All computers can access NAS, NAS can't access anything.

Can you give the full backup job settings for one of your jobs?

What version of RAIDiator on the NAS?

Are you running a firewall on the PCs?

mdgm wrote:
Can you give the full backup job settings for one of your jobs? What version of RAIDiator on the NAS? Are you running a firewall on the PCs?

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Thanks for responding to a very general query (about a very basic problem).

It's RAIDiator 4.1.7 (apparently the latest, came with the NAS).

Firewalls are disabled within the 'HOME' workgroup (basically corresponding to our home network, running through a Belkin wireless router which also runs DHCP for all machines on the network (protected by MAC address filtering, with all 'HOME' MACs, including that of the NAS, allowed access; I can see all the machines' - including the ReadyNAS' - IP addresses in the router setup).

The simplest job that failed (again, just now) is an attempt to backup the root directory of this XP-SP3 computer to a share on the NAS (/backup/username). The root directory of this machine is fully shared with write permissions. I've tried both Timestamp and Archive Bit protocols. I entered the COMPUTERNAME (with and without Unix slashes, since Frontview 'Help' tells you to use these, but the program seems to add them also - the non-connectability error includes 2 Unix-style forward slashes before the machine name, even if I didn't enter those myself, though I've also tried with the slashes, as suggested in the very unhelpful 'Help' - the whole software package seems like a glitchy beta release from some minor player).

I'm not sure (again, great documentation) whether I need to enter the full (UNIX-style) path from the root directory to the share to be backed up, or just the COMPUTERNAME and the SHARENAME (as in an Windows Explorer listing), so again, I've tried both (this random experimentation with permutations of all the variables is pretty timeconsuming, and prompted my choice of username).

I've also tried simply entering the name of the root directory, C (no partition on this hard disk), with or without a dollar sign immediately following (though this isn't mentioned in Frontview 'Help').

For login, I've tried the name of the adminstrator/sole user and blank (the way I login without password through the 'windows classic' login prompt on the machine itself), and when this failed, I've tried setting a password to login on this computer, and entering the password on Frontview.

And because after many attempts at simply using 'Test Connection' with all these settings, only to then read on this site that 'Test Connection' often doesn't work when there IS in fact a connection (again, great beta release), I've tried doing a basic test backup ignoring the 'Test Connection' failure. Again, 'error connecting' to any of the machines on the network. I've also tried using numerical network addresses in the 'Host' field, again, it fails to connect.

NOTHING works - I must have tried about 30 combinations of the badly-documented variables I've mentioned. I've also tried enabling ALL XP services, then returned to the services that have worked fine for interacting with the other computers, running different OSs, on the network (Mac OS X 10.5.8 and Windows 7 Home Premium).

WHY do all these computers all see each other and the NAS with no difficulty, while the NAS is blind to everything in its workgroup? Why on earth can't Frontview browse the home network like all the other machines?

Not only is the 'Help' and documentation pretty useless (from what I thought was a serious IT player, Netgear)... but this whole business is worse than configuring a modem or printer 25 years ago! I'm shocked.

4.1.7 is the latest RAIDiator.

I would try using a sharename that doesn't have a dollar sign in Windows.

I would try using the ip address as an alternative to the computername for the host (ah, I see you've already done that). The host should be e.g. "ip.address.of.nas" (no quotes) or the "computername" (no quotes)

The Unix type slashes would go in the path field e.g. "sharename/foldername/foldername" (no quotes)

Though I haven't got any NAS units apart from NetGear NAS units, I've read in reviews that NetGear is a leader when it comes to a GUI for doing backups.

The "Test Connection" option works for the backups I do (I typically do NAS to NAS though). I've found the "Test Connection" option doesn't like non-escaped spaces in paths.

Like most NAS units, the ReadyNAS is a Linux box. It's a highly efficient well-written OS. Very suitable to getting the best out of limited resources. The NV+ is an older ReadyNAS model and does have some limitations when working with Windows Vista and Windows 7, I believe. There are some things you should do like change the NTLM authentication settings in the registry.

I believe the key may be slightly different on Windows 7 but here are the settings on Vista:

NetGear wrote:

» Why am I not able to access ReadyNAS share that is password protected with Vista? When accessing a file share on a remote computer or device, Windows Vista will refuse to send your password using older encryption methods. Unfortunately, many NAS devices as well as older versions of linux do not understand the newer encryption methods. This keeps you from being able to access these devices. The solution is to force Windows Vista to use the older encryption methods. To do that, follow these steps: Users of Windows Vista Home Basic and Home Premium Click start Type: regedit Press enter In the left, expand these folders: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\ In the left, click on the folder named: Lsa In the right, double-click "LmCompatibilityLevel" Type the number 1 and press enter Restart your computer. Users of Windows Vista Business, Enterprise, and Ultimate Click Start Click Control Panel Click System and Maintenance Click Administrative Tools Double-Click Local Security Policy In the left pane, click the triangle next to Local Policy In the left pane, click Security Options In the right pane near the bottom, double-click "Network security: LAN manager authentication level" Click the drop-down box, and click "Send LM & NTLM - use NTLMv2 session security if negotiated" Click OK.

As for backing up your Macs, use Time Machine: http://www.readynas.com/TimeMachine

Really is a bad idea in my view to try to backup the entire boot hard disk of a PC using Frontview backup. Far better to install software on the PC designed for this purpose and push a backup to the NAS.

Frontview backup is great, but it's not designed to backup the OS drive of a remote machine (well if you took a snapshot on the remote machine, then it could be feasible I guess, but that would still require software or some work done on the PC side in which case you may as well do it all from that side and push to the NAS).

The documentation covers a limited amount of information and is not exhaustive. Unfortunately it seems the new ReadyNAS FAQ is missing some info from the old one (new FAQ is still a work in progress).

I would suggest opening a tech support case and posting your case number here (edit the thread title i.e. title of first post in this thread).

You need to simplify your setup as much as possible to eliminate potential conflicts and sources of issues.

1. Completely disable the firewall on one of your XP machines - not just within the workgroup - turn it off completely. You can re-enable it one backups are running and so test if that is the source of your issues.

2. In your frontview backup job
- Setup Windows/NAS (Timestamp) as the source
- Set host to be the IP address of the PC being targeted (Names can be used, but we're simplifying for the moment)
- Set the path is just the sharename to be backed up (I'd suggest a small data set for the moment, but you can use "C$" - without quotes - to target the full C volume)
- Enter a windows username and password of a user that has full access to that share - use your admin account to be sure of access

You should end up with something like this:



See if that works for you - I just set up the above on an NV+ running 4.1.7 against a fairly new XP installation and it worked perfectly first time as follows:



So if it doesn't work for you - please post your exact error, and post screen shots if at all possible.

If it does, start changing settings one at a time and rerunning the backup after each change until you figure where the problem is

mdgm & sphardy - many thanks for your inputs... at least I can now feel slightly less alone in my explorations. They should get human beings like yourselves to write a manual.

The Windows Firewall is completely off on this XP-SP3 machine, and as for 'pushing' backups from clients rather than getting the ReadyNAS to 'pull' them... my wife and son wanted me to organize backups for their computers which wouldn't require them to do anything. I had the - perhaps rather foolish - idea, encouraged by the vendor, that the ReadyNAS Duo, once set up, would periodically scan the network for incremental backups on the home network computers, leaving us all free from worry about dying hard disks and loss of data (happened twice in the last 5 years), and free of the further cost and complication of client software on each machine to 'push' backups. I basically want to save all relevant data on all home machines on the ReadyNAS, and different OSs store relevant data in lots of different places, so I thought incremental backup of the root directories would save everything 'just in case' - and OK, the NAS will then be backing up changes to the registry, temporary folders and so on, but that shouldn't be a huge strain once the initial root backup is completed, the data might even come in handy after a disk failure.... and I get the impression that a lot of people who buy the 'home' versions like the ReadyNAS Duo are looking for pretty much what I'm looking for (incremental disk-image backup would be even better... but I also get the impression that Netgear is basically making servers for professionals to install, and don't really understand their 'low-end' domestic customers... even those who started programming on a PDP-12 forty years ago, and have wasted too much of their lives editing printer kerning tables, modem queries &c, in the slightly less distant past).

I've already tried nearly all the combinations you guys suggest (BTW, is 'Browse' always greyed-out and non-functional as on my computer and your image? Wouldn't surprise me...). I haven't edited the registry to reset encryption levels, but I'm trying initially to get the backup function to work on this XP computer. I can't (well, easily) believe you need to edit the registry to get the late-2010 ReadyNAS firmware/software to work with the most common and seasoned OS out there...

One little point (since when I have more energy again for this I might try a more specific test backup from some small share on this machine again) - do you in fact need a full UNIX path, or is //COMPUTERNAME/SHARENAME(/SUBFOLDER) enough (as a newbie I'd expect to find this basic question answered in the online manual, the software Help or the Community FAQs, but again, like other frustrated posters, I clearly misunderstood the intended market/public for this sort of baby NAS)?

And if computers aren't in fact password-protected (I trust my wife and son, and it's a hassle waiting for the login prompt, then waiting agian for the full bootup), do you still need to fill in the login details in Frontview (all the other computers, and the NAS shares, can be accessed by Explorer/Finder without login over the network).

PS: As I asked initially, could this scenario possibly correspond to a corrupted RAIDiator, or a component failure in the NAS?

Note that in my example I neither edited the registry, nor used any '/' characters.

If you wish to continue discuss the perceived deficiencies of the ReadyNAS, maybe you should create a separate post in the feedback section, and then focus this thread on purely solving the issue.

Sorry, sphardy, I was foolishly trying to post a single reply to two people both trying to help - it was mdgm who suggested a potential encryption-level problem in Windows, and the regedit workaround. As for the slashes, my understanding is that Windows backslashes basically have to be translated into UNIX forward-slashes, while initial backslashes are not needed for hostname or path (which doesn't have to be a complete path from the root directory, but only a path from a share - though I couldn't find any of this in the online manual or program help; also the root directory has to be followed by a dollar-sign in the path if that's the share to be backed up, and spaces in Windows paths have to be escaped with a backslash). Nor have I discovered whether it's necessary to enter logon information for machines which aren't password-protected, so I guess I better stick to my new logon password and enter that along with my user-name (I guess there's also an administrator account hiding behind the Win XP login, perhaps I should try using that. It's not password-protected by default, so perhaps I'd need to make a password so the ReadyNAS can log in (again, can't find any discussion of this anywhere).

I still don't know if this could be a hardware or software malfunction. I'll try loading Frontview onto my wife's Mac and see if I can get anywhere by that route, and assuming I don't get anywhere, I'll raise a support ticket.

In the meantime, many thanks for your - and mdgm's - suggestions.

(As for Customer Feedback, there seems to be enough along the lines of what I posted about my surprise at the poor documentation already out there, and, given the time I've already spent permuting all the variables I can think of, I guess I should concentrate on other things than longterm improvement of the newbie NAS experience).

I am quite frustrated too : I have in principle the same problems as described in this thread.
- Can access ReadyNAS duo from win7 and Vista Machine
- Frontview comes back with error when using timestamp
- when using archive bit is copies the (test) folder but not the file in it:
session setup failed: SUCCESS - 0
Files copied: 0
- check connetion comes back with an error every time
- why o why is the browse function to select the correct path not working? Saves us non proffesional users to struggle with backslashes, $-signs and what ever else is needed in the encrypted codes

On top of that:
i-tunes can't find the server; which is one of the main reasons to buy this kit
This ReadyNAS was supposed to be user friendly, well I strongly disagree.

Do your files in the test folder have their archive bits set? That's how an archive bit backup determines which files to copy.

Browse is designed to allow you to select a local folder. Is it not working in this regard?

iTunes can't find the server? Can you provide any info?

hi ewok,
been busy with work so it took some time to answer but here are my replies then:

I set the archive bit by changing the file, but this was not the point really; time stamp back up comes back with an error and doesn't run at all. Archive bit back up runs at least but doesn't copy anything. I prefer to use the time stamp though.

browsing function is working local folder on NAS DUO only , is this by design? Bit silly I think.

iTunes - got it finally working thorugh another thread; CleanItunesConfig but then it dissapears after some time again.

I run Win7 64bits. Could this be cause of my grieve with the back up function?