Accessing G Speed Q drives (Raid 5) from faulty caddy

G-Technology G-SPEED & G-SAFE
1

Hi Forum

Have a G Speed Q where the power on the caddy has failed and I urgently need to access data on the drives I had (RAID 5). Have purchased a new caddy but when I remount with drives in the same order I get a message that they aren’t formatted.

Have tried disk recovery software to scan and there are Gbs of data on there but the files can’t be recovered.

Any suggestions as to why the drives aren’t being recognised in the new caddy?
Any suggestions on how I might be able to retrieve data from the drives?

Thanks in advance.

2

@Mr_Dee,

There are few things that could cause this to happen.

When we ship these units they are built as RAID5. We had 2 distinct models USB 2 and USB 3. They are not compatible with each other. So if you had a USB 2 and now are using a 3 or vice versa then the controllers won’t maintain the same exact RAID configuration so it would tell you to format the drives.

The other thing is that if you purchased this enclosure by itself separately then we don’t know if it was pre configured as a RAID5. It is possible the previous enclosure could have been used in RAID0.

3

Thanks Rydia

The USB issue may be it - the new caddy has drives which are Raid5 but the old caddy is maybe 4 years old, so probably usb2?

  • Is there a way I can check via serial no?
  • Does Gtech offer repairs on the old caddy

Cheers

4

There are no repairs, only replacements and they have to be within warranty.

The serial can verify but it is really easy to tell by looking at the back. USB 2 and 3 look different. 3 is a larger port and is blue inside.

5

Thanks Rydia - Appears I have a new USB3 caddy (with drives at Raid 5) so looking into whether my reseller can repair the original USB2 version.

Out of interest do you ever come across suppliers with any deadstock? That might be a route I follow and see if I can find an old USB2 version somewhere… no joy on ebay as of yet.
Thanks

6

Mr_Dee,

We have not had any official contact with re-seller holding onto older stock units in the past unfortunately. The 2nd hand market might be the only recourse at this point.