LS-XHL: Light blinking red 6 times

[Zippy1970]

A friend gave me his LS-XHL LinkStation to look since he was no longer able to access it. I have the exact same model so I have auite a bit of experience with these thing. I know the the blinking red light means it's unable to boot (probably because of a corrupt partition/firmware).

 

I also know that I probably need to reupload the firmare (as per the instructions in FAQ 3/5). But before I do, I have two questions:

 

Will reinstalling the firmware recreate the other partitions? The other partitions hold data I need to salvage. I'm afraid of blindy doing the firmware reinstall without confirming first that the data partitions will stay intact.

 

Is there any other way I can copy the data first? I tried connecting the harddisk to a Linux (live) system, but it did not recognize the hard drive.

 

Thanks in advance.

[Zippy1970]

Just wanted to add that I can't read the disk from a Linux system either (either that or I simply don't know how).

 

If I hook up the drive to Linux (using a USB exclosure), I see sdc1 ... sdc6 appear under /dev but any attempt to mount a partition fails:

 

root@kubuntu:/# mount -t auto /dev/sdc6 /mediamount: /dev/sdc6: can't read superblockroot@kubuntu:/# mount -t xfs /dev/sdc6 /mediamount: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on /dev/sdc6,       missing codepage or helper program, or other error       In some cases useful info is found in syslog - try       dmesg | tail  or soroot@kubuntu:/# xfs_check /dev/sdc6xfs_check: /dev/sdc6 is invalid (cannot read first 512 bytes)

 (I tried this with sdc1-sdc6, all with the same results)

[Zippy1970]

Oh, and another thing, Windows 7 is able to recognize all 6 partitions on the disk just fine. It can even read all files on the first partition (since I have an Ext3 driver installed), something the Linux distributions I've tried can't.

 

Ofcourse, Windows 7 doesn't know how to handle the other 5 partitions (since I'm guessing, they are all XFS).

 

But it's odd that Linux can't read any of the partitions, while Windows 7 can.

[Zippy1970]

Anyone?

[ESCHER]

Data is in partition 6.  Filesystem is XFS.  It should mount automatically under Linux,  so I guess the filesystem is corrupted.  Try a Linux recovery software if data is important.

 

Before reinstalling the disk, delete all partition and leave all the disk as unpartitioned raw space and do a TFTP boot according to FAQs.

[Zippy1970]

Why is it that Linux isn't able to mount any of the partitions, while Windows 7 is actually able to "mount" all 6 and is even able to read the first?

[ESCHER]

Which Linux are you using. A recent Ubuntu works OK. Better chaces are with SATA cables instead of an enclosure. Try the following command " su parted -l", you shoul see partitio information of all disks.

[Zippy1970]

Kubuntu 13.04. Tried both the 32bit and 64bit version.

 

Also tried hooking up the drive directly to a SATA port. Made no difference.

[ESCHER]

Try the following command " su parted -l", you should see partition information of all disks.

You are not mounting the partitions under Win 7, you are just looking at the partition table.