NSA325 not booting after uBoot installation from stock rom (1 reply)

Hello Forum,
I've tried to flash my NSA325 from stock rom to Debian. Based on what I've read I thought I have to flash first the uBoot, which was successfully. My serial interface boots up with

U-Boot 2017.07-tld-1 (Sep 05 2017 - 00:42:03 -0700)
ZyXEL NSA325 2-Bay Power Media Server

SoC:   Kirkwood 88F6282_A1
DRAM:  512 MiB
WARNING: Caches not enabled
NAND:  128 MiB
In:    serial
Out:   serial
Err:   serial
Net:   egiga0
MV88E1318 PHY initialized on egiga0
Hit any key to stop autoboot:  0

I'm trying to use the NSA325 internal SATA drive for the debian package. So I've created one primary partition and formated with EXT3 format and define the name of harddisk "rootfs".

And then begins my adventure. Based on the situation I don't have any linux system running (except a VM), I've tried it with a USB SATA adapter, Windows and ext3 driver for write access. Formating was done with Easeus Partition Master. Then I've unzip the file linux-4.20.6-kirkwood-tld-1-bodhi.tar.bz2 and unzip the DTS folder below \boot on my ext3 paritiion and even unzip linux-image-4.20.6-kirkwood-tld-1_1.0_armel.deb and paste the folder etc, usr, lib and boot.

Now the start of my NAS fails with the following output

starting USB...
USB0:   USB EHCI 1.00
scanning bus 0 for devices... 3 USB Device(s) found
       scanning usb for storage devices...
Use USB retry period from the environment: 15 second(s)
1 Storage Device(s) found

Reset IDE: Bus 0: OK Bus 1: not available
  Device 0: Model: ST500LM000-1EJ162  Firm: DEM7 Ser#: W372BHJ5
            Type: Hard Disk
            Supports 48-bit addressing
            Capacity: 476940.0 MB = 465.7 GB (976773168 x 512)
Unknown command 'mmc' - try 'help'

Partition Map for USB device 0  --   Partition Type: DOS

Part    Start Sector    Num Sectors     UUID            Type
  1     2048            30461952        28833e54-01     0c Boot

## Unknown partition table type 0

## Unknown partition table type 0

## Unknown partition table type 0

## Unknown partition table type 0

## Unknown partition table type 0

## Unknown partition table type 0
loading envs from usb 0 ...
reading /boot/uEnv.txt
** Unable to read file /boot/uEnv.txt **

Partition Map for IDE device 0  --   Partition Type: DOS

Part    Start Sector    Num Sectors     UUID            Type
  1     63              976768002       dc8bfeba-01     83
Unknown command 'mmc' - try 'help'
running scan_disk ...
Scan device usb
device usb 0:1
reading /boot/uImage
** Unable to read file /boot/uImage **
device usb 1:1
** Bad device usb 1 **
device usb 2:1
** Bad device usb 2 **
device usb 3:1
** Bad device usb 3 **
Scan device ide

Reset IDE: Bus 0: OK Bus 1: not available
  Device 0: Model: ST500LM000-1EJ162  Firm: DEM7 Ser#: W372BHJ5
            Type: Hard Disk
            Supports 48-bit addressing
            Capacity: 476940.0 MB = 465.7 GB (976773168 x 512)
device ide 0:1
** File not found /boot/uImage **
device ide 1:1
** Bad device ide 1 **
device ide 2:1
** Bad device ide 2 **
device ide 3:1
** Bad device ide 3 **
Scan device mmc
Unknown command 'mmc' - try 'help'
device mmc 0:1
** Bad device mmc 0 **
device mmc 1:1
** Bad device mmc 1 **
device mmc 2:1
** Bad device mmc 2 **
device mmc 3:1
** Bad device mmc 3 **
loading uImage ...
reading /boot/uImage
** Unable to read file /boot/uImage **
loading uInitrd ...
reading /boot/uInitrd
** Unable to read file /boot/uInitrd **
loading DTB /boot/dts/kirkwood-pogo_e02.dtb ...
reading /boot/dts/kirkwood-pogo_e02.dtb
** Unable to read file /boot/dts/kirkwood-pogo_e02.dtb **
Wrong Image Format for bootm command
Error occured, error code = 112
ERROR: can't get kernel image!

Before I've restarted I've read the fw_printenv

/e-data/F05C-9247/test/tools # fw_printenv
bootargs=console=ttyS0,115200 mtdparts=nand_mtd:0x100000(uboot),0x80000(uboot_env),0x80000(key_store),0x80000(info),0xA00000(etc),0xA00000(kernel_1),0x2FC0000(rootfs1),0xA00000(kernel_2),0x2FC0000(rootfs2) root=/dev/nfs rw init=/init
bootcmd=nand read.e 0x2000000 $(kernel_addr) 0xA00000; bootm 0x2000000
bootdelay=2
baudrate=115200
loads_echo=0
ipaddr=10.4.52.165
serverip=10.4.52.7
rootpath=/srv/ubuntu
netmask=255.255.255.0
nandEcc=1bit
kernel_addr=C80000
MODEL_ID=AA03
PRODUCT_NAME=NSA-325
FEATURE_BIT=00
CONTRY_TYPE=FF
VENDOR_NAME=MitraStar Technology Corp.
run_diag=yes
ethaddr=C8:6C:87:6F:54:8D
arcNumber=4495
bootcmd_uenv=run uenv_load; if test $uenv_loaded -eq 1; then run uenv_import; fi; sleep 3
mtdparts=mtdparts=orion_nand:0x100000(uboot),0x80000(uboot_env),0x80000(key_store),0x80000(info),0xA00000(etc),0xA00000(kernel_1),0x2FC0000(rootfs1),0xA00000(kernel_2),0x2FC0000(rootfs2)
dtb_file=/boot/dts/kirkwood-nsa325.dtb

Inside the description of how to install Debian, I didn't understand how to use this commands:

apt-get remove flash-kernel 
dpkg -i linux-image-4.20.6-kirkwood-tld-1_1.0_armel.deb

With the Zyxel stock rom I couldn't run this command and on my VM I was afraid overwrite my original kernel inside the VM. This explain why I did all the extracting manually.

Now the Box doesn't boot anymore. Any hint would be really appreciated :-)


Best regards
Filou