× NETGEAR will be terminating ReadyCLOUD service by July 1st, 2023. For more details click here.
Orbi WiFi 7 RBE973
Reply

x600A won't boot

router_exe
Aspirant

x600A won't boot

I upgraded the disks my x600a to 4x2tb, and did a factory reset. prior to upgrading the disks, i upgraded RAIDiator 4.1.7. First go around, everything seemed to go normal, and then RAIDar stopped detecting the nas. only the power led was on doing a slow blink. i could ping the device...so i rebooted the device into factory reset again. now, i get the LED pattern for "Boot loader fails to locate valid RAIDiator image". I've tried TFTP booting, and that doesn't seem to be working. once tftp finishes i have a amber leds flashing 1234 and 1/3 back and forth. the led list doesn't have an entry for this. not sure what my next steps should be.

thanks in advance.
Message 1 of 31
mdgm-ntgr
NETGEAR Employee Retired

Re: x600A won't boot

You could try powering down, removing the CF card, connecting it to a PC and writing the 4.1.7 image to it.
Message 2 of 31
router_exe
Aspirant

Re: x600A won't boot

tried doing that with dd in linux, and it gave me the same result.
Message 3 of 31
router_exe
Aspirant

Re: x600A won't boot

do i need to format the cf card, and if so, what file system?
Message 4 of 31
router_exe
Aspirant

Re: x600A won't boot

nevermind..fixed for now.
was able to use ntrawwrite to put 3.x version of raidiator on the cf card, and now it's up and running.

interestingly enough i ran into a not enough space error trying to put 4.1.7 on it
Message 5 of 31
mdgm-ntgr
NETGEAR Employee Retired

Re: FIXED: x600A won't boot

Sounds like you need to replace he CF card with a 128MB one.
Message 6 of 31
router_exe
Aspirant

Re: FIXED: x600A won't boot

i'm going to see if i can't find one floating around here and do that. i was able to update to 4.1.7 again on the stock card. got everything up and running on a 250gb drive.. pulled 250gb drive, and hooked up a 2tb, and tried to factory reset. broke it again...so now trying to factory reset with radiator3x and a 2tb drive...seems to be working so far..just taking forever to create the volume.
Message 7 of 31
mdgm-ntgr
NETGEAR Employee Retired

Re: FIXED: x600A won't boot

RAIDiator 3.x is way too old. What brand and model disk are you using?

The not enough space error possibly indicates enough of the flash has gone bad that the current firmware won't fit on it anymore. A 128MB CF card would give way more than enough room and would be the minimum size that I would go with.
Message 8 of 31
router_exe
Aspirant

Re: FIXED: x600A won't boot

using the image that was in the tftp.zip download. i managed to get the nas up and running for a little bit with flex raid, then found out i really want xraid so i can have a volume bigger than 2tb. back to starting with 3.x, although this time with xraid, it seems to be taking forever, or hung up on creating a volume. haven't found a 128mb cf card in my pile of old parts yet, next step is to buy/find one.
Message 9 of 31
router_exe
Aspirant

Re: FIXED: x600A won't boot

is it possible to upgrade the cf card after i get everything up and running?
Message 10 of 31
mdgm-ntgr
NETGEAR Employee Retired

Re: FIXED: x600A won't boot

Well you should do a factory reset on 4.1.7, so it'd be best to write 4.1.7 onto a CF card put that in the NAS, then do a factory default.
Message 11 of 31
router_exe
Aspirant

Re: FIXED: x600A won't boot

is it possible to write 4.1.7 to a new cf card, put it in the machine, boot it and restore configs? or will i be forced to do a factory wipe?
Message 12 of 31
mdgm-ntgr
NETGEAR Employee Retired

Re: FIXED: x600A won't boot

You should do a factory default on 4.1.7 but the NAS should still boot if you don't.

I don't think you've mentioned what model disk you are using yet. This could be important.
Message 13 of 31
router_exe
Aspirant

Re: FIXED: x600A won't boot

ah sorry.

using WD20EARS
WD 2TB caviar greens.

if i do the factory default on 4.1.7, should i have all 4 drives hooked up? or should i add them 1 by one, and hope force expansion expands the volume correctly?
Message 14 of 31
mdgm-ntgr
NETGEAR Employee Retired

Re: FIXED: x600A won't boot

You need to factory default on 4.1.7 to get 4k sector alignment. As your disks are 4k sector disks if you don't factory default on 4.1.7 write performance will likely be poor.

It would be best to have all four drives hooked up when you do the factory default.

If just one is connected, do a factory default, then hot-add (add while NAS is on) the other disks one at a time, wait for the resync etc. to complete before hot-adding the next disk.

The force expansion add-on is obsolete. It was only useful for systems last factory defaulted on RAIDiator 3.x and won't solve expansion issues for those systems when expanding to use 2TB drives.
Message 15 of 31
router_exe
Aspirant

Re: FIXED: x600A won't boot

is it normal that 4.1.7 takes longer to install on one disk than 3.x?
Message 16 of 31
mdgm-ntgr
NETGEAR Employee Retired

Re: FIXED: x600A won't boot

I don't know. There's probably a lot more in 4.x which might help explain it.

How much RAM do you have in your 600?
Message 17 of 31
router_exe
Aspirant

Re: FIXED: x600A won't boot

256MB.
Message 18 of 31
router_exe
Aspirant

Re: FIXED: x600A won't boot

so, i can't get 4.1.7 to actually install, but i can get the 4x version in the tftp download to install.

new plan...install 4x on a 250gb hard drive, upgrade to 4.1.7, start hot adding the 2tb drives, pull the 250gb, hot add last 2 tb drive. will this work?
Message 19 of 31
router_exe
Aspirant

Re: FIXED: x600A won't boot

i think i found out why it was taking so long. one of my drives was bad.
Message 20 of 31
mdgm-ntgr
NETGEAR Employee Retired

Re: FIXED: x600A won't boot

That possibly may work you don't factory default on 4.1.7 write performance may be terrible.
Message 21 of 31
router_exe
Aspirant

Re: FIXED: x600A won't boot

wait...write performance on a factory default of 4.1.7 is bad? is this a known issue?
Message 22 of 31
mdgm-ntgr
NETGEAR Employee Retired

Re: FIXED: x600A won't boot

Oops. I meant to say that to get 4k sector alignment a factory default on 4.1.7 if necessary. If you don't do this factory default write performance will probably be poor as your disks are 4k sector disks. This is clearly mentioned in the 4.1.7 Release Notes
Message 23 of 31
router_exe
Aspirant

Re: FIXED: x600A won't boot

oh ok. i feel like i'm losing a battle with this. one 2tb hard drive plugged in. 80mb cf card with 4.1.7 on it, doing a factory default. raidar picks it up, and i tell it to use xraid, then it does some dancing with the greed leds, and now, 30 minutes later, all it's doing is blinking the blue light slowly. raidar doesn't see it. i can ping it. not sure what it is doing. 😞
Message 24 of 31
router_exe
Aspirant

Re: x600A won't boot

and once again..it appears to be fixed... installed 4.1.5 on 1 drive, and it recognized the full drive size, upgraded to 4.1.7, then hot added drive 2 and 3, and now i have 4 tb available.
Message 25 of 31
Top Contributors
Discussion stats
  • 30 replies
  • 1610 views
  • 0 kudos
  • 3 in conversation
Announcements