective unit, and MAY be able to retrieve the data by installing the drives in a different DNS-323 - I have not tried swapping drives between the 323 & the 325, I do however recall reading (on these forums) that the formats are different - and if you value the data, I suggest you not fool around with the drives as your attempts could further jeopardize the data.

I would also suggest that you look into the methods available for backing up your data and start doing so immediately - whilst you're about it - get rid of the RAID0 array on the 325, a RAID0 array gives you no more storage than two separate drives, but has twice the risk of data loss.