Forum Discussion

Aspirant

Feb 21, 2021

Netgear ReadyNas Ultra 6 and Frontview

Hello I bought a broken ReadyNas Ultra 6. I managed to start the NAS. Its flash memory is damaged and impossible to flash it because no access to the USB Boot. In windows it is recognized by a ...

Sandshark

Sensei

Feb 21, 2021

michelwallens wrote:

USB Boot is not working. The key lights up then flashes directly twice. Then nothing: the LCD screen remains on ReadyNAs. The key is good since it works on the other NAS.

By it working on another NAS, do you mean you successfully did a USB recovery on another NAS? I'm curious how you know that, since the other would likely have not neded it.

Your symptoms do sound like the NAS needs a USB recovery. USB recovery restores the onboard flash, and that flash contains the boot that then passes control to the OS on the drives, that is also initially installed from the internal flash.

ReadyNAS are picky about what USB drives work for USB recover. USB3 is definately a no-go. I recommend 8GB or smaller, especially on older models like yours. And it can only have one partition. Some manufacturers put a small utility partition on that causes an issue.

BTW, your screen shots require a moderator approve them, so re-posting won't help.

michelwallens
Aspirant
Feb 21, 2021
Thank you for your answer.
I'm new to this forum and didn't know the moderator level for photos.
As for the usb key, it is a 2GB SD card in a reader. This key has already been used to flash Iomega ix4-200 and ix2-200 which are also very demanding at this level.
I'm not 100% sure it works on ReadyNas
But the key did not react in the same way on the 2.
About the defective:
- The Nas turns on
- The hard drive starts up
- The key lights up and flashes twice directly then nothing
On the correct NAS:
- The Nas turns on
- The hard drive starts up
- The key lights up and flashes twice
- +/- 14 seconds after starting, the key starts flashing again (I turned off the Nas at this time to avoid any false operation)
- mdgm
  Virtuoso
  Feb 21, 2021
  From Capturenetgear2a.jpg it's clear that the EEPROM is corrupt, so USB Boot Recovery wouldn't fix the problem. It may help if other files on the internal flash are corrupt, but it won't fix the EEPROM issue, so the NAS won't boot up fully and the OS won't know which model it's running on.
  - mdgm
    Virtuoso
    Feb 21, 2021
    Fixing the EEPROM isn't difficult provided that the internal flash isn't failing, but it's not something that you can do without assistance.
    
    With expansion limits and your plans to gradually fill it with 4TB drives you'd be better off running ReadyNAS OS 6 than the stock RAIDiator-x86 4.2.x firmware, as OS6 doesn't have the expansion limitations of RAIDiator-x86.