Readynas Pro Pioneer corrupt flash - no boot menu and thanks to mdgm for help...

Hi there.

Recently I had a PSU issue with my Pro Pioneer, where it would take a long time to power up after being off. The NAS then wouldn't boot, and sat showing 'Readynas' on the LCD. It was not possible to get to boot menu. The reset button had no effect when the NAS was turned on.

I replaced the PSU, so the server at least powers up quickly, but still no boot.

I managed to obtain a VGA header for the board (XFX Low profile bracket kit - MA-BK01-LP1K), and saw an MBR error, when connecting a screen - assumed to be the internal flash being corrupted).

I then managed to do a USB recovery on the server, which reflashed the image (I removed my 5 disk RAID array and replaced with a single drive, so as not to break the array).

After all this, the server booted OK, but with some odd hyroglyphics on the LCD, and when accessed through the web (OS6), was unable to use the setup wizard, as the page was blank. Also, the admin page showed no information for the model number, and odd characters for the serial number.

It turns out that the model number and serial numbers, etc. are contained somewhere in flash....

i approached mdgm for help on this community board, and he telneted in to my server while it was in tech mode, and totally sorted it out for me.... Luckily I had a record of my serial number from one of the logs I had downloaded from the server before the problems, and so I could give it to him...

Finally reconnected my array, and everything booted up as if the PSU thing never happened...

mdgm even vent updated my bios, as I had upgraded the processor to a quad core one, but had forgotten to up the bios... The NAS now identifies itself as a Pro 6 which is a bonus!

I've written this to say a big thank-you to mdgm for the help he gave me, and hope that these details can help anyone in a similar situation...