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RN104 stuck at 'boot menu', flashing power button
It seems a power failure (even though the NAS was turned off) has broken my device. I found it having turned itself on saying 'boot menu' with the power button flashing.I took out the disks (and labe...
Not sure how far you can get, given the broken serial number. But if you can get into tech support mode without the USB recovery image, then you can try to manually mount the OS partition and the data partition. You could then copy the data off to USB disk(s).
It is also possible to trigger a firmware update from tech support mode. But getting the data off the NAS first is the best approach.
gdekker wrote:
And if it is dead, assuming the disks are still ok, would putting them in a different RAID5 device work, or would I need to find a different way to save the data?
It is possible to manually mount the disks from a normal linux system.
How did you attempt the original update to 6.10.10? By USB recovery? That would be a bad thing and specifically what Netgear warns against doing, presumably for a reason. And I suspect that reason is that something changes in UBOOT. Of course, your UBOOT may have sustained damage, not just be corrupt. But if USB recovery to the same version that is already in the unit doesn't fix it, it's likely nothing can short of manually wiping and restoring the UBOOT (which I have no experience with, but do recall seeing a post here about) will fix it, and that's assuming there is no damage to it.
If you want to move the drives to another ReadyNAS, I'm not sure if the old OS will create an issue or not since it will update your OS on the drives to whatever version it has and going back to 6.2.4 on the replacement isn't something you should do. On an Intel based machine, I don't think it would matter. But on another ARM system, I just don't know because I don't know the reason for the update warnings.
StephenB wrote:Not sure how far you can get, given the broken serial number. But if you can get into tech support mode without the USB recovery image, then you can try to manually mount the OS partition and the data partition. You could then copy the data off to USB disk(s).
It is also possible to trigger a firmware update from tech support mode. But getting the data off the NAS first is the best approach.
It is possible to manually mount the disks from a normal linux system.Alas, pressing the backup button doesn't cycle through the options, but stops at 'Boot Mode - Normal'; Tech support mode doesn't seem like an option. Copying the data would be a problem in itself as it is a half full 4x3TB RAID5, but I'll deal with that later, I'm not too worried that I might lose the data (but it would be nice to be able to fix the NAS in stead of having to find a big enough storage space to copy the data, get a new NAS and copying it back again.)
Sandshark wrote:
How did you attempt the original update to 6.10.10? By USB recovery? That would be a bad thing and specifically what Netgear warns against doing, presumably for a reason. And I suspect that reason is that something changes in UBOOT. Of course, your UBOOT may have sustained damage, not just be corrupt. But if USB recovery to the same version that is already in the unit doesn't fix it, it's likely nothing can short of manually wiping and restoring the UBOOT (which I have no experience with, but do recall seeing a post here about) will fix it, and that's assuming there is no damage to it.
Indeed, by USB recovery (there was no other option), and trying to update 6.10.10 from 6.2.4 may have made the problems worse..? However, I did some troubleshooting and that seemed like the only option. I feel like Netgear didn't do too good a job warning against it. Sure, the USB Recovery Tool Page says to only use it at the "recommendation of Netgear Tech Support", but that's about as serious a warning as Samsung telling me not to install LineageOS on their device, so it never seemed like that big a deal. It's not like I haven't done dozens of similar things on differents systems. Also, the download page doesn't mention not to install 6.10.10 on 6.3.x or older (that's merely mentioned in the release notes), that, to me, seems like a pretty big thing to omit.
Anyway, on topic: I understand plugging the disks in a different NAS would most likely not work, so even though I'm still hoping on a little miracle that will fix my NAS, I will start thinking of a way to copy the data.
gdekker wrote:
Also, the download page doesn't mention not to install 6.10.10 on 6.3.x or older (that's merely mentioned in the release notes), that, to me, seems like a pretty big thing to omit.It is, though keep in mind that you hadn't updated the firmware in 9 years. If you'd kept up along the way, you wouldn't have run into this.
gdekker wrote:
Anyway, on topic: I understand plugging the disks in a different NAS would most likely not work, so even though I'm still hoping on a little miracle that will fix my NAS, I will start thinking of a way to copy the data.Disks can be migrated to another OS-6 ReadyNAS. You'd need to purchase one used. If you want to try this, install a test disk (not in the array) on the NAS first, and update the firmware to 6.10.9 (if you don't care about apps, you can go to 6.10.10). Make sure the NAS will boot with the test disk in every slot (powering down before moving the disk). After that, you can power down again and migrate the disks.
As I mentioned above, if you can connect all the disks to a PC, you can boot up that PC using linux (using a "live" USB boot disk) and then mount the disks manually using linux commands.
StephenB wrote:Disks can be migrated to another OS-6 ReadyNAS. You'd need to purchase one used. If you want to try this, install a test disk (not in the array) on the NAS first, and update the firmware to 6.10.9 (if you don't care about apps, you can go to 6.10.10). Make sure the NAS will boot with the test disk in every slot (powering down before moving the disk). After that, you can power down again and migrate the disks.
What concerns me about doing this, and just because I don't know what will happen, is that the OS on the drives will update to 6.10.x when they are installed without (it appears) going through the standard upgrade path. That should only be an issue with those ARM systems that require it, and may not be with them, either. StephenB , do you know for sure?
StephenB wrote:It is also possible to trigger a firmware update from tech support mode.
I just noticed that when booting from USB without an image on it, RAIDar detects the nas in 'Tech Support Mode', although it doesn't detect (the absence of) any disks). How would I trigger the firmware update from that?
gdekker wrote:
StephenB wrote:
It is also possible to trigger a firmware update from tech support mode.
I just noticed that when booting from USB without an image on it, RAIDar detects the nas in 'Tech Support Mode', although it doesn't detect (the absence of) any disks). How would I trigger the firmware update from that?
You'd first log into the NAS via telnet (using the back door password), and then mount the OS partition.
From there you would copy the firmware image to /etc/.flash_update and reboot the NAS.
If you want to try that, I'd suggest installing 6.2.4, as that seems safer than trying to go forward.
Hm, I'm subscribed to the topic, but I haven't gotten any email notifications after the 1st two. Strange... Oh well.
StephenB wrote:You'd first log into the NAS via telnet (using the back door password), and then mount the OS partition.
From there you would copy the firmware image to /etc/.flash_update and reboot the NAS.
If you want to try that, I'd suggest installing 6.2.4, as that seems safer than trying to go forward.
Note: I have very little Linux and no Telnet experience, but have done plenty of Windows tinkering. So here we go!
Logging in: check. Mounting the OS partition, unfortunately, seems impossible. (Which was kind of expected, as RAIDar cannot detect the disk status.) This is part of my Telnet adventure:
# start_raid.sh
-sh: start_raid.sh: not found# ls
# pwd
/root
# ls -al
drwx------ 4 0 Sep 13 05:30 .
drwxrwxrwx 19 0 Sep 13 05:22 ..
-rw------- 1 107 Sep 13 05:42 .ash_history
-rw-r--r-- 1 0 Jun 11 2013 .bash_history
-rw-r--r-- 1 175 Jun 11 2013 .bash_logout
-rw-r--r-- 1 161 Jun 11 2013 .bash_profile
drwxr-xr-x 2 0 Dec 21 2017 .sshThis doesn't look too promising. However, somehow I found the rnutil command, and would you look at that, I can try a firmware update from here!
# rnutil firmware_update
name: ReadyNASOS
version: 6.2.4 => 6.5.2
verno: 6002004 => 6005002
time: 1430414564 => 1472768299
arch: arm
size: 59531264
md5sum: 34b8b991c91124a8a652ba22387d5910descr: ReadyNASOS Update
error downloading firmware image... but alas, no luck. (Also note that it tries to install 6.5.2, whereas NetGear says to update to 6.2.5 first. Good thing it couldn't download it then, I guess.)
Ok, next command: 'rnutil -get_disk_info' does detect the disks and that info looks fine.
Let's try the start_raids command# rnutil start_raids
mdadm: /dev/md/0 has been started with 4 drives.
mdadm: /dev/md/1 has been started with 4 drives.
mdadm: /dev/md/data-0 has been started with 4 drives.
mount: mounting LABEL=0e346bd0:data on /data failed: No such file or directoryI don't know if that 5th line should worry me, but at least I can mount the disk, go to sysroot, create '.flash_update' in /etc aaannndd... I forgot to put the images on the stick. And crap, the 'rnutil rn_shutdown' command doesn't work (it says to use 'reboot' which also does nothing), which means unplugging the power with the disks spinning, not a fan of that, but it seems like the only option...
I copied the image to the stick (naming it '624' as to not have the NAS try and install it when booting).
I repeated all the steps aaaaannnndd... I'm stuck as I have no idea how to mount the usb stick. So I may need your hel once again!Also, if anyone knows a shutdown command that does work, please let me know! Cutting the power like this really does not feel good.
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