iConnect Imaging problems

[jballa]

I purchased an iConnect and got it going using an 8GB USB stick. Then turned it off at the switch and it wouldn't come back up - just got a permanent red light. I had to reimage it back to the iConnect and then reimage it to the Meteohub after that.

Eveything wnet along ok for about a week, so I purchased the meteohub user licence and the very next day we had a power outage and got the permanent red light again. I have not been able to get the iConnect back to a meteohub since. The USB stick looks like its corrupted ...it was an 8GB USB stick but properties now show it as 255MB ...curiously it is the size of the Meteohub image.

So I went and purchased a SanDisk Extreme CompactFlash Card and stuck it in a USB reader thinking that the cause was my USB stick - I reimaged the iConnect with the Meteohub image - all looked like it worked ok except my router can't see it even using ipscan. So I reimaged the iConnect back to being an iConnect, wiped the SD card and recopied the Meteohub image (using imagewrite.exe) and low and behold my $99 SD card has also been reduced from 8GB capactity to 255MB.

Should I be able to reimage the iConnect using the Meteohub instructions without reimaging back to the iConnect each time? ANy ideas what is going on and why the size of the USB stick/SD card is getting reduced to 255MB?

Thanks

[jballa]

I just gave it one more shot ...and it came up! Thank goodness!! I was getting very frustrated.

Still concerned about what's going to happen the next time the power goes out. Is it possible it will all come back up ok now that I am using the high speed SD card?

[admin]

There are a a very few USB sticks the iConnect cannot boot from, but when the initial imaging process works fine, I would expect that stick is compatible with the USB capabilities of the boot loader of the iConnect (which is the critical part, the Linux later on works with nearly every type of stick).

Please also watch the "USB Stick Challenge" thread, where I do report about my tests on stick reliability.

It is important that there are not two USB sticks plugged in during boot, but I guess you don't have additional sticks plugged in druing Meteohub operation.

I have pulled the power plug several times on my iConnect and I did not had a single occurence where this rendered my stick unusable. It is pretty reliable here.

[markhiseman]

jballa, re your problems with the USB stick apparently reducing in size from 8GB to 255MB:

This is an issue that I have come across too. There is a very good free HP USB format tool here:

http://www.softpedia.com/get/System/Har ... Tool.shtml

Unlike Windows, this tool can do a low level format of your USB stick and recover the 'lost' memory.

Good luck!

Mark.

[admin]

When you put the Meteohub iConnect stick image onto the USB stick as described in the instructions, a 255MB partition will be brought to the stick. This partition cotains a FAT file system, the iConnect can boot from when started in recovery mode (having the reset button pressed). So there is absolutely nothing wrong that you just see a partition of 255 MB from your Windows PC. Btw, the instructions did never tell you to play with the imager stick with your Windows PC and to wonder about all that detail which wil do more confusion than producing insight.

When the iConenct starts the Stick in recovery mode the content of the stick gets executed and the stick is transformed into one holding 3 partitions. A ext3 system partition, a swap partition and a ext3 data partition that fills up the stick to the very end. When you boot the iConnect with this converted stick in normal mode (without the reset button pressed) Meteohub will boot and operate on the stick.

I hope you now understand that the 255MB thing is nothing you have to worry about And yes, you can change that by using repartition tools on your PC when you decide to no longer use the stick with Meteohub.

[markhiseman]

Yes, sorry, I didn't mean that jballa should reformat their Meteohub USB. I just noticed that they have bought two USB sticks, so they can use the low level formatter to recover the other one.

Mark.