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ADR / The hardware we handle / NAS at home or work

Devices · shared storage on a network

NAS drive recovery, London. One unit holds everything the firm has, and bay two is showing red.

Switch the system off, and keep it switched off. None of the other items listed on this page will save as much of your data as switching the system off when a failure occurs in a single bay. A failed bay is a "silent" error; the shares are still active, files still open, and sometimes a couple of weeks elapse before someone even checks the front panel. An actual failure of a storage pool happens when a unit offers to initiate a scrub, repair or rebuild operation, and somebody agrees to proceed. For any multi-disk configuration (NAS, array, server) expect to spend from £500 + VAT upwards, and the look that fixes the figure is free. Several NAS units arrive here from all over London: a Harley Street medical practice that keeps its images on one such unit in the basement; an edit suite in Soho in the middle of a grade; a Bromley surveyor; and a cupboard in a Barnet hallway.

Only pay if we recover your data, on most jobs A free look first, then one figure in writing Media posted in from Croydon, Ealing and Camden

Put it to an engineer — the first look costs nothing
0203 0868633

NAS symptoms, and how long each gives you.

Not listed? Try the finder →
One bay red, the pool degradedOne member has left and the others are making up for it. Every hour it keeps running leaves less to work with.Do not delay
A rebuild that stopped, or a volume the box has failedBad sectors that another member cannot read. Do nothing, and use no additional power.Do not delay
Healthy disks in an enclosure that quitBetter than it sounds. All information regarding the array exists within the disks themselves, and none of it is contained within the enclosure itself.Everyday job
The shares went after a firmware updateDamaged configuration or damaged container layer. Everything beneath is unharmed.Everyday job
You plug a member in and Windows offers to format itExpected behaviour: Windows does not recognise any of these configurations. Say no, then just stop.Everyday job
Packing it and posting it: get a quote first by phone or with the form, then carefully pack it (so nothing inside shifts) and send it tracked and insured to our Guildford intake lab, or drop it off there yourself, Monday to Friday, 9am to 5:30pm (no appointment needed). We will pay for the postage to return it home. If you would like an engineer to go through the packing with you first, ring us before you seal it. For complete details on this please see the guide to packing and posting.

Brand by brand, and what tends to go wrong.

Synology DSMDiskStation and RackStation under DSM, with btrfs or ext4 sitting atop SHR.
QNAP QTSTS and TVS chassis, running QTS or else QuTS hero. These devices are hunted by ransomware crews before any other type of device.
Buffalo TeraStationTeraStation and LinkStation: an E-number appears on the little display and nothing happens afterwards.
Netgear, and WDReadyNAS and My Cloud, which as frequently as not contain every photo a household owns.

What the NAS is telling you on screen.

Describe yours to us →
What is going onThe usual reason for itWhere that leaves you
Synology: the volume has been marked as "failed"Two disks are dead and parity protects only one disk.Disconnect the power source before DSM offers to repair the problem
Synology: storage pool degradedOne member of the group has dropped out of the set but everything continues to operate as normalEach additional hour that passes while powered increases the likelihood of losing remaining data.
QNAP declares the volume inactive and the RAID volume unmountedQTS can no longer mount its own volumeIt's assembled again elsewhere, outside of the original enclosure
Instead of your normal web interface, there is now a DeadBolt noticeA ransomware attack: all files now have a .deadbolt extensionTake a photograph of the screen. Do not touch anything else
Buffalo TeraStation, E14: the array cannot be mountedThe array itself is fine. It is just the enclosure that won't make it appearWrite down the E-number, and then remove the power
Buffalo TeraStation, E16: no disk foundThe drive either is not responding or the enclosure cannot find it any moreGenerally, what it held is still intact
Buffalo TeraStation, E30: a drive that is "faulty"One of the members has been removed from the arrayDo not accept the rebuild offer

From the box arriving to your files going back.

Work we have closed →
01

Logged the day it lands, and the first look costs nothing Free

As soon as your parcel arrives here, an engineer assigns a case number that same day, prior to determining what has really failed, which is the first thing done and costs you nothing. In addition to a note of what can and cannot be recovered from your drive, you will receive at the same time the fixed, written price for restoring what can be recovered. You can accept this quote, or decline it, which will result in no further obligation on your part and nothing owed to us.

Nothing to pay for lookingA single figure, put in writingNothing owed at this stage
02

Copies come first

Hardware made to clone disks makes exact copies of each disk from start to finish, weak areas included. Every step thereafter occurs on these copies. Your device sits here powered off, therefore whatever it started will never be picked up again.

Every copy made read-onlyNothing rebuilt in the chassis
03

Upward, one layer at a time

A volume that you view as one entity is usually made up of three or four layers. Synology will match partitions in pairs, create an md array over each pair and hand the resulting item to LVM for final presentation; similarly, other manufacturers such as QNAP, Netgear and Buffalo will ultimately reach the same point through their own paths. Each layer is recreated in software, from the bottom up, using the disks as input.

The mdadm and LVM stack unpickedSHR partition sets matched
04

The file system last of all

Then, once these layers are created (or restored), the btrfs or ext4 file system that rides on top of them will be restored to working order. The shares will also become available under their original names and the directory structure you originally specified. It should be noted that nothing will be finalised unless you go through the file list yourself.

btrfs or ext4 volume repairedShares back under their old names
05

You see the file list before you pay

You will see what has been recovered as a list first, after which a bill exists. Accepting the list means that a bill will be issued. Rejecting the list means that a bill will not be issued, and in most cases you only pay if we recover your data. The recovered data travels from here back to you via new media purchased specifically for your project, with the cost of postage paid by us. Your case is not resolved (i.e., "closed") until you personally view the files on a computer of your own.

No charge until you accept the figureFresh media, supplied with the jobThe post home is ours

What arrives most often

  • SHR is no secret format: it uses mdadm underneath, LVM above it, and at the bottom of that, it is composed of a series of partitions which were cut so as to match up across disks of varying sizes. All of the layers are then individually rebuilt in software from the image files, while the enclosure is unplugged and sitting on a separate workbench by itself. That repair button has saved nobody in all this time.
  • Degraded has a timer associated with it: rebuilding RAID 5 or SHR pools requires a single clean end-to-end pass from each disk remaining. Your disks were purchased together, installed on a single afternoon and have sat side-by-side and warm since installation. Usually, one halts mid-rebuild.
  • Your case doesn't count for much: Buffalo, Synology and the other manufacturers write the configuration of the array directly to the drives themselves, and do not save the configuration anywhere within the case. Of every error that makes it to this workbench, a faulty power supply is the best possible outcome.
  • Following a ransomware attack, treat the NAS as evidence: take photos of the screen before someone reboots it. Restarting often removes the alert along with the reference number. Our ransomware page and the forensics section go from there.

What the DeadBolt year taught: the QNAP devices caught through 2022 were characterised by two commonalities, and neither was poor fortune: outside traffic could access the device, and no one had upgraded the firmware since it was removed from its packaging. QLocker and eCh0raix had previously exploited these same areas. These characteristics have not changed since.

One job, followed all the way through.

LDN · ADR-2026-3335JOB LOGGED ✓

Two red lights on a Westminster NAS, and a rebuild begun regardless

Although two bays were indicating red status, the unit remained completely recoverable. Unfortunately, the damage was done once the rebuild process initiated afterwards, which wrote across the metadata that the box holds for itself. In order to perform recovery, a complete copy of every disk had to be made (including weak sectors), and then the mirror was put back together block by block, drawing each block from whichever disk provided a clean read of it. Every share opened exactly as it did prior to failure.

100% of them recovered5 days here, and back to you

What helps, and what harms.

Do this much first

  • Degraded? Shut down immediately
  • Already removed the disks? Number each disk by its bay
  • Still have the disks in? Remove them if possible, labelling each by bay; if that is not possible, the NAS should travel intact, bays undisturbed
  • Can you provide the model number, and is the disk pool set to SHR or a regular RAID configuration?

What sets us back

  • Agreeing to a repair or a rebuild
  • Initiating a disk scrub while the disk pool remains in a degraded condition
  • Allowing Windows to initialise a member disk
  • Switching disks between bays to determine if this resolves issues

Questions answered before you commit.

The enclosure is not powering on. Are the files gone too?

Rarely. All information regarding the layout resides within each individual disk: each disk contains notes of which bay it resided in, the stripe size, and each layer placed upon it. Sound disks in a failed enclosure are one of the simpler jobs on this workbench.

Should I take the disks out, or post the whole unit?

Remove the disks if possible, assigning each disk a number by bay as you would for a server or an array; otherwise send the entire NAS as it stands, including the chassis, the power supply and all disks remaining in their respective bays. If you have already removed them, label each with its original bay number before packing. Obtain a quote first, using either a phone call or the provided form; once quoted, post it tracked and insured, or drop it off at our Guildford intake lab, Monday to Friday, 9am to 5:30pm (no appointment needed). Nothing is read until all disks have been imaged.

What separates SHR from a plain RAID set?

SHR is how Synology allows you to utilise multiple-sized disks. Rather than leaving excess capacity unused, SHR divides each disk into partitions of matching sizes corresponding to its neighbours, creates an md array across each group of matching partitions, then hands it off to LVM, which presents it back to you as a single volume. Recovery involves naming each of those layers, then building them up again in sequential order, starting with the partition table.

DSM has failed the volume and stopped the rebuild. Is that the end?

No. This message indicates what services the enclosure can no longer perform for itself; however, it does not address the status of your files. After completing imaging on each drive and assembling the disk pool in software on other hardware, most volumes that DSM cannot mount will successfully read end-to-end.

Begin here if yours is doing the same thing.

RAID and server jobs → Maxtor disks → Drives on USB or Thunderbolt → Begin with the symptom →

Nothing gets worse while the power is off.

It doesn't cost you anything for us to look at it. All we do is give you a breakdown of what opened and what did not, plus a single fixed price to complete, written down before you agree to let us continue. On most jobs, you only pay if we recover your data. Please don't turn on the drive until you get that breakdown.

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Get it assessed Sending it to Guildford