Carlos_m1

I have a (actually two) real winners for you:

I was handed a Maxtor MaxAttach NAS 4100 with 2 80 GB Hdd's.
(Hdd's and Cables are "Known" to be good).

It Will boot and operate when I use Knoppix (as it's a TSR), So I know the problem is not the motherboard (for the most part anyway). It is not recognised by Max Neighborhood running on My Machine My System (Not That I have put forth a lot of effort since It Doesn't boot).

However, no matter what I do - it won't boot from the HDD. (Tried 5 Known to be good drives)

So I can't install an OS (I started to install XP, It does the format, and copies files ok, but when it reboots to install them - Nada - nothing - zippo...)

After trying every option I could think of in the BIOS Still nothing (Yes, I did try changing the boot order). I did get and read the manuals.

During this, I noticed what seems to be an "add-on" Bios called "NAS 4 Series Bios" - I think this is the problem, since it tries SCSI First, and the unit as currently configured does not have SCSI. There are options for changing this (at least temporaraly) to other Boot devices, However that doesnt work either.

PXE-E53: No boot filename received.

Any Ideas???

=======

The Second one is the same problem with (Two) Maxtor MaxAttach NAS 4000's and they don't have kb/vid options, Max Neighborhood cant find them (probably cuz they ain't booting - Thinking it is the same solution as for the First part).

Looking for any and all Ideas....

ris4mis

Well, you can do a lot with what you have . . both original intent and other stuff.

The MaxAttach boxes have I believe extended bios which overide what you think would happen.
I attached a SCSI CD to the interface and was able to boot from CD. Installed Windows Server 2K, etc. When rebooting to come up "normally" the system kept going weird and couldn't find the newly installed OS.
Same results when I used a SCSI drive, installed OS on it and set that as the boot priority.

I think you could turn off the extended bios in set-up and then do what you want. I dont think you can get the 4 IDE drives to be mirrored or raided.
Get the motherboard information from the M/B site to do this. You can turn the box into a much less capable server. IT's strength would be to be a great NAS with server capabilities not the other way around.

You could replace the motherboard with another and make a 1U server or desktop machine, however, you need to make sure the memory and CPU cooling will fit inside the case.

The best option:

Find or get from Maxtor (Seagate) the MaxRescue DVD's.

Using these will allow you to reimage the drives in the system for the special OS that matches the bios.

I have a Maxtor Maxattach 4300 (400G, 384M) that is stickered (COA) for Windows 2000 Svr. W/SAK 1-2 CPU that came without drives. If the bios can recognize larger drives I hope to put in 4x250G or 4x300G instead of the 4x80G I have in there now.

THe SAK is Microsoft's Server Appliance Kit which has some great features but you have to be careful if you get it going as you can only update to a certain point and there are a couple of tech notes online at the manufacturer to pay attention to.

You can get a lot more information by going to the maxtor site (seagate) and finding the maxattach support and reading the FAQ's.

Regards . .

Carlos_m1

Thanks,

I'm open to ALL possibilities with these units. Even been thinking of bringing one home as a media server.

I've got a 4100 and 4000 sitting on my desk at the moment.

Used Free NAS to get two units running so everybody is happy (I'll definatly see about getting the MaxRescue DVD's - Wish Maxtor told me about them when I was talking to them.)

(I have a bunch of these units to mess around with as time allows Was playing with the idea of using one of the 4100's as a bolt under the desk/hidden/desktop unit)

I wrote/compiled:
http://pixie-ss.sourceforge.net/

Something you may want to mess with if you have some time and an Extra NAS - (Brass tacks on it is I'll take Maxtors software over mine - but if you got nothing and some time - it might be worth a look)

I'm not worried about RAID or Mirror - but that would be super fantastic if I could work that out.

I'm going to stay away from the SAK as much as possiblle -
(Some reason I get heartburn when considering MS)

I don't expect that you will have any problems upgrading to the 250 Gb drives - as they are newer units, and I've seen them with 4-160GB (7200rpm) drives I figure If they handle 4-160's they'll handle even larger.

If you run anything above the 5400rpm's keep an eye on the cooling, as the 7200's run a little warmer than the 5400's, and the 10K Rpm's usually require that you take the lid off or there could be heat related nightmares.

Regards

ris4mis

thanks for the link - i'll follow up soon.

the thing interesting about maxtors was software raid and persistant storage . . (snapshots) . . sort of pre-cursor to symantec's live state recovery.

maxtor themsselves (don't quote me) would probably pick linux something over the frozen in time microsoft win2K w/ SAK based frozen in time can't even apply SP3 software. and they don't offer any paid support for their stuff anymore and everything maxattach is OUT of warrenty.

what I was originally interested in was firing up a nas box as a domain controller, log on server, remote access, nas box for home for any one of the 7 people here to get shared stuff like photo's music, etc. and a place to store homework regardless of the PC, laptop, etc. used to create it in the first place. often computers are trashed because of all kind of downloads.

oops, liscensing on the ms/maxtor software says you can only use it for nas.

suse and samba i guess.

I also have a maxattach 6000 with no drives. It is about 3U and has a 4 channel scsi card. the drive backplane has connectors for 3 sets of 4 drives (12 total). When i tried to fit in any scsi drives - don't fit. found out the cage is set up for ide drives in enclosure that have SCA to IDE converters.

So, with a bunch of $4.95 SCA to IDE adapters, popsicle stick or something shims, and a bunch of - say - 250G IDE drives - voila - 3 Terrabyte NAS.
(The MaxRescue DVD's would work fine - I think) or better yet - open source stuff. Think I'll put it up on ebay or something - gotta slim down on "resources" for the future to get capital for the present. can only have so much fun : ) maybe i woudl use it at work to store system and server images . off the real network and away from the big bad internet with such security flawed machines.

Carlos_m1

Your welcome for the link, If it's something you want to get involved with I can put you on as a developer. (Don't know if your interested, have the time for it, and all that - But if and when... let me know).

I think anyone who is computer savy is starting to look closer at the Linux family. Some of Maxtors stuff looks a lot like BSD... - But I can't recall who said that.... ;-)

Although Maxattach is out of warranty, if you get the right guy on the phone there is still help available.

Man, you are bringing a lot of project list stuff to mind.

One of the ideas I was toying with (For down the road a bit):

There are/were businesses operating all of their terminals from one server.
The server would have no (real) way of knowing if the connection was via intranet, internet, LAN, WAN etc.. All the server knows is that there is a "Terminal" hooked to it.

Therefore, it must be possible for multiple users to access the same server at the same time (one of the concepts behind the web, and the Server class OS's). With that in mind, why not make the accessing computer a virtual "dumb terminal" while sharing its unused CPU resources? (The sharing of CPU resourses is being done by a few "research" facilities, and able to act like a LAN based Beowulf server). The only bottelneck would be the transfer rates, and if you can run Wireless that shouldn't be much of a problem.

Access would be as controlable as any server.
(Give limited FTP/PPP access for files Upload/download - could likely have bandwidth restrictions if ness. Designate Shared and not shared - placing the safeguarded files behind a firewall. And http access for homework assignments - etc.)

Get the idea???

--
Interesting idea with the 6000, If your gonna sell it get it up for Turkey day. If it's not gone within a few days after that pull it until after 1/07 (People are looking for X-mass stuff and not interested in anything that's not a REAL deal). Sure cash is king, but if you can hold off for a lil while and get more...

There are also "Generic Drives" out there, about 1/2 of name brand stuff - don't know how good it is, but id your getting rid of it push the capacity - not the "brand"

I try to do all my hunting from Turkey day to X-mass, but don't buy until after X-mass (The closer to 12/31 the better the deals get due to inventory taxes on everything in stock on 1/1, as well as it's now another Year older).

jasonpalmer

Was anyone able to locate a MaxRescue DVD for the MaxAttach NAS devices? I would gladly pay for shipping and your time to copy it.

If so, a copy would be much appreciated. Seagate/Maxtor claim to have zero parts or repair available for the MaxAttach line except for some phone support.

Thank you,

Jason Palmer
direct email: jason at palmer dot net

Carlos_m1

If it is for the NAS 4100,
Contact Maxtor (now Seagate) Tech support The last I heard they still had a few laying around. So you may be in luck.
(It's a 2 Disk set - Same Disk for diferent M/Bs)

If it's for the 4000 your Basicly SOL.
No Servicable parts etc. You can however use Free NAS and set it up that way.

gnetwerker

I have a dozen or so Maxattach 4100/4300s, and three 6000s (and a few 4000s in a pile in the corner). I have the restore disks for the 4[13]00s and the 6000, and will copy them -- you can email me at "g * net * wer * ker -AT- g*mail -DOT- com" with the obvious stuff removed.

I have my own question, however -- I have never been able to make non-Maxtor drives work with the IDE-to-SCA adapters on the Maxattach 6000. There are no components on the adapters (which have p/n 301328303 on them), so I assume that some of the translation is in the backplane. I am having a hard time finding Maxtor drives in the needed size (160gb), so any ideas here would be helpful.

gnetwerker

For the purposes of searchability, I should amend the above to clearly state that I have restore ("MaxRescue") disks for the Maxattach 4100 and Maxattach 4300.

Anyone with info about Maxattach NAS6000 / Maxattach 6000, I would be appreciative.

gnetwerker

I've had several questions about the MaxAttach systems, so as a FAQ I will post part of my reply here for people:

I think the MaxAttach 4100/4300 is probably worth your time. The MaxAttach 4000 is much more problematic. This note is about the 4100/4300 series.

I have about a dozen Maxattach units that I think work well as simple webservers as well as NAS units. They have a pretty standard PC motherboard (a SuperMicro 370SSR) in a 1U chassis, so they are as useful or not as any 500Mhz - 1GHz server out there, which is to say, a couple of generations out of date but basically sound. They have an onboard SCSI controller and dual IDE controllers, and of course space and wiring for four 1" thick 5.25" IDE drives. The drives have no apparent size limitation. The 4100 and 4300 are identical except the 4300 has a faster P-III chip and more memory. I believe the 4100 has a 500 MHz Celeron and the 4300 has an 866MHz P-III, but don't quote me on it. They both have one 5V 32-bit PCI slot with a right-angle thingy to make it work in 1U. They are like a standard 1U PC server except the hole for the mouse is covered up -- this is the only thing (other than the software load) that makes it an "appliance".

You have two basic options in terms of getting a MaxAttach 4100/4300 running: either the original Maxtor MaxAttach software load, or a new OS. There are (of course) advantages and disadvantages to each.

The original software load is distributed on two DVDs (of which you only use one, it's just hard to figure out which one an individual system needs). It is a version of Windows 2000 with the "Server Appliance Kit" applied to it. The advantage of this is that it is a pretty easy restore once you have the disks -- it loads entirely over the network. In theory (once your disks are installed), you don't even need to open up the box. This installs the NAS load with the web-based GUI controlling it, which is fairly easy to use. The disadvantage of this course of action is that you cannot freely install all of the Windows updates, as some of them break the GUI, or parts of it. I have installed many of them, but one has to know Windows server fairly well, and in the end you don't have a box that I would be comfortable putting on a *public* network. If it is on a private network not exposed to hostile attacks, then it will work just fine.

The other direction is to install a new OS, and you can install either a newer Windows OS or a Linux-based system. I've done both. It is pretty trivial to install regular Windows 2000 on the system -- the only trick is that you can't use a mouse, since the chassis doesn't provide a hole for one. You can use a USB mouse, however, once you get the drivers installed. But what I do is get the basic OS installed and then interact with it over Terminal Services. You can plug in a CD-ROM drive in either of two ways: a) if you have a SCSI CD-ROM, you can plug it into the SCSI port, either on the back panel or directly on the motherboard; or b) if you have an IDE CD-ROM, you can unplug the secondary slave IDE drive and put the CD-ROM on there. Plug in a monitor and keyboard and off you go. You will probably need to dink with the BIOS settings to get it to boot the CD-ROM, but again this is pretty simple. In this way you get a full Windows 2000 or Windows 2003 load, with all the latest patches, etc. The disadvantage is that you don't have the nice web-based GUI, and need to use Term Services to manage your system. With some advance planning, you can run RAID-5 across partitions on the four disks, with a RAID-1 C: drive on two, and a backup copy mirrored on the other two. Setup an (e.g.) 20Gb partition on each of the four disks, and another partition with the remaining space, and use the 20Gb for the two mirrored drives, and the four large partitions for the RAID-5 drive. I use SelfImage to copy the C: drive around onto the mirrored partitions.

If you know Linux, there is another route you can go, which is to install the CentOS+BlueQuartz distro on the box. This is an appliance-style web hosting system with a pretty nice GUI interface based on the original (Sun) Cobalt RaQ system GUI. It supports an arbitrary number of virtual hosts running LAMPS (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP, Sendmail), as well as FTP, etc. For this load you need to pull the primary drive and stick it in a spare PC. There is a CD ISO are www.nuonce.net (and elsewhere) for the CentOS+BQ load (another place to get advice on it is www.osoffice.co.uk, they sell a loader for it onto the original RaQ hardware called StrongBolt -- look for their forum section). Anyway, load the CD into the PC and boot it and it will install CentOS+BQ on your drive. Then put the drive in the system and off you go. Of course, getting RAID set up requires a certain amount of hacking and knowledge of Linux. I believe that you can put two disks into the "donor" PC and it will set up RAID-1 mirroring automatically, but I don't think you can get RAID-5 that way. Obviously the advantage and disadvantage of this is that you need to know Linux to get it in any way customized.

Anway, as Mark Twain once said: Sorry this letter was so long, I didn't have time to write a shorter one. Good luck with your MaxAttach.

gnetwerker

As an additional note: if anyone has the original Maxtor Reflect-It software that came with these, I'd like to see it. Someone is selling it on eBay for $25, but it's not worth it to me for 8-year-old software. See my email address encoded above.

Killernoob

Hi gnetwerker i was wondering if i could talk to you about getting isos of the MaxRescue DVDs for the 4000/4100s

systemcommander

here's the download link

ftp://ftp.seagate.com/outgoing/stxsu...000/MaxRescue/

regards

Killernoob

Thanks alot for that link i had to download them 2 times i tryed to just look at the disk with a V-cdrom and it wouldent read it so i thought it was corrupt then i thought to just try burning them and that worked just fine but that just was odd for a image of a disk to not read.

but thanks

Tojin23

Has anyboby reach to get FREENAS on a MAXATTACH 3000/4000?

I tried it, but the bootsektor seems to be wrong,its not booting from the FREENAS drive.

WBR Tim

Killernoob

Ya im running freenas right now,the software from maxtor just seemed to install and then freeze so i gave up and used free nas. just make sure your using a stable version. It should work fine

Tojin23

I tried to install the FREEBSD on the drive with a PC.
On PC the system booted without problems,but when ic put the drive into the MAXATTACH 3000 nothing happens,also on the serial Console port there was output.

How did you get the system on the MAXATTACH 3000?
I not really an expert with these OS. Can you please explain it for a FREEBSD DUMMY.

Which version of FREEBSD do you have on your MAXATACH?

dirtvoyles

Thank you so very much for the MaxNeighborhood link. I had given up hope last night and just wanted to give it one last go when I stumbled in here.

Can anyone offer advice on how to install another OS on the 4000? I don't see a video port, so I'm kind of lost. I'm not a complete moron, but apparently I can't figure this concept out.

Tojin23

I can make you a diskimage of my Maxattach 4000 OS.
It´s the lastest one form Intel (equal with maxtor)
Please mail if you want one.

maninblack_30

I have just updated the firmware in my 4100 to the Supermicro 370ssr one to do away with the strange raid bios, and then installed windows home server, it makes a great little home server! (keep in mind you need 512Mb ram to complete the installation, but it runs fine on 384Mb