ReadyNAS Ultra 4 hangs on booting

[homeric]

My Ultra 4 now hangs at the "Booting..." message when I try to start it up normally.

Previously, disk 4 had failed, and I tried replacing it with one with matching specs (WD Red 3 TB). The new disk was detected, and the unit said the array would be rebuilt, but nothing happened after a week or so.

Then the unit became unresponsive. I had requested a download of all the log files just before that. Not sure why that would be fatal, but it did seem to be cause and effect.

I've tried running the disk test from the boot menu. All three existing disks tested successfully. The unit shows up in RAIDar 6.5 with check marks next to the disks. I haven't tried pulling the disks and testing them separately.

I'm able to boot into tech support mode and log in using info from a 3rd-party site, and I get to a Linux prompt. The unit still shows up in RAIDar in this mode. Everything seems intact, but I don't have the commands to make the shares accessible.

I had the critical stuff backed up, but there were still a few things under media that I didn't get done. I'd like to have just a little more time with a working shares, then a factory reset or whatever would be fine.

[StephenB · Accepted solution]

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@homeric wrote:

Previously, disk 4 had failed, and I tried replacing it with one with matching specs (WD Red 3 TB).

 The WD30EFAX?  or the WD30EFRX? The EFAX is an SMR drive, so I'd recommend exchanging it for the EFRX.

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@homeric wrote:

Then the unit became unresponsive. I had requested a download of all the log files just before that. Not sure why that would be fatal, but it did seem to be cause and effect.

I've tried running the disk test from the boot menu. All three existing disks tested successfully. The unit shows up in RAIDar 6.5 with check marks next to the disks. I haven't tried pulling the disks and testing them separately.

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Did you try booting it up w/o the new disk (skipping the file system check)?

If that still doesn't work, you could try entering these commands in tech support mode:

start_raid.sh
mount /dev/md0 /sysroot
mount --bind /proc /sysroot/proc
mount --bind /dev /sysroot/dev
mount --bind /dev/pts /sysroot/dev/pts
mount --bind /sys /sysoot/sys
chroot /sysroot /bin/bash
vgscan
vgchange -a y
mount -o ro /dev/c/c /c

If all this works, the data volume should be mounted as read only.

[StephenB · Accepted solution]

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@homeric wrote:

Previously, disk 4 had failed, and I tried replacing it with one with matching specs (WD Red 3 TB).

 The WD30EFAX?  or the WD30EFRX? The EFAX is an SMR drive, so I'd recommend exchanging it for the EFRX.

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@homeric wrote:

Then the unit became unresponsive. I had requested a download of all the log files just before that. Not sure why that would be fatal, but it did seem to be cause and effect.

I've tried running the disk test from the boot menu. All three existing disks tested successfully. The unit shows up in RAIDar 6.5 with check marks next to the disks. I haven't tried pulling the disks and testing them separately.

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Did you try booting it up w/o the new disk (skipping the file system check)?

If that still doesn't work, you could try entering these commands in tech support mode:

start_raid.sh
mount /dev/md0 /sysroot
mount --bind /proc /sysroot/proc
mount --bind /dev /sysroot/dev
mount --bind /dev/pts /sysroot/dev/pts
mount --bind /sys /sysoot/sys
chroot /sysroot /bin/bash
vgscan
vgchange -a y
mount -o ro /dev/c/c /c

If all this works, the data volume should be mounted as read only.

[homeric]

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@StephenB wrote:

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Did you try booting it up w/o the new disk (skipping the file system check)?

If that still doesn't work, you could try entering these commands in tech support mode...

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Thanks, I was currently starting with just the three existing disks.

When I start it with just the new disk, it seems to behave like a factory reset, giving you 10 minutes before wiping the disk. I haven't gone down that path yet.

I think I'll try the commands you suggest. The outside page I found had a similar set for a ReadyNAS 1100, but they don't get you to file access on the ReadyNAS 4.

I see I did get an WD30EFAX as a replacement, totally overlooked the SMR issue. The old drives are WD30EFRX, guess I was paying attention back then.

[StephenB]

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@homeric wrote:

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I see I did get an WD30EFAX as a replacement, totally overlooked the SMR issue. The old drives are WD30EFRX, guess I was paying attention back then.

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WD likely wasn't selling SMR back then.  They rebranded the WD Red line, so all those disks are SMR.  The WD Red Plus and Red Pro lines are CMR.

[homeric]

Thanks so much, the suggested commands worked perfectly to get the files available in tech support mode. It's currently running with just original three disks, good enough for now.

The ReadyNAS isn't serving any files in this mode, and the FrontView interface isn't running.

To recover the files, I mounted a share from my new server at the tech support command prompt on the ReadyNAS.

Here are the general commands I'm using:

sudo mkdir /mnt/newshare
sudo mount -t cifs -o "user=username,rw" //ip_addr/newshare /mnt/newshare
rsync -avuP /c/oldshare /mnt/newshare

The mkdir command creates a directory "newshare" for mounting the share from the remote server.

The mount command connects the remote share. The variables are "username" for the user id used on the remote server, "ip_addr" for the IP address of the remote server, and "newshare" for the name of the remote share.

The rsync command synchronizes the oldshare directory on the ReadyNAS to newshare on the remote server.

So far so good. I'm transferring the media share from the ReadyNAS to the new server. It's the biggest part of what's there, and I think a backup was in progress when the ReadyNAS packed it in.

Using the rsync command as shown, I'm actually getting a media subdirectory on the remote end, so newshare/media/Music and so on. In this case, it's actually a second copy instead of a sync, but that's fine with me.

The -n option on rsync gives you a dry run, and lets you make sure things are going where you want them. I'll probably adjust the source directory on rsync when I tackle the remaining shares.

[StephenB]

I'm glad you got it working.  Thanks for posting your other steps, as I think they will be useful to others.

[homeric]

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@StephenB wrote:

I'm glad you got it working.  Thanks for posting your other steps, as I think they will be useful to others.

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Thanks again, couldn't have done it without you.

In terms of the other steps, I finally figured what I was missing on the rsync command. I meant to say:

rsync -avuP /c/oldshare/ /mnt/newshare

with a slash after "oldshare". So when copying "media", what would give "newshare/Music", "newshare/Pictures", and so on.

I had to get out my Unix glasses, I guess staring at Windows is not good for you.

What I did initially was:

rsync -avuP /c/oldshare /mnt/newshare

without the slash, so I got "newshare/media/Music", "newshare/media/Pictures", and so on. That wasn't quite what I intended, but no harm done.

(Edit: found the edit button, tweaked the formatting.)