Booting TonidoPlug using USB Drive

gaminski · **Joined:** Mon Nov 09, 2009 6:42 am **Posts:** 165

okay, so I did the whole thing again...

1. formatted my USB drive using OS X Disk utility. 1 partition FAT 32
2. Followed steps to boot from USB
3. still doesn't work!

df -h output

Code:

Filesystem            Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
rootfs                462M  285M  173M  63% /
tmpfs                 251M     0  251M   0% /lib/init/rw
varrun                251M  232K  251M   1% /var/run
varlock               251M     0  251M   0% /var/lock
udev                  251M   16K  251M   1% /dev
tmpfs                 251M     0  251M   0% /dev/shm
/dev/sda1             917G  857M  869G   1% /media/usb0
tmpfs                 251M     0  251M   0% /var/cache/apt

fdisk -l output

Code:

Disk /dev/sda: 999.5 GB, 999501594624 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 121515 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00000000

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1               1      121516   976075726+   b  W95 FAT32

Any reason why my 1TB shows with only 869GB available space????

I can now access my plug through the browser, but cannot for the life of me get it to boot from USB drive. What should I do next?

Cheers

Tuxedo · **Joined:** Wed Jan 28, 2009 11:30 pm **Posts:** 1361

One problem I could definitely see is that the partition should be formatted only as EXT3.
Two reasons:
1) Plug's BIOS is configured to boot from a EXT3 partition.
2) FAT32 will not work anyways, because it cannot hold Linux device files.

gaminski · **Joined:** Mon Nov 09, 2009 6:42 am **Posts:** 165

thanks for your reply.

I am a bit puzzled. I did format my HDD to FAT32 with the OS X Disk utility as it cannot deal with Ext3, however, when I ran

Code:

mkfs.ext3 /dev/sda1

this surely should have changed the filesystem to ext3? Though as we can see, my drive is still FAT32.

How do I format my drive directly using SSH? Or, if there is some sort of Mac (or Windows) utility program that can do that, please let me know. I think I'm close to getting it to work (hopefully

)

Cheers

Tuxedo · **Joined:** Wed Jan 28, 2009 11:30 pm **Posts:** 1361

Ok...if you had it formatted as EXT3 then it should be good.

But you can try changing the partition type to Linux and try it again.
Here is how you change the partition type to "Linux" from "W95 FAT32"

1) Connect the USB drive to the plug.

2) Make sure the drive is not mounted anywhere on the plug.

3) Run fdisk command on your USB disk.

Code:

root@TonidoPlug:~# fdisk /dev/sda

The number of cylinders for this disk is set to 91201.
There is nothing wrong with that, but this is larger than 1024,
and could in certain setups cause problems with:
1) software that runs at boot time (e.g., old versions of LILO)
2) booting and partitioning software from other OSs
   (e.g., DOS FDISK, OS/2 FDISK)

Command (m for help): p

Disk /dev/sda: 750.1 GB, 750156374016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 91201 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x9ee8d2cb

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1               1       91201   732572001   83  W95 FAT32

Command (m for help): t
Selected partition 1
Hex code (type L to list codes): 83

Command (m for help): p

Disk /dev/sda: 750.1 GB, 750156374016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 91201 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x9ee8d2cb

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1               1       91201   732572001   83  Linux

Command (m for help): w

//Comment: Last command saves and exits fdisk program.

4) Now mount the USB HDD on your plug. Your files should be intact as you are changing just the partition table not the data.
5) Reboot the plug and it should boot from the USB drive.
If you still were unable to boot after changing the partition type, then the HDD model you have is not compatible for USB boot.
If you still have issues you can visit http://plugcomputer.org/plugforum/index.php and look at the user posts with similar harddisk compatibility issues.

gaminski · **Joined:** Mon Nov 09, 2009 6:42 am **Posts:** 165

Okay I give up, I did exactly as told and it doesn't work. SO... if you have a Western Digital MyBook 1TB HDD, do not bother trying USB booting, it doesn't work. I'm really disappointed.

I formatted 600 GB of data for nothing, gotta put it back on it now :cry:

Still no clear idea as to why my 1TB drive shows with only 869GB available space though. I'll keep looking.

gaminski · **Joined:** Mon Nov 09, 2009 6:42 am **Posts:** 165

Just before I do something very silly

As I have given on the whole USB booting, can I just reformat my USB HDD to FAT32 without any risk of messing things up? What I mean is: nothing necessary for the plug is on the HDD, right? I'd like to be able to recover the 130+GB of space 'gone missing'.

Cheers

antije · **Joined:** Tue Jan 26, 2010 9:10 am **Posts:** 8

Hello,
I have followed the instructions at the beginning on Step 5:
(# cd /media/usb0
# wget http://www.tonido.com/downloads/plug/rootfs.tar.gz
# wget http://www.tonido.com/downloads/plug/modules.tar.gz)
of this thread to try setup my Tonidoplug to boot from an external HD and when I go into your site to download the rootfs.tar.gz and the modules.tar.gz files as per your instructions I get the following error:

HTTP request send, awaiting response... 404 Not found

from the TonidoPlug command line and on the web following the URL using a browser I get the following error message:

Our apologies

Sorry the page you are looking for is unavailable. If you have previously bookmarked this page then the page has moved. You can visit our home page here. Tonido and TonidoPlug support is available through wikis and user forums. If the help and FAQ doesn't solve your problem, we recommend you join the forum and submit your question. For feedback, comments or other inquiries, you can use the feedback form.

Are these files available somewhere else?
I just purchased this Tonidoplug and if it is a matter of ownership in order to download I can provide invoice number or MAC address if needed.
Please advise.

Thanks,

Antonio Tijerino

Tuxedo · **Joined:** Wed Jan 28, 2009 11:30 pm **Posts:** 1361

Hi,
Are you able to do SSH to the plug after you have booted the plug with USB stick.

First thing is to check if your plug is getting an IP address.

If you are able to SSH, please post the output of the following commands

Code:

# ps auxf
# netstat -lt 

mail4asim · **Posted:** Mon Feb 15, 2010 2:18 am

I am having a similar issue on my Tonido Plug. I followed the instructions for a 2TB external HD , connected directly to the plug without any USB hub and I am unable to boot from it. I have tried rebooting multiple times, even power cycled the plug and the HD and it still keeps booting from the plug.
I guess my HD is not compatible with the boot up either. Otherwise it would have been awesome !!

RaiD · **Posted:** Mon Feb 15, 2010 8:57 am

PLEASE add your hdd compatibility/incompatibility information to this page:

http://www.tonidouser.com/doku.php?id=generalinfo:supportedusbdrives

Incompatibility issues like this can be avoided in the future the more information is gathered!

Booting TonidoPlug using USB Drive

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