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Netgear ReadyNas Pro 6 corrupt firmware
First Netgear NAS user. I bought a defect Netgear ReadyNAS Pro 6. The previous owner said something went wrong during a firmware update and the NAS had some sort of corrupt firmware. It was 40Euro an...
This post How-to-update-BIOS-w-OS6-x-installed tells how to update the BIOS from OS6. While that part isn't applicable to you, it includes information on extracting the BIOS from the OS4.2.x package Netgear has provided and points to that package.
FlaviaS wrote:
1. Does it matter if I connect Lan1 or Lan2 when looking for NAS via Raidar ?
It shouldn't, but since the NAS isn't booting it's a good idea to try both.
FlaviaS wrote:
2. Does it matter the Raidar version ? For example if I run Raidar 6.3 will it find a OS4.2 NAS or the other way around ?
Both will find the NAS and report status. RAIDar 4.3.8 is needed if you want to set up the NAS in flexraid mode with OS 4.2 firmware. But that's down the road (if ever).
FlaviaS wrote:
3. Are both Raidar 4.2 and 6.3 compatible with Windows 10 64 bit ?
Yes.
FlaviaS wrote:
Again thanks, Sandshark. I decided to give a try to OS6 and take a final decision in a few weeks before I'llk have to much data in there.
Are you using the guide for this? There is a prep image that needs to be installed - you don't just do a USB recovery with OS6. The normal process is to get OS 4.2 up first, and then migrate to OS 6.
Hi Stephen,
"Are you using the guide for this? There is a prep image that needs to be installed - you don't just do a USB recovery with OS6. The normal process is to get OS 4.2 up first, and then migrate to OS 6."
Yes I am aware of that guide and all the steps involved (including one reboot in Factory Default boot mode).
My problem is that I do not know yet what OS is installed on the 128MB flash.
If that flash already contains a working OS6 image I guess I only need to boot in OS recovery mode to have the code copied from flash to drives ?
If the image is OS4 I would try to recover using the USB stick recovery image and only after go through the steps to upgrade to OS6. In the documentation about that USB recovery is explicitelly mentioned it cannot be used to downgrade so I assume if the internal 128MB USB already contains OS6 it would not work. In that last situation I saw a post in which someone booted a linux distribution, used dd to copy a valid 4.x image to the internal USB and them mounted it to edit his own information (serial number, mac adresses maybe).
As I said the fact that I'm new to this NAS makes very dificult to me but I'm willing to learn. I just do not understand why an image which seems to boot succesfully is not recognized in raidar, even without any drive inserted.
FlaviaS wrote:
The normal process is to get OS 4.2 up first, and then migrate to OS 6."
Yes I am aware of that guide and all the steps involved (including one reboot in Factory Default boot mode).
Good.
You're moving into territory I haven't explored, so I can't offer any help on the NAS hardware issues.
Just in case you haven't seen this: https://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/sci/csc/people/computingstaff/jaroslaw_zachwieja/readynaspro-jailfix/
The older version of RAIDar will give you a bit more information than the newer one if you are running an OS earlier than 6. It also has a (much better, IMHO) more compact arrangement. But both will see your NAS with either OS version.
When the VGA says "ready" and goes blank, that's where it usually begins booting from the OS on the drives. I've never watched when it first installs the OS to the drives, but that's what the OLED message makes me think it wants to do. If your drives do not contain any ReadyNAS OS, you should not need to do a factory default -- it should do one for you on OS4.2.x. In OS6.x, it would complain of "dirty disks" and let you go in and format them. But if you remove all partitions from the drives, then both should automatically do a factory default. Have you tried all slots? Maybe some are dead.
But RAIDar should see the NAS at that point if "no disks" is really the problem. It, too, will report a "no disks" status. You should certainly try both ethernet ports in case one is bad. Do you see any activity on the LAN LED's?
Going blank and then nothing is something I saw when I was experimenting with a ReadyNAS4200V2. I wanted to see what would happen if I replaced the motherboard with a non-Netgear version (that board is made by SuperMicro, and thay also sell the board without the Netgear mod)s. I believe this behavior was caused by the OS finding something other than a Netgear BIOS. I know it was not a bad flash because the flash in the 4200 is an internal USB stick I moved to the replacement board. So something still missing in the BIOS could be your issue, though "No Disks" is not an error message I would expect to see for that.
Could the OS in the flash be corruted in such a way that it boots everything fine except the rdrivers that let it see the drives? Seems unlikely, but I suppose another remote possibility.
I guess the previous owner must have manually flashed the wrong BIOS. The add-on does check to make sure it uses the right image for the right board, but it doesn't check to see if the latest BIOS is already installed or not.
You can use USB Boot Recovery to put OS6 on the Pro 6 if you rename the standard OS6 x86_64 .img file to RAIDiator-x86-something. You do need to use the RAIDiator-x86 USB Boot Recovery tool. However USB Boot Recovery can wipe the EEPROM so this is not recommended unless USB Boot Recovery is really needed, which it may well be considering you don't know what the previous owner did.
There is an image to downgrade back to RAIDiator-x86 from OS6 that tricks OS6 into thinking that a RAIDiator-x86 image is an OS6 image (the reverse of what the image to put OS6 on does).This seems to have been the case almost for sure. The NAS is now working properly. I noticed that if I boot it without any drive inserted it does appear in RaidAR (and reporting Firmware 6.80). At the time when this happened, last Friday, the latest version on Netgear website was 6.81. As soon as I was inserting either one of the 2 drives I had available the NAS was dissapearing from Raidar. I then removed all existing partitions from one of the drives and when I booted it with that drive inserted in in slot 1 (this is by the way a drive which is listed in Pro 6 compatibility list). I gave a message "Installing X-Raid firmware on the drive" and then I could connect and configure the NAS normally. It seems it quickly and automatically downloaded version 6.90 of firmware from the Internet since this is what it reports now. I like the interface which is clear and minimalistic and very responsive. First thing I did was to disable x-raid since I want Flex-raid instead. I also ordered a E7600 CPU and 2x2GB DDR2 6400 for Intel from Ebay (7 Euro + 10.50Euro). Most likely will use it with OS6 and not convert it to nas4free since upgrade to 8GB RAM is prohibitivelly expensive and Nas4Free with ZFS is recommended to have 8GB RAM minimum.
Thanks everyone for helping me out with this project.
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