Any Netgear ReadyNAS users? Help needed

[bambam]

Hi

A little while back my Netgear ReadyNAS Duo stopped working. This coincided with some power outages caused by some workmen plugging equipment into a circuit that wasn't man enough for the job - may have been a complete coincidence but thought I'd mention it.

At the time I couldn't get to the unit to resolve anything so I switched it off and took the main disc out.

Now, when I reboot it, and use the Raidar utility to scan the unit I get the following:

- Corrupt Root message in the Status section
- When I click on Admin I get a message saying that Safari is unable to connect to the IP address
- I also can't see it when I use Finder on the Mac

I've tried doing a OS re-set but still get the same results. I think the data on the disc is OK.

Real pain as all of our music files are on the disc as we used it as a music server for the Sonos.

I have a new QNAP unit with a number of new discs which I was going to replace the ReadyNAS with but it would be good to get the data off the disc in the first place.

Any ideas/thoughts?

[MB2]

Firstly, if you have a USB port there might be a copy button to transfer the data to the USB drive - I am not familar with Ready NAS but the QNAP boxes have this - beware it is a slow process.

Otherwise you could try taking the disk out and mounting it in a caddy to see if you can read the data from it that way.

You might need disk internals or something similar to read it in Windows as they often use Linux but that is the first thing I would try.

You can use an HDD Caddy or HDD Dock from Amazon to see if that works. The music files should hopefully still be there.

[Captain Morgan]

This is the unfortunate lesson that a nas drive, even with raid is not a backup.

Is there a specific error message in safari?

Is it using http or https to try and access the admin page?

Can you ping the nas ip?

What happens if you try directly in safari https://[your nas ip]/admin
Any different if you use http://[your nas ip]/admin

What do you mean by primary drive?

Do you have your music in iTunes too?

[Captain Morgan]

Firstly, if you have a USB port there might be a copy button to transfer the data to the USB drive - I am not familar with Ready NAS but the QNAP boxes have this - beware it is a slow process.

Otherwise you could try taking the disk out and mounting it in a caddy to see if you can read the data from it that way.

You might need disk internals or something similar to read it in Windows as they often use Linux but that is the first thing I would try.

You can use an HDD Caddy or HDD Dock from Amazon to see if that works. The music files should hopefully still be there.

I suspect the boot partition is corrupt which is preventing the nas mounting the drives but mounting them externally can be a pain

[Captain Morgan]

So it doesn’t seem as if the boot partition can be recreated and the existing data kept so that’s out.

If as it sounds you only have one drive currently installed depending on the responses to the questions above personally I’d power the unit down safely, remove the current drive and install the ‘other’ drive and see if that resolves it

If not I’d read through this and see how comfortable I felt about mounting the drive externally
http://jim-st.blogspot.com/2012/07/m...6-systems.html

Note: it’s your data not mine and I haven’t had to mount drives in this manor so can’t attest the above is still or even was valid

[bambam]

So it doesn’t seem as if the boot partition can be recreated and the existing data kept so that’s out.

If as it sounds you only have one drive currently installed depending on the responses to the questions above personally I’d power the unit down safely, remove the current drive and install the ‘other’ drive and see if that resolves it

If not I’d read through this and see how comfortable I felt about mounting the drive externally
http://jim-st.blogspot.com/2012/07/m...6-systems.html

Note: it’s your data not mine and I haven’t had to mount drives in this manor so can’t attest the above is still or even was valid

Thanks for that.

I've tried the http and the https route and it returns a 'cannot connect to server' message or a 'cannot establish a secure connection' message.
So to elaborate a little more:
- The NAS had 2 drives in it with one mirroring the other
- I took drive 1 out and left drive 2 inside the caddy
- The music is in iTunes, but I had split the music files from the library files - so the smaller library files are on a mac and the actual mp3 files are on the NAS drive.
- I did think about the USB copy option, but I think I'd need to be able to get into the Admin page of the NAS (which is what Safari won't connect to) to be able to configure it. Last time I tried that option it was very slow and ultimately didn't work.

I know someone that has a caddy so am now thinking of asking him to copy the data on the drive if he can so I can set-up the QNAP NAS and use that instead.

Added screenshot from Raidar utility: Shows 2 green ticks against drives even though one is empty for some reason.

[MB2]

You may be able to copy to USB without using the NAS interface- it certainly was an option with the QNap boxes we ran.

[IAmATeaf]

I was about to post to say that the file system will most likely be ext3, that article linked above should be easy enough to follow.

Download Ubuntu onto USB and then boot the PC from it, no need to install then follow the commands to mount the file system. Have a USB drive ready to copy the files off.

I did something similar when my Buffalo NAS died but mine was a bit more complicated in that I had 4 disks in RAID5 but was able to get the important data off.

[fraggle42]

If you take both drives out you should still be able to connect to the status and admin pages.

If that doesn’t work then the internal file system on the flash chip is corrupted.

There may be some way of getting the latest ReadyNAS OS, writing it to a USB drive, plugging it into the ReadyNAS and then turning it on to get it to reglas it’s OS. Probably involves holding some buttons in when you turn it on.

If that works you’ll need to set it up again.

Then plug the drives in and it should be able to see them and know they are in RAID 0.


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[bambam]

I was about to post to say that the file system will most likely be ext3, that article linked above should be easy enough to follow.

Download Ubuntu onto USB and then boot the PC from it, no need to install then follow the commands to mount the file system. Have a USB drive ready to copy the files off.

I did something similar when my Buffalo NAS died but mine was a bit more complicated in that I had 4 disks in RAID5 but was able to get the important data off.

If you take both drives out you should still be able to connect to the status and admin pages.

If that doesn’t work then the internal file system on the flash chip is corrupted.

There may be some way of getting the latest ReadyNAS OS, writing it to a USB drive, plugging it into the ReadyNAS and then turning it on to get it to reglas it’s OS. Probably involves holding some buttons in when you turn it on.

If that works you’ll need to set it up again.

Then plug the drives in and it should be able to see them and know they are in RAID 0.


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Thanks. Will look into giving that a try.
I know I can do a factory reset, but with a drive in there it will wipe the drive as well.
I’ll take both drives out and try the factory reset option and see if that lets me into the admin pages.
If as you say I’ll need to set it up again, then will putting the drive(s) back in cause them to be reset or formatted as well?

Do you think that a power spike or cut is likely to cause the flash chip to become corrupted?

[IAmATeaf]

On my Buffalo NAS it won’t boot unless one of the disks is installed. This confused me for a while until I read that from the factory when the NAS is configured the OS is written to the disk and then as disks are added the OS partition is replicated into all the disks for redundancy.

Not saying it’s the same for your NAS but something to be aware of.

[IAmATeaf]

What size disks are they, I see that you are in London so don’t mind helping if I can?

[bambam]

On my Buffalo NAS it won’t boot unless one of the disks is installed. This confused me for a while until I read that from the factory when the NAS is configured the OS is written to the disk and then as disks are added the OS partition is replicated into all the disks for redundancy.

Not saying it’s the same for your NAS but something to be aware of.

Thanks. It was like this when both discs were in there.
I was thinking of taking both discs out and trying a factory reset but I’m a bit wary of putting the discs back in and them getting over-written or formatted.
I think first I’m going to get someone to have a look at backing up the drive and then I can try a few other things.

PS I was in London when I first joined but am now in Berkshire. So appreciate the offer of help but I think it’s be too far.

[IAmATeaf]

It shouldn’t reinitialise the disks as the disk will have a marker on it informing that system that it’s part of a RAID pack ie not new, we’ll certainly my NAS does.

I remember now re you being in Bracknell, I fixed a remote for you a while back, short lived fixed from what I remember

[bambam]

It shouldn’t reinitialise the disks as the disk will have a marker on it informing that system that it’s part of a RAID pack ie not new, we’ll certainly my NAS does.

I remember now re you being in Bracknell, I fixed a remote for you a while back, short lived fixed from what I remember

You did indeed fix a remote for me and much appreciated it was. Didn’t last long as you said so now we just use the on/off switch.

Trying to get specific info on this unit is hard as it’s quite old and the documentation that came with it is very brief! But the info I have found is that a factory reset wipes the discs as well, which is why I thought I’d try it with the discs out.
Rebooting the OS doesn’t but that didn’t work when I tried it.

[fraggle42]

Thanks. Will look into giving that a try.
I know I can do a factory reset, but with a drive in there it will wipe the drive as well.
I’ll take both drives out and try the factory reset option and see if that lets me into the admin pages.
If as you say I’ll need to set it up again, then will putting the drive(s) back in cause them to be reset or formatted as well?

Do you think that a power spike or cut is likely to cause the flash chip to become corrupted?

I have an old ReadyNAS duo too and I can access the web interface just fine with no disks in.

Whether it will try to wipe the disks again after a factory reset, I would be surprised as it should write info to the disk saying that it is part of a raid array from that Duo, this is how it knows you have plugged a new blank drive in when you replace a failed one, that info is not there.

Was it RAID 0 or 1?

If 1 you can plug in just one drive after the factory reset, it should still recognise it and allow you to access it. Then if the worse happens and it doesn’t recognise it you will have the other one to use Linux to read it.


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[bambam]

I have an old ReadyNAS duo too and I can access the web interface just fine with no disks in.

Whether it will try to wipe the disks again after a factory reset, I would be surprised as it should write info to the disk saying that it is part of a raid array from that Duo, this is how it knows you have plugged a new blank drive in when you replace a failed one, that info is not there.

Was it RAID 0 or 1?

If 1 you can plug in just one drive after the factory reset, it should still recognise it and allow you to access it. Then if the worse happens and it doesn’t recognise it you will have the other one to use Linux to read it.


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Raid 1 as far as I remember. Set it up years ago and it just worked 2 drives, 1 mirrors the other.
When I looked at the online documents it seemed to say that if I left the drives in and performed a factory reset unless I switched it off within a certain time. I will need to re-read the document as I was only really looking at the OS re-boot option at the time.
You’re right in that I should have a spare if it all goes wrong with the first disc.
I think the lack of access via the web interface is due to the ‘corrupt root’ message I get via the interface.

[eldrich]

Whip one of the disks out, get a USB/SATA adapter and hand them along with your QNAP device to your local Linux guru along with pizza/beer.

If you to have a go yourself then you may even be able to plug it into the USB socket of your QNAP, use ssh to connect to the QNAP and use some of the ideas here: https://unix.stackexchange.com/quest...part-of-raid-1
to copy the data off the old drive to the QNAP (which will probably store the data under /share/CACHEDEV1_DATA somewhere).

It's one of those things that if someone handed it to me I could do it in a few hrs but not having it in your hands you don't know the specific mounting points to advise someone else on what to do.

[Captain Morgan]

I had a thought not being sure if the corrupt root partition is on the nas itself or on the data drives you could install one of the drives destined for the new nas and do the reinstall and once you can access the admin page and file system shut it all down and remove the new drive and try a single old drive see if the root partition is local and you now have access.

I kinda suspect not as it’s not documented anywhere else but should be safe from a data perspective and might just work.

[bambam]

I had a thought not being sure if the corrupt root partition is on the nas itself or on the data drives you could install one of the drives destined for the new nas and do the reinstall and once you can access the admin page and file system shut it all down and remove the new drive and try a single old drive see if the root partition is local and you now have access.

I kinda suspect not as it’s not documented anywhere else but should be safe from a data perspective and might just work.

Not a bad idea. Will try that out and see how I get on.
In the meantime I know someone local who could take all the data off the old drive for me (presuming it’s intact) and I can restore from there onto the QNAP.

[IAmATeaf]

Good luck.

If you get no joy then I don’t mind trying to mount the drives using Ubuntu but you’d obviously need to post the drives over to me.

[Templogin]

Once you get it fixed invest in a UPS