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Forum Discussion
ReadyNAS Ultra 6 (RNDP600U) stuck at ReadyNAS boot screen two days after OS6 (6.10) upgrade
Very similar to this thread, I upgraded my ReadyNAS Ultra 6 (RNDP600U) from OS4 (v4.2.31) to OS6 (v6.9.5) only because I lost access to the ReadyNAS Admin console from modern-day internet browsers. ...
I procured the VGA cable and connected the motherboard to a monitor.
The ReadyNAS boots up and gets stuck at "MBR H error".
I created a bootable Linux USB stick to check volumes.
It took a while to find a Linux distro that would boot since most modern-day distros required 3GB of RAM from which I only had 1GB in ReadyNAS. Even PartedMagic did not boot asking for more RAM.
Boom line: the RAID was intact.
I created the ReadyNAS firmware "upgrade" USB. BTW, this post issued a strong warning about downgrading the firmware from v6 to v4.
I tried the firmware upgrade again by booting from the USB yet the boot process freezes on initrd.gz.
There are several threads in this community discussing the issue, but I could not find any definite answer/resolution.
Can this be not enough memory? (Currently at 1GB)
I am thinking of buying some RAM as step one.
Question 1: Does anyone know how much RAM this motherboard supports? I've seen posts for the max of 4GB. I wanted to confirm before ordering.
Question 2: There is an LED on the motherboard right next to the RAM sockets. It's lit RED. Does this mean anything?
Question 3: Now that you have seen what's going on, are there any suggestions for me for what to do/try next?
USB recovery is not a means to upgrade, it's a means to recover -- normally to the same version OS that you've been using. I don't know where you saw any caution about downgrading from OS6 back to OS4.2.x on a legacy machine, but there is no issue doing so. Of course, just as with the upgrade, you have to factory default to re-use the drives. So, maybe something you don't want to do using your actual volume.
You have to create an OS4.2.x style USB recovery, but use an OS6 file. The one you used to originally convert would work fine. But this is something else you might want to do with a scratch drive volume, not your main one. Then you can update back to the one you are currently running before you re-install your normal drives.
That error may be because you have a USB drive installed and the boot is seeing it.
Are you seeing it stop after loading initrd.gz in normal boot or support mode? Support mode on your NAS will have an OS4.2.x base, and OS4.2.x doesn't normally have any display on the console after that, so it may be normal for support mode. But another reason it can stop there is lack of proper identification that it's running on genuine Netgear hardware, which is via the VPD file on legacy machines. While that's in flash as well, USB recovery can't restore it. The mods here will usually help you, so long as you can get the unit into support mode so they can access it.
Sandshark: You practically lost me there. Let me start from the beginning.
I upgraded the firmware on my ReadyNAS Ultra 6 (RNDP600U) from v4.2.31 to v6.10.x.
The upgrade completed fine, I configured the RAID, and the unit worked for about 24 hours and froze after I copied ~5TB of data to the NAS.
I had to hard-reboot. At that point and upon a hard reboot, all I could see/hear was this: fans running at top speed, ReadyNAS message displayed and "frozen", and I could not boot into any modes.
I purchased the VGA cable, which revealed that the NAS was stuck at the "MBR H error" message.
I created a USB flash drive in an effort to (re)flash the firmware back to v4.2.31 to v6.10.x, but booting from this USB drive freezes at the "Loading inird.gz......ready" message.
I am trying to recover, not upgrade. I am stuck: I cannot recover using the USB recovery drive/utility which does not boot, nor I can get into the Support Mode because of the "MBR H error".
It's also with noting that I am not an experienced user. I am learning everything as I poke around following the community's suggestions.
- How can I get the firmware flash USB past the "Loading inird.gz......ready" message?
- What does the "MBR H error" message mean and how to recover from the error?
Thanks in advance!
OnlineUser wrote:
What does the "MBR H error" message mean and how to recover from the error?
It means the flash memory is corrupted in some way. USB recovery is the way to try and fix it.
OnlineUser wrote:What does the "MBR H error" message mean and how to recover from the error?
- Did you run the usbrecovery.exe tool as administrator when you created the recovery drive?
- Did you unzip the firmware zip, and only put the image itself in the folder?
If so, you might also try
- using a different USB port on the NAS
- trying again with a different flash drive.
OK, let me see if I can be more clear: When a legacy ReadyNAS boots, the last line you normally see on the console is exactly what you are seeing. The console is disabled from there on when it jumps into the system loaded by initrd.gz. I've never watched the console when I did a USB recovery, but I strongly suspect the same is true there. So the NAS may be locking up, but you actually have no idea where. It may be simply failing at a task and quitting (which I suspect more), but you again don't know why. It is unfortunate that Netgear chose to configure the system in initrd.gz in that way.
It is at least booting from the USB. And memory is not a problem at this point, you are still running something intended for the legacy units that all came with 1GB or less. If I'm correct and that's as far as you can normally see what's going on in USB recovery, as it is with standard boot, someone would have to create a custom boot image with the console enabled to see what's going on beyond there.
I've seen some posts where someone has tried to manually fix the boot flash from a Linux distro. And while that's not typically successful, you might be able to see if the flash is damaged beyond repair or do some "cleaning up" that then allows the USB recovery to complete the repair process. But I'm not an expert in that area.
Where did you find the os6 firmware for the usb recovery?
At this point, I suggest you go back to OS4.2.31, I don't know where you read any cautions about going backwards, but that's nonsense. You have to factory default again, but it works perfectly fine. I've sold so units that were upgraded to OS6 but the buyer was still on 4.2.31, so I downgraded them before shipping.
So, just download the 4.2.31 image .zip and extract the file.
If you really want to stay with OS6 at thisd point, use the same file you used to upgrade the unit, but named in the form RAIDiator-X.X.X (with no extension).
One thing I have found from other users here is that a corrupted vpd (vendor product data) file can cause a similar issue. It used to be that the NAS would boot and you'd just see garbage for the unit type and/or serial number in RAIDar and not be able tp go any farther, but it seems that's changed and it now fails to boot. And corrupted VPD is becoming a more frequent occurrence (or at least more reported here) problem with legacy NAS on OS6.
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