ReadyNas 104 not booting - various errors - Latest is do_exit+4b0 All after failed firmware update

Hi all,

Apologies if I'm posting in the wrong place. First time on here and I'm a bit out of my depth with networking and NAS Setups in general.

I hope I can get the help I need otherwise this readyNAS104 will end up and junk and that will be a shame as it was a fully working NAS before I mucked it up.

So background to give you an idea of what's happened.

I was running it with 4 x 4TB WD red drives. HD 1&2 together for 8TB and the other 2 as 4TB. Around Jul 2019 one of the HD's in the 8TB set up failed and gave error messages. Can't remember what they were. In my infinite wisdom I didn't bother to replace the drive thinking it was the NAS at fault and tried all sorts of rebooting solutions etc. Eventually I tried to upgrade the Firmware as I thought the error being displayed at the time was firmware related. This is where I completely screwed up, being out of warranty, not wanting to call support, not knowing exactly what the issue was and being too short sighted all lead to my current predicament.

I believe my attempt to update the firmware failed. Could be because I executed the process wrong, failed to create a good usb boot, used the wrong firmware files or I may of even shutdown the NAS by pulling the power thinking it was stuck and had crashed.

I was at a loss so just bought another used one off eBay which I have working but would be great to get the old one working again.

The device deatils off the back of the NAS is:

Model Name: RN10400

FW: v6.0.4 (although this would of been updated when i first set it up but no idea what it was last running before it all went wrong)

Mac and serial numbers i dont think are needed are they?

So as of now I have tried OS reinstall from the boot menu which results in the following

"Starting network" and then displays "do_exit4b0"

Boot Menu Factory default results in

"starting Network" then "Factory Default?" with a 10 min timer. I press back up button and the it says "ERR: Could not p - Creating volume" and then switches to "ERR: Registering data filesystem"

I have also ready and tried to follow the guide on the Netgear support pages to create the USB recovery tool (https://kb.netgear.com/29952/How-do-I-use-the-USB-Recovery-Tool-on-my-ReadyNAS-OS-6-storage-system)

I did steps 1-20 but when it comes to step 19 it does enter USB recovery mode and displays "ReadyNAS - USB Recovery" followed by "DEBUG: $port - $IP Recovery"

I've also read a thread (https://community.netgear.com/t5/Using-your-ReadyNAS-in-Business/ReadyNas-104-Boot-from-USB-failed-after-firmware-update/m-p/1712164) and attempted to do the same thing as mentioned in the reply by Marc_V posted on the 2019-02-24 11:36 PM - but if I have done it right its basically copying 3 files onto the usb and then plugging the USB into the NAS and getting it to boot from the USB. If that's right all it does is display " Boot from USB" and After a while the message "Boot from USB Failed". Nothing else seems to happen.

I'm hoping I haven't totally wrecked the system and its salvageable. If it's possible can I copy the root system files from one NAS to another (as I said I have a fully functioning one - so if this can be done how do I do it? Can it be cloned in a sense) Or if someone can point me in the direction of how to do a proper USB boot drive?

Anything is welcome but please bear in mind I am a network novice at best and don't understand most of the technical terms etc.

Thank you all in advance and hoping I got some sort of reply