LaCie 5Big NAS PRO Boot issue with blank screen

[Miheddine]

Hello,
We have a NAS LaCie NAS 5big pro, suddenly we found it OFF, when we turned it ON, the front LED still blinking blue with nothing on Screen connected on VGA. Also it is not pingable through the network.
The light status as following:
- Front led is always blinking blue.
- The hard desk leds is blinking one after one (first hdd, then second, ... etc) and when all hdd are checked, no more lights at the hdd (but the frond led stays blinking).

Regarding to the data, we are not caring for it and the only thing that we need it is to make the Lacie 5Big up and running.
What could be the problem and how can we resolve it?
Is it boot problem? From where we can start to recover it?
Regards
Miheddine

[fvdw]

A 5big pro is an intel cpu based nas.
When it was bought diskless it should have firmware in flash which is loaded to harddisks when they are installed.
If it was bought with disks then it might have no firmware in flash and only on the harddisks.
The vga output should in principle give some info on the boot pricess. As far as I know it uses grub as bootloader but if the bootloader is on one of the harddisk and that harddisk is not accesible then nothing will appear on the vga port as grub cannot start.
From what you describe regarding harddisk leds it seems the nas cannot read the disks. As lacie uses raid on these disk also for system partitions failure of two disk in the array will brick the nas as the raid arrays cannot be assembled.

What next.
Lacie has build in a recovery mode. (See the manual). That could bring it back to live with default factory settings.
If that doesn't work there is a possibility to boot the device using a usb stick. Such a stick is supplied with the nas.
If you don't have that anymore it becomes complicated but I think I could provide disk partition images that could be written to a new harddisk and that would load fvdw-sl firmware.
This however I did not test on a 5big pro yet. It will also require a pc running linux to prepare a harddisk. It could also possible to do that using usb stick.
This will take some trial error so if you are in a hurry this might not be acceptable for you. I dont know where you are living but you could send it to me and I can try to bring it back online (with fvd-sl) firmware and return it. As it took much effort to make firmware for intel based nas I will ask a small fee for supplying the firmware.

[Miheddine]

thanks for reply, we are in Lebanon (Middle East), so it becomes hard to send you such device...
appreciate your help in another way... :)
i used the fvdw-sl-console with following all instructions needed with no chance to get good result (Front LED still blinking blue - the HDDs LED begin the TEST one after one then turned OFF all) and that's it.
thanks again for your kind assistance.

[fvdw]

the fvdw-sl console cannot be used with this nas . The console is designed for use with older lacie types based on arm processors and using uboot as boot loader

The 5big pro is using an intel processor and has a bios that controls boot process.
Did you try the lacie rescue procedure ?
http://manuals.lacie.com/en/manuals/nas-os-pro-4/help/recovery
Or don't you have the rescue usb from lacie?

If that is a no go we can try to prepare a hard disk, the easiest way to that is using a pc running linux, could be knoppix which run from CD or linux in running in virtual machine). Next option is that I supply a disk image that is written to disk via ms windows.
As said so far never done this on a 5big pro so will require trial and error and can be time consuming exercise

[Miheddine]

Yes you're right, fvdw-sl doesn't help in anyway to solve the issue.
i have a server with Virtual Machine Linux based "Ubuntu 18", are we able to use it?
as for the key, i don't have an initial key from LaCie, but i've created one using "5bigNASPro_WIN_Rescue_4.3.19.6" downloaded from the site with negative result as well.
appreciate your help. and for sure i will appreciate your spent time somehow.

[fvdw]

let my think how to approach this. For the moment you could try to connect an usb keyboard to one of the usb ports and press a key activate the vga output , it could be that it is in energy save mode.

If we can get vga port working it will be a great help.

PS also try to do this with all disks removed

[Miheddine]

tried a USB key with HDDs and Without HDD, same result... even the keyboard numlock small led didn't work seems like the usb port is not functioning well !! still VGA no signal..

[fvdw]

take out the most left disk (seen from bak side)and connect it to an usb-sata interface (if you have one) connect that to your pc which is running ubuntu in VM. Assume you know how to add usb in VM.

If that succeeds probably the disk is recognized as "/dev/sdx" x can be b,c,d... dependent on how many disks you have in your VM. Lets assume it is sdb
If it is found in your VM run in a shell terminal command

Code: Select all

fdisk -l /dev/sdb
gdisk -l /dev/sdb

This should list partition table and will be helpfull to prepare a new disk or may even be helpful in an attempt to repair the disk

[Miheddine]

Hello, sorry for being late in reply since i was out of country.
after using fdisk command in Ubuntu for the left HDD 4TB, this is the result:

miheddine@miheddine-VirtualBox:~$ sudo fdisk -l /dev/sdb
[sudo] password for miheddine:
The backup GPT table is corrupt, but the primary appears OK, so that will be used.
Disk /dev/sdb: 3.7 TiB, 4000787027968 bytes, 7814037164 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 4096 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 4096 bytes / 4096 bytes
Disklabel type: gpt
Disk identifier: 486F0BA3-067F-43F0-9C97-C33978F34ECB

Device Start End Sectors Size Type
/dev/sdb1 2048 2869247 2867200 1.4G Microsoft basic data
/dev/sdb2 2869248 5736447 2867200 1.4G Microsoft basic data
/dev/sdb3 5736448 8603647 2867200 1.4G Microsoft basic data
/dev/sdb4 8603648 11470847 2867200 1.4G Microsoft basic data
/dev/sdb5 11470848 7814033407 7802562560 3.6T Microsoft basic data

[Miheddine]

the following after gdisk -l :

miheddine@miheddine-VirtualBox:~$ sudo gdisk -l /dev/sdb
GPT fdisk (gdisk) version 1.0.3

Warning! Disk size is smaller than the main header indicates! Loading
secondary header from the last sector of the disk! You should use 'v' to
verify disk integrity, and perhaps options on the experts' menu to repair
the disk.
Caution: invalid backup GPT header, but valid main header; regenerating
backup header from main header.

Warning! Error 0 reading partition table for CRC check!
Warning! One or more CRCs don't match. You should repair the disk!

Partition table scan:
MBR: protective
BSD: not present
APM: not present
GPT: damaged

****************************************************************************
Caution: Found protective or hybrid MBR and corrupt GPT. Using GPT, but disk
verification and recovery are STRONGLY recommended.
****************************************************************************
Disk /dev/sdb: 7814037164 sectors, 3.6 TiB
Model: super high speed
Sector size (logical/physical): 512/4096 bytes
Disk identifier (GUID): 486F0BA3-067F-43F0-9C97-C33978F34ECB
Partition table holds up to 128 entries
Main partition table begins at sector 2 and ends at sector 33
First usable sector is 34, last usable sector is 7814037134
Partitions will be aligned on 2048-sector boundaries
Total free space is 5741 sectors (2.8 MiB)

Number Start (sector) End (sector) Size Code Name
1 2048 2869247 1.4 GiB 0700 Basic data partition
2 2869248 5736447 1.4 GiB 0700 Basic data partition
3 5736448 8603647 1.4 GiB 0700 Basic data partition
4 8603648 11470847 1.4 GiB 0700 Basic data partition
5 11470848 7814033407 3.6 TiB 0700 Basic data partition