I have had a ReadyNAS Duo for many years now, with only a couple of hiccups. A couple of nights ago it became unreachable via the mapped drives I have been using for years, and I am unable to login to the unit (IE replies this page cannot be displayed). I held down the power button and after leaving it alone for a few minutes, the unit finally shut off. This is not the first time this has happened with this unit. Previously I let it rest off overnight, and when I powered it up the next day it recovered and rebuilt the mirror.
Since then I cannot get any log information from the unit, cannot get anything on the status page and have stopped getting status emails. I was able to access the unit and browse many of the setup screens however, and have been using it for months since the first lockup occurred.
RAIDar reports the unit is visable, and its status is booting - for many hours at this point. It has a LED pattern of slow blinking power, with the act blinking quickly between the power blinking. I cannot shut down the unit via the power button, only by unplugging it.
What is this telling me? What can I do to recover? Of course it is tax time, and guess where all my tax info is? Right, on what I thought was the most reliable location - the ReadyNAS...
I think your priority should be to get your data. You clearly do not have a backup, so you will need to try to read disk 1 using a PC and this software: http://www.diskinternals.com/linux-reader/
You should be able to get at your data. I suggest backing it up somewhere before trying anything else with the NAS.
One fairly likely cause is a full OS partition on the NAS. That is consistent with your symptoms. If you had reported your issue sooner, we would have suggested deleting your log files, and then enabling ssh to allow you to see how full the partition is. (Note this is NOT the NAS data volume that you see from Windows).
At this point your options are more limited. Try powering down, and removing drive 1. Connect to a Windows PC (either SATA or USB), and try pulling the data off the NAS using linux reader (http://www.diskinternals.com/linux-reader/). Note that Windows has no native support for linux disk formats, and therefore will not recognize the disk.
Once you have all the data, you can do a factory reset of the NAS and rebuild it - restoring all your data from backup.
Another option is to try support.netgear.com, though since you are not under warranty they will likely charge.
All devices can fail, including ReadyNAS. That is why we recommend backups. Once you get the data back, we can answer any questions you have on how to set them up.
As far as I can tell from reading around, I have a version 1 unit. I am 90% certain the unit was less than 3/4 filled on the drives. It is something I am aware of, and careful about with all my computing platforms.
Thanks for the suggestions. Now if I can just find the adapter I packed up in my move...
StephenB is talking about the operating system partition, not the main data volume, he did write this. It (OS partition) can become filled with data, particularly log files.
OK, so I got all my data back. Is there any way to recover without loosing all the security and user settings I have programmed in the NAS? Thanks for all the help!
I seem to be having a similar issue with my Duo. I can't seem to ping, ssh, explore or get to the web page. RAIDar sees it. It can activate the LEDs but other than that, nothing.
The system isn't any where near full (guessing < 30% of 2T). I rarely connect to it and I'm guessing it dropped off the network within the last week. I've rebooted - nothing. I see its MAC address in the ARP table. No idea what happened to it.
Really not looking forward to archiving the data off but I'm not sure what to do.
Aln Hky, what do you see under the Info (far right) column in RAIDar?
If, and only if you see the firmware version (e.g. 4.1.13) in the Info column, then if you haven't already try an OS Re-install. Let us know if that makes any difference and we can advise on the next steps.
Aln - in the manual for the product there is a section that describes how to boot the unit into a number of different modes by using the power button, and/or the reset button, watching for certain LED sequences and releasing buttons. One of these options is to reinstall the O/S from non-volatile memory onto the hard disk.
Does the OS reside on the disks? Can I remove 1/both? I still haven't been able to use the 'Disk Internals' application to gain access to either drive. I've tried mounting a drive in Ubuntu -- no luck. Must the be X-RAID.
Will OS reinstall require a recreation of the RAID1 on the Duo?
Can I remove all 4 drives from my NV+ and place the two (or 1) drive from the Duo and gain access to backup?
Yes, but it is best to label them by slot. Also, DON'T reinsert them with the NAS powered up. If you do it will wipe them.
Aln Hky wrote:
I still haven't been able to use the 'Disk Internals' application to gain access to either drive. I've tried mounting a drive in Ubuntu -- no luck. Must the be X-RAID.
Will OS reinstall require a recreation of the RAID1 on the Duo?
No. It will reinstall the OS on the hard drives, reset the IP configuration to DHCP, and reset the admin password to default (netgear1 in your case). All other settings are preserved.
Aln Hky wrote:
Can I remove all 4 drives from my NV+ and place the two (or 1) drive from the Duo and gain access to backup?
You can do that (again both NAS powered down when you shift drives, and label them by slot). That will only help if the issue is in the duo chassis. If it is a full Os partition it will not help. You could also do the OS reinstall with the disks in the NV+, which is a bit easier than the duo, since the NV+ has the LCD panel.
How do I go about accessing the NAS now that I have backed up all the data on it? When it is in maintenance mode, can I telnet in to it? Or do I have to SSH? is there a written guide somewhere?
Have you done an OS reinstall as advised previously? The other thing you can try is a factory default if the OS reinstall doesn't help - this will wipe your disks though.
The OS reinstall preserves data and almost all the config. The only settings it changes are (a) admin password goes back to factory default (netgear1 for a duo v1), and (b) IP configuration gets reset to dhcp.
And now I am finding that 5 years of pictures are gone... installing an expensive device such as this with mirroring was the backup for my systems. Now I am hearing that was a mistake, that it wasn't reliable enough and I should have been backing up the backup as well. So if that was the intent of the device, where does the backing up stop? How many iterations of backup is sufficient? Should I fill my house with redundant disks? Very disappointed with this device...
