I'm stuck with no IP

[RexPater]

Hi all,

I dug my Pink PogoPlug E02 out of the closet and booted her up for the first time in a year, but am having some difficulty. Here's the rundown:

1. I first tried it with the old arch USB drive, but it never received an IP from my router. The front light just blinked green (and the ethernet lights also blinked).
2. I then tried restarting it with no USB drive--just got the blinking light and no IP.
3. I then tried reformatting the USB drive (ext2), installing Arch onto it, and booting with the new thumb drive. Again, nothing.

It doesn't seem to be loading anything--is it a brick? Do I need a serial cable to fix it? How?

Thanks!

[calzon65]

I don't have the experience like many others here but I would remove all connected USB devices, reboot and try to connect (SSH) to the device with it booting off the "built in" system (original PogoPlug software and I assume you have already installed the Jeff Doozan boot loader). I assume you are using some type of IP scanner to identify the device IP on your network. If you can connect, then I would follow the PogoPlug v2 installation instructions on this website, starting from scratch by reloading Jeff Doozan boot loader as well as all the other steps.

After rebooting with all USB devices removed, if you are unable to see the device IP on your network, then the serial cable approach might be your next step. I actually have a PogoPlug that I need to connect via the serial cable but I am still waiting for the cable to be shipped to me, so I can't give you much advice on connecting via a serial cable for at least one more week.

[pepedog]

I would say just recreate the drive again
http://archlinuxarm.org/support/reinstallation

[RexPater]

It sounds like we might be in the same boat--I've removed the USB devices, but the PogoPlug does not show up on my router's device list. Is there a tutorial for the "serial" method? I have a laptop with a serial port, so I wonder if I just need a basic serial cable...?

I'll cross my fingers for both of us

[RexPater]

Hmm...

Tried reinstalling onto the thumbdrive, but still doesn't work. Are there directions for using the serial cable to reinstall the boot system?

Thanks!

[pepedog]

Common mistakes-
1/ formatted as ext3 instead of ext2
Unplug all drives, it should in time boot to old pogo system where you can fw_printenv

2/ tar not extracted to drive as user root

3/ your ip address changed

4/ if you powered off badly, on anothe Linux run fsck on partition to fix

[calzon65]

RexPater, I fixed my PogoPlug with a serial cable. I booted it, was logged in as root after boot (works this way when you are connected via the serial port), set the file system from read to read/write, changed the root password, removed the serial cable rebooted and I was golden.

To make all this work, I purchased a USB-Serial cable for the BeagleBone Black from Adafruit, but there is a problem. The pitch pins for the serial header on the PogoPlug are 2mm but the pitch pins on the BeagleBone Black are 2.54mm, that might not seem like a big difference but it is, so I also purchased an old CDROM audio cable and used that connector, stripped the wires and inserted them (ground, Tx, Rx) into the female pitch pin receptacles on the Adafruit cable (I did not want to destroy the Adafruit cable because I wanted to have a serial cable for my BeagleBone Black).

Link to the Adafruit cable:
http://www.adafruit.com/products/954

Link to write up on how to make a serial cable for the PogoPlug and how to use it:
http://www.hack247.co.uk/pogo-plug-pink ... onnection/
This guy uses a Nokia cable, it was easier for me to purchase the Adafruit cable and use the CDROM audio cable to connect to the serial header on the PogoPlug.

Link to a picture of an old fashioned CDROM audio cable:
http://www.lindy-usa.com/audio-cable-cd ... 33442.html
With the CDROM cable, what you want is that smaller "white" connector, it fits perfectly into the serial cable header on the PogoPlug

I know this might be a lot of work and there may be an easier approach, but since I could not find a "factory" serial for the PogoPlug, I had to improvise and cobble together a cable from different parts. I also realize that your problem is different from mine, but if you want to connect to the PogoPlug using the serial cable method, this will at least get you connected.