A quick step by step guide for sorting out an issue which lots of people seem to have with the Netgear ReadyNAs drives – the main problem being that you turn the ReadyNAs drive on all ready to start sharing files amongst all your networked devices only to find that after installing the RAIDar software that the drives report “Corrupt Root“(pic below) and the set up button is greyed out / inactive. The main problem seems to be the way drives are formatted, believe the ReadyNAS uses it’s own file system and when a drive is inserted, it wants to try and create this file structure on the disks but is unable to if they are already formatted under windows say. This guide is for the ReadyNAS Duo v2(purchased without disks) so not sure wether it’s the same for the previous versions but may help someone….
Step 1 – Ensure any hard drives you want to use are on the compatibility list from Netgear found here
Step 2 – If the drive has been used previously in a windows enviroment then you’ll need to clear any partitions / data from them. Do this by connecting up to a Windows PC and then right click on “My Computer” and select “Manage” then goto “Disk Management” find the correct drive(Careful here!) and right click and “delete volume” That’s it! this is the bit people are not doing and believe is causing the “Corrupt Root” error.
Step 3 – Place hard drive into ReadyNas slot and start it up (Do not put drive into the nas powered up). Open the Raidar application and it will after a few minutes say “Testing Disks” then shortly after that the “Setup” button will become active ready to set your NAS drive 
Hopefully this will prevent some people from returning as faulty or hours of searching the net for the answer.
Good luck all and leave a comment if it helped you out, please also link back to this guide to help others, many thanks !
By Ready NAS January 13, 2013 - 9:49 pm
Hi MK Laptop Repairs
This post got me started on solving the problem, the answer is simpler than connecting the drives back into a Windows PC to delete partitions. Mine came out of a home server that I wanted to decommission, and I didn’t want to reconnect them back up.
The answer: perform a factory reset ont he unit and this will reformat the drives. I had to perform mine twice, once it downloaded a new firmware as part of the process. See this post for help: http://www.readynas.com/kb/faq/boot/how_do_i_use_the_boot_menu
Thanks for your post and pics, it was the first bit of help I found!
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By London Network Support March 21, 2013 - 10:46 am
A quick and simple fix to this problem is the following:
*This will erase all data on the drives*
- Turn off the ReadyNAS
- Use a pin or thin object to hold down the reset button on the back of the ReadyNAS
- While the reset button is depressed turn on the ReadyNAS
- Hold in the reset button until the LCD reads “Boot Menu”
- Release the reset button
- Press the Backup button on the front of the ReadyNAS to cycle through the menu options – Stop when you see “Factory default”
- To select: depress the reset button for half a second – Just click it once.
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