DSM-G600, DNS-3xx and NSA-220 Hack Forum

dickeywang · 2007-08-21 09:00:51

I had a 400GB Hitachi HDD installed on the DNS-323 (using "simple" configuration), and I copied all of my data (~ 250GB) onto the Hitachi. Today I want to install another Seagate 300GB HDD into the second (left) slot. After the new drive was installed, I login to the web interface and was told that DNS needs to format the new installed HDD and it says "the data on the original HDD won't be affected", however, after the format I realized that it was formatting the Hitachi HDD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Although I have a copy of the most important data (about 10GB) on my desktop, the most part of my data was lost. I am using 1.03 firmware, and I don't expect the DNS to have such a serious bug after 3 revision of firmwares!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

EDIT: I have mounted the Hitachi on a Linux machine and confirmed it is physically formated, so it is not a simple mount point problem indicated by the D-Link FAQ that can be fixed by a second reboot. The only directories that are on the Hitachi right now is ".lpd/" and ".systemfile/".
Also, Data rescue softwares found another directory on the disk named "Inode11/", but it is empty as reported by R-Linux and Stellar Phoenix Linux.

Update: OK, none of the partition rebuild software was able to recover the entire partition. But I used Photorec and it recovered some of the pictures/videos. However most of the videos has been split into pieces, and only the first 1-2 minutes can be played, and the file names has been changed into some random numbers so I guess I will spend weeks dealing with the millions of files.

I reinserted both Hitachi and Seagate into the DNS, and it again formated the Seagate. And I noticed the following:
1) The HDD in the right bay (the bay on your right hand side when you are facing the front plate) has always been /dev/sda (mounted as /mnt/HD_a2), and the one in the left bay is /dev/sdb (/mnt/HD_b2).
2) /dev/sda is shown as the Volume 2 in the web interface, and /dev/sdb is Volume 1, which is definitely different from what the D-Link FAQ claims. (I tried reboot several times, and it has always been like this)

Since the D-Link FAQ was documented in December 2006, I guess something they added into firmware 1.02/1.03 caused my problem.

Update2: I sent an email to the D-Link tech support after the Hitachi was formatted, and today I received a response. Basically they have no idea how things like this could happen. I recommended that they include more information in the web interface about the disk when DNS is asking to format the disk in the next firmware release. I hope they will address this problem.

Last edited by dickeywang (2007-08-23 06:06:16)

erostiff · 2007-08-21 09:35:57

That is a shame. The strange thing is i did the exact same thing, the d-link also said it would not affect my first drive and it didn't.
I think there are two things i did different: i used 2 exact same drives (that should not be the problem) and i switched my drives manually.
(see DLINK FAQ)
So, it's also possible that your data is not gone:
http://support.dlink.com/faq/view.asp?p … on=DNS-323
maybe your volumes have been switched

dickeywang · 2007-08-21 09:50:27

I read that Dlink FAQ before I installed the Seagate, and in fact that's the exact reason that I didn't remove the Hitachi when installing the Seagate because I though it would simply just be a mount point difference. I should not have trusted D-Link's FAQ.

I tried to mount the Hitachi to a linux machine and confirmed that it is the HDD that was formated. I also tried remove the Seagate, and only left the Hitachi in the DNS, and the web interface said that the disk is empty.

I curse whoever designed the DNS or its firmware. There are lots of Lecture videos/notes that I made when attending classes, lots of home videos that I made during traveling, and they are all gone.

I am glad that I still have a copy of my entire Ph.D. works on the desktop, which are all the works I have been done in the past 6 years. I will defend my thesis in two month. I would probably kill myself if those had been lost.

Again, D-Link is terrible!!!

PS: the Hitachi has always been in the right slot (the one on your left hand side when you facing the front plate of the DNS), and the seagate was only installed in the left slot.

Last edited by dickeywang (2007-08-21 10:04:22)

erostiff · 2007-08-21 10:02:47

My suggestion: do nothing with that disc and try simple data recovery software. I don't know for sure how the drives are formatted in the dlink but i'm almost sure it is not a secure whipe. Your files are still there then, waiting to be overwritten...

something like this should help:
http://www.stellarinfo.com/linux-data-recovery.htm

Last edited by erostiff (2007-08-21 10:04:38)

lalex · 2007-08-21 10:09:02

DW,

Thanks for sharing this terrible experience. It's an important heads-up for everybody - especially for noobs like myself.

Hope this won't affect your future - although I imagine that it was a close call.

I had a similar experience when MS Word (version '86) scrambled my thesis beyond recognition - a 6mo work which was not backed up (yes, I was an idiot, I know!) only one month away from the big show. Guess who worked his a$$ out 24/7 to re-write everything? Luckily, all the research material remained intact so I did not have to go over that all over again :-)

Best of luck, Professor!
Al

dickeywang · 2007-08-21 10:11:47

erostiff wrote:
My suggestion: do nothing with that disc and try simple data recovery software. I don't know for sure how the drives are formatted in the dlink but i'm almost sure it is not a secure whipe. Your files are still there then, waiting to be overwritten...

something like this should help:
http://www.stellarinfo.com/linux-data-recovery.htm

Thanks, R-Linux is scanning the disk, and I will try the one your suggested if R-Linux doesn't help.
The bad things is, the DNS reformat the disk with the same partition table (~500MB swap + ~370GB ext2), so the first recovery software I tried (testdist) can only read the current partition table, which shows that the disk is empty.

finger crossing.

erostiff · 2007-08-21 10:20:17

dickeywang wrote:
Thanks, R-Linux is scanning the disk, and I will try the one your suggested if R-Linux doesn't help.
The bad things is, the DNS reformat the disk with the same partition table (~500MB swap + ~370GB ext2), so the first recovery software I tried (testdist) can only read the current partition table, which shows that the disk is empty.

I had a crisis or 2, 3, 4 ,5,.. myself, mostly because of my own stupidity. R-studio (also ext2 support, same developers as r-linux) helped me a lot of the times for my windows files...
Hope everything comes back to you...good luck

dickeywang · 2007-08-21 10:26:27

lalex wrote:
DW,

Thanks for sharing this terrible experience. It's an important heads-up for everybody - especially for noobs like myself.

Hope this won't affect your future - although I imagine that it was a close call.

I had a similar experience when MS Word (version '86) scrambled my thesis beyond recognition - a 6mo work which was not backed up (yes, I was an idiot, I know!) only one month away from the big show. Guess who worked his a$$ out 24/7 to re-write everything? Luckily, all the research material remained intact so I did not have to go over that all over again :-)

Best of luck, Professor!
Al

Sorry about your experience with MS Word man. I am glad that I spent 1 hour to back up my thesis works onto the desktop before I installed the Seagate, at least I need to do neither the research nor the thesis writing again. But losing those lecture notes/videos and family videos/pictures still makes me feel really upset. Hope some of them can be recovered.

Last edited by dickeywang (2007-08-21 10:28:37)

dickeywang · 2007-08-21 10:39:47

erostiff wrote:
I had a crisis or 2, 3, 4 ,5,.. myself, mostly because of my own stupidity. R-studio (also ext2 support, same developers as r-linux) helped me a lot of the times for my windows files...
Hope everything comes back to you...good luck

I have never lost such a large amount of data before so I have no experience about those rescue software. I really appreciate your suggestion.

lalex · 2007-08-21 12:31:41

Hi again,

I have dug around the Dlink 323 FAQ and found this:

http://support.dlink.com/faq/view.asp?p … on=DNS-323

AFAIK this may explain the "formatting accident".

Best,
Al

dickeywang · 2007-08-21 13:30:52

lalex wrote:
Hi again,

I have dug around the Dlink 323 FAQ and found this:

http://support.dlink.com/faq/view.asp?p … on=DNS-323

AFAIK this may explain the "formatting accident".

Best,
Al

That's the same FAQ erostiff mentioned in his post, and as I said this FAQ is really misleading. I didn't removed the Hitachi when installing the Seagate mainly BECAUSE I HAD READ THIS FAQ before and I thought its just a simple mount point bug which won't do much damage. I was fooled by this D-Link FAQ, and I hope D-Link will remove it or at least put some extra information so that no more people will lose data in this way. In my case the DNS did actually formatted the wrong HDD.

Update: R-Linux could only found the "new" (empty) partition, so it didn't recover any lost files. I kinda get the feeling that I won't be able to recover the data. Anyway I am now running Stellar Phoenix Linux and see if I will have better luck with it. It's 5:30 in the morning here and I really need some sleep.

fordem · 2007-08-21 15:29:08

If you value the data ...

1) Don't play around with the disk - send it out to a recovery specialist - try Ontrack Data Systems.

AND

2) Back it up.

I don't mean to appear unsympathetic, but, some of us learn the hard way, and I've been down the road you're now on - I came within a hair's breadth of losing nine months of work due to a drive malfunction, and the only thing that saved me was I had shared it with a colleague the day before. As you have discovered, equipment can malfunction and do things it was not supposed to do - if you have only one copy of your data - the probability is that at some point you're going to lose it.

For what it's worth, I've swapped disks in & out of my DNS323 on numerous occasions and never had it format the wrong disk - it's not so much that the FAQ is misleading as something went wrong when you did what you did.

skydreamer · 2007-08-21 16:18:32

dickeywang- there is a problem with the hard drive detection by the DNS, am not sure if it is hardware or firmware related but essentially after restart and when you plug in a new drive it sometimes swaps the drives /dev/sda<->/dev/sdb, usually a second reboot fixes the problem.

fordem · 2007-08-21 18:09:40

skydreamer wrote:
dickeywang- there is a problem with the hard drive detection by the DNS, am not sure if it is hardware or firmware related but essentially after restart and when you plug in a new drive it sometimes swaps the drives /dev/sda<->/dev/sdb, usually a second reboot fixes the problem.

Could I rephrase this? This is what the FAQ linked to above documents.

The first drive installed in the DNS-323 will always be detected as /dev/sda regardless of which bay it is in - however - if the first drive is in the left bay, and a second drive is then installed in the right bay, the second drive will be become /dev/sda and first /dev/sdb - this is consistent and reproducible, and in my tests did not cause the original drive to be formatted.

If the first drive is installed in the right bay, it will be detected as /dev/sda and when a second drive is installed in the left bay, that one will become /dev/sdb, and the first one remains unchanged

dickeywang · 2007-08-21 18:38:50

skydreamer wrote:
dickeywang- there is a problem with the hard drive detection by the DNS, am not sure if it is hardware or firmware related but essentially after restart and when you plug in a new drive it sometimes swaps the drives /dev/sda<->/dev/sdb, usually a second reboot fixes the problem.

I don't think a simple reboot will solve the problem. the Hitachi is physically formatted, and I have mounted it on a Linux machine and checked like a million times. The only directory that is still exist on the HDD is ".lpd/" and ".systemfile/".
I am really disappointed with the stupid GUI of the DNS. It doesn't give you any information about WHICH HDD it is going to format (at least show the brand and model # before asking to confirm), and it won't let you enter the web interface unless you do the formatting.

I can't recall any other software that asks you to format your HDD with so little information.

dickeywang · 2007-08-21 18:52:09

fordem wrote:
skydreamer wrote:
dickeywang- there is a problem with the hard drive detection by the DNS, am not sure if it is hardware or firmware related but essentially after restart and when you plug in a new drive it sometimes swaps the drives /dev/sda<->/dev/sdb, usually a second reboot fixes the problem.
Could I rephrase this? This is what the FAQ linked to above documents.

The first drive installed in the DNS-323 will always be detected as /dev/sda regardless of which bay it is in - however - if the first drive is in the left bay, and a second drive is then installed in the right bay, the second drive will be become /dev/sda and first /dev/sdb - this is consistent and reproducible, and in my tests did not cause the original drive to be formatted.

If the first drive is installed in the right bay, it will be detected as /dev/sda and when a second drive is installed in the left bay, that one will become /dev/sdb, and the first one remains unchanged

That's what I thought at first. But for me this is not the case. My guess is there is something wrong with the firmware.

Maybe I should have rebooted for a second time before I allow DNS to format the HDD, maybe it is just some compatibility issues between the two HDDs and the DNS.

Again, my point is, at least the DNS should provide some information about the disk that is going to be formatted (Just read the model number and the S/N from the HDD control chip and print them on the screen will do the trick). Any HDD softwares will ask you like 10 times with the information of the disk showing on the screen before let you proceed to format the drive. If D-Link is so confident that it is formatting the correct HDD that thinks they don't need to provide those informations, it should actually format the correct HDD.

PS: The Hitachi has always been in the right bay because I read the FAQ weeks ago, so according to the FAQ it should always be /dev/sda.

Last edited by dickeywang (2007-08-21 19:38:10)

FIB · 2007-08-21 19:53:38

I am sorry to say, but I also had a bad experience in this area.

Starting point: right 500 GB, left 120 GB:

Shutdown - replaced left with a new unpartioned 500 GB - power on – web interface say something like “new secondary drive need to be formatted” - waiting - done: volume 2 - require restart – web interface again says “new secondary drive need to be formatted” - waiting – done: done volume 1 - require restart - now both drives are clean!

I was a bit “angry” on my self, so I tried it again a bit differently:

Starting point: right 500 GB, left <none>:

Shutdown – added left with new unpartioned 500 GB - power on – web interface say something like “new secondary drive need to be formatted” - waiting - done: volume 2 - require restart – web interface again says “new secondary drive need to be formatted” - waiting – done: done volume 1 - require restart - now both drives are clean!

Note in both scenarios, volume 1 is actual unexpected formatted in second phase!

I use my box mainly for backup of my home XP computers, so I was not that bad injured. But I lost a few batch files, which I was able to reconstruct by connecting the “accidentally” formatted right drive to an XP and use the tools below:

Useful freeware utilities for XP:

http://www.fs-driver.org/ full access to Linux Ext2 volumes (read access and write access).
http://www.mh-nexus.de/ (freeware), can read search for raw data strings on a hard drive - and a lot more.
http://www.diskinternals.com/ Linux Reader, can also read ext2 formatted partions, but less performance than fs-driver.

Last edited by FIB (2007-08-21 20:18:39)

kimhav · 2007-08-21 20:45:00

Hiren's Boot Cd is a good CD to have around when you loose data; there are quite a few tools there to recovery lost files -> http://www.hiren.info/pages/bootcd

dickeywang · 2007-08-21 21:07:19

FIB wrote:
I am sorry to say, but I also had a bad experience in this area.

Starting point: right 500 GB, left 120 GB:
Shutdown - replaced left with a new unpartioned 500 GB - power on – web interface say something like “new secondary drive need to be formatted” - waiting - done: volume 2 - require restart – web interface again says “new secondary drive need to be formatted” - waiting – done: done volume 1 - require restart - now both drives are clean!
I was a bit “angry” on my self, so I tried it again a bit differently:

Starting point: right 500 GB, left <none>:
Shutdown – added left with new unpartioned 500 GB - power on – web interface say something like “new secondary drive need to be formatted” - waiting - done: volume 2 - require restart – web interface again says “new secondary drive need to be formatted” - waiting – done: done volume 1 - require restart - now both drives are clean!
Note in both scenarios, volume 1 is actual unexpected formatted in second phase!

I use my box mainly for backup of my home XP computers, so I was not that bad injured. But I lost a few batch files, which I was able to reconstruct by connecting the “accidentally” formatted right drive to an XP and use the tools below:

Useful freeware utilities for XP:
http://www.fs-driver.org/ full access to Linux Ext2 volumes (read access and write access).
http://www.mh-nexus.de/ (freeware), can read search for raw data strings on a hard drive - and a lot more.
http://www.diskinternals.com/ Linux Reader, can also read ext2 formatted partions, but less performance than fs-driver.

Huh, so your volume 1 was formatted after the volume 2. It is different from my case. I don't know why it formatted my Hitachi first, which was in the right slot. I haven't checked the Seagate yet but I am pretty sure it has not been formatted. (DNS tried to ask me to format it after the second reboot, but I knew there was something wrong so I didn't preceed).

Another strange thing I noticed was that: after the Hitachi was formatted, the message shown in the web interface says a volume was "successfully" formatted, but the display of the volume number was broken and I couldn't read it (definitely neither the letter "1" nor "2").

PS: the Seagate was used as a system HDD of my desktop before, so it is not a unformatted HDD. I don't know if that made the difference.

Last edited by dickeywang (2007-08-21 21:10:55)

FIB · 2007-08-21 21:27:18

dickeywang wrote:
Another strange thing I noticed was that: after the Hitachi was formatted, the message shown in the web interface says a volume was "successfully" formatted, but the display of the volume number was broken and I couldn't read it (definitely neither the letter "1" nor "2").

I also noticed this the first time, - but forgot to put it into my description.

This was why I accepted to format the second drive a second time in the first place, because I thought the first formatting process had failed. But I was fool’ed.

frodo · 2007-08-22 02:00:01

A tool which looks promising for recovering lost files is this:

http://foremost.sourceforge.net/

Foremost is a console program to recover files based on their headers, footers, and internal data structures. This process is commonly referred to as data carving. Foremost can work on image files, such as those generated by dd, Safeback, Encase, etc, or directly on a drive. The headers and footers can be specified by a configuration file or you can use command line switches to specify built-in file types. These built-in types look at the data structures of a given file format allowing for a more reliable and faster recovery.

Have not tried it myself but it most probably would be able to retrieve your pictures and possibly even the movies. However you will need somewhere to store the date you retrieve.

Here is some good reading about recovering data on a linux system:

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/DataRecovery

Good luck!

Last edited by frodo (2007-08-22 02:07:15)

dickeywang · 2007-08-22 06:33:49

Update: OK, none of the partition rebuild software was able to recover the entire partition. But I used Photorec and it recovered some of the pictures/videos, but most of the videos has been split into pieces, and only the first 1-2 minutes can be played, and the file names has been changed into some random numbers so I guess I will spend weeks dealing with the millions of files.

I reinserted both Hitachi (right bay) and Seagate (left bay) into the DNS, and it again formated the Seagate. And I noticed the following:
1) The HDD in the right bay (the bay on your right hand side when you are facing the front plate) has always been /dev/sda (mounted as /mnt/HD_a2), and the one in the left bay is /dev/sdb (/mnt/HD_b2).
2) /dev/sda is shown as the Volume 2 in the web interface, and /dev/sdb is Volume 1, which is definitely different from what the D-Link FAQ claims. (I tried reboot several times, and it has always been like this)

Since the D-Link FAQ was documented in December 2006, I guess something they added into firmware 1.02/1.03 caused my problem. erostiff, when you inserted your second HDD, what was the version of your firmware at that time?

Last edited by dickeywang (2007-08-22 06:36:24)

Focher · 2007-08-22 13:06:58

I recommend Quick Recovery Linux instead of the product from Stellar Info. I purchased both when the DNS-323 lost my RAID1 config. Stellar Info crashed on me with no message. QR scanned the sectors and found all of my data. Of course, I had not reformatted so your mileage may vary.

skydreamer · 2007-08-22 13:12:09

I do not have time to verify this but I would suspect that the partition might be of a wrong type if not created as a member of RAID, the filesystem identifier is fd when RAID and 83 when ext3 and this is probably why the conversion in between is hard/impossible to do thorugh GUI.

zeroday · 2007-08-23 17:37:13

I have done a lot of tests with this kind of problem as I had same situation .. My question for those with this issue is: where the NEWly installed HDD already been used in a system like FAT32 / NTFS environment? In my test we could 'reproduce' it when NTFS/FAT32 formatted HDD's where being used.

DSM-G600, DNS-3xx and NSA-220 Hack Forum

Announcement

#1 2007-08-21 09:00:51

OMFG, Lost all my data! D-link is terrible!

#2 2007-08-21 09:35:57

Re: OMFG, Lost all my data! D-link is terrible!

#3 2007-08-21 09:50:27

Re: OMFG, Lost all my data! D-link is terrible!

#4 2007-08-21 10:02:47

Re: OMFG, Lost all my data! D-link is terrible!

#5 2007-08-21 10:09:02

Re: OMFG, Lost all my data! D-link is terrible!

#6 2007-08-21 10:11:47

Re: OMFG, Lost all my data! D-link is terrible!

erostiff wrote:

#7 2007-08-21 10:20:17

Re: OMFG, Lost all my data! D-link is terrible!

dickeywang wrote:

#8 2007-08-21 10:26:27

Re: OMFG, Lost all my data! D-link is terrible!

lalex wrote:

#9 2007-08-21 10:39:47

Re: OMFG, Lost all my data! D-link is terrible!

erostiff wrote:

#10 2007-08-21 12:31:41

Re: OMFG, Lost all my data! D-link is terrible!

#11 2007-08-21 13:30:52

Re: OMFG, Lost all my data! D-link is terrible!

lalex wrote:

#12 2007-08-21 15:29:08

Re: OMFG, Lost all my data! D-link is terrible!

#13 2007-08-21 16:18:32

Re: OMFG, Lost all my data! D-link is terrible!

#14 2007-08-21 18:09:40

Re: OMFG, Lost all my data! D-link is terrible!

skydreamer wrote:

#15 2007-08-21 18:38:50

Re: OMFG, Lost all my data! D-link is terrible!

skydreamer wrote:

#16 2007-08-21 18:52:09

Re: OMFG, Lost all my data! D-link is terrible!

fordem wrote:

skydreamer wrote:

#17 2007-08-21 19:53:38

Re: OMFG, Lost all my data! D-link is terrible!

#18 2007-08-21 20:45:00

Re: OMFG, Lost all my data! D-link is terrible!

#19 2007-08-21 21:07:19

Re: OMFG, Lost all my data! D-link is terrible!

FIB wrote:

#20 2007-08-21 21:27:18

Re: OMFG, Lost all my data! D-link is terrible!

dickeywang wrote:

#21 2007-08-22 02:00:01

Re: OMFG, Lost all my data! D-link is terrible!

#22 2007-08-22 06:33:49

Re: OMFG, Lost all my data! D-link is terrible!

#23 2007-08-22 13:06:58

Re: OMFG, Lost all my data! D-link is terrible!

#24 2007-08-22 13:12:09

Re: OMFG, Lost all my data! D-link is terrible!

#25 2007-08-23 17:37:13

Re: OMFG, Lost all my data! D-link is terrible!

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