ZWA-2 passthrough dead - need some advice

Hi, since yesterday and today I am experiencing a problem with the usb ports of my NUC12 running esxi with HAOS as VM. It seems I am hitting this issue:
USB-C/Thunderbolt ports on NUC12WSBi5 stopped working : r/nuc
and support case is created. Hope it is it…

Long story short: my Zwave is dead…

I started to explore other options and stumbled upon:

Install portable Z-Wave firmware – Device Toolbox

First step is… to backup the firmware. Which is not possible as HA does not see my ZWA-2 anymore…

any tips/suggestions in the meantime?