fonix232

Following the instructions might be a good place to start. Grub 22 is usually when it cannot boot - this is because Synology formats the boot USB device too, even in ESXi. So, get the 32MB image again, and mount it up, try to boot.

It isn't about drivers, as I'm pretty sure the Linksys basic models are supported (they are usually in the list of default drivers), but about the UI/Synology systems. It specifies that it needs USB, and I am about to try the PCI Linksys card I have (WMP300N ver.2).

I know it is a bit unrelated, but I gotta ask. Is there any chance to get a PCI/PCIe WiFi card working with the "WiFi" option of DSM 5.0?

Hmm, I see. Could it be emulated or something? Maybe modify the iSCSI part?

Wait, is the vender file even required? On the original boot disks, it was possible to pass the MAC address via a console argument in GRUB - couldn't we do the same?

If I knew the format boot parameter is no longer needed . The format is relatively simple. There's a 4-character device ID (B1J1 for DS411, B3J7 for RS2211+, etc., still collecting the database), followed by a 5-digit number (00001 to 99999), the actual serial number. I think, after collecting all the device IDs, it would be possible to easily change the device serial number, even with an actual Synology app.

The new vendor file must be put on the USB boot stick, then just reboot, it will be picked up. Reinstalling a damaged array is simple. If it cannot recover the Synology "system" partition, it will boot into the initial "Not installed" mode, where you can reinstall using the Synology Assistant.

Yes, it doesn't use vender file. I will include the default serial number from the vender file on the next release. Does anybody know the serial number format? Why not use a boot parameter for setting the serial number? It would be easier, as an alternative to the vender file in general

Can you check the hard drive management screen? Now it shows HDD slots too, if they're active or not, I'm curious if it was implemented as a dynamic system (detect SATA connectors automatically) or if it's hard-coded (shame!).

Upgrade the wife or get a new one. I think uninstalling that malware is more than enough

If new, yes. Otherwise not really (also depends which version. HP sells two versions of N54L, one comes with 2GB RAM and a 250GB HDD, the other comes with 4GB RAM. Usually around same price, but latter is worth more).

Of course the unmodified beta won't work... Just wait till someone does the trickery and patches it up!

You can try using the tool "hdparm" to set the spin down time manually. Also usually, removing the boot USB drive helps (on Gen7 microservers). As for the RAID5 support: given that Synology initializes all disks separately, there is little to no point using the built-in RAID system. If you do, in Synology you'll only see the RAID disks, and while it will be safe on hardware-level, Synology won't be able to manage it. I'd highly suggest to use the built-in options for RAID: SHR seems to be the best, and you can also add hot spare drives to it too.

I had problems with the 8111E in the past, on different Linux distros (had no XPE running on them, but was the same symptom). The cause is the varying time of this chipset's startup. Sometimes it pops up during early init (when the network interface is initialized too), sometimes only later (e.g. extra rc script runtime). Problem is that if the eth0 interface is not available during early init reset, it won't try again, you have to do it manually.

fonix232 - please explain - or link. I haven't heard about the "pinkeye problem"? And I'm curious if there is a newer BIOS to my little baby - what have been changed. HP only states that a hang issue in Win2012R2 has been solved. At the moment I'm using TheBay 041, which is working as expected. The "pinkeye problem" is something I got with the 041 TheBay BIOS and XPE. Basically, XPE corrupts the BIOS if you tinker with WOL, automatic startup, etc., and it causes various artefacts to appear. The "pinkeye" artefact is that the HP health LED stays blue no matter what - and in the meantime, other LEDs can go on. But as the BIOS is corrupted, the system detects it, and the red LED goes off too - making it a bright pink. Now as the logo looks kind of like an eye, and it's pink -> "pinkeye" problem.

Synology will never recognize that drive as a "boot disk", as the OS itself is not configured to have a separate boot drive (official devices have a boot partition and MBR-based bootloader, we use a hacked-together GRUB). This is not an issue, at least not something we can fix easily.

This also makes updating the boot drive impossible (except if you use a rewritable CD, or burn multiple ones).

The BIOS corruption is caused by DSM's tight coupling with the hardware and its base software (the BIOS). On all Synology products, there's a custom BIOS with specific fields that control e.g. automatic boot, etc. Now, the problem begins with the way a general BIOS is built - it is a very basic set of code, and provides no higher level accessibility (you cannot modify BIOS from a running OS using a general interface, unlike UEFI) With BIOS, you need to write direct bytecode on the CMOS chip. And as Synology's BIOS structure is different from the regular BIOS', direct writing of the CMOS corrupts it. In some cases it even makes the system unbootable. For me the biggest problem was the "pinkeye" bug, that caused the HP health LED stay blue no matter what. The BLUE LED was simply always active. Even if another LED was active, in my case, this was the red LED, making it a really vivid pink.

Try to use the search function, really, it's been explained at least a dozen times. But just for you, I will do so again. Synology creates the following partition layout (minimal footprint shown, this is not the WHOLE layout!): |MBR| System Partition, ~2GB, RAID1| Data space| This is an initialized drive. The system partition gets all the OS data copied upon initialization, so that in case of a drive failure, another drive can take over and boot the OS. The data space part is available to the user, to create volumes. It says "Hybrid RAID (SHR) (without data protection)" because you created a volume with such parameters, made up of all your drives "data spaces". So no, your statement is not correct. This is pretty much like partitioning your Windows computer into two: a C drive for the system, and a D for data. Even though there are two partitions, none of them are available for "data protection". Besides, what would be the point of halving the disk for RAID? If the disk fails, you can't use it any more, no matter how many duplicates you had on it. Data protection on Synology will only be available with 2 or more disks. But if you have only one disk, then there's no point in running a NAS with a specialized OS - Windows Server would be completely sufficient. No, it is not strange. As I said before, it is so even if any disk fails, you can still boot the OS and see what's the problem. No, nothing will be replaced on the disk that already is in the storage volume. Synology will initialize the second disk, and you can extend the array onto it, but I'm not sure that SHR allows conversion into RAID1. Maybe staying with SHR and adding a third, identical drive would be a good idea? Actually, a better solution would be keeping the 2.5 drive separately, and having the two 3.5 drives work the array out. 2.5" drives have usually slower performance, worse throughput, and higher fault-rate. I wouldn't really trust my sensitive data on a 2.5" drive, especially if it's touched frequently. That drive would be perfect for serving OS-specific stuff, e.g. if you want to run the Web Server service, or download apps, etc. All the NxxL series (N36L, N40L, N54L) need the BIOS mod, as they're basically the same board, but with slightly different CPU. I'd suggest the latest, November 2013 release, hacked. It got rid of the pinkeye problem for me.

And again: Synology installs the OS to EVERY hard drive. Meaning, sd[x]2 is a RAID array that contains the OS. There are no unknown arrays and partitions, simply ones that do not show up in the UI, on purpose (so that you cannot go and fuck around with them, to delete the whole system, etc.).

Yes it is possible. However you'll need to make your own kernel, get it to boot, modify your own synobios module to allow any device, implement your own patch for the Synology checks, and so on.

So, decided to run multiple OS on my little NAS, one of them being XPE. But I don't have a VGA cable or a VGA capable screen at my disposal, so I cannot follow the regular installation instructions. Is there anyone who knows how to install vSphere or XenServer on the N54L without a display connected? Or best would be, a ready-made plug and play USB stick (my microserver is set to boot from USB, then PXE, then hard drives) that has a preloaded, ready-to-run hypervisor.

SickBeard uses a built-in unrar library, not the binary found in XPE. The report you see is because many of the releases that are rar-partitioned (multiple RARs for the one big file) are made with the 3.80 version of RAR, that is not supported by the unrar2 library Sickbeard employs to extract these packages.

Any of the Intel e100/e1000 series should work, but each release has its own thread with the supported NIC's listed. I'd suggest Trantor's thread. You could also try setting up ESXi/XenServer, that way you can give it one or two virtual, supported NIC, and have both of yours attached to those (these hypervisors have almost all NIC drivers compiled and ready to use upon install).

Check the cpuinfo in /proc/. If it lists both cores, you're good to go.