ReadyNAS Ultra 6

Question

Hello everyone,&nbsp;I hope someone can help me with the following problem(s).1. We have a (old) ReadyNAS Ultra 6The company bought 6 new disks -&nbsp; (6 x WD-gold each 6TB)https://www.coolblue.nl/product/855962/wd-gold-wd6003fryz-6tb.html&nbsp;The old disk we're replaced by the new ones but we were having problems to boot the device.&nbsp;We kept getting the error:&nbsp;err could not mount root raid d.I did a factory and os reset but that didn't work.&nbsp;&nbsp;During the setup I got the error: ERR: Raid creation failed.So I checked it's compatibility and I can see that the NAS isn't compatible with the new disks.https://kb.netgear.com/20641/ReadyNAS-Hard-Disk-Compatibility-ListThe ReadyNas doesn't support WD-GOLD disks at all and only the capacity up to 4 TB.Can someone please confirm that it's a compatibility issue? or what else can it be.&nbsp;(If so, I can order a new NAS for the new disks) First problem solved right?!But...that leads me to the second problem.&nbsp;2. I forgot to number the old disks and I need to put them back in the old ReadyNas Ultra 6.I read somewhere that you can't just put them back (in the wrong order)&nbsp;How can I fix this ?&nbsp;~D-Coco

Sandshark · Answer

The list of compatible drives is just what Netgear has tested, and they have not tested drives for your older NAS in many years. Your NAS will work perfectly fine with those drives unless the OS version is extremely old. Do you know what version you have? You have surpassed the expansion limits of the older OS that your NAS natively runs, but it should be able to create a volume with 6 drives of the same size even larger than those.

So, you pulled all the drives, installed new ones, and powered on? That would have automatically caused the NAS to start loading the OS to them and then wait for you to use RAIDar to tell it what volume type you want, though that wait will time out, and then start to create the volume. It sounds like it didn't get through the OS installation the first time and didn't get through the volume creation the second.

If there were already partitions on the drives before they were inserted, it is possible that one of them is a format the older RAIDiator OS can't deal with (it needs to delete them and start fresh). Or, one or more could be bad (yes, it happens, even on enterprise drives). If you have a PC you can put each into or a USB dock for a PC, you can use Disk Managment (the OS won't see the drive) to see if there are any partitions and delete any you find. Then, run WD's Data Lifeguard program to test each one.

Since you just had it running with other drives, it seems unlikely that the NAS itself broke, but it is a possibility. A good test is to insert just one drive (one of the new ones or any other that contains no data you care about) and see if it will create a volume on it. Then, power off, switch the drive to the next bay, and power on. Do that with all bays. It will only have to create a volume the first time.

Your NAS can be converted to OS6, the current firmware for new ReadyNAS. It's not officially supported by Netgear, but works. Since you are already starting over, you may want to consider that. In addition to no longer having the expansion limitation, you get a lot of new features and more up to date protocols and security. You will also be in a position to simply migrate the drive to a new ReadyNAS if the Ultra6 finally quits.

D-coco · Answer

Hi,&nbsp;Thanks for your reply.&nbsp;I'm not sure which version it has.&nbsp;I did update and restarted the NAS before I took the old disks out.Yes, I did shutdown the NAS and removed the old disks and put the new disks in.After a few attempts of restarting and trying, still nothing (The RAIDar showed the message: corrupt root).And the NAS showed me the err: could not mount root raid d.&nbsp;Then I tried the OS restart on the NAS but that didn't work So I did the factory reset.On the&nbsp;RAIDar it showed that I could start the setup, so I did.&nbsp;- I checked both options: X-RAID2 and also the sub option (use an additional disk) (image 1)- Then it showed me that the volume is about to be created (image 2)After a few seconds it did nothing, so I checked the NAS and I saw the following error: RAID creation failed (image 3).&nbsp;Maybe I could do the factory reset again but this time without&nbsp;the sub option:&nbsp;use an additional disk.So if I understand, I need to check each (new) WD drives and delete the partitions and run the program.I will try these things first:&nbsp;- factory reset without the sub option- Add just one disk and test it. But what do you mean switch it to the next bay?&nbsp;- Check each (new) drive and delete partitions.&nbsp;&nbsp;Is there another option to update the firmware other than update it via admin page or cloud?&nbsp;I did find this:&nbsp;https://kb.netgear.com/29952/How-do-I-use-the-USB-Recovery-Tool-on-my-ReadyNAS-OS-6-storage-systemBut on another page it says, don't use it for re-install or&nbsp;non-chassis issues&nbsp;https://kb.netgear.com/30267/RAIDiator-4-2-USB-Recovery-Tool~D-cocoimage 1image 2

StephenB · Answer

As an FYI, 4.2.x firmware does have some limitations related to volume size.&nbsp; Since you are starting over, it would be worth considering converting the NAS to run OS 6 firmware.&nbsp; As&nbsp;Sandshark&nbsp;says, Netgear doesn't support OS 6 running on legacy NAS.&nbsp; But many folks have down the conversion, and most have found it works out well.&nbsp; We can give you more info on this if you like.
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D-coco&nbsp;wrote:
- Add just one disk and test it. But what do you mean switch it to the next bay?&nbsp;

Do the initial install with just one disk in bay 1.
After you confirm that is working, power down the NAS and move the disk to bay 2.&nbsp; Boot up, and confirm it works.
Power down again and move the disk to bay 3.&nbsp; Repeat until all slots are tested.

D-coco&nbsp;wrote:
Is there another option to update the firmware other than update it via admin page or cloud?&nbsp;I did find this:&nbsp;https://kb.netgear.com/29952/How-do-I-use-the-USB-Recovery-Tool-on-my-ReadyNAS-OS-6-storage-systemBut on another page it says, don't use it for re-install or&nbsp;non-chassis issues&nbsp;https://kb.netgear.com/30267/RAIDiator-4-2-USB-Recovery-Tool

Be careful here.&nbsp; Your NAS is running 4.2 firmware.&nbsp; Your first link is for OS-6 systems (which run 6.x firmware).&nbsp; So it doesn't apply to your NAS.&nbsp; Other KB articles are specific to 4.1 or 5.3 firmware.
&nbsp;
But the general answer to your question is that you should be installing the firmware from the admin page (https://nas-ip-address/admin).&nbsp;&nbsp; If you like, you can put your old disks back into the system, power it up, and then do the update.&nbsp; The update is applied to the NAS flash and also to the OS installed on the hard drives.
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If you don't want to use the "check for update" button on the remote update page, you can download the firmware from&nbsp;https://kb.netgear.com/000038793/RAIDiator-x86-Version-4-2-31.&nbsp; You extract it from the zip file, and upload it to the NAS on the local update page.&nbsp;

D-coco · Answer

Hello,&nbsp;Thanks for your reply.&nbsp;I will try the&nbsp;recommended solutions as soon as I can.&nbsp;--&nbsp;Just had one more question about the old disks that we have.I took them out of the NAS and I forgot to number them&nbsp;I read that you just can't put them back in the NAS in the wrong order, is this correct?How can I find out what the disk order was ?&nbsp;~D-coco