NASLite Network Attached Storage

am new to all this and am being allowed to play on a mates system - using 1.4 - see there is a later version but not sure why he has never gone that route

want to play to try and learn before i buy, which will have to be version 2 as i need sata

anyway - its the cdd version, set it up with one hard drive - a seagate 250gig - first run all is fine - configures and lets me save to floppy, on reboot i can set up the drive by formatting etc - can then see everything on my vista laptop

then messing with settings on the naslite server - turning stuff off - serial ports, lpt ports etc - all that is not needed - then restart the system - naslite boots to the finding partition on my installed hard-drive and locks - just stays there - does not mount the drive - becomes catch22 - cold boot with no floppy and a new configure does nothing as when i reboot the system finds the partition again but locks up

had to put the drive in a vista pc and delete the partition

Vista said drive was ok but had a file system that it did not recognise

this has happened twice on 2 separate machines, one a self build with an Asus motherboard - one a very old Dell

on both occasions i had been messing with other hardware and in the bios - but why should that kill a drive

taking the next step and trusting a system with software is becoming something i am nervous about after this

any help and reassurance accepted

hmmmmm - an update

set it all up again and realised i needed some memory out of the machine - so closed down - removed some memory and re-booted

NO DRIVE

again got to mounting partition and thats it - what am i doing wrong?

was 512 reduced it to 256 - surely that does not matter

more

to give some details as i am becoming more confused

system is asus motherboard P3-b - 800mz P3 cpu, 512 memory, dvd drive, floppy and 250gig seagate ide hard drive

configures fine, but any change locks it up at boot up, and just to throw a spanner in the works tried the same with Freenas - ie reducing the memory from 512 to 256 and no problems

Am I reading this correctly?

1st: You are booting the NL+ CD that works on your mate's PC, on another 'test' PC and it hangs? This is the identical physical CD, not a copy? If not, then try that, to elliminate potential cd creation errors.

2nd: Did you SAVE configuration to the floppy successfully? And then Restart?

3rd: After reboot you have to log in to the admin account and Format/Export the storage. See the manual for details (although really no details necessary ) Save and Restart again.

I switch off unused serial and parallel ports in BIOS not in NL.

Hope this helps. Let us know how you go.

Hi tony a,

Are you sure it has locked, often what is really going on is the disk check, this is often mistaken for a hang because it takes a fair amount of time.

I have been using Naslite since version 1 and havent lost data, except when I lost the plot and formatted the wrong drive.

Once you have settled down messing with the options and just leave it alone you will find it trouble free.

Reading your initial post, sounds like you are a bit impatient with your research and didn't bother to look through the manual. I'd go with gaiden's assessment above. You need to let Naslite complete the filesystem scan before you go pulling the plug and swapping things around.

When properly maintained Naslite will never let you down, so whatever problems you are having are hardware related or user created.

I just looked back and seen v1.04 was released nearly 2 years ago, certainly your mate should have good things to say if he's been using it that long, and decided not to move up to the next version, or v2.0

thanks for the replies

in no order - cd is a copy of original disc - the software is no longer used by its original owner - he has moved away from this type of storage

i believe i am doing things correctly i have read the manual - happy to accept i may have got it wrong - but i have had a working system on a number of occasions - its when i change something - settings in bios?? amount of memory that things go wrong

let me give an outline of what i have done

intalled software, save config after setting up and done a final reboot, gone to my windows machine and opened network, copied stuff to Naslite server, checked it was fine by playing media or viewing pictures

done various powerdowns and power ups of both windows mc and Naslite - all ok

changed something phisical on Naslite server - memory for example - removed HD as it is in a removable drive or other system hardware

rebooted Naslite server - cr and floppy in drives - as before - boots through all cd stuff - accessess floppy - says it has found harddrives and posts that it has found partition on HD - and locks - does not go to next stage of mounting drive and opening to windows

checked network drom windows and drive is not there

as to leaving it - is an hour long enough - tried this on 2 different machines - a home build and an old Dell - no common hardware - with same result - happened 4 times to-date

only way to get system to reboot to log in screen is to remove floppy and start again with drive cleaned up in windows - all data gone

as i stated earlier - have tried similar with freenas and no problems - this leads me to believe my hardware is not the problem - again happy to accept i am wrong

infact as i have typed this have rebooted freenas after a memory change and removing and refitting the hard-drive - it statred fine - something i am certain would not have happened with naslite!

to summerise - i have to change something in the machine to break it - that as far as i can see is the only time it falls ove - but that should not happen - surely

No it should not and does not. As I said before, I've built enough of these to know that whatever problems you are having are hardware related or user created. Fortunately, there is a very easy way of troubleshooting. All you have to do is cut the info from the system log status page of the troubled machine and paste it in a post here. Let's look at the meat and potatoes before going on about what happened when and why.

when a man is as insistent as that i take notice, such confidence comes from knowledge imo

as i said a couple of times i was and always am happy to admit it could be me

and it was, have changed the ram and got back to the same point when it found the partition and 'appeared' to lock up but sat and waited - took about 10 minutes but system then booted

my comment earlier about waiting an hour was not an exaggeration, but maybe i just made a bigger mess

anyway thanks to all those who said it was me, it was, will be ordering the cd version of 2 later