Goflex Home: A new brick?

Hello,

First off, I am an all around noob to all things linux ( I switched to ubuntu only a few weeks ago). I only took on the project of installing ArchlinuxARM because of the total uselessness of the stock Seagate Dashboard. It was a bit over my head and I may have fumbled my way into a corner.

(The Steps I refer to are those on the ArchlinuxARM website: http://archlinuxarm.org/platforms/armv5/seagate-goflex-home)

Here is what I have done:
I went through all of the steps described on the installation page up until step 13: Unmount the drive: cd.. ; umount alarm. At this step I typed "unmount alarm" instead of "umount alarm" (who thought that was a good idea? how hard is it to add an "n"). I did not recognize my error even when it told me that "unmount" was not a recognized command (My thoughts: "Computer, you sooo stupid! Of course it command! hurrduur!!"). I barrelled on through the next steps (they seemed to have the necessary results so the unmount VS umount problem left my mind). All seemed to be a success! I finished the first reboot "housekeeping" without much problem.
Then I realized I could not seem my drive on the network other than through SSH. I could even see it in the WebUI of my router. However, the white light was not lighting up.
At this point I remembered the "unmount" problem. So, I decided to attempt to restart the process. Already having root access i began at step 4 but skipped step 5 (rationalizing " those daemons were probably deleted once I formatted everything" on the wholly insufficient evidence of intuition).
Well, I couldn't get past step 10. I am pretty sure I made an additional partition within the second original partition. At which point I called "mulligans". (I *think* at this point the green light started flashing)
Having what seemed to be no other choice I turned to flash resetting my drive. However when I plugged the flash drive into the Goflex Home (and turned it on) nothing happened other than a continuous blinking green light.

So, any way out of this? Or do I now have a new brick? I posted this on the ArchlinuxARM forums but haven't gotten any help yet. I *think* there still might be a possibility of booting from a flash drive with some other firmware on it.

Many thanks,

--Daniel

Daniel,

You could try to reflash factory firmware:
http://support.goflexhome.hipserv.com/en/reflash/index.html

Once you restore back to the stock FW. The rest is easy, just use Jeff installation script and you will get UBoot and Debian installed.

bodhi

Bodhi,

I tried this multiple times, double checking everything. All I get is a quickly flashing green light.

Thanks,

Daniel

@Daniel,

Did you get past step 14 in your attempt? If you did not, then the reflashing stock FW should work. It is just a little bit flaky, you could try a different flash drive, and pushing the reset button with a paperclip seems to work well. If you did then how far did you get (i.e. which steps were executed)?

Also, it would be best to keep the log of your installation for future troubleshooting.

-bodhi

Bodhi,

The first time through I completed all of the steps (including the ones after the first reboot) except for the step where I had to unmount alarm (where, after it told me "unmount" is not a command, I just moved on). The second time through I started with 4, skipped 5 and couldn't get past 10. Somewhere at this point I noticed I could no longer connect to the drive via SSH or see it on my router's webUI.

I will attempt another flash drive once I get a hold of one. I have also tried different formatting programs to see if that was the issue (t'was not).

I also thought of trying to directly connect to the goflex home via usb-to-usb cable. Would something like this work?

I definitely should have kept a log but "barrelling" is an accurate way to describe how I approached this. Lesson learned. If any of my description makes you think "There is no possible way that is what happened." it is probably me remembering incorrectly.

Thanks again,

Daniel

Tried another flash drive (8gb sandisk cruzer). No changes. This one has a light on it which seems to be flashing at a slow pace (occasionally, it speeds up slightly).

Daniel,

If you have completed all the steps for Arch Linux ARM then reflashing stock FW most likely wont work. And you have flashed different uboot. Probably the easiest way to get it to boot again, without resorting to serial console is to create a fresh Arch Linux ARM rootfs on a flash drive. After you can boot with Arch, you can then install Debian if you want to.

Use your Ubuntu box and mount the flash drive. Suppose the flash drive was mounted as sdb1 under /media (depending on how many drives were already mounted, replace the appropriate drive letter if needed).

- Unmount the drive first:
umount /media/sdb1

(The following instruction is from the Arch Linux ARM website, with appropriate changes for a flash USB drive installation)

- Start fdisk to partition the USB drive:
/sbin/fdisk /dev/sdb1

At the fdisk prompt, delete old partitions and create a new one:
Type o. This will clear out any partitions on the drive.
Type p to list partitions. There should be no partitions left.
Now type n, then p for primary, 1 for the first partition on the drive, and then press ENTER, to accept the default value for the beginning of the partition.
Exit by typing w.

- Create the ext3 filesystem:
mke2fs -j /dev/sdb1
mkdir /media/alarm
mount /dev/sdb1 /media/alarm

- Download and install Arch Linux ARM:
cd /media/alarm
wget http://archlinuxarm.org/os/ArchLinuxARM-armv5te-latest.tar.gz
tar -xzvf ArchLinuxARM-armv5te-latest.tar.gz # This will take a long time
rm ArchLinuxARM-armv5te-latest.tar.gz
sync # Takes a while if you are using a flash drive

- Unmount the drive:
cd ..
umount /media/alarm

- remove the USB flash drive, plug into the GoFlex Home and power up.

Bohdi,

Thank you so much. Progress has been made! The green light is now steady and I can see it on the WebUI of my router. However what do I use in place of "ssh USERNAME_hipserv2_seagateplug_XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX@IP_ADDRESS"? I would assume that since it is no longer booting from seagate firmware this is no longer the sequence I would use. I cannot connect to the drive's WebUI to set up a username.

Many thanks, again!

--Daniel

It gives me "Read from socket failed: Connection reset by peer" when I try to put in that ssh line. So, I'm guessing I'll need a different one

Daniel,

iirc, with ALARM fresh rootfs, the login is user: root, password: root. You can ssh in using root/root. After logged in, change root password to something else, and to verify to make sure the success installation:

do a reboot (warm start):

shutdown -r now

and then later shutdown:

shutdown -h now

then power up (cold start)

-bodhi



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/25/2012 12:47AM by bodhi.

Bodhi,

Looks like it is all installed. I got through the ArchlinuxARM instructions without much trouble. I ended up having to reboot the goflex with the USB inserted. Then, once a steady green light was established, I attached the HDD (leaving it on for the reboot resulted in me not being able to ssh). Having done so I continued with the ArchlinuxARM instructions changing any /dev/sda1 to /dev/sdb1 (since the USB was now sda1). After I turned it off (at the end of the installation) I removed the USB. Still held a green light, Still showed up on the Router, Still could ssh. Awesome!

However, I still do not see the white light. The Goflex does not show up as a network drive. I can connect via ssh. I can see it on my router. I can probably add files via the terminal. But I don't see it come up as a network device. Also, no WebUI via the IP address

Thanks again,

Daniel



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 07/25/2012 04:13PM by dannyboy2322.

Daniel,

That's the expected behavior. Once you installed new UBoot and boot with USB/HDD drive with ALARM on it, it's a basic Linux system you're running. So you will need to install SAMBA to make the shared folders appear in the local network.

You could now try the Debian rootfs provided by Dave (posted in this forum, username davygravy). Just create a USB stick in the same fashion that you've done for the Arch Linux rootfs. Except that the file system is EXT2 (iirc). You have rootfstype EXT3 in the UBoot environment now, so make sure that's consistent with the rootfs you are using (either change the UBoot env, or change the rootfs type so they match).

Since this is Debian forum, so from now on, if you stay with Arch Linux ARM then you can find the instruction for SAMBA, CUPS, web server,.... at Arch Linux ARM website. If you decide to run Debian, then I can help you setting up SAMBA. Also many others can advice on a whole bunch other issues you need. It's up to you, but I think Debian is better for learning Linux.

bodhi