Author Topic: Reinstalling to an out-of warranty NAS with blank drives  (Read 75940 times)

gbymb

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Re: Reinstalling to an out-of warranty NAS with blank drives
« Reply #45 on: June 20, 2020, 08:36:35 AM »
I found the plug on the back to be a bit flacky. I suggest you unplug from the nas and the power from the wall, and hit the connector and plug with some cleaner lube. I've seen them spark when the connector was moved. And it's probably stuck in a funny state because of it. I'd be tempted to do a reset...hold down fuction, hit power, let go of power, continue holding the function down for 6 secs. I'll take a good 5 or so mins to boot back, and flash lights and restart, a few times, but it may fix it. Of course your settings will be gone but your data will be fine. ( someone pls back me up on this :) and goodluck

lee_mackey

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Re: Reinstalling to an out-of warranty NAS with blank drives
« Reply #46 on: August 28, 2020, 07:31:10 PM »
I spent way too much time today trying to get my old LinkStation LS-WX2.0TL/R1 to boot with two new drives. But now it's working, so thanks to OP and everyone else who chipped in. Some details that may help with certain steps of the process:

1. Wiping disks: If wiping drives from Windows, note that if there is an EFI partition, it will likely be protected. In that case you may use diskpart, a command-line tool. Get a command prompt (run as administrator), then type 'diskpart'. Once in diskpart, do 'list disks', then 'select Disk 1' (or whatever your disk is to wipe), then 'clean' (no quotes for any of those commands). Choose the correct disk!!

2. Extracting firmware: From the firmware update directory, I had to rename initrd.img and uImage.img to initrd.zip and uImage.zip, respectively. Then I chose to Extract all... and dumped the contents into the same directory as the originals (the directory where you will serve your files via TFTP). When done, I had to rename those .zip files back with .img extensions, otherwise the updater program would complain. You may need to change your Windows setting to "view extensions" to do this renaming. Another note: there were two uImage-xxx.buffalo files; I choose to extract and rename the one that more closely resembled my model name, and the NAS seems to be operating correctly now, but just to note, after flashing the firmware, the default unit name was given as LS-WXLA43.

3. To enable the NAS to talk to the TFTP server, I had to:
    * disable firewall
    * Set my IP to 192.168.11.1/24
    * reboot the NAS using this sequence:
        - reboot holding function button
        - when blue function light flashes, release function button, then press it again
        - wait for device to go into E06 error (red LED blinks six times)
        - press function button again -- had to hold it down for a few seconds.

4. Watch your TFTP server logs to see if the files start transferring. Once they've transferred, you may have to wait a few minutes for the NAS to show up in NAS Navigator. It should appear in Emergency mode. You can shut down your TFTP server when you get to this point.

5. NAS Navigator then asked me if I wanted to correct an auto-assigned IP address on the NAS. At first I said yes, and tried to assign it an address in the 192.168.11.0/24 range, but that led to major problems in the next phase--I'll leave out the gory details. So the next time thru, I left the auto-assigned address alone and changed my PC's IP and netmask to match--this was in the 169.254.0.0/16 range. Sometimes NAS Navigator asks for an admin password—this is "password" (no quotes).

6. When running LSUpdater, be sure to click the ICON at top left corner, NOT the drop-down menu. I didn't even realize that icon was holding a menu the first time I went through this! Then select "Debug..." It wasn't clear if any of these options were to be changed or not, but I left them alone. If you get a message about "partition not found", you will need to check the box to "partition tables". When the process is complete, the device should update and reboot (possibly more than once) on its own. Wait for the entire process to complete—it takes quite a while. Watch the LEDs for possible clues as to where the NAS in the process. You might need to manually reboot it at some point...

7. When everything came back up again, I found to my great amusement (*cough*) that the web interface was in Japanese. You'll need to log in with admin/password, then choose the 4th item in the dark grey bar ("System" in Japanese), then the third red bar down ("Language" in Japanese), then click the button in that panel. It will let you change to "English", but you should also choose "CP437" as Windows Client Language.

I repeated the whole process with a second set of disks just to make sure I didn't screw any of my notes up majorly. Your mileage may vary. Good times!
« Last Edit: August 28, 2020, 08:48:40 PM by lee_mackey »

dwd

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Re: Reinstalling to an out-of warranty NAS with blank drives
« Reply #47 on: September 04, 2020, 11:21:29 AM »
Thank you 1000001101000 for all of the helpful information, it got me pretty far i the process and I feel like I am just missing something.

I have a LS210D0201, the hard drive died so I replaced it with a 1TB and formatted it to GPT and EXT3.

Through lots of searching I found the buffalo TFTP. I used the 1000001101000 method to extract the files from the firmware and I am able to get the drive into emergency mode.

Then I change the computer IP to the same as the one given to the drive and the TSUpdater, I tried it with and without the debug mode and it still has an issue. It looks like it goes through the process of installing the firmware and everything looks good and then it sits on the rebooting status until it goes through and says it lost the connection. At this point the drive and been flashing error 25 (2 slow 5 fast orange lights) I let it sit over night flashing these lights but it did not do anything. Am I missing anything? Thanks
« Last Edit: September 04, 2020, 03:24:02 PM by dwd »

1000001101000

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Re: Reinstalling to an out-of warranty NAS with blank drives
« Reply #48 on: September 04, 2020, 11:32:32 AM »
Quote
I have a LS20D0201, the hard drive died so I replaced it with a 1GB and formatted it to GPT and EXT3.

What model is this? I Think you are missing a number it your post. If it is a 2-bay model you usually need both drives present for an install to succeed.

Also, I assume you mean 1TB drive or something similar. Most models will only install on drives larger than 20GB or so.

Sounds like you're really close. It might be worth checking the user manual to see if it says what that particular LED code is (I don't know if off hand). But my guess is you should try again with both drives installed.


dwd

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Re: Reinstalling to an out-of warranty NAS with blank drives
« Reply #49 on: September 04, 2020, 12:17:24 PM »
It is the LS210D single drive and yes it is a 1TB sorry about the typos.

The error code is I25 in the manual  "Updating the LinkStation firmware"

1000001101000

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Re: Reinstalling to an out-of warranty NAS with blank drives
« Reply #50 on: September 04, 2020, 12:20:14 PM »
hmm. I guess I haven't noticed it do that before, though it's been a while since I've done it myself.

If it were me I'd probably leave it like that for ~20min and then manually power it off/on. If it comes up cleanly after that great, if not I'd start over and see if it does it again the second time. 

Tiderfish

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Re: Reinstalling to an out-of warranty NAS with blank drives
« Reply #51 on: September 12, 2020, 01:21:23 AM »
Greetings,

I found an older unit in my basement with no drive. It is a LS-1000GL, so a single drive Link Station. I followed all the directions here but am getting stuck with the TFTP upload of the firmware at 19%. Every time it is at 19%. I have tried two different drives, and have scrubbed the old partitions off. They are detected as unformatted in Windows. I even tried the diskpart to "clean" them.

I am not sure, but listening real close to the unit, it sounds like it starts reading or writing the drive for the first time when the TFTP errors out.

Thank you for keeping this post active. I is nice to be able to keep these units out of the landfill, once the hard drive inevitability dies.

Matt

1000001101000

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Re: Reinstalling to an out-of warranty NAS with blank drives
« Reply #52 on: September 12, 2020, 08:53:24 AM »
Is it lsupdater or your tftp program stopping at 19%? Your post sounded like it was the tftp program.

The TFTP portion of the process doesn’t actually use the drive. The device’s boot loader reaches out to the TFTP server and loads the boot files directly into memory and then boots from them.

In either case it’s probably worth checking out the drive. If it is failing the firmware install likely won’t go well.

Tiderfish

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Re: Reinstalling to an out-of warranty NAS with blank drives
« Reply #53 on: September 12, 2020, 11:36:03 AM »
Sorry for the ambiguous post. I tried posting a screen shot but was unable too.

The device connects to the TFTP server when the firmware I downloaded for this unit (and renamed it to uImage.buffalo) is in it's server directory. The TFTP starts transferring, but stops at 19%, even the same bit value every time. This is a 74MB file it is choking on, and every time it dies on 14,744,576

I plugged this drive into windows before hand, it is used, but had an OS on it, and seemed to be working fine. It also failed at the same exact byte marker as the 1st drive I tried.

I am using TFTP by Jounin, and have never seen something like this before in my moderate TFTP useage.

Tiderfish

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Re: Reinstalling to an out-of warranty NAS with blank drives
« Reply #54 on: September 12, 2020, 01:14:43 PM »
Ok I just started the whole process over with fresh downloads and copied the TFTP log, I am getting a timeout.
Connection received from 192.168.11.150 on port 2633 [12/09 13:56:55.013]
Read request for file <uImage.buffalo>. Mode octet [12/09 13:56:55.013]
OACK: <timeout=5,> [12/09 13:56:55.019]
Using local port 60552 [12/09 13:56:55.019]
TIMEOUT waiting for Ack block #28799  [12/09 13:57:28.529]


So here is the process I am doing.
1. download and unzip firmware from buffalo's site. its version 1.15

2. find and open unzip the initrd.img file, it requires a password so I put it in from the wiki page. Copy the initrd.buffalo file from within the image to the C:\TFTP-Root\

3. do the same process for the hddrootfs.img file. This contains a file named hddrootfs.buffalo.updated, I copy that into TFTP-root, and rename it uImage.buffalo

4. I connect my laptop's NIC directly to the Ethernet port on the Linkstation (LS-1000GL, and I set my NIC's ip address to 192.168.11.1/32

5. I launch TFTP, and plug in and power on the Linkstation.

6. after a few seconds, the buzzer beeps loudly. I momentarily press the front panel button, to silence the buzzer but not turn off the unit.

7. after a few moments the NIC goes active, and the uImage.buffalo file is pulled down from the TFTP server.

8. I notice sometimes I get 1 file transfer window dialog pop up, and other times I get two dialog. but the second does not transfer. Its like it is trying to pull the same image twice.

9.TFTP times out, at 19% and eventually the Linkstation will shutdown and beep again until silenced.


Am I missing a step? Do i need more files in the TFTP-Root directory than just those two buffalo files?

1000001101000

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Re: Reinstalling to an out-of warranty NAS with blank drives
« Reply #55 on: September 12, 2020, 01:22:17 PM »
your uImage.buffalo should be extracted from something named similar to uImage.buffalo (this is the kernel).

What you're seeing is the bootloader crashing/running out of memory because it is trying to load the entire firmware filesystem (~75MB) when it's expecting the kernel file (~4MB).

Tiderfish

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Re: Reinstalling to an out-of warranty NAS with blank drives
« Reply #56 on: September 12, 2020, 02:54:04 PM »
Thanks for that! So I renamed the 4MB initird.bufflao to uImage.buffalo, and the device finally made a full transfer. Then it started requesting the initird.buffalo file again. So I copied another one into the tftp-root directory, and it copied that. Then it copied the first one again. It was looping between the two. So I thought if I renamed the 74MB firmeware file back to uImage.buffalo, maybe it would take it. But it just crashed again at 19%. Here is the log. I just rebooted it to see if it is in recovery mode, and it seems to have the same stuff.

Quote
Connection received from 192.168.11.150 on port 4055 [12/09 15:39:08.777]
Read request for file <uImage.buffalo>. Mode octet [12/09 15:39:08.778]
OACK: <timeout=5,> [12/09 15:39:08.785]
Using local port 65086 [12/09 15:39:08.785]
Connection received from 192.168.11.150 on port 4074 [12/09 15:39:18.793]
Read request for file <uImage.buffalo>. Mode octet [12/09 15:39:18.793]
OACK: <timeout=5,> [12/09 15:39:18.793]
Using local port 50368 [12/09 15:39:18.793]
<uImage.buffalo>: sent 9479 blks, 4852968 bytes in 14 s. 0 blk resent [12/09 15:39:32.300]
Connection received from 192.168.11.150 on port 2162 [12/09 15:39:32.341]
Read request for file <initrd.buffalo>. Mode octet [12/09 15:39:32.342]
File <initrd.buffalo> : error 2 in system call CreateFile The system cannot find the file specified. [12/09 15:39:32.342]
TIMEOUT waiting for Ack block #0  [12/09 15:39:33.789]
Connection received from 192.168.11.150 on port 1160 [12/09 15:39:42.378]
Read request for file <initrd.buffalo>. Mode octet [12/09 15:39:42.378]
File <initrd.buffalo> : error 2 in system call CreateFile The system cannot find the file specified. [12/09 15:39:42.378]
Connection received from 192.168.11.150 on port 1412 [12/09 15:39:52.414]
Read request for file <initrd.buffalo>. Mode octet [12/09 15:39:52.414]
File <initrd.buffalo> : error 2 in system call CreateFile The system cannot find the file specified. [12/09 15:39:52.414]
Connection received from 192.168.11.150 on port 4052 [12/09 15:40:02.451]
Read request for file <initrd.buffalo>. Mode octet [12/09 15:40:02.451]
File <initrd.buffalo> : error 2 in system call CreateFile The system cannot find the file specified. [12/09 15:40:02.451]
Connection received from 192.168.11.150 on port 2595 [12/09 15:40:12.487]
Read request for file <initrd.buffalo>. Mode octet [12/09 15:40:12.487]
File <initrd.buffalo> : error 2 in system call CreateFile The system cannot find the file specified. [12/09 15:40:12.487]
Connection received from 192.168.11.150 on port 1402 [12/09 15:40:22.522]
Read request for file <initrd.buffalo>. Mode octet [12/09 15:40:22.525]
File <initrd.buffalo> : error 2 in system call CreateFile The system cannot find the file specified. [12/09 15:40:22.525]
Connection received from 192.168.11.150 on port 1686 [12/09 15:40:32.561]
Read request for file <initrd.buffalo>. Mode octet [12/09 15:40:32.561]
File <initrd.buffalo> : error 2 in system call CreateFile The system cannot find the file specified. [12/09 15:40:32.562]
Connection received from 192.168.11.150 on port 3825 [12/09 15:40:42.597]
Read request for file <initrd.buffalo>. Mode octet [12/09 15:40:42.598]
File <initrd.buffalo> : error 2 in system call CreateFile The system cannot find the file specified. [12/09 15:40:42.599]
Connection received from 192.168.11.150 on port 3629 [12/09 15:40:52.635]
Read request for file <initrd.buffalo>. Mode octet [12/09 15:40:52.635]
File <initrd.buffalo> : error 2 in system call CreateFile The system cannot find the file specified. [12/09 15:40:52.635]
Connection received from 192.168.11.150 on port 1844 [12/09 15:41:02.671]
Read request for file <initrd.buffalo>. Mode octet [12/09 15:41:02.671]
File <initrd.buffalo> : error 2 in system call CreateFile The system cannot find the file specified. [12/09 15:41:02.671]
Connection received from 192.168.11.150 on port 3662 [12/09 15:41:12.708]
Read request for file <initrd.buffalo>. Mode octet [12/09 15:41:12.708]
File <initrd.buffalo> : error 2 in system call CreateFile The system cannot find the file specified. [12/09 15:41:12.708]
Connection received from 192.168.11.150 on port 2985 [12/09 15:41:22.744]
Read request for file <initrd.buffalo>. Mode octet [12/09 15:41:22.744]
OACK: <timeout=5,> [12/09 15:41:22.752]
Using local port 58896 [12/09 15:41:22.752]
<initrd.buffalo>: sent 9479 blks, 4852968 bytes in 14 s. 0 blk resent [12/09 15:41:36.418]
Connection received from 192.168.11.150 on port 1431 [12/09 15:41:37.652]
Read request for file <uImage.buffalo>. Mode octet [12/09 15:41:37.652]
OACK: <timeout=5,> [12/09 15:41:37.652]
Using local port 58900 [12/09 15:41:37.652]
<uImage.buffalo>: sent 9479 blks, 4852968 bytes in 14 s. 0 blk resent [12/09 15:41:51.221]
Connection received from 192.168.11.150 on port 3828 [12/09 15:41:51.262]
Read request for file <initrd.buffalo>. Mode octet [12/09 15:41:51.262]
OACK: <timeout=5,> [12/09 15:41:51.263]
Using local port 58901 [12/09 15:41:51.263]
<initrd.buffalo>: sent 9479 blks, 4852968 bytes in 13 s. 0 blk resent [12/09 15:42:04.820]
Connection received from 192.168.11.150 on port 2422 [12/09 15:42:06.054]
Read request for file <uImage.buffalo>. Mode octet [12/09 15:42:06.054]
OACK: <timeout=5,> [12/09 15:42:06.054]
Using local port 58902 [12/09 15:42:06.054]
<uImage.buffalo>: sent 9479 blks, 4852968 bytes in 13 s. 0 blk resent [12/09 15:42:19.612]
Connection received from 192.168.11.150 on port 3037 [12/09 15:42:19.654]
Read request for file <initrd.buffalo>. Mode octet [12/09 15:42:19.654]
OACK: <timeout=5,> [12/09 15:42:19.654]
Using local port 58903 [12/09 15:42:19.654]
<initrd.buffalo>: sent 9479 blks, 4852968 bytes in 14 s. 0 blk resent [12/09 15:42:33.184]
Connection received from 192.168.11.150 on port 2504 [12/09 15:42:34.418]
Read request for file <uImage.buffalo>. Mode octet [12/09 15:42:34.418]
OACK: <timeout=5,> [12/09 15:42:34.418]
Using local port 58904 [12/09 15:42:34.418]
<uImage.buffalo>: sent 9479 blks, 4852968 bytes in 13 s. 0 blk resent [12/09 15:42:47.964]
Connection received from 192.168.11.150 on port 1169 [12/09 15:42:48.005]
Read request for file <initrd.buffalo>. Mode octet [12/09 15:42:48.006]
OACK: <timeout=5,> [12/09 15:42:48.006]
Using local port 58905 [12/09 15:42:48.006]
<initrd.buffalo>: sent 9479 blks, 4852968 bytes in 13 s. 0 blk resent [12/09 15:43:01.592]
Connection received from 192.168.11.150 on port 3786 [12/09 15:43:02.825]
Read request for file <uImage.buffalo>. Mode octet [12/09 15:43:02.825]
OACK: <timeout=5,> [12/09 15:43:02.825]
Using local port 58909 [12/09 15:43:02.825]
TIMEOUT waiting for Ack block #28792  [12/09 15:44:09.026]

1000001101000

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Re: Reinstalling to an out-of warranty NAS with blank drives
« Reply #57 on: September 12, 2020, 03:01:33 PM »
You need to serve to files on your TFTP server, initrd.buffalo and uImage.buffalo.

For this model initrd.buffalo is extracted from initrd.img, uImage.buffalo can be used as-is from the firmware zip.

Tiderfish

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Re: Reinstalling to an out-of warranty NAS with blank drives
« Reply #58 on: September 12, 2020, 03:59:21 PM »
YESSSSSS That worked!!! Thanks!

Now I see the device in NAS Navigator 2, it is in emergency mode, as expected. However when I extract the firmware to a folder and run the LSupdater.exe it abruptly closes on Win10x64. I tried a 32bit windows7 machine, and it actually gives me an error with an appcrash report.

So I downloaded another firmware from a different model, a LS-V174, and copied the LSupdater.exe and lsupdater.ini files into the same dir as the proper firmwares, and it now launches, but tells me "Linkstation that needs updating wasn't found."

We are sooo close!

Thanks again for your help!

Tiderfish

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Re: Reinstalling to an out-of warranty NAS with blank drives
« Reply #59 on: September 12, 2020, 04:06:29 PM »
Here is the latest TFTP log, I see it is still getting a time out, and even after running this, If I reboot the device, it will connect back and download the images again.

Quote
Connection received from 192.168.11.150 on port 1402 [12/09 17:01:54.042]
Read request for file <uImage.buffalo>. Mode octet [12/09 17:01:54.042]
OACK: <timeout=5,> [12/09 17:01:54.042]
Using local port 52148 [12/09 17:01:54.042]
Connection received from 192.168.11.150 on port 2878 [12/09 17:02:04.057]
Read request for file <uImage.buffalo>. Mode octet [12/09 17:02:04.057]
OACK: <timeout=5,> [12/09 17:02:04.057]
Using local port 63040 [12/09 17:02:04.057]
<uImage.buffalo>: sent 3535 blks, 1809460 bytes in 5 s. 0 blk resent [12/09 17:02:09.082]
Connection received from 192.168.11.150 on port 2036 [12/09 17:02:09.123]
Read request for file <initrd.buffalo>. Mode octet [12/09 17:02:09.124]
OACK: <timeout=5,> [12/09 17:02:09.124]
Using local port 63041 [12/09 17:02:09.124]
TIMEOUT waiting for Ack block #0  [12/09 17:02:19.046]
<initrd.buffalo>: sent 9479 blks, 4852968 bytes in 13 s. 0 blk resent [12/09 17:02:22.628]