The back ground: I have an EX485 with 3 drives in it, original 750GB (#1), 1TB WD Black (#2) and a 2TB WD Black(#3). The added the 2TB drive about 8 months ago. The power supply died about 8 months ago and I replace it and added the 2TB hard Drive. 3 Months ago: I lost the server again I couldn’t get it into the recovery mode with the paper clip. From your posts on the forums, I found out it the flash memory may be corrupted. I got the recovery file (SMI) from one of the members and put it on a USB flash drive.

This is where my problems started. I kept trying and it wasn’t going into recovery mode, with the USB stick? Tried all different combination and it couldn’t find the server. Looking back, the clicking may have been an indication the main drive went bad.

So I saw another post that stated to pull out the #1 drive so it would go into recovery mode. I did that, and re-plugged back immediately after it found the server. I was so happy the recovery was moving forward according to plan. I updated to ver. 2.5 and the EX485 was ready to go……then I noticed there was no original folders or data and it was only showing 2 drives. So, it never used or identified my original drive. I don’t know how it went forward in recovery mode and used my 2 WD drives and reloaded all the server software on them. (I am 99.99% certain I hit recover not reset)

On my God!!! Did I overwrite all of the data? I am not sure how it splits data on duplication of folders, between drives, etc…so
- Can I UNDO or UNDELETE the recovery on the 2 hard drives?
- What can I do to get back data off of the main (#1) drive?
o Any opinions on software or data recovery places?
o Like Kernel Data Recovery or Data Recover Wizard/NTFS Wizard, etc..
- I have an external SATA/IDE connector to connect to drives out of a system??
- What other options do I have????

I was so stupid and stored files/pictures from older computers that I got rid of only on the server, I never assumed I would lose everything on the server. What hurts the most…..12-15 years of pictures from my kids.

Please Help!!!!!
Thanks in advance…………Tom

At this point the best method is to yank the drives out of the server and connect them to your pc.
turn on view hidden folders and files.
if it is the system drive it would be in the d partition.
In the pool drives it is under the deshares folder.
the data files are readable and can be copied to anywhere you choose.

Once you copy them somewhere I would chkdsk the drives and see if one of them are bad.

It appears your tombstones are either bad or missing which would indicate a defective drive.
It should have worked fine if you did not elect reset.

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Agreed, pull the drives and work with them out of the server.
https://www.piriform.com/recuva This is free if you did format any drives this might help get it back.

Not much help now, But has been said many times.
Always have a backup of your most important stuff.
Some use the cloud, some use a non-pooled drive/s, some use external drives, some use a second server.
I use (2) 2tb non-pooled drives and a second server with synctoy. So my main server could completely die with all the drives and I'm still good.
Goodluck I was there twice, makes ya sick, now I do second backups and have no worries.

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Fear the Cloud

I must have accidentally overwritten or reset the drives on a recovery process in WHS.
I purchased RECUVA program to recover files. When I pulled the physical drive out and connect via external connections I see 2 logical drives: SYS <drive letter> and DATA<drive letter>.

When I try to recover the SYS drive it shows about 1000 files, but all of them are system files. (I don't need them)
When I run the Data drive it comes back with 3 files to recover.???

Am I wasting my time?
Am I not using something correctly with this program?
I assumed it could see files that might have been formatted also?

BTW: Ruben-I turned on the hidden folders and I don't see any of my old files in there. Any specific directory path??

Hi tsekulov,

The files will most likely be on the other Server Drives which if they have not yet been touched will be named DATA and the hidden folder to look at is named DE. If all is well you should find your files there.

FYI: WHS uses the System Drive Partition named DATA and all the Storage Pool Drives also named DATA for the Storage Pool but will only use the Data Partition on the System Drive if there is not enough room on the other storage pool drives. If you happened to add the drives back into the servers storage pool after the recovery then unfortunately they would of been formatted and if not then you stand a good chance to recover your data.

I hope your able to recover your data and store it in a safe location of your choosing as Gardian has already mentioned. After that you can then add the drives back into the server, add then back into the storage pool and then after you have configured your server back where you like it then copy the data back onto the server. However because your data is important it should live in an area outside the server and this would be called a backup. While WHS does provide good data redundancy it in of itself is not a backup so to speak because if something horrible happens to your server where it became damaged or stolen then so goes your important data. A backup is totally different in that if something bad happens to your server as mentioned earlier then you still have access to your data. The best backups one can have would be stored offsite or not in the same physical location of your server but if this is not possible then at least stored on something other then your server. Not everything needs to be backed up but what does need to be backed up can only be determined by you.

I wish you luck with your data recovery. I really hate to see things like this its an awful experience for anyone.

Good Luck!

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