NASFAN1 Posted September 7, 2018 Share #1 Posted September 7, 2018 Hi all, I made a mistake and have managed to trash my perfectly functioning 6.1.7 15284 system. I'm very desperate for help. 😪 I was on 6.1.7 15284 with Jun loader 1.02 and decided to go to 6.2 23739 but hadn't spotted that 6.2.1-23824 warning. I was tired and thought it was the former warning which 1.03b fixed (I'd researched for hours weeks ago and decided to wait). Without realizing 23824 was now out, I accidentally let the Syno assistant pick auto update. It all looked fine, did some reboots, but then went horribly wrong. That's when I spotted Polanskiman's warning message was a different version and felt sick. I feel very very very stupid and it's not the sort of thing I usually do. I've since tried putting a spare wiped drive into slot 1 and running loader 1.02 again, hoping it might let me get into a reinstall. It won't detect the Synology at all. I can’t understand why a blank drive won’t work unless the loader USB is damaged. Trying to boot 1.03 just gives a red screen halt (an HP screen which seems related to the MBR being unreadable). I haven't tried recreating the boot USB - but have tried reading the original disks 1 and 2 (out of 4) in my PC to see if I can read any data. I can't get them to mount or read with any of the apps like Linux Reader, Ext2, and Ubuntu - but they won't see anything. Now I'm really worried that the disks are unrecoverable and totally puzzled as to why a clean drive won't start a fresh install. It's a baremetal HP Microserver Gen 8. It's sitting at the "Decompressing Linux...Parsing ELF....Done. Booting the Kernel" in the terminal. Nothing I do will work - which now isn’t a surprise, 😡 I have just ordered a Synology DS918+ in the hope that I can create a new vanillla 6.2.1-23824 system and maybe read the data off or remount the other 3 drives. if anyone can give any advice, I will be eternally grateful. 🙏 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hoppler Posted September 7, 2018 Share #2 Posted September 7, 2018 Hi, youll loose your settings but not your data. HowTo downgrade: https://xpenology.com/forum/topic/13074-dsm-621-23824-warning/?tab=comments#comment-95204 https://xpenology.com/forum/topic/12952-dsm-62-loader/?page=15&tab=comments#comment-95214 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NASFAN1 Posted September 7, 2018 Author Share #3 Posted September 7, 2018 Hi hoppler; many many thanks for your reply. I’ll look at that tomorrow - I did have a quick read and think I follow. Do you think if I put the disks in a real DS918+ it will recover a functioning system with the data? I guess I’ll need to manually recreate all the settings. I’m definitely keeping with Xpenology if I can get it working but have been finding the recent updates too stressful and might go to Synology hardware for my live system. best regards Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hoppler Posted September 8, 2018 Share #4 Posted September 8, 2018 Putting the disks in a real DiskStation will lead to a "migrate" instead of a "clean install" (which will reset the settings) and youll keep most of your settings. But for this, all hdds have to be placed in the new DiskStation because of RAID. Extra: A migrate is possible because the real DS918 supports the new 6.2.1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NASFAN1 Posted September 8, 2018 Author Share #5 Posted September 8, 2018 hi hoppler, two other points before I try your method. 1) I only used the 3615xs bootloader 2) My disks are just JBOD not RAID so I'm hoping I can check one at a time. I'm not 100% sure I understand your recovery instructions but think I do - I think I can go with the 3615 loader instead or replacing with 3617xs being replaced (so maybe I miss one step)? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hoppler Posted September 8, 2018 Share #6 Posted September 8, 2018 The idea behind the recovery-method: You cant downgrade to 6.2 easily by just reinstalling the bootloader on the sdcard/usbstick. On every boot, the installed DSM 6.2.1 will update the bootloader for you To force a downgrade without another spare hdd, you have to change your Synology Model so the DSM installer will force a "clean install" instead of updating the bootloader Because of the reasons above you have to switch the bootloader von 3615 to 3617 or vice versa depending of what you have installed currently. So if you have DS3615 you have to flash the sdcard/usbstick with DS3617 so youll get into the recovery mode on the next boot. Leave all hdds as they are Take out the sdcard/usbstick on which the bootloader is installed and flash DS3617 from jun onto it Insert sdcard/usbstick and boot Youll get the "install dsm" screen which can be found with the synology assistent (just like you did when you first installed xpenology) Install the DSM 6.2 for DS3617 by "manual install" https://archive.synology.com/download/DSM/release/6.2/23739/DSM_DS3617xs_23739.pat Optional: If you want to go back to DS3615 Repeat steps above but flash DS3615 bootloader onto scdard/usbstick Install DSM 6.2 for DS3615 https://archive.synology.com/download/DSM/release/6.2/23739/DSM_DS3615xs_23739.pat I guess thats detailed enough 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NASFAN1 Posted September 8, 2018 Author Share #7 Posted September 8, 2018 (edited) hi hoppler, that makes lot of sense and really helps understand what I'm doing and the why. Thanks again for taking time to walk me through this. I'm trying it out now. best regards Edited September 8, 2018 by NASFAN1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NASFAN1 Posted September 8, 2018 Author Share #8 Posted September 8, 2018 (edited) Update - I'm getting stuck at the flashing the boot loader to the USB - I'm not sure if I'm using the wrong setting with OSFMount or Win32DiskImager but I keep ending up with a USB stick with partitions which can't be read by Windows (and so it won't write the 3617 synoboot.img which I've edited with my MAC and PID, VID to USB). Managed to sort it with DISKPART. Still working through the steps.... Edited September 8, 2018 by NASFAN1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NASFAN1 Posted September 8, 2018 Author Share #9 Posted September 8, 2018 (edited) At least it's getting past the red screen - with the 3617 loader image from Jun it stops at "Grub Rescue" What did I do wrong 🙄 Normal.mod is in the path as the error says - at least in the synoboot.img before flashing... Edited September 8, 2018 by NASFAN1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NASFAN1 Posted September 8, 2018 Author Share #10 Posted September 8, 2018 (edited) hi hoppler, so I'm really not sure this is working as expected. After the grub error above with 3617 loader , I made a 3615 bootloader and could see the Synology system in Syno Assistant as "Recoverable". The only option I get is to click "Recover". It does some reboot stuff and then won't see the USB stick again to boot and tries to boot off LAN. 😔 Turned off and then copied the extra.lzma, rd.gz and zImage files again (from 3615xs) to see what happened - back onto the same 3615 loader USB. It will boot to the GRUB menu again for 1.03b - but I'm not sure which to pick, option 1 or option 2 "reinstall"? If I pick option 2 I get the same "Recoverable" loop again. Edited September 8, 2018 by NASFAN1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NASFAN1 Posted September 8, 2018 Author Share #11 Posted September 8, 2018 hi hoppler, you are a hero - I eventually worked out the way to go - rather than the file copying I started with a fresh USB stick and the 3617 loader - and then did the "reinstallation" step. It did take time to appear in Synology Assistant. So far I can see all data and am reconfiguring. Are there any reasons to go back to the 3615x - so far it looks OK? I owe you a drink or two 👍👍 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Polanskiman Posted September 12, 2018 Share #12 Posted September 12, 2018 Personally I would stick to 3615xs as it is the most used and supported version in the community but 3617xs should work too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NASFAN1 Posted September 12, 2018 Author Share #13 Posted September 12, 2018 Thanks Polanskiman, that seems sensible. Now i’m a bit nervous but am pretty sure I can get back to 3615 without having a nervous breakdown I guess I need to reinstall and configure some packages, and add in the users again. if I used the Syno Config backup and imported that, do you know if it it would keep some / all settings? I imagine I need to install packages again first. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Polanskiman Posted September 12, 2018 Share #14 Posted September 12, 2018 8 minutes ago, NASFAN1 said: Thanks Polanskiman, that seems sensible. Now i’m a bit nervous but am pretty sure I can get back to 3615 without having a nervous breakdown I guess I need to reinstall and configure some packages, and add in the users again. if I used the Syno Config backup and imported that, do you know if it it would keep some / all settings? I imagine I need to install packages again first. Normally yes you need to reconfigure DSM as it is a different version. Your data would still be there though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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