TS-RITGL/R5 stuck in "System Now Booting..."

[dilo83]

Our TS-RITGL/R5 doesn't boot anymore after power-cycle (turned off and after 5 minutes turned on all by power button).
After ROM and DRAM check OK it starts beeping. Error and all drive LEDs light red. 12V and 5V supply seems to be ok (voltage levels are OK).
I've tried to unplug each HDD and boot - no success.

I've also tried EM mode, then it stucks in "System EM mode Booting...". I've tried old disks which we have exchanged some years ago in working condition. I also tried one blank disk - same with all.

The Link/ACT LED flashes when network is connected but I cannot find it neither with NASnavigator2 nor with TSupdater.

I've seen the following block in TSUpdater.ini (from TS-RITGL_1.01_1.16.zip):

Code: [Select]

[Target]
ProductID = 0x0000200A
Name = TS-RIGL

TSUpdater also doesn't find other TeraStations in the network, so I'm not sure if this is the right product id for TS-RITGL/R5. The NASNavigator 2 has found my other TSs but not the defective.

What can I do to get it running?

I've also one TS-HTGL/R5 here. Does someone know if it's compatible and I can insert the disks from TS-RITGL/R5 there?

I also tried to connect to the boot partition from Linux but it says it's an RAID disk. Shouldn't it be an ext3 filesystem (I've seen this as an restore-option)?

Best regards,
Dirk

[1000001101000]

It sounds like something has gone wrong with the boot partition (or the boot files on it) on the device causing it to fail to boot. The fact that you got an LCD message about EM mode but didn't see the device show up is disappointing but it sounds like you must be close.

I've also one TS-HTGL/R5 here. Does someone know if it's compatible and I can insert the disks from TS-RITGL/R5 there?

That should work though I'm not sure I'd recommend it. I believe I've seen posts from people who have used disks from an RITGL in an HTGL. Generally, if the devices share the same firmware installer they will have compatible disks, I believe these have separate installers which could mean there is a difference in the software that could be important in some subtle way. It might be worth a try to just confirm the device is capable of a successful boot.

I also tried to connect to the boot partition from Linux but it says it's an RAID disk. Shouldn't it be an ext3 filesystem (I've seen this as an restore-option)?

The boot partition showing as a RAID1 array is normal, that array should contain an ext3 filesystem which contains the boot files. When starting over from scratch I typically recommend starting with a plain partition since the firmware installer will create it's own raid arrays as part of the process.

I've successfully gotten this generation of device restored with this method:
http://forums.buffalotech.com/index.php?topic=30419.0

I was only able to make it work when it had 4 drives installed. Since this is one of the older devices it requires the partition table be MBR rather than GPT and needs to be formatted with the smaller inodes:

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mkfs.ext3 -I 128 /dev/sdx1
You could also try booting into my Debian installer, I believe the "ts2pro" image should work:
https://github.com/1000001101000/Debian_on_Buffalo

If you do decide to give that a try I have a couple of tests I'd like someone to try with this model to confirm whether the install scripts recognize the model properly.

[dilo83]

Thanks 1000001101000 for your reply,

I've tried first to create the boot partition with the old disks and it worked. Meanwhile I backed up all disks. Then I reformatted partition 1 from disk 1 (no re-partitioning):

Code: [Select]

mkfs.ext3 -I 128 /dev/sdx1

Unzipping the firmware was a bit different than described. The uImage.buffalo was not zipped, only the initrd.img.

Then I've mounted the partition and copied the files:

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mkdir /mnt/buffalo
mount /dev/sdx1 /mnt/buffalo
#Then copy the boot files you extracted earlier to it:
cp *.buffalo /mnt/buffalo

The NAS starts as normal and doesn't show any failure - so all is fine for the first.

But neither the TSUpdater.exe nor the NASnavigator2 didn't find the TS. And still I'm a bit confused about the RAID-partition 1 which is now a simple primary ext3 partition - but OK, it works.

[1000001101000]

And still I'm a bit confused about the RAID-partition 1 which is now a simple primary ext3 partition - but OK, it works.

Basically, the bootloader is hard-coded to look for the boot files (uImage.buffalo and initrd.buffalo) inside an ext2/ext3 filesystem on the first partition of one of the disks. The method it uses to do this essentially ignores the RAID superblock and sees each of the partitions in the RAID1 array as a separate plain ext3 filesystem. This doesn't cause problems since all it is doing is reading files.

But neither the TSUpdater.exe nor the NASnavigator2 didn't find the TS.

TSUpdater will only show devices that are compatible with the corresponding firmware update, but NasNavigator should see any device on the network.

I believe this only works if the device is on the same subnet as your PC**. Does your network have DHCP disabled or anything like that (is the device hooked up to the network?).
(**The device needs to see the broadcast packet and needs to be able to respond to it, which I believe is via IP address rather than broadcast...actually the more I think about it it might also respond via broadcast which might work without DHCP if they're on the same switch/network segment)

[dilo83]

Ok, the problem with TSUpdater was the ini file. I must set VersionCheck to 0 because it has already the newest firmware installed to find it.

Code: [Select]

[Flags]
iSCSI = 1
VersionCheck = 0
NoFormatting = 1

[SpecialFlags]
Debug = 1


[1000001101000]

Nice!