Buffalo Forums

My LS pro quad died about a month ago and I've been struggling to bring the device back up. I've purchased a new box, as I suspected the old box of being bad. I've done a low level copy of all 4 old disks onto the new ones. Using TFTP to get into EM mode, I was able to start a firmware update (updating to 1.64). Things work for a while, software downloads, orange light blinks code I25. However once the updater gets to the reboot part, then the updated gets stuck, and sits there with a progress bar forever with the text "Linkstation booting... please wait". Eventually I get an error "no response from LinkStation after 1200 seconds. Try again?" Once in this mode, all I can do is wait. If I reboot the device, it boots right back into the orange blink I25. I can't see the device on the network to do anything with it. Desperate to get this data, I went one step further and followed the instructions on: http://buffalo.nas-central.org/wiki/Revive_your_arm9_box_from_scratch This actually worked, and I could get the device to boot into EM mode fine, and the updater found it and again started reflashing it. However, once again I get stuck "waiting for reboot". At this point, I've tried EVERYTHING I can think of. I can get as far as the orange blinking I25 code. No further. What is odd is that the drives are fine. I don't know what happened other than my old box just died in the middle of use. I went as far as to buy a brand new box so I had functioning hardware. All 4 disks report no errors when scanned from linux. Help! I am desperate to get my data! What is the point of a RAID box if you lose all your data when the main box fails?

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lordfrito wrote:
linux. Help! I am desperate to get my data! What is the point of a RAID box if you lose all your data when the main box fails?

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RAID isnt a backup and should never be treated as such, if the data is important that you need to have a backup (second copy)

At this point in order to get it to work you would need to format the HDDs, go through the TFTP again to boot it into EM mode and then to a full firmware debug including rebuild partition table.

Regarding the data, attach at least 3 of the HDDs to a Windows PC and try using UFS explorer to recover the data.

 

OK I've given up trying to recover the volume using your hardware.  I've taken your advice about UFS explorer.   I've purchased a stand alone generic "4 disk USB" box, and have had success using UFS explorer to access the data from windows.  That's good

 

Now that I can get to my data, I need to reset the Linkstation to factory state and build a new array.  I've done everything I can to get the Linkstation returned to "factory" state, including

• checking "rebuild partition table"
• checking "delete user data partition"
• both options above
• plugging the 4 disks into windows, erasing the partitions, and retrying the above
• plugging the 4 disks into linux, doing a low level erase/wipe of the drives, and retrying the above

In ALL cases above I run into problems, that fall into one of these categories

• won't get into EM mode when it boots
• got into EM mode, but can't be "found" by the updater software
• got halfway through updating, reboots, only to give me 6 blinking red lights
• got halfway through updating, reboots, only to give me a flashing blue light, and no presence on network
• got halfway through updating, reboots, only to give me the orange I25 blink, and no presence on network

The ONLY thing that seems to work reliably is to completely erase the drives, and use TFTP to enter EM mode.  That is the ONLY procedure that works reliably. Without that I can't even get the updater to run.

 

However, once the update runs, no matter what I do at that point, I can't get the firmware update to complete successfully.

 

I really am at a loss here as to what to do.  I can't even seem to get the box back to factory condition, and I just purchased the thing less than a week ago, so I know the hardware/drives are good.