Netgear SC101 (X Post not sure if HW)

[Shrapnel]

Hi all,

Just out of curiousity has anyone ever used one of the above.

It was working fine until i rebuilt both machines (Win XP SP2) that connect
to this device and now it won't see them, when you run the Netgear utility
it see's the main unit and its allocated IP address, even says there are 3
partitions.....you just can't get to them...grrrrr!. Re-installed Netgear
software and updated firmware, no joy.

As a last resort i removed that HDD from the unit and put it in an external
USB enclosure with the view of wiping it and starting over, however its only
seeing a 32gb partition and not the whole 160GB (1 X 100GB and 1 X 60GB).

Thought it might have been the jumper settings but have checked and its on
CS ( out of desperation i tried other configs and set to slave but no joy).

I know the Netgear uses some Zetera (?) file system and not NTFS or
FAT32....any idea's welcome as to how i can wipe all the partitions in the
drive (tried Symantec Partition Magic and that only see's 32GB too).

Thanks

Dave

 

[John McGaw]

Hi all,

Just out of curiousity has anyone ever used one of the above.

It was working fine until i rebuilt both machines (Win XP SP2) that connect
to this device and now it won't see them, when you run the Netgear utility
it see's the main unit and its allocated IP address, even says there are 3
partitions.....you just can't get to them...grrrrr!. Re-installed Netgear
software and updated firmware, no joy.

As a last resort i removed that HDD from the unit and put it in an external
USB enclosure with the view of wiping it and starting over, however its only
seeing a 32gb partition and not the whole 160GB (1 X 100GB and 1 X 60GB).

Thought it might have been the jumper settings but have checked and its on
CS ( out of desperation i tried other configs and set to slave but no joy).

I know the Netgear uses some Zetera (?) file system and not NTFS or
FAT32....any idea's welcome as to how i can wipe all the partitions in the
drive (tried Symantec Partition Magic and that only see's 32GB too).

Thanks

Dave

The SC101 does not, IIRC, use anything close to DOS/Windows formatting
for its drives so what you see when connecting one to a PC isn't
predictable. CS jumpering is what the SC101 calls for and that has
worked for me. Sadly, what has never worked for me is the whole
NetGear/Zetera software bundle. I finally got to the point, after their
software completely trashed a computer for the second time to the point
that a repair install couldn't be applied for the second time, that I
pulled the 2 X 400gB drives from it and threw the SC101 into the junkbox.

Two ideas: 1) have you tried sticking the drive directly into another
computer to see what it looks like and 2) are you sure that you didn't
accidentally jumper the "limit to 32gB" pins that some drives have?.

As for the drive format/partition, if you run Eraser on the disk telling
it to take out everything and wipe to zeros you should have a clean
palette to paint on again. Or your drive maker may offer a zeroing utility.

 

[Shrapnel]

John,

Thanks for the reply, i checked the jumper setting and they are set
correctly.

I haven't tried option one of connecting it to a PC (i'll try shortly!) and
i'll give the Eraser software a shot.

Thanks for the reply John, i was pulling my hair out!

Dave

 

[John McGaw]

John,

Thanks for the reply, i checked the jumper setting and they are set
correctly.

I haven't tried option one of connecting it to a PC (i'll try shortly!) and
i'll give the Eraser software a shot.

Thanks for the reply John, i was pulling my hair out!

Dave

The SC101 does not, IIRC, use anything close to DOS/Windows formatting for
its drives so what you see when connecting one to a PC isn't predictable.
CS jumpering is what the SC101 calls for and that has worked for me.
Sadly, what has never worked for me is the whole NetGear/Zetera software
bundle. I finally got to the point, after their software completely
trashed a computer for the second time to the point that a repair install
couldn't be applied for the second time, that I pulled the 2 X 400gB
drives from it and threw the SC101 into the junkbox.

Two ideas: 1) have you tried sticking the drive directly into another
computer to see what it looks like and 2) are you sure that you didn't
accidentally jumper the "limit to 32gB" pins that some drives have?.

As for the drive format/partition, if you run Eraser on the disk telling
it to take out everything and wipe to zeros you should have a clean
palette to paint on again. Or your drive maker may offer a zeroing
utility.

If your experiences with the SC101 parallel mine, don't start thinking
that your remaining hair is in any way safe! Overall it has to be one of
the most ill-conceived products I've come across during decades working
with computers. Mine wound up in the junk box and will probably remain
there until/unless I find some use for the neat extruded aluminum case
which seems to be the only worthwhile part of it.

 

[Shrapnel]

Thanks John,

Finally managed to scrap a few hours together today to have another look at
it.....4 hours later i've managed to find a limited array of DOS tools (not
many) but the one that was handy was "ut_remvpart". This allowed me to
remove all the partitions on the disk and start again....luckily i kept my
old backups so didn't have to rely on the SC101! At the minute everything
appears stable!

Dave

 

[Terrabitte]

I'll top post this in the essence of time and reading, so bear with
me.

I bought one of those SC101's and then upgraded to Vista without
knowing Netgear still had their head up their ass when it came to
drivers. While most other hardware manufacturers were ready for the
rollout, Netgear hadn't done a thing. I reverted back to XP. I've
been on their so called 'support' forum and it appears the moderator
there removes all negative postings. They have a so called 'beta
program' going which I joined but quickly backed out of. They put up
a firmware upgrade that just hangs and everyone is complaining about
it, although some have had success. I have two large drives in that
toaster with critical backups and data files over 20 years old. I
also have that data in a safe place as well. Anyway, I like the unit
but don't like the way it creates it's own file system when other
systems like DLink keep NTFS. The key to installing this bitch is to
be patient. The docs say what to do to your hard drives before
installing and I found that what you really need to do is put a hard
drive in your computer and use Device Manager's Disk Management
utility to remove the partition on the drive and then create another
one just to be safe. Do nothing else. Set your jumper to Cable
Select and install the drive(s). Install drivers and utility and you
should be up and running in no time. I don't like the way the drives
keep firing up and shutting down even when not being accessed. This is
unnecessary wear and tear on the drives. The unit also needs a small
fan since it does tend to get rather hot with two drives installed in
such a tight space. My recommendation to people considering such a
device is to stay away from Netgear's SC101 and opt for the new DLink
array which keeps NTFS intact, which means you can move the drives
into your PC without any problem and still access them. You can't do
that with Netgear's SC101.

I was going to put in my two cents here and wound up putting in a
buck. Sorry. But I'm a bit pissed at Netgear. No wonder I've stayed
away from their products.

:Thanks John,
:
:Finally managed to scrap a few hours together today to have another look at
:it.....4 hours later i've managed to find a limited array of DOS tools (not
:many) but the one that was handy was "ut_remvpart". This allowed me to
:remove all the partitions on the disk and start again....luckily i kept my
ld backups so didn't have to rely on the SC101! At the minute everything
:appears stable!
:
ave
:
:
:
::> Shrapnel wrote:
:>> John,
:>>
:>> Thanks for the reply, i checked the jumper setting and they are set
:>> correctly.
:>>
:>> I haven't tried option one of connecting it to a PC (i'll try shortly!)
:>> and i'll give the Eraser software a shot.
:>>
:>> Thanks for the reply John, i was pulling my hair out!
:>>
:>> Dave
:>>
:>>
:>>
:>>
:>>
:>>
:>> :>>> Shrapnel wrote:
:>>>> Hi all,
:>>>>
:>>>> Just out of curiousity has anyone ever used one of the above.
:>>>>
:>>>> It was working fine until i rebuilt both machines (Win XP SP2) that
:>>>> connect
:>>>> to this device and now it won't see them, when you run the Netgear
:>>>> utility
:>>>> it see's the main unit and its allocated IP address, even says there
:>>>> are 3
:>>>> partitions.....you just can't get to them...grrrrr!. Re-installed
:>>>> Netgear
:>>>> software and updated firmware, no joy.
:>>>>
:>>>> As a last resort i removed that HDD from the unit and put it in an
:>>>> external
:>>>> USB enclosure with the view of wiping it and starting over, however its
:>>>> only
:>>>> seeing a 32gb partition and not the whole 160GB (1 X 100GB and 1 X
:>>>> 60GB).
:>>>>
:>>>> Thought it might have been the jumper settings but have checked and its
:>>>> on
:>>>> CS ( out of desperation i tried other configs and set to slave but no
:>>>> joy).
:>>>>
:>>>> I know the Netgear uses some Zetera (?) file system and not NTFS or
:>>>> FAT32....any idea's welcome as to how i can wipe all the partitions in
:>>>> the
:>>>> drive (tried Symantec Partition Magic and that only see's 32GB too).
:>>>>
:>>>> Thanks
:>>>>
:>>>> Dave
:>>>>
:>>>>
:>>> The SC101 does not, IIRC, use anything close to DOS/Windows formatting
:>>> for its drives so what you see when connecting one to a PC isn't
:>>> predictable. CS jumpering is what the SC101 calls for and that has
:>>> worked for me. Sadly, what has never worked for me is the whole
:>>> NetGear/Zetera software bundle. I finally got to the point, after their
:>>> software completely trashed a computer for the second time to the point
:>>> that a repair install couldn't be applied for the second time, that I
:>>> pulled the 2 X 400gB drives from it and threw the SC101 into the
:>>> junkbox.
:>>>
:>>> Two ideas: 1) have you tried sticking the drive directly into another
:>>> computer to see what it looks like and 2) are you sure that you didn't
:>>> accidentally jumper the "limit to 32gB" pins that some drives have?.
:>>>
:>>> As for the drive format/partition, if you run Eraser on the disk telling
:>>> it to take out everything and wipe to zeros you should have a clean
:>>> palette to paint on again. Or your drive maker may offer a zeroing
:>>> utility.
:>>>
:>>> --
:>>> John McGaw
:>>> [Knoxville, TN, USA]
:>>> http://johnmcgaw.com
:>>
:>>
:>
:> If your experiences with the SC101 parallel mine, don't start thinking
:> that your remaining hair is in any way safe! Overall it has to be one of
:> the most ill-conceived products I've come across during decades working
:> with computers. Mine wound up in the junk box and will probably remain
:> there until/unless I find some use for the neat extruded aluminum case
:> which seems to be the only worthwhile part of it.
:>
:> --
:> John McGaw
:> [Knoxville, TN, USA]
:> http://johnmcgaw.com
:

 

[kony]

I'll top post this in the essence of time and reading, so bear with
me.

I bought one of those SC101's and then upgraded to Vista without
knowing Netgear still had their head up their ass when it came to
drivers. While most other hardware manufacturers were ready for the
rollout, Netgear hadn't done a thing. I reverted back to XP.

IMO, this is a prime example of why to avoid proprietary NAS
with their own special drivers and networking protocols, it
is far far better to get one that is standard, (client) OS
independent.

 

[John McGaw]

IMO, this is a prime example of why to avoid proprietary NAS
with their own special drivers and networking protocols, it
is far far better to get one that is standard, (client) OS
independent.

Amen! Mine will stay in the junk box until I figure out some possible
purpose for the nicely-done extruded aluminum case. So far I've decided
that it is too big for a paperweight but surely there must be something
it is good for...

 

[kony]

Amen! Mine will stay in the junk box until I figure out some possible
purpose for the nicely-done extruded aluminum case. So far I've decided
that it is too big for a paperweight but surely there must be something
it is good for...

I'd wonder if there's some way to hack the firmware to turn
it into a normal NAS.