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My power LED light is blinking non stop (green light), I am unable to access my Link Station Pro Duo (LS-WTGL/R1) is this related? Fix's?

 

Rob

How long has this been going on?

If its been a few hours, likely it will be going through a disk check. The best you can do is let it run and wait for the process to finish.

Does your nasnavigator pick it up? Can you ping the unit?

   Same thing happened to me with my Linkstation Quad. I couldn't connect to it at all and it blinked for about 4-5hours I had to plug out the power cable to turn it off.

Power LED blinking green means that its not booting. If the unit was doing a RAID Scan then the Info (!) light should be blinking (1 long and 4 or 5 short flashes).

 

Try booting your unit into EM mode!

To explain how to do that... Does your unit have a INIT button or a FUNC button on the back?

 

You probably will need to update Firmware.

 

Was there any issues that lead up to this?

 

   

I am having the same problem. My relatively new Linkstation Pro Duo is stuck on a flashing green power light on the front panel and I can't connect to the NAS. My Mac keeps giving me the error that "Connection Failed" "The server may not exist or it is not operational at this time...." It doesn't show up as a share and I cannot access the NAS. I have even unplugged it for a few minutes, and then when I turn it back on, it goes right back to the flashing green light. I have it set at Raid 1 but how do I even get it back running to see if I have lost all of my data!?

 

My Unit does have a "FUNC" button on the back

   

Well, the green power light has been flashing since last night and I can't even see the unit in NasNavigator, so I performed what I think is called an EM Boot. I turned the Pro Duo off, pressed the FUNC key for about 6 - 10 seconds, turned on the unit, and then watched the power light turn blue. It sat that way for about 15 seconds or so and then the fan kicked in and the Green LED power light went back to flashing and still, no way to access the NAS. 

I will be pretty pissed off if this things failed after only a couple of months of very light usage, when I set it up as Raid 1 and was counting on it to at least hold my itunes music, pictures, etc.

What now? 

When the function light turns blue you need to let go then press it in one more time.  Nas Navi should find it then.  To make sure that you have it in Em mode you can check Nas Navi and it will have Em in the model number at the top.  Also sometimes it will chime to tell you its in EM mode.

   I tried that. So now, it's no longer flashing green, but it is flashing blue, and won't stop flashing blue! NAS Navi still doesn't find it.

Turn the unit on with teh Func button held in and the light will flash blue, then let go and hold again for another 5 seconds, the light will go steady blue!

Once its booted up in this way, you want to Force Update Firmware (you will need Windows for this)

   

I can't do this on the Mac? That is my main computer right now but I do have a Windows laptop which is on the same home WiFi network as the Mac running off the router to which the NAS is connected.

I will try when I get home but when I left the blue light was still flashing. What is the cause of this? The unit is barely 5 months old and gets very little use. 

The FW is only written for Windows, Buffalo is starting to make them for Macs but there is not a Mac version for this unit, yet. The latest version for your unit IS 3.09 (3.08 is not more recent, just recently re-posted).

 

In order to tell the cause of this, you should have an red Error light flashing on the front of the unit. This will give a code, count the number of long and short flashes. You may also get an Info light (yellow "!"), if so, count that too

Usually it is a corruption in the Firmware not allowing the unit to boot!

   

I don't have a red error flashing light, although I did notice when I turned the unit off, and then turned it on for a split second, I get what may be one flash of a red '!'. It happens so fast, it is hard to tell whether it is really a flash, but basically, all I have been seeing is a flashing green power light, and now a flashing blue power light, but 30gb of music and other stuff sitting on the drive is not accessible. I will try again when I get home from work this evening.

 

Also, if I force the firmware update using Windows, will that somehow impact my usage of the NAS on my Mac which is from where I access NASNavi, and manage all my files on the NAS?

Updating the firmware will not affect the use of the device on the mac.  It is, however, a good idea to update the firmware on a windows computer because we come out with FW for windows first.

 

It sounds to me like the unit is not even booting up (thus the flashing power LED).  This is generally when I have the most success with the TFTP procedure because it may not be properly loading the kernal.

 

I have recently noticed that the pro duo sometimes doesn't actually give the E04 error even when it is indeed E04ing (yes I made it a word).  

   I have tried the detailed procedures and I cannot get it to stop blinking blue. I am unable to get it to a solid blue power light. The unit is only about 6 months old. Any suggestions for next steps?

When you tried the TFTP you made sure it was listening on 192.168.11.1:69 right?  Did it pull any files under "accepting requests"?  Also reboot the unit right before the step "launch the TFTPboot.exe" as I am not sure how long it will send out TFTP requests.  Just make sure you let me know at what point it stops working.

 

 

If you need any help PM me your phone number and I can set up a call back for you (and before anyone asks we will not do this for everyone else, this is a specific issue that I am testing for).

   

Thanx for the offer and the continued support. This is extremely frustrating.

I haven't yet tried the TFTP. First, I was trying to get the blue light to stop blinking so I could try the forced firmware update that was discussed in this thread. Should I skip that and go right to the TFTP procedure (FAQ#3)? 

I will take you up on your very generous offer of setting up a call back to work through this. Perhaps sometime tomorrow (Tue?).  

That is my point, the force update will only work with a unit that has actually booted up (he updater has to find the unit).  Currently it doesn't seem like it is.  This is the only option that we have for units that aren't booting, so yes, I would try the TFTP first.

 

For anyone who may be using this thread as a knowledge base: I will post the results of this call back in this thread.

 

Tuesday works for me!  Just PM me your phone number, name and model number for logging purposes. 

   

Ok, thanx again. What I will do is gather all of the relevant info (Pro Duo, Serial Number etc.) and then I will PM you and we can arrange off-line to see if we can get this thing up and running and recover the data. I do have an Acer Aspire One that I have been using as my travel windows machine and hopefully I can run the procedure from that unit. 

I am in the Eastern time zone and later in the evening (after 11) works best for me but let me know what works for you. Once I gather all of the relevant info I will PM you and we can set up a time that works best for you.

TIA (thanx in advance) for all of the personalized assistance. This is a great resource and if I can recover the data, I will sing your praises from here to the end (although I still query why the unit failed so early and whether "losing" all the space to a RAID  1 configuration really makes sense given all this trouble just to get it to boot).

Thanx again, will PM details later on.  

No problem birdman,

 

One thing that you said that I think needs attention:

 

"I still query why the unit failed so early and whether "losing" all thespace to a RAID  1 configuration really makes sense given all thistrouble just to get it to boot"

 

RAID is not backup, it is the most common misconception that we deal with here.  RAID is simply protection against single HDD failure.  If a single HDD fails on this unit, your data will still be in tact.  RAID is a very nice feature to have because HDD failure is the most common failure with any storage device by any manufacturer.  RAID does not protect against errors with the unit itself (motherboad, not booting ect.).  While issues like these aren't common, like every electronic device, they sometimes have failures or malfunctions.  The good news is that usually with errors like these the data is still intact and recoverable.  I don't mean to lecture but the worst part about my job is hearing someone say that their "irreplacable data is gone."  Everyone that has data that is this important should have it backed up elsewhere.  We clearly recommend that everyone have a multi-level back up system because that is the only way to truly ensure that the data is safe (what if there was a fire?)

 

I will send you a PM for my hours on Tuesday.

Birdman seemed to have corrupted firmware.  We tried the TFTP procedure (the only thing that will work for a unit that isn't booting) and booting the unit into EM mode proved fruitless.  He was set up with an RMA for the unit.

   

I would like to give a "shout out" to Buffalo Customer Support and PCPiranha in particular. While we were unable to get the unit up and running, PCPiranha's assistance was outstanding and I really feel that he went above and beyond in trying to help me out to get the problems resolved. 

While it is very easy in this day and age to fill boards with rants and complaints about poor customer service, I think it is important to take equal time to commend good customer service where it is warranted and it is definitely warranted here. While I am VERY unhappy with the performance of the actual product itself, I am extremely satisfied with the level of customer service and support I have received from this forum and in particular, from PCPiranha.

Thank you again.