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Ultra4 (OS4) is dead what's the best way to get disks back online ?
Dear All,
Not sure what would be the best place for this discussion, but since the easiest way for me will be to buy a new unit I think HW compatibility is the right starting point.
A short summary: I have a dead Ultra4 with 4x 4TB WD Reds in RAID5 configuration. As of last month it was running latest stable OS4, I don't know what's wrong w/ it just doesn't power up so at least it has a dead PSU. Given that PSU for ULTRA are not available and PSU for NV/NV+ are now ~120$ my first idea was to buy RN104 plug disks and get data out of it. Can I make it work ?
Some threads on this forum indicate that it will not work. I would expect that I would be able to plug disks and initiate “OS reinstall” from boot menu, what am I missing ?
My next option is to buy RN104 disassemble it to get PSU and plug it to Ultra4. Does anybody has a pinout of Ultra4 and new RN104 units ? Are they the same?
Other options? Maybe I'm inventing a bicycle and there’s an easy solution for retrieving data from dead Netgear NAS already, there’re couple commercial one available have anybody tried any of them?
Finally has anybody tried to use an ATX power supply to boot Ultra4 ? I understand the original ReadyNAS pinout doesn't match ATX standard and would have to be "updated", but it should be preatty strightforward thing to do if you have schematics/pinout or even just connect lab DC power supply with +/- 12V, 5V 3V .
P.S yes it was behind UPS
P.P.S yes all important data was backed up, and replicated on another NAS, but there’s ~5+TB of “less” important data that I still would like to get back if possible.
No, the Ultra 4 does not use the supply listed by StephenB, the Ultra 6 and 6-bay Pro models do.
The NV+, NVX, and Ultra4 all use the same power supply, with the pin-out as shown here: http://www.readynas.com/download/archive/pdf/ReadyNAS_PSU_pinout.pdf. I assume the 4-bay Pro's do as well, but I've never had one. It appears to me to be nothing more than a differently wired Mini ITX supply, which is readily available for under $40. The ratings on the one from my parted out NVX are +3.3V @ 8A, +5V @ 8A and +12V @ 7A. It even lists the -5 and -12V's on the label, which even more leads me to believe it's just a specially wired standard supply with the fan removed (even has a spot for the removed fan, and my original NV did have the fan installed.. a 150W supply should be more than enough, and NewEgg currently has a $10 rebate on a $39 one.
Before you are sure it's the power supply, you could do the "paper clip test" on the existing one. The on/off being a "soft" one, a motherboard issue could cause failure to power on, too. The voltages may not be quite right with no load, but it can be of some help in verifying the issue is the power supply. If it is the supply, you can use this info to do a temporary external install of an ATX supply just for files recovery or you could try the Mini ITX one.
9 Replies
Ultra and Pro ReadyNAS use standard pinouts, so there is no need to modify the wiring.
Posters here have replaced the PSU with a SeaSonic SS-300SFD SFX supply, though they also have indicated that a short 24-pin extender cable is needed. One other poster said he also used a sata to molex adapter. You can search the forum for the details.
I haven't done this myself, but the parts are readily available, and inexpensive (~$50 US total)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817151089
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16812816038
Amazon also carries them all.
No, the Ultra 4 does not use the supply listed by StephenB, the Ultra 6 and 6-bay Pro models do.
The NV+, NVX, and Ultra4 all use the same power supply, with the pin-out as shown here: http://www.readynas.com/download/archive/pdf/ReadyNAS_PSU_pinout.pdf. I assume the 4-bay Pro's do as well, but I've never had one. It appears to me to be nothing more than a differently wired Mini ITX supply, which is readily available for under $40. The ratings on the one from my parted out NVX are +3.3V @ 8A, +5V @ 8A and +12V @ 7A. It even lists the -5 and -12V's on the label, which even more leads me to believe it's just a specially wired standard supply with the fan removed (even has a spot for the removed fan, and my original NV did have the fan installed.. a 150W supply should be more than enough, and NewEgg currently has a $10 rebate on a $39 one.
Before you are sure it's the power supply, you could do the "paper clip test" on the existing one. The on/off being a "soft" one, a motherboard issue could cause failure to power on, too. The voltages may not be quite right with no load, but it can be of some help in verifying the issue is the power supply. If it is the supply, you can use this info to do a temporary external install of an ATX supply just for files recovery or you could try the Mini ITX one.
Sandshark wrote:
No, the Ultra 4 does not use the supply listed by StephenB, the Ultra 6 and 6-bay Pro models do.
The NV+, NVX, and Ultra4 all use the same power supply, with the pin-out as shown here: http://www.readynas.com/download/archive/pdf/ReadyNAS_PSU_pinout.pdf.
Sorry, I apologize for providing the wrong information.
Assuming the disks, OS, array and volume on the disks are fine, then you could move the disks to a 314 for the purposes of attempting to recover your data. You would need somewhere to backup the data to e.g. USB disks.
The new ReadyNAS must also have an Intel CPU, so the 104 is not an option.
Current generation ReadyNAS e.g. 314 run ReadyNAS OS 6 which is a new OS, with a different filesystem. If you do an OS Re-install it will attempt to install OS6 over the top of OS4 which will make your problems worse, rather than help.
The procedure to follow would be:
1. Put a scratch disk (must not be from your array) in the new NAS
2. Update the firmware to the latest
3. Verify the firmware update is successful
4. Power down, remove the scratch disk
5. Move your disks across (keep order the same)
6. Power on NORMALLY
If it boots and you can access Frontview and your data you can then:
1. Backup your data
2. Verify backup is successful
3. Do a factory default (wipes all data, settings, everything)
4. Restore your data from backup
If it does not boot then contact support.
Dear mdgm-ntgr thank you for your reply. Good idea to update to latest firmware using spare disk - thanks for the hint.
With respect to the process I'm a little bit concerned about "boot normally". That would mean that OS4 (which is on system partions) has drivers to support new chipet + SATA + raid,e.t.c, or are you saying that kernel is actually on the flash rather than on system partiontion ? Also have you tried this process yourself ? 104 is around 100$ while 314 is more like 400-500$ range so I'd like to make sure it works before I make such investment.
Also can you clarify why104 is not an option ? I haven't checked OS6 but OS4 does use mulptiple partitions like /dev/md0 for system (usually RAID1 if I don't make a mistake) and /dev/mdX for data which is RAID5 in my case. So my expectation was that after pluging disks to 104 I should be able to do "reinstall OS" which will format /dev/md0 and/or copy rootfs from backup on flash to /dev/md0 . After that theoretically I should be able to boot and mount data partition and copy data over ssh or nfs.
The kernel is on the flash. OS6 for x86 systems can boot legacy x86 OS4 off the disks for the purposes of allowing you to backup your data. The 104 is ARM and cannot boot into an x86 OS.
When you do a normal boot, in an OS6 x86 system if the NAS detects the OS4 x86 OS it will attempt to boot into that.
Re-installing the OS in an OS6 box would attempt to install OS6 onto the OS partition on the disks. OS6 does not expect an OS4 volume and with a mixture of OS4 and OS6 on the OS partition you'd be left with a system in a bad state.
In any case now that you've got your system to boot you don't need this now, but it is something that you could consider again if needed in the future.For now, I would recommend that you make sure you have an up to date backup of your data. If the hardware is failing the problem may soon come back and if you have a backup (which we would recommend you have regardless) you may have more options should this happen.
Hi All,
PSU was fine, and no sign of burned out on motherboard, it was a bit dusty so I did the usual "dance" cleaned everything with air first and then all connectors between modules with alcohol and it did get back to live.
Thank you all for your support.
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