If he can SSH in, there’s a command on the system to install a firmware upgrade, isn’t there?
The firmware could be copied by SCP, and then run the firmware upgrader. It might need the trick to fool the upgrader into thinking the device has an earlier version of firmware than it does.
With a bit of luck, the firmware upgrader will use a low-level boot loader that won’t have been mangled by the linux apt-get.
Unfortunately, whilst I know I’ve read about all three of these things (firmware upgrade command, SCP, spoofing the firmware version), I can’t remember the details. They’re on the forum somewhere…
ps. this is just an idea: if anyone thinks it’s stupid, please shout…
[edit] Aha! This is for the MyBookLive, but IIRC, it’s the same command on the MyCloud:
More googling, now I know what command to look for:
