LinuxQuestions.org
Help answer threads with 0 replies.
Go Back   LinuxQuestions.org > Forums > Linux Forums > Linux - Hardware
User Name
Password
Linux - Hardware This forum is for Hardware issues.
Having trouble installing a piece of hardware? Want to know if that peripheral is compatible with Linux?

Notices


Reply
  Search this Thread
Old 07-21-2017, 01:56 PM   #1
upnort
Senior Member
 
Registered: Oct 2014
Distribution: Slackware
Posts: 1,893

Rep: Reputation: 1163Reputation: 1163Reputation: 1163Reputation: 1163Reputation: 1163Reputation: 1163Reputation: 1163Reputation: 1163Reputation: 1163
Question Bricked Lenovo ix4-300d NAS?


I received a Lenovo ix4-300d NAS that the owner no longer can use. The NAS seems bricked after attempting a firmware update.

Problem Description

When booting the NAS LCD shows a progress bar. At 95% the boot process halts and the white LED flashes. The NAS then repeats this behavior. The NAS does this with or without the drive array installed. This implies there is some kind of nominal bootloader on the motherboard. At this point the front panel power button becomes unresponsive.

The boot process is not a total failure. My router shows that the NAS is requesting and receiving a DHCP IP address. I am unable to ping the NAS or access the web browser interface.

What I Have Done

I have scanned the web to no avail.

I downloaded something called emctools and unzipped to a USB flash drive.

I pulled the CMOS battery to always force a fresh boot.

I inserted the USB stick into the upper back port. I powered on the NAS while pressing the reset button.

With the disk array connected the LCD takes about 1:40 before showing USB BOOT. Then the LCD eventually changes to no bzImage. I presume this means the bootloader chain or boot block on the drive array is damaged or corrupt.

With the array pulled the LCD changes within a few seconds to show USB BOOT. Then some seconds later the LCD shows a picture of a USB stick and a network map.

I presume the USB stick successfully booted. I presume the LCD pictures mean I am supposed to insert a USB stick or connect a network cable. I presume the reason is to update the firmware.

I tried both and on my LAN I configured a TFTP server as well.

Hoping for help.

Thanks!
 
Old 07-21-2017, 04:46 PM   #2
jefro
Moderator
 
Registered: Mar 2008
Posts: 22,284

Rep: Reputation: 3661Reputation: 3661Reputation: 3661Reputation: 3661Reputation: 3661Reputation: 3661Reputation: 3661Reputation: 3661Reputation: 3661Reputation: 3661Reputation: 3661
Web search seem to indicate that some image from Lenovo can be used to recover the OS.

Seems the software is on the drives. Might put them in a linux box and see what you can discover.
 
Old 07-22-2017, 07:41 PM   #3
upnort
Senior Member
 
Registered: Oct 2014
Distribution: Slackware
Posts: 1,893

Original Poster
Rep: Reputation: 1163Reputation: 1163Reputation: 1163Reputation: 1163Reputation: 1163Reputation: 1163Reputation: 1163Reputation: 1163Reputation: 1163
Well, this is comical!

I connected the drives to a desktop motherboard. I was surprised at what I eventually discovered.

The NAS owner moved the original NAS drives into a different server that needed larger capacity drives. Then installed four smaller drives from a decommissioned server into the NAS. I knew that much but did not know how that related to the NAS not booting.

Inserting different drives seems like a decent idea except for one horrible presumption. The NAS firmware is not stored on the motherboard but on the drives. Thus the reason the NAS no longer boots -- cannot boot!

For anybody who is curious, the smaller drives have CentOS 6.8 installed.

I am not marking the thread as solved because other people looking for the same problem description will be looking for a solution rather than a funny story.

 
Old 07-22-2017, 07:49 PM   #4
syg00
LQ Veteran
 
Registered: Aug 2003
Location: Australia
Distribution: Lots ...
Posts: 21,337

Rep: Reputation: 4176Reputation: 4176Reputation: 4176Reputation: 4176Reputation: 4176Reputation: 4176Reputation: 4176Reputation: 4176Reputation: 4176Reputation: 4176Reputation: 4176
As if we need another reason to avoid Lenovo - their propensity to hide malware in their PCs put me off ages ago.
Nice story tho'.
 
Old 07-23-2017, 10:21 AM   #5
upnort
Senior Member
 
Registered: Oct 2014
Distribution: Slackware
Posts: 1,893

Original Poster
Rep: Reputation: 1163Reputation: 1163Reputation: 1163Reputation: 1163Reputation: 1163Reputation: 1163Reputation: 1163Reputation: 1163Reputation: 1163
Now the focus is how to bootstrap the device with some kind of disk image. Haven't found any yet....
 
Old 07-23-2017, 11:33 AM   #6
michaelk
Moderator
 
Registered: Aug 2002
Posts: 26,540

Rep: Reputation: 6225Reputation: 6225Reputation: 6225Reputation: 6225Reputation: 6225Reputation: 6225Reputation: 6225Reputation: 6225Reputation: 6225Reputation: 6225Reputation: 6225
I do not think you have to install any firmware to the disks. If the NAS works and the disks are compatible then it should automatically build an array. However the disks have to be cleaned first.

http://download.lenovo.com/lenovoemc...89%2c1193.html

Totally unfamiliar with the NAS unit but would guess the boot image is in some kind of non volatile memory on the system board.

Before your first attempt at a firmware update could you access the NAS via a web browser?

Last edited by michaelk; 07-23-2017 at 02:52 PM.
 
Old 07-23-2017, 08:42 PM   #7
upnort
Senior Member
 
Registered: Oct 2014
Distribution: Slackware
Posts: 1,893

Original Poster
Rep: Reputation: 1163Reputation: 1163Reputation: 1163Reputation: 1163Reputation: 1163Reputation: 1163Reputation: 1163Reputation: 1163Reputation: 1163
This 4-year old post has a link to information about serial console access, but the link no longer exists.

Quote:
the disks have to be cleaned first.
Which, after digging around the Lenovo web site, means wipe the partitions.

Quote:
Totally unfamiliar with the NAS unit but would guess the boot image is in some kind of non volatile memory on the system board.
As I try to learn more, my understanding is the MB contains only a basic NVRAM of some sort and a BIOS-like bootloader. The firmware is stored on the disk. The disk uses a boot loader called U-boot.

Quote:
Before your first attempt at a firmware update could you access the NAS via a web browser?
No, that never has been possible. See post #3 above.
 
Old 07-23-2017, 11:45 PM   #8
jefro
Moderator
 
Registered: Mar 2008
Posts: 22,284

Rep: Reputation: 3661Reputation: 3661Reputation: 3661Reputation: 3661Reputation: 3661Reputation: 3661Reputation: 3661Reputation: 3661Reputation: 3661Reputation: 3661Reputation: 3661
Get the image back from Lenovo or the original owner.

It may be that the image or sources is buried in Lenovo's web pages. If you had sources or sdk then you could update or modify.

Actually I'd kind of prefer more NAS have OS on drives so I could more safely edit them.

Last edited by jefro; 07-23-2017 at 11:46 PM.
 
Old 07-24-2017, 01:41 AM   #9
syg00
LQ Veteran
 
Registered: Aug 2003
Location: Australia
Distribution: Lots ...
Posts: 21,337

Rep: Reputation: 4176Reputation: 4176Reputation: 4176Reputation: 4176Reputation: 4176Reputation: 4176Reputation: 4176Reputation: 4176Reputation: 4176Reputation: 4176Reputation: 4176
So that's ARM - looks like Marvell MV78230. With my old Seagate GoFlex Home I decided to hack, I was able to get an Arch Linux image and flash the m/board. Works a treat with a decent distro on it.
Unfortunately I didn't see a similar solution for you.
 
Old 07-24-2017, 02:20 AM   #10
upnort
Senior Member
 
Registered: Oct 2014
Distribution: Slackware
Posts: 1,893

Original Poster
Rep: Reputation: 1163Reputation: 1163Reputation: 1163Reputation: 1163Reputation: 1163Reputation: 1163Reputation: 1163Reputation: 1163Reputation: 1163
I wiped the partitions and booted with the USB. Things looked great for a few minutes with the LCD icons appearing and the USB LED flashing. I thought, and hoped, the USB files would start auto-partitioning. But nothing.

I think I need to manually create the expected partitions. Except I have no idea what the boot software is expecting. I am guessing a /boot and a / partition, possibly a third for data and mount points. Four drive bay, so RAID 5 or maybe 1+0. I think RAID 5 is the default. I'll pull the drives and slap back into my test system and create a 100M /boot, a 20G /, and a third empty partition. I think ext2 is the default. Then copy the boot files from the USB to the /boot partition.

I have access to an older Iomega running Debian 5. The Lenovo runs Debian 7. I can SSH into the Iomega system, which might provide some nominal clues about partitions and RAID config.

Really hard trying to piece together the big picture from snippets and fragments of forum discussions. The Lenovo forum is a recipe for insanity.
 
Old 07-24-2017, 05:21 AM   #11
michaelk
Moderator
 
Registered: Aug 2002
Posts: 26,540

Rep: Reputation: 6225Reputation: 6225Reputation: 6225Reputation: 6225Reputation: 6225Reputation: 6225Reputation: 6225Reputation: 6225Reputation: 6225Reputation: 6225Reputation: 6225
I agree the forum discussions are not very helpful. From what I can put together the USB should reload the boot image and once that is complete you should be able to boot normally and access the web management console which should then rebuild the drives. You should not have to partition the drives.

Have you verified the drives are compatible according to the link I posted. I assume since they still contained CentOS that the NAS was never used again.

IMHO it makes more sense from the OEM side if the NAS boots from flash and the drives only contained data versus the operating system.
 
Old 07-24-2017, 11:48 AM   #12
upnort
Senior Member
 
Registered: Oct 2014
Distribution: Slackware
Posts: 1,893

Original Poster
Rep: Reputation: 1163Reputation: 1163Reputation: 1163Reputation: 1163Reputation: 1163Reputation: 1163Reputation: 1163Reputation: 1163Reputation: 1163
Quote:
From what I can put together the USB should reload the boot image and once that is complete you should be able to boot normally and access the web management console which should then rebuild the drives. You should not have to partition the drives.
That is my impression from what I have read. I am not (yet) doing something right.

Quote:
Have you verified the drives are compatible according to the link I posted. I assume since they still contained CentOS that the NAS was never used again.
After sharing my discovery with the owner, I confirmed the NAS never worked again after removing the original drives and inserting the replacement drives. The replacement drives are matched 250 GB Seagates, which are not on the Lenovo list, but the web page includes thee following:

All disks within a single storage pool must meet the following requirements:
Same manufacturer
Same rotational speed
Same capacity

The 250 GB Seagates satisfies that criteria, but possibly the firmware will not work with anything less than 1 TB drives. I don't know.
 
Old 07-24-2017, 12:04 PM   #13
michaelk
Moderator
 
Registered: Aug 2002
Posts: 26,540

Rep: Reputation: 6225Reputation: 6225Reputation: 6225Reputation: 6225Reputation: 6225Reputation: 6225Reputation: 6225Reputation: 6225Reputation: 6225Reputation: 6225Reputation: 6225
Quote:
The 250 GB Seagates satisfies that criteria, but possibly the firmware will not work with anything less than 1 TB drives.
A good possibility. But I would expect/assume the OS/web management console to function regardless... Any indication that the reload process worked?
 
Old 07-24-2017, 12:36 PM   #14
upnort
Senior Member
 
Registered: Oct 2014
Distribution: Slackware
Posts: 1,893

Original Poster
Rep: Reputation: 1163Reputation: 1163Reputation: 1163Reputation: 1163Reputation: 1163Reputation: 1163Reputation: 1163Reputation: 1163Reputation: 1163
Can't say this is progress, but is interesting.

I pulled the CMOS battery for a few seconds.
I connected a network cable.
I inserted the USB stick in the rear upper port.
I pressed and held the reset button.
I connected the power.
I pressed the front power button.

The LCD displayed 'Lenovo' and after about 15 seconds displayed 'USB BOOT'.

I continued pressing the reset button.

The LCD then displayed the USB and network map icons.

I released the reset button.

The USB stick was flashing the entire time.

My router shows an IP address is assigned.

From a LAN system or the router I can ping the assigned IP address.

I am unable to open the device web page using the assigned IP address or the hostname 'ix4-300d'.

The LCD never shows an IP address.

I discovered a web page outlining a possible disk partition layout.

So something is working. I am not yet seeing all of the pieces of the puzzle.
 
Old 09-13-2017, 11:04 AM   #15
WatashiFR
LQ Newbie
 
Registered: Sep 2017
Posts: 2

Rep: Reputation: Disabled
At the risk of necroing, here's what I know about the Lenovo/Iomega IX4-200D and IX4-300D, having had some bother with both types:
- indeed, the firmware is on the disks itself. Every disk in the array has two partitions: a small one (around 1.8Gb) in RAID1 containing the firmware, plus a larger one (rest of the disk's size) in a RAID5 array on Ext4.
- the 200D supports disks from 500Gb to 2Tb as long as they are identical in size and spin speed. The 300D supports 5Tb disks.
- although I don't have particularly bad experiences with these devices in everyday use, I've seen my share of botched firmware updates. As a precaution, I am not taking the 300D beyond firmware 4.1.102.29716 and the 200D beyond firmware 2.1.48.30125. Be advised that the 200D and the 300D are completely different machines.
- If you bork a device, recovery is easily done by transplanting the disks. We have a Proliant ML150 that we basically keep as a recovery machine (it has lots of SATA connectors on board and plenty of room and power).
- Here's the catch: if you bork a device, or if you want to upsize the disks (the 300D supports 5Tb disks), you'll need to reimage it since the firmware needs to be restored. Lenovo will give you a link to a utility that will create a bootable USB disk which you can use to restore your device (they are being kinda anal about sharing this utility, but there's a few copies floating about. Then again, why risk it, Lenovo usually respond within 24 hours). Restoration is destructive. The USB stick needs to be 8Gb+ and needs to be created on USB2 (running the utility on USB3 succeeds but creates an unusable USB stick).
- Booting from USB is done with the reset button on the back. The stick needs to be in the upper USB slot (right below the network ports). Power the device whilst keeping reset pressed, and wait until the display shows a USB key/network icon.
- Warning: if you boot the device without a USB stick in the upper slot,whilst keeping reset pressed (for more than 4 seconds), the device will factory reset, wiping all data.

Last edited by WatashiFR; 09-13-2017 at 11:05 AM.
 
  


Reply


Thread Tools Search this Thread
Search this Thread:

Advanced Search

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is Off
HTML code is Off



Similar Threads
Thread Thread Starter Forum Replies Last Post
LenovoEMC NAS 8TB ix-300d hmarine Linux - Newbie 1 02-19-2014 01:48 PM
LenovoEMC NAS 8TB ix-300d hmarine Linux - Desktop 1 02-19-2014 11:37 AM
Changing FTP- port on NAS ix4-300d TheDutchman Linux - Software 2 04-24-2013 04:26 PM
I bricked my NAS? :( aptitude, apt-get, apt-cache segfaults immediately omegaworks Linux - Server 5 11-07-2009 09:21 AM

LinuxQuestions.org > Forums > Linux Forums > Linux - Hardware

All times are GMT -5. The time now is 10:59 PM.

Main Menu
Advertisement
My LQ
Write for LQ
LinuxQuestions.org is looking for people interested in writing Editorials, Articles, Reviews, and more. If you'd like to contribute content, let us know.
Main Menu
Syndicate
RSS1  Latest Threads
RSS1  LQ News
Twitter: @linuxquestions
Open Source Consulting | Domain Registration