Our Data Is Gone

[akeelco]

Dear Sirs


We have a QNAP SERVER, 3.5.0 Build 0816T, model TS410 ; using 4 hard drives.
We had a power failure and after it returns , we tried to log in for our files but we failed, and checked the disk management and found that our files were gone.
However, Please be noted that due to our continuous power failure in our country , Syria, we are using a UPS for the server. And since we sometimes face long power failures, sometimes the UPS is completely off charge.
After we made a scan for the 4 drives , we noted some bad sectors.
Also, we checked the resource monitor and found that the free space of the 4 drives is 100%.
In spite the fact that we have lots of power failure, but we think I it is not the cause of the problem. Because each time we have a power failure, the server used to run properly after the power is back.
Now the server is still running but we cannot access our files since they are gone.
Our question is how can we restore our lost files due to their importance, and what do you think the cause of this problem is. Moreover, we want to know how to avoid such a problem in the future.

We will highly appreciate your urgent reply.

Best Regards
Eng. Hazem

[Don]

You could ssh to the server to see if your folders and files are really gone.

You could also run a recovery program to see if your files are recoverable. You will have to do this with the disks attached to a pc.

You could send the disks out to a data recovery company.

If the files are gone you can restore from a backup (you do have a backup don't you).

Is the UPS plugged into the NAS with a USB cable? If so it should be set up to shut the NAS down gracefully after x number of minutes. If it is not and it just kills the power to the NAS then anything can happen as you found out.

[P3R]

And since we sometimes face long power failures, sometimes the UPS is completely off charge.

If the UPS is not fully recharged when powering the NAS on it may not have enough power left to keep the NAS running the configured time (if at all correctly configured for a graceful shutdown).

A workaround for such situations may be to use a very short time (1 or 2 minutes) until shutdown and definately not use the "auto-protection" mode.
'

[akeelco]

i connected the hard drives to the PC, but i couldn't see them in "my Computer" so I checked computer mangement >> storage>> Disk mangenent >>
i found them defined as " primary partiotn" and the free space is 100%.
what do you think i should do to be able to recover the files??

best regards

[Don]

Well unless your PC can read ext3/4 formatted drives what you see in disk mamagement is meaningless. Like I said you would need a data recovery program. Use google to search for one.

[schumaku]

Even harder when thee original four HDD were set-u in a RAID.

[Don]

Even harder when thee original four HDD were set-u in a RAID.

Absolutely