Reinstalling to an out-of warranty NAS with blank drives

[Tiderfish]

AHA! Did some googleing, and came across another poor soul having a similar issue. His solution was to edit the LSUpdater.ini file and add a couple of flags. When I went in there, I noticed the listed devices were wrong, because I brought this INI with the working LSUpdater.exe from the other download. So I deleted the bad INI, and imported the good one from the correct firmware download. Then I added the same flags he did. At last it would find the device. However when pressing the button to update the firmware, it said something like no partition firmware update aborted. So I changed the noformat option to 0 and it started loading the firmware!... for about 5 minutes, then I got an error that the uImage.buffalo file was missing. So I copied that into the same dir, and it wouldn't resume. Now I the updater program is having problems finding the unit again.

Here are the flags I used
Edit LSUpdater.ini
[Flags]
VersionCheck = 0
NoFormatting = 1 (changed this to 0 to let it format the partitions)

[SpecialFlags]
Debug=1

[1000001101000]

Which debug options did you use?

[Tiderfish]

WE GOT IT WORKING!!!

I think part of my problem is my Intel Pro NIC on my laptop didn't like connecting and disconnecting to the nas and a switch all the time. So it was making the transition from TFTP on 192.168, to DHCP with the LSUpdater more of a challenge. My solution to this was to put in a small switch between the nas, and laptop, for the TFTP on 192.168, then plug in an uplink to it so the nas can get dhcp to be found on the network. This is of course with all the other steps in place like the modified INI file, and the commandeered lsupdater from another firmware.

Once it finally loaded, the web-gui page was all in Japanese! I was thinking I downloaded the wrong firmware. Luckily I was able to log in and change the default language.

Thanks again 1000001101000, or should I call you 'h'? I was looking for a challenge today, but I didn't think it would have gone THAT far!

PS. Now that I have it all configured I am playing around with adding it to my Active Directory, and running into some issues. Should I just start a new thread for that?

[clippingxpert]

Sweet. Blank drives is important, usually so is having enough drives

[makenov]

Hi everyone, I am having a hard time with the LS WXL/R1 nas box.

After a power outage, the box reboot and the function LED is just SOLID RED. There is no flashing light sequence, no blue light, just a solid red all the time, and the drives are not spinning. Luckily, the data is not damaged and I have backed up all the stuffs. I did go trhough all the instructions I found  this forum, but still feel hopeless. Some of the symptons are:

- The only light on is function LED - it is solid RED all the time, No flashing light, no other colors
- Pressing the function button does not change the state of the function LED - solid red all the time.
- Seem like the box is stuck when it try to boot. It is in halt state forever
- No drive spinning. I have tried with several blank working drives.
- Nas Navigator/ LS updater/ acp_commander cannot detect the box ( I did edit the .ini file to enable the debug mode )
- TFTP boot cannot detect the box too ( I did connect the box to my pc, 192.168.11.1, turn off firewall, extract the firmware,..... )
- The 2 PCBs are not damaged, no burnmarks, no magic smoke.

Anyone knows what I should do

[1000001101000]

I haven't looked to closely at the ls-wxl boot-loader but I assume it's similar to the others I've looked at.

On the devices I've looked at the bootrom appears to turn on the red led before starting the bootloader. The bootloader turns it back of early in the boot process around when it starts flashing the power led. If the bootloader fails to load the red led just stays on. I've actually confirmed this behavior by wiping the bootloader on an ls210 with an spi programmer.

So one possibility is that the bootloader got corrupted.

I've also heard of similar behavior when there is something wrong with the power supply, odd behavior happens if it can't provide enough power. You could try booting the device without drives and see if anything changes (most of the power goes to powering the drives).

[makenov]

Hi 1000001101000,

I followed your suggestion, I removed all the drives and power up the nas box for 20 minutes, but seem like the the box is still stuck with the solid red LED. I also tried with different 12v 4a/5a power adapters and nothing changes. Another symptons I forgot to list is that the fan is not running too.

May be, as you said, the bootloader is corrupted. On the PCB there is a 4 pins un-soldered connector near the NAND flash chip. What are software and hardware I need to make it work again?

here is the image of the board
https://www.smallnetbuilder.com/myincludes/image_page.php?/images/stories/nas/buffalo_linkstaduo/buffalo_linkstaduo_board.jpg

[1000001101000]

You could try re-flashing the chip with one of these:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07R5LPTYM

If the only problem is that the data on the chip got corrupted somehow that might fix it. I don’t know what the odds are of that but it’s something to try.

If you do decide to give it a try I can help with the procedure, I’ve done it several times testing other issues. Maybe if I get some time I’ll write up a wiki page about it.

[makenov]

Hi 1000001101000,

I decided to give it a try. I will find someone the flash chip programmer or I just buy one. It may take 1 or 2 weeks to have the programmer delivered to my location. I will reply on this thread when I have everything ready.

Thank you for fast replying. This thing has beaten up me so far

[1000001101000]

I've been happy the programmer I bought (the one from the link). It's been pretty useful for how cheap it was.

[makenov]

Hi 1000001101000,

Sorry for a long time without any reply, I just got the chip programmer yesterday. What should I do next to recuse this NAS? It had been working tirelessly for almost 10 years!

[1000001101000]

Start by disassembling the device. I have some notes about that from the LS-WVL which uses the same basic design:
https://buffalonas.miraheze.org/wiki/Linkstation_LS-WVL#Disassembly

once you get the access to the main board you'll want to locate the 8-pin chip containing the bootloader. Usually they make the chip with a colored dot after they program it which make them easy to identify. On some models there is a small ~16k chip for the bootrom and in addition to the ~512K-1M bootloader chip.

see if you can dump the chip with the programmer. that could help confirm whether the chip is working or not.

[makenov]

Hi 1000001101000,

- Following your instruction, I can find a ST 25P40VP 3.3v chip with a red marker dot.
- The CH341a chip programmer had a problem when working in 3.3v mode. After following some tutorials on youtube and a little bit of of soldering, it's fine now.
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ln3VIZKKaE
- I can read the data in the chip, but I don't know how to interpret it. I have the attached image below.

[1000001101000]

Nice!

Take a look at the last 64K of the dump. You should see the bootlaoder environment variables there. After reflashing you'll want to set some of them again such as the MAC address and serial#

You can use this process to get the bootloader image:
https://buffalonas.miraheze.org/wiki/Extract_Boot_Files_from_Stock_Firmware

it's usually in u-boot.img.

you can then try flashing it to the chip and see if that improves things. Depending on your software you may need to pad it with zeros to match the size of the chip.

[makenov]

Hi 1000001101000,

Great news today!

After extracting the u-boot.img file, I had the *.bin bootloader file for my NAS (LS-WXL), there are also other bootloader files for other different models.

Using a Hex editor, I could compare the old *.bin file, which I scavenged from the chip, with the new extracted *.bin file. I copied the last 64k data from the old one to the new one, checked the addresses of bits, saved it, then I flashed the chip with the modified *.bin file, removed the chip programmer clamp, and plugged the 12v power in.

Boom! The NAS just booted up again, no more solid red light! The Power LED flashed in blue colour. NAS_Navigator could detect the NAS in Emergency Mode. I installed 2 blank drives, modified the LSupdater.ini, forced the NAS to update the firmware.

Everything is working now!

I cannot thank you enough 1000001101000!

Quite an adventure for me as an electronic hobbyist! Ensure your NAS has a stable power supply, everyone or you may screw up your bootloader chip!

Thank you again 1000001101000! I wish you have the best luck! Stay safe too!