Ok. this is how far I have gotten
Tried new drives - not working
tried old drives (after formatting in windows) - not working
EM boot - working
firmware updating - not working (cannot format drives???)
So, I can boot EM, load from TFTP, nas navigator can see it, but no web interface, so cannot format the drives!
So the catch seems to be, the firmware needs to save stuff to the drives, but the drives are not formatted!!!
The firmware cannot format the drives (ACP_STATE_FAILURE)
After booting from TFTP - EMERGENCY MODE - NO ARRAY INFO
so, is there any way to prepare the new drives to work with this or am I dumping it???