Installing my own hard drive, light just keeps flashing

Scott · Post by **Scott** » 05 Aug 2007, 21:19

Hi,

I added a hard drive to a diskless Bubba today and I don't think it is going well. The drive is a 750 MB Seagate (ST980825AS). I understand that formatting could take quite a while, but I've let the process run for several hours three times now. For the second attempt, I reformatted the USB drive, to make sure it was FAT32 and for the third attempt, I changed the hard drive jumper from cable select to master. Each time I heard spinning and seeking noises from the hard drive for the first ten minutes or so, but none afterwards.

Has this happened to anyone else? Is there any chance that if I wait longer, it might work?

Thanks,

-Scott

johannes · Post by **johannes** » 06 Aug 2007, 06:28

Sorry to hear that you are having problems. This is the full list of events:

Do like this:
1) Format an USB memory, at least 128 MBytes. Set it to FAT32.
2) Copy the bubba.img file to it, and make sure it has exactly that name
3) Make sure the network is attached
4) Hold the button pressed while inserting the power

This should happen:
1) The front led flashes
2) The disk spins up
3) The red led (disk activity, visible through the vent holes on the left hand side) should blink briefly a few times
4) Data is read from the USB memory. If you have a status lamp on the memory, it should flash
5) After approximately 30s - 1 minute, the disk led should blink agressivly, indicating a hard drive format has started. If you listen closely, there is a continous buzzing from the drive as well.
6) On a 750 GB disk, the format takes some 45 minutes. After that, Bubba automatically reboots, and when done, the flashing front light changes to lit.

Please let us know where it fails. Thanks.

Tompa · Post by **Tompa** » 06 Aug 2007, 07:58

I had the same problem when I tried to reinstall mine a couple of months ago (did exactly as mentioned above). When I wasn't able to get it to work with the USB-stick I was using I switched to another one and then it worked immediately.

The one that didn't work for me was a Viking Interworks 512MB USB 2.0 Drive.

/Tompa

Scott · Post by **Scott** » 06 Aug 2007, 08:10

Hi,

Thanks for the replies.

I've gotten through step 3 --- front led flashes, drive spins up, and the red led flashes briefly. The USB indicator lights to indicate power, but never flashes as it did when I formatted it and copied the image on to it. I'll try to find another USB drive to try with. The one I'm using is a PQI.

Cheers,

-Scott

johannes · Post by **johannes** » 06 Aug 2007, 08:32

Ok, thanks. It does sound like Tompa is right, some incompatibility with your USB memory. Please let us know how it goes.

Thanks,

Scott · Post by **Scott** » 07 Aug 2007, 21:10

I've tried two other USB drives with basically the same result.

1. PQI Card Drive U505, 2GB --- Lights up to show power, but never flashes to show activity

2. SanDisk Cruzer micro, 1GB --- Light flashes once on power up, and never again

3. Memorex, 512M --- No light at all.

I noticed that the green light flashes sometimes. Network?

Can I install an image on the hard drive manually, with a Linux box?

Thanks,

-Scott

johannes · Post by **johannes** » 08 Aug 2007, 04:33

Strange.. The only remaining option as I see it is to return your Bubba, and we'll have a look at it (we'll ship you a new one instead, to minimize your waiting time). Perhaps it has had some freight damage.

Please email us at [email protected] and we'll sort out the details.

Best Regards,
/Johannes

Scott · Post by **Scott** » 08 Aug 2007, 09:34

Sorry, I was mistaken in my last post --- I forgot to reformat the last USB drive before trying the install. Doing a FAT32 format, I get farther. There is a good amount of reading from the USB drive. However, now the hard drive led flashes steadily forever, about once a second. Does that indicate anything?

Thanks for the offer to ship me a new one while I ship the old one back. Do you still think that's the right course?

Cheers,

-Scott

johannes · Post by **johannes** » 08 Aug 2007, 09:40

Ah, good news.

In the next step, the drive should re-format (the red LED blink frenetically, while the yellow continues to blink as before. This takes about 45 minutes on a large drive.

Does this occur, or do you mean that the red LED blinks once a second?

Scott · Post by **Scott** » 08 Aug 2007, 09:56

The red LED blinks once a second for hours, along with the front LED.

Scott · Post by **Scott** » 08 Aug 2007, 14:29

Johannes,

I took the disk out of the Bubba and put it in a PC. It is not recognized on startup, so I'll be sending that back rather than the Bubba. But at least I know which USB drive to use when I get the replacement. Thanks for the help.

By the way, is the minimal disk image meant to work without an installed drive?

Cheers,

-Scott

albert · Post by **albert** » 08 Aug 2007, 14:47

I used the minimal install image to recover my bubba. I had changed one of the startup scripts, and so it wouldn't startup properly.

Booted with this image, can't remember if the disk was automatically mounted somewhere in the filesystem or if I did it by hand. Anyway, I could get to the edited file on the harddisk, changed it back and rebooted again. And then it worked fine again.

Post by **tor** » 08 Aug 2007, 15:04

Scott,

The disk is unfortunately needed in any case. The minimal image wont touch it though. But our bootloader hangs waiting for the disk to spin up and without any attached disk i think it will hang indefinetly

/Tor

Scott · Post by **Scott** » 29 Aug 2007, 21:02

I got the replacement drive, and with the Memorex 512MB USB drive, everything is working.

Thanks for the help.

--Scott

forum.excito.org

Installing my own hard drive, light just keeps flashing

Installing my own hard drive, light just keeps flashing

It looks like I'm getting through part 3

Sadly, still not working

My mistake, there has been some progress

Red LED blinks once a second

Looks like a have a bad hard disk

Thanks. I'm up and running.