Re: RN104 crashed and stuck at "booting" or "Updating"[FW 6.

jondriscoll · ‎2015-03-11

BACKGROUND:
Looking through this (and other) thread(s) I have a remarkably similar issue, with a few twists.
RN 104 - just over a year old. 6.2.2 firmware, and only DVBlink app active .
I have 3x 3TB drives in a RAID 5 (slot 1,2,3)

I shut down every night, and get emails about that no worries, but have seen no emails about disk issues. (I remember checking just a few days ago ... not that this means a disk didn't die...)
Yesterday - boom - no files in my afp mounted LUNs (using MAC to access files) - checking the unit, I have an IP address that responds to pings, but I can't get to the web interface.
pressing the power buttton does nothing, so ultimately I pull the power.
Now I get stuck at the booting... prompt on the chassis.

Following other threads etc... I find the system "sometimes" boots ok with disk1 removed, and sometimes disk2 removed. (which leads me to believe there may be more than one issue)
While I "think" I may have a failed drive, I can not see the admin interface, or ssh in (ssh tells me "no directory") - so no logs.... hmm.

I have attempted an OS Install, which seems to go ok, (as the IP address changed from fixed to DHCP) - but still no web admin or ssh .
Other randomness includes "sometimes the disk number lights come on and sometimes they don't" - odd.

I do have some backups, and I'm resigned to losing some data that I can "regenerate" like some DVD images for use with PLEX etc...
.. but as you can expect, I'd prefer not to have to blow everything away unless i have to (or it's already gone!)

Now, as I'm outside the year, my support has expired - and I will buy more support if I decide it's the unit, and not the disks.... however...

QUESTION:
Now, I have a 4th drive I was considering using it to do a factory reset using JUST that drive to try to see if this was a chassis hardware issue.... BUT
my main question is - if the unit is fixed by factory reset, will I ever be able to slot my 3x current data drives into it again, and retain my data (on the off chance my disks are actually ok)?

Thanks in advance.
- jd

StephenB · ‎2015-03-11

If you do a factory reset with just the scratch drive installed, then you can certainly power down and reinsert the original disks.

The reset installs the OS on the disks (and recreates the data partition). So doing the reset on the scratch drive won't have any effect at all on your 3-disk array.

But when you install new firmware, it is applied to the disks and also saved in the NAS flash. So If you were to change the firmware (with the scratch disk in place), then the NAS would attempt to apply that firmware to the other disks when you restart. So be careful/intentional on that.

mdgm-ntgr · ‎2015-03-11

jondriscoll,

SMART stats look O.K. except for the bad ST31000333AS disk that was inserted recently but is no longer in the system.

There are a few command timeouts on one of the ST3000VN000 disks which is something to keep an eye on.

The problem here is caused by apps which have put too much data on the 4GB OS partition.

jondriscoll · ‎2015-04-13

I wanted to follow up my situation with my ReadyNAS 104, and to make sure I say the biggest "thanks" to these forums - especially mdgm.

1) The issue
I had issues with my 3x3TB 104 booting after a hang.
Turns out that "something" had filled up my root filesystem - probably an app I had installed, and had tried to uninstall.... but regardless.. something went awry...

It wan't "necessarily" ANYTHING to do with 6.2.2 itself.

My "luddite" view is that this eventually caused the 104 to hang (no surprise here), and the subsequent hard power-off.
Regardless of how accurate this is, I moved through many steps (being helped by mdgm along the way) and I eventually discovered that my 3x 3TB had become degraded.
I had backups for "most of my data" - sick feeling now - and while I was resigned to rebuilding the 104 and restoring, I to keep investigating.

mdgm logged in to the unit and did a stack of investigation work, including rebuilding the OS (that resided within my RAID)..
But nothing he tried worked. The RAID seemed too busted.

So, we pulled the 3x original disks, inserted a "new" drive in slot 4, and did a factory restore to the single disk.
This rebuilt the OS to 6.2.2. At least now I know there's nothing wrong with the 104 itself.

Powered down. Inserted the 3x 3TB disks (RAID5). While I could "see" the 3x 3TB disks, I was getting an error about volumes on the 3 disk raid.

Here's where I made the decision that I needed to blow away the RAID 5. I resigned myself to a rebuild and restore.

The conundrum was that with all 4x disks in, the unit wouldn't boot.
So, having nothing to lose, I shut down, and removed the 3x RAID drives.
Not sure why, but what I did next was to randomly start the unit from the 4th disk, with only 2x of the 3 RAID disks in.
As luck would have it, the 104 saw the RAID5 as "degraded" when only disk 2 and 3 were in.

* here's where I did something I wouldn't recommend unless you're prepared to zap a disk, or worse, your NAS.... * I'm sure this would NOT be in any way sanctioned by Netgear.
I pushed the 3rd RAID disk (slot 1) in "hot" while the unit was booted off disk 4.

To my surprise, the 104 started resyncing the RAID ... as if I had "replaced" disk 1 ... wow.
Now, it took AGES (over 3 days) to finish rebuilding. (this is not unexpected, as this is only an entry level NAS)
But it finished.

But why didn't it rebuild in the first place. May never know. But to the 104's credit, it saved my data.
Now, I did what mdgm recommended.
I backed up my data to other non NAS drives, blew the entire 104 config away, and recreated the RAID5 from scratch...

Lessons?
* I was lucky, because of great help from this forum, and because the 104 v6.2.2 managed to rebuild my RAID.
* RAID is not a backup. When I came to the conclusion I needed to blow away my data... I felt a little annoyed that I didn't have a full backup. "User error" plain and simple.
* get a backup strategy in place. Don't skimp unless you're happy to lose data.

I have ended up using my 104 as the backup device now, using carbon copy cloner (Mac) to create regular incremental backups, with direct attached disk to my main computer holding the primary data. I am going to limit my use of apps on the ReadyNAS, but I'm ok with that. maybe it's not the best idea to pretend an entry level NAS should be able to do everything...

I'm happy I managed to learn lessons without losing data. Technology isn't perfect, but thanks to mdgm and a bit of luck, I'm a happy camper.
I'd be ready to get another ReadyNAS purely because of the support I see in this forum.
Hope this is a useful summary for someone!

- jd

mdgm-ntgr · ‎2015-04-13

jondriscoll wrote:

* here's where I did something I wouldn't recommend unless you're prepared to zap a disk, or worse, your NAS.... * I'm sure this would NOT be in any way sanctioned by Netgear.
I pushed the 3rd RAID disk (slot 1) in "hot" while the unit was booted off disk 4.

To my surprise, the 104 started resyncing the RAID ... as if I had "replaced" disk 1 ... wow.

That was fortunate. That's certainly not something we recommend.

jondriscoll wrote:

I'd be ready to get another ReadyNAS purely because of the support I see in this forum.

Glad I was able to help.

Getting a good backup strategy in place is vital and it's good that you've learned that lesson. It doesn't matter which device you use. Important data should not be stored on just the one device.

wayne4616 · ‎2015-05-24

mdgm wrote:
You don't need to update to beta firmware if you don't want to. Just don't uninstall any further apps till 6.2.3 is released.

Hi mdgm,
I have same issue.
yesterday I started it up and did the firmware update, and reboot. then it stuck at "booting" or "Updating FW'.

I did not remove any applications.

What I tried:
Removing the original disks, and replacing with a new single disk.
performing a factory default it sticks at “booting Updating FW”.
Enter boot menu and initiate OS reinstall. Unit sticks at “Updating FW”.
Enter tech support mode. Unit starts and displays Debugmode [xxxxx] and its ip address. Unit is not detected by Raidar

Suggestions please?

Thanks

mdgm-ntgr · ‎2015-05-24

wayne4616 as diagnosed via PM your unit's hardware has failed.

a_damn · ‎2015-05-29

wayne4616 wrote:
mdgm wrote:
You don't need to update to beta firmware if you don't want to. Just don't uninstall any further apps till 6.2.3 is released.

Hi mdgm,
I have same issue.
yesterday I started it up and did the firmware update, and reboot. then it stuck at "booting" or "Updating FW'.

I did not remove any applications.

What I tried:
Removing the original disks, and replacing with a new single disk.
performing a factory default it sticks at “booting Updating FW”.
Enter boot menu and initiate OS reinstall. Unit sticks at “Updating FW”.
Enter tech support mode. Unit starts and displays Debugmode [xxxxx] and its ip address. Unit is not detected by Raidar

Suggestions please?

Thanks

Hi all,

I´m having the exact same problem as Wayne. Since updating 6.2.2->6.2.4 yesterday my RN104 with 4 3TB RED discs no longer functions 😞 It said booting and installing FW for several hours and didnt respond on any of the buttons. I pulled the plug and it booted up for a while and I though all was good as I could log in. But now I cant reach it at all again.

What is next to try? I´m a total noob at this so please bear with me... Im horrified if I lost 8TB of irreplaceable data so please help 🙂

StephenB · ‎2015-05-29

To your immediate crisis: I suggest contacting netgear support (support.netgear.com), even if they charge. Someone from netgear might also PM you and offer to take a look remotely as a courtesy.

If the data is precious, you should back it up. RAID arrays (and all devices) will fail at some point. 8 TB sounds like a lot, but it can be backed up. 3 TB USB drives are down to ~$100 US, and it is practical to get a second NAS for backup.

BTW, how full is the NAS? The total capacity of your data volume is only around 8.2 TiB.

a_damn · ‎2015-05-29

StephenB wrote:
To your immediate crisis: I suggest contacting netgear support (support.netgear.com), even if they charge. Someone from netgear might also PM you and offer to take a look remotely as a courtesy.

If the data is precious, you should back it up. RAID arrays (and all devices) will fail at some point. 8 TB sounds like a lot, but it can be backed up. 3 TB USB drives are down to ~$100 US, and it is practical to get a second NAS for backup.

BTW, how full is the NAS? The total capacity of your data volume is only around 8.2 TiB.

Thanks for the quick reply Stephen. I´m at work right now so Im not in front of the NAS anyways but it I wont get any more suggestions of things to try I will definitely call the support 🙂

It is precious to me mostly because of time since it is backup of all my movies from Bluray and DVD and I have spent ALOT of time backing them up. Of course I could back up my backups but sounds a little bit odd to me but I see now what you mean... I know HDDs can fail hence I have RAID but the NAS hardware shouldn't fail, I do believe I have paid good money for a quality product, at least that's what I believe...

Hmm I might have counted wrong 🙂 I know last I looked I had 2TB free so I know its not packed full

Thanks again for your input!

StephenB · ‎2015-05-29

The build quality is good, but of course anything can fail if pushed past the limits (for instance a power surge from a lightning strike). Personally I maintain 3 copies of everything (plus an additional backup with Crashplan). Perhaps overkill, but in my pre-NAS days I did have a couple cases where a hard drive failed, and then I discovered the backup had errors/unreadable sections. The three-copy policy has protected my data successfully for a long time now.

Nhaajuice · ‎2015-08-06

Same problem. RN104 stuck at: Updating FW

I was (sucessfully) running:

- the (modded by me) syslog server app (edit: goddamit, I didn't document my changes)

- PLEX (not the published version) (no loss)

- TimeMachine (no loss)

- Music/Video share (HUGE loss)

I have 4x 2TB RED drives Raided in there with irriplaceable data.

I really dont care about my (vast) movie collection - now I have discovered XBMC, however my issue is that I moved (not copied) all my music to it (from a number of different computers/nas's) - This was the actual reason for my purchasing the RN104 - for the large amount of drive space available for me to do this...

I was halfway through cleaning (sorting, deduping, deleting, getting album art etc) my collection, when the unit tanked. I will be very sad if I lose my data &colon;( as there are many many hours/days/weeks of work in there. (I intended to back this up once sorted)...

I will try the raid-motherboard solution here to retrieve the data - before I do anything to the RN104 that might compromise my data!

Goddamit, this WAS intended to be my backup solution!