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So I was messing around with an old NVX and decided to experiment with upgrading it to OS6. I didn't realize OS6 was 64 bit until after I bricked the NVX. (oops!)
Anyway, based on reading up on other experiences it appears this situation is recoverable by accessing the NAS via the serial port in the back.
I have had some success connecting but am having some issues and I need your guys' help figuring things out.
1) What is the serial pinout on the NVX? Everything I've seen by googling seems to reference the NV+'s square serial port. The NVX has a horizontal serial port.
[ * * * * ]
Looking at the back of the unit counting from the left, This is what I think the four pins are.
[ 1 2 3 4 ]
1. 3V 2. TX 3. RX 4. GND
Can anyone confirm?
2) I have a USB to TTL adapter and connected only the TX and RX cables and I am able to see boot messages and a command prompt. (Should I connect GND or the power pin??)
When I type on the terminal, I don't get a response from the NAS so I'm not sure the commands are being interpreted. Characters do appear to be echoed to the terminal as I see what I type.
What settings do I need to have on my terminal in order to have the NAS receive and respond to commands entered in the terminal? I am using PUTTY on windows but if there's a better app for use with serial connections let me know.
I did it in a crazy sort of way by using TWO USB sticks.
1) 240MB stick (yes megabytes! lol, it was the only other stick I had)
2) 4 GB stick
They both had the usb recovery added on them.
The 240MB stick was plugged in front. It booted but always failed to continue. I was curious so I went into and modified the syslinux.cfg line that said 'default Normal' to 'default OSReinstall'. I did the same to the 4GB stick.
I tried both the 240MB and 4GB stick individually at first in the front. The 240MB always booted but failed. The 4GB one didn't do much even though they both had the exact same recovery on them. (not sure why)
Then I tried the boot up process again with the 240MB stick. I held the backup button and powered up the unit. I watched the output from my serial connection and when I saw, "initializing....."
I immediately plugged in the second 4GB stick IN THE BACK USB port. My thinking was.. well, if it can't find the front USB stick, then maybe when it searches it will find the one in the back.
And whoala! The trick effin' worked! And it reloaded the OS, and did the power down thing.
I'm back in business!
Kinda nice that since I set the recovery to do an OSReinstall, instead of a factory default, all my settings stayed intact.
I'm using a CP2102 USB to UART bridge and I did a loopback test on it and it seems to be working. (With PuTTY, I did a ctr-E test and saw a PuTTY response.)
This is good and bad. Good that the device looks like it's working and bad that it's probably now due to the nvx not responding.
Unfortunately it wasn't fully successful. Only Netgear can repair a VPD. Although if you used @Sandshark's procedure to back it up first, you should be able to restore your backup copy.
Yep I think I have the parameters correct, just as you mentioned. I am able to see output from the NAS but just can't get it to respond to commands from my terminal.
I did see @frankie0p's post but the pinout diagram there didn't make much sense to me as I don't have a ttl cable with those colors.
(1) (2) (3) (4)
Bl Gr Wh Not Connected
I just have a bridge on which I can add any jumpers of any color of the rainbow. Anyway, after looking at it again, I think this is what the pins are:
1) Ground
2) TX
3) RX
4) power (3v3 or 5v not sure but doesn't matter, no need to connect)
I'll try this setup next time I have time to go play in the server room (i.e. basement closet, lol) and hopefully that's all it was to get the NAS to respond to commands.
p.s. I don't have anything to back up, this was a completely clean NAS so thankfully, there's no data that needs to be recovered.
Unfortunately it wasn't fully successful. Only Netgear can repair a VPD. Although if you used @Sandshark's procedure to back it up first, you should be able to restore your backup copy.
I did it in a crazy sort of way by using TWO USB sticks.
1) 240MB stick (yes megabytes! lol, it was the only other stick I had)
2) 4 GB stick
They both had the usb recovery added on them.
The 240MB stick was plugged in front. It booted but always failed to continue. I was curious so I went into and modified the syslinux.cfg line that said 'default Normal' to 'default OSReinstall'. I did the same to the 4GB stick.
I tried both the 240MB and 4GB stick individually at first in the front. The 240MB always booted but failed. The 4GB one didn't do much even though they both had the exact same recovery on them. (not sure why)
Then I tried the boot up process again with the 240MB stick. I held the backup button and powered up the unit. I watched the output from my serial connection and when I saw, "initializing....."
I immediately plugged in the second 4GB stick IN THE BACK USB port. My thinking was.. well, if it can't find the front USB stick, then maybe when it searches it will find the one in the back.
And whoala! The trick effin' worked! And it reloaded the OS, and did the power down thing.
I'm back in business!
Kinda nice that since I set the recovery to do an OSReinstall, instead of a factory default, all my settings stayed intact.
This is an encrypted and signed file in the boot flash that contains the model information and serial number of the NAS. So it can't be re-created by anyone other than Netgear. It is used by the OS in configuring your unit, and likely also was intended to prevent people from running ReadyNas firmware on other (non-ReadyNAS) platforms.
We have seen some cases where this file gets corrupted during failed OS-6 conversions - the good news is that this didn't happen with your NVX.
