Meteohub on Sheeva doesn't startup anymore

[nduku]

Hi,

I had a network blackout and afterwards I couldn't connect to my Meteohub on the Sheeva anymore. Connected via USB to the sheeva I can see that one of the filesystems seem to be corrupt. Is there a way to recover that? Last backup was some time ago (Yes, yes, I know... not a good idea ).

As my Linux skills are very limited I hope that someone more experienced can help... I hope I can avoid to recreate the whole thing, and more important to be able to recover the data.

Startuplog is attached. Any help would be highly apprechiated.

Thanks,
Axel [file name=sheevastart.txt size=15532]http://www.meteohub.de/joomla/images/fb ... astart.txt[/file]

[nduku]

Still waiting for some help and wondering why a network blackout can crash the file system, I tried to get a little bit further myself.

Booting from a linux live system I can see that the partitions on the SD card are still there and I can access the files on the system partition of meteohub, but I can not access the data partition.

I tried to recover the file system using fsck and e2fsck but with no luck so far. I always get the message that the "superblock" (whatever that is) is missing or corrupt.

Does anyone have an idea what to do next (despite recreating the whole thing) ?

If the system is lost and I have to recreate it, where is the configuration of meteohub located? If possible I would like to transfer all my settings and graph definitions to the new system. But I have no clue where I can find that stuff. Again: I'm far from being a Linux geek, so if someone can help that would be really great.

Cheers,
Axel

[admin]

Data is saved in third partition in folder "/weather/YYYYMM/raw". it should nnot be a problem to mount this partition. check dmesg at what device the sd card is recognized.

When it is /dev/sdx (for example) just mount that to /mnt by "mount /dev/sdx3 /mnt". folder "/mnt/weather" then holds your weather data, "/mnt/graphs/" your graphs.

Try doing "umount /dev/sdx1; e2fsck -py /dev/sdx1" to get first partition cleaned up.

Problem with flash storage is, that a storage block has to be erased first, before it can be written again with updated values. When power fail cuts in just after having erased a flash block , then a large chunk of data is missing which might turn your filesystem heavily damaged. Looks like you suffered this.

[nduku]

Thanks Boris. It seems that the First partition is working again, but the third (data) partition continues to have trouble. "e2fsck -py /dev/sdx3" returned that the journal could not be cleaned up, something like "unexpected inconsistency, please rund e2fsck manually", which I did, but with no success so far. Google-ing my way forward, it seems that "debugfs" in conjunction with "rdump" will enable me to dump the data to another disk, but I have to figure out first how that works. My Linux skills have quadrupled in the meantime.

Regarding the first partition: I want to recreate as less as possible manually, so following the manual it seems that everything is located in the „/home/meteohub“ folder, exept the scheduled jobs. Can I backup and transfer them to a new installation somehow? Would be easier than click everything together again.

So... I will try to dump the data somehow to a save location and rebuild my meteohub installation . I'm still thankful for any tip to recover the filesystem.

Thanks,
Axel

[nduku]

I was able to dump the data to a save location using 'debugfs', so this piece worked out well.

But it seems that the SD card is damaged. I cannot remove the old partitions or format the SD card completely. On Linux all the tools I tried (Parted, fdisk, mke2fs, dd with the Meteohub Image) worked without errors, but afterwards the old damaged partitions where still there (but not readable anymore). On Windows I tried the SD Formatter, but it told me the card is write protected (which is rubbish).

Has anyone an idea, how to recover the SD card (maybe something like a "lowlevel format") and use it again?

If not, I think I've got to buy a new one. Which one is recommended, is the information in the "how to build Meteohub on Sheeva" still valid? (SanDisk 4GB Extreme III)

[Billy]

If not, I think I've got to buy a new one. Which one is recommended, is the information in the "how to build Meteohub on Sheeva" still valid? (SanDisk 4GB Extreme III)

I suggest you to use the Transcend 4Gb Class 6 SDHC 150x Card which is recommended by New IT for Meteohub

cheers Billy

[nduku]

The damaged one I have is the "Transcend 8GB SDHC Class 6", which I thought is a good choice.

I would prefer to have one with 8 GB. I thought mine one was a good choice and I'm almost willingly to buy the same one again, but seeing that it crashed after 6 months in use I'm not sure if that's a good idea. I will seek for warranty replacement anyways and order another one, because at the moment I loose all the hot summer weather data

Cheers,
Axel

[Billy]

The damaged one I have is the "Transcend 8GB SDHC Class 6", which I thought is a good choice.

I would prefer to have one with 8 GB.
Cheers,
Axel

In this case you should order a Transcend 8GB Secure Digital™ SDHC Class 6 150x.
150x. Cards are using the SLC-Single Level Cell Memory. Which means more life cycle.
The normal Transcend 8GB Secure Digital™ SDHC Class 6 is using the MLC-technology. (therefore much cheaper and less life cycle)

Cheers Billy

[admin]

The power-black out can have damaged the file system on the card. I don't think that the flash cells themselves are already exhausted. Setting up the card again might fix your troubles.

Flash storage handles power out very poor. To update contents, first a whole block of flash memory has to be read, then the complete block is erased and then the whole block including the few changes you wanted to write is written again. When power out just stops interaction when the erase is going on, you have severe data loss, which the ext3 file system cant handle, so you have a corrupted file system.

[nduku]

The power-black out can have damaged the file system on the card. I don't think that the flash cells themselves are already exhausted. Setting up the card again might fix your troubles.

As I wrote earlier, it doesn't work. Neither on Linux nor on Windows I'm able to overwrite whatever there is on the card and start from scratch. On Linux the tools I tried (Parted, fdisk, mke2fs, dd with the Meteohub Image) do NOT throw error messages, but they are not able to overwrite the card's content. On Windows I tried the Panasonic "SD Formatter" which says "Card is write protected". But this is definitely not true, as I'm able to create single files on the first partition using a Linux system.

So my conclusion is, that there is something damaged...

[HWTest]

If you still have the card give this a try:
http://hddguru.com/software/2006.04.12- ... rmat-Tool/