Buffalo Forums

   

Hi,

 

I have a Link Station HD-HG400LAN that after a long (and good!) service failed due to hard disk failure. Hard disk was still under warrenty, so got the same exact hard drive, and was referred by tech support to a link that explained how to open everything and physically change the drive. I did all that, and here my problems begin: although the Link Station can be seen by the NAS Navigator and can be pinged, it claims there is no HDD or HDD is not formattet (depending if I run it on XP or Vista machines...). And there is no number in the firmware version field in the NAS Navigator window, just a line of ------.

I disconnected the 400G HDD and partitioned and formatted the maximum 32G FAT32 partition possible with XP, and yet, whether in emergency mode or in regular mode, any attempt to update the firmware ends up with an error claiming Link Station cannot be found.

 

What am I doing wrong?! How can I revive my Link Station to start "talking" to me again? Needless to say, all the weblike interface is gone, and the only life sign from the linkstation is the ability to ping and manage the IP address.

 

Thanks for any help... Hagai (Guy)  

 

 

   You say the the firmware is displayed as "---", are the letters "EM" in the hostname? If so then the unit is in EM mode and so reinstalling the firmware should do the trick ;)

   

EM is in the host name indeed! BUT, when I am trying to run HD-HLAN FWUpdater, even with the /force option, I keep getting the error:

 

"A Link Station is not Connected. Finish."

 

Any ideas?!

   

How is it connected? Make a direct connection from the LS to the PC, uninstall all AV and firewall software (these block broadcast packets which the updater needs and even disabling the software does not fix this, however just try disabling the software first to make sure)

 

Set a static IP on the LAN card of the PC to match the IP range the LS is one and then run the FW update

 

Or, if you dont wanna uninstall your software, if your using Vista then boot into safe mode with networking and then do it (only the basic apps in your PC will run and AV and firewall arent included in this)

   

Thanks for the update. I have uninstalled all AV and FW from my PC, and it is connected directly to the Buffalo via a dedicated network cable, and both are part of the same subnet. I have rebooted the PC, the Buffalo is in EM, and yet running the FWUpdater resultts in the same message: "A Link Station is not Connected. Finish."

 

Any more ideas? I hate to lose the link station!

Earlier you said you were running an HD-HLAN firmware updater, which is for the original Linkstations. However the model number in the subject is HD-HGLAN, which is a Linkstation Gigabit. These devices are running different firmware revisions, it's possible the issue you're running into is being cause by trying to use the HD-HLAN firmware on an HD-HGLAN unit.

   

Ok. First time I ever realized there is a difference between the HLAN and HGLAN, and actually managed to find two FW versions - 1.61 and 1.42.

Being all enthusiastic about it, I immediatelly tried unzipping and installing 1.61: first step was immediatelly better - it actually recognized the HGLAN! so yes, problem one was resolved. However, midway through th eprocess, I got a "Attempt to renew firmware has failed" - so half way there, but not fully there yet... updates to follow!

 

(I remember reading somewhere that it might show a failure because of disk formatting time, yet it will actually work - yet trying to access it on http://192.168.11.150 did not produce the web interface and simply brought a page not found error...)

 

Will post again if and when things change - I am off to try version 1.42!

 

   

So I was happy too soon... Now the Link Station is not even talking to the NAS navigator - it is simply "not there", and no access to firmware updates... I did leave it on and letting it do whatever it is doing (formatting HDD?! That is my guess if things actually work) - will try rebooting it and accessing it again in an hour or so, hoping HDD is properly formatted... will see!

   

One step forward two steps back... So The Giga Link Station is actually "talking" to the FW updater - things seem to move along, until the last screen informs of a failure... somewhere along the way the disk full light came on, but even that one went away. I guess what I wonder is - should I enter any password when I am doing "Renew Firmware"?! So far I used no password, but it never finished successfully - what password should I use to actually get it to force an update rather trying to restore the FW?!

 

 

   

after all these failures, I have a thought - or two actually -

 

1. Is it possible that all these failures are because the hard drive is not formatted as expected?! The reason all this started was because of a replacement drive that was never formatted - yet somewhere along the failures I managed to format a FAT32 32G partition on it (XP limitation) - or should I return it to the intial un partitioned and unformatted state?

 

2. could all these problems be because there is something wrong with the power suppy of the Link Station? I know that burning firmware requires higher power, and maybe this module is bad? How do I check this? Maybe that is why the hard drive does not function properly as well?!

 

Any other ideas?! I am almost giving up here - this is taking way too much time, and it seems I will be better of with setting an old PC I have as the NAS device - maybe bigger box, but it will actually WORK!!!

I would try it in EM mode, with a drirect connect to the PC.  If that does not work then it is possible the mother board is defective.

   

Unfortunatelly, it is constantly in EM... I gave up on this one - the HDD is already installed in one of my servers, and I am not sure I will continue with this NAS approach...

 

Thanks for the reply anyway