Buffalo Linkstation

[T350 Al]

I recently recommended the Bufallo Linkstation Live in a thread here a few months ago; in order to avoid any possible 'naming and shaming' deletion of this thread, let me simply say that I withdraw my recommendation.

On a completely unrelated note, might I also say that I am having a bit of hassle trying to recover lost files on an XFS formatted drive and was not happy with the so-called support from the manufacturer!
Them - 'You lost 500gb of data? Sorry, about that. If you'd like to send the drive back, we'll replace it under warranty.'
Me - 'But what about my data; my entire iTunes library was on there?'
Them - 'Sorry, if you'd like to return the drive, we'll replace it under warranty.'
Me - 'Okay, fair enough. I'd still like to recover my data though, but to do that I need to open the casing and take the drive out, is that okay?'
Them - 'Opening the case will invalidate the warranty'

Repeat ad infinitum!

Can anyone recommend any decent XFS compatible recovery/undelete software that might be up to the job? I've used Photorec with a reasonable amount of success, but it keeps finding what I'm now calling 'phantom' files that are about 30gb in size and filling up the drive I'm recovering to!

I know I should've backed-up regularly, but I really didn't expect the unit to fail in a matter of months!

[eps]

Sounds familiar, this is why I cannot recommend the Linkstation range from Buffalo. The Terastation range is another kettle of fish tho' Those ones do come recommended.

I suppose if you are going to open the drive up you could plug it into a USB connector and try and get to the information that way?

Do you know what make of drive is in the device? Some manufacturers have special diagnostic software just for their own drives, which might help as well..

[DrTre]

eps said:

Sounds familiar, this is why I cannot recommend the Linkstation range from Buffalo. The Terastation range is another kettle of fish tho' Those ones do come recommended.

I suppose if you are going to open the drive up you could plug it into a USB connector and try and get to the information that way?

Do you know what make of drive is in the device? Some manufacturers have special diagnostic software just for their own drives, which might help as well..

Not by me they don't.

[TheCarpetCleaner]

I gave up with my external netgear heap of crap, and build a Freenas box.

At least if the drives go down, I can read it on a linux workstation - its cheap as well because it only requires st hardware to run.

[T350 Al]

eps said:

Do you know what make of drive is in the device? Some manufacturers have special diagnostic software just for their own drives, which might help as well..

Yup, problem is that the hard disk itself seems to be working fine, but the firmware Buffalo use has wiped it of all info on the disk. It's a Samsung SATA drive, so I removed it from the casing and hooked it up to a drive dock and started recovering data that way. The problem I'm having now is that not many recovery/undelete packages can read XFS formatted drives.

Proper PITA!

[h0b0]

I had the same thing happen to my link station. I managed to get firmware on it that would work even though Buffalo said it wasn't possible. It did take an age though and was the last resort. I don't have a link but I found it originaly quite quickly

[Roop]

Depends on how much you value your data. I'd pull the drive out and hook it directly to a SATA port on your PC. Try www.recuva.com for file recovery, failing that I have heard very good things about SpinRite but the former is free.

Good luck,

Roop

[ErnestM]

http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk

...and the price is right - free.

I recently recovered my mother-in-law's pictures, music and docs from a crashed sony laptop with this. Works with USB drives no problem. Read the wiki like instructions carefully.

[T350 Al]

Thanks to everyone for the suggestions. I eventually stumbled on Raise Data Recovery for XFS that did the job. Cracking little bit of software that has recovered everything I had on the drive!