Recover data from WD MyBookLiveDuo that will no longer map to network drive

[ryanvox]

I have a WD MyBookLiveDuo NAS with two 3TB drives that keeps dropping its shared network connection. Remapping the network drive used to work, but no longer does. I used to be able to navigate to it by its IP address, but that no longer works. I have done a lot of research on this problem and there seems to be no solutions. I am at the point where I just want to transfer my data from the old NAS to a new NAS I bought. I can't access it though. I have tried taking the drives out of the old NAS and hooking them up to my computer. Disk Management recognizes them, but I can't see them in My Computer. It seems the only way I can even use the disks is to reformat them. Is there a way around that so I can transfer my data to my new NAS? Thanks

 

[Solandri]

Some or all of the WD NASes and external drives use a proprietary hardware encryption scheme. You cannot access your data by removing the drives from the device. You must access them with the device.

Someone posted a tutorial and guide for decrypting the drives in your PC in this thread (apparently the key is stored on the drive itself). He says it's Linux-only, so depending on how important your data is, you may have a lot of work ahead of you. Good luck.

https://community.wd.com/t/how-to-decrypt-a-wd-mybook-drive-after-its-removed-from-the-enclosure/146588

 

[S Haran]

It's true many WD MyBook devices use encryption. But the MyBookLiveDuo NAS does not.

The two RAID member drives are in a Linux RAID format which Windows will not recognize. Absolutely do _not_ reformat.

This is from my notes on a similar MyBookLiveDuo remote recovery case I worked on in the past. It is the output of the Linux command "fsarchiver probe" and it shows the drives, partitions, and md devices where md127 is the data volume in Linux ext4 format. Also note this is a RAID1 setup. Yours may be RAID1 or RAID0.

[======DISK======] [=============NAME==============] [====SIZE====]
[sda ] [WDC WD30EZRX-00M ] [ 2.73 TB]
[sdb ] [WDC WD30EZRX-00M ] [ 2.73 TB]

[=====DEVICE=====] [==FILESYS==] [======LABEL======] [====SIZE====]
[sda1 ] [linux_raid_] [<unknown> ] [ 1.91 GB]
[sda2 ] [linux_raid_] [<unknown> ] [ 1.91 GB]
[sda3 ] [linux_raid_] [MyBookLiveDuo:2 ] [ 489.00 MB]
[sda4 ] [linux_raid_] [MyBookLiveDuo:3 ] [ 2.72 TB]
[sdb1 ] [linux_raid_] [<unknown> ] [ 1.91 GB]
[sdb2 ] [linux_raid_] [<unknown> ] [ 1.91 GB]
[sdb3 ] [linux_raid_] [MyBookLiveDuo:2 ] [ 489.00 MB]
[sdb4 ] [linux_raid_] [MyBookLiveDuo:3 ] [ 2.72 TB]
[md126 ] [swap ] [<unknown> ] [ 488.99 MB]
[md127 ] [ext4 ] [<unknown> ] [ 2.72 TB]

So recovery should be achievable from Linux. Or via RAID recovery software like R-Studio, UFSexplorer, DMDE.com etc.

Note for safety you may first want to make clone images. Also it may be that one of your drives is failing so you should review the SMART status.

If you get stuck or need help I'm happy to assist. NAS recovery is my specialty.

 

[ryanvox]

Hi ryanvox,
You can easily recover your drivers by mounting them on a Linux PC. First of all install UBUNTU on your PC on a different drive(NOT the NAS RAID ones)
Once done with the installation of UBUNTU, open Terminal
Install mdadm with by entering these commands below:
Ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ sudo -i
root@ubuntu:~$ apt-get install mdadm
Select No Configuration.
Once done installing mdadm, install lvm2 by enter the following commands:
root@ubuntu:~$ apt-get install lvm2
After this type in the below command to mount the RAID drives successfully:
root@ubuntu:~$ mdadm -Asf && vgchange –ay
After this step your drives shall be mounted and you can easily copy all of the data to an external HDD of equal or greater capacity than the raid array. However if this doesn’t work, you can easily recover your data by using data recovery software like Stellar Phoenix Windows Data Recovery Technician.

when installing mdadm I wasn't prompted to select No Configuration. Not sure if I was supposed to go somewhere else to do that. I proceeded anyway. I got to the last command and it said the drives couldn't be mounted.