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Forum Discussion
ReadyNAS Pro 6 won’t boot - options?
I bought this thing 12 or more years ago (can’t remember now), and it has performed admirably over those years. During its lifetime I upgraded it to 4 GB RAM, installed larger drives, and moved to O...
Catcher1949 wrote:
I’m thinking either the power supply was damaged, or the VPD file is corrupted.
More likely the PSU.
Catcher1949 wrote:
Is there a quick/easy way to determine where the problem lies, and if it is VPD corruption, am I completely out of luck now?
If you have an ATX supply, you can connect it to the NAS (keeping it external, since it won't fit in the chassis), and see if the NAS boots.
Alternatively if you have a multimeter, you can check the voltages. That's not the best test, since you are testing the PSU under load. But it should tell you if any of the outputs have completely failed.
The display is pre-programmed with "ReadyNAS", so all it needs is 5V power (and not particularly well regulated 5V) to display that. Most likely, one of the other voltages is bad. I have never heard of the VPD becoming corrupt when the flash isn't being written to (e.g., during an OS update), so I fully agree with StephenB. It's possible the entire flash memory was damaged, or the RAM, CPU, etc. has died; but given the issue was caused by a power outage, that's also unlikely.
The ReadyNAS power supply is not specially designed by Netgear -- it's just a supply intended for a small form factor PC. And since few of them last as long as your NAS, it's not uncommon that it finally dies. Fortunately, aftermarket replacements are available.
Thanks for the advice. I used my trusty multimeter to test voltages on the PSU. It’s putting out the proper voltages on all the pins that should have voltage. I’m actually a bit surprised - this is the original power supply, and it has been through a lot - it spent the first few years of life on US voltage, then 7 years on European voltage, then the past year back on US voltage. Given that, I would have guessed that suspecting the PSU was a good approach.
I have tried booting with and without drives, including a new (unformatted) drive. I swapped the RAM for known good. Still the same result.
Just for fun, I tried the 4.2 USB Recovery Tool with 6.10.10 firmware image(that’s the correct process for a legacy NAS upgraded to OS 6, right?). It was a bit of an adventure to even get this functional. Anyway, I don’t have a VGA ribbon cable handy, so I can’t observe the boot process details, but it my USB stick has an access LED that shows attempt to load something from USB, but after a few seconds it stops and nothing else happens no matter how long I wait.
At this point,without additional tools like a VGA connection, it appears to me that the problem may indeed be damaged flash, or damaged CPU, or damaged other critical component.
Is there anything else I can try? Is it worth it to do more?
If the problem is just the VPD, you should be able to boot into Tech Support mode via the reset button menu. But if the entire flash is corrupt, then it probably won't even boot to the menu. USB recovery is the fix to that if it's not a hardware issue. The NAS is picky about the USB drives it can use, so it is probably worth trying with another brand, if you have one.
That is even tried to access the USB tends to indicate it's getting through POST, so the CPU is fine.
If you measured the power supply voltages without a load, that's not a very good test.
Yes, a VGA connection would help a lot.
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