Hi!
I had a similar problem, and thought I would have to throw this unit away.
BUT...
On the CD that came with the device, there is a folder called MSSLOAD and in there is the command file NASLOAD.
Run that from a command prompt, and follow the instructions. It should detect your drive and say it's asking for a firmware, it should automatically use the file in that folder.
It can take quite a while to rebuild the drive, and you will probably have already lost what was on it.
You will need to download the latest firmware from Maxtor and reload that, but at least your device will be working again.
This process also means you could in theory install a larger drive
Take a look at
http://www.openmss.org also, as they have modified the firmware so you can run shell commands and do things like run a web server on it.