Buffalo HS-DH500GL Hard drive swap

(note: this was in the draft folder for some reason...I did this project over a year ago...)

I picked up the Buffalo HS-DH500GL GigaBit LinkStation a few years ago...I was using it as a portable FTP server for a IP camera capture.

And haven't used it since. So I fired it up and started to use it...and immediately filled the drive. 500GB just doesn't go as far as it used to.

On clearance I picked up a pair of 1.5TB WD My Book Essential USB drives. I figured I could plug them into the LinkStation for more space. Bad idea. Twice the drives went blank...just lost the data, and then both started creating nested directory copies...apparently infinitely. And because of this activity the LinkStation kept overheating and shutting down.

So I had a great idea...I would use those 1.5TB drives for something else. I thought about using them in my ReadyNAS NV+...but they weren't on the approved HD list.

So then I had the bright idea of putting one of the 1.5TB drives into the LinkStation...how hard could that be?

I won't get into disassembly of the LinkStation...there are web sites with that...but it is one screw for the front cover, pull a cable, two screws and slide the drive out, then two screws to remove the interface. The WD My Books are snap together plastic with two screws holding the electronics to the drive.

Needless to say I did a lot of research before I attempted this...and much of it was wrong.

I used a HD to USB adapter to do all this. Specifically the Apricorn Drive Wire Universal HD adapter. (SATA, IDE, laptop IDE)

I used partimage on Ubuntu to make an image of the first two partitions (in my case sde1 sde2).

I ALSO wrote down what partitions were where, what kind, and how big.

I then swapped drives and ran Gparted on the 1.5 TB drive. I deleted any partitions on it.

I made the following partitions in order so they would match the original. And I made them all slightly larger so that partimage wouldn't complain later (it still did once).

sde1 - 206MB EXT3
sde2 - 520MB XFS
sde3 - 10MB ext3 (it didn't show in the original, but I wanted (needed?) to make the partition numbers match

sde4 - then I made an extended partition for the rest of the drive (1.4TB)

sde5 - 140MB linux swap
sde6 - the rest of the drive XFS (1.4TB)

Then I used partimage again to write sde1 and sde2 to the drive.

Then I put it in and turned it on...it worked right away.


Of course it was attempt 5 that actually worked right away...I tried just doing one partition and then a firmware update (wrong) the first time I tried to copy the sde2 back over the partition was too small...even though it was larger than the original...so I had to re-partition the rest of the drive again...1.5TB...and the last attempt after re-partitioning...I forgot to copy the sde1 and sde2 over.

So this took me a couple of days until I got the right procedures (I had to screw the interface back to the drive every time I wanted to test it...then it took about 2 hours.

And I have a 1.5 TB NAS. BTW, the reverse was easy, I put the 500GB drive in the WD My Book, and it wiped it and reformatted automatically.

iPhone 3GS 5.1.1 Jailbreak Unlock

Anyone who follows this blog probably knows why I have a 3GS (still).

So I will get to the hacking.

Once again it was time to upgrade, this time from 5.0.1 to 5.1.1, mainly because an App I use needed the upgrade.

It seems like everytime I do the Jailbreak I have to re-research it, and it changes a little bit.  I even look at this blog to see what I did last time.

Well to be honest I don't know if much changed, it seems the JB tools out there (sn0wbreeze, redsn0w) have improved quite a bit and most of the task is automated.

Quickly here is my setup.  I have a 3GS with the old bootrom (digits 3-5 of its serial number are 926).  I have the 5.13.4 baseband.  Keeping my current baseband allows easy unlocks.

So now the fun...btw this took 2 different computers and 3 cables.

First on my laptop with 2gig ram I downloaded the 5.1.1 ipsw file from here and redsn0w 9.14b2 from here.

I ran redsn0w and  clicked the Extras button, then Custom IPSW...loaded up the 5.1.1 ipsw that I downloaded and selected preserve Baseband.

On my laptop at around this point, redsn0w would fail with a out of memory error. (I did some more fooling around at this point, but won't bore you with the details)

Now I tried the same thing with my Desktop (4gig) this time it generated the no baseband ipsw for me.

Again using redsn0w and selecting the Extras button I then selected Pwned DFU to put the 3GS into a recovery mode.

Now open iTunes, it says you have a phone in recovery mode blah blah blah.  Ok that message, and hold the Shift key while clicking the Restore button.

If you are like me, you will get errors such as 2500 (I think) and or a 1600 or 1601.  The 2500 means you have a cable problem...so use a different cable.


The 1600 or 1601 is because iTunes looks something up on the internet, and doesn't like what it sees.  The fix is to edit your HOSTS file.

This file is located at (Win7, but probably all versions)...

C:/Windows/System32/drivers/etc/

You will see some commented out items (a line with a # in the front is considered commented out).

Find the line with gs.apple.com at the end, and either erase the line, or put a # at the beginning of the line...like this...

#74.208.10.249 gs.apple.com

then save the new hosts file.   If you are like me, you will have to save it on your desktop, delete the one in the folder, and paste the one from the desktop to the folder (due to administrator privileges and other protections)


So the restore finally finishes (after you start it again).  Don't bother setting up your phone, just start redsn0w again and this time hit the Jailbreak button.

The next screen opens up with Install Cydia selected and nothing else.  I didn't change a thing and started the process.

Just follow the directions...BTW I did this with the sim card removed...I don't know if it was required, but it worked.

After the phone reboots, you will have to do the initial setup, I then let iTunes reload my backed up apps and settings, and after a bit I started Cydia.

In Cydia, I let it do its updates, then searched for Ultrasn0w.  Clicked on the item and installed it.  That was the unlock.

After that I just let the rest of the apps be restored, and my previous Cydia items...I think after I ran Ultrasn0w I installed the SIM card, and all was well.