Ok Need help from Netgear UK tech support, how to contact them by phone? I expect to be charged.
Readynas 2100 containing 4 of 2TB drives - Nas nearly full. Drive 3 then reports it's failing so is replaced, while rebuilding drive 3, a problem is discovered with a sector on drive 2 as it turns out, resulting in rebuild aborting, several attempts at rebuilding fail, eventually after yet another rebuild our volume disappears complete with data. as we don't have time to deal with the problem at that stage. The 4 disks are cloned with ddrescue onto another set of 4 disks, all 8 disks are labelled and put to one side.
New disks are installed in the readynas unit and it's put into service.
Several months past and we now have time to recover our data, but can't take the original readynas out of service. As the Readynas 2100 is no longer available we've purchased a second hand 2100, installed the 4 disks the unit boots, we can see our disks but have the original problem. So how do we log the call. The replacement unit is second hand so presumably can't use the second hand units serial number, and it's now not really the original unit that needs assistance.
Incidentilly we attempted to purchase 2 brand new readynas 2100's with 3/5 year support packs several years ago. The support packs arrived the units did not as netgear decided to withdraw the 2100's and introduce the 2120's. However we couldn't get 2120's in the UK for several months. Meanwhile we were getting automated emails telling us to activate the support packs for the new hardware. We couldn't do this as the hardware hadn't appeared. Eventually they self activated, so we actually have 2 support packs in service for non existent hardware.
Ok bottom line how do I get in contact with a UK tech support department and get them to try and recover our needed data?
As I said I'm expecting to be charged which isn't really a problem, but it probably would be good customer relations to help us as we have service packs active for non existent hardware.
If the product is registered to you then use MyNetgear at the top of this page to submit a support request. This is the easiest way to start.
I don't know the phone number off hand.
Bear in mind that this product is listed as end of life on the support site. Netgear will probably help you for a data recovery contract fee.
Thanks Vandermerwe. I was surprised I was able to register the product as it was previously owned by someone else. I believe I tried this myself before. This did indeed allow me to raise a support ticket. A Level 2 operative interogated the unit and passed it to L3. The L2 operative had to use Teamviewer to telnet into the unit in Tech Support Mode as the VPN SSH back to Netgear wasn't succesful. Unfortunately the L3 tech can only work in VPN/SSH mode so for the last week been trying to get this sorted. Tried 3 different Internet providers/Broadbands so far. Responses from L3 are getting few and far between. Is there any way we can tell from the customer end if the readynas has successfully connected into Netgears network. If I quote the case number and our Debug/Telnet 5 digit code is there anyone else can confirm we are connected, so that the L3 tech isn't tied up with a mundane task of checking whether our connection is live. Is it appropriate to quote case numbers/debug numbers on this forum?
People often do provide case numbers - it helps netgear support connect the posts here with their case notes.
There's no policy against posting the 5 digit code either. I don't see any obvious security threat in posting the code (though perhaps in combination with your public IP address it could be risky).
Case number is # 25893815 - 5 digit code is 59218. I think I'm safe enough with public IP address as it's currently plugged in at a colleagues house, so I don't even know the public IP address.
Does it matter which ethernet connection was used to connect the 2100 to the router when firing up in tech support mode? Seems strange that we've had such a job of firing this up to allow access. Do we have any other options? I'd prefer to avoid having to physically send the unit to Netgear. I believe our current L3 agent is in Ireland, not sure if that is where the unit needs to be sent.
L3 agent has successfully managed to get in, rebuild array and mount volume, 5.2TB of data now accessible so much relief all round, they should be able to start transferring/backing up to our other NAS in the morning.
I haven't got the Receipt for the credit card transaction yet but the initial scope cost worked out around 125 to 138 pounds sterling. VAT maybe on top of that, either way well worth the money if this turns out succesful. The general emails sent from Netgear quote prices in US dollars so this information may be of use to other customers in the UK if they require this service.
