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ReadyNAS Ultra 6 - ERR: Could not properly extract

buriedpast
Guide

ReadyNAS Ultra 6 - ERR: Could not properly extract

I am attempting to resolve a problem with a friends Ultra 6 that has me at my wit's end.  In short, an attempt had been made to upgrade this legacy unit to OS6 and during the process, the update failed.  As a result, the machine now encounters various errors when attempting any of the readily available corrective measures (Normal boot, OS Reinstall, Factory Reset).  When booting, it would get stuck at "Booting ...", the other two options would ultimately end up showing the dreaded "Err:  Could not properly extract" message. Being the glutton for punishment I am, I offered to help.

 

At no time could I get RAIDar 6.5 to connect to the unit to access Frontview.  I tried two different factory reset processes with different good hard drives to see if that was the problem.  Before each attempt, the drive was cleared using Windows Disk Manager (removing all partitions on the drive) - with the same result, not success.  Since it didn't appear things couldn't get much worse, I tried the following:

 

Since I was under the impression an OS6 upgrade had been attempted, I created a 4.2 Recovery USB to install OS 6.10.2 by renaming the OS6 file to "RAIDiator-x86-6.10.2".  The USB recovery process completed within 1 minute and you could tell the process was successful by the updated OS6 messages during the boot process.  Unfortunately, the boot process would never complete.

 

I then attempted a Factory Default using a cleared, good drive.  That process eventually succumbed to the "Could not properly extract" message and would not boot.  Also tried to perform an OS Reinstall with no success - same error.

 

Since the OS Reinstall effort is attempting to write a good copy of the OS from flash to the hard drive, I figured I'd try something as a last resort that would avoid the need to copy the OS to the drives.  I took a single 2TB hard drive, erased it using Windows Disk Manager and the used it in a Factory Reset on a second, good OS6 RN316 I have.  The factory reset completed without problem and I now had a disk with a good copy of 6.10.2 installed.

 

I placed this drive in the problematic Ultra 6, pressed the power button and the system booted without problems or errors.  Tried to access the unit using RAIDar 6.5 and was able to connect.  Going through the different tabs APPEARED normal and I even adjusted the fan from "Quiet" to ""Cool" and "Balanced", hearing the fan adjust as I did so.

 

Problems were still present however.  I attempted to perform a Manual Firmware Install using "ReadyNASOS-6.10.2-x86_64.img" in an effort to correct any deficiencies that might be present in the flash memory.  When attempting that effort, the image file would either NOT upload to the unit or I would receive the message "File is missing or corrupt".  I subsequently performed a shutdown and restart of the system which completed successfully with no problems.

 

The last effort performed on the "good booting" unit was to perform a Factory Reset from the boot menu.  This effort never completed since the "Could not properly extract" error message again resurfaced during the Factory Reset process.

 

I apologize for the wordy post, but I wanted to give readers a good accounting of what's been attempted to date.  I'm out of ideas on this one, other than I assume something is boogered up with the internal flash that I'm not capable of correcting.  Obviously, any formal help from Netgear is out of the question since this unit is out of warranty AND has been upgraded to OS6.

 

Any suggestions or ideas would be appreciated ...   Thanks in advance.

 

 

 

Model: RNDU6000|ReadyNAS Ultra 6 Chassis only
Message 1 of 6

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buriedpast
Guide

Re: ReadyNAS Ultra 6 - ERR: Could not properly extract

The NAS was not caught in an OS update.

 

After numerous efforts way too involved to mention here (I barely understood what I was doing since I'm not a Linux guy), it turned out that the problem was one of the simplest possible.  Turned out that the 1GB factory memory stick was defective.  When I attempted to run a Memory Test from the Boot Menu, the test progressed for 8 seconds and then stalled.

 

Swapped  memory between the problem machine and a good Ultra 6 and the memory test on the bad machine ran to 100% while the good machine stalled at 8 seconds.  With the unit now running with good memory, all previous failed efforts (manual OS upload and factory reset) progressed through completion without encountering the "could not properly extract" error.

 

I have to say I'm very surprised the system would boot and run with faulty memory, which is why I didn't consider a memory test early on in this process.  Needless to say, a memory test will be the first thing in my arsenal if any problems are encountered on a machine from this point forward.

 

Thanks to those who contributed to the thread and via PM.  I definitely learned a lot while debugging this system.

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Sandshark
Sensei

Re: ReadyNAS Ultra 6 - ERR: Could not properly extract

It sounds like you have a bad section of flash memory, resulting in a corrupt initrd.gz and/or kernel file on it.  (Likely initrd.gz since it needs to be "extracted".) The OS re-install you did (OS4.2.x style with renamed OS6 update) should have fixed that, AFAIK.  You could try doing it with a real OS4.2.x update, but I doubt you'll have any more success.  As you are apparently aware (but for the benefit of anyone else reading this), a pure OS6 OS re-install won't work on a legacy system.

 

If there is a "low level format" utility you can use on the flash when in support mode, I'm not familiar with it.  I don't know if there is enough space for a second copy of initrd.gz.  If there is, and you can get in via support mode, you could rename the old and put in another copy, using the original to mark off the bad spot in the flash.

Message 2 of 6
mdgm
Virtuoso

Re: ReadyNAS Ultra 6 - ERR: Could not properly extract

It’s not the initrd.gz or the kernel. If it was one of those it wouldn’t have booted that far.
“Could not properly extract...” indicates clearly the files that are extracted onto the root partition.
Message 3 of 6
buriedpast
Guide

Re: ReadyNAS Ultra 6 - ERR: Could not properly extract

Sandshark:  I've attempted a number of suggestions I've received via PM, including running the command "# md5sum -c csums.md5" which returned "initrd.gz OK, kernel OK and root.tlz OK".  I assume this would mean that all three of those files are not corrupted.  Unfortunately, the errors I see (unable to manually upload new firmware image and persistent "ERR:  could not properly extract") continue.  Thanks for the input, regardless.

Message 4 of 6
Sandshark
Sensei

Re: ReadyNAS Ultra 6 - ERR: Could not properly extract

Is the NAS in the middle of trying to do an OS update?  Maybe it's the update it can't extract from.  I don't know how to stop it from continuing to try the update if that's it, though.  I'm at the limit of my knowledge of the ReadyNAS boot process, so I hope whoever PMed you can point you in the right driection.

Message 5 of 6
buriedpast
Guide

Re: ReadyNAS Ultra 6 - ERR: Could not properly extract

The NAS was not caught in an OS update.

 

After numerous efforts way too involved to mention here (I barely understood what I was doing since I'm not a Linux guy), it turned out that the problem was one of the simplest possible.  Turned out that the 1GB factory memory stick was defective.  When I attempted to run a Memory Test from the Boot Menu, the test progressed for 8 seconds and then stalled.

 

Swapped  memory between the problem machine and a good Ultra 6 and the memory test on the bad machine ran to 100% while the good machine stalled at 8 seconds.  With the unit now running with good memory, all previous failed efforts (manual OS upload and factory reset) progressed through completion without encountering the "could not properly extract" error.

 

I have to say I'm very surprised the system would boot and run with faulty memory, which is why I didn't consider a memory test early on in this process.  Needless to say, a memory test will be the first thing in my arsenal if any problems are encountered on a machine from this point forward.

 

Thanks to those who contributed to the thread and via PM.  I definitely learned a lot while debugging this system.

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