I ran through this on a Debian Buster system and it worked for my LS-QL. It should work from any Linux live environment.
One note is that the initrd.img has to be unzipped but uImage.buffalo does not need to be.
root@localhost:~/scratch# unzip lsql-111.zip
Archive: lsql-111.zip
creating: lsql-111/
inflating: lsql-111/hddrootfs.img
inflating: lsql-111/initrd.img
inflating: lsql-111/linkstation_version.txt
inflating: lsql-111/LSUpdater.exe
inflating: lsql-111/LSUpdater.ini
inflating: lsql-111/u-boot.buffalo.updated
inflating: lsql-111/uImage.buffalo
root@localhost:~/scratch# cp lsql-111/uImage.buffalo .
root@localhost:~/scratch# unzip lsql-111/initrd.img
Archive: lsql-111/initrd.img
[lsql-111/initrd.img] initrd.buffalo password:
inflating: initrd.buffalo
root@localhost:~/scratch# ls
initrd.buffalo lsql-111 lsql-111.zip uImage.buffalo
root@localhost:~/scratch# dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdx bs=1M count=1024
1024+0 records in
1024+0 records out
1073741824 bytes (1.1 GB, 1.0 GiB) copied, 14.0496 s, 76.4 MB/s
root@localhost:~/scratch# fdisk /dev/sdx
Welcome to fdisk (util-linux 2.33.1).
Changes will remain in memory only, until you decide to write them.
Be careful before using the write command.
Device does not contain a recognized partition table.
Created a new DOS disklabel with disk identifier 0x8f909987.
Command (m for help): n
Partition type
p primary (0 primary, 0 extended, 4 free)
e extended (container for logical partitions)
Select (default p): p
Partition number (1-4, default 1): 1
First sector (2048-976773167, default 2048): 2048
Last sector, +/-sectors or +/-size{K,M,G,T,P} (2048-976773167, default 976773167): +512M
Created a new partition 1 of type 'Linux' and of size 512 MiB.
Command (m for help): p
Disk /dev/sdx: 465.8 GiB, 500107862016 bytes, 976773168 sectors
Disk model: Hitachi HDS72105
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: dos
Disk identifier: 0x8f909987
Device Boot Start End Sectors Size Id Type
/dev/sdx1 2048 1050623 1048576 512M 83 Linux
Command (m for help): w
The partition table has been altered.
Calling ioctl() to re-read partition table.
Syncing disks.
root@localhost:~/scratch# mkfs.ext3 -I 128 /dev/sdx1
mke2fs 1.44.5 (15-Dec-2018)
Creating filesystem with 131072 4k blocks and 32768 inodes
Filesystem UUID: b33a2d54-a2bd-482a-a1c3-5b712a683b15
Superblock backups stored on blocks:
32768, 98304
Allocating group tables: done
Writing inode tables: done
Creating journal (4096 blocks): done
Writing superblocks and filesystem accounting information: done
root@localhost:~/scratch# mount /dev/sdx1 /mnt
root@localhost:~/scratch# cp *.buffalo /mnt/
root@localhost:~/scratch# ls /mnt
initrd.buffalo lost+found uImage.buffalo
root@localhost:~/scratch# umount /mnt