I just came home and my NV+ which has been operating so beautifully for many many months had hung - no response to the POWER key, nothing. I followed the instructions and had to remove the power cord and now when it starts up I have the message "KERNEL PANIC" and nothing else.
I tried reinstalling the OS, but after that completes the same "Kernel Panic" appears.
I am at a loss as to what to do next and have minimal means of testing drives or checking the NAS.
Is it dead? is all my data on the drives (4 x 2Gb) irretrievable?
You must test the drives. Power off, remove and label the drives according to slot number. Use a USB to sata adaptor or a drive caddy to connect eqch drive to a PC and run vendor testing tools. May also be worth running a memory test using the boot menu, but I would certainly exclude a bad drive first.
OK have finally gotten the adaptor and am checking each drive. Assuming I find a drive that has failed (and can't be fixed), I assume then I need to buy a replacement. Will simply installing it into the NAS fix the kernel panic error? Will the data on my 3 other drives be intact?
If you find a failed drive, then try booting the NAS without it (but with all the others). You can also booting with each one of the drives removed in turn. The main thing is to power the NAS off between experiments, and don't hot-insert or hot-remove them. Also, preserve the original slots.
I agree that a memory test is also worth running, esp. if all the drives pass.
Ok found a drive that fails to load (using seatools). Have checked all the rest (3) and they load and pass all basic tests, so I suspect this failed drive (was in bay 3) is dead.
Will try booting NAS with just the other 3 working drives as suggested, and will have to go buy a replacement 4th drive I guess.
I hope most of my data is still there ....thanks for the help so far. This is very frustrating (and a bit scary) as no one else is able (or willing) to provide advice.
When you get access to the data, back it up. This will remove the fear element when something like this happens. I agree than the imprecision of the error message is frustrating.
You have 2 forum members providing advice, how many do you need?
You should certainly back up the data before inserting a replacement drive. The RAID array is degraded when you remove a drive - the data is all available, but a second disk failure will destroy it. Sometimes RAID drives fail in rapid succession, and the resync that happens when you install the new drive will stress the old ones.
I am very appreciative of the advice - am backing up the data and will be getting a replacement drive once I get back to town.
My comment on the "lack of advice" was actually aimed at the NetGear technical help line who told me, in no uncertain terms, that since I was out of warranty that they could not advise me or even assure me that this was correctable. They also could not tell me whether they could help me (for a fee) or get me onto a maintenance plan (they are still checking into that). Basically it was "we may be able to help you, but we can't"...
This forum and the advice from it have not only gotten me back to a usable state, but has assured me that the NAS drive arrangement is certainly a good one.
Thank you again to you all... I hope NetGear improves their error messaging and maybe improves their technical help line to at least reassure, if not resolve, users when somewhat panic deriving messages are produced by their equipment.
