Hey guys! Complete noob here but I need your help. I bought a My Book world 500gb after reading the posts on this forum. It was running along fine without a mod until the cat knocked it on it's side. It just fell from the standing up 'book' position sideways. It has since STOPPED WORKING! I plug it in and NO LIGHTS are visible on the front. I hear the fan and what sounds like a hard drive trying its best to boot. I bought it on EBay from the States and since I'm in Ireland it’s not covered by WD warrantee (remind me to check that before I get a bargain like this again!). Can any of you guys give me any tips on how to get this working? I tried to take out the drive but can't even open the case. The side cover is impossible to take off. Do I need to take off the rubber edges? Anyway, some help would be appreciated.
To open the case look near the top and bottom, there is a tiny tab through one of the dash holes. Press the tabs from both ends and it will open.
I guess my first hint would be to check loose connections once you're in there.
Thanks for the reply. I got the drive out and mounted it in my windows machine. (Sorry, I don't do Linux… no time to learn it yet) The drive was reconised by windows XP and all the partition where there. I am going to assume the drive is therefor fine. I also know there are no 'loose' connections cuz upon reconnecting it in the My Book it still did not boot. So I think I am looking at a busted system partition. How do I get that back simply?!? I have knoppix but not very comfortable with it. So… euhm… HELP?!?!
simply :-) if you insist on using Windows …
The fact that the mounted drive is recognized is nice; it means that Windows can read the partition table, the drive has survived. These 4 partitions are ext3 format (ext2 + journalling); I would only try to check and repair them under Linux … smartctl, badblocks, fsck are nice utilities to do that and of course can be found on Knoppix CD.
What can be done under Windows is certainly backup your shared data that reside on the largest partition by using the ext2 kernel extension from http://www.fs-driver.org/index.html (I have a mixed experience with that soft) or the reader from http://www.diskinternals.com/linux-reader/ (not used it myself, advertised as read only, should be safe). Apart from that, you should be able to reinstall from the partition images on this site - http://mybookworld.wikidot.com/backup-images-of-mybook. Therefore you need a sector by sector dump program like dd - disk dump -; there is a Windows version provided by http://www.cygwin.com/. The latter is as easy to use as Knoppix - it would probably more efficient to use a Linux distro than its Windows clone. Other useful programs accessible through cygwin are the smartmontools; smartctl allows to start and log the built-in S.M.A.R.T. diagnostics of your disk drive to check the hardware (I would do a long test, about 3 hours for 500GB). So if you managed to have dd or a similar program running, try to restore sda1 and sda3; I would leave the MBR as it is, sda2 is the swap and sda4 is your shared data. IIRW, cygwin has a different device mapping … /dev/sda1 should be \device\harddiskX\partition1 and you have to adapt harddiskX - X>0, harddisk0 is the first (internal) disk, be careful not to nuke your precious Windows partitions.
I am willing to help you more "interactively" if you want (Jabber, Google Talk). Up to you.
Kind regards
I'm going to restore the partitions as discribed in the partitions images on the site. I have used Knoppix before and I just feel happier knowing I can't 'nuke my precious windows partition' as you said. LOL. I'll give that a try later today. I have them all downloaded and I figure I can't do any more damage. :-) Thanks a lot for your suggestions but if I have to install the hard drive in my pc I might as well unhook the other ones and be safe. Will let you know how things went.
I know I should be less M$ orientated but haven't had the courage yet. I have a module of Linux in a PC course I'm doing so might just get that courage yet. Thanks again!
P.S. The drive was near enough empty when it crashed. What's on there should fit on my 1Gb pendrive that should work under knoppix. I'll back it up that way.
Ok, how on earth does this work. I've been trying for the last hour of 2. Knoppix keeps saying permision denied when I do anything discribed in http://mybookworld.wikidot.com/backup-images-of-mybook . All commands that I put in in the command shell give that error. So HOW do I just clear this drive of ANY permisions so I can get this thing back working. I'm this close to just format the whole lot and use it as an internal drive :-)
There are two possible and likely reasons.
- Some of the commands you're using might require root access. at the command prompt type sudo su and you should become root (all powerful) user.
- by default when Knoppix mounts a local hard drive it does so in "read only" mode. You'll have to remount as read/write.
-
- in the gui right click the drive and under properties change mode to read/write
- at the commandline you'll have to
-
mount # this command will tell you where your hard drive is mounted at
# for instance it might be /dev/hda on /mnt/hda1 or something like that.
# once you're know where it's at you can:
mount /dev/hda -o remount rwWelcome to the wonderful world of Linux where all your dreams come true … I'm kidding, it is not an easy job to discover a new OS and service your disk.
If Knoppix boots fine, open a terminal and apply tcblack suggestions to gain root access (you should see a # at the end of the root prompt, $ means you're still an unprivileged use) and invoque "mount" to find out the name of your disk device … should be /dev/hda or /dev/sda - and the corresponding 4 partitions are /dev/sda1, /dev/sda2, etc … In Knoppix file manager, you should find your disk partitions mounted as read-only - probably 3 partitions, the swap is not mounted. Left click on the corresponding icons; can you read files? If yes, that's a good sign - it's maybe possible to repair the system without having to restore it fully.
There is no need - actually it is not recommended - to remount your disk partitions as rw - read/write; as you're gonna work directly on the device, you don't have to map the device to a directory and root always fully owns all the devices. So when you know the device name, you can "unmount /dev/sda1", "unmount /dev/sda2", … if you have remounted them rw (please adapt partition names, I'll use /dev/sdaN as a template).
Before doing a lengthy recovery procedure, may I suggest to try to repair the filesystem if you were able to read files on your mounted disk. Do a "e2fsck -p -y /dev/sda1" then a "e2fsck -p -y /dev/sda3" and a "e2fsck -p -y /dev/sda4" … again no need to do a FileSystemChecK on the swap partition (e2fsck checks ext2 type partitions, -p means preen and -y to agree to all confirmation questions) . Let e2fsck run, detect and repair errors. If it completes nicely, rewire the disk to the WD box and boot … it MAY work and saves you plenty of time. Please report the error messages if any.
If it doesn't work, as root, I'll have to do the dd job … as explained.
Be gentle with the cat :-)
I have tried to revive the disc with the first image and got all the files back. It gave me an error on the first partition and it keeps loosing it's file system (Ext3). I tried to format it using gparted but again an error and this time it lost the MBR by the looks of it cuz it is now completely gone under Knoppix. I have stuck it back in my windows config and got rid of all partitions, created a new primary partition. I'm formatting it FAT32 and I hope this will be visible under knoppix. I will try again.
To respond to your suggestions: I did not have root access so my commands fell on deaf ears. I now understand how to get root access and will try all commands again when the format is finished. Linux is good and highly configurable but a bit confusing when your brainwashed by M$, like me :-)
Thanks all for the help so far. Worst case I have a nice 500Gb hard drive.. ;-)
P.S. The cat is fine. He was banned from the house for a night and was very happy I let him in this morning.. LOL
error on the first partition, keeps loosing its fs ??? Do you have read or write errors? Please be more specific.
Nothing wrong formatting the disk under Windows and making a FAT32 partition … that should at least find any bad spots on the disk - actually you should not, it is a S.M.A.R.T drive). But as you will "clone" a binary image to the disk sector by sector, there is no need to have a prior partitioning scheme and filesystem … dd will dump all this with the data.
I had a look on the explanations on the backup image page http://mybookworld.wikidot.com/backup-images-of-mybook … they are maybe a bit confusing. You need to download http://rapidshare.com/files/60953400/WD_MYBOOK_WE_500GB_IMA.7z, http://rapidshare.com/files/65696103/SDA3_IMA.BZ2 and http://mybookworld.wikidot.com/local--files/backup-images-of-mybook/sda_mbr. Uncompress the 7zip file to obtain the four partitions *_ima.bz2 images and the sda_ptab partition table, add the sda_mbr (that should fit on your USB pendrive).
Boot Knoppix … on the desktop, you should have an icon for your FAT32 WD disk and one for the pendrive; it is a good opportunity to right click on them and look at the properties in order to check the corresponding device and mount points.
Open a terminal, invoque "su" to become root … you should have a #-finishing prompt. Find the downloaded files with a "mount" and a "ls -la /pathtopendrive. Double check the name of your WD disk, especially if there are Windows partitions on other connected hard drives. One method to do that is invoque "dmesg" … you receive a lot of bla-bla (always use the command without the quotes). Look for something similar to
<6>ata1: dev 0 ATA-7, max UDMA/133, 976773168 sectors: LBA48
<6>ata1: dev 0 configured for UDMA/133
<6>scsi0 : ox800sata
<5> Vendor: ATA Model: WDC WD5000AAJS-0 Rev: 12.0
<5> Type: Direct-Access ANSI SCSI revision: 05
… the WD5000AAJS-0 is the Western Digital 500GB disk and a couple of lines below
<5>SCSI device sda: 976773168 512-byte hdwr sectors (500108 MB)
… which means that it is recognized as /dev/sda. Please adapt the rest if your config is different. If "mount" showed that /dev/sda1 has a mount point, unmount your FAT32 partition with "unmount /dev/sda1"
Let's recreate the master boot record with a "dd if=/pathtopendrive/sda_mbr of=/dev/sda bs=512 count=1" (adapt /pathtopendrive/sda_mbr with the full path where it resides)
And then the partition table with a "sfdisk /dev/sda < /pathtopendrive/SDA_PTAB"
Let's check if everything is fine up to now. Invoque "fdisk -l /dev/sda"; you should receive
Disk /dev/sda: 500.1 GB, 500107862016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 60801 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 4 369 2939895 fd Linux raid autodetect
/dev/sda2 370 382 104422+ fd Linux raid autodetect
/dev/sda3 383 505 987997+ fd Linux raid autodetect
/dev/sda4 506 60801 484327620 fd Linux raid autodetect
Now let's dump the data (and formatting) back to the partitions by uncompressing the bzip2 files and piping the result through dd in one step. Invoque "bzip2 -cd SDA1_IMA.BZ2 | dd of=/dev/sda1" and so on for sda2…4. sda4 will take some time; 500GB have to be written to the disk.
In order to look at the MyBook files, you need to mount the partitions. I don't remember the canonical path Knoppix uses to mount devices so let's create the mount points. Do a "mkdir /mnt/wd1", "mkdir /mnt/wd3" and "mkdir /mnt/wd4". Then mount read only with "mount -t auto -o ro /dev/sda1 /mnt/wd1", same for 3 and 4 (sda2 is the swap, nothing readable from it). If you do a "ls -la /mnt/wd1", you should see files … well I hope.
Then a "shutdown -h now", wait for a clean stop, rewire the disk and boot the MyBook … does it work?
Thanks for that explination. That makes sense. I am currently trying to fix the MBR since Knoppix is not reconising the drive at all. Windows is formatting the drive fine as NTFS but Partition Magic is giving an error. I have the feeling I do have a damaged drive. I am currently using Partition Table Doctor to try and restore as much as I can. Will keep you informed and thanks again for this walk through.
Dexter1979 <— Needs to look into Linux more.
I'm actually beginning to like it.. :-)
Update: I am getting S.M.A.R.T. status bad errors at bootup… not looking good. Windows has no problem with the disc but knoppix will not load when the disc is attached. Not sure what that is about. Partition Table Doctor found no bad sectors but did find a bad boot record. This has all been repaired and the disc is formatted NTFS with no problems. Any ideas people?
Ok, I am officially calling this drive a broken one. I cannot get this drive to boot under Knoppix. Partition Table Doctor keeps finding a broken MBR so I am now calling it a damaged sector 0. If anyone has any other ideas please let me know. The S.M.A.R.T. status keeps failing so that is a bad sign. Please feel free to give me sugestions that I might try but I think I have tried everything. If only I could get Knoppix to detect the drive I would do everything mentioned in the last post by utsiplu so by all means. Keep 'em coming. This officially SUCKS! Since I bought it on Ebay from someone in the States WD won't warrentee it. I will try and contact them but am not hopeful.
Hmmm … doesn't boot under Knoppix. I assume you're using a reasonably recent release - very old kernels may not recognize SATA drives. The drive may be broken but I don't catch how, on the same computer, it can be partitioned and formatted FAT32 under Windows and not recognized at all by Knoppix. Are you sure that the "dmesg" command issued as root doesn't mention any "Vendor: ATA Model: WDC WD5000AAJS-0 Rev: 12.0" - maybe use "dmesg |grep WDC" to find the line in the long output. What do you have if you do a "cat /proc/scsi/scsi" ?
I have used the most recent release 5.1.1 for Knoppix. If I have the WD hard drive connected Knoppix does not boot at all. It stalls when detecting plug and play hardware. If I don't hook it up it boots fine. Windows can format and access the drive fine but Partition Table Doctor keeps trowing up and error about a wrong MBR and Norton Partition Magic doesn't want to format the drive. Also and error. I will try the drive some other time but at the moment I'm to busy. I might have time later in the week. I will try you suggestions then. It's a mistery to me. Why, like you said, can windows access it but Knoppix fails to boot. Makes no sense.
Latest update: This drive is broken. I ran windows install just to get something on the drive to make it boot but it failed to format. Drive gets really hot and makes a ticking noise. As if it wants to spin but can't. Or spins to read the MBR and part. table and ends up in a loop. The format never goes any further than 0%. So this drive is f*cked. Can't RMA it since it's bought in the States (Out of region warranty crap) so I'm screwed. Does any one want a broken My Book for a cheap price? :)
Knoppix has the same problem. It actually won't boot if the drive is connected. Fails on the Udev Plug and Play detection. If I plug it in after boot it still does not get reconised or is visible under any of the options Utsiplu pointed out.
Open for suggestions.
Didn't want to start a new thread for this but does the My Book work with other brands of Hard Drive?
I'm looking to replace my drive and find a cheap WD 500GB hard to get. Can get another brand (Seagate) cheaper and easier but am unsure if it will work. Tempted to just buy a new My Book and stop the cat from going near it.. but money won't let me. Besides, I'll have loads of fun getting this darn thing working again!
I cannot answer definitively but as far as I can tell since you'll have to build on a different machine anyway; as long as you build it for the precise hardware that is in the mybook you should be able to put any IDE HD in there. Mind you, I'm only guessing. I don't know anything about the kind of "bios" in the MBWE which might affect that.
Well, It looks like the 'bios' is set to not work on anything other than the WD 500Gb drive. Tried it with a different hard drive after modifying the partition table since the drive was 160Gb drive not 500Gb. Can anyone shine a light on why its not working?
Can anyone shine a light on why its not working?
Maybe because the MBWE runs under linux on a arm926, and as so needs proper binaries ;-) ?
