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NDR / Manufacturers / Synology

DiskStation · RackStation · BeeStation · DSM 6 and 7 · SHR

Synology NAS data recovery. Your drives hold the data. The box only arranged it.

If your Synology says Crashed, Degraded or System partition failed, power it down, write the bay number on each drive, and do not press Repair. Synology's own knowledge base says a crashed storage pool can no longer be repaired by the user, which is right; what it does not say is that the drives usually hold everything. We image every drive, rebuild the SHR or RAID set and its LVM map from the images, repair the Btrfs or ext4 file system on the virtual volume, and copy your files onto fresh media. A single-bay unit is £300 + VAT; a two-bay unit or any SHR or RAID set is £500 + VAT upwards; four bays and above and RackStations start at £1,250 + VAT, with the figure in writing after the free look. 5–10 days at the bench for a set.

Free first lookOne fixed figure in writingNo data, no bill on most jobsReturn postage paid

Rather talk it through? An engineer answers the bench line
0800 6890668

Power it down. Label each drive with its bay number. Do not rebuild, repair, initialise, reinstall or reset. A rebuild reads every sector of every surviving drive, and on a set with a second weak member it finishes what the first failure began. Nothing on the drives gets worse while the unit is off.

Models we see, family by family.

Which kind of unit is it →
Family Models Bays, OS, file system and layout
Value and jDS118, DS218j, DS223j, DS224, DS416j1–4 bays · ext4 or Btrfs · Basic, RAID 1, SHR
Plus, currentDS224+, DS423+, DS923+, DS925+, DS1522+, DS1525+, DS1821+, DS1825+2–8 bays · Btrfs · SHR, SHR-2, RAID 5/6
Plus, olderDS218+, DS220+, DS418, DS918+, DS920+, DS1019+, DS1618+, DS1819+2–8 bays · Btrfs · SHR, RAID 5/6
RackStationRS820+, RS1221+, RS2423+, RS3621xs+4–12 bays · Btrfs · RAID 5/6/10 · cache
BeeStation and othersBeeStation, DVA1622, FS25001 bay on Btrfs; surveillance and flash units

What tends to go wrong on a Synology.

The second drive during the repairOne drive fails, a replacement is fitted, and the repair reads every sector of survivors that have aged with the one that died. The rebuild finds the second failure, and Degraded becomes Crashed. Synology notes that Auto Repair is not supported on SHR pools at all.
Btrfs after a power cutA general pattern: the metadata checksums fail after an interrupted write, the volume mounts read-only or not at all, and DSM's repair options are limited. Repaired on the virtual volume from the images, using the checksums to choose good metadata over bad.
SynoLocker, August 2014Ransomware that hit DSM 4.3-3810 and earlier through a flaw patched the previous December. Synology said it was unable to decrypt files already encrypted. eCh0raix has brute-forced Synology logins since 2019.
The 2025 drive policyFrom April 2025 the 2025 Plus models worked fully only with Synology-validated drives; DSM 7.3 in October 2025 restored pool creation with third-party SATA drives, with M.2 pools still needing listed drives. It changed nothing on the bench, where the drives are read as drives.
The reinstall and the key vaultOn DSM 7.2 encrypted volumes the key vault lives on the system partition. A reinstall offered as Recoverable rewrites it, and without a saved recovery key the volume stays locked.

Synology symptoms, and how long each gives you.

Not listed? Describe it on the form →
One drive light red; shares still thereA degraded set. Copy what matters, then power down. Do not fit a new drive.Do not delay
The pool reads crashed, unmounted or not activeTwo members lost, or the file system damaged. Power down.Do not delay
The unit will not boot after an updateThe system, not the data. The arrays are assembled without it.Everyday job
A drive clicks when the unit startsThe drive, and the set. Power down; two jobs.Do not delay
Ransom note on the login pagePull the network cable, then power down. No update, no reset.Do not delay
Packing it and posting it: power the unit down, write the bay number on each drive with a marker before it comes out, and send every drive from the set, including any SSD cache. Each drive travels in an anti-static bag inside its own padding, in a box with nothing able to move; the unit itself comes too if it holds an encryption key or a proprietary layout, and its power supply with it. Insure the parcel for what the files are worth rather than the price of the drives, and use a tracked service. The posting address is not printed anywhere on this site; it arrives by email in reply to the form, with a booking sheet to print; the sheet inside the parcel is what matches it to your enquiry when it is opened. Or hand the sealed parcel in at the nearest of ten drop-off points, your name on the outside and the sheet inside; say where you are on the form and it comes by email. We pay the postage home either way. The whole of it is written up on the guide to packing and posting.

What the message means on a Synology.

Describe yours to us →
What you see The usual reason Where that leaves you
Recoverable / Migratable in Synology AssistantAn offer to install DSM over the drivesDecline until the data is safe
Volume read-only with Btrfs errorsMetadata damageRepaired on the virtual volume
Encryption Key Vault unavailableThe vault went with the system partitionRecovery key needed
Pool or volume degradedOne member lost; still readableCopy critical files; power down; no rebuild
Pool or volume crashed / unmounted / not activeToo many members lost, or file system damageEvery member imaged; assembled from the superblocks
Unit will not boot after an updateSystem partition or boot flash; data intactData arrays assembled without the OS
Drives shown as new in another unitForeign layout; the unit offers to installSay no; the order is read from the metadata

From the box arriving to your files going back.

Work we have closed →
01

Logged the day it lands, and the first look costs nothing Free

A case number goes on the parcel and a number on every drive the day it is opened, and an engineer settles what has actually happened before anything spins. The unit is examined on its own; each drive is assessed on our own equipment, never in a NAS that will try to rebuild. Back to you come two things together: a straight note of what is liftable and what is not, plus one figure, fixed and written down. Accept it, or decline and owe us nothing.

Nothing to pay for lookingA single figure, put in writingNo rebuilds, no repairs, no resets
02

The unit, and the drives, apart

The box and the disks are two different jobs. The unit is tested separately, because a dead power supply, a failed board or a bricked boot flash leaves the drives untouched more often than not. Each drive is then read on the bench: the ones that answer at full speed, and the weak or failed ones in clean air where they need head work. On units that hold an encryption key or a layout of their own, the unit is part of the data and is kept with it.

Unit and disks assessed separatelyFailing members to the clean bench
03

Every member imaged, once

Nothing is worked on live and nothing is rebuilt on the originals. Every drive in the set is imaged sector by sector, the weak ones head by head with the bad areas last, and the SSD cache with them where there is one. From then on the originals are not touched again.

Every drive, including the cacheWeak areas last
04

The set put back together, from the images

Order, chunk size, parity rotation and the reshape point are read from the drives' own metadata and the array is reassembled in software: mdadm and LVM under SHR, X-RAID and QTS pools; a ZFS pool imported read-only; Drobo's BeyondRAID zones reconstructed. The file system, Btrfs, ext4, XFS or ZFS, is repaired on the virtual volume, and encrypted volumes are unlocked there with the key you supply. Never on the originals.

Rebuilt in software, from imagesThe file system repaired on the virtual volume
05

You see the file list before you pay

What was recovered is listed for you first, and only then does a bill exist. Approve the list and it is invoiced; turn it down and it is not — and where nothing has come back, most jobs carry no charge at all. Recovered data travels home on fresh media bought in for your job, with the postage at our end. Your case is not closed until you have opened the files on a machine of your own.

No charge until you accept the figureFresh media, supplied with the job5–10 days at the bench

From the bench

  • Synology's own words on a crashed pool: you can no longer repair it by yourself. Believe that half. The drives are usually intact.
  • SHR is two or three layers where a plain RAID has one, each rebuilt in turn from the images. It is no less recoverable, and the metadata is well behaved.
  • Say no to Recoverable. Synology Assistant offers it for any unit whose system partition it cannot read, and on an encrypted volume the key vault is on that partition.
  • Linux, mdadm, LVM and a file system. The maker's names for the layout sit on the kernel's own RAID, and every layer writes its description on every drive. The bench reads it from the images and needs nothing from the unit but its key.
  • A rebuild reads every sector of every survivor. On drives that have aged together it is where the second failure is found. The bench does the same arithmetic on images, which cannot drop out.
  • Label the bays. The metadata usually gives the order; the label makes it certain, and a set whose drives were swapped and initialised is a harder job.

One job, followed all the way through.

UK · NDR-2026-0540JOB LOGGED ✓

A DS920+ in SHR, drive 2 failed, then drive 4 at 38 per cent of the repair, and the pool marked Crashed

The owner powered down when the repair stopped. Drive 4 had unrecoverable read errors and was imaged slowly with its bad areas last; the original drive 2 was read for the stripes the repair had not reached; the two healthy drives were imaged end to end. The SHR arrays were assembled from the images, the LVM volume mapped, and the Btrfs file system mounted read-only from the virtual volume.

99.98% of the volume recovered7 days here, and back by post
Illustrative example — replace with a genuine case

What helps, and what harms.

Do this much first

  • Power down and label the bays
  • Send every drive, the unit and its supply
  • Tell us the OS version, the RAID mode and what was clicked
  • Find the encryption key if one was set

What sets us back

  • Rebuilding, repairing or resyncing
  • Reinstalling the OS or factory resetting
  • Moving the drives to another unit
  • Initialising drives the unit shows as new

Questions answered before you commit.

Can a Windows PC read Synology drives?

No. They are Linux RAID members with Btrfs or ext4 on them, and Windows offers to initialise them. Even a one-bay unit's drive carries a system partition and a wrapped volume.

Is SHR harder to recover than RAID 5?

It has more layers, and each is rebuilt in turn from the images. It is no less recoverable.

Should I click Repair?

Only on a degraded pool where every surviving drive is healthy and you have a backup. On a crashed pool it is not offered, and where it is, it writes.

Can you open an encrypted volume without the key?

No. With the recovery key, the exported .key file or an intact vault, yes, on the image. Without any of them, the volume stays locked, and we say so at the free look.

What does it cost?

A single-bay unit is £300 + VAT; a two-bay or any SHR or RAID set is £500 + VAT upwards; four bays and above and RackStations from £1,250 + VAT.

Begin here if yours is doing the same thing.

Synology volume crashed →Synology storage pool degraded →Synology system partition failed →Encrypted volumes and folders →Four-bay RAID 5 and 6 →

Power it down. Do not press Repair.

Every drive imaged, the SHR set rebuilt from the images. The first look is free, and the figure is in writing before any chargeable work.

0800 6890668

Price my jobPacking and posting