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