WS-QV4.0TL/R HElp with W2008 recovery

[oxley]

Hello all, I've got an unused WS-QV4.0TL but it seems clean. When started it says ntldr missing and disks are probably erased. Is there any recovery process I can follow to get a W2008 on it and get that back to work ? It has 4 disks and hw seems OK.
Thank you.

[1000001101000]

Another poster asked the same thing recently:
http://forums.buffalotech.com/index.php?topic=26062.msg91820#msg91820

I don't think what they ended up doing.

In theory Buffalo support can provide you with installation media but Windows 2008 is EOL and the device is likely out of warranty so I don't know if they will or not.

I've got mine running Debian and have found that it works pretty well. Since it's running an Intel CPU/chipset with a fairly normal BIOS/etc you can set it up like a normal pc/server.

Near the top of my list is writing up a guide with some tips for setting up the raid arrays and boot loader to allow for hot swapping/etc like buffalo's firmware.

[oxley]

Thank you. that means I can install even some windows desktop or any other Linux distro on it. We only need that as a storage disk, no need any functions like AD etc. Is that correct ?
Do you have any special tools on it to handle services ?

Found http://newsandguides.com/how-to-download-buffalo-tftp-boot-image-recovery-software/
but cannot access the ftp now.. so not sure what's there.

[1000001101000]

I've never installed windows on one so I don't know if you'd run into any driver or other issues but I imagine you could get it to work. you wouldn't have any of buffalo's software which at the very least means the lcd screen wouldn't work and there are probably limitations with hot swapping drives etc. I believe modern windows has software raid capabilities but I don't know any details, it might be worth a try.

I know from experience a Debian install works pretty well on these devices. You can find all sorts of resources on the web to help setup raid array and services like samba etc. I'm planning to write a short guide to setting up the raid at install time but it's all pretty standard stuff. The only really custom piece I'm working on is enabling drive bays that aren't initialized at boot

All the TFTP recovery stuff you've read about is for non-intel linux-based firmware and doesn't apply to this device.

If this were a TS-QVL (the non-windows version of the device) you could install Buffalo's linux based firmware using these guides:
https://buffalonas.miraheze.org/wiki/Create_Recovery_Disk_for_Intel-based_Terastation
https://buffalonas.miraheze.org/wiki/Enable_Debug_mode

I don't know if that would work on a WS-QVL or not and do not know if buffalo would condone doing so.