[RESOLVED] Cold reboots into factory OS

[frugal]

I have a Pogoplug E02 and installed Arch on a 2 GB Kingston DataTraveler according to the instructions provided on this site. If I shut it down (shutdown -h now) and turn off the power to it (switch on surge suppressor), when the power is turned back on, it boots into the factory OS. If I then ssh in and tell it to reboot, it reliably comes up in Arch. Repeated "warm" reboots always boot correctly into Arch.

Did I miss something in the instructions or is this a "some usb flash drives work and some don't" problem.

Thanks,

Mike

[kmihelich]

You likely need to increase the usb_rootdelay variable in uboot. From the stock firmware you should have the fw_setenv command, or access it directly by /sbin/fw_setenv.. do this:
fw_setenv usb_rootdelay 15

[frugal]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('kmihelich', 'Y')ou likely need to increase the usb_rootdelay variable in uboot. From the stock firmware you should have the fw_setenv command, or access it directly by /sbin/fw_setenv.. do this:
fw_setenv usb_rootdelay 15

[kmihelich]

This would help:

viewtopic.php?f=23&t=1357&p=7685

[frugal]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('kmihelich', 'T')his would help:

viewtopic.php?f=23&t=1357&p=7685

[kmihelich]

The trick with that method is that it's bootloader-agnostic. You still need it to reliably find the kernel (that post was done on a Sheeva where you flash the kernel to NAND, so it doesn't matter there), but once you do have it grabbing the kernel, you just need to have a properly formatted GPT disk, know the UUID for the partition (not udev disk uuid) and pass that in root=.

It's also been mentioned elsewhere here that the USB port nearest the ethernet will initialize first.

[frugal]

It was a simpler problem than I thought. I found this post that described how to set up a netconsole to get details on the boot process. One of the guys there mentioned cold boot problems with DataTraveler flash drives. Another post on that site for usb drives that do or don't work on Pogoplugs or Dockstars had many comments about these drives and some other's failing primarly on cold boots.

So the answer turned out to be trivial: I used clonezilla to image my backup of the old flash drive to an 8GB HP flash drive I had and ran it through its paces with warm and cold boots with and without the external drive. No failures so far.

Thank you for your help. I've learned a lot in the process. I don't seem to need GPT now, but let's see what happens when the Pogo is fully populated with:

1) external disk for file and web server functions
2) usb-rs232 connection to Outback solar power system
3) usb-rs232 connection to La Crosse 2317 weather station
4) usb to Brultech 1220 home power monitor
5) usb to Brultech 1240 home power monitor
6) usb to 1-wire network with pulse counting water meter

I currently have a Linksys NSLU2 managing 2, 3, 4, & 6. A $45 Pogoplug E02 should be a big improvement.

Mike

P.S. How do I mark this [RESOLVED]?

[WarheadsSE]

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