Legacy Network Products

[EasyUser]

You can go to the warrenty section on seagate's website to get RMA. 

http://www.seagate.com/www/en-us/support/warranty_&_returns_assistance/

[njc]

I did and I am still waiting for some resolution, thanks

[rnthornton]

For all of those with the following condition;

" It seems that the unit will never boots up.  The top light blinks green for quite a while, then gives one yellow flash and then back to a flashing green top light.  I can hear, a very faint ticking, but it doesn't sound as loud as a disk during boot up.  It seems to be stuck on as the fan comes on as soon as I plug in the power supply.  Pressing or holding in the power/reset button on the back does nothing."

I found that replacing the power adapter with a healthy generic 12v 5amp adapter purchased at a local electronic store solved this issue.

I’m in the process of removing my stored data and moving the drives over to a new NAS enclosure that will allow me the flexibility to reformat the drives and use them as a true RAID 1 mirror of my hard drive.

[raybdc97]

Work Around Solution without having to use Linux to recover Data...

I too have suffered the ever blinking green light of death on my Maxtor II Shared Storage (NAS).

I believe, with the help of another poster, Ihave found the Solution!!!

Others here have posted that swapping to a new beefier power supply  (5amps) fixes their problems...however few found this to work.

I checked my power supply and it was fine.  12.31 volts.

So I opened my case with minimal plastic tab breaking....

Here's a handy video showing how to open this type of case   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yLJoYb9-6R0  watch it, follow it...and fyi my internal metal case screws were not under the copper tape, they easier to get to...yet you still have to take the copper tape off.  All this will make sense if you follow the video.

With the case now open and the drives accessible, (leave the drives in the case, all you need to get to are the SATA cables for both drives).

I unplugged the little fan and set the top of the metal case aside.

There are 2 500gb dives stacked on top of each others.  They each use a combination SATA cable that carries both data and power to the drive.  There is a red combo cable for one, and a blue combo cable for the other drive.

With the case open I powered up my unit.  I noticed that the drives didn't start to spin (no vibration, no sound from either drive).  With the help from another forum post I concluded that the drives were not getting any power to them.  That the problem was actually not the 12volt power supply but some internal power problem that doesn't let the 5 volts that's needed by the hard drives to start them spinning.   (hence this is why the "power" indicator light constantly blinks).  This could be for many many reasons...because something is needed in the unit to convert the 12volts going into the the unit to 5 volts for the drives.  Thus I deduced the 5 volt power supply inside the unit is the actually problem and not the 12volt power supply.  Then why does changing the 12volt supply to a higher amp help some and not others??? not really sure...its possible that the extra amps somehow helps kick start the internal 5 volt power supply into working????  and maybe most others 5 volt internal power supplies are beyond helping.

Ok back to my work around....

The work around was to simply supply power to both drives, power up the Maxtor and let the darn thing boot up finally.  Well it worked!!!!  And I am able to use/access the drive again and get my data, without resorting to crazy Linux code.

Here's what I did.

I needed a computers 5 volt power supply to help my Maxtor's drives to start spinning.

I opened the case to a spare PC and used its 5 volt hard drive power.

My cable were all Molex connectors, the old larger type, the type not used in the Maxtor.

My local Radio Shack had converter cables from Molex connector to the new smaller SATA type. 

Here's a link to what I used  http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=3780246

I used 2 of these...one for each drive.   I probably could have used this one  that has 2 sata connector from one Molex...but I didn't..

http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=3783066

If your PC already uses SATA power cables...kudos you wont need any connector converter power cables.

You will definitely need two SATA data cables.....  http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2484256 no matter what.

Since the Maxtor's cables to the drives are a combo type (power and data) you need these cables.

Take both the red and blue SATA cable off of both drives...( you need to power up both drives cause the Maxtor will not boot up with just one).

Attach the power cables from the PC to Maxtor drives.

Making sure which cables and pins from the board goes to which drive remove both the SATA data cables off of the Maxtor board and reattach the new sata data cables to both the board and its respective drive.  Make sure both drives are connected.

Power up your PC....you'll notice with a faint sound and vibration that the Maxtor drives start spinning.

Now plug in the Maxtor to its 12volt power supply.

After a minute of that darn green blinking light again....IT GOES SOLID!!!! YES!!!   and the drive boots up.

I was able to access my data as usual from this point...

Its a bit of a Frankenstein mess but it works.  

I plan to get my data off this lemon and return it to costco for a refund, and get something that works...

Good Luck

[snntv]

rnthorntorn wrote:

For all of those with the following condition;

" It seems that the unit will never boots up.  The top light blinks green for quite a while, then gives one yellow flash and then back to a flashing green top light.  I can hear, a very faint ticking, but it doesn't sound as loud as a disk during boot up.  It seems to be stuck on as the fan comes on as soon as I plug in the power supply.  Pressing or holding in the power/reset button on the back does nothing."

I found that replacing the power adapter with a healthy generic 12v 5amp adapter purchased at a local electronic store solved this issue.

I’m in the process of removing my stored data and moving the drives over to a new NAS enclosure that will allow me the flexibility to reformat the drives and use them as a true RAID 1 mirror of my hard drive.

Can you please tell me the store and the model of the power adapter that you purchased to fix the problem as described?

[Edited: Removed personal information per the community rules and regulations.]

Thanks in advance.

Shawn

[Jonny_Rocket]

I had a comploete disk failure and bought a exact copy of the original - In the blind assumption that (despite no indication on the menus) Maxtor would have an automatic rebuild process for re-syncing the disks. Oh, how I overestimated the intelligence of Maxtor's designers.

In any case, I've just fully restored my Maxtor Storage II Raid 1 configuration with no lost data!!!!! Thank you so much for the guide it was perfect - bar 1 extra step I had to do.

If you have a "dead" disk and you buy a replacement you will need to re-partition the disk. Thankfully, the fdisk function is intact in busybox, so maybe the Maxtor engineers wanted us to get here ;-).

If you are not familiar with partitioning a new disk - don't be afraid :-) it's not hard, and not dangerous so long as you id the right device HOWEVER - Warning: if you re-partittion your good disk - YOU WILL LOSE ALL OF YOUR DATA!!!.

using MDADM identify and confirm which drive is the new one: 

> mdadm --detail /dev/md0

If this shows /dev/sda6 as your good partition, then you should be re-partitioning /dev/sdb

If this shows /dev/sdb6 as your good partition, then you should be re-partitioning /dev/sda

To re-partition: You should replace sd_ with sda or sdb depending which one you are repartitioning

> fdisk /dev/sd_

ignore the warning this is OK.

Command (m for help): p

This should show you no partitions, or if you have a refurb. disk it may show WIndows partitions.

If you have them , we need to delete the Windows partitions starting with the highest number. The partition number is the number at the end of the Device id (example in Bold on the next line is partition 3)

/dev/sdb3             65          60801      487612912+   7  HPFS/NTFS

  in this case

Command (m for help): d

Partition number (1-3): 3

repeat for partition 2 and 1.

use command p to check you have no partitions on the disk.

Create new partitions:

Under normal linux, it is possible to create a new partition only for the mirror, but I do not know hwat wonders the MAxtor guys built in, so best to have an exact copy of the other disk:

Use the 'n' command to create a new "primary" partitions starting at partition 1 with the following dimensions:

Partition  Start    End    Type

1               1           32      Primary

2              33          64      Primary

3              65          96      Primary

Then create an "extended" partition

4              97       60801 Extended

Then create two further partitions:

5              97         159      Primary

6             160       60801  Primary

now we need to change partition 6 into a Linux Raid partition:

using command: 't' which changes a partitions system id

Command (m for help): t

Partition number (1-6): 6

Hex code (type L to List codes): fd

Check you have the right partition layout using command 'p'

Command (m for help): p

Disk /dev/sd_: 500.1 GB, 500107862016 bytes

255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 60801 cylinders

Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

Device Boot    Start       End    Blocks   Id  System

/dev/sd_1               1          32      257008+  83  Linux

/dev/sd_2              33          64      257040   83  Linux

/dev/sd_3              65          96      257040   83  Linux

/dev/sd_4              97       60801   487612912+   5  Extended

/dev/sd_5              97         159      506016   83  Linux

/dev/sd_6             160       60801   487106833+  fd  Linux raid autodetect

Finally - write it to the disk - VERY IMPORTANT!!!!!!

Command (m for help): w

Now you should be good to go for re-syncing per  the post.

[Jeroen]

Hi,

Quick question - I got an MSS II enclosure with TWO failing disks (500Gb each), and purchased two of the same disks to replace the broken ones.

(The above seems a bit silly reading it after typing - but it's to store non-critical data, and I get my disks very cheap).

Device is way too old for warranty, but I hope that - providing the enclosure does its job - I can get another cheap 500Gb NAS in my house.

My question is - do you need to format the two disks in the same way (with all these separate ext3 partitions), or just one of the two disks. If option two - which is the masterdisk, and which is the other? Do they need to be connected to a specific SATAconnector in the enclosure? And how do I then need to format the "slave disk"?

Please advice

Jeroen

[iainhu]

An interestnig solution and useful video on how to get into the case, however, in my case the disk is running (you can feel the vibration) and the problem seems to be in the box 'controller'. So I suspect the disk is fine, it's simply the NAS interface to it which is 'dead', and I suspect that may be down to corrupt flash memory. If only I knew how/where to do it, I suspect a reload of the box firmware might solve things...at least long enough to get the data off.

I do at least have a backup...taken after the last time the box played up...so it's now a case of trying to get the few changes not included in the backup or simply giving up and restoring from backup and losing the latest (few) data changes.

Still unimpressed by Seagate's lack of input and advice here :-(

[iainhu]

Tried a new power supply and sadly for me...no luck :-(