Iomega NAS 'unlocking' question

[Robert Lyall]

Hi

Just to get a couple of things out of the way:

1. I'm new to FreeBSD. Please be gentle with me.
2. I'm not sure this is the right list - I'll go elsewhere if you suggest a more appropriate list.

Anyway, to business: I've got an old Iomega NAS 410u device. It's a rack-mount i386 1u file server with 4 disks Raid-0. It runs freeBSD but famously (on Iomega forums anyway) is pretty much locked down. All access is by web interface. If there's a problem Iomega (for a price) sends you out a new disk 1 with a fresh OS. 

I've sawn a hole(!) in the case to access usb ports, key/mouse connections and VGA. With a keyboard and monitor connected the device goes through startup and fails with a lot of 'read-only file system's and 'enter full pathname of shell'. I can't enter anything as it does not allow any keyboard input after the bios is finished loading. I'd like to 'unlock' this device and make it useful again. Fair enough I hear you say; get the FreeBSD install cds and off you go. Problem is I also want the data that remains on the disks, so I don't want to 'disturb' the filesystem. When the device started to fail, it at least managed to startup but with messages about services (afp, Samba, and Apache) failing except nfs and ftp. Anyway it doesn't even do that now. 

What I want to know for starters is has anyone had experience of this kind of thing before? Or where do I find (I've put the disk1 on a FreeNAS server so it's accessible) the config files Iomega would have altered to forbid keyboard and therefore shell access to the machine?

Thanks in advance for your help

Rob Lyall