Buffalo Forums

I recently picked up a used TeraStation 5800. The seller (a university surplus store) said it was in good working order. I put four blank hard drives in the first four slots and powered it up. The LED screen is red with the message "Initialize HDDs." The lights next to bays 1-4 are green, but I can't get it to do anything.

I can't find the IP address for this on my router, and the LED never displays it. I downloaded the NAS navigator, but that can't find it on the network even though the ethernet is plugged into my router.

I've tried resetting the NAS, but that just leaves me right back where I started.

How can I get this working?

The OS was on the original disks so if you put new disks into it you need the recovery image to install onto the new disks.

Buffalo provides a tool for creating a bootable recovery image for that model:
https://www.buffalotech.com/support/downloads/terastation-5000n-series

Thank you! I'll give it a try

I extracted the ZIP file to a USB thumb drive and plugged it in.

On the plus side, I now get the LED to read "Boot from USB-HD"

On the downside, now what? I still don't see the NAS on my router's list of devices.

did you just unzip it onto a drive or use the included utility to write the image to a usb disk?

I believe it came with instructions, though I haven't used it in a while.

That was important to mention. I should have thought of that initially.

After putting the proper boot image on the USB drive, I ran it, and it did go through a new setup process. It even showed up on my router for a while.

However, after that, I'm right back where I started. The LED is red, and it reads "Initialize HDDs," and it does not appear on my router's attached devices list anymore.

Any ideas?

How many drives are you using.

The easiest way to figure out what's going on would be to connect a monitor to the port on the front.

I have four 3 TB drives. The NAS has eight bays, which I hope to fill at some point. I have initialized, formatted, and made volumes on them using my Windows computer.

I thought that looked like a VGA port on the front. Not sure if I have a VGA cable, but I could track one down if needed.

Thanks.

Formatting the drives for windows is counter-productive in this case. I believe the drives need to be blank.

Thank you all for your help.

I think I'm making progress, but now it's asking me to enter a password. I tried entering the default "password," but I got the error "Could not open URL." According to NAS Navigator, the device is in Emergency Mode. I tried to run the Firmware Updater, but I got "Partition not found. Aborting firmware update."

Unfortunately, I haven't been able to get past the Emergency Mode problem. When I try to update the firmware, this is the config file:

[Application]
Title = BUFFALO TS5000 / TS4000 Series Updater Ver.4.18
WaitReboot = 1200
WaitFormat = 600
WaitDiscover = 120

[Target]
ProductID = 0x00002018
ProductID2 = 0x00002019
ProductID3 = 0x0000201A
ProductID4 = 0x0000201B
ProductID5 = 0x0000201C
ProductID6 = 0x00002020
ProductID7 = 0x00002021
ProductID8 = 0x00002022
ProductID9 = 0x00002023
ProductID10 = 0x00002024
Name = TeraStation

[Flags]
VersionCheck = 1
NoFormatting = 0

[SpecialFlags]
Debug=1

Still, when I run TSUpdater, I get "Partition not found. Aborting firmware update."

How many drives do you have installed?

For this model it's relatively easy to get the exact error message by plugging a monitor into the front display port.

I have four 3 TB drives.

When I view the machine's information on a monitor (really my TV), I enter the default username and password, and then I just end up at a command line. When I try to update the firmware, nothing changes on the screen.

The LED on the NAS itself is glowing red. It says Ver. No info.

Should I type a command? If so, what?

How are you getting into EM mode?

It's been a while since I've done that, I wouldn't think you'd be dropping to a command prompt like that. I seem to remember it gives you the boot log then sits at a prompt with 4 options for a while before going to a default.....maybe that was the login prompt. Either way I thought I remembered the output of the install script outputting to the screen.

Well, it's not intentional. I'm trying to get it out of Emergency Mode.

After I run recovery, the device no longer appears on the network at all. Then I go through this endless cycle of removing all the partitions from the drives again using my PC and a USB adapter. After I do that, I reboot the NAS with the USB stick containing the ISO. It appears to install Linux. I enter the default username and password, and then it shows a command line with a blinking cursor.

At this point, I can at least see the NAS on my router. Unfortunately, that's when the device ends up in Emergency Mode, and it won't let me update the firmware. "Partition not found. Aborting firmware update."

If I reboot the NAS, I also notice the device giving me an error from the Marvell controller saying, "No hard disks found. Press <space> to continue." But, at that point, the keyboard I have plugged into the NAS doesn't seem to do anything.

If I were to put a different ISO on the USB stick (say OpenMediaVault or Debian on Buffalo), could that help? Is there a specific version I would need?

are you setting debug options when you try the install? It won't make partitions unless you select force partition and force format (I think). There is a way to manually kick off the partitioning script if that isn't working.

Debian On Buffalo is the only alternative I'm aware of that comes with the tools for controlling the LCD/etc preinstalled, plus I hear the person who maintains it is pretty nice. Most linux distros should work fine and can probably have the Debian customizations adapted to them.

Debian on Buffalo to the rescue! I was able to get that set up, including the webmin with some great instructions found on YouTube.

Now, with that said, I have all of my data currently on a Synology NAS, and I need to transfer it over to the Buffalo NAS so I can relegate the Synology to an off-site backup. There is currently no rsync module for the webmin, so does anyone know how to do that?