The Operation Was a Success

[billroper]

Unfortunately, one of the patients died.

I have successfully extracted the old machines and rearranged my desk to create much more space -- although I will have to do some serious filing and discarding to reduce the enormous pile of stuff that is sitting to my right. And everything is working well.

Except that I powered down the NAS to make sure I didn't cause it any damage by accidentally unplugging it. And when I touched the power button accidentally, it made a crackling sound and emitted a bad smell.

I think the power supply is fried. And a new power supply is over $100, which is maybe not money that I should put into this particular box.

Then there's the question of salvaging the disks. I think that everything that's on them exists somewhere else, because this was the backup drive.

But now I need to get something running and make a fresh backup.

*sigh*

Comments

[bedlamhouse]

NAS shouldn't be drawing a huge amount of power - couldn't you get a minimal power supply online in the $50 range?

[billroper]

This is, as they say, a darned fine question.

I've managed to disassemble the unit and get to the power supply. And similar power supplies are available online, but you have to modify the pin out on the 20-pin connector for the supply, as the NAS doesn't use the standard ATX pinout. You also need to disable the fan for the power supply, as it wouldn't vent out of the case in any case, or at least in this case. (No pun intended.)

But looking at it, I think the only thing that fried was the power supply, so that's good initial news.

[billroper]

And I found a power supply at MicroCenter for $30, so I'm going to bring that home, make the necessary mods, and wire it up.

Fingers crossed!

(I suppose I should replace the battery while I'm in here...)

[kevinnickerson.livejournal.com]

You said elsewhere that it was just mirrored, not RAID. You should be able to plug the drives into a normal computer and read them as is.

[billroper]

That's the theory, but this was a SPARC-based system, so there's just some chance they used some format that a Windows machine can't read. If I can't revive the NAS, that's what I'll try, but I'll leave the drives undisturbed for the moment.

Thanks!

[kevinnickerson.livejournal.com]

Good point. It probably is some *ix style partition.