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Forum Discussion
old1mike
May 15, 2018Aspirant
RN204 how to do USB recovery via TFTP through serial port?
RN204
Windows 10 pc - virtualbox ubuntu
I know the NAND linux kernal firmware is corrupted. The USB Recovery option fails and I have tried several different usb drives. If I put in diagnostice mo...
mdgm-ntgr
May 16, 2018NETGEAR Employee Retired
So you can't see the NAS unit in RAIDar regardless of which boot menu option you use?
There could be a hardware issue with the unit. That's a risk you take buying a second hand unit. Some second hand sellers may see if lights come on when powering it on diskless (if they even do that) to check if a unit is working which is totally inadequate testing.
The issue on 6.6.1 affected the RN102/RN104 and RN2120. The RN204 theoretically could have run into the same problem but I know of no cases where that has happened.
It's also possible that your USB keys are incompatible with USB Boot Recovery or that you've run into a problem that USB Boot Recovery can't fix, but is still fixable.
- old1mikeMay 16, 2018Aspirant
Well aware USB front port is VERY picky about USB used. When manufatured the NAND needs to be loaded with uboot/firmware/diagnostics. Since there is a serial port on the back of the main board I am guessing that is what they use to load an image into the NAND. The USB recovery method is basically loading the latest firmware image into NAND. Since the usb method is not working for me, I believe that if I could get the procedure to load it through the serial port, I could get it back up and running. Buying used equipment is a risk, yes. Does that mean that if it is fixable I should just trash it, simply because the manufacturer wants to charge for support? I am not a business with deep pockets. I know the NAND can be rewritten. I know that the display, and mainboard are working. It is just the linux software that Netgear uses (readynas os) is corrupted in the NAND. There is info on TFTP for Raidiator 4.1. It would be a VERY similar process to do readynas os.
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