This topic has been marked solved and closed to new posts due to inactivity. We hope you'll join the conversation by posting to an open topic or starting a new one.
I have a ReadyNAS which is getting on in age (10+ years). It's been working fine but lately we've had a few power outages and the NAS has force shut down due to this. When I turned it back on it got stuck on 'Boot Menu'. I tried pushing the backup button and it changed to 'Boot Menu Normal' but I can't get past this point.
I have Googled similar issues and tried the reset button but that didn't work. I read someone tried a 'scratch' disc but no idea what this is. I also read about copying some info onto the Root drive of a USB but I wouldn't have any idea about how to do this.
I have all my photos saved on these HDDs so I would prefer not to have to factory reset if possible.
Has anyone else had this issue and know how to fix it - please??!!
I am not the most tech savy person so if you can explain it in a simplistic way I would appreciate it.
I am not the most tech savy person so if you can explain it in a simplistic way I would appreciate it.
Honestly, if you don't have the skills already, it is best not to try to master them while trying to recover precious data.
One option is to contact paid Netgear support and see if they can mount your data volume remotely. Not sure if a "gearhead" support plan will work for this - @Marc_V or @JeraldM will hopefully chime in and assist.
Another option is to connect all your disks to a PC (either with SATA or with usb adapter/docks), and then use RAID recovery software. R-Studio is one package that should work. https://www.r-studio.com/data-recovery-software/
You said you have tried the reset button, hopefully it didn't trigger a factory reset. A USB recovery might be able to do something and the other options that @StephenB provided.
BUT if you are not confident on doing the instructions, I would definitely recommend contacting support for this. Note though that Gearhead contract is not valid with ReadyNAS Support and since your data is offline a Data recovery contract might be needed in the event they need to recover it.
If they can remount the RAID then it might be an easier option and I can say cheaper. Have you registered your NAS?
thanks for explaining the scratch disc @StephenB , so would I just need 1 empty HDD ? my chassis holds 4 separate HDDs.
I am not confident at all when it comes to this so I wouldn't want to try something and stuff it up more, or erase everything. More than happy to pay for that support, maybe I can look into that. Is that just through the Netgear support links?
You mentioned about connecting it to a PC - My NAS was connected to my PC before (not sure if that is what you mean?), I also have an ethernet cable that connects to my modem. My brother set it up for me but he isn't able to help now. I could try that software but would that erase any data?
Sorry if my questions are dumb, this is a massive learning curve for me
hi @Marc_V . i hope so too. it didn't say erase or anything. when it got stuck on boot menu normal i unplugged the power and tried again.
i found a post about a USB recovery and they said to add the recovery text to the USB, is that just dropping a TXT file onto the USB or is there something else that needs to be done? They mentioned something about adding it to the root. Not sure how to access that.
yes, my NAS was registered when I bought it but it's obviously long out of warranty.
What is this remounting option and is this through the support link as well?
The other option I have booked in for a couple of days from now is a company in Australia called Geeks2U. They are a computer repair setup that said they can look at it but it's fairly expensive and there is no guarantee they will get it back.
I was hoping to try other options before then. Maybe the Netgear support line is a good first step??
thanks for explaining the scratch disc @StephenB , so would I just need 1 empty HDD ? my chassis holds 4 separate HDDs.
Not sure you need the scratch disk in your case - and if you don't have one on hand, I wouldn't suggest purchasing one.
But one simple test you could run is to power down the NAS and remove all four disks (labeling them by slot number as you remove them). Then power up the NAS. It should give you a "no disks" indication on the display. Let us know if it does this or not.
After this test, just power down again and reinsert the disks in their proper slots.
You mentioned about connecting it to a PC - My NAS was connected to my PC before (not sure if that is what you mean?),
No, that isn't what I meant. You can remove the disks from the NAS and connect the disks to a PC using USB/SATA adapters (or multibay docks). That would let you test the disks with vendor diags, and also use RAID recovery software.
But I think the best path for you is to use paid support. I have no idea how Geeks2U would compare with Netgear support as far as pricing goes. Netgear also does not promise success. They charge by the hour for data recovery, with an initial fee of $200 USD. https://kb.netgear.com/69/ReadyNAS-Data-Recovery-Diagnostics-Scope-of-Service
Unfortunately the data recovery link doesn't give you any information on how to obtain that service. Not sure if you can directly purchase it somehow, or if you need to get a ProSupport contract for your NAS first - @Marc_V can clarify that.
If you do need to start with ProSupport - a one-year ProSupport contract for my NV+ v1 would cost $149 USD - but I believe the prices will vary by geography (I am in the US). Also, the cost for a v2 would be different than the cost for the v1. But I think you'd be talking about at least $350 USD if you need to purchase both ProSupport and Data Recovery.
You can try logging into my.netgear.com (you'll need to use whatever email address you used back when you registered the NAS). Look for the registered device list. There will be a support options link next to each device. If you click on that for the ReadyNAS, then you will see a ProSupport option. Click on that, and it will show you the pricing.
@StephenB is correct you can use your mynetgear portal to purchase a support contract. A Pay-per-incident support might be available.
In any case you are having difficulty getting a contract you can send me a private message of your contact details including the serial number of the NAS.
thanks @StephenB . It's definitely a v2. I am not sure about the firmware but I have the external power brick and the front has v2 printed on the bottom right corner.
I don't think I will try connecting it to my PC, that seems a little too advanced for me haha.
I will try your suggestion taking out the HDDs and starting it up. If that doesn't work I can see a one off incident package in GearHead support for about $50.
Hi @Marc_V , @StephenB - I spoke to Netgear support and they said there wasn't much they could do. He said it sounded like a hardware issue (maybe from the multiple power outages its had).
He suggested I buy another chassis if I could find a 2nd hand one but being 10yrs old now I couldn't see any online.
Last ditch effort is to call a local data recovery company and see if they can salvage my data.
Thank you both - I appreciate your help and advice.
If you continue to look online, be very careful what you are getting is really a V2, as many are improperly listed. But you know what a real V2 looks like, so the photos should tell the tale.
>I don't think I will try connecting it to my PC, that seems a little too advanced for me haha.
This is not hard, really! You get a cheap "external drive" accessory that plugs-into a USB port, and then free Linux Reader is (likely) able to read the contents of the disk.
If all you really need/want at this point is your photos, this is an easy way to get at them.
Thanks @Sandshark , yes it was pointed out that the V1 and V2 are easily confused. I'm not sure i'll have much luck locating the chassis due to the age of it. Appreciate your advice
do you mind explaining / answering some questions?
I have 4 x 2TB HDDs so the data is split between these? That is my understanding because if 1 drive dies and I stick a new HDD in, the other 3 will help recreate the missing data.
So if I use an external drive to connect to my PC, do I do 1 HDD at a time? I'm just not sure how to go about this?
Would I install the Linux reader on my laptop to access the external drive?
what is this you have posted? Do I need this info to access the HDDs?
When i was on the phone to Netgear we tried to run RAIDiator but it didn't find my NAS . That is why he said the hardware has maybe failed. Would that mean the above RAIDiator 4.1.16 might not work either?
As far as I can tell, your computer skills equip you to use a computer, but not to troubleshoot/fix it when something goes wrong. My concern is that if you tackle this yourself is that you will make a mistake that could irretrievably lose your data. What needs to be done with data recovery depends on the details of what went wrong - there is no definitive step-by-step guide that will always work.
I have 4 x 2TB HDDs so the data is split between these? That is my understanding because if 1 drive dies and I stick a new HDD in, the other 3 will help recreate the missing data.
So if I use an external drive to connect to my PC, do I do 1 HDD at a time? I'm just not sure how to go about this?
The data is split across the drives, so you'd need to connect at least three (and preferable all four) to the PC.
You would of course need to install the software on your PC. I haven't used linux reader myself, and I am not seeing any community posts from people who've used it for 4-bay systems. It isn't designed for data recovery (and tools that are intended for that aren't free). So while it could work for you in this case, it might not.
When i was on the phone to Netgear we tried to run RAIDiator but it didn't find my NAS . That is why he said the hardware has maybe failed.
Did you try RAIDar with the disks removed? That often gives a different result. If you do try it again w/o the disks, then make sure you label them by slot as you remove them.
FWIW, I am not convinced that the hardware has failed. I mentioned earlier that you didn't want Gearhead support for this (and I think @Marc_V also said that).
This is just his signature line (which shows up in every post). RAIDiator 4.1.16 is the firmware running on his NAS, an NV+ v2 would be running RAIDiator 5.3.11 if it was up to date.
My response was in re: your next step being to get a spare chassis. Seems costly, and might not work if the drives are damaged.
Connecting each of your drives one-at-a-time to a computer using an external drive USB accessory is cheap and easy to do (you should have such an accessory regardless), and Linux Reader on Windows enables you to read/look at the partitions to see what is on the drive. When I upgraded my own system recently from 4x1 to 4x2, for grins I connected a drive to my PC at looked at it no problem.
Honestly I did not look at Linux Reader closely enough to know if it is capable of WRITING to your drives. Hopefully it is indeed just a READER. In any case, you just at this point want to see if you can recover your photos yes? But if you want to restore your setup to its original operation then trying your drives in a new identical/spare chassis is worth trying.
Thanks @tomupnorth , the guys at Netgear said the chassis might be the easiest option as I might just be able to put my disks in and 'hope' that it loads but they said it also might not work.
I know you're saying the external drive is easy to use but I'm a cautious person when it comes to things like this that are totally out of my comfort zone. I just don't know if I want to risk trying this and it stuffs up (because it usually does with me) and I lose everything.
I'm okay to pay a professional to fix this for me.
My concern trying it myself is IF I do stuff it, then it becomes completely irretrievable.
Haha, like I said to Stephen B I have little experience in this domain which I why I had no idea that was your signature. I believe the term is a NOOB.
Sure well if you have the $ and can find a spare chassis, that is actually what I would do. But probably not until after I looked at the drives to see if they appeared to be intact.
As you can see I have an NV+ v1, for >10 years now, and some time early on I had a power supply failure (which was obvious) and I was able to get one and fix it. That experience caused me to buy a spare chassis "just in case". And recently I bought a 3rd chassis because the chassis+drivetrays was cheaper than buying drive trays separately!
I see there is a diskless NV+ V2 on eBay for (gulp) $300 shipped right now. High IMO but---how precious are those photos anyway...
You need a nerdy friend like me or StephenB who could look at your drives' contents safely. Easy-peasy.
EDIT: Though to be clear, I am not even in the same game, much less league, vs StephenB (and Sandshark) when it comes to these Netgear devices!
Explain it to me like I have no idea what it means for a RAID array to be in sync--and what it means to simple file recovery if it is not.
With RAID-5, the data is spread across all 4 disks. This is done by "striping" - you can visualize it by thinking of the 4 disks as cylinders that are arranged on a table, and then thinly slice across them to create the stripes. Each stripe contains one parity block - and the stripes are constructed so parity blocks are also spread across all 4 disks. For instance, the first stripe might put the parity on disk 4, the second on disk 3, etc.
When you write to a large file to a RAID-5 array, that file won't physically be on one disk - it will be spread across more than one. And every write (even if small), requires an update to at least one parity block - which is always on a different disk than the data. The folder structure of the volume won't be stored on one disk either - it will be spread around.
Disk writes are cached for performance reasons, so if the NAS loses power or crashes, some writes will be lost. When this happens the array is out of sync. Some file data will be missing (never written), and some parity blocks won't be correct (never updated).
RAID systems detect this using transaction counters that are stored on each disk. If the transaction counters differ, then the RAID system is out of sync. If it is out of sync, then you do need specialized tools to try and reconstruct it (and even with those tools, there will usually be some data loss).
It is different if you are using RAID-1 - which simply mirrors the two disks, so all writes are always done in parallel to both disks. Generally speaking, RAID-1 recovery is much simpler, since all the data is normally on both disks. There still can be some data loss due to cached writes, but this really isn't much different than a single disk system when the power has failed.
FWIW, I generally recommend UPS protection for ReadyNAS using RAID - this prevents unexpected power loss, which reduces the risk of lost writes when the power fails. Of course this doesn't protect against the NAS crashing, but in my experience power loss is more common than crashes. I also recommend that everyone have a backup plan in place, since all devices can fail w/o warning. RAID isn't enough to protect your data, and RAID recovery is both expensive and uncertain.
Wow thank you StephenB. That is an awesome reply. So assuming the OP's 4-disk NV+ was formatted X-RAID, he has a RAID-5 system and thus files are spread-across the disks. And even if they are in-sync, the files wouldn't be individually readable on any one disk. Do I have that right?
I recently upgraded my own NV+ to 2TB disks, and the working 1TB disks are in a drawer. I am going to get them out and look at them again, as I obviously thought I'd seen individual files on the one that I looked at.
Assuming you are right, I will come-back here with hat-in-hand to apologize for dirtying OP's thread and adding to his consternation.
