I have a ReadyNAS x6, which I bought around 2005. It has been basically running fine for these 12 years, however, recently the drive mapping on my computer did not work, and when I went to look at it, it was obvious it was not functioning properly. (I’ve been staring at LED patterns for so long now that I can’t be certain what the LEDs were doing when i first saw it, but the lack of LED activity made it immediately obvious that they were not in their usual "On and Active" mode.) This had happened once before in the 12 years, and when that had happened, I cycled the power a number of times and it came back up. This time, that did not bring it back to life. (Instead of shutting it off and leaving it, I left it on and one night it did succeed in booting itself up. When I saw that in the morning, I thought it was back in business, but when I got home from work that night, it was back disconnected.)
I was pleased to find in the forum that the patterns of the LED flashes are supposed to be indicative of the underlying problem, and I’m hoping someone can help me interpret my patterns.
MY DEVICE
My X6’s product number is: rnx7s2000. Its serial number is: 000da2009169. It has the original two Seagate 400 GB drives in it, and while I do not remember the RAID configuration, it is the stock one that this device came with. The success of this “set it and forget it” approach lulled me into too deep a sleep so I DO NOT HAVE A BACKUP, and I have probably never updated its firmware. RAIDar does not see the device on the network.
THE LED FLICKERING PATTERN
I have found several entries in this forum for LED patterns, unfortunately their patterns don’t seem to match mine (though I can’t say I totally understand their annotation), and from the configuration of LEDs they show, they appear to be for two different models of ReadyNASes, each different than mine. (On my X6, the row of LEDs on the front of the case has a power LED on the right, 4 LEDs to the left that represent the drives (numbered 1,2,3,4), and a disk activity light in between the power LED and the drive LEDs for a total of 6 LEDs, not the 5 LEDs that I saw in the pattern documentation sheets.)
Here are my patterns:
When I turn on the device for the first time, this pattern keeps repeating every 25-30 seconds:
quick flashing of the power LED,
then it slows to a steady flashing,
then all the other LEDs flash sequentially in rapid fire (less than a second), starting with the Disk Activity and then across the Disk LEDs. Then it repeats.
In the first minute, while this pattern is appearing on the front panel, it sounds like the drives are kicking in. The LED pattern goes on for 3-4 minutes, and then all LEDs go blank. I’ve left it in this state as much as 15 minutes to see if anything else occurs, but nothing has.
When I turn off the power (The power button controls nothing, it’s all through turning the device on and off.), let it sit a while, then start it back up again, it does the pattern described above, but then it goes into a different pattern:
the power LED flickers quickly for about 12 seconds,
then its flickering slows down to be a steady blinking for about 15 seconds,
Then the power LED seems like it’s working very hard to stay on (kind of slowly throbbing like it’s working very hard), and then, while it’s doing this, the Disk Activity Led will blink once two separate times (i.e. not in rapid succession), then it will blink 5 times rapidly, go out again, blink once, and then blink rapidly 4 times and then all the non-power LEDs will blink once in rapid succession again. The last two steps are right in succession. Each of the other steps are separated by seconds.
This pattern seemingly can go on forever.
Any help I could get on what this means, and how to approach recovering the data and/or fixing the device would be much appreciated.
I found the LED pattern sheet for the X6 Rev B. they weren't helpful for my pattern. In reading some of the posts for other X6 problems, I have come up with a path, on which I'd love any feedback people have:
I cannot see the device with the drives in. However, when i take them out, RAIDar can see the device and knows there are no drives in it. I'm not sure if that means it's not the memory and is probably Drive 1 (or drive 1 and 2?), but that seems logical to me? I have taken the drives out and am planning on using Seatools to check them independently.
does anyone have thoughts on my logic, concerns or cautions about the path i have chosen that I should be aware of, or alternative suggesions?
