Netgear ReadyNAS NV+V2 - Secure Erase Locked Hard Drives??

[alanwong]

Hi,

This evening I did a secure erase on the readynas I have and after the 7 hour wait, the hard drives no longer work as if they have been locked in some way. Prior to doing the secure erase I had no idea it would put some kind of lock on them. I thought it would just erase them.

I have taken them out and tried to connect to a PC and Mac and they are not recognized, they cannot be formatted at all.

How do I remove these locks on the hard drive?

Because there are some kind of lock on the hard drives, the ReadyNAS will not boot back up and is stuck in a "booting" screen on the ReadyNAS.

Can a Admin please help out as I have no idea how to fix this.

Kind Regards

Alan

[StephenB]

Did the secure erase complete?  Or did you interrupt it?  It takes a very long time, and it should have unlocked the disks when it was done.  If you interrupted it, you could try running it again to completion.

You can unlock them using hdparm if you can boot the NAS in tech support mode.  Instructions on on pages 24-25 here: http://www.downloads.netgear.com/files/GDC/RND2110/ReadyNAS_Duov2_NV+v2_HW_en_23-Mar-12.pdf

Then connect to the NAS using telnet.  The login is root, the password is infr8ntdebug

From there you need to run a utility called hdparm. Hopefully it will be available in tech support mode.

# hdparm --security-unlock NETGEAR /dev/sda
# hdparm --security-disable NETGEAR /dev/sda

 Repeat for the other three disks (sdb, sdc, sdd).

hdparm is also available for Windows, so you could try installing it, and connecting the disks to a PC with SATA or a USB adapter/dock.  If Windows prompts for a password for the drive, enter NETGEAR (all caps).  The path to the drives will be different with Windows.  Also you should run hdparm as administrator.

[alanwong]

The Nas said it had finished erasing on the display but I couldnt do anything else with it apart from switch it off at the mains.

I then switched it back on again and now the only thing that displays is a "booting" screen on the display.

[alanwong]

I got to the boot menu and selected the tech support one, straight after pressing the reset to confirm it shows "Booting" on the display. How long does it take because its been on that "booting" screen for 15 mins already.

[alanwong]

I have also installed hdparm on my windows 10 laptop and the app is installed but opens and closes as soon as it clicked on, I have added all the right privaledges to the user. Still cant get it to run?

Any dieas?

[alanwong]

im not sure if this is related to the hdparm not opening. I installed the 64bit version and its placed the application in the x86 program files folder, when in fact it should be located in the program files.

[alanwong]

Could I get actual steps for the procedure when connecting using a dock and windows 10?

I have the drive connected via a dock and the hard drive in windows says initialise, which I cannot do. I have gone into CMD prompt and becuse I cant get a drive letter for the hard drive that is locked, how can I even begin to unlock the hard drive?

Nothing seems to recognise the drive, partition programs cant see the drive either.

I don't understand why is it so difficult to get these drives unlocked, are there any other applications that I can use under Windows 10 64bit that work? Or is there a netgear application that can sort it out.

[StephenB]

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@alanwong wrote:

I don't understand why is it so difficult to get these drives unlocked, 

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I don't know why they locked them in the first place.  Currently shipping NAS don't have the secure erase procedure.

I can't give help beyond what I've already offered, since this isn't something I've ever never needed to deal with.  Some of what I suggested came from previous posts (and some of those were before Windows 10).

Maybe @JohnCM_S or @Marc_V can offer some more tips.

[JohnCM_S]

Hi alanwong,

You may try booting the NAS in Tech Support mode without the drives in it and see if it will successfully boot. If it successfully boots in Tech support mode, you can re-insert the drives then follow the steps provided by @StephenB on post#2.

Regards,

[StephenB]

Maybe try one drive at a time, since there is some chance that one of the drives is bad.

[alanwong]

I left the NV+V2 on for two days and it eventually recognised the drives, it factory reset all the drives and now it’s back up, synced using X-Raid.

Thank you for the advice I was given. I have no idea why the drives took so long to be recognised.

I have two more NV+V2 that I need to factory reset as I’m going to be selling them. I have now got a Synology DS1019+ going forward.

[alanwong]

What is the best way to erase the NV+V2 hard drives? I’m not going to erase the drives using the reset option to erase the hard drives after all these problems I have had.

Would like to know what the best procedure that you recommend?

Thanks

Alan

[StephenB]

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@alanwong wrote:
What is the best way to erase the NV+V2 hard drives? I’m not going to erase the drives using the reset option to erase the hard drives after all these problems I have had.

Would like to know what the best procedure that you recommend?

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I recommend connecting them to a windows PC (either directly with SATA or with a USB adapter/dock).  Then use vendor tools to zero the drives (Seatools for Seagate; Lifeguard for Western Digital).  One of the tools calls this "write zeros", the other calls it "full erase".  

Years ago there were recommendations to do multiple passes over the disks with various patterns (which is what the NAS was doing).  However, current guidance from NIST and others is that is not needed - that simply zeroing the drive once is enough.

Of course you could also sell the NAS diskless.