I am using
Western Digital My Book Essential 2.0 Edition 2TB External HD


I tried to update the listed document but it's too complex for me. Sorry.

I'd be happy to update the document for you, but I need more information first. So you're able to use it for regular USB storage but just can't boot off of it, correct? How is the drive formatted, FAT32, NTFS, EXT3?

The drive is formatted to EXT3 as suggested in the document. Yes, I can use it for storage but can't be booted from.

Take a look here: http://plug.noloop.net/sheevaplug-hacks ... ng-debian/

Look at the "U-Boot USB hard drive boot timeout trouble & workaround" section...you'd need to edit boot commands to make the timeout longer and add a "reset" to it in case it fails.

The main problem is that the disk drives take a while to spin up and generally are unstable to boot from using u-Boot.

Hmm that guide appears to require the use of the Serial Port on the Sheevaplug in order to edit the boot cmd. Tonidoplug doesn't have the serial port. Is there any other way to do this? That is, to edit the boot cmd for the ;reset.

I don't see any further updates on this thread. Can someone with more knowledge about u-boot and tonidoplug let us know how to refine boot parameters like timeout?

I have tried boot from usb drives. A flash drives work but non of usb hard drives work. I suppose I can use a usb hub to boot from a flash drive and then use a real usb hard drive to host the data. But I am concerned about short-life-span of flash thumb drives and their slower speed.

Thanks for any info.

I just found out that boot from external usb hard drive actually works. You just can't simply reboot. You must unplug the power cord from the tonidoplug and then plug it back in with the usb hard disk attached already. This worked for all 3 different kinds of usb hard drives I have tried (WD My book 2Tb, WD My book 500Gb, free agent 750Gb).

Now I am really happy with tonidoplug because I can have a 24x7 versatil ubuntu server that will use very little power.

Tonido plug is configured with optimum boot time suitable for most HDDs (10 seconds). If you need to change this value, you will need to buy JTAG serial to USB cable to change the U-boot params. You need to google to find this cable. Also you have to open the tonido plug casing to make these changes (which will void the warranty of course).
Easier and cleaner option for you is to boot with an USB stick. Your plug's internal flash is similar to any USB stick. Single USB stick should last for couple of years. You can also tune your OS to reduce writes to the USB stick and therefore increasing the life of it. Here is a link to do that: http://plugcomputer.org/plugwiki/index.php/Reduce_Flash_Writes

I have 1 TB hard drive booting the Tonidoplug. Made 1st partition ext3 and is 4 gigs. Then I went though the steps to boot from plug. Made sure everything worked. Then I created 2nd partition and 3rd partition in fat32 and NFTS , 200 gig and 750 gig respectively. Everything works, and tonido plug doesn't mount the 4 gig ext3 partition because it's acting as flash memory , but it does mount the other 2 partitions and can use them. Don't need usb hub or memory stick. It's simple and it's green and it works.

But i assume your harddrive is spinning 24/7, so booting from a usb stick is 'greener' since it allows your drive to spindown.