Manual firmware recovery for LS Live v1

From NAS-Central Buffalo - The Linkstation Wiki

To reinstall the original firmware on a LS Live v1 using only Linux, here is what I did.

Contents 1 Partitions 2 Filesystems 3 Files 4 Booting 5 Notes

Partitions

Using fdisk, create partitions such as these. You can probably use different sizes as well.

sda1 Primary Linux 205MB
sda2 Primary Linux 500MB
sda5 Extended Linux Swap 500MB
sda6 Extended Linux (remainder of the disk)

Filesystems

mkfs.ext3 /dev/sda1
mkfs.xfs /dev/sda2
mkfs.xfs /dev/sda6
mkswap /dev/sda5

Files

I used the firmware HS_DHGL_2.10.zip. Copy the following files into the boot partition:

hddrootfs.buffalo.updated
initrd.buffalo
uImage.buffalo

On the boot partition (sda1), do

$ date > rootfs_ok

This forces an ordinary boot, instead of EM mode.

I also unpacked hddrootfs.buffalo.updated onto the root partition (sda2), not sure if this is really necessary.

Booting

Upon the first boot, there is plenty of hard drive activity while the Info LED flashes. (I assume it is unpacking hddrootfs, so the manual unpack is not really necessary.) It will reboot when done, fully working.

Notes

This does not perform any actual flashing. Prior to this, I had used Gentoo, and its installation did not involve any flashing either, so this simple recovery via partitions and files was enough.