Both of my Ethernet ports failed, and I did not install drivers for a USB-NIC port before they died. The lights on either port stay dark. It appears the USB recovery still requires some interaction to a web address in order to complete the steps, so that it not going to help. Everything else APPEARS to be working perfectly… I just can’t get to the drives with the Ethernet ports dead.
I assume a new motherboard will have working Ethernet ports on it. It is past Warranty (over 3 years), but I’m willing to pay for a replacement board if under $200. This has been such a reliable and valued part of our system, that I hate to just junk it and repurpose the drives.
I want to stay a happy WD Customer!!! How can I get this fixed?
You need to boot from the recovery thumb drive anyway and see if the nics work. They may have simply been disabled. But if you know there was a power surge of some sort I suppose you could skip that step…
These things show up on eBay every now and then. I do not know of anyone who has found just a motherboard.
OK, getting better. I created the USB recovery for PANAM with PowerISO. It’s been showing “INITIALIZATION OK, SEARCHING…” for 2 full days, but about 6 hours in, I noticed the Ethernet Port 1 light was ON again. I tried plugging a cable in, direct to a switch on my network, but the LED on the switch port did not activate. I’m assuming that’s because my network IP is different now and I may need to do a direct connect to get things started. (I disconnected that cable.)
It’s still showing “INITIALIZATION OK, SEARCHING…” on the panel, third day, so I’m not sure to just LEAVE IT, or try a power-switch x 2 power down and then connect direct as if it was brand new (but with data already on the drives).
You lost me. Where is the nic plugged into now?
The server must be pugged into the same subnet as your worker PC and get an IP from a dhcp server. Your desktop PC guides the server recovery process
If I plug a cable into the lighted NIC and into the SWITCH for my network, the SWITCH lights don’t activate. It’s like the NIC on the DX4000 is claiming to be “active” yet it’s not actually communicating out to the switch port. The port is fine. If I connect a different device, the switch port lights both LED’s green right away.
On the DX4000 NIC, ONLY the left-hand LED lights green, NOT both. I assume the right-hand light indicates a valid handshake/connection.
The question is, if I STOP the recovery process at “INITIALIZATION OK, SEARCHING…” and restart the DX4000, with this NIC now fully come to life again, and I’m back in business? I guess there’s only one way to know… try it… but I didn’t know if the SEARCHING means it’s still trying to reconfigure everything.
OK. I tried a safe power down, then powered back up.
It stops at the NETWORK DISCONNECTED message. Can’t find my connected network, even though cable is plugged in. Verified good cable too. Still only get the left-hand LED on the DX4000 Ethernet 1. No lights at all on the Ethernet 2 port.
Can’t find the network, can’t find my PC.
I have a spare router, still defaulted to 192.168.1.1, so I’m going to try to connect that with just one PC and the DX4000.
Nope, no difference. Connecting the DX4000 to the router (192.168.1.1), it still shows nothing except NETWORK DISCONNECTED. Router acts like nothing is plugged in. At this point, it seems like the DX4000 Ethernet ports are disabled (1) or non-functioning (2). I guess the RESTORE got #1 functioning again, but it is still disabled.
I tried doing another RESTORE from USB, holding the reset while powering on… but it goes straight to “SEARCHING” message again. And now it’s almost seeming like it’s ignoring the USB stick too (either port).
Well, now you see my dilemma. The DX4000 is not connecting to the network. So there’s no way for my desktop PC to recognize it. Without an IP showing active on the DX4000, there is no way for me to get to it from my desktop PC. So there are no instructions to see.
I do not think you are doing this correctly. You mount the iso as a drive letter. When it is mounted on your PC you run setup.exe from the virtual dvd/drive letter. You will select the bottom choice, recover, and follow the wizard on your desktop pc to make the bootable thumb.
Yes, thank you for your patience. I was going straight from ISO to USB… not mounting that ISO and running SETUP.
So, OK, now I did that, I get the correct messages on the server, final LCD message is RECOVERY STARTED, but when clicking NEXT on the Recovery interface, I get:
Your server could not be found. Verify that the server started in recovery mode, and that the server and the client computer are connected to the same router.
The back of the unit still appears as this, the only LED on the NIC’s is the first left-hand one.
It is connected in to a SWITCH on the same network as my PC.
My existing router/network are 10.0.0.x based.
If I unplug the DX4000 and put it onto the isolated 192.168.0.x based network, the LED light status does not change.
It has to boot on a network that has a dhcp server. You can look at your dhcp server and see if it got an IP. The recovery desktop PC must be on the same subnet as the dx4000
PS: That cable looks twisted. Also try another cable
I pulled the cable away for a good pic of the lights. But I’ve already swapped with 4 other cables, all of which are working and connect fine for other devices.
I checked the DHCP status on the LinkSys router.
Router IP is 192.168.1.1
Main DHCP table allows 192.168.1.2 through 192.168.1.254
The only client showing up in the DHCP is the main PC.
I originally created the USB using Setup on the PC when it was connected to my ACTUAL network, IP 10.0.0.x
I tried rebuilding the USB using Setup while connected as 192.168.1.2 (thinking maybe it includes some IP specific info).
Just for grins, I even plugged a second Ethernet cable in to port 2 and the router. That one still doesn’t even light either LED on the DX4000’s port.
Still no joy. Still no right-hand light on the #1 Ethernet port.
And still not finding the DX4000.
Thanks for sticking with me, BTW. I really appreciate it. I so much want to see this device working again. It’s been a lifesaver more than once, for backup recovery of PC data.
the only thing that matters if you are holding in the reset button with the thumb drive in while the server is connected to a network with a dhcp server. The lcd should say something like recovery stared at some time.
But since you started down this path because you thought the NICs were bad I think we have given it our best and they are indeed bad.
There is a Thecus w4000 on ebay for ~250$ I would buy it now
I was in your position and the only way to get back to where you were is another DX4000 box. You can pick these up on ebay. I then installed a USB ethernet:below: StarTech.com USB 3.0 to Gigabit Ethernet NIC Network Adapter - 10/100/1000 Network Adapter - USB to Ethernet LAN Adapter - USB to RJ45
I am using my original server with no problems.
Thanks Gramps. We tried. I appreciate all your assistance with this.
And thank you Ceaxer. At this point, I think I’ll just use a RAID controller to see if I can pull any of the backup data from those drives (I think I used RAID-1, so it should be easy), then repurpose the drives and consider other options. I actually have all the original data on my PC’s still, and have been redirecting our backups to another repurposed drive in the meantime. (The only thing lost is point-in-time source code backups, which I’d like to retrieve if possible.)
Our needs are pretty simple, no access from the web needed (nor wanted!), no whole-PC backups. We’re actually just using some simple WinZip backup jobs to make a daily backup of selected data folders (makes it super easy to find and retrieve backups data from 6+ months ago if needed). So I’m going to look into some other simpler options in the meantime.
Thanks.
But I’ve already swapped with 4 other cables, all of which are working and connect fine for other devices.