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[rolyat]

Dear all,

I have my DNS-323 since August 2007, first with a 500GB Seagate, later upgraded into a 1TB Seagate. The DNS is a A1 revision, its firmware was 1.02, upgraded to 1.03 when I got it.

I don't recall to have got any problem since my moving. It was running the 1.08 or 1.07 firmware for a while. I bought it in Malaysia and since September 2010 we are back in Europe. The DNS made the trip with all other material in its original box.

When it finally arrived, I put it out of the box and let it couple of days to adapt to the new weather and environment (anyhow we had to settle and it was not the most urgent).

So to make things short, I plugged it in after a while on the network and on the power line. Then I was not able to find it. OK, weird but why not. It has changed its IP, or moreover it get back to the default one (previously it had its own IP) through DHCP.

I finally managed to got it in the web browser, and notice that most, if not all, parameters went South. Back to normal after resetting them all. Off again, then ON couple of days later (my computer installation was still not finished). And same problem. OK, same procedure, resetting, and I tried to access the disk. It works for a while, I was able to go in all folders I think. OK, fine.

Then I thought that I needed to find out what happened. I thought about changing the battery (more than 3 years, so that's possible). And meanwhile, I went to the DSM forum I think and saw that people got the same kind of symptoms: no possibility to got the web page, and one of the main cause was a problem with the configuration file. Weird I don't even recall to have touch it.

So I was wondering about ways to check for the SMART indicator of the hard disk. And for these two problem (config file and SMART), one solution was to install the fun_plug. OK, found the way how to do it, managed to VI through the config file (there was garbage on the line about the DDNS (something I never set because I don't use remote access to the DNS, and moreover I have a static IP)), save it. And done for the config file.

I also managed to install and run the SMARTtools, and diagnostic was: disk is fine and healthy.

Meanwhile, while I still have a full access, I upgraded the firmware to 1.09. Again, tried the SMARTtools, and everything, for the disk, was fine.

Loosing time to time access to the disk itself, I first thought it was a simple connection problem. Then the disk was appearing and disappearing once a while. So I didn't switch on the unit for a while until I isolate the problem... I am still looking.

Lately, through I have the web configuration page, I don't have access to the disk. It seems that the DNS is looking for the disk all the time. And trying to turn off the unit with the front button doesn't work either. It seems to be rebooting or looking for the disk all the time. Or the disk is spinning up then after a while, spinning down. And of course, without the disk being "connected" I don't have access to fun_plug or to any other Unix tools.

I put the disk from the right slot to the left, no change. The DLink diagnostic tool (scandisk) on the DNS seems to be pretty useless, as much as the Log file.

Any idea what should I do next? I am thinking about trying the disk in a case (which means I need to buy one) and to install a FS to read Ext2 from Windows.

But somewhere I still hope that the DNS is still working: it is only 3 years old and I never saw any smoke, and it was not running 24/7.

Thanks for reading (oh cr*p, it's quite long... sorry).

[ericj]

Have you tried putting a different hard drive into it to see if it formats properly and that you can store and retrieve data from it consistently? From the sounds of it, the hard drives have failed. Make sure the drives are seated in their slots properly as well, the trip could have unseated them a bit which may be causing some of the intermittent problems.

Eric

[rolyat]

Hi Eric,

Thanks for the suggestion. As for trying with another hdd, well, that's the problem: I don't have spare yet. I am planning to buy an external case to test the HDD (and, well, it can always be useful), and the next thing would be to buy one or two other HDD.

And send back the current one to Seagate (that will be the second one in less than a year). This one is a ST31000333AS 7200.11 (and still under warranty until 2012).

[Tipstaff]

What firmware version is on that drive? Specifically, does it have any of these firmwares on them? AD14, SD15, SD16, SD17, SD18, SD19, SD81?

The reason I ask is that there is a known issue with Seagate 7200.11 drives where after a while they will die out of the blue. It has to do with a faulty firmware in which it doesn't clear out the internal log or some such as it's supposed to during it's power cycle. Once it's full it locks the drive up, and makes the drive unusable. Unfortunately because the drive is locked up the only thing you can do is replace it with Seagate (once it's locked up it cannot be seen by the bios).

You can read more HERE, and HERE.

[rolyat]

Hi Tipstaff,

The HDD in the DNS-323 has a CC firmware, which is not supposed to be faulty according to Seagate. In fact, when I got my first problem with another Seagate, I read about that, so now, I am very picky when I buy and install any HDD (before I was just trying avoiding some brands).

Anyhow, today I will buy the USB2 2 Sata adapter to check the disk.

Thank you for your answer.

[rolyat]

Hi everyone,

Slight update: I bought the USB2Sata adapter, and ran all SeaTools tests. The disk passed them all.

Meanwhile (yes, I tried to keep myself busy), I opened up and dissassembled (carefully) the DNS and cleaned everything. I assembled everything back.

The day after (today), I put the disk back inside, and just turned it on. So On, without problem. Doing something else, the disk (or the whole unit) went to sleep.

After couple of minutes, I tried to access the disk, and the same thing happened again: wake-up, and a forever "boot or trying to access process" with OFF and fast back ON process.

Do you think it could be due to the power supply failing?

Thank you

[rolyat]

A small update:

I bought a new 1TB Hitachi drive (which is not in the list BTW), with "CoolSpirit" speed (I guess, it is around 5400tpm with 8MB of cache), I put it in place of the Seagate and did several hours-long copying. I turned it off for hours, then back on, then back off, and, at first sight, no problem.

I am quite puzzled because I don't see apparent reason as why with the Seagate it stopped working reliably all of a sudden (while the Seagate works on a SATA2USB adapter), and why with the Hitachi it works.

[rolyat]

Some updates: it was working for a while with the Hitachi, but yesterday when I turned it back on after two days off (we were not at home), the DNS was working OK. Then all of a sudden, same problem as before: connection lost, then unable to connect to it through the web interface, and it seems that the unit turned off by itself.

So definitely, I think I can rule out a problem with the hard disks (or it will be weird that two totally different models and brand got this problem).

It is a pity because the DNS was a good companion for 3 years and more, but unfortunately, the lack of diagnotics tools is not helping.