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Forum Discussion
Recovering Admin PW - OS Reinstall doesn't work
My RN312 with two 4TB drives in RAID-1 and running OS 6.9.1 is working OK on my LAN. NAS volumes mount on both Mac (macOS 10.13.6) and Windows 10 Pro (1903) and operate nominally.
But I've misplaced the admin password and recovery via password_recovery page fails due to unrecognized email and recovery answer pair. (It's not the default admin UID and PW, I've tried.) I did an OS reinstall from the boot menu that resulted in a blinking power LED for over 48 hours while the latest RAIDar app sees the device and reports status of "file system check." Manual power-down and restart brings the NAS to the same state as before the OS Reinstall, e.g., same IP address and data intact. Apparently OS reinstall didn't happen.
All the NAS data are backed up on a 6TB external drive so I could do a factory reset and then restore NAS data. Is that my best or only option if I want to regain admin acces to the device? Please advise.
5 Replies
Is your OS partition being reported as too full? That can cause a lot of issues. If it's not, a balance and scrub should verify the file system is intact so you can try the re-install again and, perhpas, have better luck.
basysaz wrote:
I did an OS reinstall from the boot menu that resulted in a blinking power LED for over 48 hours while the latest RAIDar app sees the device and reports status of "file system check." Manual power-down and restart brings the NAS to the same state as before the OS Reinstall, e.g., same IP address and data intact. Apparently OS reinstall didn't happen.
Did you use the procedure on page 65-66 here? http://www.downloads.netgear.com/files/GDC/READYNAS-100/ReadyNAS_%20OS6_Desktop_HM_EN.pdf
When you shut down the NAS before attempting the install, did you use the forced shutdown or the preferred shutdown (both described on page 65)? The forced shutdown would result in the NAS doing a resync and file system check on the next normal boot. That could take quite a while.
Thanks for the replies.
StephenB IIRC, I used the forced-shutdown (hold power button for 5+ seconds) not the graceful shutdown (press power button twice) described on p. 65 of the hardware manual, resulting in the 48+ hour file system check as reported by the RAIDar app, which I interrupted by anther forced shutdown to resume nominal use. I'll try again using graceful shutdown before OS reinstall and report results. (I did read the harware manual to determine how to initiate OS reinstall from the boot menu but overlooked the shutdown procedures. Once again, the old adage holds: when in doubt, RTFM - fully!)
Sandshark Because I couldn't log in as admin I didn't have access to the dashboard or any diagnostices showing the status of an OS partition. The external backup size ws 607 GB and mounting a NAS volume reports 3.27 TB free, though that's probably data outside the OS partition.
SUCCESS!
I used the preferred (graceful) shutdown procedure from the RN312 hardware manual, then selected the OS reinstall option and rebooted the NAS. Took a few minutes and came up with default admin UID and PW, on a new IP address (had been using fixed IP). Login worked fine, and a prompt to upgrade from OS 6.9.1 to 6.10.2 appeared, which I did.
Manually mounting volumes on the new IP worked OK, no appparent data loss. The whole process took about 30 minutes, including OS update. StephenB and Sandshark, thanks for your help.
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