Sigh: New Bad ReadyNAS

I am having some success. After a thousand reboots, factory resets, I now have 2 X 2T WDs configured and running as X-RAID. Will have a calming beverage and insert HDD # 3 in about an hour.

Hmmm have you checked your disks to see if any of them are bad? I wonder if a bad disk could have been causing issues. Were the disks formatted in a PC before being put in the NAS (the NAS needs to format the disks and formatting them via a PC can cause issues)?

It looks like you're running 4.1.8 now. Did you manually install 4.1.8? As for the ATA errors there was a compatibility issue with old firmware which meant the ATA error count on some WD drives increased by 6 on each reboot (pre 4.1.7). So long as the count doesn't increase any further I would think the ATA error count of 12 is probably due to this.

Thanks for all the help, guys. I installed 4.1.8 earlier today as per the instructions above. I had to do several factory resets but eventually with a new WD 2T in Channel one I got the "waiting for RAIDar" message on the LED panel.

I let it build to X-RAID and sync, shut down, inserted a second WD 2T, rebooted. The resync took 7 hours to complete. I have just inserted the third WD 2T. Finger's crossed.

Of course, I can't help but think "It shouldn't be this hard".

But thanks again, everyone.

I now seem to have the unit running. The last of four WD 2T drives has gone in and is now initializing...

Reflecting on my problems, I had placed four drives into the ReadyNAS when setting it up. The boot sequence did not give me a "Waiting for RAIDrar" message. I then experimented with drive combinations and factory resets. No luck. At odd times I was getting alerts, including dead drive ones on drives that were brand new and well.

I then inserted a single 320G drive and, although I again did not get the "Waiting for RAIDrar" message, RAIDrar's SETUP button enabled and I was able to get into Frontview.

Frontview then said, let's upgrade to the latest and greatest (4.1.9) which I did. That's when the Bad Firmware errors started.

Taking the advice offered here in this thread I eventually downgraded the firmware to 4.1.8.

I then took a WD 2T drive, reset its partition table with gparted, set the partion to NTFS, formatted it and put in the ReadyNAS. I did a factory reset and voila, there was the "Waiting for RAIDrar" message. It's been smooth sailing after that, although my paranoia was now complete; I progressively initialised one drive at a time.

Whether 4.1.9 was at issue I don't know, but I cannot see myself upgrading again. Life's too short.


Again, thanks to all.

Cheers

Best to delete the partition on a used disk before adding it as the NAS will need to format it, though what you did can work out fine sometimes.

Glad it worked out, but no it should not be that difficult.