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bigsteve59's avatar
bigsteve59
Aspirant
Jul 23, 2021
Solved

RN12P Trying to reinstall without success

Hi Folks,

 

First time post here. I have an old RN12P which we have been using for some years without issue. It's ceased being used as a file  share and I wanted to upgrade it and use it as a backup repository, alongside my offsite storage.

 

I have fitted new drives and expanded it to its full 12 drive capacity. I have used the reset key to access the boot menu and performed a factory reset but since then the interface has not been accessible. I have run RAIDAR and it comes up with a "Corrupt Root" message. I have removed all the disks, connected them to a computer and run a dikspart clean operation on them. These have been reinstalled and I have attempted to run an OS Reinstall from the boot menu but without success.

 

The attached image shows the screen during the boot process if that is of any assistance. I have created a USB recovery pen drive but this does not seem to be detected as the system just boots normally.

 

Any advice gratefully accepted.

 

Thanks, Steve.

 

  • FYI, few will know your NAS as a 12P, most will know it as an RN3200.

     

    You appear to be running OS4.2.x on it still -- which is the approved firmware for it.  Unfortunately, OS4.2.x doesn't give any information on the VGA screen beyond what you are seeing.  Your NAS can be converted to run OS6, but it's probably not a good plan to do that until you make sure it's fully healthy under OS4.2.x.  Since all of the drives are new anyway, I suggest you mount just one and do a factory default.  That way, it won't go off creating a RAID volume, which takes a long time.  If you want to check all bays, just power down and move it to each bay sequentially, then power back up.

     

    If that works, then either put in all drives and do another default (that will be much faster than adding the drives one at a time and expanding) or first convert to OS6, then do the default with all drives.

     

    If you do want to convert, you'll find instuctions here in the forum.  Note that for a 3200/4200 type system where the flash is a USB drive internal to the unit, I recommend making an image of it before doing the conversion.  It makes it a lot easier to start over if something goes wrong.

4 Replies

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  • StephenB's avatar
    StephenB
    Guru - Experienced User

    bigsteve59 wrote:

    I have removed all the disks, connected them to a computer and run a dikspart clean operation on them. These have been reinstalled and I have attempted to run an OS Reinstall from the boot menu but without success.

    If you removed all the partitions, you need to do a factory default, not an OS reinstall.

     

    Though the system should automatically do a factory install if you simply power up with all drives blank.

    • Sandshark's avatar
      Sandshark
      Sensei - Experienced User

      FYI, few will know your NAS as a 12P, most will know it as an RN3200.

       

      You appear to be running OS4.2.x on it still -- which is the approved firmware for it.  Unfortunately, OS4.2.x doesn't give any information on the VGA screen beyond what you are seeing.  Your NAS can be converted to run OS6, but it's probably not a good plan to do that until you make sure it's fully healthy under OS4.2.x.  Since all of the drives are new anyway, I suggest you mount just one and do a factory default.  That way, it won't go off creating a RAID volume, which takes a long time.  If you want to check all bays, just power down and move it to each bay sequentially, then power back up.

       

      If that works, then either put in all drives and do another default (that will be much faster than adding the drives one at a time and expanding) or first convert to OS6, then do the default with all drives.

       

      If you do want to convert, you'll find instuctions here in the forum.  Note that for a 3200/4200 type system where the flash is a USB drive internal to the unit, I recommend making an image of it before doing the conversion.  It makes it a lot easier to start over if something goes wrong.

      • bigsteve59's avatar
        bigsteve59
        Aspirant

        Hi Folks,

        Thank you very much for your input. I have been able use a single drive to test and initialise the system. As suggested, I move the drive around the box to prove that all of the slots were functional. Just to be safe, before starting again, I cleaned all the drives to make sure that there was no partition information anywhere and then did a Factory Reset with all 12 drives plugged in. The machine is currently re-syncing and is about 3% through, the most progress I've seen at any point during this whole process.

         

        I shall wait until the drive is complete before configuring a name and fixed IP but it looks as if I am on the road to success. Thank you once again for your assistance.

         

        Steve.

         

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