ReadyNas Ultra 6 Stuck on Boot – NOT NAS Hardware – Other Drives From Second NAS Work Fine

[Fermion]

Let me start by saying I do not know almost anything about the recovery procedures. I am fairly technical but am not familiar with how to recover a NAS. I have browsed this forum but I have advantage that others with similar problems did not have. I have 2 identical ReadyNas Ultra 6. One that still works and one that died. They do not have the same data and I do not have a backup (lesson learned).

I own Qty 2, ReadyNas Ultra 6 NAS:

NAS1: Has 6 Drives and is running OS 6.10.8 (ReadyNas Ultra 6)

NAS2: Has 6 Drives and is running OS 6.10.8 (ReadyNas Ultra 6)

After a power outage and UPS failure last night, NAS1 did not come back up and would just show the Netgear logo on the display and would not show up in RAIDar. NAS2 worked just fine and came back up perfectly.

Test 1 – I powered down NAS1 and NAS2. I carefully removed the drives from NAS1, being sure to keep the order they came out in. I then placed the drives from the working NAS2 in NAS1 in the correct order. Now NAS1 comes up with NAS2 drives showing NAS2 data and with NAS2 identification. That tell me that the problem is NOT the NAS hardware of NAS1.

Test 2 – I place the suspect drives from NAS1 in NAS2 maintaining the same order. Now NAS2 does NOT come up and hangs at the Netgear logo exactly the same as NAS1 would do when those same drives were in NAS1. That tells me that the problem follows the drives regardless of what NAS that they are in.

Test 3 – I put the drives back in their original corresponding NAS’s that they came from. NAS1 is back to not coming up, and NAS2 works as normal. We are back to where we started. This completely confirms that the problem follows the drives.

So, knowing it is NOT the NAS hardware. How can I possibly get NAS1 back up and running to recover the data (or as much of it as possible). What do I need to download and do? I saw something about some “USB Recovery Tool”. The NAS1 was running OS 6.10.8 when it died.

What should I try next to get it back?

I cannot express how grateful I would be for ANY help at all. I am happy to gift a token of my appreciation. It would mean a lot to me!

Jean-Marie Vaneskahian

jean@vaneskahian.com

[StephenB]

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@Fermion wrote:

I saw something about some “USB Recovery Tool”.

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You won't need that, since you already now the problem is not the NAS.

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@Fermion wrote:

What should I try next to get it back?

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I  suggest starting by connecting the NAS 1 disks (one at a time) to a Windows PC, and testing them with the vendor tools (dashboard for Western Digital, Seatools for Seagate).  Windows won't recognize the file format, but the tools should still find the disks.  You can connect them using a USB adapter/dock.

[Fermion]

Thank you. I have exactly what you are describing. A drive adapter that powers the SATA drive and also converts the data to USB to connect to a PC.

I understand that windows will not be able to use the file system on the drive. These are WD RED drives. So I guess I need to download the “Dashboard” tool you mentioned.

My questions are the following:

1 - What do I do once I connect the drive? What is the goal? What am I looking for?

2 - Can I not just take one drive at a time out of NAS1 and then power it up and see if it comes up? If not put that drive back in and see if the next drive removed allows it to come up?

3 - For my own education, how can a drive failure or corruption take down the entire NAS? Isn’t that exactly what it’s designed to avoid happening? What causes a bad drive or bad drive data to lock up a NAS so nothing at all comes up? Not even the network interface?

Thanks for your patience and helping me understand.

[StephenB]

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@Fermion wrote:

1 - What do I do once I connect the drive? What is the goal? What am I looking for?

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First, run the short test on each drive.  If that passes, follow it up with the long test.

The goal is just to make sure all the drives are healthy.

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@Fermion wrote:

2 - Can I not just take one drive at a time out of NAS1 and then power it up and see if it comes up? If not put that drive back in and see if the next drive removed allows it to come up?

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That is an option if you power down the NAS when you remove/replace drives.  If the NAS does come up,. then offload the data before you do anything else.  Don't write anything to the NAS, and don't replace the missing disk.

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@Fermion wrote:

3 - For my own education, how can a drive failure or corruption take down the entire NAS?

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There are several scenarios.  One is that you might have more than one failed (or failing) disk.  

Failing disks can sometimes lock up the SATA bus.  The drive might also be timing out on every read command, which would make the boot process glacially slow.

[Fermion]

It is back up! This is what I did:

1. I powered down the NAS1
2. I removed Drive 1 from NAS1
3. I powered back up NAS1
4. The problem still existed
5. I powered down the NAS1
6. I re-inserted Drive 1 into NAS1
7. I removed Drive 2 from NAS1
8. I powered back up NAS1
9. The problem still existed
10. I repeated each of the above steps for ALL 6 drives
11. Finally on the very last drive, Drive 6, NAS1 came up!!!!

I am noy doing an RSYNC between NAS1 and NAS2 to get the data off the NAS1 as fast as possible.

Once I get everything backed up, what should I do to get all 6 drives working? I will test Drive 6 via the method you talked about with the WD tool. If the drive looks ok, do I put it back in? Should I just get another 6 TB WD Red and use that instead? I have the RAID setup as a RAID 6.

O

[Fermion]

I have tested my drive 6 with the WD Dashboard and it is giving a SMART error:

"Failed with error code: 4"

I have ordered a new 6 TB WD Red drive to replace this failed Drive 6. I assume I can just hot install the new drive once it arrives and all my data on the NAS has been backed up? I do not plan to ever power down the NAS if I can avoid it.

[StephenB]

I'm glad you are running again.  I suggest using one of the NAS as a backup of the other after you sort through all this.

Also, there are maintenance tasks on the volume settings wheel that you can schedule.  I run one each month (cycling through all four 3x a year).

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@Fermion wrote:

I assume I can just hot install the new drive once it arrives and all my data on the NAS has been backed up? 

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Yes.  Make sure you get a WD Red Plus (or a Seagate Ironwolf).  The WD Red (WD60EFAX) is an SMR drive (Shingled magnetic recording), and not a good option for ReadyNAS.  (Your older WD60EFRX are CMR, so not a problem).

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[Fermion]

The backup is currently running, I have set up a scheduled RSYNC job to run once a week to copy all the files from NAS1 to NAS2. The copy is still running but I have verified that many new files already exist on NAS2.

I do not plan to make any changes until the backup is complete. I have also already placed an order for a new replacement hard drive.

This is what I ordered “Western Digital 6TB WD Red Plus NAS Internal Hard Drive HDD - 5400 RPM, SATA 6 Gb/s, CMR, 256 MB Cache, 3.5" -WD60EFPX”

When it arrives and the backup is complete, I plan to remove the drive tray from the old failed drive and attack it to the new drive and then while NAS1 is up and running, insert it into the chassis.

[StephenB]

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@Fermion wrote:
“Western Digital 6TB WD Red Plus NAS Internal Hard Drive HDD - 5400 RPM, SATA 6 Gb/s, CMR, 256 MB Cache, 3.5" -WD60EFPX”

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That should be fine. 

Fortunately WD seems to have quietly discontinued the SMR WD Reds, but there is still some old inventory out there.

[Fermion]

The new drive arrived today. I mounted it to the drive cage for the ReadyNAS and inserted it while NAS1 was running. The system detected the new drive and it is resyncing! Yay! I went from what I thought would be a total loss to having it come up in a degraded state, to having a complete backup, to it resyncing to a new drive that replaces the failed one... Next step is a stable system that now backs up every single week and runs on a UPS with fresh batteries!

[StephenB]

Thanks for the update!

[Sandshark]

Yup!  That's what RAID is for.  Most of the time, it allows you to recover without having to resort to your backup.  Unfortunately, it's only most of the time, so you still need that backup.  Good to hear you did recover and do have a backup plan.

[Fermion]

My biggest new thing that I learned was that a drive "failure" can take down the entire NAS! The problem seems to be when a drive does not completely fail. If it is healthy things are ok, if it is dead, things are also ok, but if it is in a middle state where it is not healthy or completely dead, it really screws things up big time! I always though the NAS would recover from a single drive "failure", especially in RAID6! I learned that it is still quite vulnerable.