Buffalo NAS-Central Forums

I have a 12TB/4-bay LinkStation Pro (LS-QV12TL/R5) set up in JBOD that is currently in EM Mode. I figured out it was due to a bad #3 drive and bought a new one. I read up on reflashing the drive but it states that the process will format the drive(s). Does this mean it will format the problem drive(s) only (disk #3 in my case)? Or does it mean what I'm inclined to believe, which is it will format all drives? Would I be able to pop in an assortment of smaller blank drives (ie. a couple 250GB drives and a 500GB) along with the new 3TB for the reflashing, then set it up with the full 12TB afterwards? If I could howeasy would that be? It may sound like a simple/silly question but I only ask because I don't want to spend another $3-400 on hard drives just to have them sitting on a shelf after.

FYI, I bought it December 28, 2012 and assume it's still under warranty, but I don't know how good an option that really is; if it's easy enough to fix I'd rather do it and save the shipping/waiting time.