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I've been reading up about replacing drives in a Linkstation Duo for the better part of a year now, ever since I realized I was rapidly running out of space on my NAS. However, I'm no better off after all this researching so I've gotta make this post in a last ditch effort to sort this out before I just build my own NAS and call it quits.

I own an LS-WX1.0TL/R1 which came with two 1TB WD Green drives in it. In the course of researching whether or not you could stick larger drives into this thing, I read over and over that as long as you were using one of the most current versions of firmware you should be able to install drives up to 3TB in size. Figuring either this would work or I'd be building my own NAS, I went ahead and ordered two 3TB WD Green drives (WD30EZRX).

What I've Done

I took the old drives out, put them aside, and put the new drives in. Then I grabbed an old WRT54G router, set its IP to 192.168.11.10, turned on DHCP, connected a Win7 laptop to it, and then set the laptop's IP to 192.168.11.1 before connecting the Linkstation Duo to the router. I have two different TFTP exe's, and one is designated as 'Kirkwood Variants' (because I'd read my model Linkstation falls under that, but am not clear about 'kirkwood' at all). On the Win7 laptop I installed Nas Navigator2 (v2.81), and grabbed the latest firmware for my model (v1.70). I modified the LSUpdater.ini file so it now looks like this:

Quote[Application]
Title = BUFFALO LinkStation Series Updater Ver.1.70
WaitReboot = 1200
WaitFormat = 600
WaitFileSend = 600
WaitDiscover = 120

[Target]
ProductID = 0x00000011
ProductID2 = 0x00000012
ProductID3 = 0x00000013
ProductID4 = 0x00000014
ProductID5 = 0x00003006
ProductID6 = 0x00003007
ProductID7 = 0x00000015
ProductID8 = 0x00000016
ProductID9 = 0x00003008
ProductID10 = 0x00004001
ProductID11 = 0x00000017
ProductID12 = 0x00000019
ProductID13 = 0x00000020
ProductID14 = 0x00003010
Name = LinkStation

[Flags]
VersionCheck = 0
NoFormatting = 0

[SpecialFlags]
Debug = 1

On the laptop I start up the TFTP boot, and then power up the unit. It starts flashing the red Info/Error light, as expected, so I hit the function button on the back which sends it into emergency mode. TFTP then shows "Blocks Served" (2 lines) and at this point, Nas Navigator2 also shows the unit. I then run the firmware updater, right-click on the window and choose 'Debug', tick the box for 'Force update' and run it. It will go through transfering the firmware, then installing it, and when it gets to the very end of that process - meaning the progress bar indicates it has finished - it immediately dumps out and says there is no connection to the Linkstation.

I've tried this at least 20 times now, have tried turning on/off different things in the debug menu, and just nothing changes the result.

Any help is greatly appreciated, and I actually plan to come back and update this post with a video of me performing all these steps just to make sure I'm not missing anything in this description. If I can get through this, I can record another video showing the entire successful process for others in the future - since researching this has been one major pain in the ass for me at least.

When installing the firmware you need to tick "rebuild partition table" - let it go through the process. It will then go back to E06 - Run the TFTP once more, instead of going to EM Mode it will go to i25 and leave the install complete.

The process will then be finished.

That or, put the old drives back in if you have not wiped them, delete any array so it can be JBOD, power off unit, take out disk 2, put in 3TB in slot 2, boot up format the drive, once It is formatted using the Linkstation check if its a working drive, If so, power off take out disk 1 and do the same process. Then you can make a raid array after both 3TBs are working. If method is alil longer then the TFTP if you can get that to work off the back but either way will work.

Well, I tried both of your suggestions and still can't get this to work.

I went back and performed all the same steps with the TFTP/Firmware update straight to the two new drives - and made sure to re-run the TFTP boot a second time after it dumps out and says it has lost communication to the device. It continues to just boot into EM after, so no difference.

Then I went ahead and put the original drives back in, deleted the array, set each drive up on its own, and even created a folder on each to test that all was working. Then I went into the Linkstation settings and told it to remove the second drive, powered the unit off, popped one of the new 3TB drives into that second slot and powered it up. This also just causes it to boot into EM.

It seems like no matter what I try, this thing does not want to accept these 3TB drives.

If it boots to EM mode, have you tired running the firmware update?

Success! Although, I truly feel like I just got lucky and this finally worked.

I had one of the original 1TB disks in the linkstation, formatted and working by itself. I powered it off, popped in a 3TB to the second slot, then powered it on. It went into emergency mode. I ran the firmware installer, and it behaved as I've described before - seemed to just complete, and then stated it had lost connection to the linkstation. At that point, I powered the unit back off, fired up the TFTP boot, powered the linkstation back on, hit the function buttton when it started to show E06, and watched the TFTP indicate 'Blocks Served'. At this point, for the first time, I could actually hear the drives working away, and the linkstation indicated i25. Again, I've done exactly this before, and it didn't work, but it did THIS time for whatever reason.

After that, and it did take a while, I was able to see the linkstation back online. I went into settings, which were in Japanese, set the language to English, and there is my 3TB disk. I think I'm all set from here.

So, thank you very much for the help - I still have no idea how this finally worked, but I'm glad to not have to worry about it any longer!

Well, I guess I spoke too soon. As soon as I added the second 3TB drive and tried to get it working everything went to hell and I'm right back where I started. I really need to get this TFTP Boot and Firmware update method working, so here we go again. This time I've at least included pictures. Please someone tell me something obvious I am doing wrong or missing here.

I have the two 3TB drives in the Linkstation. If I power the unit up, it starts flashing red 6 times (E06).

I have downloaded 'TFTP Boot Recovery LS-WXL 1.33.exe' from http://goo.gl/CcNYoq

I extracted that and have edited the last line of the 'TFTPServerMT.ini' file to reflect the folder containing the TFTP Boot.exe file - which in my case is C:\Documents and Settings\Dan\Desktop\TFTP

On my Win7 computer that is statically set to 192.168.11.1 I run TFTP Boot.exe and then power up the Linkstation. It indicates E06, so I hold the function button for 2 seconds, and it starts rapidly flashing blue.

At this point, I see two lines of 'Blocks Served' in TFTP Boot.exe:

(http://i.imgur.com/NpojDQx.png)

After 20 seconds or so of rapid blue blinking, the Linkstation holds a steady blue and Nas Navigator shows the Linkstation on the network, saying it is in emergency mode.

I have downloaded the v1.69 firmware updater directly from the Buffalo website.

I extracted that and have edited the 'LSUpdater.ini file so that VersionCheck = 0, NoFormatting = 0, and have added Debug = 1

At this point, I run the LSUpdater.exe and it too shows that it has detected a Linkstation. I right click on the window to bring up the debug menu. I have ticked the boxes for 'Rebuild Partition Table' as well as 'Force Update' and have left everything else as is:

(http://i.imgur.com/pvOu9AO.png)

I click ok on the debug menu and then click update to start the firmware updater. It goes through an iteration of Transferring Firmware, then Writing Firmware, then Formatting, then back to transferring/writing firmware again - and this part then takes quite some time (20+ minutes) to complete. Eventually, the progress indicator will reach the very end, indicating it has fully completed, but the second it does I get an error indicating 'No response from LS-WXL-EM192...' - see the two images here:

(http://i.imgur.com/Caml0cR.png) 
(http://i.imgur.com/bRNJ4mE.png)

What is very weird is I can still ping the Linkstation, so it doesn't appear it dropped its connection or reset itself or anything:

(http://i.imgur.com/s35K6pg.png)

Since it was suggested previously, I've even tried closing out TFTP Boot.exe and starting it up again at this point - nothing happens. I've also tried powering the Linkstation off at this point, powering it back on, seeing it goes to E06 again, hitting function and running TFTP Boot.exe a second time - no change.



So this is where I'm at. I've done this what feels like a hundred times now, and somehow I just got lucky one time. Again, any and all help is greatly appreciated.