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Forum Discussion
Netgear RN204 NAS set up and firmware.
I have 2ea RN204 units up and running now and they have been work horse machines... Recently my son in law gave me a unit with out drives he is not using but, no drives... I happen to have 4 WD Red drives that I had removed from an installation on another NAS (not netgear. The drives are all good and show healthy when checked out of the box...
The unit fires up and all drives seem to be working but because this unit was used from the past and the drives are good but I am having issues on my network...
So I need to do a complete update (probably update the firmware) and a start up of the NAS from the beginning I'd like to ask for a little help.
Can I just download a new copy of the firmware to a USB drive and update the firmware that way with out being on the network for now... For some reason when I do a factory reset and the unit comes up it sees my network and assigns an IP address for the network but for some reason it thinks its one of the other RN204s on my network and thinks its empty... at that point if I try to log on the Working RN 204 seems to be conflicting....
Is there a way to just reboot and load the new firmware and start by formatting (the used drives in the NAS) and set it up? Like I said I did find the OS6 firmware to download and unzip and doing that process leave it off my network until I come up with a clean system... I want to elminate the chance the process can affect any of my other Nas units on in service and working...
Sorry for the long question...its been quite a few years that I had to do this
Thanks in advance.
3 Replies
For some reason when I do a factory reset and the unit comes up it sees my network and assigns an IP address for the network but for some reason it thinks its one of the other RN204s on my network and thinks its empty... at that point if I try to log on the Working RN 204 seems to be conflicting....
Do the working NAS have static IP addresses assigned? (On the NAS itself, not reserved in the router).
If they do, are those IP Addresses outside the DHCP pool?
Also, when you access the NAS web interface, are you using the IP address in your browser? Or are you using the hostname? Use the IP address for now.
Thanks for the replies Sand-shark and Stephen B, So, yesterday I tried a factory default again and still having an issue.
To answer the question on the static vs DHCP...it is DHCP on the older one and I am assuming this one... .it did give me a IP with the end numbers being .181 For safety this morning I shut down the older one and fired up the new one (The one I just put the drives in) and fired it up... for some reason I am not getting the log in screen and when I put in the Ip address it shows that the device is empty (I think) I tried the Netgear web log in but it comes up with something completely difference and does not have anything about the NAS, I can not get it to the setup page at all. I can not see firmware version.
So since I am paranoid about keeping the original NAS with with lots of files on it... I am trying to be very careful and not wiping it out. I turned off the new unit, unplugged it from the network and turned my original back on.... when it came up it had a new IP address changing from .35 to .48 though.... My Plex server is working and I can get in to the NAS as before so... that is good...but it's strange it gave me another IP address....
So, do you think I should just do a fresh factory install? I have the latest firmware downloaded and unzipped on a flash drive. and I am assuming I'd do that off line with out the Ethernet cable connected....
I'd just like to get this NAS up and running to add to my Plea set up..but I don't want to do anything to disturb my working system that has 10 years of files loaded and running.
Thanks again for the suggestions.
You need to do a factory default on the unit. If the unit thinks it's the same as one of your others, then at least one of the drives must have been used (even if just for a test) on that unit. A factory default will fully erase the drives. No user-unique data is stored in the NAS flash. Once you've done that, you can check the OS version and do a normal update, if needed.
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