If I want to write the Radiator 4.1.7.7 image directly to CF with Mac dd, do I write it to the entire physical CF drive (e.g., /dev/disk1) or to a partition on the CF drive (e.g., /dev/disk1s1). If the latter is the answer, what type of partition should I pre-create (FAT 16, FAT 32, etc.)?
Same issue would come up with Win rawwrite, which allows both types of writing.
After all of these years, it is amazing that this is still an ambiguous issue (forums mention both as possible ways).
And why can't I read this topic that explains more about this procedure ("not authorized"): viewtopic.php?f=9&t=972#p5423
Here is the answer: It appears that either way works, but writing to a FAT 16 partition is the correct way.
How do I know? I tried both ways and the unit booted either way. The last time, I wrote to the physical device and thus did not have a partition, as verified by "diskutil list". I booted the readynas and forced a standard radiator upgrade over the LAN from Frontview. After the Frontview upgrade, the OS was on a Fat 16 partition on the CF card (I pulled it out and checked it again on the Mac with a card reader and "diskutil list").
Well, I have had a change of heart. Writing to the CF device directly is the way to go. Here is why: On my 600-A, if I use the frontview-written OS upgrade (i.e., on a FAT-16 partition on the CF card as frontview always does) or my own recovery image written to the FAT 16 partition to do a factory reset, I get stuck after the "installation" step, a corrupted OS on the CF that needs to be recovered before continuing to boot, and either the "0MB free" problem or no disks listed as available for RAID.
On the other hand, if I write to the CF directly (not to a partition) before I do the factory reset, then everything goes as it is supposed to at least for RAID-5 (at least the one time I tried; I am not about to waste more time on this now that I have things working). I suspect it will also solve the similar problems for X-RAID but I am not going to waste another few days trying it out. This is really pretty sad on Netgear's part if they are writing the OS upgrade through frontview incorrectly so that a factory reset doesn't work on a 600-A. There have been similar problem postings for the NV+ but I don't know if it is the same issue.
