So it started when the wife was saying we were running out of storage on the NAS. I logged on to the admin page and noticed we were low on space, we had larger drive ready to install. The NAS asked to have the firmware updated so I did that which worked without a problem. I then took out one of the smaller drives (disk 2) and added an 8TB to the NAS which it picked it up and started syncing. It was going to take a while so let it run over night. When I looked at it in the morning it had failed the sync and I couldn't access the RAID and it was now coming up in the admin page with "Remove inactive volumes to use the disk. Disk #1,2,3,4".
After the mild panic attack I did some googling and someone suggested turning it off and removing the newly added drive and put back the original drive then turning it back on. I did that but it hasn't fixed the issue.
I then came across the link at the top of this post and others very similar which suggested the Netgear support is the best option. When I created my.netgear account and registed the NAS low and behold it is out of warranty. Now I started to panic. In the meantime the wife has gone to our external backup drives, and they had died (really panicing now as all our family photos are on the NAS). Then I click on support under Netgear and there was a link to a company called Gearhead where I can purchase support.
I purchased 6 month contract with them. When I first called them i got a person who said sorry but we have a technical problem and can't help you please call back in a couple of hours. The next time I got the same message about a problem but call back in an hour, so i waited 2 hours and called back. Finally got hold of someone told them the issue got a case number and then they said Oh sorry but we don't have a ReadyNAS support on at the moment please call back in 3 to 4 hours (this would have been 1am my time). So I decided to get up at 6am to call. Rang and waited for ages then got through to a person, they checked my details like 5 times and couldn't get my name right but end the end they forward my call to a different support person. Then that person answered and when through all my details again and got to the problem they then stopped me and said sorry we don't support NAS devices only Netgear Switches and Routers. Feeling quite frustrated asking where do I go now he gave me an email address of the Netgear NAS support team and they will be able to help me. Finally feeling like I getting somewhere so I emailed the address all the issues and attached log files, screen shots and even the proof of purchase support contract email. Then I get a reply sorry your device is out of support, emailed them back and forwards a couple more times as they kept asking for other stuff even though it had been supplied in the previous emails.
So a couple of days went on then I get the following email.
Hello As you have purchased "Gearhead" support, then you will get Gearhead support, not Support through us. Thank you for choosing Netgear. I will now close this case. Best Regards,
ReadyNAS Technical Support NETGEAR ® Connect with Innovation ™
I have requested for a supervisor to give me a call but that has gone to the wayside even though i have called and emailed. Then i called again got another case number and they were going to see if they could contact someone but still waiting. Called again tonight got told they are having technical issues and they will call me back in a couple of
hours.
So this is why I am really hoping that someone in this community is willing to help me in one of the following
getting my NAS working again so I can get the data off
get help from Netgear/Gearhead support to get my NAS working again to I can get the data off
another option that I haven't come up with
a business that can help me in Brisbane that isn't going to cost me my right kidney
This is a user-to-user forum, and I don't work for Netgear. But I would be willing to take a look at the log zip.
You'd need to put the zip in cloud storage (dropbox, etc), and send me a link in a private message (don't post it publicly). You send a PM using the envelope icon in the upper right of the forum page.
And welcome to the NETGEAR Community! 🙂 The disks you are using in your NAS seems to be faulty. You can check the same from the disk.log info from the system log file. If you get an ATA Error count greater than zero then the disk is faulty.
