Reading Data from Seagate hard drive extracted from Seagate Central
 

Hi all,

As a way of introduction, I wouldn't call myself a linux newbie, rather a linux ignorant person unfortunately but I appreciate if you can help me regarding this critical issue to me.

I have purchased the Sagate Central NAS drive (3TB) a year ago and for no reason now there is no electric power at all and thus I cannot read anything on the drive at all. Since the data on the NAS drive is very valuable to me, I decided to disassemble the drive and connect it directly to my computer.

The problem is I can't seem to read anything on the drive on my Windows 7. I have researched the issue and it seems the problem is that the file system on the drive is ext4 (Not so sure about this since I know nothing about linux and the drive is not recognizable by Windows). I have tried several linux readers including (Paragon ExtFS, DiskInternals, and Ext2explore). The latter two seemed to be able to explore the drive, however, they see it as 4 partitions (a couple 1GB partitions and a couple 20MB ones). There are loads of folders and files. Accordingly, I cannot recover a single file of my own.

I tried to explore another solution and I decided to use Knoppix 7.4.0 DVD. Again the same problem as the one I faced with the linux readers on Windows 7.

I'm really desperate to recover the data, can you please help. Appreciate it.

P.S. Sorry for the long post but I wanted to provided as much detail as possible.

Hi,

Ok, looks to me like you need real professional data recovery (expensive)

A Linux 'live' cd should be able to read the drive
knopix being one

3TB is a strange hdd capacity (is it one drive? )

My best advice, if data is valuable,, seek professional data recovery

No power to drive is a 'good sign'
Clicks/scratching/knocking sounds are bad

No power?... may be replacement of the circuit board will resolve it.. not always so simple.

To reiterate STOP!
If the data is valued, look for professional (expensive) service

Now you have been bit, consider backup options

So what does this mean ? You mean that your files are not on there, or there is an error when you try to copy them off ?

As for professional services, they are required when the drive is totally dead. They will remove the disks and mount them and then recover the data. As long as the HDD is accessible there is no urgent need for expensive professional services. However, you should be careful because your data is on there. So, do NOT write anything to the drive that you are recovering from, do not alter any partitions either. If you do that, no harm will come to your data.

Thanks Firerat for your reply.

Yes, the 3TB is a one traditional SATA hard drive that was previously inside a NAS Box (before I disassembled it). It's worth to mention here that the power issue was related to the NAS box not the drive. Accordingly, there would be no need for any hardware replacements or fixing.

The main problem, which is something I didn't mention in my first post, is that linux readers seem to see the partitions as RAW. I guess that means it's only a software problem, right?

Since the data is valuable, I'm willing to pay the cost. The problem is that I live in Egypt. To ship the drive to Seagate labs for instance, the nearest country to me is Netherlands :(

Appreciate any other solution other than Professional data recovery help.

Thanks again

Thank you metaschima for your reply.

My files are not there. It seems the loads of files I'm talking about are the OS of the NAS Box itself but not my data. After all, the RAW partitions totaling 2GB cannot hold my which were around 500GB.

Thanks for the note, I was very cautious not to write anything on the drive.

That's standard behavior. A default windows system doesn't recognize a Linux filesystem and usually shows those partitions as unallocated or unknown. If you are using windows, how/why is the partition or partitions formatted ext4 and how did you determine this? There is software available which can be used on windows that does recognize Linux filesystems. The first thing you need to verify is what the filesystem type is.

You can get some useful information by booting the Knoppix DVD. Make sure your 3TB drive is attached to the computer. Open a terminal and as root user run this command which will show drive/partition and filesystem type information:

That's a lower case letter L, not a number one in the command.

You'll need to explain that in a little more detail. Copying from should not be a problem nor should it require any special permissions so what exactly did you try and what happened. One more thing you should check is before booting Knoppix is whether your external drive is recognized in the BIOS

Honestly, sending to the pro's is the best option

in the meantime, serious review of data backup required .....


assume total loss

Thank you Yancek for your reply.

Yes, I have used a linux reader on Windows and I verified that it's Ext4. I've attached a screen capture to verify this. Please look at Disk 1. Although it's recognized as Ext2 and Ext3, I read somewhere that linux readers may recognize Ext4 as 2 or 3 and that's normal. (Again I don't know).


As per the screen capture, the partition type is Raw, that's most probably the issue. Had it been an NTFS, any partition recovery software ought to do it, but the problem is it isn't :(

That's not good. I can't be sure if the data is supposed to be stored outside of a partition, or whether some partition was damaged and now appears raw. I'd say it is more likely that the data is stored outside a partition, because old partition are usually still listed as partitions even if they were damaged or overwritten.

Here is what I would try first. Get a HDD at least as large as the files you want to recover. Then use photorec or foremost and try to carve some files from these RAW areas of the disk. Make sure not to write anything to the disk your are recovering from. This way you can at least see if your files are on these RAW areas. If they are, then you can decide what to do next ... continue carving or get a professional to do it.

Why not just buy another Seagate Central and swap the drives?

There is a chance it will work, but it would also void the warranty. Depends on how expensive they are vs the professional service.

Or even better fix the NAS box I have already which is an option I'll be seeking.

Ok, so after a couple of weeks, I have managed to recover 100% of the data. Just thought I share the simple solution in case anybody gets bitten just like me.

R-Linux which is a freeware software managed to recover all files. The only con was that it recovered the files without the folder structure. But I can't complain especially if it's a freeware.

Thanks all.

i found some alternative way to fix those problem.

http://myanwyn.blogspot.com/2014/08/...tral-data.html

Linux/Windows Based Recovery Seagate
 

Thanks to this forum and other web pages I was able to recover my data from my Seagate Central NAS (3TB).

If anyone needs a Windows operating recovery procedure, I put a small step by step together:

I hope it might help others in the same dilemma.

http://scottpannan.com/index.php/tid...-using-windows