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Old ReadyNAS 212 won't boot up
So, many, MANY, years ago, my workplace merged with another company, and as part of that merger, I took over their IT system, which consisted of a few peer-to-peer PCs and a central storage system consisting of two ReadyNAS devices, one primary and one backup. Some time later, the backup NAS failed. Rather than fix or replace it, I opted to move to a cloud storage backup system instead, and the old unit was shelved.
Fast forward to the modern day, amid a bunch of other IT problems cropping up (mainly, the current state of Microsoft OneDrive causing a cascade of problems with the cloud backup), the question of the the longevity of our current NAS device was raised. By my best estimation, that NAS has been going strong for upwards of 11 years now, and while it's performance has been incredible, it's at a point where it could fail at any moment. As part of the disaster recovery planning, the decision was made to try to refurbish the old backup NAS, just in case an immediate replacement is necessary before a full replacement can be purchased and implmented.
That brings me to my current issue. The old NAS is able to power up, but then all the lights go out and it doesn't load anything. I have probed the Hard Drives on my PC, and while I haven't been able to access the files directly, the disks themselves seem to be fully functional. Most worryingly, attempting to access the Boot Menu with the reset button has failed entirely.
Any advice of how I can get this old thing functional again? Preserving the data doesn't matter, they're just outdated backups, I just need to get the NAS Enclosure itself functional and active.
4 Replies
That brings me to my current issue. The old NAS is able to power up, but then all the lights go out and it doesn't load anything. I have probed the Hard Drives on my PC, and while I haven't been able to access the files directly, the disks themselves seem to be fully functional. Most worryingly, attempting to access the Boot Menu with the reset button has failed entirely.
Try installing RAIDar on a PC
Then power up the NAS diskless, and see if RAIDar detects it (showing a "no disks" status).
The LED status is in the manual (page 49)
Though there are also these indications that are not in the manual:
LED blink behavior for 2 disk systems is three quick blinks of all disk LEDs and the backup LED, followed by an 1s delay, followed by a number of slow blinks. The number of slow blinks will be the error code.
Current error codes:
1 - Vendor mismatch
2 - No disks detected
3 - Bad contents on root partition of disks
4 - Flash error
5 - Unsupported RAID configurationIt is possible that the issue is the power brick. So you could do a risk-buy of a replacement in parallel.
Try installing RAIDar on a PC
https://kb.netgear.com/20684/ReadyNAS-Downloads#raidar
Then power up the NAS diskless, and see if RAIDar detects it (showing a "no disks" status).Nothing on RAIDar, but the old NAS might be configured to an older network setup with a static IP that's no longer in use.
LED blink behavior for 2 disk systems is three quick blinks of all disk LEDs and the backup LED, followed by an 1s delay, followed by a number of slow blinks. The number of slow blinks will be the error code.
While Diskless, only the power light turns on, nothing from the other lights. It blinks a bunch during boot up, then there's a long pause, then it blinks once and goes out. The NAS is still powered on, fan whirring away, but there's no more activity from the indicator lights.
It is possible that the issue is the power brick.
The power brick 'seems' to be functioning fine, but I'll swap it out for its sibling during the weekend. I'll also give the suspect power brick a proper inspection, see if there's any obvious damage.
No need to buy another power brick right away, just swap out the other one and see if it helps.
With those symptoms, a USB recovery may be the solution. But before we can definitively reach that conclusion, try the power supply and see if it boots and can be seen with RAIDar with no drives installed. If it does, check that it shows the correct model number and serial number as well as the "no disks" status. If the problem is the power supply, then just trying a USB recovery could create more issues, not fix them, so don't just guess at this point.
No need to buy another power brick right away, just swap out the other one and see if it helps.
You're assuming the bricks are compatible. Which they might not be (and the old primary NAS might have an internal CPU).
But of course if the bricks are compatible that is an option.
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