Recovery troubles with TS-XE4.0TL/R5

[karlexceed]

This NAS was handed to me to fix...

It was booting into EM mode (red LCD, NAND 0 MB, IP set to 192.168.11.150), and after a bit of work extracting the right firmware, copying it into the TFTP boot utility folder, etc, I got the thing to come back as if nothing had happened. It's whole config came back and seemed to be acting normal. Well, I powered it off, went to re-install it on site, and... It booted into EM mode again. NAND 0 MB.

So, I've tried this a few more times with the same result. I can't update the firmware when it's running because it claims has the latest installed. But, I can't seem to find older firmware to try and downgrade it (if that's even possible?). It will work as long as it doesn't ever reboot, but that's not really an option.

What can I do? How can I get the TeraStation to write it's NAND?

[davo]

How many disks are you using? Blank them, reboot the TS and let me know the error you get then.

[karlexceed]

All 4 drives.

I did notice at boot that it complains about either bad CRC or bad "majic" number on all drives.

I'd really like to avoid scrubbing the drives if possible... The part I struggle with is why anything with the drives would have any effect on the NAND flash reading as 0 MB? It seems to me like something killed the flash chip - when it's been half-recovered after an EM boot, the web interface works like normal and data is there and readable.

[karlexceed]

Okay, wiped everything, did another TFTP recovery, rebuilt RAID, let re-sync happen, still getting error on boot.

NAND deteced 0 MB, bad CRC on all 4 drives.

How can this be working perfectly fine until I power it down? The data is there, the configuration is there, but nothing gets loaded properly at boot. Incredibly frustrating.

[karlexceed]

For anyone curious, it looks like I may have found the solution.

Thanks to Buffalo support, I was given instructions on how to do a forced firmware update. It was a matter of getting the NAS back up and running via TFTP recovery and then using the firmware update tool with some extra configuration commands to force the firmware update without checking the current version.

It still boots up with a message "NAND detected 0 MB", but seems to be working fine otherwise.

One thing that still bugs me about the whole process was Buffalo's support essentially telling me to check here in the forums for the required files for TFTP recovery. The files I ended up using for recovery I had to extract myself from a firmware update file using a key I found on a third-party NAS enthusiasts website. Why can't or won't they simply provide these files to their customers?

[Lorteti]

Hi,

I have similar problem with my ts-xel terastation.
Start up in to EM, red led, 0mb nand.
Not be able to finish firmware update.
Error message ts-xel-emfde didn't respond, after finishing writing firmware files.

Can you tell me what you did to get it back running?

Thanks in advance,
JX

[Lorteti]

I got it running again.
Just blank the disks first, then do the firmware update.
Works ok again.
Thanks anyway

[karlexceed]

Glad to hear!