Link to the discussion about this procedure.
Steps of recovery
100% Functional for ALL DISK SIZES.
1. Remove the HDD from MyBook World Edition and connect it to your PC. In this manual i refer to the disk as /dev/sda1
cd ~
su root [enter root passwd]
2. Download the rescue files [57 MiB]
wget http://szabados.sk/mybook_we_rescue.zip
unzip mybook_we_rescue.zip
cd rescue
3. Zero fill the first 3 GiB of space on disk
dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda bs=1M count=3000
4. Create the first 3 system partitions
sfdisk /dev/sda < SDA_PTAB
5. Create the last partition at the end of the disk
cfdisk /dev/sda
At the end of the disk there is much free space, create there a PRIMARY partition, set it to be TYPE=fd
This is because this manual is usable for all kind of disks big enough… So you can do this also with a 500G, 750G, 1000G or bigger disk. So the partition at the end is variable size dependent on the disk.
Some Linux distributions do automounting new partitions… So umount them if possible.
umount /dev/sda1
umount /dev/sda3
umount /dev/sda4
6. Format 4th partition with no space reserved for UID 0
mkfs.ext3 -m 0 /dev/sda4
Low Space rescue: You need about 4 GiB of free space for this rescue procedure, if you do not have enough follow the steps bellow.
// *begin edit - There's no need for any local disk space beyond the storage of the compressed rescue files. Every time you see a sequence like this:
bunzip2 filename.bz2
dd if=filename#.bz2.out of=/dev/sda#
instead do this:
bunzip2 <filename#.bz2 >/dev/sda#
This will decompress the files on the fly, which will not only save you from needing massive amounts of free local disk space, but also it will take only a fraction of the time.
Needless to say that if you do it this way you can skip the "not enough free space" steps.
// * end edit
You do not have to do this if you have enough free space…
mkdir /mnt/sda4
mount /dev/sda4 /mnt/sda4 -t ext3
cd ..
mv rescue /mnt/sda4
cd /mnt/sda4/rescue
7. Copy the contents of rescue.img to the disk
dd if=rescue.img of=/dev/sda
8. Unpack and copy the contents of the 1. system partition
You'll need cca 3 GiB of free space.
bunzip2 SDA1_IMA.BZ2
dd if=SDA1_IMA.BZ2.out of=/dev/sda1
If you see a message like this: "I/0 or other error, bailing out. Possible reson follows. No space left on device" Follow the "Low Space rescue" described at step 6 and then continue from where you stooped
9. Unpack and copy the contents of the swap [2nd] partition
You'll need cca 100 MiB of free space.
bunzip2 SDA2_IMA.BZ2
dd if=SDA2_IMA.BZ2.out of=/dev/sda2
If you see a message like this: "I/0 or other error, bailing out. Possible reson follows. No space left on device" Follow the "Low Space rescue" described at step 6 and then continue from where you stooped
10. Unpack and copy the contents of 3rd system partition
You'll need cca 1 GiB of free space.
bunzip2 SDA3_IMA.BZ2
dd if=SDA3_IMA.BZ2.out of=/dev/sda3
If you see a message like this: "I/0 or other error, bailing out. Possible reson follows. No space left on device" Follow the "Low Space rescue" described at step 6 and then continue from where you stooped
11. Turn off fsck for all [NON SWAP] system partitions
tune2fs -c -1 -i 0 /dev/sda1
tune2fs -c -1 -i 0 /dev/sda3
tune2fs -c -1 -i 0 /dev/sda4
12. Edit /etc/fstab
mkdir sda1
mount -t ext3 /dev/sda1 sda1
nano sda1/etc/fstab
/dev/md4 MUST BE REPLACED BY /dev/sda4!
Save it by pressing CTRL + X, Y, ENTER.
Or use any other editor you like… [Nano is quite simple]
umount sda1
DO NOT FORGET THIS!
13. poweroff the computer
Plug the drive back to MyBook and be happy its running again ;)
PLEASE READ
KNOWN PROBLEMS
- The lights go on, but MyBook do not listen on any network address
- The DATA partition does not mount automaticly
- There are problems with RAID on two-disk devices
1) This problem is because of some coruption in the 3rd partition… Also MyBook shows to be connected only to 100 mbps on gigabit network.
HOW TO FIX —> FOLLOW STEP 10 of the manual above
2) This is because the 4th partition isn't recognized as md4 but as sda4…
HOW TO FIX —> FOLLOW STEP 12 of the manual above
DO NOT FORGET TO UMOUNT THE PARTITION CORRECTLY!
3) This is because the procedure is 100% functional only for one-disk devices.
HOW TO FIX —> I'm in the process of verifying a slightly different approach. Look here for further info:
http://mybookworld.wikidot.com/forum/t-36199/recovering-fstab-for-wd-mybook-we-ii-2tb
I will update this HOWTO, as soon as we can verify that the procedure works.
If you have another problem, start from scratch… This manual at its actual state is 100% OK