Two primary products made by Buffalo are: network attached storage units (NAS) such as the LinkStation and TeraStation in homes and small offices, and external hard drives like the DriveStation and MiniStation. More often than not, we see that either the RAID array in a NAS has failed or the NAS has lost its firmware, or an external hard drive will no longer mount. Fortunately, all of these scenarios have recovery options available; however, it should be noted that if a NAS array has degraded, you must not allow it to rebuild before sending it to us for recovery.
Essentially, a LinkStation or TeraStation is a RAID box utilising a Linux operating system, whereas, a DriveStation is simply an external drive in a case. Both can be recovered, but once again, the key to making what would normally be recoverable into what is now unrecoverable is allowing a RAID rebuild to start after a replacement drive is installed.
There are really just two ways Buffalo classifies storage. The LinkStation (home/small office) and TeraStation (business) lines represent network attached storage units; they are basically boxes containing several hard drives that use a Linux-based OS to provide RAID protection for the XFS or EXT file systems. The DriveStation and MiniStation represent regular external hard drives. Knowing whether you have an external hard drive or a NAS unit is important because recovering them requires very different techniques.
Most commonly Buffalo NAS problems are caused by either a failed or degraded RAID (a disk is missing from the RAID set; several disks have failing sectors); or by a corrupt file system, or faulty firmware. The LinkStation may be stuck in emergency (EM) mode or unable to boot as normal after a failed firmware update, but the data will still remain on the disks. Therefore we create read-only copies of all the disks, determine the array geometry and then use these images to rebuild the RAID array offline. The method for this process is outlined in detail in our RAID won’t rebuild guide. Buffalo NAS & RAID recovery prices start at £500 +VAT.
As a Buffalo external drive is merely a conventional hard disk housed within a protective casing, traditional recovery methods are used. Removing the external casing and sending the individual hard disk(s) is generally acceptable. However, there are encrypted models of external Buffalo drive where the bridge chip in the casing handles the encryption. This means that if you wish to decrypt your data you need to send the entire unit. If you were to remove the internal drives they would no longer be readable. External drive recovery prices start at £300 +VAT following a complimentary diagnostic service.
It’s extremely unlikely. A LinkStation which has crashed into EM (emergency) mode, or is unbootable due to a failed firmware update normally contains perfectly healthy disks. The issue lies with the NAS itself, not the data contained upon those disks. Our approach involves creating read-only images of each disk and then rebuilding the RAID array without any interaction with the failed NAS. We recommend sending us the unit rather than trying firmware fixes that write to the disks.
No, not until your data is safe. Attempting to rebuild a degraded NAS array onto a new disk could potentially write over the necessary information to recover the array as well as cause excessive stress on the remaining drives. This is the most common way NAS users lose their files forever. It would be best to turn off the NAS system, not re-initialise the array and send it in. Once received, we will read the disks non-destructively, then rebuild the array outside of the unit so no further damage occurs.
Send us either the entire NAS unit or all the individual drives within the NAS unit, with each drive labelled with the order in which they were located within the unit. This is required because the array can only be successfully rebuilt when all drives are present. Do not swap drives or attempt to guess the correct order. If you are sending in a Buffalo external drive model (i.e., DriveStation), just send the single drive. However, if you have an encrypted Buffalo external drive model, please send in the entire unit.
Yes. We typically start by reading around the bad sectors of each drive read-only to ensure we capture as much data as possible prior to losing access to additional areas of the drive due to degradation. If a drive exhibits a “clicking” behaviour, we identify it as having a physical failure, which we repair while in our workshop prior to proceeding with any imaging efforts. To minimise additional damage to a physically failing disk, please do not continue powering on the drive after noticing symptoms of physical failure. Get it diagnosed rather than running repair tools on it.
Our recovery prices for a Buffalo NAS (either LinkStation or TeraStation) or RAID start from £500 + VAT. The cost to recover a single Buffalo external disk (DriveStation or MiniStation) starts from £300 + VAT. All of our diagnostic services and fixed quoted prices for service charges are provided absolutely free and will be given to you in writing prior to beginning any service, and all services are performed in house.
Shut down the NAS device and prevent it from rebuilding. Provide us with as much detail as you can about your model and how things went wrong, then ship us the NAS device or individual disks (in the same order they resided in the NAS bays). Upon receipt, we will provide you with a complimentary diagnosis, along with a fixed written quote for any fees associated with restoring your data, before any money changes hands.