Hi all,

Has anyone had experience with accessing the contents of a naked LaCie Ethernet Disk Mini (10/100)?

The mainboard failed (18 months old) on my unit, but the drive is still OK. I have taken the drive out (PATA) and hooked it up via a USB to PATA adapter. It has a bunch of partitions (viewable in Disk Utility) but only 2 mount (ext2). The main data partition is FAT32 but won't mount, presumably because normally the drive requires a username/password.

I know the drive normally runs some *nix variant, but now that it's a dumb drive do I have any hope? Maybe some magical anti-password command in Terminal?

LaCie tech support aren't very helpful - "You will need to contact a Data Recovery service"

Thanks,
Nigel.

Found a couple of links for you that look (tricky) to allow you to hack the Linux kernel on the device to gain access to files:

http://core.federated.com/~jim/edmini/index.html
http://luon.net/~admar/journal/LaCie...tDiskMini.html
http://www.loonypandora.com/2005/09/...disk-dont-buy/

... of course, the problem with the above links is that you still need working Lacie ethernet drive to hack it

Of course if the data is important, I think the only valid way to get it off would be to find an exact replacement Lacie drive (perhaps by trawling eBay), shove your disk in there, and copy everything off that way. Best not to touch any file contents until you can do this.

JB

Thanks JB,

Yes I discovered those links, very useful if I had a working logicboard

I might have to hunt around for a different unit. The newer 10/100/1000Mb LaCie versions are a SATA drive, so they can't even give me a new board and get it working.

I'll keep looking!

Thanks again,

Nigel.

It seems the initial Lacie network drives had high failure rates due to insufficient cooling; check over the PCB for any fried components or "bulging" capacitors, might be something to repair.

Hope you find a replacement

JB

Nigel -
I read with interest your ed mini issue, as I have been wrestling with the same problem, including Lacie's unwillingness to provide replacement parts, the unavailability of similar drive units, etc.. I am awaiting a PATA - USB drive enclosure in hopes that I can recover some of the data on the drive, but considering your experience, I am not certain that I will be successful. I left the factory FAT-32 default format and didn't partition the drive at all. Have you found a solution to recovering the data (short of a service)?

When the drive is installed in a new enclosure, what are the barriers to having data read out? I was under the impression that password protection was handled by the (now defunct) logic controller board which would regulate access to the data, but that data itself would be stored in the drive media without modification. In that case, replacing the controller with a generic would simply read the data from the media and relay it to the (USB) interface. What am I missing in this process?

Thanks, Paul

I had one of these go bad on me after only 6 months! Took it to a PC technician guy who knows a fair bit about this stuff but he said it was utterly stuffed. I used to buy LaCie drives all the time but now have ventured into other brands...

My logic board was fried but also the needle on the hard drive had jammed down on the platter and stuffed the disc.

Sorry that's not much help.

plazorko: What model LaCie device failed with yourself?

If it's an ethernet NAS device, check the links I've posted above; sadly it's not a matter of plugging the hard disk into something else. The hard disk and PCB of the LaCie Ethernet device are very closely tied, and nothing apart of replacing it with the exact model will work.

If the LaCie device is a standard USB/FW hard disk, you should be fine to plug it into something else and retrieve your data.

JB

The LaCie was a 10/100 ethernet model. The links appear to be hacks of the Unix controller - but require that the drive be "alive" before they can be applied. I looked for a replacement on ebay, but found only newer gigabit ethernet models, which may not be compatible with the old PATA drive.
Of note, The PATA-USB enclosure I ordered arrived today, and I installed the drive into it. My Mac sees the drive, but gives the message that it has "no volumes readable by this OS". It gives me the option to reformat the disk or ignore the warning. I have two macs, one with 10.3.9, and another with 10.4.x and both give the same message. On both, Disk Repair shows the drive and the volume partition info, but won't allow them to be mounted. I can't even mount them from terminal. The glimmer of hope is that something from the disk has been read, so maybe...
I've heard word that PCs have been able to mount some FAT32 formatted drives that are unmountable by Macs, so I plan to take the thing to my brother's PC and see if I can get my data out.

Byrd- Thanks for the input. You're right about theLaCie network model - even the PCs couldn't mount the drive in the new enclosure. However, I did a thorough scan with "Data Rescue II" and have been able to recover all the files- music, movies, photos, documents. The original file structure is lost, and I have a lot of organizing to do, but at least the data is back. After a backup, I'll try to initialize the drive and format as HFS+.
P.

Great to hear you could retrieve most of your data plazorko

JB

I scoured the far edge of the internet over the past few days, and I did in fact find a solution that recovered everything (even things I had deleted) from my Lacie d2 Ethernet Disk Mini. It also was able to find the metadata for all of the files on the drive.
It is a Windows based program called R-Studio. I had to get a usb to ide converter, and remove the LaCie drive (a Seagate) to do it, but it worked. I hope to never run into this again, but R-Studio was exceptional (there was no need to rename anything at all) and allows for free trial before you buy it. It's $80 US. I am going to buy a bunch of DL DVD's to back up on, now that I've officially learned my lesson.

What's that old adage about backing up your data three times to be sure ?
Once to another hard drive in your computer , two , to another portable hard drive that can be plugged into another computer and three, burning the data onto a disc to be stored off site.

Stewie ( checks his latest backup regime )

i have a problem with ed mini after about 1-2 yrs all of a sudden it will only allow access from usb...

considering myself to be well up on things i cannot get the nas side to work at all.

also noticed that the time it should take to power down from nas as opposed to usb is now instant suggesting that the unix firmware isnt actually booting the device its just powering up.

thinking the firmware maybe damaged i have proceeded to update from 1.6 to 2.0 hoping any errors will be overwritten ...... sadly this is not the case .

any ideas ....

other than cloning the disk off to test another hdd not sure what to do

intresting point tho at the same time i did swap out the disk for one i had lying around to test my theory of corrupt firmware (which i think is stored on the disk) dusting it off whilst powering up windows gave me that disk to access as a removable disk with no login needed... see where im coming from as regards the firmware

i shall investigate further and let you all know

luckily the pcb doenst appear fried sorry guys