ReadyNAS Data Recovery - VMware recovery tool

[dekkit]

Description
This topic contains links to linux VMware images (Debian / Ubuntu) that have been modified to enable you to access your ReadyNAS duo HDDs from any machine with a USB plug and a SATA to USB cable.

Advantages:
* VMware player be downloaded freely
* Can run in both existing linux / MS Windows (XP,Vista etc) operating system without any further modification

Disadvantages:
* Requires a SATA to USB cable
* Mac users will need to find another program to run the VMware files

Background
At some point your ReadyNAS Duo unit is going to stop working (which hopefully will be long and far into in the future) and there may be a point where you'll need to rely on your external backups.

While it's a good strategy to ensure you (and your family / clients) have a good disaster recovery process (having external off-site backups, checking the backups, knowing how to restore from backups etc), in some cases the backups might not work or the backups aren't available to you.

Due to the architecture of the ReadyNAS Duo (more specifically the 16KB blocksize of the partitions), you cannot simply pull out the hard disks, place them into a standard windows / linux pc, then copy all your files across to another computer or storage device.

Unfortunately there are no windows drivers that can properly access the drives and the process to configure a linux pc is complex (see viewtopic.php?f=25&t=24861&hilit=16+blocksize for further background on this)

The following VMware images contain all required patches to read your HDDs in linux just by entering a few terminal commands.

VMplayer Link

To get started, you will need to download a version of VMplayer for your operating system Win/Linux (Mac not directly supported yet), this can be found
http://www.vmware.com/products/player/


VMware Linux Image with Ext2Fuse

acmtn Debian release - tested ok, reports are that it works fine except for files greater than 4GB)
http://www.readynas.com/contributed/dek ... ebian5.zip
acmtn VM login info (username/password): root/rootadmin, vmuser/vmuser1
(please read the forums for more details on how to use this vmware )

_vito Ubuntu release - currently being tested, enables you to use the HDDs directly plugged into your pc without the need for a SATA to usb cable.
http://www.readynas.com/contributed/dek ... buntu9.rar

Details on this alternative vmware can be found on this post (you'll need to review the instructions carefully):
viewtopic.php?p=203653#p203653


dekkit Debian release - tested, a number of issues.
my initial attempt that helped start this thread has been found to have quite a few issues and may not work for you, but can be found here if you would like to try:
http://www.readynas.com/contributed/dekkit/VMwareDebian5.0%20-%20ext2Fuse.rar
dekkit VM login info: User: vmplanet pass: vmplanet.net

the acmtn version at this stage appears to be getting more reliable results for users. Unfortunately, I have not had time improve on my original dekkit release due to time constraints but if you would like to try please post your results.

Dekkit release Notes:
* You will need 8GB of free disk space once you have uncompressed the image
* You will still need to execute some of the terminal commands to mount the drive (take precaution so you don't accidently blow away your data)
* This VMware can access other windows file shares and can also be configured to host windows shares (see the docs for debian for more info on this)
* To uncompress the file use WinRar: http://download.cnet.com/WinRAR-32-bit/ ... 07677.html or for non-windows platforms try: http://www.rarlab.com/download.htm
* This image is a work in progress (WIP) so please post all errrors !!!!!.


Dekkit release Usage- this may apply to the other versions (eg acmtn
Login to the OS

Access the terminal and enter the following once the HDD has been attached (take note that your /dev/c may differ):

modprobe fuse
vgscan
vgchange -ay c
mkdir /mnt/lvm
ext2fuse /dev/c/c /mnt/lvm
there is a delay in output but then ..
"/dev/c/c is to be mounted at /mnt/lvm
fuse-ext2 initialized for device: /dev/c/c
block size is 16384"



Dekkit Release Acknowledgements
The original VMware image was found http://www.vmplanet.net/node/85 (before the various patches were applied - so feel free to drop them a donation), if you can improve this image by way of a script to make it even easier to use for us 'non-linux users' then please do so and share it back with the rest of us

[mdgm]

Thanks. Will download the image tonight.

[mdgm]

To get started, you will need to download a version of VMplayer for your operating system Win/Linux/Mac, this can be found
http://www.vmware.com/products/player/

No VMPlayer for Mac.

* To uncompress the file use WinRar: http://download.cnet.com/WinRAR-32-bit/ ... 07677.html or for non-windows platforms try: http://www.rarlab.com/download.htm

May wish to use Stuffit Expander if on a Mac.

* This image is a work in progress (WIP) so please post all errrors !!!!!.

Have downloaded image. Will let you know how I find it if I can get it to work on a Mac (or if I have to use a PC how it goes on that). May not have time to try it out for a while though.

[Josch]

Hi...!

Great work - the image works fine!
But I did't get access to my disc connected with a SATA->USB cable.
It looks like that I have a broken disc. grrrrr

Josch

[mdgm]

Great work - the image works fine!
But I did't get access to my disc connected with a SATA->USB cable.
It looks like that I have a broken disc. grrrrr

Did you give the VM control of the USB disk and follow the steps outlined by dekkit to mount it?

[mdgm]

Downloaded the image. I used Parallel Transporter to convert the image so I can use it in Parallels 4 for Mac. Image appears to work so far. Now I'll need to test it out sometime properly when I'm not so busy.

[Josch]

Did you give the VM control of the USB disk and follow the steps outlined by dekkit to mount it?

Yes I tried it. My disc apears as sdb1 but I can't connect it - it seems that the filesystem is broken.
With the windows device manager I also see only one unreachabel partition.

[mdgm]

That's disappointing.

I should reiterate: Don't rely on having the VMWare image available. Backups should still be done regularly (more than one backup at any given time is important). The VMWare image will be useful as a last resort where the chassis has failed but disks are still intact and to attempt to recover data particularly changes since last backup.

[mdgm]

From other thread:

Further to my recent posts, i've found a link that indicates that it should be possible to create a Linux Live CD/DVD from an existing linux distribution (eg ubuntu / Debian)

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=688872

Therefore if the conversion process doesn't prevent the Ex2FUSE update from working, hopefully someone should be able to create neat bootdisk for an x86 PC that will have everything you need mount a perfectly working ReadyNAS Duo HDD ...

If anyone has local Linux install with the Ext2FUSE working, or wants to try from the VMWare image i put together (once people have confirmed it is working from them) have a try and let us know if you were able to successfully creat a bootdisk from it.

This might help to resolve Saxguy's issue and enable people to use the existing sata ports on your mainboard (rather than a Sata to USB cable)

This would be interesting to try. May need to try this out sometime when I'm not so busy.

[Josch]

Did you give the VM control of the USB disk and follow the steps outlined by dekkit to mount it?

Yes I tried it. My disc apears as sdb1 but I can't connect it - it seems that the filesystem is broken.
With the windows device manager I also see only one unreachabel partition.

Just a little description, what I have done:

I connected the disc via SATA/USB cable with a windows XP PC where I started Total Commander with ext2fs-Plugin. With this I was able to see the files on the disc but I wasn't able to browse into the created shares (e.g. /c/media).
After this I had the idea to connect the disc via the SATA/USB cable at the DUO. I thougt that the DUO could be able to read this sections. The DOU showed me the disc but it says that ther is no filesystem on it.

After this I tried it with the VM-Image and I get no access anymore!

[huhu123]

Hi dekkit,

first of all many thanks for spending your time on this issue.

I've got your VMWare image working and can also connect to the ReadyNAS Duo harddisk using an USB/SATA-cable, but got an error

fuse-ext2: Can't read an inode bitmap while reading inode bitmap

after trying to mount the volume. I remember this error has been discussed in the first thread, but with no result there if I remember correct.

Any suggestions?

Kind regards,

Steffen

[dekkit]

Regarding the Mac compatibility, try this thread for assistance: http://communities.vmware.com/thread/111230

I'll have a look at the 'fuse-ext2: Can't read an inode bitmap while reading inode bitmap', i think it may be related to the fuse-ext2 version but not sure.

[mdgm]

Regarding the Mac compatibility

Thanks dekkit. I've got Parallels so can use that.

Interesting that VirtualBox is an option. Presumably this means that those who install Virtualbox (unsupported) onto an x86 ReadyNas could use that for data recovery? It would be interesting if someone tested it out on an x86 ReadyNas. That way you may be able to copy directly off the disks onto a new ReadyNas!

[pingle]

Hi dekkit.
Superb work on the VMWare image, thank you very much.
I have a thread at http://www.readynas.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=34661.
I'm running VMWare Fusion on my Macbook Pro, and have successfully started your image as a VM.
I'm sitting at the login field of Gnome.
I don't see in this thread or the previous thread where you state the username and password to login to the virtual machine.
I've tried <blank>/<blank>, <dekkit>/<dekkit> and <dekkit>/<blank> to no avail.
Please would you provide these details.
Regards, Peter

[Tin_Man_0]

User: vmplanet
pass: vmplanet.net

If you check out the the first post they metion where they got the vm, follow that and you have your info.