Link Station Quad not accessible

[JasonR]

   

My linkstation was working fine for several months, but now it is not accessible.  I am able to ping it from my PC and it appears to have it's own dedicated IP address.  The power LED is predominately blue, but its flashing red (2 long flashes and then 1 quick flash).  I have not installed any firmware upgrades.  Also, the NASNavigator2 application shows a "?" next to my LS-QL360 icon and is displaying pop-up messages saying the "LS-QL360 has sent information notification - checking disk 1", or one of the other 3 disks.

 

I search the forums and have not seen any remotely similar errors.  If I reset the LS to it's factory settings will my data be lost??

 

Thanks in advance.

 

Jason C.

 

 

[michiganian]

   

Have you rebooted your LinkStation Quad? If you still see same phenomenon, you'd better call Buffalo's customer support. You may need to send the unit to Buffalo for repair.

 

Also, configuration initialization does not delete your data. You just get factory default configuration. However, if you choose "format," you will lose all of your data.

[rinthos]

   

Seen similar behavior w/ Terastations.

 

If the system hasn't already, let it sit for approx 24 hours, and see if it's alive.

 

If not, give it a reboot.  It'll likely be accessible for a short time and the issue might start occuring again.

 

If so, let it sit for approx 24 hours and see what happens.

 

Let us know if you've rebooted it or not (as the previous poster said).

---

 

[JasonR]

   

Thanks for your quick responses.  I rebooted several times.  It is setup to autopower and shuts off and starts up with my computer.  A few minutes after rebooting, the LED will start with the red flashing lights.

 

Are you suggesting that I turn it off for 24 hours?  I can try that and will check on it tomorrow night.  Maybe I will try the reflash tomorrow if I'm still stuck..

 

Thanks again.

 

Jason C.

[rinthos]

   

JasonR,

 

Actually I'm suggesting the contrary, keep it -ON- for 24-hours if not already.

 

So switch it from "auto=power=off" to Manual (i.e. always on) and let it run for 24 hours and see if that resolves it.

 

For some reason some raid disk checks can cause these systems to crawl to where you can't connect to them but they're still up and going.

 

[JasonR]

   

My linkstation has been down for over a week.  I had it on manual for several days before switching to auto to see if I could get any kind of response from it.  It sounds as if I have a hardware failure.  I will give the support folks a call to see what can be done. 

 

Is it a common practice to remove the hard-drives before sending in the unit for repair?  I would hate to send them all my data.

 

Thanks.

[rinthos]

   

Well, hate to suggest this but it's been proven in the past...

Dustrega's FAQ Topic #2 (sticky post at top) might be applicable to you.

 

 But first if you haven't (sounds like you may have) you can try to re-init the box:

 

Initialization - You can easily

bring your LinkStation Quad

back to factory settings with the

following steps.

 

1. Hold down the power button for

8 seconds. The LinkStation will

shut down after about 30 seconds.

 

2. While holding down the

function button, press the power

button. The LinkStation will

power on and the function LED

will begin to flash blue.

 

3. While the function LED is still

flashing, hold the function button

down for six seconds.

 

ALSO:

Dismount - Before disconnecting USB devices from the LinkStation Quad, they should be

dismounted. Hold the function button down until the function LED glows blue, and then turns

off. It’s now safe to unplug your USB devices.

Note: Unplugging USB devices without dismounting them first may corrupt your data!

 

[JasonR]

   

I did the reset and then performed the firmware upgrade to v1.10, however the problem still appears. I still have the same red LED flash sequence and I cannot access the data in my LS. 

 

I'm definitely open to more suggestions, but will probably need to send it off for repair at this point.  How easy is it to recover the data from the LS?  I have an XP Pro machine.  Can I simply hook up the LS drives to my machine and map to the drives or is it a little trickier than that?  Thanks.

 

Jason.

[Dustrega]

You could try booting into Knoppix or a Linux LiveCD. These are suggestions although I can't support them :(

[JasonR]

   

I'm taking the LS over to my brother's house and we can use his linux machine to try and retrieve the data.

 

In the meantime, I bought a 1-tb hd and swapped out disk #1 on the LS.  Now the LED is flashing red (1 long and 3 short), but I can now navigate though all of the links in web-admin.  My LS had the default RAID settings (RAID  5) which should start copying the lost data to my new drive.  Any suggestions on what to do next?  I'm going to RMA it, but need to retrieve the data first.  Thanks.

[jasontitus]

   

Did you ever work this out?  I have the same problem now.  It started with one flashing drive marked as bad, so I spent $80 on a new 1 TB drive, it came up once or twice after that but now is always flashing various lights.  

 

All I want is my data off of this waste of money so I'd love to know if anyone has been able to pull the drives and get the data off of them in linux or some such.

[JoshC]

After you replaced the drive did the restructure of the RAID go through?  What is the various lights blinking and are any of them blinking in a pattern.  Does Nas Navi pick the unit up?

[jasontitus]

   

I can't tell.  The device came up from a reset with the wrong IP address and no admin access.  The admin password is neither what I set it to or the default.  I can only log in as guest.  All I can tell is that it goes for 10+ hours with the notice:

 

 

LS-QL4CDhas error or infomation.

I21: Checking Disk 1...

2010/02/28 15:05:28

 

I have reset it again with the standard instructions (off, then on with Function key, then 6 seconds with Function down) and it just goes back to blue and amber lights evenly flashing while the top drive light flashes forever.

 

How do I get back to a default password?

[jasontitus]

   

Anyone?  I have a TB or so of important data that I can't get to and I am worried that replacing the bad drive may have hosed it all completely.  Anyone know how to get the data off in some safe way?  I'd be fine hooking it all up to a PC running linux with a SATA card or something.  I just can't deal with losing this data and the Linkstation seems to never come fully back to life after a reboot (web interface responds, old and default passwords down't work, and after blue lights flash for hours it eventually becomes non-responsive).

 

Any help?