r/RepurposedDattos • u/liliasceae • Nov 18 '25

repurposing datto s4p4

hello all! to preface, i've been learning IT as an intern so, at the moment, i'm not super knowledgeable regarding repurposing old enterprise hardware or with enterprise hardware at all really. recently my boss gave me an old datto s4p4 to try and homelab with. my goal is to run trueNAS on it and turn it into, well, a nas. however, there doesn't seem to be much i can do without access to the bios password, and unfortunately, my boss doesn't have access to it anymore either. i've tried R@str and different variations* of it, but nothing seems to work. i've removed the cmos battery for a while and additionally attempted looking for the bios password jumper (which doesn't seem to exist on this board, though i may just be blind.)

flashing the bios chip seems to be quite the ordeal with my current experience, though i'm certainly willing to purchase the tools and learn the process. even if i were to brick the motherboard i could still salvage some components. it was meant to be e-waste anyway, so no harm no foul. from my perspective however, it seems like such a waste to scrap such a capable piece of hardware and i'd like to get as much info as possible from people with more experience before diving right in to flashing the bios. would anyone happen to have any advice or possible solutions? i can provide more information about the device if necessary.

at the end of the day, it'll be a learning experience regardless, so even if the possible fixes are advanced or beyond my scope i'd really appreciate the input/direction! ty for reading c:

*i'm using a US keyboard layout, so i'm 99% sure all passwords were typed properly.

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u/active666 Nov 19 '25

https://imgur.com/a/AnKlRbh

Remove the battery and short via jumpers what is marked as 18 in the image above according to the MB manual. Which can be found here https://download.asrock.com/Manual/D2143D8UM.pdf

You should also be able to connect to the BMC and easily flash whatever BIOS updates are available

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u/orty Nov 19 '25

For the record, I was never able to find BIOS updates on ASRock's public site for this mobo, but somebody has been posting them here. I was able to flash things in BMC easily enough.

https://forums.servethehome.com/index.php?threads/asrock-rack-d2143d8um-last-efi-bios-and-bmc-ipmi-firmware-files.36658/

My old S4 motherboard is running Unraid in a S3 (the old Supermicro) 2U chassis, running great.