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Coming up on Hands On Tech. What do I do when I have files stored in a proprietary format? Well, let's take a look. Stay tuned. If you haven't done so yet, now is your last chance to take the 2026 TWiT audience survey. We of course appreciate the feedback we've received thus far. If you haven't yet done it well, you still have time. Now's the time. Head to TWiT TV Survey 26 today. It closes January 31st, so run, don't walk. Thanks so much is TWiT. Hello and welcome to Hands On Tech. I am Micah Sargent and today I'm taking your tech question and I'm answering it. This week's tech question. Oof. It hits because it is one I hear about all the time, I'm sure many of you have heard about in the past. And you go, why is this happening? The question is comes in from Jeff who writes, I just retired from the military and came across a four bay Drobo drive that I had in storage for people who aren't familiar. Really quick I'll cut in and say drobo network attached storage that, you know, wanted to be a sort of better solution for network attached storage options at the time and do backups of your machine and all sorts of stuff. It was kind of an all in one option. Anyway, Jeff goes on to say it has tons of photos from my military days and I would like to see them. I also have to pause again because Jeff spells in this case photos F O T O S which I know that is a way that it is spelled in other languages. However, there has been a surprising number of people in email recently that I've seen spell it that way and I'm trying to figure out what the pattern is there. So if you spell photos whenever you're just like quickly trying to talk about photos F o T O S and it's not a language thing, can you let me know? I know it's really weird, but I'm just trying to figure out if there's a pattern. If it's a. If it's maybe it's a certain. Like my aunt spells tonight T o N I T E and spells night N I T E a lot of the time in messages. So I'm kind of curious if maybe. Anyway, Jeff goes on to say it has tons of photos from my military days and I would like to see them. I hooked the drive up to my computer but after four days the drive never booted. My question is if there is a software based way to move that data off those drives. And then how would I be able to see the data since it's in Drobo's encryption and they are out of business. Hope you can help. So, Jeff, I started off my notes by saying this is a tricky situation, but there may be some hope, because it's a tricky situation, but maybe there's some hope. First and foremost, we have to understand what's going on here. And you point out part of the issue. Look, Jeff, you are knowledgeable enough about this to understand how you may have trouble accessing these files. Drobo, in its attempt to be a better way of doing things, used a proprietary system called beyond raid, unfortunately not compatible with standard RAID recovery tools. Oopsie. It means you can't just pop those drives into any other enclosure or connect them directly to a computer and expect to read the data. So here are the challenges that we're dealing with here. First and foremost is getting the Drobo in unit itself to boot. Because if you could get it to boot, that would help. After years in storage, though, it seems like you are feeling like it may have issues. And the other problem that we're dealing with, of course, is that proprietary Beyond RAID format, so that even if the drives are fine, you might have trouble accessing the files on it in conventional means. Let's first start with, with what we should do before we go toward the software route that you're asking about or other options. First and foremost, let's see if it's truly dead. If the Drobo is truly dead, you've had it in storage. It's possible that it's fully, truly and completely dead, but maybe there's just something that's wrong with it that can be fixed. Check the power supply before anything else. Drobo power bricks. I was reading this over and over and over again. They fail all the time. So if you can find the voltage and amperage specs on the unit, then you might be able to get a compatible replacement. You could check iFixit, you could check ebay, look in different places to try to find a replacement for the power supply. You get a replacement power supply, you hook that up and suddenly you've got what you're looking for. And even if you're seeing it power on, it could still be something more than that. So just start there. But then also let's try different cables. So swap out the data cable, whether that's USB. I think at one point it had Thunderbolt FireWire. Depending on your model, especially if it's FireWire, my friend. Try to get a newer FireWire cable, which I know is also kind of difficult, but they are still made and will give you, you know, certainty. Even if you just get it and then you return it, you know, it's just certainty that it's a newer cable that, you know, means it's not the cable's fault. And now normally the, the recommendations that I saw were go ahead and let it sit powered on. Because these can take an extraordinarily long time to fully rebuild the database if something, you know, is messed up and it needs to kind of figure itself out again. I know I take a while to wake up in the morning. This is an option as well. I will say four days of you waiting. That does seem excessive. By that time it should have been okay. But if we do a new power supply and we do new cable and then we let it sit powered on, check that. Lastly, this is a gotcha. Sometimes if you ever took out the drives at any point or if you pulled it out and you had the drives in, you know the drives weren't in it. Those drives have to be in their original slots. So you may need to rearrange them again if you put them in or if at some point you went back and you, you know, switch the drives around and you didn't power it. Whatever it happens to be, just check the drive order. Hey, I just want to tell you really quick remind you of course about Club Twit. Twit TV Club Twit. That is where you go to sign up when you join the club. $10 a month, $120 a year. You can help support the work that we do here on the network. It means the world to us a to have you in the club. But be of course to know that we've got so many of you out there who keep on keeping on with your excitement, your energy and everything else that you bring to the table. Now if you are thinking about joining the club, you may be going what is. Well, what's. What does the club get me? Well, I will tell you what the club gets you. First and foremost it gets you access to every single one of our shows ad free. 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