ReadyNAS 2100 won't boot.

stylus, First I want to clarify that in order to change from Xraid to Flex raid or vice versa, it will require a factory default of the unit, which will result in data loss. As you are using a brand new unit, the data loss may be a non-issue.

That being said, after the factory default, you will enter the setup using RAIDar and configure the unit for Flex-raid there.

Here is a link to all of the boot menu instructions: http://www.readynas.com/kb/faq/boot/how ... on32004200

If you do not have data on the unit, please perform a factory default, and see if the unit boots correctly and allows you to configure Flex-raid.

If you have data on the unit and it is refusing to boot, please open a case with Netgear technical support.

I started a case with Netgear tech support, I am in the process of running western digital diagnostics of each of the 4 drives one at a time.

In the mean time I installed Drive #1 only (or more likely Drive 0) and was able to boot up with that. At the admin website it says that drives 2,3,4 are dead (because they are currently not installed). I ran a factory reset from the website it appears to be working somewhat. I would of preferred to delete the volume and then recreate it but that was not an option.

If it follows through and works with the 1 drive installed, should I then take the other ones to a spare workstation delete the partitions or zero them out. The goal being to install them as "blank/new" drives and all the raid to expand?

Thanks

I was able to get my 2100 fixed.

I found that the 2100, and 1500 both default to the IP 192.168.168.168 if they cannot pull a DHCP address. For whatever reason when I was doing factory default the devices were going to the 192.168.168.168 address. In my enviornment that created an IP conflict (Sonicwall default IP is 192.168.168.168).

The IP conflict cause the raidar setup program to not work correctly. I clicked factory default from the web GUI, once it rebooted I clicked setup within in raidar and chose the raid configuration options I wanted (flexraid instead of xraid). It seems my setup options were not getting submitted to the readyNAS because of the IP conflict so it just kept rebuilding to the default Xraid configuration.

To get around this problem I plugged the readynas into a different subnet (172.16.0.x) and it worked exactly as intended when following the convert from XRaid to Flexraid, no I can just swap the cables around and put it back where I want it.