General NAS-Central Forums

Good morning users,

i am here to ask if anyone has found a way to install lacie os (or any kind of os which can work) on a 2big NAS with fresh disks (and no original disk avaiable).
I've tried for weeks to work it out with the guide (and partitions) made for 2big / 2big2 Network but it seems the os wont boot (red light in front), probably because of different pcb/cpu or everything else.
So basically if any of you has a working lacie 2big NAS, would be very appreciate any kind of support. Would love to unbrick this.
Thank you in advance.

With 2Big NAS you mean the successor of the V2?

For one of the newer Lacie boxes (I think D2 Network 2) it's possible to install the firmware on the disk by using some Lacie 'Nas finder' tool. MAybe that's also the case for your box.

That's the exact name of the product: 2Big NAS. It has, from top to bottom, a ON/OFF switch, a LAN, a USB and an eSata connector in the back. Cannot find anything useful in the Lacie website. The Seagate Network discovery cannot find the device since it's not getting any IP address without a proper OS working in the drives.

Yes, that's the new one. AFAIK it's discontinued by now. They were sold in 2 versions, diskless, in which case it can boot from flash, and with disks, in which case the OS was preinstalled on disk. I guess you have the latter one. Unfortunately I don't have partition dumps. And the 2Big2 dumps are not compatible. At least you need another kernel.

I managed to recover the partition scheme from one of the original 2TB disks which was in the Lacie. It had been partition wiped but never used or formatted so i think it's exactly as it was before. I used EaseUs Partition Master and a FULL scan method.
After that I created a disk image with EaseUs Todo Backup and recovered it in two 500GB Hdds, hoping for a normal boot.
Unfortunately it didnt work at all so i'm assuming something's bad in the original partition recovery or in the disk recovery to new hdds.
I attach the partition scheme so you can check it out. I'm afraid something's missing in the first sectors, like 1st partition or mbr or somewhat.

Question: should be MBR or GPT? maybe that's the issue (it's GPT as you can see), isnt it?

Ok, the failed drive (the other 2TB original disk) is still accessible and i'm trying to get the image file of it. It looks like there's actually one more partition compared to the other drive where i recovered them. so lets cross fingers! Maybe it'll be of some use to other users here...

When the 2Big NAS has a partition table like the older 2Big's, not all partitions will be recognizable. This is an MBR partition table. The GPT tables from newer boxes are almost the same, only they have some dummy partitions added to fill the gap between partition 2 and 5, and to replace 1 (which is an extended partition.)
These dummy partition will not be recognized, nor the partition 6, which contains a raw kernel. I'm not sure about partition 5, which contains the swap. The swap is embedded in a raid container. Not sure if that is recognizable.

Ok, so let's resume last step i took, with no luck btw.
I took an image of the lacie disk which was broken in some sector i guess, for safety.
Let's assume im not willing to buy a 2TB hdd before i'm sure it's working and i have some spare 500gb.
I tried to clone all partition except (big) data one to a 500gb, trying to boot it. No luck: red light.
I have no way to clone the disk directly with a partition resize, even from the image file, at least with easeus todo backup.
I put the broken 2TB and the working (but empty) 2TB original lacie inside. It's blinked blue for 4 days. i guess it's trying to rebuild/initialize something but after all this time i assume the damage sectors prevent it. At least no red light.
So now i'm doing a perfect clone with an external machine from the damaged 2TB to the working one.
Ill keep you updated.

Here we go.
The clone worked and i finally made it to boot the NAS, with a single HDD (yeah, you can do it with 2big NAS!).
I had to restore it to factory since i have forgot old admin psw. Now it's upgrading the firmware.
If anyone's gonna need the iso i'll make it for ya but im not sure is gonna work.
I'll try someday later to clone it and resize to a smaller HDD.

Just for info, i made a working image with Todo Backup you can use for moving Seagate Nas OS 4 into lower capacity Hdd. Tried with a 500GB from the 2TB and it boots just fine.

Hello everyone, I would also need to install two 2TB fresh disks on 2BIG NAS, could you help me, deeptheater I sent you a pm
thank you very much

Hello,
I have a running 2bigNAS, with 2x3TB disks.
I suggest you search for Lacie Netwrk Assistant: it should help you in booting in recovery mode and install freshly downloaded firmware on new disks.
Have fune, in case of need, do not hesitate to contact me

Redstorm