Universe of technology…
Recovering from EM Mode – Buffalo LinkStation Live HS-DHGL NAS
I recently came across a problem with a Buffalo LinkStation Live.
When I plugged the NAS into my computer, and ran the Buffalo NAS Navigator, it reported that the drive was in ‘EM Mode’. After several hours of fiddling around, I eventually managed to get it up and running again.
The only way to do this is to either upgrade or flash the firmware. Don’t worry, the process is safe and shouldn’t damage any of your data.
Here’s how I did it (you must have a Windows PC to hand to perform the operation):
- Make sure that there are no other devices on your network which may interfere with the LinkStation, such as a firewall, or another NAS Drive.
- Directly connect the drive to an ethernet port on the network.
- This step is crucial for the operation to succeed. Open up Buffalo NAS Navigator, and click ‘Refresh’. Once the EM drive appears, right click it, select Properties and change it to an IP Address which is not currently being used. It may ask for a password, leave the box blank, and press enter. If leaving the box blank does not work, you will need to enter your current password for the drive.
- Once the drive is on a Static IP address, you will need to download the latest firmware for the product from Buffalo-Technology.com.
- After this has been downloaded, open up ‘LSUpdater.exe’. Select your NAS from the list and start the process.. The process takes approximately 10-15 minutes. DO NOT unplug the drive until the upgrade has completed. If the upgrade failed, try running again. It took me two attempts to get it working on one occasion.
Hope this helps.
Please note: I accept NO responsibility for any lost data, since it is your own choice if you decide to take the steps above. I am simply providing them as a reference/help to anyone who has the same problem.
Thanks. This works! my NAS is now restored after I tried the steps above
You are my Hero. It worked
Thankyou very much for sharing, it really helpful.
this started me down the right path for the terra station duo I got the rest from http://buffalo.nas-central.org/wiki/The_LinkStation_firmware_flasher which was really good
I had to
1/ download the software to a pc
2/ unzip the software to a folder
3/ edit the lsupdater.ini file and cheat change version to a later version 1.6.5 i changed to 1.6.9
4/ change the check version setting from 1 to 0 (two ways of doing same thing I know)
5/ added [SpecialFlags] Debug=1 as per wiki above
4/ It did not work when i connected the linkstation directly to the computer (cannot connect through TCP) was the message – it did work when I connected both PC and link station directly to the router and then ran normal buf nas navigator to see if it would renew the IP address which it automatically did
5/ I turned off all firewalls – windows and all
6/ then ran the updater and it found it and ran
Hey Luke, this saves me a lot of time fixing my nas.
Thank you!
Thank you Luke, that worked… you saved me & my data…
We had a power outage and I thought my NAS drive was bricked. Followed your instructions and everything is back to normal. Thank you
Thank you very much. It wworked for me after 3 times try.
After going through the NAS-central wiki instructions for a linkstation in EM-mode and bricked I had no success. I found this below it in the google search and wish it had been at the top. I tried this once and my NAS is back to full operation in about 10 mins. Thank You.
Hey Luke,
You are a lifesaver. Thanks for sharing the information. I updated my NAS like a charm.
Thanks.
Had two LS421 to configure – 1 ok the other was in EM mode straight from box. Followed the instructions and in 10 mins or so was working correctly. Many thanks :o)
Excellent. Thanks a lot!
WOW… what a life saver.
Why this is NOT posted on the Buffalo website is beyond me.
Thanks for reminding me to be patient.
FYI, the LSUpdater.exe is in the zipped firmware file…
Worked great!
Thanks, this help and only took one go at it!
Again many thanks
Kudos dude…un-bricked my LS-X2.OTL.
Several attempts at installing firmware v1.70 failed.
Changing the IP address to an unused static IP did the trick.
My LS-X2.OTL now even survives a cold-boot. Well done!
Amazing fix, searched Google for ages and this is the only thing that worked. I was about to reset/format and lose all my data. Buffalo should have this on their website! Thanks again.
Thanks a lot. LS Pro Duo was down since a week and finally able to get it back.
May the force be with you – Luke!
Many thanks my Linkstation Duo is now operational!
Just want to say thank you for this. My LS-QVL-EM33B Linkstation went into emergency mode and reinstalling the latest firmware using these steps sorted it out first time.
Thank you Luke,
That was really helpful. Truly appreciate your tips.
Thanks so much Luke, great blog. Killed my Linkstation Live 2Gb by dropping it (oops!), it worked for two days then died. Now fully functional thanks to your advice! Cheers – Rich
Adding to Luke’s info , If you get an error that a partition can not be found during the Updater Progress, Then modify the LSUpdater.ini file and change the “NoFormatting” Value to “0”
as follows: NoFormatting=0. Then rerun the LSUpdater.exe.
Be sure to change the value back to “1” if you run the LSUpdater.exe again after running it with a value of “0”
Thus you don’t want to keep re-formatting the drives every time you run the LSUpdater.exe. Now that’s not to say that you may need to re-format again. This process is a trial and error. But for the most part try to limit formatting to just once.
Worked for me, Thanks!
Worked here too. Very happy. Thank you.