F2-210 Firmware Vanished - How to recover the data on one of the EXT4 RAID-1 disks?

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Dominique
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F2-210 Firmware Vanished - How to recover the data on one of the EXT4 RAID-1 disks?

Post by Dominique »

First, I want to mention that I do not use WINDOWS. I originally uploaded the TOS_A1.0_Install_ARM_4.1.21_2002271849.ins firmware on the F2-210's own web interface. It worked great for many months (can't recall how many). Suddenly, one day, my F2-210 became totally unresponsive. The power button would not even work to shut it down cleanly. So, I had no choice but to disconnect its power supply.

On power up, the uploaded firmware had completely vanished, as if someone had performed a Factory Reset. I'm really not happy about that. This kind of failure is unacceptable. If I can recover my data, I'll be OK with this (and of course upgrade to a more trustful firmware).

I attempted the power-up with no drive tips mentioned in this forum, but that did not help.

I initiated the firmware upload process again, but it mentioned that my disks would be reformatted. There's absolutely no way for me to accept that before recovering the data on my hard disks first.

**********

So this is where I currently am, and I need some help to have further progress.

I inserted one of my hard disk in a SATA-USB enclosure. FreeBSD detects the four linux-data GPT partitions, but I can't mount the biggest one (what I assume to be my data) using the ext2fs file system (good for ext2, ext3 and ext4 read/only). Debian Linux doesn't even detect this USB drive so I'm stuck.

How can I access my data directly to back it up?

Dominique.
UNIX USER :) Broken F2-210 at this time. :(
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sianderson
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Re: F2-210 Firmware Vanished - How to recover the data on one of the EXT4 RAID-1 disks?

Post by sianderson »

although this isnt that useful it may just help to explain what has happened,

inside the unit there is a USB drive that holds the installation version of TOS, when you set up a drive it installs the OS onto a partition on the hard drive, so it sounds like something has gone wrong with your hard drive partitions

although i am a windows user, hopefully think helps to explain something more that they had to do (you can obviously skip the ubuntu VM)

"Ubuntu VM and using mdadm and lvm2 to build the array with only one disk. This allowed me to mount it and transfer the files over SMB to a new NAS."

viewtopic.php?f=31&t=1080&p=5515&hilit=ubuntu+vm#p5515
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TMRyan
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Re: F2-210 Firmware Vanished - How to recover the data on one of the EXT4 RAID-1 disks?

Post by TMRyan »

{L_BUTTON_AT}Dominique
Hi,
It should be caused by the bad block of hard disk partition.
You can send an email to our tech team to check it remotely.
To contact our team, please send email to following addresses, remember to replace (at) with @
Technical team: support(at)terra-master.com (for technical support)
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sianderson
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Re: F2-210 Firmware Vanished - How to recover the data on one of the EXT4 RAID-1 disks?

Post by sianderson »

TMRyan wrote: 07 Feb 2021, 11:24 It should be caused by the bad block of hard disk partition.
Just curious do you see this as being a design fault with the units that a hard drive failure takes down the entire NAS system, wouldn't it make more sense to split out the System OS and Data drives? that way if you have a bad block on a data hard drive it doesn't affect the OS and vice versa if you have an issue with your OS drive you know that your data wont be affected
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Dominique
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Re: F2-210 Firmware Vanished - How to recover the data on one of the EXT4 RAID-1 disks?

Post by Dominique »

Thank you for your reply, sianderson. :idea: I will check the post and study the commands that you are referring to because it seems like a step in the right direction to fix the problem. :D

And about your question, if the firmware is really stored on and executed from the disk, this is a really bad design concept. :evil: To me, a good design practice is to store any firmware in an EEPROM. :ugeek:

*****

TMRyan, thanks for your suggestion to try staff remote access to my drive/NAS unit, but that will not happen. I'm running a UNIX workstation, and won't have the firewall open just for that. :| If you have a tutorial or a troubleshoot page listing all the diagnosis tools that you need, I will happily run them for you and share the results either here in this thread, or via email.

Thanks for the hints so far. I will let you guys know what works for me in the end.

Dominique.
UNIX USER :) Broken F2-210 at this time. :(
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TMRyan
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Re: F2-210 Firmware Vanished - How to recover the data on one of the EXT4 RAID-1 disks?

Post by TMRyan »

{L_BUTTON_AT}sianderson
Hello,
Good suggestion.We will consider this suggestion.
To contact our team, please send email to following addresses, remember to replace (at) with @
Technical team: support(at)terra-master.com (for technical support)
Service team: service(at)terra-master.com (for purchasing, return, replacement)
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TMRyan
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Re: F2-210 Firmware Vanished - How to recover the data on one of the EXT4 RAID-1 disks?

Post by TMRyan »

Hello,
If you can't solve it after referring to Sianderson's method, you can try the following three methods again:
1. Re-plug the hard disk, and then turn it on again.

2. After shutting down, change the hard disk position sequence, and then restart.

3. Reinstall the system. The page prompt for formatting the hard disk during the reinstallation process can be ignored for now and then click Next. This will not affect the data. If you are prompted to create a volume or storage pool array, you must cancel it immediately. This step will format the data. When the system is installed, you can enter the login interface after the setup is complete.

How to reinstall the system:viewtopic.php?f=75&t=423

Note: Please watch the screen carefully during the operation. You cannot create a new volume or array. This will format the hard disk and the data will disappear.
To contact our team, please send email to following addresses, remember to replace (at) with @
Technical team: support(at)terra-master.com (for technical support)
Service team: service(at)terra-master.com (for purchasing, return, replacement)
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Dominique
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Re: F2-210 Firmware Vanished - How to recover the data on one of the EXT4 RAID-1 disks?

Post by Dominique »

The recommendation to use the mdadm and lvm2 Linux packages has been really useful. Thanks sianderson! :D

For some odd reasons, inserting the drives in a USB extender, then plugged into a Linux box did not work for me. So what I did is repurpose an old computer I was using 10 years ago and installed the latest Debian release. Once all relevant disk utility packages installed, I plugged in my sata data drives directly into the motherboard. After power-up, boom :idea: All the RAID stack partitions were automatically detected and ready to be mounted. The data integrity test passed too. 8-)

So, I'm releaved that my data seems OK. I'll copy it onto another disk as backup #2 so I can re-install my F2-210 device with the latest TerraMaster firmware. Hopefully, this problem won't happen again in the future.

Dominique.
UNIX USER :) Broken F2-210 at this time. :(
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titanrx8
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Re: F2-210 Firmware Vanished - How to recover the data on one of the EXT4 RAID-1 disks?

Post by titanrx8 »

@dominique did you ever get your original F2-210 functional again? My f2-221 ceased booting with or without disks installed. I could watch the boot hang with hdmi monitor attached. I connected a win10 pc directly to the tnas and opened the firewall for a support connection. They had no better success and replaced system under warranty. I haven't tried my new nas with my disks yet. They were error free prior to the failure and the btrfs Duke system was functioning. I have clean backups so no too worried but would rather not want to restore if possible.
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demetry14
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Re: F2-210 Firmware Vanished - How to recover the data on one of the EXT4 RAID-1 disks?

Post by demetry14 »

Dominique wrote: 21 Feb 2021, 13:23 The recommendation to use the mdadm and lvm2 Linux packages has been really useful. Thanks sianderson! :D

For some odd reasons, inserting the drives in a USB extender, then plugged into a Linux box did not work for me. So what I did is repurpose an old computer I was using 10 years ago and installed the latest Debian release. Once all relevant disk utility packages installed, I plugged in my sata data drives directly into the motherboard. After power-up, boom :idea: All the RAID stack partitions were automatically detected and ready to be mounted. The data integrity test passed too. 8-)

So, I'm releaved that my data seems OK. I'll copy it onto another disk as backup #2 so I can re-install my F2-210 device with the latest TerraMaster firmware. Hopefully, this problem won't happen again in the future.

Dominique.
When you do a fresh plug in and power up with the dead system, check to see if your public folder is FTP accessible. I did an update recently and TOS was hosed, but system still seems to run basic functions and FTP was the only access I have figured so far. Worth a shot, and will tell you if it is only the TOS GUI or if the TOS system is literally dead.
~~
Demetry

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