Recovering fstab
Hello. Thtis is a part of Spin down MyBook thread about recovering /etc/fstab
After I have modified it (wrong as I think) I can not get in to mybook
Recovering fstab
Forum
» Forum / My Book World Edition (blue rings)
» Recovering fstab
Summary:
Bringing MyBook WE1 back to life after unlucky experiments
As a remind, i know you already checked that..
I'll try to write something better in a howto.
First to check :
Does your mybook replies to ping ?
Does it seems to boot completely or not ?
Are you sure the mybook hasn't returned to dhcp ? (start a dhcp server and see)
Are you sure ssh doesn't work at all ?
Now what you need :
A linux computer or a Linux live boot CD (Knoppix, Ubuntu…)
Screwdrivers
A sata port on your computer
Knowledge that opening your mybook will break warranty : your best warranty will now be you !
Remember what you've changed right before the mybook stopped to work
Opening the mybook :
It's not very easy, follow theses steps and feel free to add details :
Of course, unplug power, ethernet and usb if used.
There are two nobs in the air holes, you press down on and pull the side casing off.
Remove the four screws under the disk (not around it, but on the other side of the mybook)
You may need to remove one of the little screw on the side of the mybook (i don't remember)
One disk is free, unplugged sata connector and extract the disk (it comes with metal part, no need to unscrew)
Stop your computer, hook the sata drive.
I suggest to remove any other disks in the computer (unplugged sata or ide drives.)
Boot your favorite Linux Boot CD, and see if you can read disk of your mybook.
I supposed that linux CD has mounted the drive, so try to see how by typing "mount" in a shell command.
Now you've to unmount existing mounts to the mybook drive. (use umount command)
Type su to switch to root.
Mount again what you want, for example : mount /dev/sda1 /media/sda1 -t ext3 -w
Use editor to edit /etc/fstab, here is my original one :
# /etc/fstab: static file system information.
#
# <file system> <mount pt> <type> <options> <dump> <pass>
/dev/root / ext3 rw,noauto,noatime 0 1
proc /proc proc defaults 0 0
devpts /dev/pts devpts defaults,gid=5,mode=620 0 0
sys /sys sysfs defaults 0 0
/dev/md2 none swap defaults 0 0
/dev/md3 /var ext3 defaults,noatime 0 2
/dev/md4 /shares/internal ext3 defaults,noatime 0 2
Exit and save.
You can take logs, just in case you want to have a look later.
I used a usb key to copy /var/log
Exit linux, turn off computer, hook back original drives and unhook the mybook drive.
Connect sata connector and place the mybook drive safely at its place, no need to screw it back.
Plug power and ethernet and let your mybook starting.
Cross fingers … check if it pings, get an ip from a dhcp server and so on …
Hi,
Does your mybook replies to ping ?
No there is no ping
Does it seems to boot completely or not ?
After pressing the button it does something - HDD spinned up, LED rings are ON (blinking
during booting).
Are you sure the mybook hasn't returned to dhcp ? (start a dhcp server and see)
Just checked - there is no Mybook's MAC address in the router's dhcp table
Are you sure ssh doesn't work at all ?
Yes, ssh does not work as well
So I will try to detach the HDD and connect it to my desktop.
Just found that MyBook has spinned down now (after ~5 minutes from powering on). I did not added
smart_spinndows script to be started automatically. Something strange
Yes, very strange.
So open it, and feel free to ask if needed.
I'll post commands i used with Knoppix to write file on the disk.
Just in case, try to ping this ip :192.168.1.128
I don't know when but the mybook may use this ip by default.
Hi,
There are no pings from 192.168.1.128 nor …255.128
Before I started to restore fstab: can I restore the original HDD image of mybook?
To do the spindown experiments on top of original firmware?
Well if you want, but i think it's easier to fix fstab than restoring original HDD image.
You could do both :) fix fstab then decide (before enclosing the hard drive back) to restore original images.
Great!!! It works - now I can get back to MyBook by SSH.
Any suggestions how to install nano editor, before I crash MyBook again?
:)
Nice that's a quick fix and a good one !
Was my "howto" helpfull ?
Feel free to give me changes or details (edit my post if you want) to make it better.
For nano sure… i can help.
Please see the howto in the howto list.
Start with ncurses, after this sentence :
"In order to get nano compiled, I had to install a version of curses. I used ncurses from gnu."
Reboot the mybook after.
In the same howto, follow and install nano.
It should work, let me know if needed.
Was my "howto" helpfull ?
Feel free to give me changes or details (edit my post if you want) to make it better.
Yes, I followed you how-to, and just copied your fstab by USB-stick. Thanks a lot!
I will try to install nano and smart_spindown script. Lets see
If I will come to conclusion about restoring of original FW, is this a correct thread? (just wonder - it's about MBWE 750Gb
version, not 500)
http://mybookworld.wikidot.com/forum/t-23918/recovering-original-fw-tested
For example, I don't understand how to mount /dev/sda in to the Linux of PC
It seems to be the right howto.
Fimware should be the same for MBWE 500 or 700.
Well, you'll use like you did with fstab, i think you'll boot with a linux live cd.
You'll have to move mybook hard drive to your computer too.
Mounting allow access to the drive or a part of it, i think all commands are given.
Sorry if I'm asking something obvious.
After I have connected SATA drive to my PC I can see sda … sda4 under
my /dev folder.
I can mount for example sda1:
ubuntu@ubuntu:/dev$ sudo mount /dev/sda1 /media -t ext3 -w
ubuntu@ubuntu:/dev$ cd /media
ubuntu@ubuntu:/media$ ls
bin etc lib lost+found mnt opt root shares tftpboot usr
dev home linuxrc man none proc sbin sys tmp varbut can not mount sda:
ubuntu@ubuntu:/media$ sudo mount /dev/sda /mnt -t ext3 -w
mount: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on /dev/sda,
missing codepage or other errorIs it because of wrong file system? Or should I format SATA drive before that?
(as in the mentioned above how-to: "…so i formated the whole drive with ext3 and copied many Gigs of stuff on the partition (so no undelete was possible).")
Well, never format the drive !! or you'll loose all your files including the linux system used by the mybook (or format it if you want so)
Sda is the name of the whole disk, i don't know if you can mount the whole disk.
I'm sure you can mount part of the disk, using sda1,sda2,sda3,sda4 (some of these should be a swap and hasn't to be mounted)
Try sfdisk -l, what does it shows ?
See this post http://mybookworld.wikidot.com/backup-images-of-mybook for details of parts of the mybook disk.
Hi,
almost done :)
Followed the procedure:
http://mybookworld.wikidot.com/forum/t-23918/recovering-original-fw-tested
HDD does not boot. As I understood from the latest discussion in the thread MBR was
not good. Will wait some news about
/forum/t-24074/recovering-fstab#post-
