Boot problem after a bad shutdown on ReadyNas Duo

[sillian]

Hi to all,
i have a ReadyNas Duo with two hard disk in mirroring (2tb for eatch hard disk).

After a bad shutdown (the home electricity is temporary gone down), the boot of readynas seems going in loop, after three days i still see the indicator light of the power button that flashes with the indicator of the first hard disk (the indicator of the second hard disk is off). The web configuration page is not responding.

How can solve the problem? What can be happen? I have 98% of space allocated, and i would not lose all my data 😞

[Nhellie]

Check your drives first, do a disk test or test using drives manufacturer tools like seatools or WD lifeguard. I assume you don't have backup?

[RX]

Since the 2 drives are mirrored, try to boot the NAS with one disk only. Make sure to label the other drive that you will pull-out. Then check if the NAS will boot up normally.

[StephenB]

Ixa wrote:
Since the 2 drives are mirrored, try to boot the NAS with one disk only. Make sure to label the other drive that you will pull-out. Then check if the NAS will boot up normally.

If you take out drive 1, then you can recover your data on a Windows PC using linux reader (http://www.diskinternals.com/linux-reader/). This will require a usb adapter (or using one of the PCs internal SATA ports).

[sillian]

Thanks to all, i've tried the Ixa suggestion.

I have removed the hard disk 1 and switched the hard disk 2 on the first slot of the NAS.

Finally the NAS booted without problems and fortunately there all my data.

From the event log i've found a Failure disk error for the Hard Disk that i removed, now i would understand if the Hard Disk is still recoverable or is definitively damaged and i must buy a new hard disk for have the mirrored backup.

[StephenB]

You didn't need to move the hard disk to slot 1. When you replace the first disk, I suggest moving it back to slot 2. The two disks are not formatted identically, and future troubleshooting is easiest on if the "parity" drive remains in slot 2.

Step 1 is to back up the data.

Then perhaps run vendor diags on a windows PC on the failed disk (lifeguard for Western Digital, seatools for Seagate). If you can't do that, then just buy a new one. Personally I recommend NAS-purposed drives (for instance WD20EFRX). That particular model isn't on the HCL, however it works fine (the HCL is ancient, and IMO trying to find obsolete replacement drives for your NAS is a bad idea). I don't recommend "green" drives - whether on the HCL or not.

[sillian]

The ReadyNas works if there are no Hard Disk in the slot 1? I never tried it.

I have ordered the new hard disk (WD20EFRX), i will keep in mind to put it in the firs slot and switch again the Hard Disk on second slot.
The bew Hard Disk (slot 1) will be automatical sincronized with the data on hard disk 2? Why i can't install the new hard disk in the second slot?

[StephenB]

sillian wrote:
The ReadyNas works if there are no Hard Disk in the slot 1? I never tried it.

Yes, the NAS would have booted fine if you had simply removed disk 1. After you back up your data, you can power down the NAS and move the disk to slot 2. Then power it back up.

I stress the need to back up your data, since it is vulnerable with only one disk in place (and disks can/do fail in rapid succession).

sillian wrote:
Why i can't install the new hard disk in the second slot?

You can hot-install the new disk in slot 2. However, disk 1 would continue to be the "parity" disk, and disk 2 would then be the main disk. These both have the same contents (since it is RAID-1) but are formatted differently. This can create troubleshooting complexity in the future. For instance, the linux reader utility I linked in above will recover data from the main disk, but not the parity disk.

So its simplest to keep the parity disk in its customary slot (slot 2), so you won't lose track of which disk is the parity disk.