Friday, September 16, 2011

iomega ix2-200 NAS non-cloud to cloud upgrade

UPDATE: DO NOT attempt to adapt this process to update an ix4 to the cloud-OS version!
If you do so, the upgrade will apparently attempt to update the BIOS of the ix4, and there appears to be a sufficient difference between the two products (cloud, non-cloud) that you will end up "bricking" your ix4. This happened to me (yes, I know I was taking a big chance) and someone else I know. Having a complete set of pristine, factory-reset drives will not give you the ability to revert to the non-cloud OS if you have a problem with the upgrade.
For the record, the system I started with had a sticker on the flash chip indicating that it was running the "V1.0.7" code.
The only known fix is a "low-level format" back at iomega support.

Standing on the shoulders of others...

So you've got a "non-cloud" version of the iomega ix2-200, and you're miffed that iomega doesn't officially support an upgrade path to convert it to the newer "cloud" editions. Maybe you want some of those cloud features, or maybe you have a Mac with Lion, which apparently isn't supported on the non-cloud models.
The upgrade can be accomplished; however it is destructive. You will not be able to perform an in-place upgrade with this technique, although you will be able to "get back" to having the original equipment—if that's what you desire.

What follows is a recipe that worked for me; your mileage may vary.

Required Hardware:
  • iomega ix2-200 (duh!)
  • Blank, FAT32-formatted USB thumbdrive with a drive activity light, 2GB or larger.
  • pin, toothpick or other small, stiff wire that can be used to press and hold the reset button on the ix2 for ~90 seconds.
Optional Hardware:
  • New hard drives. This is a prime opportunity to upgrade a 1TB or 2TB (raw) model to a 4TB or 6TB unit; it also gives you a fallback position in the event you brick the thing while working with the new drives. If you go this route, however, do not try to improve performance by switching to 7200RPM drives: The heat output of those drives is too high for the tiny fan in the chassis to handle. Stick with "green", variable RPM drives, and you should be okay.
  • USB-to-SATA adapter. This eliminates the need to crack the case of a desktop machine (for access to the SATA ports) to clear a drive that will be re-used for the conversion.
Required Software:
  • Linux distribution with openssh, tar, md5sum, gunzip and the ability to mount files to a loopback device. Believe it or not, your ix2 itself will fit the bill if you don't otherwise have a linux distro handy; all you need is SSH access, and you're golden. This recipe assumes the use of the ix2.
  • Latest/greatest upgrade of the ix2-200 "cloud edition" firmware from iomega. As of this writing, the most-current version was 3.1.14.995. The firmware comes in an encrypted tarball, but your linux distro will make short work of that little problem.
Preparation:
  1. Prepare the ix2 for conversion: Copy all your data to another storage medium. If you brick your ix2, you don't want to be left hanging in the cold.
  2. Create the conversion tarball.
    1. Create a new share on the ix2. Copy the firmware image from iomega to the share.
    2. Save the following code as a shell script in the same place:
      ifw=./ix2-200-3.1.14.995.tgz
      ofw=${ifw%.tgz}-decrypted.tar.gz
      ix2=${ifw%.tgz}-files
      
      mkdir -p $ix2/images
      mkdir -p $ix2/update
      mkdir -p $ix2/apps
      
      openssl enc -d -aes-128-cbc -in $ifw -k "EMCNTGSOHO" -out $ofw
      tar xzvf $ofw -C $ix2/update/
      
      imgs=$(find $ix2/update/)
      for img in ${imgs} ; do
        if [ -f $img.md5 ] ; then
          mv $img $ix2/images/
          mv $img.md5 $ix2/images/
        fi
      done
      
      mount -o loop,ro $ix2/images/apps $ix2/apps
      cp -p $ix2/apps/usr/local/cfg/config.gz $ix2/images/
      umount $ix2/apps
      gunzip $ix2/images/config.gz
      
      img=$ix2/images/config
      md5=$(md5sum $img)
      md5=${md5% *}
      md5=${md5% }
      echo "$md5" > $img.md5
      
      cd $ix2/images/
      tar czvf ../ix2-boot.tgz *
      
      You will need to edit the first line of the script to match the filename of the firmware tarball you placed in the folder with the script.
    3. Log on to the ix2 using SSH. (the first part of this post will walk you through gaining SSH access to your ix2)
    4. Verify you have an available loopback device to use as a mountpoint: losetup -f
      • if losetup indicates that there are no free loop devices, you need to create the next one in sequence.
      • Determine the next-needed loop device with: losetup -a
        The output will probably look a bit like this:
        root@ix2:/# losetup -a
        /dev/loop0: [0900]:15970 (/sysroot/boot/images/apps)
        /dev/loop1: [0900]:47905 (sysroot/boot/images/config)
        /dev/loop2: [0900]:15972 (/sysroot/boot/images/oem)
        
      • As indicated above, the first 3 loops are in use (loop0 through loop2), so the next one needed is loop3.
      • Use the following command to make loop3 (the 4th loop device):
        mknod -m 0600 /dev/loop3 b 7 3
    5. Change to the directory of the share you created:
      cd /mnt/soho_storage/samba/shares/sharename
    6. Make the script executable:
      chmod 700 scriptname
    7. Execute the script:
      ./scriptname
      The script will take a while to run: the original tarball must be unpacked, several files get copied, a new tarball is built. It's time-consuming, especially on low-powered hardware like the ix2. But nothing you're doing is affecting the existing system; you're simply using a handy linux environment to get some work done.
    8. The final result will be a new file in the *-files folder called ix2-boot.tgz. Back on your main workstation, copy this new tarball to your USB drive in the following directory tree:
      \emctools\ix2-200d_images\
    9. Exit the SSH shell
  3. The drives that will be targeted for the conversion must be clean/clear drives; preferably, they will be new drives that have never been used, with no existing partition table. If you're going to re-use the existing ix2 drives, or re-use drives that you've had in another system, you first need to wipe them out: delete any existing partitions. The conversion won't work if you have data on the drives. This is where your mettle as a gadget geek gets tested: do you throw caution to the wind and wipe the ix2 drives, or do you get new drives and "play it safe?"
  4. Place the new/wiped drives into the ix2.
  5. Plug in the USB drive to any of the three ports.
  6. Press and continue to hold the reset button on the back of the unit while plugging in the power supply. The ix2 will automatically boot when power is applied, and if you don't keep the reset button depressed for the entire boot sequence, you will not activate the installation. Watch your USB activity light; although it will come on when the unit activates the drive, you need to keep the reset button depressed until regular activity (i.e., blinking) is observed. In my experience, this takes approximately 90 seconds from the moment you plug in the power supply.
  7. Wait. The update will occur, and you'll see plenty of activity for the drive indicator on both the USB drive and the ix2. After less than 10 minutes, however, the ix2 will automatically power off.
  8. Remove the USB drive. Reconnect the network. Power up the ix2.
If you successfully updated the image, the indicator lamps on the front of the unit will blink furiously for a few minutes. Once the main power indicator (bottom lamp) is solid, you should be able to reach the management console via browser (Hopefully, you have some way to tell what the IP address is; your router or other DHCP server should have a way to indicate the address—I use a DHCP reservation, so I always get the same address, regardless of configuration state for the unit).

If you don't get that far—the bottom lamp blinks, the drive lamp blinked a couple of times, but otherwise, no activity—don't despair: I've seen other postings that indicate success when performing the procedure twice; I never needed it (I've repeated the update three times so far). Worst-case: you pull the drives and replace your original ix2 drives. Nothing is stored locally on the device, so a clean drive swap is possible.

The second alert lamp will blink until data protection is complete (either because you switched to a "none" option or it finished setting up the mirror); you can expect the drive activity lamp to be lit solid during the data protection phase.

By default, the firmware wants the ix2 to be using mirrored protection. You can alter that through the setup, and with the cloud version, you have the option of using "linear" or "raid0" if you want to get optimal performance at the expense of data protection.

Once you have the device configured the way you prefer, recreate your shares and iscsi volumes and put your data back on the unit: you're now Cloud-Ready!

The science and tech fields have historically worked by advancing based on prior works; we don't reinvent the wheel, we take the various works of our predecessors and advance "the art" through mash-ups that fail more often than they succeed.


This is one of those mash-ups, and thanks go to the following...

64 comments:

  1. Dont USE THIS in the IX4-200d
    My unit flash ok (I change the script for the ix4)
    But when it boots makes loops.

    You cant flash any more via usb because this loop

    ReplyDelete
  2. Do you have any solution to unbrick ix4 bricked with this script?

    ReplyDelete
  3. Can you check if after the upgrade, the internal fan is always on or not? I am having a problem with the fan on my ix2, and I heard that on the cloud edition, the fan is always on.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Mine doesn't run 100% of the time. Either you HW is having a problem by falsely indicating a high temp, or your hardware actually IS running above the trigger temp for the fan.

      Delete
  4. That's some serious work.

    So that method works for the IX2's, but not the IX4's?

    Would be nice if there was a supported upgrade path.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Agreed, but anecdotal evidence suggests that even Iomega-supplied upgrade kits can fail, leaving Iomega with an RMA to handle. The IX4, as nice as they are, have different BIOS images between the older non-cloud and newer cloud versions, and sometimes the process to flash the BIOS to the newer version isn't 100%, leaving you with a brick instead of a NAS.
      Some folks have shared their Iomega-supplied updates, and non-warranted upgrades were performed successfully, but that sort of thing definitely runs counter to Iomega's official position on it: Don't try and upgrade your IX4.

      Delete
  5. Thanks for your excellent walkthrough !

    As an in-between solution if you don't want to wipe your drives and don't have/want to use new drives, can you make use your method with only one drive in and then if something goes bad one would be able to remove the damaged one and boot the NAS back from the second one ?

    ReplyDelete
  6. @Anonymous: There is no "userland" way to fix a bricked ix4. If you end up with that issue, your only hope is to get in-warranty support from iomega. Technically, however, the process used to attempt the upgrade can be construed as a warranty-violating activity, so your mileage may vary in the response you get from them.

    @Pé: My ix2 isn't running the fan all the time. But then I'm also running with the "green" drives that are OEM equipment, and I've configured my unit to "spin down" the drives after 2h idle time. With no drives running, there really isn't a thermal trigger to cause the fan to spin.

    @DarkSkyZ: I have no clue how well the published process would work on a unit with only 1 of 2 drives (in order to keep the second "on standby" as a back-out plan). The updater might recognize the non-nominal hardware config and refuse to run.

    Again, this recipe is the one that worked for me (several times). I'm done experimenting, so you're on your own for any variants.

    ReplyDelete
  7. IOMEGA will give you the Cloud Edition upgrade if you have OS X LION. You need to log a support call though.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Hi, Tony is right, if you call Iomega support, explain the problem and let them know it happened after upgrading to Lion they will give you the upgrade. I was asked to submit a screenshot of my About screen from my Mac and in less than 10 minutes I had a reply from Iomega support with the download links.

    Why they are not making this available to the general public I can not answer but it was worth the time to download the installer and EMC bootable image file with the Cloud software and then update the firmware. I am now 5 minutes into my Time Machine backup and our SBS 2008 server is setup to see the iSCSI drive I shared out.

    Thanks again Tony.

    ReplyDelete
  9. @Tony & Anonymous: Thanks for the info on the OS X Lion info. I've shared that out with the hope that my Mac-using friends can get some "cloud love" from Iomega.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Well...that's only if your drive is still in warranty. You can't email, chat, call, etc. With out of warranty products. What kind of support is that. All they give you is a outdated knowlegebase and a forum.

      Delete
  10. I needed 3 attempts... but finally made it ok!

    ReplyDelete
  11. 1. Just download the upgrade file from Iomega
    2. Format USB drive to FAT32
    3. Put the file on USB drive in \emctools\ix2-200d_images\ directory
    4. Connect USB drive with NAS and boot it TWICE as described above having reset button depressed.

    Thats it !!

    It seems to be, that there is no need to do anything to the hard discs before. First update attempt destroys partitions and will fail, but second attempt does what is expected here.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Wow - I'd really like to hear more about this! So, you downloaded the IX4 cloud edition firmware straight from IOMega, simply threw it on a USB key in the directory, and everything took just fine? So, takes an IX4-200D from non-cloud to cloud?

      Delete
    2. NO!!! DO NOT TRY THIS ON YOUR IX4!!!

      THIS *_ONLY_* WORKS ON THE IX2.

      Trust me. Unless Iomega provides you with their specialized installer AND guarantees warranty support if you brick the thing (a possibility, even using their code--which is one reason it's not in general release), leave your IX4 alone.

      Delete
  12. Can you tell how to install zsync client on it?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You don't. Unless you have a package specifically built for the cloud edition using the iomega APIs (which, sadly, don't seem to be available for public consumption), you need to consider the system a "black box" which can't be extended.

      Delete
  13. Is there a way to downgrade to the original ix2-200 Non Cloud firware after this upgrade?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It's conceivable that wiping the disks (or starting with new, pristine disks) and whichever firmware version you desire will result in that version being installed, cloud or non-cloud.
      And as usual, your mileage may vary, I don't speak with authority, don't work for iomega, etc., etc., etc.

      Delete
  14. i,
    i have a ix2-200 1Tb (2x500Gb) non-cloud converted to cloud.
    i have installed firmware 3.2.3.9273, but i have a problem, if the NAS not correctly shutdown (example: unplug power), the NAS start wrong with white led blinking in any reboot, and cannot access by http, https or SMB... only response ping (ICMP) and SSH.

    the solution that i was find is log by SSH and execute: shutdown -h now, when start the NAS again, its start well.

    have the same problem somebody?

    in firmware 3.1.14 this didn't happen

    Regards

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Although I don't have that problem with my ix2, I've run into boot-time issues with my cloud-edition px6 devices. In my case, restarting by power-cycling again fixes the problem.

      Delete
    2. [b]update: after updating the firmware v3.1.14 to v3.2.3.15290 the problem don't occurred anymore[/b]

      Delete
  15. Jim,

    Thank you for this posting. I'm willing to give it a shot with my ix2-200d, but also conveniently have a drive failure at the same time. This leaves me with the possibility of upgrading the dead 1TB drive in the bay with a 2TB drive, let the unit sync, then replace the working 1TB with a 2TB and let the unit resync again. My question revolves around 3TB drives. Have you heard/seen anything around this unit's in/compatibility with 3TB drives at all? I see questions about it online in places, but no posted answers. Just curious.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. As I don't have any 3TB drives to test, I can't say. The fact that you can purchase a 6TB (raw) unit from iomega suggests that at least one vendor's drives work fine.
      Personally, however, I'd shy away from trying to put 3TB drives in the thing. The device is already so hampered by hardware limitations for throughput that big drives will only tempt you to put lots of stuff on it. Not only can that take a long time, getting it back off in the event that there's you have hardware issues.

      Delete
  16. By the way, with clean hard disks without any partitions it boots from an USB stick without pressing or holding any buttons down. I have firmware version 3.1.12.47838, which does it this way. It's for Cloud Edition.

    And SSH login works as root with password soho at least after updating to 3.2.3.9273 version.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. ... no need to add any users to login as root.

      Delete
    2. Nice discovery. Thanks for sharing!

      Delete
  17. One more interesting discovery:

    If there isn't any firmware/dashboard on the hard drives, the device will try to find it from USB drive and it does not require the reset to be pressed BUT there is a significant difference between cloud and non-cloud versions:

    If there is non-cloud version in the flash memory of the device, new image must be in "\emctools\ix2-200d_images" folder in the USB drive, while with cloud version flash the folder name should be "\emctools\ix2-200_images".

    If you are flashing from a version to the other and have empty hard drives, you must change the folder name while the device boots in the middle of the flashing event. That's because the flash memory is flashed with the new version while it boots first time and hard disk preparation needs a second boot. Now you have the different firmware version in the flash memory and the device expects an other folder name on the USB drive.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I have updated my old 2x1TB drives successfully to a Cloud version to test before I updated my 2x2TB drives. So I assumed the process would go just as smoothly as before (since I did it twice on the old ones). Well I was wrong. I formatted my 2TB drives and flashed with USB stick, it loaded, and bottom white light stayed lite, other white remains flashing and blue HDD light continues to flash (as if being read). This seemed sort of normal with other drive. But then I tried to access via web interface and no luck. One site said I need to do the process over again, so I did. Reformatted the drives again even put the 'ix-200d and ix-200_images' folders on the usb stick just to be sure it was loading from the right folder (I had issues before with the "d" from the previous trial). It loaded up again and same issue. Now I'm just letting is run. I'm not sure what it's doing or if it will stop. But I did notice that when I took the drives out to reformat them there was only one partition on one and two on another. I'm not sure if it's doing some kind of Raid1 mirror reconstruction or what, but I didn't have this issue with my 2x1TB drives. They were up an running in no time. Does anyone have an idea what I talking about?

      Delete
  18. I upgraded to version cloud and my nas ix4-200d no longer starts, constantly restarts after displaying the logo of Iomega and I could not flash the previous version.

    I can connect to serial console and try to change something in the NAND?, Or in the boot?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. As the top of the post says, this method WILL BRICK your ix4. Time to contact iomega support and do some begging...

      Delete
  19. I successfully updated my ix2 to the cloud version, but I'm missing the thin provisioning with vmware which the old version had. The cloud version only supports vmware thick disks it seems,

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You're doing something wrong... Thin disks in VMware are supported using either NFS or iSCSI on the ix2; further, there is no way to *disable* thin disks on NFS, regardless of storage system.

      Delete
  20. Can you then use the automatic firmware updates in the iomega control panel? I'm being told that "Version 3.2.6.21659 is available"

    Anyone had any luck with this?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Upgrades are not automatic; the notification, however, is. Once it says the upgrade is available, you can click on the included link, which will take you to the iomega download site. Download the upgrade locally, then upload it to the IX2. Once it's on the IX2, you still have to apply it.
      After it reboots following the update, you're golden.

      Delete
    2. Cool--so the ix2-200 cloud edition upgrades work without any modification once you've converted the ix2-200 to the cloud edition software the first time?

      Delete
  21. How can I copy my hard drive files to my computer? I have a SATA-USB and I've tried every trick in the book, but my computer will not mount the drives. Disk Utility under Lion OSX shows the partitions to be Linux, but everything I have done has failed to mount these partitions. I've upgraded my NAS with some older drives I had, but there's no going back. I can't even put the drives I took out back in, because the firmware is different. Any help...suggestions? I really need these files.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I can't give you too much help with OS X; I'm a Windows guy who can fumble his way 'round a Linux host. That said, I suspect that the Linux LVM is a big part of your problem. If Lion doesn't properly support LVM and the way the disk is divvy'd and the file system is contained in that structure, it would explain the difficulty.

      Delete
    2. Well the thing is is that I've tried a window app too. EXTFsd and I Find and Mount. Extfsd drive manager plugin will see the drive and partitions, but shows them as RAW. So it doesn't recognize them as ext2, ext3, ext4. Says it an unrecognizable partition. I've even used Ubuntu which is native Linux and it want mount them ither. For some reason the disk has been made unreadle by anything but the NAS, but since I've already upgraded it, I can't drop the old drives back into it because of the Cloud firmware. Is there anyway to bring the NAS back to the factory firmware and if so where can I find it? Decrypted of coarse.

      Delete
    3. I'm not so certain that the updated BIOS would kill your old drives. The "firmware" is actually a partition on the drives. Because they're a mirror pair, you can insert just one of the old drives (and no second), and it should come up, fat & happy. Once it's up, copy the data off.
      And just trying to mount the drives in Linux isn't enough. You've got to a) have the LVM modules compiled into the kernel and active, and b) use the LVM tools to recognize the independent group, etc., before it can "get at" the ext3 partition.
      Again: I'm not a Linux guru or LVM expert, but if you simply pulled the drives out of the working box, the data is there.

      Delete
    4. So I've come to the conclusion that I'm just going to format my drives and install the Cloud on the larger ones. Not so fortunate! I thought that upgrading to the Cloud on my 2x2TB drives would follow the same process as my test drives, but it didn't. The USB sticks installs the files as it seemed to on the test drives, but no success. I know you said that the flash only effects the HDD, but I've found that not to be entirely true. Some how there is something written to the actual flash memory of the unit itself. While I was testing my old drives I upgraded to the lastest firmware that Iomega had. I'm not sure if that was smart. So, the ix2-boot.tgz (decrypted) file that I'm using to load the Cloud is older than the version I upgraded to. So I'm wondering if I create a new tarball with the current firmware if it will fix the problem. The issue is, I can't access my IX2 at all and you show creating a tarball using it. I have Ubuntu on my Mac. Can you tell me how to create the above tarball using just a Linux distro? If this doesn't work, then my Ix2 is bricked and it's garbage!

      Delete
  22. I've tried just putting in one drive, but the white light just keeps on flashing. And it never starts up. I tried it several times evento restarted it because that's what your post said if something goes wrong. Just to replace the drives with the old ones . Is there're a workaround for that or something im doing wrong. Because I got like 150gb I was trying to copy my data via sat-usb and not have to do it wirelessly, which will take forever and leave room for data corruption because loss if signal. I could jack directly in to router. I don't want to use Copy Jobs, because last time I did that it locked me from accessing the files because of some kind of permissions but im the Admin. Don't know why it did that.

    ReplyDelete
  23. I upgraded regular ix-200 to cloud edition. I replaced 1 Tb seagate disks to western digital 2 Tb green disks. Performance of nas decrased dramatically. I could see 25 MB/s data transfer rate before upgrade. But transfer rate is maximum 10 MB/s now. I want to solve this. Can you any advice?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. First, the Cloud Edition is, itself, more resource-intensive than the previous. Start by editing all services and make sure anything you don't NEED is disabled.
      Second, the "Green Disks" are a marketing gimmick that makes sense in very, very few applications. These disks have variable rotational speeds (max at around 5900 RPM) and are very quick to "spin down" on their own accord rather than at instruction from the OS. The intention is to conserve as much power as possible by "intelligently" evaluating performance vs power. In my opinion, they mostly fail at this.
      Third, even without the "green" algorithm at play, the two models may have different performance characteristics: there may be an obvious technical limitation in the new drives that would make their lower performance predictable.

      Delete
    2. Does anyone has a decrypted firmware 2.xxxx for noncloud before the conversion to share?

      Delete
  24. I took a slightly different approach that seems to worked about 90%.

    Pulled both drives, then put one drive into a SATA to USB adapter. Mounted the filesystem under Knoppix (it's a software RAID volume), and then copied the unencrypted images over to the images directory. Placed the altered drive back and fired it up with just the one. The webpage says that the "Device is starting up..." and the progress bar gets to about 95%, then sits there. Every 3 seconds or so, there's some drive activity, but that's it.
    I've also tried adding a blank disk into the other slot, but no luck.

    As soon as I get the pieces together, I'm planning on connecting to the serial header to try to see where it's breaking. Any ideas aside from that?

    ReplyDelete
  25. Would it be possible to upgrade a non cloud IX2-200 with a IX2-200 cloud edition? I have a IX2-200 and would like to buy one more. Can I use one disk from the new IX2 to rebuild a mirror on the old IX2? Using rebuild after startup with one disk, I should be able to create 4 identical disks... Or not?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I believe the answer to the question is "no." There are BIOS updates that also happen during the update, and the cloud-version drive might not boot correctly without those changes.

      Delete
  26. Hi,

    I am stuck in the middle of the process.

    I carefully followed the steps, but the shell script hangs just after being launched.
    Since I am very new to unix, I can't figure out what is wrong.
    Please find below a copy of the Mac OS terminal from which I execute the ssh command.
    As one can see the communication between my Mac laptop and the ix2-200 does work fine as the first commands of the tutorial seem to work fine.

    Note : the share created for this process is named "upgrade" and the file containing the script has been copied into word, saved as a txt file and named "upg.sh". The only edit of the script file has been the name of the up-to-date firmware file.

    Both the firmware (ix2-200-3.2.6.21659.tgz) and the "upg.sh" file have been copied into the "upgrade" directory of the ix2-200.

    ----Mac OS Terminal dump---
    ssh root@192.168.1.16
    root@192.168.1.16's password:
    root@IomegaRignac:/# losetup -a
    /dev/loop0: [0900]:63874 (/sysroot/boot/images/apps)
    /dev/loop1: [0900]:63875 (sysroot/boot/images/config)
    /dev/loop2: [0900]:63876 (/sysroot/boot/images/oem)
    root@IomegaRignac:/# mknod -m 0600 /dev/loop3 b 7 3
    mknod: `/dev/loop3': File exists
    root@IomegaRignac:/# cd /mnt/soho_storage/samba/shares/upgrade
    root@IomegaRignac:/mnt/soho_storage/samba/shares/upgrade# chmod 700 upg.sh
    root@IomegaRignac:/mnt/soho_storage/samba/shares/upgrade# ./upg.sh
    find: `/update/': No such file or directory
    ./upg.sh: line 1: -p: command not found
    : command not found
    ---------

    ReplyDelete
  27. Time for some troubleshooting... The script in the post--with some exceptions--can be hand-entered as manual commands; the exceptions is where the for loop does its thing: you'll have to do your own variable substitution.

    Start with the first commands, intended to create directories: is that working?

    If the directories are there, is the extraction working? There's no code built into the script to validate that the extract succeeded.

    You get the idea...

    ReplyDelete
  28. Hi, I got trouble with the USB stick in the beginning. When you format it FAT32, Windows will suggest 4096 bytes. You need to change that to 256. Otherwise the tar will be scrambled. If you have a linux system you can check that, after copyinf the ix-boot.tgz removing and re-inserting, the md5sum will change! After changing blocksize to 512 byte it worked fine.

    ReplyDelete
  29. Hello, I have not seen your post before flashing my IX4 to cloud edition, now I have the NAS Blocked (does not boot). Is there any procedure to restore the original version.
    Thanks

    ReplyDelete
  30. I'm just having a problem. I went through the whole process, holding reset, blink, minutes waiting and then ix2 made the auto shutdown.

    The problem:
    Now, when I try to turn on the ix2, it just blinks the white led for something like 30s (before spin HDs) and then it just shuts down .
    Checking the usb sticker, the temp folder was created successfully.

    Do you guys know what can I do?

    Thanks in advance.
    My best from Brazil.

    ReplyDelete
  31. I have the same problem with the white blinking lite. The hard drives never spin. Now I have a nice doorstop. Any help would be appreciated.

    ReplyDelete
  32. I've searched the whole internet for "ix2-200-3.1.14.995.tgz" but without any luck

    If anyone still have it, please upload it and give us the download link

    Thanks

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You can build your own unencrypted tgz bundle from a recent release, Look at the shell script.

      Delete
  33. Some important lessons learned during this process.

    The ix200 non-cloud 2.x version will NOT support drives bigger than 2.1GB. Ever. I actually rebuilt the system with 2.x and it installed on the drives and rebuilt the array, but the flashing light error NEVER cleared. The UI shows that it recognizes the 3GB drives, but every reboot it will rebuild the drives. When you look at the drives on a Linux machine, you will see an 800GB partition which reflects the misread block size.

    You also cannot install the 3.x software from 2.x when 3GB drives are installed! You MUST put it (at least temporarily) a pair of drives smaller than 1TB to get through the FIRST upgrade boot which updates the BIOS

    When the BIOS upgrades it looks for the ix200 directory instead of the ix200d directory! So you need to rename the directory after the first reboot (BIOS upgrade) for the OS installation to proceed.

    Once the BIOS is upgraded on the first boot, the 3TB and larger drives can be used.

    For the record, my upgrade worked with a "JD Secure" 2.0GB Lexar USB stick.

    ReplyDelete
  34. AS system is also commonly used as backup servers. NAS server is available to all computer systems in the same way - as a destination for a backup or source for a restore.
    data recovery

    ReplyDelete
  35. I have an ix2-200, except I've already removed the OS (erased the disk drives) in attempt to install another OS. Is there another way I can get ix2-boot.tgz?

    ReplyDelete
  36. This is very old, but would it work creating the recovery drive for an ix4 cloud edition? I have a cloud edition that lost web access after last upgrade and I cannot find any recovery usb for ix4 cloud edition, only for non cloud.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It works! you can make a bootable usb for cloud edition and it works to recover it.

      Delete