How to fix Buffalo CS-XL NAS EM issue OR upgrade to newer firmwares

I feel a strong obligation to share my entire day's worth of trial and error not to mention download hell. For those of you who owns Buffalo CS-XL NAS, you might have been disappointed with the results from Google for your problem. You are in luck because I will be helping you out if you got into the same error as I did OR you can upgrade your extremely outdated firmware :)

To make sure we are on the same page or rather using the same device, here is the picture of my device:

 My device, CloudStore CS-XL (doesn't really matter what is the size of the storage)

 

NOT our device, the LinkStation LS-XL most likely renamed because Cloudstore is the same name as the device by Synology

So why do I need to show you both? Any person with a passable eyesight would notice that both are too alike to NOT be the same. I have went through the testing and I can vouch that they are the same, well at least in terms of the firmware which is probably what lead you here.

If you have hit the error Emergency Mode (EM), verified using Buffalo's NAS Navigator software, you will be asked to update your firmware i.e. CloudStor v1.13 (the same as your current). Unfortunately for me, my device went into EM without the LEDs blinking nor did it turn red but it was inaccessible all the same. You may download the firmware here.

If you have successfully gotten your device to work again then congratulations! If you have not read on, same goes for those who wants to upgrade their firmware to a newer version.

At the point of this post was written, the latest available firmware is LinkStation v1.7 and the firmware can be downloaded here (please do download it, required for the next steps). Once you have gotten the firmware, extract the content and you should see a bunch of files. What is of concern to you are just 2 files, the LSUpdater.ini and LSUpdater.exe.

Open the LSUpdater.ini using notepad and you should see this:

[Application]
Title = BUFFALO LinkStation Series Updater Ver.1.70
WaitReboot = 1200
WaitFormat = 600
WaitFileSend = 600
WaitDiscover = 120

[Target]
ProductID = 0x00000011
ProductID2 = 0x00000012
ProductID3 = 0x00000013
ProductID4 = 0x00000014
ProductID5 = 0x00003006
ProductID6 = 0x00003007
ProductID7 = 0x00000015
ProductID8 = 0x00000016
ProductID9 = 0x00003008
ProductID10 = 0x00004001
ProductID11 = 0x00000017
ProductID12 = 0x00000019
ProductID13 = 0x00000020
ProductID14 = 0x00003010
Name = LinkStation

[Flags]
VersionCheck = 1
NoFormatting = 1

Update the content to be like so, the changes are marked with RED. The CloudStore models are added into the file and it was recommended by other support sites that the VersionCheck field should be changed as well, that's what I did so I am sticking to it. Save the file with the new contents!!!

[Application]
Title = BUFFALO LinkStation Series Updater Ver.1.70
WaitReboot = 1200
WaitFormat = 600
WaitFileSend = 600
WaitDiscover = 120

[Target]
ProductID = 0x00000011
ProductID2 = 0x00000012
ProductID3 = 0x00000013
ProductID4 = 0x00000014
ProductID5 = 0x00003006
ProductID6 = 0x00003007
ProductID7 = 0x00000015
ProductID8 = 0x00000016
ProductID9 = 0x00003008
ProductID10 = 0x00004001
ProductID11 = 0x00000017
ProductID12 = 0x00000019
ProductID13 = 0x00000020
ProductID14 = 0x00003010
ProductID15 = 0x00003009
ProductID16 = 0x0000300A
ProductID17 = 0x0000002A
Name = LinkStation

[Flags]
VersionCheck = 0
NoFormatting = 1

Make sure that your NAS is connected to a stable network and NAS Navigator is able to detect it plus it is in the same segment e.g. 192.168.0.*. Run LSUpdater.exe, it should be able to detect your NAS now. If you ran LSUpdater.exe without changing the values, your NAS will not be detected. Click Update. This process will take a while, at least 15-20 minutes as far as I can remember.

After the updater have done its work, you will be prompted a message. Mine said the firmware was NOT compatible BUT my NAS was still displaying steady blue LED light i.e. no issues and finally NAS Navigator is showing that my NAS is using the name I had assigned it and no more EM status. YAY!!!

Now try to access your updated NAS by using the IP as detected by NAS Navigator and you will notice a different looking login page:

Login page of v1.7 firmware for LinkStation, but it is working in my CloudStore :p

MOST other people have reported that they CANNOT login back to their NAS because our previous screen DOES NOT ask for username! The username you should key in now is "admin" (without the quotes) and the password which you used to manage your NAS before this.

I hope you didn't encounter that issue, so if you didn't, CONGRATULATIONS! You have just updated your CloudStore with the latest firmware! To my delight, the bittorent client seems to have been updated as well, at least in terms of the look and feel. I hope this post was able to help you my fellow Buffalo CloudStore CS-XL users =) Cheers