Recovering a Buffalo Link station

I bought a secondhand Network Attached Storage unit recently.

I have another identical unit which has been fantastic.

This one "played dead" and when reset booted into "Engineering Mode" or "Emergency Mode".

I could find the device on the network (indirectly by the address given by the DHCP table on the router) and it would respond to a ping but that was it.

When trying the web browser interface using the now known IP address nothing happened and the browser timed out and when I installed the "navigator" software on a PC it found it but said it was in "engineering mode".

After more Googling I found a "firmware update" program from Buffalo ( LSUpdater.exe ).

The instructions I found at " http://buffalo.nas-central.org/wiki/The_LinkStation_firmware_flasher " were very useful in applying it.

After changing the web interface language from Japanese to English (!) all seems to be well.

If you are thinking of buying a NAS don't let this put you off. I suspect the one I bought was the victim of a misguided (and unsuccesful)attempt to delete data on it before selling it.

My current one has been great and I've high hopes for this new one as well.