NAS Forum

Hi Hoolito,

Firmware upgrade should not take that long.
I assume you downloaded the firmware first to your PC and applied it from there (after verifying its checksum).

Are you sure it is bricked?
Any lights come up?
Does the NAS have a ping response from its network address?

Try installing one of the HD's into a PC and run a Live CD linux distribution to access its partitions.

Aquar

Firmware update by WIFI! - live dangerously and - ..........
Now you will have to learn how to unbrick the NAS by some judicious reading.
There are two unbricking guides that give you the insight you need viz,

http://en.nas-4220.org/index.php/Unbricking_guide

http://mrt.nas-central.org/index.php/The…nbricking_guide

The Edimax box is hard to open up and usually you will break some of the one way latches.
Start at the back and with a credit card pry and lift the edge of the box away from its side.
Then pray that the bootloader still works so that there will be a working serial port.
Else you will also need the JTAG connection.

The serial port pinout and location can be found at the top of this sub-forum.

Before breaking the NAS Box (I meant breaking into!) try this procedure:

With disks removed, hold both buttons on the front and power on:
KIT scanner on the leds (keep holding the buttons), all lights off (keep
holding) and some lights go on (now release). This has recovered the firmware for a select few.

You can buy a usb 2 serial breadboard based on an FTDI FT232 chip that you can configure to work with the NAS
(both JTAG and Serial). Ebay usually has some.
Just to be sure - Never connect the NAS directly to the PC's serial port.



Aquar

You need an adapter that does voltage level translation, as the NAS serial port operates at 3.3 volts.
I can't tell if that adapter is set up for 5.0 volts or 3.3 volts on the signal lines.
Most of these integrated cable types are either one or the other.
Look for a breadboard type usb 2 serial as they normally have a select link to set it up for either (using USB voltage or an internal 3.3 volt regulator).

JTAG is only for flashing the Redboot debug/bootloader (and only with using HWguru's JTAG program).
Firmware is done via the serial port with xmodem or TFTP.

I know it looks scary, but you have nothing to lose but a bricked NAS.
I have purposely bricked my NAS to learn my way through the recovery process (read first, ask questions to clarify and then try it) .

The guru's here will help out with anything tricky if needed, after you have done the homework.

Aquar

I have an MvixBox and their firmwares releases also never include the checksum.
I guess being zipped there is some CRC checking.
I download firmwares twice and compare them.


Aquar

Maybe a bit late as an answer to this thread, but it really helped me and I wanted to thank you people!
And I'd like to share my experience/information.

I bought a USB-to-RS232 3.3V TTL cable from FTDI sold for the Raspberry Pi,
because of it's good availability (at least in germany).

http://www.ftdichip.com/Products/Cables/RPi.htm
http://www.ftdichip.com/Drivers/VCP.htm

And with the information from this thread:

DN-7024 Recovery - wo ist das Serielle und JTAG Port? (10 pin connector)

about the 180 degree rotation of the serial port pins on JP1 I got the serial connection
to the Edimax NS-2502 with Putty to work at once.

Finally I chose "Y: Upgrade Kernel" in the bootloader to flash the latest original Edimax
firmware (images_0.74c_Edimax_20100709.bin) from a TFTP server.

Thus opening the case of the NAS took longer than the whole unbricking. And with
the restored firmware, all data on the harddrives was accessible again.

Thanks again!

Always good to get some feedback on positive results, as it helps others avoid disaster.

The edimax MTD (flash memory) layout most likely differs from the MvixBox or Planex versions.
By using the serial port to flash an MTD partition, via redboot, you have to make sure you flash the correct partition.
Else it becomes a "bigger brick" and recovery falls back to the JTAG port for reflashing (possible thanks to HWguru's work) .

Making a backup of these MTD partitions is a pretty good idea for any NAS box.