BlackArmor NAS Network Storage Server

[MonSoon]

Hey there, i been using my BlackArmor NAS 440 for almost 4 months now and its been great so far.

Till just yesterday, i was deleting some media and had a power outage less than a minute and the system rebooted. So decided to give it a rest incase of further outages. When I turned it on this morning, the datavolume read as "Failed"...

Under Disk Manager is says all my 4 drives are "Good".

Disk Manager

Drives Volumes Size Description Status   HDD 1 HDD 2 HDD 3 HDD 4

DataVolume	1.82 TB	Seagate ST32000542AS	Good
DataVolume	1.82 TB	Seagate ST32000542AS	Good
DataVolume	1.82 TB	Seagate ST32000542AS	Good
DataVolume	1.82 TB	Seagate ST32000542AS	Good

I have run S.M.A.R.T tests on all drives and all four drives passed.

However under Volumes it reads the status as "Failed". And Unknown in Usage & Size. Its using Raid 5.

Volumes

Volumes Type Drives Usage Size Status  DataVolume

Raid 5		Unknown	Unknown	Failed

I had about approximately 48% usage at the time on my 8TB BlackArmor NAS 440. I have rebooted multiple times and unplugged and replugged everything as well. Any suggestions on how to fix this?

[RAsg]

During BA NAS testing I purposely pulled the power from a 440 during large data transfers and did it multiple times and I could not break the volume.  It is unfortunate that a single power failure caused enough corruption causing the volume to fail. I take it you can't access shares? 

I hope you were using the NAS to USB backup feature or you have your data somewhere else.

I do not think there is a fix.  The only thing to do as far as getting the NAS back up and going is to setup a new RAID 5 volume and maybe look at UPS.

[MonSoon]

Yep cant access the network path it says. I can see the folders (Public, wiki, etc) but i cant access them. Im have all but given up the hope for a fix. So have some backups but mostly outdated, however the most important files luckily i have backups.

I have also looked into UPS and awaiting its arrival. In the meantime, i will see what i can salvage off the drives...

Thanks

[DavidG]

Something's definitely wrong here.  Search the forums for "Volume Failed."  This is one of the few threads that received a response.  I just had the same thing.  Had a drive failure yesterday.  Came in this morning with the thing frozen up.  Rebooted and now get "Volume Failed."  It was on UPS.

This seems to blow the whole point of having a RAID 5 out of the water.  Now I'm looking at data recovery services for thousands and thousands of dollars.  I don't think this product is ready for prime time.  The new firmware is much better but still.... this is unacceptable.

[jaybomb76]

If you need to recover, Look into photorec for windows.  It can see into the Raid, disk by disk, one at a time. and lets you move your files to safety.   You'lll probably have to buy a few 2TB externals, to move the files to, but that's  300 hundred dollars, and not 3000 dollars, PER DISK.  If you're one drive is failing, what ever you do, don't replace it and then RENEW the volume or what ever the Black Armor Discovery prompts you to do, it formats the disks.

I've spent the past 3 months dealing with the a 4TB JBOD raid that had a volume 3 failure.  I cloned my failing disk in Linux, and was able to get most everything off of it using photorec.  However, ALOT  of my TIF type files were corrupted beyond repair.   I then put the new disk back into the BA400 and followed the prompts with my newly cloned HDD and "RENEW" the Volume, effectively  reformatting everything.  Photorec didn't seem to mind as I have subsequently run it on all 4 discs, and I was able to recover ALL (I mean every single last one) JPGS on the discs.    AGAIN However, ALOT  of my TIF type files were corrupted beyond repair.  

Stay out of that BlackArmor Discovery program....

http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/PhotoRec

when it works, you send him whatever's in your wallet... 

I spent 800 dollars on this 4 TB Network "solution" that lasted from October until December, and has been nothing but a huge time wasting headache since that point in time.

[demch]

I have the same problem. No help from Customer support - really useless service, only what they can advice is send drive for repacement.

Any good advice from users how to recover data from failed RAID5 volumes?

[CqTech]

This is how I fixed my "Datavolume failed" while hard drives are in "good" condition:

1. Download the latest Firmware for your BA model (mine is NAS 220)

    ( http://forums.techarena.in/hardware-peripherals/1435827.htm )

2.Log on to your BA (from the web browser), go to System, Firmware Update, Manual Update, browse to your downloaded image file, then hit "Submit"

3. Follow instructions, it took about 5 minutes to complete and restarts itself.

Good luck!

[mediatechwvr]

CqTech - 

My heavenly Father directed me to your post at a very critical time. I followed your advice and it fixed my problem! Thanks so much for posting this solution! 

[Phil UT]

I've got the exact same problem.  The drive was fine, I had just transferred files to and from it about half an hour before a power outage and then bam, and now all volumes are coming up failed and all drives are passing SMART...  I tried the update firmware trick, no change.

Phil

[asheenlevrai]

Does anyone know how the parity blocks are organized on a RAID5 array in the Seagate BlackArmor 400/440 NAS?

- left synchronous (symmetric)?

- left asynchrounous (asymmetric)?

- right synchronous (symmetric)?

- right asynchronous (asymmetric)?

Thanks -a-

[BartmanLACA]

Is this a issue that is happening more often????? It happened to me too! 

Had a volume failed as well, no power failure just noticed the flashing amber light and got a notification on the web interface, rebooting redetected the drive but it was in a delayed state, and had to "recover" the array. Happened a 2nd time yesterday, drives are Seagate and under warranty so I RMA'd the affected drive, is there a way to replace a drive even if it shows "good"? Nothing I have looked for online gives me any steps. HELP! 

[Non-profit]

hi CqTech Many thanks for your valuabe post.

Really it saved us.

* Hi all when hard disks are good and volume is failed, Please do manual firmware update*

It works and all the Best!

[BartmanLACA]

This isn't an issue about firmware, I have the latest on my BA-4XX NAS, 4000.1311, populated by Four 2TB Seagate ST32000542AS Barracuda drives, all purchased at the same time. ONE has shown up as "missing" or failed twice now, rebooting the server has redetected the drive but, the server always has to rebuild the array and it operates in "recovering" mode for a long time until it accomplishes this. I have chosen at this time to RMA the drive in question since it's still under warranty, I guess my question for the people here is what procedure to use to replace the drive. Currently I am only able to find the method for replacing a failed drive because the software offers a replacement option only then, I am unable to find out how to remove/replace a drive that indicates "good" in the web/software interface. Do I just shut the server down, remove the drive in question and put a new one in and let it rebuild the array? Or will I lose data? Please help as I have a 10 day window Seagate is giving me to recieve the replacement drive via advanced replacement to return the defective drive or be charged for it as a purchase. 

[Carlowich]

Hi to all, 

I have the same problem from yesterday evening!! I'm furious!!

Here the steps of my problem of the BA-4XX NAS:

- during a copy of a group of file the status red turn from blue to red, the third hdd led was off; in a few seconds the nas shutted down automatically (!!!)

- I pressed the power key to restart it and all the lights were on blue or green (no alert message in the NAS display)

- In the web interface the volume was in status reconstruction (or rebuild, i don't exactly remember)

- I leave it to work and in 1 hour the NAS freezed (I couldn't acces it neather with web interface, nor I could stop it with power button); the only solution was unplug the power cable.

- When I restarted it the volume restart the rebuilding process, and go on all day long (I received some emails when the re-sincronize of the volume reached 40%, and 60%, no other emails), during the evening I couldn't reach the web interface so I couldn't know if the process was finished or not (the status led blinking blue and the hdd leds was fixed green). For another time I couldn't shut down the NAS neither with web interface, nor the power button). Till now I could acces to the volume with cifs and see all the files in the shares of the volume.

- I unplugged another time the power cable and restarted it after a minutes.

- And now the volume is in status Failed!! The only procedure that I can do from web interface is to erase the Volume. I can still see the shares of the volume from web interface but I can't access it from cifs, and I supposed that if I cancel the volume to recreate it I will lose all the data on the disks? Is it right or not?

The firmware of the NAS is 4000.1101 but in the seagate site, and autoupdate tell me that is the later firmware for this model.

Any suggestions? Some procedures to recover the volume and not to lose the data?

[Carlowich]

I found a newer firmware (4000.1311) and after the update the recover of the volume started automatically. After 12 hours the volume was been reconstructed and now my data are intact.

Sure, it was a bug of the older firmware, but it's strange that there are no reference to this problem and its easy solution (an upgrade) on the seagate website!!!

The automatic update of the firmware didn't find a newer one, so I had to do a manual one (maybe a firewall between?).

Thank you guys

Carlowich

[SCurling]

Here's another user witht he same trouble:  My volume "disapeared" , i.e., NOT FOUND, on a single 2TB drive in my 420 unit..

I had a drive fail, see my first post: http://forums.seagate.com/t5/BlackArmor-NAS-Network-Storage/Quirky-Software-BlackArmor-Executables/t..., on 6/11/2012.

I had removed the other drives while working on the failed drive, trying to copy some onf the files still accessable.  When I got the replacement drive from SG, and started the system up again, my 2TB drive showed the above error, volume NOT FOUND. All three of my drives are setup as SPAN, without and Raid level.

Has anyone seen the a SPAN volume automatically "recover" with a Raid 1 configuration?  That happend to me after my first  drive failed.

I'll try some suggestions posted to recover what I can on my lost Volume.

thanks

[asheenlevrai]

no firmware update solved my problem (I tried 4000.1311).

however I could retrieve the data using UFS Explorer RAID Recovery (100€)

http://forums.seagate.com/t5/BlackArmor-NAS-Network-Storage/Volume-is-quot-Failed-quot-all-disks-are...

[JohanvdWest]

What settings did you use for the RAID array?

I am unable to find any files on it.

[Metal]

Same issue here...update the firmware the last avaible but no luck...some hints? :-(

Metal