The directory was not DLNA accessible.
Do you mean you didn’t have media serving enabled on that directory? That’s the only way to prevent DLNA access; as I said, DLNA ignores access control, by design. I don’t know of any DLNA client that supports access control.
It was a stand alone directory that was only accessible via password. I could only access it from the smart-tv by using a media server app with password access. The directory with login details are still present on the TV.
Then it cannot be a DLNA media client app (unless it’s one that provides access control as an add-on function), but must be a file client app. What TV, what app is it?
The only other way to access was from my computer via NETWORK (again with password) or using the WD software.
‘via network’? yes, but using what tool; a file manager, or a media browser/player?
I have tried a reset and that hasn’t worked.
That was going to be my next suggestion… did you do a 4-second reset, or a 40-second reset?
The only thing I can think of is that about 1 week ago we had a power cut twice in the same day.
That was probably the cause of the problem.
But surely the drive should not just loose a directory like that, although you do say that if it has re-booted it may have dropped back to the default media location!
Only the Twonky DLNA media server should drop back to the default ‘Public - All Media Types’ serving selection (see the FAQ). The file server should still show all shares/folders. If a directory has disappeared, it suggests corruption of the file table. This could have been caused by the power outage.
In 30 years I have NEVER had a HD failure and never had a loss of data other than deleting by accident, but this is not the case here.
You have been lucky, then.
Funny as I got the WDmycloud mainly for a backup of all my movies and data as I have several smaller drives and needed to store everything together, so I am totally gutted this has happened.
Putting data onto one hard drive, without storing it elsewhere, is not a backup; a backup requires a redundant copy somewhere. If you have put all your data on the MyCloud, and have not backed that up to a copy, then your MyCloud is your primary data store, not a backup.
So WD seem to be blocking 3rd party recovery software which could assist after their hardware causes a problem, yet don’t supply their own recovery software!
Not so much that they’re blocking recovery tools, more that the MyCloud isn’t a simple HDD; it’s a NAS. A NAS is a computer system in its own right, and doesn’t give direct access to its hard drive file system, unlike an internal or USB HDD. That’s the real reason why data recovery tools don’t work, because they can’t get direct access to the file system.