NASmare update.

Finally, the eBay suppler, Safekom, have come back to me with how to hard reset the caddy. Link two holes on the board, wait 10 seconds and the software should be reset. I tried it and it worked first time, it was just a case of knowing which two points to short. So the caddy reset and the default user name and password worked, after two weeks I logged in! Here's the pic of how to reset the caddy:-

Sigh -just when I thought I was getting somewhere the caddy still doesn't recognise the installed drive in NAS mode. It works fine as USB and details of the drive can be read and Windows 7 recognises the FAT32 format. So now what? I had another trick up my sleeve and against my better judgement and with much trepidation, I removed the 250Gb drive fitted in my Windows 7 pc and fitted it in the caddy. The plan was that I could check the function of the caddy to see if it recognised the drive without formatting it. Seeing as there is a format function included in the caddy you have to assume that this should work. The drive powered up OK but still no joy. With much relief I re-installed the drive back in my PC and Windows fired up again without issue. Phew!

Anyway, sent another email off to Safecom. Surely they have to replace the drive now? Trouble is I flashed the firmware and they will be able to see that I had done it. Mmmm, tricky.

NASmare continues.

Having a NASmare!

I haven't posted for a while. This is because my life has been stolen by a NAS drive caddy.

I got the caddy last Friday, a week ago today. It was unpacked and fitted with the 320Gb SATA drive in about 10 minutes. Plugged in and powered up 5 minutes later.

Problem #1

I logged into the NAS via my Chrome browser. The NAS came with a nifty piece of software that found out the IP address of the NAS on my network. Looking through the setup screens I noticed that the fitted drive wasn't recognised by the NAS. I thought this might be the case as the NAS stated it would only work with FAT32 and not NTFS drives. Luckily there was a format utility within the NAS so this should be easily fixed. But no, some sort of error was reported.

I tried the NAS drive by USB. Success! Windows 7 recognised the drive and mounted it without a problem, I could read and write files so I new the drive was OK. So time to format it to FAT32. The only option other than NTFS was exFAT, that should be OK, or so I thought. I took advice from a mate of mine (the one who gave me the drive) and he advised flashing the NAS drive's firmware with an Icybox version of the same NAS which was 'much better'.

Problem #2

Keen to get going I followed the supplied link by my mate to the Raidsonic site to download the Icybox IB 903-N firmware. I flashed the firmware on my Pluscom NAS. This basically overwrites the installed program with the new version. I wasn't too worried flash updates usually go fine although there is a risk of 'bricking' your device. If it doesn't work all your left with is a brick! The flash went fine, it updated and rebooted, so I tried the login again as usual using admin as the user and my password that I had set earlier. The password didn't work, again I wasn't worried, obviously it has reset to default because of the update. The default was 'admin' also but no, that didn't work either...........gulp! Bricked!

Now, going back to problem #1, I realised after a bit of research, exFAT is Microsoft's updated version of FAT32 and is not the same! Ha, so I downloaded another utility called 'Penknife' to format the drive to FAT32. That will sort it! No, it didn't. Sadly I realised all along that initial problem was the lack of a FAT32 format and the update wasn't necessary.

I emailed the seller on ebay for help. I needed to know how to hard reset the NAS as unusually, there is no reset button fitted. They responded, but not with anything I didn't already know. I emailed Raidsonic who wrote the new firmware, they advised the NAS is faulty!

Over the past week I have spent many hours trying to sort this out, trying to log in and to hard reset the NAS so it loads the default password. Nothing works. I'm now trying to return the drive as faulty but the ebay seller has gone strangely quiet........I may have to sell the NAS on ebay as an external drive only without the NAS bit working. Luckily as I got the 320Gb drive for free, I might get most of my £40 back at least.

What a NASmare.

NAS Storage Drive.

I've decided I really do need a network hard drive! A chap at work has given me a 320Gb hard disk he wasn't using so its a shame not to! I've ordered a NAS drive enclosure from Ebay, it should come tomorrow. So £40 for a 320Gb NAS drive is a real bargain. It should work as a backup drive over my network, iTUNES server and Bit Torrent client. I'll let you know howI get on when it arrives!

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=310149670263

ITV1 HD on Sky+ HD

Don't forget you can watch ITV1 HD on your Sky + HD.

Follow the guide here http://www.tellytoad.com/page/itv-hd-on-sky-hd.aspx

it takes about 5 minutes to set up. You don't get any Sky+ features but you can watch ITV1 in HD!

Enjoy!