GoFlex Home won't boot from USB with SATA plugged in

[jcconnell]

I've installed Alarm onto a USB drive and I'm booting the GoFlex from USB.

Trouble is, if both the SATA drive and the USB are plugged in it won't boot all the way (No DHCP, No SSH access, solid green light).

How can I give the USB device boot priority or make sure the GFH boots from it. Alternately, if it's another issue, how can I resolve this?

[moonman]

Look under Upgrading u-boot in my signature. This problem has been addressed

[jcconnell]

Thanks Moonman. Really appreciate the help.

To be honest, I've skimmed that post several times. I was evaluating the risk of losing what I've already got (stable) by upgrading to the new uboot (potential brick, frustration). Never looked at it in enough depth to see that it addressed my issue.

Thank you.

[moonman]

No problem. IF you are using Ubit, then just make sure that one of the partitions on the sata disk is not labeled "rootfs".

[jcconnell]

Well, something went wrong. I am not longer able to communicate with the GFH. Whether there is USB, SATA or both plugged in, the green light will flash before eventually turning solid. If there is only SATA, it will flash orange before turning solid green. If neither are plugged in, it will flash green, occasionally go solid and then begin flashing again.

No DHCP reservation, no SSH.

I followed the guide in your signature, but I seem to have gotten a little confused. Here is how I followed it.
First:
$this->bbcode_second_pass_code('', 'cd /tmp
wget http://projects.doozan.com/uboot/install_uboot_mtd0.sh
chmod +x install_uboot_mtd0.sh
./install_uboot_mtd0.sh --no-uboot-check')

I chose my device and set the correct arc number. Then I tried to setup the uboot environment to boot from USB first;
$this->bbcode_second_pass_code('', '/usr/sbin/fw_setenv sata_device '0:1'
/usr/sbin/fw_setenv sata_root '/dev/sda1'
/usr/sbin/fw_setenv sata_rootfstype 'ext3'
/usr/sbin/fw_setenv sata_rootdelay '10'
/usr/sbin/fw_setenv sata_set_bootargs 'setenv bootargs console=$console root=$sata_root rootdelay=$sata_rootdelay rootfstype=$sata_rootfstype $mtdparts $sata_custom_params'
/usr/sbin/fw_setenv sata_boot 'ide reset; mw 0x800000 0 1; ext2load ide $sata_device 0x800000 /boot/uImage; if ext2load ide $sata_device 0x1100000 /boot/uInitrd; then bootm 0x800000 0x1100000; else bootm 0x800000; fi'
/usr/sbin/fw_setenv sata_bootcmd 'run sata_set_bootargs; run sata_boot'
/usr/sbin/fw_setenv bootcmd 'usb start; run force_rescue_bootcmd; run ubifs_bootcmd; run usb_bootcmd; usb stop; run sata_bootcmd; run rescue_bootcmd; run pogo_bootcmd; reset'')

At this point, I thought I was supposed to reboot. I had read the remainder of the post already and must have misunderstood. So I reboot the device and here I am.

Any advice?

[bz31]

As a last resort, you can try viewtopic.php?f=18&t=1580#p19449

[jcconnell]

I have no SSH access so the above referenced link won't work for me.

Where can I find information on repairing this seemingly bricked device? I've ordered a USB to Serial cable and it should be here soon.

[moonman]

I suppose you didn't setup netconsole then? Well, what you've done seems correct and the device should boot up no problem. Was the USB stick working before for booting? or were you booting from sata?

Solid green means that U-Boot loaded the kernel just fine
Orange means that U-Boot had an error reading the kernel (i.e. you setup to boot from USB and trying to boot from sata, it will fail to load kernel from the USB because there isn't one, but it will go on and load the kernel from sata if it's available)

So it must be doing something, but it gets stuck at some point. Did you have any other drive being mounted in fstab when it was working? if you did and the drive isn't plugged it it will boot in recovery mode without network. try to reproduce exactly the same environment as when it was working. Another way is to build a completely clean rootfs, preferably using a USB hard drive because many usb sticks are known not to work.

[jcconnell]

No, I did not setup Netconsole. I went through the guide in chronological order. I rebooted before I got to the netconsole section and I couldn't access the device after the reboot. Just to verify, I've connected the GFH to a Debian distro and followed the commands to setup netconsole. I checked all three levels while booting the device and none of them returned any information. Only the orange light on the ethernet port lights, never the green.

While I was performing those commands, twice I received a ">" at the command prompt. I hit Ctrl+C and started the commands over. This could be the area where something was messed up. Though, I assumed that so long as I ran all the commands before rebooting I would be good.

The USB stick was working like a champ prior to this. I had my whole installation on the stick and used the entire SATA drive for storage. To confirm, I was booting from USB.

I did not make any changes to fstab. The SATA drive automounted. I have tested all possible combinations of booting with the various devices I have and none have worked. I have replicated the same environment without success as well.

I've also tried to build another clean rootfs on the same USB stick with no luck. Still, the light blinks green and then turns solid but no DHCP, SSH or IP. ...

Suppose I have to wait for the serial cable...Sucks, I was having a ton of fun with this thing.

[moonman]

Just to be sure, you've tried booting with just the USB drive in (and sata drive being out)? That will cause problems as well without the initrd