NAS Drive Replacement

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jthorpe

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Mar 29, 2016
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I have a couple WD NAS drives (one model #: WD20000H1NC-00 which has a 2 TB WD green drive) that I got used. For some reason they aren't showing up on the network any more. Not sure if it's the drives that are going bad, or something else. I haven't attached them to my desktop to try to check the drive, as I don't know if attaching them with Windows running will cause an issue (I know with some TiVo drive replacements it says not to allow Windows to boot). I would like to replace the drive (and possibly increase the drive size as well). My questions are as follows:

1.) Is the boot program/OS, etc on the drive itself, or is it on a chip on the board that connects to the drive (i.e.: can I plug in a new drive and it'll work, or do I need to copy a boot file/program to the new drive first)?

2.) What drive type would be best for this (WD has black, blue, red, green and purple. I know green is low power, etc. but not sure if there is an advantage with any other type)?

3.) The current drives have some data on there I'd like to copy over to a new drive. How can I copy this over? Is there a program or set up where I can plug both (or even 1 drive at a time) and copy the complete contents of the drive (bit by bit) over to a new drive? I have a Maxtor dual drive NAS that was raided without redundancy (yes I know a bad idea, but I didn't check it before using it, now I wish I had), Is there a way of plugging in the drives to my desktop (or a hard drive to USB adapter) to be able to read and copy (with or without deleting the files from the old drive) onto a new drive or a folder in my documents?

My main thing is to retrieve as much data off the drives as possible, but would like to reuse the enclosures, even if it's just to store TV show/Movies on (for use with things like Boxee Box, and other streaming devices) to store my DVD movie collection on (as I have the original disc as backups).

Any help is greatly appreciated. Thanks.
 
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1. The "OS" so to speak is on the NAS hardware itself, not the drives, much like if you attach something to a router. See if there's any updates for your NAS available. A lot of NAS hardware will have drive recovery/repair tools built in as well.
2. WD color codes their drives based on intended use. Black = Gaming, Blue = General Purpose, Red = NAS, Green = Low-Power General Purpose, Purple = Security Systems. Each has features based on their intended use, and power options are set according to use as well. You can use a Blue or Green in just about anything.
3. If your NAS hardware has recovery utilities in it (many do) that will be your best bet for data retrieval. Most NAS will automatically create a RAID volume out of the available drives, which can complicate recovery otherwise.
 
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Thanks for your answer. I thought I should just be able to put in new drives and it'll work, but haven't really seen anything online about it and haven't picked up any drives to test it. I knew the rough idea of the WD drive colors, but didn't know if a purple drive would be about the same as a green, etc (haven't really looked at all the specs on each drive). How can I find out if my NAS has recovery utilities, when I plug the in on the network, power them up and wait for them to show on the network, they don't show up. What would happen if I took out the drive from the NAS enclosure and plugged it into an open sata port/bay in my desktop with Windows running? Would it cause any problems with the data that's on the drive currently, or do I need to use Linux or something else?

Thanks again.
 
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Thanks for your answer. I thought I should just be able to put in new drives and it'll work, but haven't really seen anything online about it and haven't picked up any drives to test it. I knew the rough idea of the WD drive colors, but didn't know if a purple drive would be about the same as a green, etc (haven't really looked at all the specs on each drive). How can I find out if my NAS has recovery utilities, when I plug the in on the network, power them up and wait for them to show on the network, they don't show up. What would happen if I took out the drive from the NAS enclosure and plugged it into an open sata port/bay in my desktop with Windows running? Would it cause any problems with the data that's on the drive currently, or do I need to use Linux or something else?

Thanks.
 
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Thanks for the reply. I have had them plugged into my network, but no IP address shows up under the attached devices and tried all IP addresses to try to access the NAS, but nothing showed up for these drives. I did take 2 of my 1 TB WD NAS (my book) drives apart and connected them to the 3rd SATA port on my Vaio desktop.

The first 1 TB WD green drive didn't show up in the "Dev Manager" - "Disk Management" section (using Windows XP). However, the second one showed up with the following partitions;

24 MB (Unallocated) (with a black bar above)
2.80 GB Healthy (Unknown Partition) (with a blue bar above)
102 MB Healthy (Unknown Partition) (with a blue bar above)
965 MB Healthy (Unknown Partition) (with a blue bar above)
927.64 GB Healthy (Unknown Partition) (with a blue bar above)
(Black bar is Unallocated and the blue is Primary Partition and all show 100% free)

If I recall, the only option I had when I right clicked was to delete a partition. I know there are files on this drive so it shouldn't show up as 100% free. How can I copy/read the files off this drive without deleting a partition or reformatting it? Also, is there anyway of copying over the files from the drives that are in my 2 drive Maxtor NAS that is in a RAID 0 (I believe it's in a RAID 0). I think one of them is either bad or almost dead as none of these will read as being attached to my network. I haven't plugged in the drives from the RAID'd Maxtor NAS to my computer (yet). Is there a way and or program I can use with something like a HDD bay to USB (externally powered) where I can clone the drives 1 to 1 to either another 1 TB drive or larger (I don't care if it's a slow process)?

Thanks again.
 
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One of the flaws of a raid 0 array is that there is no error checking or backup. If one disk goes out, you lose all of the data contained in the entire raid array. I prefer raid 10, as it has the speed benefit of 0 with the error checking and redundancy of 1. The downside is... more disks required.
As long as the NAS hardware is still functional it should show up on the network, even with no drives inserted. If it's connected to a wireless network, or even just plugged into a wireless router, you can use a network discovery app to map your network. The one I find easiest to use is "Fing". It has both Android and iOS versions. It will show all of the devices on the network (that aren't actively blocking it) and you can narrow down the list until you find the NAS. If it still doesn't show, try factory resetting it without the drives attached. If you do it with the drives, you may lose the data.
If you do manage to get back into your NAS interface, there should be recovery tools built in. The problem with recovering a raid volume, especially a raid 0, is that you need to have all the disks running under the same controller type that created it. Just plugging them into your raid compatible motherboard wouldn't work in most cases.
Good luck, this is your best shot at recovering here. The next steps are more... severe, difficult, slow, all assuming the data can be read at all.
 
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I did replug one of the WD NAS drives back onto and for some reason it is up and running again. The other WD one still won't show up in the attached devices on my routers DHCP table. I even tried the possible IP's that it would have been (I set it up as a static IP) I have even tried the reset button, but nothing. I have yet to pull this drive out of the case and attach it to a SATA to USB adapter that has an external power to see if it'll show up on the Disk Management of Windows.

I do have a Maxtor Shared Storage II NAS that won't show up on the network, and won't respond to any IP addresses thrown at it. Even tried the reset button on it and still nothing. I did pull the 2 drives out of this and used the SATA to USB adapter to connect it to my notebook. I labeled the drives 1 and 2 (was planning on possibly switching the PCB on these between the two as they have the same part, model, and firmware - the only difference is the serial number and date code, but what I've found online those aren't important in a PCB switch). I plugged in one of the drives to my notebook and Windows 7 wouldn't show a drive connected. I connected the second drive to verify it reads, and Windows did show the drive (it's in a un allocated state, but shows up). I got interrupted and forgot what one worked and what one didn't, so I reconnected the drives again, but this time I must have reversed the order I connected them (instead of the drive I marked #2, I connected the one I labeled #1 first), I connected the second drive and this one worked, they both showed up on the Disk Manager (both as un allocated). I restarted everything and tried this test again, this time connecting the drive I marked #2 first and then the one I labeled #1, and only one drive showed up. I restarted everything again, and did the # 1 first, it read, then connected #2 and it read, not sure why it's this way, but they are part of a RAIO0 Array. So the drives seems fine

One thing I did notice when they were in the Maxtor NAS box (before shooting this video I uploaded to YouTube - https://youtu.be/8MKHWwyVfKE ), is it sounded like (at least) one drive lost power as it sounded like it powered down (like it was unplugged) and a second later it started up again (like it was plugged back in to a power source). It basically power cycles, either one drive, or the whole unit as the lights and everything shut off for a second or two and re-powered on. So I'm thinking it may be something wrong with the controller board in the NAS box. Apparently there has been a lot of problems with the Maxtor Shared Storage NAS drives. I know I won't be reusing it.

My question now is, how can I read (and copy) the data that's on these discs when the Disk Management shows it as unallocated? All the so called solutions I've seen so far online deals with formatting, I don't want to format it and loose what possible data I can get off the drives. How can I get to this data without formatting or deleting data?

Thanks.
 
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Data recovery (especially in RAID volumes) is a painful process. The program I recommend is OnTrack EasyRecovery, but there's plenty of good software that can do a sector-by-sector read of the data. It's important to get a program that will read the physical sectors, not just what's listed in the partition table and/or MFT. Once you have a sector-exact copy of both drives, you can try to clone the copy into a new pair of drives, preferably the exact same model, but definitely the same 2 drives.
After you have these clones, you can test the drives in your old NAS box. If it still doesn't work you're out of luck unless you can find what RAID card the NAS uses and get a similar one for a desktop, RAID is VERY picky about things like that.
 
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Thanks for the reply. Since both drives show up individually when plugged into a Windows 7 laptop via a SATA to USB externally powered drive adapter, I'm thinking it's more a problem with the main board in the Maxtor 2 HDD NAS box than the drives. Plugging the drives in the Maxtor NAS drive box, and powering it on, I can hear one drive spin up, then a second or two later the second drive will spin. After about 2 to 5 seconds or so after the second drive spinning up, the power cuts off like it was unplugged and plugged back in, and then repeats, it's like the circuit breaker blows and then is reset. My laptop running Windows 7 showed them as unallocated under the disk management, which makes me think it might be a power issue of the NAS box. I did test the voltage on the power plugs to the drive, one showed 7 volts on the 5+ V leg (yellow to ground), but nothing on the others. The red to ground is suppose to be 12+ V (this is without drives in it). I did plug the drives in again, first one at a time, to see if it'll spin the one drive for awhile without shutting down (like it did before), but it didn't spin up. I attached both drives and plugged the power back in and none of them spin up, all I hear is a light tick tick tick tick (not a drive click). So based on this, I'm assuming that my power part of the Maxtor NAS is bad. And I'm assuming that the reason the drives show up as unallocated in Windows is cause the format of the drive isn't FAT or NTFS. I thought it might be Linux and installed both ext2 volume reader and ext2 FSD which is suppose to read EXT 2 & EXT 3 formats, but it also showed the drive as RAW. I did find a Maxtor main board to connect the drives to (as it says it was taken out of a working NAS box) and see if I can be able to read and copy the files over to a NTFS formatted drive. They are selling the board for $18, so that might be a venture I might go on.

Now the WD 1 TB NAS that I have also won't show up on the network (I would try to plug it directly into my computer, but I don't have a crossover cable and it's my understanding that you need one to do that). It's a wd20000h1nc-00 model, and the top light blinks off and on after it's been powered on for a bit. Windows 7 disk management also shows this drive as unallocated. (also, I'm not sure what format the drive is in as the 2 earlier listed programs only reads it as a raw drive). Am I safe to assume that if I format a new drive to NTFS and then use a clone hard drive bay to clone the drive over to the new one and try it in Windows, it'll still show as unallocated? I know a weird long shot of a question, but worth a shot. I assume it won't cause it'll copy over what ever format it's in over to the new drive, even if it's copied sector by sector. Is there any way I can retrieve any files off this drive without deleting what might be on it? I'm not sure if this might be because of a power issue as well or what, I'm currently searching for another case of the same model to see if it'll read the drive in that. Also to note, none of these drives are making any clicking or any other odd noises.
 
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Modern computers don't need a crossover cable, they automatically negotiate the wiring. In general, if either end has a gigabit speed port, you don't need a crossover.
There's a good tiny Linux distribution that you can boot from a 256 MB+ USB drive or CD that can read almost any known format, even the mac HFS+ format. It even can be used to make a 1:1 copy of the physical sectors using the DD shell command, but that's a whole other can of worms and there's better front ends to do this, such as clonezilla.
GParted is the name, stands for Graphical Partition Editor: http://gparted.org/livecd.php
 
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The three computers I have are all Sony Vaios. The desktop is a VGC-RA830G (bought around 2003), a VGC-XL1A (media PC I think this was made around 2005, I bought it used) both running XP and a VPCF132FX notebook with Windows 7 64 bit (this was bought around 2007), not sure are capable without a crossover or not, but I do know they don't have a gigabit port (to my knowledge). On the suggested programs, is that burnt to a disc as an iso image, and do/should I unplug my current drives if using it on my desktop? Is the GParted one that reads virtually any format?

Thanks again.
 
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The Windows 7 computer has a gigabit port, and even a blu-ray drive.
GParted live version will read any major format. If you're curious on exactly what can be done with each file system, there's a chart once you're in the program. It can be burned to a CD/DVD or set up to boot from a USB. I recommend this program to do it: http://www.pendrivelinux.com/universal-usb-installer-easy-as-1-2-3/
 
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What size thum drive does it need, I'm not at a computer to look at the specs of the program right now, and if I directly connect it to my desktop to a sata port, should I unplug my drives that contain my OS? Thanks.
 
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Any drive that is 256 MB or larger will work. Basically any USB made in the last 10 years.
It will make it easier to figure out which drive is which if you unplug your internal drives, but it's not necessary. Linux labels SATA drives as the following (generally): SDA=First port, SDB=Second port, SDC=Third, and so on.
You can select which drive you want to work with, and unlike Windows, Linux will not try to write data to a newly mounted drive as soon as it's plugged in. This makes it a much safer option for data recovery.
If GParted can't read the disks, at least the partition tables, then there's not much that can be done without a RAID controller. You can try to set the drives as a RAID 0 configuration from your BIOS and then try to read them, but there's no guarantee it will work. It does around 20% of the time.
 
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I don't know what I'm doing wrong, but I went to gparted and created it with the pendrivelinux (Yumi) setup. In step 1 I chose the J drive (my thumb drive that's 958 MB in size, formatted to Fat32). In Step 2: I picked GParted (Partition Tools) under the "System Tools" section. On Step 3: I pointed it to the GParted .iso file I downloaded.

I disconnected the drives, except for the 1 drive that came from my WD single drive NAS, connected to a SATA port and power, with the newly created ISO on the thumb drive plugged in. When booting from XP, it comes up with NTLDR is missing and to press ctrl+alt+del to restart. On my Windows 7 laptop, it says

SYSLINUX 6.03 EDD 2014-10-06 Copyright (c) 1994-2014 H. Peter Anvin et al
WARNING: No configuration file found
boot:

So I'm not sure why it's not showing the menu part of GParted.
 
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That's the weird part as the only drive that was connected was the one from the NAS, not the XP drives
 
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I tried it once and XP gave a bad boot error with the ctrl+alt+del to restart. I'm trying again, reformated the thumbdrive and running rufus again with it checking for bad blocks with 4 passes. (Fingers Crossed)
 
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I tried it twice and both times I get "A disk read error occurred - Press Ctrl+Alt+Del to restart" both times.
 
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I've tried different USB drives, USB ports, tried the .iso and the DD version on the Rufus (rufus-2.9.exe) and get these:

Reboot and select proper boot device or insert boot media in selected boot device and press a key


Or


A disk read error occurred - press ctrl+alt+del to restart

The only thing I haven't tried is to burn it to a CD as an .iso
 
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I did burn an .iso CD, and after a few boot tries, it finally came up. I let it auto load, and it starts going through it's process but stops

The last few lines are:

[4.605143] [<C1540b89>] ? ret_from_kernel_thread+0x21/0x38
[4.605143] [<c153ae80>] ? rest_init+0x70/0x70
[4.605207] Kernel Offset: disabled
[4.605257] ---[ end Kernel panic - not syncing: VFS: Unable to mount root fs on unknown-block(0,0)

that's as far as it loads
 
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I did it without any HDD's (except for the one from the NAS) attached and the only other thing connected was a CD/DVD drive and the plug for my wireless mouse and keyboard, so that's already been tried. I did that so it was easier to tell what drive it is, and to remove any possible conflict with the current OS drives. A couple of times trying to load the GParted (Fail Safe Mode) I got the: Error reading sector 121733

And on a couple boots of GParted I got a Error reading sector 123930.
 
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