LS-CHL TFTP boot not working

[mjl123]

   

Hi all,

 

My linkstation has error E06 (after i managed to mess up a mv command) so i've followed the instructions on http://forums.buffalotech.com/buffalo/board/message?board.id=0101&thread.id=9312 and http://forums.buffalotech.com/buffalo/board/message?board.id=0101&message.id=330#M330.

 

I can get the linkstation to connect to the TFTP server and it downloads the two files from it, after which the top light on the linkstation flashes blue repeatedly but doesn't seem to go any further. Doesn't appear to be reading/writing to the disk.

 

Any suggestions?

[Niarf]

   

Hi,

 

Like my old one (which i returned) you got E06 error,which means your hard drive is messing, and if tftp boot don't solve the problem, you have no choice but to return the product.

 

Be careful though, don't mention that you had test the TFTP solution , because it break warranty on the NAS.

 

I got a new one from my seller, but i carefully backup what i copied on it (what a mess... a nas just for backup that needed to be backup...), don't want to break it again...

 

Hope this helps.

[PCPiranha]

Nairf:

 

"Like my old one (which i returned) you got E06 error,which means yourhard drive is messing, and if tftp boot don't solve the problem, youhave no choice but to return the product."

 

This is not true, the TFTP solution is great for units that won't boot.  The six red flashes indicates that the unit cannot find the kernal, which could mean a bad HDD or it could mean that it has justlost its firmware.

 

"Be careful though, don't mention that you had test the TFTP solution , because it break warranty on the NAS."

 

I've never heard of this, but I see from your IP that you are in France.  Europe support may not support the unit anymore but we will.  This is a US forum so please do not post that information here unless you are talking about European support explicitly.  

Message Edited by PCPiranha on 08-17-2009 06:23 PM

[PCPiranha]

mjl123:

 

It pulled the files?  If so there shouldn't be a problem.  Does the NASNAVI find it?  Are all of your firewalls disabled?

[European]

   

I have seen this happening as well. I have a desktop and a laptop both running Windows XP SP3. In case of the desktop, the device would read both images and the led would continue to flash while with the laptop, it would boot correctly and the led would light blue. If I put my ear to the unit, I could here it read the harddisk and I new it was booting up. If it keeps flashing and you don't hear any harddisk activity, I bet you it won't boot.

 

http://forums.buffalotech.com/buffalo/board/message?board.id=0101&message.id=13338#M13338

 

 

[Niarf]

   

PCPiranha

 

 I've never heard of this, but I see from your IP that you are in France.  Europe support may not support the unit anymore but we will.  This is a US forum so please do not post that information here unless you are talking about European support explicitly. 

 

 

So, i can use US support for this kind of problem? do you know how many it can cost for us european to send you back some non-working device?

 

US support  that don't apply the same "warranty policy" as european, what is this kind of measure?

 

Moreover, how can i tell that the support who respond to me was european and not US (cause i used the buffalo.com general site to start a support ticket) .

 

Wow, this kind of difference is really annoying, really too weird to hear that...

 

*last time i purchase some buffalo device...*

[PCPiranha]

If you bought the unit in Europe then you must use European support.  There isn't anything we can do about this.  Sorry Niarf

[mjl123]

   

Thanks for all the replies

 

I finally managed to get the linkstation running again, but it took a bit of doing and i'm not entirely sure whichc part finally fixed it, but i'll list my steps here.

 

I downloaded the TFTP software linked to from here http://forums.buffalotech.com/buffalo/board/message?board.id=0101&thread.id=9312 TFTP Boot Recovery LS-CHL 1.06.exe. The linkstation would retrieve the two files using this, but wouldn't boot (just the blue flashing light and wouldn't show up in NasNavigator. I then used the info at http://buffalo.nas-central.org/index.php/Revive_your_arm9_box_from_scratch to replace these two files with two from the latest firmare (Ver.1.21). The uImage.buffalo file you can just copy from the extracted firmware to the TFTP directory, but the initrd.buffalo needs to be extracted from initrd.img. You can do this by renaming initrd.img to initrd.zip and extracting the initrd.buffalo file. Password was IeY8omJwGlGkIbJm2FH_MV4fLsXE8ieu0gNYwE6Ty (but check the previous url for more passwords if i've got this wrong).

 

Get the linkstation to download these versions of the file by running the TFTP process again. This time the linkstation booted into EM Mode and would show up in NASNavigator, meaning i could use the firmware updater to reflash the firmware. The first time it didn't work properly and got hte red lights again, but trying the tftp boot again it booted ok and I could browse the shares on the drive, but turning it off and on again i'd just get the red lights again and have to boot it using TFTP to boot it in order to access any of the files.

 

I repeated the process of TFTP booting and firmware updating (forcing it using debug mode) several times (getting yellow lights flashing after the second time) then the third time it seemed to stick and it now boots fine by itself and is back to normal working order.

 

Only other thing I had to do was use acp_commander to change the language back to english in the web interface.

Hope this helps someone!