Seagte Black Armor NAS destroys Seagate FreeAgent drive!

[DoubleK]

Primary computer disk - 1tb Seagate Sata

Redundant data drive - 1tb Seagate Free Agent

Redundant/Redundant Data Drive - 1tb Seagate BlackArmor NAS 110

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After familiarizing myself all weekend with my new nas I decided that it was time to backup my free agent and then move it to a safe deposit box.

I plugged the free agent's usb cable into the rear of the nas and was navigating it's file structure and files as I had done Sunday evening through the Windows Explorer Black Armor nas discovery.

As opposed to clicking on "Free Agent" I clicked 1 file below inadvertently which was a "shared usb1.1" folder. Immediately upon doing this the system paused for about 5 seconds and the NAS disc access light blinked during this time.

I immediately thought, "OH %$!&!" as the Windows Network Explorer Free Agent folder structure blinked. My suspicions were founded once I clicked away from the drive and back on it again.

The whole folder structure and files are gone. This is not to say they are not there. I checked withing Knoppix and it shows nothing on that Free Agent.

I started recuva and the files are there. My problems is that we are talking about 400 gigabytes of data. Pictures, ALL my ripped cd's, video files and .vtf projects and dozens of various other assorted documents and files that were meticulously arranged in a folder sequence very tidy by my standards.

Essentially I know the NAS uses some hybrid version of linux and it somehow wiped whatever partition tables Windows would write to an external usb storage device like the free agent. Is there ANY way to reclaim this order as opposed to organizing ten's of thousands of files from scratch?

Seagate is absolutely ZERO help. Their phone support claims it is the customers responsibility to back their data up (no kidding?) and I went on to point out that Seagate is that redundancy and they failed! Miserably!

They are interested in me reproducing this "anomaly" and documenting it with them. At that point I stated for my inconvenience would like some consulting fees and that I would send them the video documentary and any harware upon payment. The technician explained that there is a whole enthusiast crowd out there who would do this for free to play with new hardware.

I told the naive' agent that enthusiast no longer defines me when I pay retail and demand that something works in such a data critical scenario.

His only rebuttal during our limited exchange was me misinterpreting the manual:

From Manual: The rear port lets you back up data directly to or from a portable USB drive or connect
a USB printer that everyone on your local network can use, or connect an
Uninterruptable Power Supply (UPS).

While the printer works great the data on the free agent hard drive is rendered inaccessible! His only explanation was that "it was intended for a usb flash drive."

O rly?

[DoubleK]

After careful inspection and consideration the original ntfs partition tables were indeed deleted when the NAS automatically set the drive to fat32 when viewing the freeagent through the discovery shell.

Seagate is very complicit in this and although they will deny any wrong doing as "data redundancy is the customers responsibility" I plan on recreating, documenting and raising hell (class action?) given their clear disregard and cavalier attitude towards peoples data with an issue so glaringly obvious a somewhat tech capable person such as myself figured it out.

These NAS devices are just showing up retail here in the midwest and why I picked one up. I am not looking for fame or fortune and would much rather embarrass an organization through a reputable publication or journal. The 4 representatives I spoke with acted so omnipotent that I refuse to let this go especially when I feel the bug is so glaringly obvious it should have never shipped. I want to stop others less capable peoples misery before it happens.

I am thinking Cnet, AnAndtech, Maximum PC ect? It blows my mind that you can offer a company a live feed of you reproducing a major bug, offer to send them the hardware and willing to go to Besy Buy and purchase another off the shelf to reproduce the issue and the best they can tell you is to not bother, that they essentially do not care as the product was exhaustively tested (we will see) and it must be an anomaly.

I guess I should feel fortunate that for my inconvenience they offered me a trial version of their $129.00 File Recovery For Windows program

My go to consultant I have used over the years confirmed my suspicion and is 1st going to back up all the data to another of my spare sata drives to maintain file structure (I have 85% of it anways on another disc) and then she is going to repair the damaged original ntfs partition for me.

I would ask what a good utility is to repair deleted partitions but frankly I am so anal about backups that in theory I should never need a tool like this let alone want to play with something at this point that I have never tested on data I would rather not lose.

[mike900]

For repairing I would use:
- Knoppix (latest)
- Hiren's BootCD or UltimateBootCD
- Conceptronic USB -> IDE/SATA converter (or any external convertor for that matter)

I don't think any of these things will solve it but it's worth the try, right.

Thanks for your post, I got myself a BlackArmor 1Tb a few weeks ago so I will be carefull when I'm going to try connecting another disc.

[DoubleK]

Yes Mike be very careful. I have confirmed this same issue with another Seagate BlackArmor NAS 110 off the shelf. It is CERTAINLY has an issue and I would not hook up ANY disc where you are not prepared for the ntfs partition tables to be wiped and replaced with fat32 simply by clicking a shared folder in the Windows shell that the NAS 110 creates be default for you.

The free trial Seagate File Recovery program for Windows that their i365 Data Recovery services recommended was equally shameful. While it may seem like a powerful program it pales in comparison to recuva and Partition Wizard respectively. I imagine the Seagate tool might be worthwhile if it did not freeze up after 2 separate 12+ hour scans. I rescanned the second time thinking the saved scan log might have somehow been corrupted. Glad I payed $129.00 for that crapware.

Both of them are going back to the store and I will be spending considerably more and purchasing a drobo and putting a ssd in my computer thus utilizing my current 1 tb seagate sata with three more Western Digital's. It isn't that I think Seagate makes an inferior product rather pissed at how they dismissed my concerns with everything I offered.

Seagate can kiss my ass after this fiasco. I will buy a damn Cavalry first