Need help, simpleshare 250G board dead, disk data recovery

[rbuzzard1]

Miguel, just wanted to say thanks again for your post and your help. I don't know how you ever came up with that knowledge but you were spot on! A friend and I worked together last night using an installation of Ubuntu he had set up. We finally figured out how to get testdisk on and running. We also were able to get Hexedit dloaded and running. Using your instructions, we successfully restored all of my digital photos.

A couple of interesting notes. 1) I had set up an external hd and added it to the simpleshare, using it to create a mirror of the original. We used the external usb drive in our restore efforts and didn't see anything different about it than what you described in your instructions for the original simpleshare drive. Consequently, we didn't need to use the ddrescue app at all. Once we used testdisk and hexedit to get the starting location, we successfully created a loop device and mounted the drive, where most everything was accessible.

2) After mounting the drive, most of the folders in the gui linux file browser (not sure what it is called, but it's the linux equivalent of windows explorer) in the root of the drive showed up, but expanding them showed they were empty. However, using the ls command in a terminal window revealed the folder contents appropriately. Not sure why that was the case. I mention that as I recall another individual posting that after he followed the instructions, the folders were all empty.

3) I did have two folders that I could not get into for some reason. Not really sure why, but all the directory info just showed question marks for those two folders. I assumed maybe they were corrupted in some way. In the end, I didn't need them so it didn't matter.

I can't thank you enough for taking the time to document the restore procedures. I was able to recover close to 6000 digital photos that I thought were gone and lost forever.

[retrieverfalcon]

I am hoping the folks in this thread can be of some assistance to me. My SimpleShare 250 has been working flawlessly for a few years. Two nights ago I came home to find that all my shares were no accessible. Checking via the web interface, the SimpleShare reports that the entire drive is empty and no shares exist. Clearly, this is an error. My suspicion is that the drive has suffered some failure. This thread gives me some hope that I can recover all the files I have on this drive - basically the last three years of my family's photos, saved docs, etc which I thought were being safely shared on my network. The problem is that while I had no problem pulling the drive from the SimpleShare, putting it in a drive enclosure and connecting it to my machine, the testdisk tool is not working like Miguel described. Whether I use it under Windows or Linux (which I know less but was able to bring up using a Knoppix Live CD as described on the testdisk site), testpart can see the drive. When I select None for the partion table, it goes to a screen where I can press enter to start the scan. At this point it immediately identifies a Linux SWAP 2 but then appears to stop working. The Analyse cylinder line never moves above 62/30400: 00%. I never see any of the ReiserFS listings. Anyone have any thoughts? I really want to be able to recover these files and this thread makes me think they should be recoverable - some help making that happen would be great.

[ScottSimple]

Hello all -

I'm also suffering with a SimpleShare 250 that has recently gone off-line. In my case, the share just stopped responding (after years of reliable use). I can still reach the unit over the network (via http / browser) to log-in to the Admin pages. The error message displayed in yellow & red mentions that "the filesystem cannot be mounted" and implies that it's encrypted, and I need to enter a password under Disk Utils--> Basic. Well, I know it's not encrypted -- and there's no functionality on the Basic screen that offers to let me enter a password anyway. So I'm guessing that the partition in corrupted in some way.

I've setup a linux box with the case open so I can swap the hard drive in and see what can be recovered. The linux I'm using is: http://www.sysresccd.org which is a 240Mb Linux liveCD (2.6.31.1 kernel) that has all the tools mentioned here pre-installed. It's pretty light-weight and runs fine on my 10+ year-old IBM PC 300 GL (P3/256Mb RAM). Of course, it's console (command-line) only, so not for the feint of heart Though you should be able to do "startx" and get a window manager up for some tasks.

I'll dive in tonight (following the great info in this thread) and see what I can find.

Cheers, Scott

[polson]

Miguel,
I can't thank you enough for the detailed instructions. I followed them to a tee and everything was recovered!!
-Paul

[miguel.arce]

HI Retrieverfalcon, Scott.

Your problems are the same.

Retrieverfalcon, testdisk is unable to continue the search of new partitions due to bad blocks in the hardrive, i suggest you create a byte per byte copy of the bad drive to a healthy one (at lest 250G) with ddrescue as described before and the work on that new drive, otherwise wont be able to recover anything.

Scott, in your case that encrypted issue, yes it could be because of particion information corruption, try the testdisk procedure described and that will tell you the right info about the partition, if it is in fact encrypted it will tell you so and .. in that case there is nothing else to do...except for try and error with passwords until you can read an mount the info...

The partition corruption could also be caused by bad blocks in the drive, so if you get the same as retrieverfalcon, go directly to ddrescue.

i was playing around last weekend with some linux distros that would be helpfull in data recovery and i found that KNOPPIX 6.0.1 is a really good one,
just download it ( it comes with some very anoying speaking software called ADRIANE ), use it to install it on you usb flash disk if you want, and it has testdisk, hexedit, ddrescue, and other tools ready to install if it has internet conection, it has a very simple graphical interface with tools for installing packets ( synaptic package manager ), i recomend using this one for this purposes.

polson, rbuzzard1, great news, glad i helped.

[Rioud]

Miguel,

I really don't know what I would have done without your instructions. Even though I had no experience of Linux, I managed to mount my drive and access the data on the *&%$!? 500GB simpleshare drive . For info, I firstly used partition magic on 2001 Dell Laptop to create a partition for Ubuntu. I then got testdisk, which was the only extra tool I had to install. After a lot of trials with command lines in Linux, I eventually managed to access my data.

Thanks again and good luck to everyone who had the same issues with that stupid drive!

Rioud

[Zach]

Hello all,

I came across this forum while trying to find a way to recover files from a bad SimpleShare drive. I am new to linux but understand some of the basic commands but was hoping I could get some clarificaion. I am using Knoppix 6.2 running on a thumb drive.

Using testdisk I am able to see the partition and made notes of them.

I have some problems using hexedit. I followed Miguels steps for finding the correct line to edit (my line is also 1E859830) but I am unable to figure out how to change the last two digits to zero as in his example.

Could someone please explain the reason to change these last two digits to zero?

I was able to just mount the reiserfs partion using mount -t reiserfs -o ro,offset=512006144 /dev/sdd /temp and copy all my files to a different external drive.

My next step is going to be trying to recover the bad blocks.

I appreciate all the help from this forum in getting my files back safe but would like to understand the whole process a little better.

Thanks in advance,

Zach

[zodekribe]

Miguel,

THANK YOU.

I owe you a beer.

[Andrey]

Came across this great site - excellent pointers to recover SimpleShare drive RaiserFS partitioned drive - however - VERY DIFFICULT for a PC user without knowledge of Linux/UNIX OS. My drive had exactly the same symptoms Miguel (thanks by the way to Miguel!) described! I removed my HD from Simpleshare enclosure and installed it in IDE based USB drive enclosure ($10.00 - $15.00 on e-bay) I used test disk for Windows, as Miguel suggested and found right away - my drive is recoverable - you can even see files and folders using testdisk, but can not restore anything. However I do not have Linux / Unix experience and was not able to go beyond installing Open SuSe and playing a little with it with the fear of accidentally destroying my files!
For those who has similar problem with SimpleShare drives of any size - look no more - you do not even need testdisk - get the free shareware from the site below - it will test your disk for you, and if it recoverable it will let you see all the folders right away!
After a week of searches, trial and errors and $100.00 spent on crappy software I found this site:

http://www.ufsexplorer.com/rdr_reiser.php

Their Software called "Raise Data Recovery for RaiserFS” my version was 4.3 Looks like these guys mean serious business and their soft works excellent! they have other packages that work on many other partition systems.
Their website a little difficult to find what you need - but read carefully - you need it to recover your precious files!
Even shareware they give was able to find RaiserFS right away (30 seconds it found it and I stopped the search)- without extensive scans! I was able to see my RaiserFS folder structure and all the files - right away. This Shareware even lets you to restore (below 60Kb in size each - which usually most of the Word documents e.t.c) unlimited number of files with all the folder structure preserved - so you know you are buying exactly what you need without all this RAW nameless files crap that many other softs on the web "can" do for you! I am very happy even after I lost $100.00 on other crappy soft! This was $30.00 and made my day! I restored about 5-years worth of family pictures and other thousands of other important files! - Highly recommend!
Fill free to ask questions, I feel for everyone who got booted by SimpleShare tech support - they even tolled me - my drive is bad, out of warranty and not recoverable. However after long searches tests and trials I found that drive was OK, just their crappy network software gave up on me and somehow corrupted ReiserFS partition on the drive. Hope this will help someone!