The Zyxel NSA310b is a Kirkwood based NAS (aka Network Attached Storage) with one HDD bay using SATA.

We require a USB stick (FAT32 formatted, single partition) and a 3.3V USB to serial adapter. We will then copy the required files to the USB stick and command the device through a terminal (using serial) to load and flash our files to NAND.

Copy the u-boot.kwb and -factory.bin files to a FAT32 formatted USB stick with msdos partition table (single partition). Rename the -factory.bin to something simple like nsa310.bin.

Warning: The following installation procedure is an overview and not a step by step guide, and thus for advanced users only: Overview for advanced users (git commit)

Please note that to write to NAND you might have to erase the NAND first, which means all data on the NAND will be deleted! Meaning stock firmware, bootloader, settings and everything will be gone! So make sure you got the proper files ready before you start as it's vital that you flash the new bootloader before you restart your device as it would otherwise get soft-bricked.

Make sure to write down your device's MAC address as we need to set it later! Otherwise it would get lost!

After plugging in the USB stick into the NAS with the correct files and booting into u-boot, first step is to install OpenWrt's u-boot:

usb reset
fatload usb 0 0x1000000 u-boot.kwb
nand erase.chip
nand write 0x1000000 0x00000 0x100000
reset

Now we set the correct environment variables:

setenv mtdparts 'mtdparts=orion_nand:0x00c0000(uboot),0x80000(uboot_env),0x7ec0000(ubi)'
setenv bootcmd 'run setenv bootargs; ubi part ubi; ubi read 0x800000 kernel; bootm 0x800000'
saveenv
reset

After the device reboots into the OpenWrt u-boot we proceed to flashing OpenWrt itself (which we called nsa310.bin for less typing):

usb reset
fatload usb 0 0x2000000 nsa310.bin
nand erase.part ubi
nand write 0x2000000 ubi 0x600000

Note that the number at the end indicates the size to write in hex. In this case up to 6 MiB. Increasing this number should work but has not been tested.

Finally set your device's MAC address (adjust the values):

setenv ethaddr AB:CD:EF:00:00:00
saveenv

And reboot to OpenWrt:

reset

# screen /dev/ttyUSB0 115200

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