Re: Western Digital My Book World Edition II NAS device - crashed?

[David Gibbs <david@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Bob Cagle wrote:
> I have several files on here I would like to recover.  Western Digital
> tells me to send it into a data recovery service - minimum charge is
> $500-$800.  Yikes.

Sometimes I get the feeling that the data recovery service is part of their product plan.  Especially if they use a proprietary file system on the device.

> The drives are removable, so I could take them out and slave them into
> another PC, and recover the data from there.  Since the drives are
> spanned though, I'm not sure if that would work.

Depends on the file system format, obviously.  The spanning is the real issue though.  Personally, I would never use a spanning file system unless it incorporated protection.

> Or, I could buy another MBWE II device just like it, and swap the old
> drives into the new device.  Then, get my files off, swap the drives
> again, and return the new device back to the store.  This might work
> assuming that the drives themselves are still good and will spin up.

Testing the drives should be pretty easy (I'm assuming they are standard drives).  Just plug them into another machine and run a disk tester.  Consider getting a copy of Spinrite from grc.com ... it will tell you if the drive is good or bad.  It might even be able to recover bad sectors.  Not sure it will understand the format though.  If the drives are good, but the hardware is going, then that plan should work.  If the drives are bad, then no amount of new hardware will help.

david
(who's probably going to buy the Netgear NAS device today, if TigerDirect still has it in stock)