Placing Gtech external drives in an External Enlosure Case?!?!?

[moegraph]

Hello,

I have an EMERGENCY. My board is fried on my external 2TB G-tech drive. Won't power on. It has all my client's work on it. (I am a web/graphic designer).

I took the drives out to test them but OSX displays, that it cant read the HD and won't mount. I researched and came to the conclusion that you need both drives to be loaded at the same time because they are Raid.

My question is. If I purchase a new (4 Bay) External HD enclosure, does it have to support RAID?? Or can I get any (4 Bay) enclosure with or without Raid and OSX will load my drives for me to see my files?

Thanks in advance...

 

[Weaselboy]

Are you talking about this model? It looks like that contains two 1TB drives in RAID 0 to make it look like one, large 2TB drive to the OS.

It does not look like "hardware RAID", but appears to just use Disk Utility's ability to configure software RAID. So you will need a new enclosure that supports OS X software RAID and both drives will need to be in there.

A generic non-RAID enclosure is not going to work.

 

[ColdCase]

The referenced enclosure/drives has this bullet:

"RAID Controller: Hardware RAID 0 - Oxford 936 chipset.... G-RAID is ready right out of the box for use with Mac OS X systems and appears to the system as a single, big and fast disk drive."

So it looks like it has a hardware RAID controller built in. If so, another brand enclosure will not do you any good as the RAID controller used is proprietary. You need another Gtech box, probably the same model, and then swap drives... put them in the same slots as mixing them up will likely destroy the data. But to be safe, you may want to contact Gtech support and perhaps send the enclosure there for data recovery. There may be other enclosures that work, but if not compatible they will likely destroy your data. Unfortunately there is probably nothing else besides a data recovery service that will read those drives, such is the nature of hardware RAID.

If the Gtech box you have does not have the hardware RAID built in (looked like two drives to disk utility which was then used to RAID 0 them) then any enclosure or cable will work, just connect the two drives to the Mac at the same time. The drives do not need to be installed in the same enclosure, or even use the same type interface as the Mac OS will figure it out.

 

[paulrbeers]

Hello,

I have an EMERGENCY. My board is fried on my external 2TB G-tech drive. Won't power on. It has all my client's work on it. (I am a web/graphic designer).

I took the drives out to test them but OSX displays, that it cant read the HD and won't mount. I researched and came to the conclusion that you need both drives to be loaded at the same time because they are Raid.

My question is. If I purchase a new (4 Bay) External HD enclosure, does it have to support RAID?? Or can I get any (4 Bay) enclosure with or without Raid and OSX will load my drives for me to see my files?

Thanks in advance...

We would need to know the model #

However, if it is the one that Weasel boy pointed to this part of the description leads me to believe the drive itself is doing the RAID0 and not OSX....
G-RAID is ready right out of the box for use with Mac OS X systems and appears to the system as a single, big and fast disk drive. A simple reformat is all it takes to ready G-RAID for use with Windows systems.

Based on the above, you would need to get the exact same one and swap the drives in it if you even HOPE of recovering the data... There is no guarantee that the drives are still even in working order. Quite frankly if I was in your shoes and royally f'ed up, I would just be ordering the same backup drive and not even bother looking for alternatives because time is money and even if another enclosure would work, I wouldn't have the time to order a second.

Now for the scolding.... If you are running a business, you CAN NOT be this careless with customer projects. You need a backup. Preferably offsite, but at the absolute least you need to back up to a portable drive that can be taken with you in an emergency.

 

[moegraph]

Hello guys. THANKS for the feedback.

This is the Model:

http://www.amazon.com/G-Technology-G-RAID-Dual-External-Drive/dp/B002Q887BS

 

[ColdCase]

Hello guys. THANKS for the feedback.

This is the Model:

http://www.amazon.com/G-Technology-G-RAID-Dual-External-Drive/dp/B002Q887BS

You can't simply remove drives from that model without losing the data. You should talk to G-tech support (which is now owned by WD I think), but I would guess you can put the drives into another enclosure of the same model. The hardware within that enclosure uses its own drive format and stores meta data on the drives while splitting the files between the drives. OSX isn't going to be able to reassemble the bits and pieces into usable data.

Are you sure its not a power brick problem? Its a generic 12VDC power brick I think. If you happen to have another 12VDC power brick around that is rated for at least 1.5 amps and has a compatible power connector, try it.

 

[moegraph]

You can't simply remove drives from that model without losing the data. You should talk to G-tech support (which is now owned by WD I think), but I would guess you can put the drives into another enclosure of the same model. The hardware within that enclosure uses its own drive format and stores meta data on the drives while splitting the files between the drives. OSX isn't going to be able to reassemble the bits and pieces into usable data.

Are you sure its not a power brick problem? Its a generic 12VDC power brick I think. If you happen to have another 12VDC power brick around that is rated for at least 1.5 amps and has a compatible power connector, try it.

Yes I tried multiple power supplies and it wont even power on. I found the same unit on eBay for half the price. Looks like I will go that route.

 

[MCAsan]

While you are at it, set up backup drive(s) with TM or CCC so if you do loss data drives again, you can restore to new drives.

 

[ColdCase]

You should try to remember which drive went into which slot and install them in the same location. The other thing that you may stumble over is the enclosure firmware revision and if any of the changes affect the RAID function enough.

I think if you plug in the drives and the meta data is not recognized by the enclosure, its going to reformat the drives without warning. Its worth a shot, but there is some risk. I am more familiar with NewerTech stuff and one had to be careful. G-Tech may be entirely different.

 

[Weaselboy]

The referenced enclosure/drives has this bullet:

"RAID Controller: Hardware RAID 0 - Oxford 936 chipset....

Yeah... I missed that in the specs. I think you are correct.

 

[moegraph]

Update!!!

Ok I have an update. I just received the SAME CASING (G-Tech) placed the drives inside and it still won't mount. So im currently puzzled what to do not. As a last resort im looking to send it to a professional but I know they charge an arm and a leg for restoration.

At the moment im running Data Rescue 3 to see if it restores. Sucks it takes 20 hours, but worth it if it works. *Fingers Crossed*

 

[ColdCase]

Try swapping drive positions.

 

[moegraph]

didnt work..man.. sucks

 

[paulrbeers]

didnt work..man.. sucks

Are you sure it wasn't the drives that went bad? and/or weren't damaged as well? Did you ever try putting drives into your old enclosure just to see if it was running fine?

Backups, backups, backups.... Time Machine?

 

[moegraph]

Are you sure it wasn't the drives that went bad? and/or weren't damaged as well? Did you ever try putting drives into your old enclosure just to see if it was running fine?

Backups, backups, backups.... Time Machine?

The old enclosure board I believe was short circuited or something. It will not Power On. Its not the Power Supply because it is working on the New Enclosure I purchased (which is the same exact enclosure). I swapped the drive order and it still didn't see it. It just gives the drive not recognized message again.

Yeah, I know backups, backups. My bad choice not to do it when I should have a long time ago.

----------

Right now Im running recovery software to see if there is a problem with the RAID 0 structure or something. My last resort is to take it to a local technician.

 

[ColdCase]

It was a long shot to begin with. Sometimes messing with the drives does more damage to the data as the computer can write stuff which overwrite the config info needed for the RAID chip to work. I don't have any other suggestions besides a wide scale google/bing search for similar events, sorry.

 

[campyguy]

Right now Im running recovery software to see if there is a problem with the RAID 0 structure or something. My last resort is to take it to a local technician.

Long time G-Tech Drive owner/user here. I have one on my desk now. I missed this thread when it first showed up.

Stop attempting to get at the data, right now - you likely won't get anything off the drives. The data was striped in a proprietary fashion through the Oxford chip, and placing the drives in a like RAID box (same model IOW) likely won't work either.

Take your drives and failed enclosure to a specialized recovery specialist - one that specifically works on G-Tech drives. We have MacWest Data Recover (in LA) on our shortlist. If the tech you take the G-Tech drive looks lost or hems and haws, get out of there faster than your old RAID drive was...

 

[bennibeef]

I'm sorry I cannot help you with this problem but when I read this I always think hm I dont know why people like RAID just plain normal RAID so much.

I have a Drobo and there are so many people hating drobo for their proprietary RAID format. And they always say yes if your drobo fails you have to buy a new one. And the "standard" raid format is so much better because you should be able to read it. And in most times you arent able to read it that easy. If the drobo fails and I buy a new one I should be able to read it with the new one because it was designed the way to be read again. Here is the problem with a standard RAID-0 you get into problems fast. Where is the benefit of not using this "bad" proprietary format if the standard one in the same enclosure doesnt work?


I hope you get your data again and then the first thing you should do is back up your clients data. Its where your money comes from. And use something different than the RAID-0 format you are currently using, with that you doubled the risk of loosing your clients files instead of some kind (different raids and yes - it is not meant as backup) securing them.