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magwems's avatar
magwems
Tutor
Jul 24, 2021
Solved

Remove inactive volumes to use the disk. Disk #1,2,3,4.

Dear Netgear,   I'm getting the following error message on my NAS since yesterday evening: Remove inactive volumes to use the disk. Disk #1,2,3,4. See attached screenshot, all 4 drives have statu...
  • StephenB's avatar
    Jul 24, 2021

    Just to clarify - this is a user community, so you aren't engaged with Netgear.  Netgear does moderate, but doesn't respond very often.

     


    magwems wrote:

     

    See attached screenshot, all 4 drives have status online but red, I don't believe the second RAID configuration existed before this error.

     


    It didn't.  

     

    The red status is because the NAS cannot mount your RAID array.  There are several possible causes - one common one is that there were some cached writes that didn't get written to the disks.  That will create an out-of-sync array.  It's possible that is linked to your 6 year old removing the disks, but there are other possible causes.

     


    magwems wrote:

    How can I figure out the original position of the drives? Or does the position not matter? 

     


    The NAS will boot with the drives out of order.  Keeping them in order makes some troubleshooting easier, but it isn't absolutely essential.  It is possible to figure out the original drive order from the full log zip file (which can be downloaded from the logs page).  But you likely will need some help in figuring that out.

     


    magwems wrote:

     

    I have tried to put each disk on it's own into bay 1, and rebooted the device, every time the volume has red status.

    That's a bit risky, and it wouldn't give much information.  XRAID has single redundancy - so you need at least three working disks to mount the array.  Although all the disks do seem to be working, that's not the only thing that's needed.

     


    magwems wrote:

     

    Please let me know how to fix this error?

     


    Do you have a backup of the data?  If you do, then one option is to do a factory default, reconfigure the NAS, and restore the data from the backup.

     

    If not, you should put a backup plan in place for the NAS after you get this sorted out.  RAID isn't enough to keep your data safe.

     

    Assuming no backup:  

     

    Do you have any experience with linux command line interface ("ssh")?  If not, have you ever used the PC command line interface (CMD)?  If yes, then it is possible that you can get this resolved without paid tech support.  There are a few folks here who can look through your logs, and give you some guidance on the specific commands.

     

    If you don't have that experience, then this really isn't the time to get it.  You'd be better off using either paid Netgear support, or use RAID recovery software like ReclaiMe.  Unfortunately, both are expensive.

     

    Netgear's terms are here: https://kb.netgear.com/69/ReadyNAS-Data-Recovery-Diagnostics-Scope-of-Service  My guess is that the initial assessment would be sufficient (but that is just a guess).

     

    RAID recovery software that supports BTRFS (like ReclaiMe) is also pricey: ~$200 for the version you need, plus you likely need to purchase USB docks that will let you connect the disks to a Windows PC (~ $100-$200).

     

    Let us know what path you'd like to take.