Netgear Stora Hack

[Concordia Zentner]

AFTERApril 1st (I didn't know about the april 1 cut off at the time) I found this link on a thread by @robyb I attempted to use this link and my strora did not respond as it should have. (fast blinking blue lite forever).

I then tried to do a factory reset following the user manual that I downloaded. At that point I discover that I need to re-register my stora but I don't remember that name I gave it. I then reached out to @DexterJB who was able to provide my stora and user name. Until that point I was still able to access the afore mentioned link and mystora.com. Saddly once I had the needed information about my stora and attempted to do the registration process, the above link and mystora.com have both gone dead. When I try to connect to my stora via /?local=1 The connection fails. If I try to use the stora install software and reset the stora that way, the software does find my stora and allow me to sellect its IP but still I am never able to connect after this and never given the opportunity to enter my product ID or try to connect.

YOU SIR! @mcrs969 are a BONAFIDE hero and a credit to the human race! The first link you gave, I had seen already but it has a broken link listed inside it. The SECOND link you list is 2 pages of miracle. I have a PC running right now with ubuntu OS booting from a thumb drive. One of my stora drives is installed in this machine and copying files out as we speak. Not just photos and music, there are important documents I have stored here becuase I was being "responsible" and putting them on a backed up NAS. HA! I learned a VERY valuable lesson about what NAS hardware I am willing to use in the future. I will be building them out of PC's with no special sauce that goes EOL and leaves you up a creek.

You should be able to access the GUI locally using the IP address of the Stora. Have you tried using the resource CD on setting up your Stora? if you need to set it up again, it will need internet connection. However, Stora mystora.com has been taken down last April 01, 2020.

Seems a waste, as it is fully functional and I am sure there must be some way of reflashing it with some generic software like FreeNAS to get it to work standalone. I have no interest of the MyStora application anyway, just want to use it as backup on my own Wifi network for local backup and storage.

Hi,

what you are saying is ridiculous: my device works perfectly and because it needs an hard reset it becomes a brick only because Netgear decides to close the website.

There would be legal action!

So I dug out my old iPad, charged the battery, booted it up and....Hey presto! The app still works. I now have limited access to my Stora using my old iPad. I can see all the content but can't do anything much with it. Haven't figured out how to move stuff to my new chosen storage platform which is a Synology NAS but at least I can see the files and open them.

Just come back to this same problem after a period of illness and a house move - not only has my NetGear Stora denied access except for read-only music files via SONOS, but my ReadyNas NV+ gone the same way. Both bits of hardware are working file - it just seems to be the lack of a driver and some management software. The fact that NetGear have just walked away from these NAS product stinks, and I won't be buying anything else from them - not even switches even though they got those right!

So now I have a perfectly functional NAS that has been EOL'd with little thought or concern about what customers will do with their files. It's almost like they are being paid to help shunt people to cloud services for reliability because I am reluctant to have to keep purchasing new NAS hardware if they are going to keep retiring stuff that works well. And with Fry's being closed I can't really go kick the tires of new NAS options and have to go with Amazon reviews which are, and this is charitable, suspect by nature.

I realised the other day that there is absolutely no way to get flash working any more since Microsoft has time-bombed usage. None of the work-arounds I googled worked. I spent a whole day on this issue attempting to avoid dumping the two unusued storas.

Yes I'm aware you can attempt to flash the firmware with different firmware, but it is difficult and requires tools that most poeple won't have, and electronics knowledge that most people also won't have. Then the final system is much less powerful than the original software included anyway.

3. Search for and download an old version of Adobe Flash Player (I found an old version of Version 10 - it's not too hard. *DO THIS ON YOUR VIRTUAL MACHINE YOU INSTALLED WINDOWS 7 OR EARLIER ON - SO THAT IF YOU DOWNLOAD A VIRUS OR SOMETHING YOU CAN SIMPLY START AGAIN* - Repeat - do not download any of the obsolete unsupported software like Flash Player on your every-day pc from a site you don't know and that isn't secure. - INSTALL THE FLASH PLAYER ON YOUR VIRTUAL MACHINE (windows 7 or whatever you installed)

4. On your normal PC, GO TO YOUR ROUTER - look up your LAN and find the IP address of your stora. *TOP TIP: Find the MAC address on the back of your stora and set your router to assign a static IP to the MAC address of your STORA to ensure you know what the IP address is.

5. On the vritual PC, Start the included internet explorer and navigate to your STORA IP address and then you'll be met with the familiar interface - log in and you're all good to set it back up in the Preferences section!

To access and use your stora, do so from your every-day PC by using Windows Explorer. You need to enable SMB1.0 (google search how to do this, it's easy) and then you should be able to find it in your network devices section. Otherwise type "RUN" into your cortana search (use the run command) and then type \\x.x.x.x (where x.x.x.x is the IP your stora) and then enter the credentials for your stora (you can set them up in the Preferences section of the web interface on your virtual machine) and then map the network drive and you're good to go.

Opening the unit proved to be a bit of a puzzle at first, with the front panel sliding up and off. But once inside, you can see two hard drive bays that fit 3.5-inch SATA drives snugly. The Stora already comes with a 1TB hard drive, but installing and removing additional ones was as simple as sliding them in and out of the bays with no screws involved.

Set-up of the Stora is done using the supplied CD and involves registering your box on the internet. The packaged software offers a plethora of functions such as restricting access via user accounts, automated backups and media server functionality which were pretty easy to use. Logging into the Stora through the web interface also allows you to create photo albums and slideshows with pictures and videos on the device or upload them to Facebook.

Additionally, Netgear offers a "premium subscription" service allowing access to the NAS from anywhere through a web interface. Impressively, we were able to log into the storage unit and access its files from home while it was connected to the office LAN, despite being behind a firewall. Similarly, you can view your pictures through Cooliris, a neat 3D image browser, or upload your photos to Flickr. These premium functions are nice and they come at the very reasonable cost of US$19.99 annually.

An unfortunate downside to all these functions is the need for an internet connection to access them, even if the Stora is connected to your local network. Changing the settings of the Stora annoyingly involves going through the internet to log into the Stora on your own network. Once set-up though, you won't need to configure the settings often. You can also access the storage space directly via Windows Explorer by using its IP address and a log-in, though you can only transfer files on and off it this way.

As previously mentioned, the Stora can act as a media server for a home network. It's DLNA compliant so it can stream media to game consoles, phones and other media devices. Accessing the Stora through a browser also allows you to stream videos using an in-built flash player or view images in a slideshow.

Writing data to the Stora through a LAN is a breeze, maintaining a transfer rate of 19MB/s to a single hard disk across a gigabit Ethernet connection. Conversely, the read speed hovered around 29MB/s. Accessing the unit through the internet was obviously slower, but load times were reasonable with log-in taking the longest time.

The Stora can also extend its storage space through USB, whether it be a hard drive or a flash device, and these devices appear as a folder within the unit's file directory. However, we did find that the Stora could not identify one of our USB flash sticks.

Despite this shortcoming, the Netgear Stora fairs well as a storage and media server for the home. It has lots of bells and whistles without too much hassle or a hefty price tag, a good choice for those who want a simple and effective storage solution.

Effective September 30, 2019, Stora is no longer available for sale through any NETGEAR authorized resellers.

Effective April 1, 2020, Stora cloud service, available at , will end. This means that you will no longer be able to access data on your Stora device after April 1, 2020.

Because of these changes, we advise you to make a full backup of the data on your Stora device immediately, and to regularly update the backup until you migrate to a new storage platform.

We thank you for your business. We invite you to visit our website at to learn about our other storage products.

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