This post has already been read 2265 times!
 I have a few different NAS in my home network, each used for different things. Having multiple ones also ensures when I have a problem I won’t lose all my files in one go. Recently I was bit by a issue updating the firmware in my EMC NAS. I was able to recover and not lose any data- but only because I didn’t rush into anything without doing some research to see what was possible.
I have a LenovoEMC px4-300r, a nice little 1U rackmount NAS that I got from woot a few years ago for very cheap. It’s a nice system and I’ve been using it for a few years. It’s now out of service but they released one last firmware update a few months ago. I almost ignored it but noticed that it had moved to a new version of Samba and I figured it may be worth it just to update it.
After downloading the firmware, applying it and rebooting i noticed that it was not coming back up. It would go to 95% and then sit there for 10min then reboot and do it over and over again. After waiting about three hours I decided it was not going to fix itself. Google revealed some very strong hits- and this was the winner. So my thanks to PeteNetLive. Reading his page not only allowed me the trick to download the proper imager for a USB stick, but he confirmed that you could do this non-destructively (by pulling all the drives first!).
I flashed a USB stick using the EMC imager on a Windows machine, pulled the drives and it worked. The device was flashed and shutdown properly. I pushed the drives back in and booted it. No issues. So if you have one of these systems and this hits you follow those steps for a perfect recovery of a near disaster.