Johan,
It sounds from your description that the hardware (Iconnect) is working correctly. The issue seems to be pointing to a problem with your USB stick or perhaps a bad image or bad image installation process. Maybe Boris has additional ideas but here is what I would do...(I am assuming you're on a Windows system. If not, you can figure out the correct steps for your OS.)
1. Wipe clean the USB stick you are currently using and reformat it to its original full capacity. On different Windows systems, it may be necessary to remove or resize the partition on the USB stick before your computer will properly format it. If this is the case, a simple tool that works well and is free can be found here.
http://www.partition-tool.com/personal.htm You'll want to delete all partitions you see and create one large full size partition. Once you have a ONE full sized partition on the USB stick, close your partition tool. Explore the freshly partitioned USB stick with Windows and format the USB stick using the native format tool built into Windows. I typically format using NTFS.
2. Download a
fresh copy of the Meteohub image. Even if you've previously downloaded this image before, don't trust it...it could contain problems and that might be causing you trouble...discard the old image and download a fresh image. As I write this (January 22, 1012), the most current image is here
http://www.meteohub.de/files/mhiconnect-stick-v4.9.rar
3. Extract (unpack, decompress, whatever you want to call it) the freshly downloaded Meteohub RAR image to your desktop. You can use any commonly available decompression software...I use 7-zip
http://www.7-zip.org/download.html (its free). The compressed RAR file contains one file (as of this writing, its mhiconnect-stick-v4.9.img) Extract this one file directly to your desktop so you know right where it is. 7-zip reports the current packed file size as 181,366,460 bytes and the uncompressed file size as 267,386,880 bytes. (This size will be different at some point in the future as Boris uploads new images ).
4. You need to install the now decompressed mhiconnect-stick-v4.9.img image onto your USB stick. Simply copying the image over to the USB stick wont work as it must be installed at a low level that a "drag and drop" or "copying and pasting" cant do. I have found that not all programs that are supposed to do this work properly. A program that does work correctly is the ImageWriter software available here...
ftp://ftp.berlios.de/pub/kiwi/ImageWriter.exe ImageWriter is simply an executable file so it doesn't have an installer like you might be expecting. Download ImageWriter.exe and place it on your desktop right next to the decompressed mhiconnect-stick-v4.9.img image. (ImageWriter and the file installation process seems to work better if everything is in the same directory as the image file....this is the basis for wanting to put the image and the ImageWriter tool on the desktop. With both the image and the ImageWriter program on the desktop, everything is easy to find and everything is in one directory.)
5. If you have previously removed the freshly formatted USB stick from your computer, re insert it now.
6. Doubleclick the ImageWriter program on your desktop and select the freshly formatted USB stick from the target drop-down list. Then click on the "Select" button. Image files (.img) are not displayed by default so type "*.img" as file name and hit Enter or Return on your keyboard. Having done that you should see the file "mhiconnect-stick-v4.9.img" on the list of files on your desktop. Select the mhiconnect-stick-v4.9.img file and then click open .
7. Once the correct USB stick and the correct image file have been selected, press "Copy" and the mhiconnect-stick-v4.9.img image will be written to the USB stick. If you receive errors from ImageWriter during the copy process, the image file did NOT install properly and you need to go back and reformat the USB drive (perhaps even remove the partition that was created) and try to install the image again. When operation has finished
without error, close the dialog box and close ImageWriter.
If you inspect the freshly written USB stick in the Windows environment, you should see 4 files: fs-data, fs-system, uboot.ramfs and uImage_nasplug_2.6.30.9_ramdisk. You will also notice that the USB stick, regardless of how many GB in size it is, now reports itself as being a USB stick with approximately 253 MB in size. THIS IS NORMAL. Do not attempt to resize or alter the partition structure at this point. The reflashing process you go through when reflasing the Iconnect will expand the Linux OS and install the Meteohub system using the full capacity of the USB stick. After a successful reflash of the Iconnect, the Meteohub system info page will report the USB stick as a full sized USB stick again.
8. Follow the below instructions for reflashing the Iconnect.
8a. Plug in the created Meteohub USB stick to one of the four USB ports. Attach your ethernet cable. Do not attach any other devices or power at this time.
8b. Locate the reset pin hole at the rear of the iConnect. Take a paper clip and bend it open, as it will be used to press reset button behind pin hole at the rear. Insert paper clip end GENTLY into the reset pin hole and press slightly. You should feel a soft "click" indicating that you hit and pressed the reset button behind the hole. Do not press hard on this button, you can damage the switch if you press too hard.
8c. Keep the reset button pressed while connecting the power cord to the iConnect. Keep the reset button pressed until the blue flashing power LED changes to red. Once the LED light turns red, you can release the reset button. Red power LED indicates iConnect has been successfully booted into "update mode".
8d. In a few moments, you will see the red power LED start flashing blue again. After a few (to several) more minutes the blue LED above the USB port where the USB stick is connected will also start flashing. If you have a USB stick with a built in activity light, you should see the activity light flash, indicating system activity. If the disk activity light of the USB stick is of the type that flashes on and off at a steady rate, actual disk activity is indicated by flashing that is not normally part of the standard flashing rate.
8e. The Iconnect reflashing process has finisched when LEDs above all USB ports turn to blue. After that, system will hold for a few seconds and will reboot. All LEDs will go off when reboot starts.
8f. On reboot, the power LED starts rapidly flashing blue again, will then go off for a while and will come back as solid blue when system has been booted successfully. The LED above the USB stick will also be solid blue.
8g. At this point, the process is complete. If your router is configured correctly, you should be able to inspect your routers log of attached devices and see the Meteohub at 192.168.1.77. If you do not see this, reboot the Iconnect by removing the power for 10 seconds and powering back up. On reboot, note the sequence of LED lights on the Iconnect and the time that they come on and report back here.
The entire flashing and rebooting process
should take less than 15 minutes. If the system does not respond properly after 15 minutes, the USB stick you have chosen is either damaged, not responding properly due to errors or file corruption or somehow not compatible with the Iconnect. Select a
different model USB stick and prepare the USB stick as outlined above and try again.
Dave
