Pro 4 Won't Boot After Adding Hot Spare (Case #18589613 &...

[gbunk]

Just bought 2 diskless Pro 4's and installed 3 WD1003FBYX Hard drives in each one and setup a RAID 5 array and updated to latest Firmware - v.4.2.20. Everything went smoothly on both units. Rebooting after F/W upgrade showed the new firmware version correctly. I then proceeded with shutting down, adding a 4th WD1003FBYX drive in, then booting up and adding it as a Hot Spare. I proceeded with a reboot and I'm pretty sure both units rebooted fine at this point (or perhaps 1 unit got stuck on "Booting" at this step, but I know the other rebooted fine). I am now at the point where both units power up and get stuck displaying "Booting . . .". I've let them sit for 15+ minutes and they stay at "Booting . . .". Both units will immediately shut off if I just tap the power button. One of the units has the LED's on the Ethernet port (LAN 1) lit up/blinking - even when the unit is powered off, the LED's on the other do not light up.

Working on one unit at a time (the one with no LAN port lights lit), I first tried pulling the 4th HDD (the newly added Hot Spare) and powered it back up -> same result - stuck at "Booting . . ." I next tried to do an "OS Reinstall" using the reset button on the back of the unit. Tried a few times and as soon as I press the "reset" button to choose the "OS Reinstall" option the display goes to "Booting . . ." and hangs. So then I proceed with the "Factory Default" option via the reset button - same issue -> stuck at "Booting . . ." with no LAN Port light activity and no RAIDar detection. I've just now initiated the "Memory test" via the reset button and it is running it's test. It has been running 40 minutes with no errors found.

I have not done anything else to the second unit (the one with the Lan 1 Port LED's lighting up). It's currently still sitting stuck on "Booting . . .".

Any ideas? Is there a problem with F/W v.4.2.20? Should I try to reinstall the F/W via USB flash drive or TFTP? If so, I need to find those instructions for this model.

We're not very happy with this. If this isn't quickly resolved we'll likely return the diskless units and move on to another make and model NAS.

Thanks,
Garry

[gbunk]

Well, contacted Netgear support (on the phone 2 hours) and it was decided to RMA both of our units with advanced next-day shipping of the new ones (with waived shipping fee). Pretty decent service. They are even having me send one to San Jose (their "research center"?) for techs to tear into it and see what the heck caused this to happen.

[chirpa]

I'm curious when you get the replacements if things will be different. Usually anything with 'Booting...' is with the OS on the disks, not the chassis itself. The issue may still be present after RMA.

There is also no need to shutdown to add a drive, they are hot-plug capable. The system treats cold-added drives differently to hot-added. It would have to determine which disks are part of the native array, which are foreign, etc.

[chirpa]

Okay read your case notes, more details in there. RMA seems like the most plausible next-try at this stage.

[gbunk]

Yeah, I guess you read about trying to boot with disks removed, attempting OS Re-install & even Factory Default to no avail.
-Garry

[chirpa]

Yup, if Tech Support mode in the boot menu won't even work with no disks in it, definitely issues.

[gbunk]

Just an update - RMA'd the first two units and received the replacements. A couple days later I called into Tech Support to have them remotely update the firmware on my new units. (The new units came with firmware v.4.2.19 and I had v.4.2.20 installed on my disks and I expected "funky things" - perhaps even disaster - if I booted up the units with the unit's & disk's firmware mismatched.) I was on the phone another 2 hours (way way too long) with them. The first unit was "bricked' again - remote update must have failed and put the unit into a cycle where it would power on and then shut itself off (in any mode - normal boot, tech support mode, factory default, etc. . .). The remote update also failed on the second unit, however after displaying "FW Image not found" it booted normally (had a firmware on disk error message in Frontview). So I kept the tech on the line and did a local update (I already had the new firmware downloaded locally). That went fine. They again RMA'd the "bricked" one. New Case# 18621461

So I get the next replacement unit, throw my disks in, boot it up to the firmware error message, did the local update, and boom-batta-bing it works fine. Interestingly I found that the 4th drive had not been added as the Hot Spare. That's where the first unit failed - at the reboot to install the Hot Spare disk.

Not feeling so good about using these units as our companies main file storage! We will of course have good backups. I have been turning them off and on to test stability and so far so good.

-Garry