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When your NAS starts displaying errors, shared folders disappear, or it simply refuses to start, your first assumption is that the files are gone for good. Thankfully, you can actually recover them on your own, without costly services or deep technical expertise, using NAS recovery software. Disk Drill can connect to and scan NAS drives directly, bypassing any error messages to reach your data. It has already helped hundreds of users restore data from their NAS systems, and you can try it for free.
When your NAS stops working, or some files go missing, Disk Drill is a NAS recovery tool that offers a quick and reliable way to get them back. It supports all major NAS file systems, supports recovery over the network, and lets you recover data from individual disks if needed.
Recovers deleted data from formatted or corrupted NAS and RAID drivesSupports remote connection via SSH to scan NAS volumesWorks even when member drives aren’t recognized by the NASSupports EXT3, EXT4, and Btrfs file systemsCreates and scans byte-to-byte drive imagesNAS data recovery couldn’t be easier, and it only takes a few steps if you’re trying to recover deleted or formatted data. If your NAS is failing, we highly recommend creating a byte-to-byte copy of all the NAS drives first, in case one fails during recovery.
Let’s make sure your NAS is ready for connection. A wired connection is ideal for speed and reliability, but NAS drive data recovery can also be done wirelessly over the network. To do this, you’ll need to enable Secure Shell Protocol (SSH) to allow Disk Drill to access the storage system. After that, it’s good to verify your firewall or antivirus software isn’t going to block the connection.
Open your browser and access your NAS through its IP address. Log in with your admin credentials.
Go to your Control Panel and find “Terminal and SNMP”. In there, locate and enable SSH. Save the changes.
Confirm your firewall and antivirus aren’t configured to interfere with SSH or network communication.
Tip: This process is unique to each NAS vendor. Click here for exact instructions.
Download and install the latest version of Disk Drill on the computer that’s going to be doing the recovery. This can be done on a Windows or Mac system, and should only take a few minutes. Once installation is complete, launch Disk Drill. Once installed, launch Disk Drill. It should automatically detect your NAS. If it doesn't appear, you'll need to manually add your NAS to the device list before you can scan it for lost data, which is the next step that only takes a moment.
If the NAS has not been detected automatically, in Disk Drill, go to NAS & Linux via SSH. Select your NAS from the list, then click Search for lost data to begin the scan. If your NAS isn’t there, click “Add network storage” and then input your NAS device’s IP address, port number, login username, and password. If you want to save this info for next time, keep Save to Windows Credentials ticked. When ready, click Connect now.
If one of your NAS drives is damaged or unstable, you can create byte-to-byte images of your disks, mount them in Disk Drill, and scan the images instead. This avoids the risk of the disk crashing, making recovery much more difficult.
When your NAS is detected, choose it from the device list and run the scanning procedure. The scan takes some time, and it will depend on the connection, the type of drives, their state, and the quality of hardware in your NAS. Since most NAS devices use two or more drives, expect a longer wait time than if you were to scan a single drive. As Disk Drill finds files, you can preview them in real-time using the Review found items button. If all of the files you need are found already, you can proceed to the next step while the scan continues.
If you want to recover all data from the NAS drive, click the Recover all button. Otherwise, Disk Drill may’ve found more data than required, so if the results screen’s difficult to sift through, use filters to narrow down the results by file type, size, or date modified. If your installed apps support preview handlers, you will see a preview of recoverable data within the app. Select each file you want to recover, then click Recover. Choose a separate, physical drive that’s not part of the NAS to save the data.
Asustor, Buffalo, D-Link, Fujitsu
Iomega, Lenovo, Netgear, QNAP
Synology, Thecus, Western Digital, Zyxel
The list of issues that a NAS can encounter is almost endless. All the more reason to have reliable NAS data recovery software on hand. Disk Drill is capable of recovering files from a NAS in almost any instance.
Let’s face it: all hard drives look more or less the same, and the non-descriptive names Windows assigns to them don’t help prevent accidental deletion.
Get files back following a quick format or factory reset. Disk Drill detects and recovers data remnants before they’re overwritten, using a combination of file system record analysis and signature-based rebuilding.
Disk Drill can find data even from corrupted NAS volumes with no working file system, caused by power loss, improper shutdowns, or bad updates that prevent normal access to shared files.
When a NAS member drive fails or drops out of the array, it can be physically disconnected from the NAS and connected to your system as an internal or external drive. From there, NAS file recovery software can scan the volume directly.
If your NAS enclosure no longer starts or continually fails to completely boot, you can remove the disks, connect them directly to your computer, and scan them with Disk Drill to recover the data.
When expanding your NAS storage with new disks, interrupting this process can cause volumes to disappear, resulting in data going missing. Disk Drill can scan and recover data that was lost during failed expansion or migration.
There are steps you can take to increase your chances of NAS/RAID data recovery following data loss. Here are some simple, actionable tips that will make sure you recover as much data as possible.
At the first sign or suspicion of data loss, stop any read/write activity to the NAS right away. Continued writes can, and will, overwrite the very files you’re trying to recover. Once overwritten, the data is gone.
Initializing, rebuilding, or starting an automatic repair process can change or overwrite metadata, limiting your options for NAS/RAID recovery. Avoid taking any action on the drives, even repairs, until the data can be recovered.
Unstable disks pose a risk of crashing during recovery, leading to further data loss. Create a byte-to-byte image of all drives and scan them instead to avoid stressing the already-failing disks.
Recovered files need to be saved to a different physical drive. This avoids the data overwriting itself during recovery, rendering it corrupted. This drive must have enough capacity to store the recovered files, something especially important to keep in mind when recovering data from a NAS.
While Disk Drill is effective in most instances where data recovery is required, it may not be enough for severe cases. Sometimes NAS recovery can be complicated by physical hardware failure, which is beyond the scope of any software. If your drive is showing mechanical problems, signs of shock damage, or it simply won’t turn on at all, it’s safer to contact a professional for data recovery from a NAS box. A data recovery service employs trained professionals with the necessary equipment to perform high-level recovery.
How it works: Fill out a work order online, pack your NAS drives, and ship or drop them off. The data will be recovered, put on a safe storage device, and then returned to you. If nothing of value is recovered, you’re not charged.
by Disk Drill Team
Using a NAS recovery service is basically always going to be more than data recovery software, at least one that’s reliable. A simple, logical recovery will start at a few hundred dollars, while more complex physical or multi-disk NAS issues can be significantly more. Before you commit, consider doing a free evaluation and look for a “No data, no charge” policy.
You can absolutely remove the disks from your NAS and then connect them to a PC, either internally or externally. If was using RAID, Disk Drill will automatically reconstruct the RAID array (so long as it’s supported) for you to scan and recover the data.
Yes, data is still recoverable immediately after a factory reset or quick format. This is because only the file system pointers to the data are deleted. Until that data is overwritten, data recovery software like Disk Drill can scan for the underlying data and restore it to a separate physical drive.
Nothing. If connected directly to your PC, Windows will ask you to initialize or format the NAS disks because they have a corrupted or incompatible file system. Initializing or formatting will only hinder your chances of data recovery, overwriting important metadata. Instead, use data recovery software to scan the NAS or create a byte-to-byte backup of the drive and scan that instead.
Yes. Seeing as RAID1 keeps a complete copy of the data on each drive, you can connect just one of the drives to a PC and use data recovery software to scan and recover the files. This is the same for any mirrored RAID configuration, but it is not possible for striped data.
Immediately stop using the NAS to avoid overwriting the data. Keep them unplugged or unpowered until you’re ready to recover the data with data recovery software. For failing drives, create a byte-to-byte image of them first, then scan them using the same software to avoid putting stress on the drive itself.
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Windows 10-11 (64-bit)/11 (ARM), 51.1 MB
Use Disk Drill 2.x-5.x for Windows XP+
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Disk Drill allowed me to recover the data. It works! I had a 2 TB internal drive full of data to recover from a broken LG-NAS drive that was password locked. Windows wouldn't open it. Disk Drill free showed me the files are there, so I bought the licence. Disk Drill allowed me to recover the data with file names intact. It took a couple of days, but it worked well. Great support by David of Cleverfiles.com. I am now recovering files from a Mac external drive to recover to my Windows PC. Disk Drill IS working on this now, whereas Windows doesnt even see the drive. Impressed and glad I bought Disk Drill.
Disk Drill is an invaluable product. Saved my data numerous times from failed NAS transfers. Top-notch support as well and very generous upgrade policies. Thank you Cleverfiles Team!
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