I recently bought the Linkstation Quad (FW 1.11) with 4x500GB drives pre-installed. For more than a week now, I’ve been trying to upgrade the drives to 1.5TB WD Caviar Greens (yes, I do understand that voids the warranty ...)
After figuring out that I cannot simply replace all disks at once, because there is boot information on the disks themselves (or something like that), I tried replacing them one by one. At first, I deleted the RAID5 because I thought the switching would be faster if there was no RAID to repair. Replacing drive 1 and 2 went fine, leaving the other slots with 500GB drives. But if I insert a third Caviar, the 6x red light comes on. No matter which slot and how the other drives are permutated.
Then I created the RAID5 again. Starting with only one Caviar and 3 small ones. Then from there I inserted a second Caviar for a small drive. Repair RAID, no problem. Then a third, again, no problem. Now I'm at No. 4 and again those darn 6 red flashes come on. The box is just dead as usual then, and I cannot do anything other than pull the plug.
What seems to be the problem?
I’ve seen a number of forum entries that seem to have similar problems upgrading and some where it worked. However, no one has mentioned my particular problem. I read something about TFTP, but I don’t understand how this would help because the box is simply dead once the red lights come on. It is not recognized on the network (presumably because it does not continue to boot up), so I fail to understand how this would help me to get the new drives running.
Any suggestions would be highly appreciated, as I’m soon ready to kick this box out and switch it for a product that allows me to use whatever disks I want without voiding the warranty.