Author Topic: LS-WVL gets in a boot loop after every update  (Read 1394 times)

Rinkel80

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LS-WVL gets in a boot loop after every update
« on: January 17, 2020, 10:51:27 PM »
I have an old LS-WVL without hard drives. Yesterday I decided that I want to use this device as a central backup location for our computers. I bought one WD RED 4TB.

I installed the disk and the NAS navigator found the device. In VirtualBox, I started the 1.74 updates. The updater is 32bit and doesn't work under OSX Catalina.  Here I made a big mistake. Because I wasn't really patience I power cycle the machine after 10 minutes. Later I read that I should wait longer. The machine is now in a boot loop. If you turn it on you have a blinking blue led and after around 30 seconds the machine power cycles itself.  In this state, I can't TFTP to it. But I did the second solution. Install the boot loader without TFTP.

I wiped the WD red. Install a primary 512 MB EXT3 partition and copy the two buffalo files from the  TFTP 1.41 zip file. I installed the hard drive in the NAS and I get a normal boot. A blue led and the machine can be found on the network. The update software sees the NAS and I can update the machine. It makes the partitions. It copies the firmware files. Sounds good. But when the updater software says it's rebooting the NAS is back in its boot loop. Blinking blue led. Every 30 seconds a power cycle.

I followed the steps on https://herzig-net.de/?page=unbrick_ls-wxl to do the updates in two parts. Boot loop. I found an old 1.60 update ZIP and run that. Boot loop.

Every time I have a boot loop I have to remove the hard drive from the NAS. Wipe it. Install a new EXT3 partition and install the boot files again. I lost track of how many times I have done this.


1. Is the boot NAND corrupt?
2. Do I maybe need two hard drives to do the update?
3. Did I miss another detail?
4. I have tried TFTP. But the software doesn’t see the NAS. I even used my wife’s windows laptop to be sure the problem doesn’t lay in the VirtualBox.

I really at the moment to throw everything in the trash and buy a machine from the competition. But I really want to give this machine a change.

1000001101000

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Re: LS-WVL gets in a boot loop after every update
« Reply #1 on: January 18, 2020, 10:43:37 AM »
Sounds like you're close to getting it working. I have a few notes:

1. All TFTP does is get you into EM mode so that it can be recognized by lsupdater, if you are getting that far already via other means you do not need TFTP
2. The NAND is also only used for recovery (not all LS-WVL even have it). It won't affect booting after an install even if it is broken.
3. The 2-bay devices tend to behave like this when trying with 1 drive, I'd recommend trying again with two drives.

If you're interested you could also install Debian Linux rather than the stock firmware. It would work just fine with 1 drive if that is important to you. Installer files and instructions can be found at :
https://github.com/1000001101000/Debian_on_Buffalo

Rinkel80

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Re: LS-WVL gets in a boot loop after every update
« Reply #2 on: January 19, 2020, 11:58:25 AM »
The machine is running. I tracked down the old hard drive.  I asked the owner of the disk if he still had the disk. He has. So this evening I drove to his place to fetch the disk. Lucky me he didn't wipe it.

So I booted the machine without any problems from bay two. I installed the WD in bay one. Formatted and let the nas boot alone. I now get messages that disk 2 is missing. But I don't care. The Buffalo will be a backup machine. So if it crashes then that's not a problem. I should make a image of the old bootdisk. So when I have a problem I can just put the image back on the disk.