ReadyNAS NV (c.2006) was working fine yesterday. 4 disks installed.When attempting to access it today, I am unable to do so.RAIDar can't see it, doesn't respond to ping.Pressing and holding the power button for 5+ seconds doesn't shut it down.Pulled mains lead.Reinstated mains lead.When I push the power button, all the disk LEDs flash once and the Power light flashes "quickly" for a few seconds before changing to flashing "slowly". All other LEDs remain OFF.After that, nothing else happens.RAIDar can't see it, doesn't respond to ping.Having rummaged in the forums, I found: http://www.readynas.com/download/docume ... AS-LED.pdfIt would appear that: "ReadyNAS OS is booting, this stage should not last for more than 3 minutes. Otherwise, one of disk may be bad or incompatible. SATA backplane is the next to be questioned, and then NAND or SODIMM."Is there a published sequence of steps to further diagnose the root cause?Preferably without wiping all my data.Although I cannot now connect to the box at all, I do have a full set of logs, downloaded a couple of days ago, if any of the information therein can help.Thanks.

Let us check the NAS chassis... Try to pull-out all drives and make sure to label them accordingly from which bay you have pulled it out. Then, try to boot up the NAS without any drives and check if it will be detected on RAIDar.

Do you have a backup?If you have the logs, look in disk usage log and post what's there.Had you received any messages about disk errors. You must exclude a disk problem by testing each disk with vendor tools, use the long or extended tests. Remember to label the disks so you know which slot they came from, and replace all disks before powering on again.You could run a memory test using the boot menu.http://kb.netgear.com/app/answers/detai ... U5bQ%3D%3D

I am backed up. Though I hope I won't need them as a full recovery of nearly 5TB will take several days.With all disks removed (and labelled long ago) Chassis boots and is detectable by RAIDar.RAIDar says "no disks detected" and the LED display indicates the same thing (Blue Pulsing with the disk lamps alternating between all-four-on and just-number-two-on.Disk Usage Log: Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on /dev/hdc1 2.0G 348M 1.6G 18% / tmpfs 16k 0 16k 0% /USB /dev/c/c 5.5T 4.7T 790G 86% /c /c/DATA_1 5.5T 4.7T 790G 86% /home/ftp/DATA_1The only warning message I've had recently concerned "increasing SMART errors" on disk 4, but these were not yet at a level I need to act on (according to previous discussions with Seagate tech support) being up around the 80 mark. Previous disk replacements were executed around the 300 mark, without the NAS having locked up first...Memory Test passes.

Well we would recommend replacing disks where the count rises rapidly/regularly or exceeds 50.Can you power down, remove your disks (label order), disconnect your disks (label order) and test your disks e.g. using SeaTools for SeaGate disks.

Start with disk 4.As you have a backup you could also try booting with only disks 1-3 in the unit. This is of course if you were running Xraid or flexraid raid 5. If disk 4 is the problem then it should boot, identifying the problem more quickly than doing a full disk test.

ReadyNAS NV Failing to start | NETGEAR Communities

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RX
Luminary
Dec 11, 2014
Let us check the NAS chassis... Try to pull-out all drives and make sure to label them accordingly from which bay you have pulled it out. Then, try to boot up the NAS without any drives and check if it will be detected on RAIDar.
vandermerwe
Master
Dec 11, 2014
Do you have a backup?
If you have the logs, look in disk usage log and post what's there.
Had you received any messages about disk errors. You must exclude a disk problem by testing each disk with vendor tools, use the long or extended tests. Remember to label the disks so you know which slot they came from, and replace all disks before powering on again.
You could run a memory test using the boot menu.
http://kb.netgear.com/app/answers/detai ... U5bQ%3D%3D
AndrewB11
Aspirant
Dec 11, 2014
I am backed up. Though I hope I won't need them as a full recovery of nearly 5TB will take several days.

With all disks removed (and labelled long ago) Chassis boots and is detectable by RAIDar.

RAIDar says "no disks detected" and the LED display indicates the same thing (Blue Pulsing with the disk lamps alternating between all-four-on and just-number-two-on.

Disk Usage Log:
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/hdc1 2.0G 348M 1.6G 18% /
tmpfs 16k 0 16k 0% /USB
/dev/c/c 5.5T 4.7T 790G 86% /c
/c/DATA_1 5.5T 4.7T 790G 86% /home/ftp/DATA_1

The only warning message I've had recently concerned "increasing SMART errors" on disk 4, but these were not yet at a level I need to act on (according to previous discussions with Seagate tech support) being up around the 80 mark. Previous disk replacements were executed around the 300 mark, without the NAS having locked up first...

Memory Test passes.
mdgm-ntgr
NETGEAR Employee Retired
Dec 11, 2014
Well we would recommend replacing disks where the count rises rapidly/regularly or exceeds 50.

Can you power down, remove your disks (label order), disconnect your disks (label order) and test your disks e.g. using SeaTools for SeaGate disks.
vandermerwe
Master
Dec 11, 2014
Start with disk 4.
As you have a backup you could also try booting with only disks 1-3 in the unit. This is of course if you were running Xraid or flexraid raid 5. If disk 4 is the problem then it should boot, identifying the problem more quickly than doing a full disk test.
AndrewB11
Aspirant
Dec 12, 2014
As you have a backup you could also try booting with only disks 1-3 in the unit.

The way you say that suggests there might be some risk associated with this manoeuvre?
StephenB
Guru - Experienced User
Dec 12, 2014
AndrewB wrote:
As you have a backup you could also try booting with only disks 1-3 in the unit.

The way you say that suggests there might be some risk associated with this manoeuvre?
It should be safe, as long as you are careful to remove/insert the disks with the power off. It's also good to keep them in the correct slots.

The NAS firmware is designed to wipe disks when you hot-insert.
AndrewB11
Aspirant
Dec 13, 2014
OK. We seem to be making progress.

Booting with disks #1 + #2 + #3 is a no-show.

Disk #4 meanwhile passes vendor diagnostic tools with flying colours, as do #3 and #2.

However, #1 fails diagnostics at the first hurdle. (The test PC didn't even like having it plugged in).

So, can a ReadyNAS NV boot with #2 + #3 + #4 ? With a view to rebuilding the array when I can get a replacement for #1.

Or is slot #1 in some way special? I find it disturbing that a RAID array can be rendered inaccessible by the demise of a single disk. Does it host some critical, unduplicated, piece of the operating system or something?
StephenB
Guru - Experienced User
Dec 13, 2014
You can boot the system with any three disks (and it will boot w/o disk 1).

So the next step is to try the #2 + #3 + #4 boot.

Then back up your data to another device - particularly important because you know disk 4 also has bad sectors.
AndrewB11
Aspirant
Dec 13, 2014
StephenB wrote:
So the next step is to try the #2 + #3 + #4 boot.

And it does, though it says I need to do a reboot with volume scan.

I'll run that overnight and refresh the backups tomorrow.
There shouldn't be much, if anything, for the backups to do as they were pretty-much up to date before my problems started.

So, unless anything else goes horribly wrong, I shall say "Thank you all very much".