DL4100 Not Booting

My Cloud OS 3 Personal & Network Attached Storage My Cloud DL Series
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This morning around 1am according to some logs and such I have my DL4100 NAS stopped working. Odd.
I checked the unit out, and the LCD screen was locked up displaying the NAS’s name. No disk activity, all 4 LEDs are solid lit up for disks nut they were not actively doing anything. I power off the unit, power it on, and it won’t boot.

I’m met with a blinking blue light, with 4 disk lights solid. Nothing on the LCD screen. After about 3-4 minutes, the device reboots and does it again on a endless loop.

I tried both the 4-second, and 40-second reset procedure, no joy. I found it odd the unit didnt even reset after releasing the pin after 40 seconds or so. No response at all.

LUCKILY I happen to have a spare system available with 4 Sata ports, and enough ports to power them. I hooked the drives up and live booted PartedMagic Linux Distro ($11 https://partedmagic.com/) that I use for other things… low and behold, it supports mdadm linux volume management out of the box. The DL4100 uses a standard linux RAID5 software array and EXT4 file system.

The odd thing the SDx2 partitions which contain the data, when i do mdadm–examine /dev/sdx2 it shows all 4 volumes in good health, no issues. /dev/sdx1 appears to be a Swap partition, and /dev/sdx1 appears to be the file system for the DL4100 config. When I ran mdadm on it, it could not find any magicblocks and the filesystems would not mount. It seems somehow the DL4100’s data partition(s) got screwed up for the system itself and is preventing it from even booting or able to do a config reset as I tried.

Right now I’m going through a 20+ hour process where I managed to mount the filesystem of the RAID5 data array onto a system and I am copying over about 7TB of data to a single USB hard drive. Once that is complete it seems my next choice is zero and wipe all my drives and restart from the ground up. Hoping this info at least helps others recover their data.

Has anyone else encountered this problem? I had a power outage about a week ago, I have it on a UPS connected to it via USB, and it auto-shutdown as far as I can tell. (I was not home at the time). I logged in after I booted it back up and saw it had Battery Critically low messages and I assumed it shut off. But apart from that I have had no issues at all.

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To add to this, I have checked the AC Adapter, voltage is fine. Likewise I swapped out the DDR3L memory module with two other known good ones. I popped in blank drives as well and it failed to initialize or do anything. Seems my board is shot. Given I bought it 6/2015, my 3 year warranty just ran out. Go figure…

At least data recovery was easy… kinda.

Synology DS918+ it is…

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G’day, have exactly the same issue as you and I’m about to have a crack at your recovery method. Although I’m probably a little over my head…

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Snap, my one has done the same failing something during the night with the same problem :frowning:

I have ordered a PR4100 and am hoping it will at least see the raid array.

When it arrives I will let you know what happens…

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My PR4100 arrived.
Un-boxed it and inserted the DL4100 drives in the same slots.

Powered on, LCD works, drive lights all flashing and after a while they all went RED! (power light steady blue).

The LCD then said “Roaming RAID Array” or something similar.

With the up/down buttons I got the IP address and logged into the PR4100 web interface.

It needed the basic registrations steps and then showed the main screen indicating the data on my RAID5 setup :slight_smile: .

Another box displayed saying a foreign RAID array and to click on OK.

I did that, the four RED leds went blue and all the drives were busy doing something.

After it all calmed down I gave it the same name on the network, enabled NFS (which I use), installed Logitech Media Server (which found the existing configuration) and basically all seems well (firmware update as well).

Still probably best to start a fresh so once I am sure my secondary backups are up to date I will replace the drives with new and of course bigger ones.

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That’s great that it works in the newer NAS’s! It’s a standard Linux software RAID so it makes sense the general format wouldn’t change model to model.

Seems the DL4100’s do really have a problem then if they all keep dying like this.

I went with a Synology DS918+ for my replacement and upgraded from 4TB to 10TB drives. They have a better reputation for reliability. After cutting it close here I wasn’t taking any chances.

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Good news Automan. I was able to recover all my data after sticking the drives into an Unbuntu box that I built and it was pretty much plug and play using WoodburyMans instruction, so thanks a heap for that!

When the new chassis arrived everything did what it was supposed to except now I only having dramas getting everyone connected via mycloud again. None of the permissions are sticking and no one can access their correct folders, so I’ll probably persevere for a little longer but if I still can’t fix it we’re going to format city.

But yeah, the reliability isn’t quite there so I think we’ll be moving away from WD products in the future.

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Same problem with DL2100. No solution tho date has fixed problem… For data recovery, I used a docking station with the hard drives I removed from the DL2100 and then accessed my data via a Mac pro that I installed LINUX (Ubuntu) on one of the internal hard drives as a second operating system . Ubuntu reads the Ext4 file system whereas the MacPro’s OS X could not. You could also install a LNUX OS on a Mac or Windows machine using Oracles Virtual Box (Free App-- https://www.virtualbox.org ). I have done this successfully on a Mac.

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“I’m met with a blinking blue light, with 4 disk lights solid. Nothing on the LCD screen. After about 3-4 minutes, the device reboots and does it again on a endless loop.”

After a firmware update last night I am having the same problem. Tried factory reset to no avail…

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Same thing here. Looks like it was then a Firmware update.
Any news from WD themselves and any solutions? Booting from a stick?

I already ordered a new NAS. Even if I get my DL4100 running again I will have it as a Backup in a separate room.

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I am stuck with the same problem… Power LED is blinking, Disk lights are solid, nothing on display… restart all 4 minutes.

Anyone who got his DL4100 running again?

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I am having the same problem with a DL2100. Support claims it is “extremely rare” - yet I see it all over this website. I just wrote a post about this and how displeased I am with WD.

Somehow, that post is not showing up. I am not surprised…

Now I am having to hunt down my receipt to prove that I am the original purchaser, and even then, WD has not committed to helping me resolve this issue.

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Hello there!

We was surprised from WD DL4100 (24TB)!

Symptoms:

  • LED`s of whole four bays are stay in solid blue!

  • Power button blinks every 1 second!

  • Screen stay in blue only! Not any information present at screen like usual!

  • Device restarting every few minutes!

Any help are welcomed!

Thank you :slight_smile:

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Same problem with my DL4100… which I’ll see if I can revive when I have a moment. In the meantime I bought an EX4100, slotted in the drives from the old DL4100 and I’m back up and running. Kinda kicking myself that I didn’t have a spare two bay ready for such a situation but the new EX4100 was here (in rural Wales) in less than a day, so downtime was minimal.

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same problem and no solutions.

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Good morning!

I was solve the issue transferring HDD to new disc-less PR4100.

The DL4100 now in service, where service guy will try to recover.

Because possible reason:

  • main board;
  • CPU;

Will keep all posted :slight_smile:

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Thanks mate.

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Hmm, this sounds familiar.

I really wish I could pop these drives in to a Synology and just go. I’m not sensing much care from WD in the enclosure robustness and embedded Linux firmware.

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Did WD ever have a solution to this issue? I have the flashing power and spontaneous reboot after a few minutes. It just started in last few weeks (May 2020 now).

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I just had this happen today as well. 5/10/2020.
Same symptoms as everyone else with the reboots and no info in the display.
Eagerly awaiting a solution as this has all my movies to watch during quarantine. :frowning:

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