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Forum Discussion
ReadyNAS RN102 setup issues
Hi, Really hoping somebody can help me work out whats going on with my RN102, which is loaded with 2x500GB disks. I was looking for a basic NAS to use with Plex as a music server, and this one s...
Start by booting up the NAS diskless. Then see if RAIDar can discover the NAS and give you a no-disks status.
Also I'd test the disks in a Windows PC with vendor tools (Lifeguard for Western Digital, Seatools for Seagate). Do the full non-destructive test, and also the full write/erase test. If both pass, you can try putting one disk in the NAS and power it up. It should automatically do a factory install. If that works (meaning you can set up the NAS using RAIDar), then try powering down the NAS and moving that disk to the second slot. Make sure the NAS boots that way.
After that you can put that disk back in bay 1, power up the NAS, and hot-insert the second disk. It should detect it, and automatically start syncing (creating a RAID-1 array).
spock1189 wrote:
Turning it on for the first time and looking for it using ReadyCloud/RAIDar draws a blank - the ReadyNAS is not visible. Reading the manuals I realised it could be because the unit has changed networks
Actually not. RAIDar uses an ethernet discovery protocol, and it can find the NAS even if is configured for the wrong network. Internet security software can get in the way of that, and of course if the NAS NIC isn't working then RAIDar will also fail. So check the NIC leds also.
Hi StephenB and thanks for your help. Following your response I have done the following:
Checked ethernet cable - works good.
Powered on with no disks inserted - invisible to RAIDar
Powered on with disk in slot 1 only - invisible to RAIDar; solid power and act lights, nothing happening
Powered on with other disk in slot 1 only - same result
Some further info: I have got in touch with the person who sold me the unit and they have been helpful. They assured me it was in full working order prior to sale, and said they took the disks out and erased them using their PC and disk wipe software. They say this erased the master boot record and any partitions on the drives, and can't remember if they created new ones.
So perhapsit could be the NAS not being able to read/write on the disks after that was done? Unfortunately I have no other spare disk drives apart from USB ones, so I think I need to do what you suggested StephenB, and plug the disks into my PC and see what the score is there. Will update you when I've done it.
Thanks again.
If the NAS is invisible to RAIDar without drives, it's not the drives that are the main problem (though they may still be a secondary one). You either have no connection to the NAS over Ethernet, possibly because of bad hardware in between and possibly because something on your PC is blocking the traffic, or the NAS is broken. You can pursue checking if the drives are OK using a PC and also removing any partitions on them (the NAS can't deal with system reserved partitions created by Windows), but that's not going to fix the connectivity issue.
Sandshark wrote:
If the NAS is invisible to RAIDar without drives, it's not the drives that are the main problem (though they may still be a secondary one). You either have no connection to the NAS over Ethernet, possibly because of bad hardware in between and possibly because something on your PC is blocking the traffic, or the NAS is broken.
And you really should resolve this before you do anything with the drives.
Check the LED status on the NAS NIC and also on the router/switch (if the router/switch has LEDs). Also check your router's device list, and see if you see an IP address for the NAS.
On the PC, disable any internet security software (Windows firewall, Kasperksy, Avast), and see if that makes any difference.
Hello again StephenB and Sandshark . I finally got a SATA cable and hooked the drives that came with the NAS up to my PC via a spare port on my motherboard. I opened disk manager and saw that one of them had an existing volume on it, while the other disk was completely blank, showing as "unallocated" in disk manager.
StephenB wrote:Also I'd test the disks in a Windows PC with vendor tools (Lifeguard for Western Digital, Seatools for Seagate). Do the full non-destructive test, and also the full write/erase test. If both pass, you can try putting one disk in the NAS and power it up. It should automatically do a factory install.
I deleted the partition from the drive that had one (right click, delete volume). Note done this before but I was surprised because I thought this would take a while, but it was pretty much instant. It then showed as "unallocated" like the other one. I then downloaded SeaTools (they are seagate drives) and tested both drives. Both passed.
After that I took one of the drives and put it in the NAS, slot 1, then powered it on. Nothing happened, just solid power/disk1 lights, nothing on RAIDar. While I was there I tried a factory reset on the NAS, with the same results as before (i.e. nothing happened).
I wanted to see if this had written anything onto the disk, so I took it out and connected it back to my PC. There was no new volume, so clearly nothing had been formatted.
I repeated the process with the second disk, this time I went straight to factory reset, without turning the NAS on normally first. Results were identical.
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