# WD My Cloud 4Tb - Lost full content of Share Folder and Safepoint



## TToff (Mar 24, 2015)

Hullo, 

Yesterday I lost a *whole content* of my main custom share folder on My Cloud 3Tb and simultaneously all data on my *Safepont backup drive (sic!)* (3Tb). 

Previously I have noticed that My Cloud frequently disconnected itself from my home network. Thus I had to reboot it by detaching power supply. There was also a problem with recognition of my USB external storage attached to My Cloud (Safepoint drive). 

Finally I did a Safe Factory Restore and I switched my main share folder setting from public to private. While doing that my main custom share folder disappeared from share list (Windows Explorer and web UI). When I switched back to public it reappeared again. 

I think in this moment I noticed in Windos Explorer that in my main custom folder share sub-folder (huge volume - about 2.7TB) content became disappeared - there were files and subfolders there. 

After certain time the share was emptied. There were only one folder (empty) and one sub-folder (empty). 

I was struck dumb discovering that the Safepoint drive was also emptied. All folders remains in the root but they were completely empty! 

As WD assures it was to be the safest protection for the My Cloud data!. 
Thus I have lost almost 3Tb of precious data. 

Today I contacted WD Support and they confirmed no data on the both drive. They, in the preliminary way proposed me an exchange (drive is on warranty) free of charge (after recovery attempt)! The final decision should be confirmed. They have advised me to contact recovery service company to retrieve the data. Of course they do not cover the fee. 

They have not been able to explain why and how was it possible to loose the data from Safepoint drive. 

I am extremely disappointed. In such case the whole WD idea of data security is *totally untrustworthy*. I will never be able to trust it and put on it any valuable data, any data. 

I wonder wher if any of you have the similar problem. 

I would be deeply thankful if you could furnish me with any potential cause of that disaster and if the lost data could be recoverable. 

Thank you in advance and be careful, do not trust a Safepoint stability and security. 

I wish I made a backup on a separate drive and not on attached to My Cloud one. Well, I wish I bought and used My Cloud at all. 

Thank you in advance for any suggestion on the above.


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## SuperSoph_WD (Mar 25, 2015)

Hey there, @TToff ! 

Well, I'm really sorry about your data on the WD My Cloud.  
Unfortunately, my guess is that between the otherwise safe factory restore & the switching of the main share from public to private and back again might have caused your existing files and folders to vanish by creating brand new directories for your new public/private folders.  Since the Safepoint backup drive was most probably plugged during that whole process, it would explain why the data from there is gone as well.
I'm sorry but if even our tech support couldn't help you, I believe it's best to take a look at our Data Recovery partners: http://products.wdc.com/support/kb.ashx?id=fnGwky

I strongly recommend you to always keep several backups of your most precious data. Preferably ON-site and a couple OFF-site. My personal off-site back up is: external HDDs + DVDs (which I keep locked in a drawer). This is the best way to avoid data loss in the future and save yourself the headaches and the money. 

Best of luck with the recovery if you decide to go through with it. And again, sorry, to see you see so disappointed! 
SuperSoph_WD


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## TToff (Mar 25, 2015)

I thank you very much for you well-aimed diagnostic.
As far as I recall and associate my actions and their results the raison of that disaster has to be switching between public-private folder share access setting. That is why I have lost all the content (not folders) on my backup (*Safe*point) attached drive.

The only folder (Public) I did not switch that setting for has remained intact. alerting a co

What is most important and deeply deceiving and what causes my utter amazement that there is *no information, warning* prompt/pop-up neither in the WD My Cloud manual, nor on web UI screen alerting an everyman user of that *highly important risk*!
While one is submerged with an incredible amount of useless pop-ups on almost every and each  click-action!

I am not a quite newbie system user and I have never imagined that switching between the access share permission could erase the folder data. Especially as described above.

Thank you for your precious advice on backup instruction. I will apply it plainly.

I have received a very useful piece of advice I would like to share with those... touch wood.

Quote:
_
All the data recovery possible can be done by yourself as long as the original drive hasn't completely failed. This is what to do. Buy two new 3TB or larger hard drives. Use Linux to do a clone of the MyCloud drive to one of the new drives. It will copy every one and zero from the MyCloud drive over to the new drive. Then run Recuva, an excellent and free data recovery program, on the cloned drive and use the second new hard drive to write the files to. The reason I recommend the two new drives and cloning the original is that the old drive showed some signs of possible failure and we want to be as gentle as possible. There are no guarantees but I think that most or all of your data is easily recoverable.

Next time, make sure that you have other backups of your data. Also watch out for problems or any sort of signs of failure in a hard drive. If you have only one place where you are storing things and that drive gives you any problem whatsoever, backing up that data is the number one priority, not playing with things like "Safe Factory Restore."

(...)

The beauty of an exact clone of the old drive and using a third drive to write the recovered data to is that you can use as many different recovery programs as many different times as you want. Try Recuva first. If it doesn't do what you want, then pay for the other software.

Qing Dao on NotebookReview Forum._

Once more a huge thanks for your kind reaction.
My best regards.

PS
Yesterday I received a call from WD Support Staff, they will take care of my disk. I have been relieved.
Now, the question is what is the probability of recovering the content and what part.


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## erixx (May 4, 2015)

thumbs up!

And i suscribe totally what Qing Dao said: make a full copy on a clean hdd at FIRST SIGN OF PROBLEMS.


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## suxumi (Jun 13, 2016)

I had the same issue.

I've WD My Cloud EX2. One day I find out that the system was down.. what happend?? - the fan was not working and the temperature was too high.. I had RAID1 and despite of this both of 2T HDD was damaged unrecoverably.  *All MY DATA WAS LOST TOTALLY!!!* 

Never, *NEVER trust WD My Cloud EX2* or one day you'll loose all your unvaluable data and unable to recover it.


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## RCoon (Jun 13, 2016)

suxumi said:


> I had the same issue.
> 
> I've WD My Cloud EX2. One day I find out that the system was down.. what happend?? - the fan was not working and the temperature was too high.. I had RAID1 and despite of this both of 2T HDD was damaged unrecoverably.  *All MY DATA WAS LOST TOTALLY!!!*
> 
> Never, *NEVER trust WD My Cloud EX2* or one day you'll loose all your unvaluable data and unable to recover it.



"I had the same issue"

Proceeds to describe completely different issue. Customer logic + that swaggin' 1 year old thread necro.

I recommend prodding our venerable WD dreadnought @SuperSoph_WD. If your EX2 was/is in warranty when the fan failed (supposedly) killing your two HDD's, WD can assist.


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## erixx (Jun 13, 2016)

Mental note: replace stock fan with a nice Noctua or similar when I buy a EX2. I have a basic My Cloud (1 drive) without fan.


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## SuperSoph_WD (Jun 13, 2016)

suxumi said:


> I had the same issue.
> 
> I've WD My Cloud EX2. One day I find out that the system was down.. what happend?? - the fan was not working and the temperature was too high.. I had RAID1 and despite of this both of 2T HDD was damaged unrecoverably.  *All MY DATA WAS LOST TOTALLY!!!*
> 
> Never, *NEVER trust WD My Cloud EX2* or one day you'll loose all your unvaluable data and unable to recover it.



Welcome to the TPU community, @suxumi!

I'm truly sorry to hear about your data!  However, you should *always keep in mind* that having* only one copy of your files*, regardless of its location _(NAS, computer, external drive, cloud storage, etc.) _*is highly dangerous! *My advice is to always have at least two copies of your most precious files stored in several locations _(on-site as well as off-site)_! This is the surest way to avoid any potential data loss. Unfortunately, RAID 1 or any other RAID array configuration is not a safe backup solution either, so you most definitely consider having one backup of your array data stored somewhere else as well.

Just like @RCoon mentioned, you should check your *WD My Cloud EX2 Warranty* . In case it's still covered, you should get in touch with our *Customer Support*, either by phone or e-mail and *send your RMA request.* 

Again, sorry to hear about your poor experience with our WD My Cloud EX2! 
Hope everything works out for you! Best of luck!

SuperSoph_WD


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## suxumi (Jun 13, 2016)

Appreciate your replies.. I've already contacted with WD support, also posted on community but there are no any responses yet..

But I have a question and could you give me an advise:

Can I somehow restore the data from this HDD's? On windows, OS doesn't recognize the file system, as I assume it's a Linux based format, so is there any way to restore somehow?

Thanks in advance

BTW: Previously I bought the My Cloud 3T, which still works fine but because of big data I had, I bought this EX2 for more stability and because of the RAID.. but as I see it failed for me, unfortunately


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## Frick (Jun 13, 2016)

suxumi said:


> BTW: Previously I bought the My Cloud 3T, which still works fine but because of big data I had, I bought this EX2 for more stability and because of the RAID.. but as I see it failed for me, unfortunately



As said, RAID is not backup. Always a terrible lesson to learn.


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## SuperSoph_WD (Jun 13, 2016)

suxumi said:


> Appreciate your replies.. I've already contacted with WD support, also posted on community but there are no any responses yet..
> 
> But I have a question and could you give me an advise:
> 
> ...



I believe your best bet on getting those files back would be to contact *a professional data recovery company* for assistance, especially if there is physical damage present on the HDDs. If Windows doesn't recognize the file system, it's most probably corrupted. _(It might also be listed as RAW format or Unallocated)_ This is not Linux-based format, though. You could try performing *data recovery attempts by yourself* using a Ubuntu Live CD. However, nobody can determine how successful those attempts would be and they are entirely *at your own risk*. 

Trust me, we've all been there, unfortunately! 
Regardless of the storage device, a true backup means having (AT LEAST) two copies of your files stored in different locations! The more copies you have, the safer you will feel about the integrity of your data.

SuperSoph_WD


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## RCoon (Jun 13, 2016)

suxumi said:


> Can I somehow restore the data from this HDD's?



If the failure is partition/format related, you can use a Live CD as suggested like Parted Magic. On that Live CD is a utility called PhotoRec (don't let the name fool you, it's for all files). If you run PhotoRec on the suspect drive and output the data to a separate drive of equal size, it should recover any data potentially lost from a simple loss of table format. PhotoRec does not maintain file names or folders, but should maintain filetypes and date created data.

If the failure is physical hardware related, get ready to pay the big bucks for a company to recover direct from the platters. I've successfully transplanted a set of platters from one defunct drive to another in a clean room, but I doubt any old domestic user could do it without accidentally fingerprinting the disk.


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## suxumi (Jun 13, 2016)

Thank you all guys.. I'll follow your advice and will post the results..


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## Aquinus (Jun 14, 2016)

RCoon said:


> I recommend prodding our venerable WD dreadnought @SuperSoph_WD.


That was some awesome praise right there. The wording is perfect. ...dreadnought. 

I second the off-site backup. If you keep the cloud server powered down, 100GB at Google Compute Engine is only 4 dollars a month. I think it costs me ~30-35USD/mo to keep a n1-standard-1 up all the time with 100GB of storage. Granted, I put the important things there, not the really big files. I keep those locally on two *different* systems with RAID-5. The important stuff is in two places locally to my place of residence, and on the cloud at GCE. At least that way, if the house burns down, the important stuff is safe and if my tower or gateway/nas/vm server explodes, everything is safe.


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