No, the DNS323 must partition the drives and install a few files on it. It is a Linux standard drive (ext2 or ext3 depending on F/W) and therefore can be read if installed in a linux system, but must initially be configured in the NAS. If the DNS323 is booting under those circumstances, the web UI will be prompting to format the drives for use. Is your system on the same subnet? With formatted drives and the reset, everything will be "virgin". The web UI also creates the shares, so obviously no external access until that is done.