LaCie 5Big NAS PRO Boot issue with blank screen

[Miheddine]

you still believe that it's a Firmware issue for booting? is it possible we have in our case a Hardware defection but that the machine is normal without any weird sound or something like that !!! i'm very confused :(

[fvdw]

Yes something on VGA I would expect that as well.

Unfortunate I don't have a 5big pro myself so I can't test.

Last possibility I see, make a bootable uefi system disk. I made some trial on this seagate 4bay pro.
It is based on 5big pro so you would expect a similar behavior although bios setup may be different and spoil the party, for instance if bios from 5big pro doesn't support uefi boot.

lets try

attached three rar archives, you need to extract them
You will have then 3 files
sdb-2048.img
sdb1.img
sdb2.img

Write those to the harddisk using commands given below.
Note I assumed it is disk sdb in your VM environment.
WARNING: Be sure that this is correct otherwise if you use commands below and write to the wrong disk then your windows pc will be bricked.

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dd if=/path-to/sda-2048.img of=/dev/sdb bs=1 count=1048576


now when loading /dev/sdb in gdiks you should see three partitons,

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Number  Start (sector)    End (sector)  Size       Code  Name
   1            2048          526335   256.0 MiB   EF00  EFI System
   2          526336          919551   192.0 MiB   8300  Linux filesystem
   3          919552         1968127   512.0 MiB   8300  Linux filesystem
root@fvdwsl-base:/share/1000/public/5bigpro-trial #


There will be an issue that disk size is only 40 GB, this because the image is retrieved from a small disk
Use the 'v' command in gdisk, it will complain that disk is larger and secondary gpt header has to be moved to end of disk.
Just perfom command 'w' and write partiton table to disk that should correct that.
After that write the other two images to the disk

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dd if=/path-to/sdb1.img of=/dev/sdb1
dd if=/path-to/sdb2.img of=/dev/sdb2


Replace 'path-to' by the real path to the folder were your stored these files
Thats it put the disk in most lefthand slot seen from back and start the nas.

If it boots this setup loads a kernel that fully runs from ram and should give telnet access, so you will need a telnet client to connect (port 23)
There will be three ip's available to connect via telnet
one dynamic ip assigned by your dhcp server, 192.168.1.251 and 192.168.0.251

--edit files removed

[fvdw]

you still believe that it's a Firmware issue for booting? is it possible we have in our case a Hardware defection but that the machine is normal without any weird sound or something like that !!! i'm very confused :(

becuase it probes the harddisk one by one I guess it is trying to find a bootable disk or a disk to load lacie firmware. The front blue flashing is also a sign that the device is not dead, otherwise nothing would happen.

Unfortunate I do not have a 5big pro so also for me it is trial and error and also unfortunate there is not much info to be found on the internet about this device

[fvdw]

in the meantime I found this for 5big pro as partition scheme

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# npart name        size(MiB) type  fstype     fsoption
  1     grub_core   1         ef02
  2     boot_rescue 192       8300  ext2
  3     nv_data     1         8300  ext2
  4     root_1      1536      fd00  ext2
  5     root_2      1536      fd00  ext2
  6     var         1024      fd00  ext3
  7     swap        256       fd00  linux-swap
  8     user_data   0         fd00

That will be helpfull to work on if previous trial doesn't work, it indicates that this device supports uefi boot

[Miheddine]

After doing all procedures:

miheddine@miheddine-VirtualBox:~$ sudo gdisk -l /dev/sdd
[sudo] password for miheddine:
GPT fdisk (gdisk) version 1.0.3

Partition table scan:
MBR: protective
BSD: not present
APM: not present
GPT: present

Found valid GPT with protective MBR; using GPT.
Disk /dev/sdd: 7814037164 sectors, 3.6 TiB
Model: super high speed
Sector size (logical/physical): 512/4096 bytes
Disk identifier (GUID): BDC06C5E-9537-45CA-8805-A847D73CD9BF
Partition table holds up to 128 entries
Main partition table begins at sector 2 and ends at sector 33
First usable sector is 34, last usable sector is 7814037130
Partitions will be aligned on 2048-sector boundaries
Total free space is 7812071017 sectors (3.6 TiB)

Number Start (sector) End (sector) Size Code Name
1 2048 526335 256.0 MiB EF00 EFI System
2 526336 919551 192.0 MiB 8300 Linux filesystem
3 919552 1968127 512.0 MiB 8300 Linux filesystem



miheddine@miheddine-VirtualBox:~$ sudo fdisk -l /dev/sdd
Disk /dev/sdd: 3.7 TiB, 4000787027968 bytes, 7814037164 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 4096 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 4096 bytes / 4096 bytes
Disklabel type: gpt
Disk identifier: BDC06C5E-9537-45CA-8805-A847D73CD9BF

Device Start End Sectors Size Type
/dev/sdd1 2048 526335 524288 256M EFI System
/dev/sdd2 526336 919551 393216 192M Linux filesystem
/dev/sdd3 919552 1968127 1048576 512M Linux filesystem


at the end, i put it back into the LaCie with negative result --- no VGA out --- no Access IP over telnet

[fvdw]

Pity, what was behavior of the leds?

From the partition structure of 5big pro I found on the internet it seems lacie uses ef02 partition type, which is a bios boot partition. Need to see if I can make an image based on that. It is a different way of booting using uefi with ef00

Will be tomorrow, other things to do right now

[Miheddine]

when it was working well, when we press the front button, the HDDs led begin blinking for HDDs initialization one after one, then they become solid blue (5 Leds together) and the front big LED becomes solid blue as well.

in our case, the blinking happens for HDDs led then turned OFF all AND the front LED still blinking all the time.

weird !!!

[fvdw]

oke, I need some time for making and testing a gpt disk image that can be used in a device that use bios booting. Sorry to keep you waiting.

[fvdw]

progress is made I expect to post something for trial tomorrow (thursday)

[fvdw]

The 5big pro doesn't support UEFi boot as previous trial to boot it failed (assuming this device has no hardware problem).
From partition table found on the internet it seems lacie has incorporated a bios boot partition (ef02). That could indicate that they use still bios boot. However that is not sure as I saw this partition structure also on other lacie devices but with empty ef02 partition. Those devices used uboot as boot loader. But as this is in intel cpu based device it may be different. Also possible that they use syslinux as boot loader.

Anyhow let try this disk structure which should boot if the device supports bios boot from disk with gpt partition table.

Take an empty disk meaning deleted all partions on it and write empty table to disk using gdisk
After that create a new partition table using gdisk
create 2 partitions
using these commands in gdisk

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n
1
2048
+1M
ef02

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n
2
4096
+256M
8300

partiton table should now look exactly the same as this

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Number  Start (sector)    End (sector)  Size       Code  Name
   1            2048            4095   1024.0 KiB  EF02  BIOS boot partition
   2            4096          528383   256.0 MiB   8300  Linux filesystem

if so write it to disk using 'w' command of gdisk

after that write the files in the attached rar archive to this disk (I assume it is sdb, be sure that in your setup this is the right disk otherwise use the correct identifier)

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dd if=sdb-512-vs5.img of=/dev/sdb bs=1 count=512
dd if=sdb1-vs5.img of=/dev/sdb1
dd if=sdb2-vs5-2.img of=/dev/sdb2

Put it in the most left slot of 5big pro and see if tit boots. If it does there should be telnet access (port 23) on ip 192.168.1.251 and 192.168.0.251 and a dynamic assigned ip by your dhcp server
username: root password: giveit2me

let see if it works :-D


-- file 8-aug19-trial-gpt-bios-boot.rar removed