F2-221 & D4-300, TOS 5.34: 'User does not exist' - re-install fails

[ChrisOfTheOT]

Evening Ryan - many thanks again for replying. Your offer to check the drives - there are two Seagate 4TB HDD - is extremely generous of you: thank you so much. I would like a developer to have a look as I'm not sure TOS4 will do the job (with my USB drives). Also, thank you for checking with the Remote Assist guys (or gals): that is also generous of you, as well as very diligent and thorough.

I know I'm not having much luck with this, but you boys and girls at TM are the best support crew I have ever had. Please say a big THANK YOU to everyone for me.

Thanks Ryan,

Chris

[ChrisOfTheOT]

If you still want to use that hard drive to install TOS 5, we can arrange for a developer to check it for you.

Morning Ryan - is there any news on this? Have the developers agreed to look at this problem?

...So, the latest Remote person confirmed that my hard drives will not let TOS5 work... Anyway, I'm down to TOS4.2.40... Unfortunatley, the Remote person said that there was a problem with TOS4.2.40 - which I had with the USB drive numbers. It means I have to down-grade to TOS4.2.32... Which, apparently, I cannot do from TOS4.2.40, so I have to down-grade to TOS4.2.18, then up-grade to 4.2.32. Tomorrow...

If TOS5 is not an option for me, I'll be okay with TOS4x, as long as the USB stuff is not a problem. In this thread from 2022: viewtopic.php?f=25&t=3473, Roy said 'The USB drive letter and path are assigned by the system according to the mounting order of the USB device, and they cannot be fixed.' I assumed he was talking about TOS5 - but is it the same for TOS4? I don't want to have more problems with the USB drives changing number after every NAS re-boot. Is TOS4.2.32 safe in that respect? I checked the update page but there is nothing about the USB drive number assigning in TOS4 (or for any TOS4.2 variants, as far as I could tell.)

Our little NAS has been off for some weeks now, and we're needing it back on line!

Cheers,

Chris

[TMRyan]

{L_BUTTON_AT}ChrisOfTheOT

Can you tell me the exact size and capacity of your hard drive? You can contact our technical support team via email to schedule a remote check-up.

[ChrisOfTheOT]

Afternoon Ryan - thanks for getting back to me.

The drives are Seagate IronWolf NAS 4TB (two). When the TOS was downgraded to v4, the unit did a 'drive check' (or similar), which took many hours, and it did it more than once (because TOS was installed more than once). The drives were healthy on each check.

What would they do on a Remote Assist, that they did not do the other times?

Cheers,

Chris

[ChrisOfTheOT]

Well boys & girls, another dreadful Remote Assistance session lasting nearly three hours - mostly waiting. Not really TerraMaster's fault, just life, really!

Anyway, the engineer eventually said 'there's nothing more I can do' and said I should try new a new drive as it was 'the only safe way to run TOS5'. He didn't say why but added that maybe more than 4TB would be preferable - but I don't know why (about 2.6TB of used space). I assume a 'new drive' means two new HD for RAID1, and I note that new Seagate IronWolf 4TB are still about £100 each. Sigh. Also, what's the point? The Seagates I have show a clean bill of health, so what difference would new ones make?

I am very disapionted! And, not quite sure what to do now...

Chris

[TMzethar]

{L_BUTTON_AT}ChrisOfTheOT

Based on your records with the remote assistance engineer, we know that for unknown reasons, your hard drive was unable to successfully install TOS5. Engineers can only install TOS 4 for you that will be stable to use. If you want to install TOS 5, we recommend trying other idle or new hard drives.

[ChrisOfTheOT]

Afternoon Zethar - many thanks again for checking 'records with Remote Assist'.

Since stability & safety are key, I've ordered some new IronWolf drives. The engineer said Remote Assist could help with copying data off the old disks, and, I presume, all the re-building RAID 1. Not the answer I was hoping for, but since I need TOS5, this is the way I need to go.

Thanks for replying Zethar,

Cheers,

Chris

[ChrisOfTheOT]

Afternoon TM land - well, the outcome is dire indeed. I, and TerraMaster Support, have endured endless hours over Remote Assistance. I have spent £230+ on two new IronWolfs, as I was told the 'old' ones had become damaged (that is, the TNAS harmed one or both of them somehow). When the valiant gent at Remote Assist tried to re-instal TOS5, all the same problems remained, even though two new HDD were installed. (I had to leave him to it for a couple of hours as, amazingly, I still have to live a life!)

He eventually got TOS5.1 loaded and all was well. For ONE day. First, the USB drives switched around in TOS Control Panel, a problem I had with TOS4. Importantly, this time the actual numbers allocated remained the same, even though they appeared in a different order (I think, in the order the DAS loaded each drive), so USB Copy & Aomei Backup worked okay. Then, near the end of the day, the TNAS turned itself off - I didn't find out until next day. During that day, the TNAS turned itself off repeatedly. Yet another Remote Assist revealed a 'hardware problem'. He said the power switch was faulty (and 'difficult' to replace): our NAS was dead.

During the the last Remote Assist, the engineer said the drives might be faulty: that is, two brand new IronWolf Pro 4TB HD. Also, one of the previous IronWolfs - which was replaced - was identified as suspect and I was advised not to use it to copy data back to the RAID. (I changed it and asked what was wrong with the first one and the gent said it had suffered 'events', or similar.)

So, now we have no NAS. The data seems to be un-accessable from Windows so I have no idea what we're going to do. TerraMaster engineers and tech support, as usual, have been excellent. I can't imagine any other modern company putting so much effort into helping. Alas though, it doesn't solve our TNAS problem.

Oh, wow is me...

Chris

[TMzethar]

I'm sorry to hear about your experience, which has shown us that we can be more cautious in judging similar issues.
If you need to read data through Windows, there are many hard disk tools to choose from, such as UFS Explorer, Disk Genius, and so on
For more tools, please refer to:
viewtopic.php?t=1125

[ChrisOfTheOT]

Morning Zethar - thanks again for all your help. In another thread, Gremlin pointed me (indirectly) towards DiskInternals Linux Reader. This works fine for reading the TOS Linux files from the backups. So, at least we can get to the information, which is the important thing at this point.

Zoey at TM sales emailed me so I think we'll be buying an F2-223 soon (The 221 is no longer available and the quad-core 423 might be too expensive). I believe we had TOS5 freshly installed on our old 221, not upgraded from TOS4 as it wouldn't work, so would I be able to just install the 2 HDD into a new system? Would everything work, without installation & formatting, etc.?

Thanks,

Chris