Cant boot PogoPlug E0 with new 2TB External HDD

[chris5h]

Hi all, my old 1TB hdd died, so I replaced it with a new 2TB. Unfortunately, for the life of me I cannot get it to boot with the new HDD. If I turn on the pogoplug with the USB drive plugged in it never fully boots and the light on the front never comes up. If I unplug it and turn it on it boots fine. I know the drive works because I installed Arch to a flash drive and just mounted the HDD, but unfortunately my flash drive keeps dying every few weeks and I have to reinstall Arch. I would love to get this to work from teh HDD, does anyone have any ideas?

Thanks.

[chris5h]

This is the only "error" I ever receive, and unfortunately I am not sure entirely what it is telling me in this regard, if anything.

[Geoff]

The usual MBR partition table can handle a drive up to 2TB, but not a larger drive. To access the entire drive, you will need a GPT partition table, which you can create with gdisk instead of fdisk. Linux can manage either type of partition table. However, uboot expects a MBR partition table. The solution is to create a hybrid with both kinds of partition table, and to make sure the partitions needed for booting fit within the constraints of the MBR partition table. The remainder of the drive (not needed for booting) can be partitioned as one or more huge partitions known to the GPT but not to the MBR table. You can set up hybrid partition tables using the expert menu of gdisk. Having said all this, I must admit I have never needed to do this myself. It would be helpful if someone else would reply who has succeeded in making this work.

Edit: Thanks for the correction moonman. I got the MBR size limit wrong. Oops.

[moonman]

MBR can handle up to 2.2TB just fine.

[rino]

I have exact same problem. I tried many things, but was unable to fix it, so I found a work-around. Pull out your 2TB USB drive, and then re-boot your pogoplug. As soon as you see the green/orange light on front starting to blink, plug your 2TB drive. Then your PP will load just fine and will recognize the 2TB and will automatically mount it as well (as long as you either have it in your fstab or automount).