Can't do Terastation TS-XE8.0TL/R5 firmware update

[mh1983]

I can't for the life of me get this pesky box up and running. Would appreciate some guidance.

Background:

I won the TS-XE8.0TL/R5 off of ebay, knowing it could boot but was untested and it came w/ no hard drive trays. When I booted it, it showed E06 missing boot image.

Steps I tried to get it up and running:
1. Do the TFTP firmware boot, which did seem to work and got the box out of E06. It's been on ever since and attached to my network.
2. Firmware upgrade + drive format of 1 drive. No matter what I tried, I got a format failure. Drive is healthy. Learned that 4 bays need to be filled.
3. Got 3 extra drives and put them in each bay. Tried firmware upgrade +drive format again. Same failure.

Also, the status of the box is degraded mode and emergency mode. At least that's what the NAS Navigator shows me. Also, the first two drive bays are blinking red, whereas the 3rd is green. To my knowledge, all drives are healthy.

At a complete loss here now. What else can I try before I throw in the towel? Do I need to redo the TFTP firmware step before reattempting the firmware upgrade? Anything on the drive side?

[mh1983]

Here's a video of the current state of my Terastation:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v15jGD5oHBE

[mh1983]

Also, adding this detail, in case it helps: the firmware updater detects TS-XEL-EM02C as the model.

I've tried version 1.65 and version 1.72. Every combination of debug settings. Nothing works.

Any help is appreciated.

[mh1983]

Lastly, I've keep the unit on for some time (since the TFTP boot firmware passed over) and then hooked up to my network. I put in the new drives and haven't rebooted. Should I reboot? Will I have to redo the TFTP stuff?

[mh1983]

So, I managed to get the device working after all! I ended up doing these steps:

1. Powering down altogether with all 4 drives in bays.
2. Attached the TS to my main computer via network cable.
3. Opened TFTP boot.
4. Booted on the TS; got the usual E06/blinking error. (But all 4 drives showed green lights.)
5. TFTP served the two boot firmware files. Eventually, TS stopped erroring out and gave a "Welcome" message.
6. Reattached my TS to the network. Eventually it got a 192.168... IP.
7. Opened the 1.71 firmware updated on my main computer. Debug mode with all boxes ticked.
8. Hit Update and the format FINALLY worked!
9. TS did a bunch of reboots and eventually booted properly. No errors. All drives recognized.
10. Opened NAS Navigator, signed into the admin GUI, encountered the weird Japanese language bug. Changed to English.

Since then, I built a raid 5 array, shared my folder, set up the DLNA server, and I'm now off to the races.

Thought I'd post this in case it helps anyone. Also, really appreciate the help from davo I received on here to get me going. Also, this guide was instrumental in piece it all together: https://reddit.com/r/sysadmin/comments/74xoju/how_to_fix_a_buffalo_terastation_tsxel_in_tftp/. Sequence matters. Patience (which was tested a few times) matters. The willingness to start over matters. Feels like a Buffalo mantra. :)

[supertester]

I won a TS-X2.0TL/R5 on eBay and hopefully I wont have to go thru all this. I am still trying to google around and find hardly any info on this model. Does anyone know whats the diff between the TS-Xn.0TL/R5 and TS-XEn.0TL/R5?

[oxygen8]

TS-XL
CPU TypMarvell 78100 ARM (Single Core)
CPU Geschwindigkeit800MHz
Arbeitsspeicher (RAM)DDR2 512MB
Unterstützte Festplattenkapazitäten1TB, 2TB, 3TB

TS-XEL
CPU TypeMarvell 88E6281 ARM (Dual Core)
CPU Speed1.2GHz
RAMDDR2 256MB
Supported HDD Capacities500GB, 1TB, 1.5TB, 2TB

from
http://www.buffalo-technology.com/en/products/storage-devices/business-nas/terastationtm/archive/ts-xel-terastation-es/
http://www.buffalo-technology.de/de/products/storage-devices/business-nas/terastationtm/archive/ts-xl-terastation-iii/