My Cloud · EX2 · PR4100 · My Cloud Home · red LED · Content unavailable
A WD My Cloud turns its light red when it cannot finish booting or cannot bring its data volume online: a firmware update that failed, most often the move to OS 5 after OS 3 support ended on 15 April 2022; a drive that has developed bad sectors; a power cut that left the system partition inconsistent; or, on the EX2, EX4 and PR series, a RAID that lost a member. The dashboard, if it answers at all, says content unavailable or shows the volume missing. The data partition behind all of that is usually intact, and the factory reset the support forums suggest is the one thing that puts it at risk. A single-bay My Cloud or My Cloud Home is £300 + VAT after the free look; an EX2, Mirror, PR2100 or other set is £500 + VAT upwards, fixed in writing.
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The single-bay My Cloud and the My Cloud Mirror keep their operating system on small partitions at the start of the drive and the data on a large ext4 partition behind them, wrapped in a single-member or mirrored mdadm array. The EX2, EX4, PR2100, PR4100 and DL series do the same across two or four drives with a RAID set. The My Cloud Home is a different design, with its files stored under content IDs and their names in a database. In every case the red light comes from the operating system failing to bring the unit up, and in most cases the reason is on the system partitions, not the data.
The OS 5 migration is the commonest single cause. Western Digital ended support for OS 3 on 15 April 2022 and pushed OS 5 to the units that could take it; the update rewrites the system partitions and, interrupted or failed, leaves a unit that boots to a red light with its data volume untouched. A drive that has started to fail shows the same light, because the OS cannot read its own partitions cleanly, and a power cut in the middle of a write does likewise. On the multi-bay units a lost RAID member adds a degraded or missing volume to the picture.
The factory reset is the danger. Offered as the fix for a unit that will not boot, it re-creates the system partitions and, on some models, the data volume too. The bench does not need the operating system at all: the drive or drives are imaged, the ext4 data volume mounted from the image, and on a My Cloud Home the database recovered so that every file gets its name back.
| What you see | The usual reason | Where that leaves you |
|---|---|---|
| Solid red light; dashboard unreachable | Boot failure, usually after the OS 5 update | Drive imaged; data volume mounted from the image |
| Content unavailable | Data volume not mounted | Mounted from the image; do not reset |
| Red light and a clicking drive | The drive itself | Head work; then the volume |
| EX2 / PR4100: volume degraded or missing | RAID member lost | Every member imaged; set rebuilt |
| My Cloud Home app shows nothing | The unit, or WD's service | Check WD's status page first; then the drive |
| Reset already done | System and possibly the volume re-created | Old volume rebuilt around what was written; told honestly |
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.
On a My Cloud the unit and the drive are tested apart. A failed update lives on the system partitions and leaves the data volume alone; a failing drive goes to the clean bench. On EX and PR units every member is read on its own before the set is assembled.
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.
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.
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.
The update had failed and the unit would not boot; the owner did not reset it, which mattered. The drive was imaged on the bench, the ext4 data volume mounted from the image, and every folder came back with its name. The unit's board was fine; only its firmware had gone.
Illustrative example — replace with a genuine caseRarely. The red light means the unit could not boot or bring the volume online, usually after a failed update or a power cut. The data volume behind it is usually intact and is mounted from an image on the bench.
That the data volume is not mounted. The files are still on it. Do not reset; send the unit.
No. A reset re-creates the system partitions and, on some models, the data volume. The bench recovers the data without the operating system at all.
£300 + VAT for a single-bay My Cloud or My Cloud Home; an EX2, Mirror or PR set is £500 + VAT upwards. Fixed in writing after the free look.
3–4 days at the bench for a single drive; 5–10 days at the bench for a set.
Looking at it is free. Back comes a list of what opened and what did not, together with a single price to finish, set down in writing while you are still free to say no. Until that list reaches you, leave the unit off and the drives in their bays.