How-To: Transfer files via USB slave from PC to NMT

[villasg]

Ηι
I install a brand new WD 1TB 7200 WD10EADS 32MB SATA II.
Format via A-110 and install all nmt OK ( EXT3 )
If connect the usb cable to my computer have the follow :
Green led come on
Display " USB connected to PC "
Display a window "ALERT removing hard disk/cdrom from nmt".
Make a restart
And start again displaing only the Network browser .

NOW IF I DISCONNECT THE USB CABLE

The green led turn off
Display " USB disconnected from to PC "
Make a restart
And start again displaing the Network browser and the Hard Disk.

I cannot connect in any PC and LAPTOP ( have make many tries )
Here is a video with the problem .

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bwBnhv4JnnI

Is faulty my A-110 ?
What can i do ?

[maxxx]

(12-31-2008 07:18 AM)chris57 Wrote:  Ext2 is to be avoided and is being removed as an option when installing the HDD inside your NMT device.

Ext3 has journalling which is needed on a device that can at times need to be unplugged without warning.

This guide is for those that have their internal HDD installed and formatted by the NMT and has NMT apps etc. and have a USB slave socket to connect to their PC.

If your internal HDD was not installed and formatted to Ext then the Ext drivers wont work. If you read the guide through you will see that I do mention that one on of my Ext driver installation I was also asked about formatting the HDD, just quit out and follow the guide, do not use it to format as you should have done that with your Dragonbox.

I have followed the instructions to the letter. With Ext3 Windows XP could only see the drive with its assigned letter and nothing else. Could not browse or copy. With Ext2 it could perform everything but moving files or folders within the same partition. To me, this was useless. I want freedom to manage my files and folders just like in Windows. That's why I switched to NTFS. I don't care for or need NMT applications. I feel sorry for others that do. It's a flawed system. There are some NMT's out there that do not use Linux file system, but I know nothing about their quality or performance.

[chris57]

You can manage your files just like in Windows with the Ext drivers, you must format the internal HDD to Ext and install the NMT apps to be able to do this.

There are NO NMT's that do not use Linux filesystems. NMT is a middleware made by Syabas using Linux

@vilasg

Why are you connected to your TV whilst using the USB cable?

The idea is to connect via USB to your PC and then make the internal HDD part of your PC drives system. Connecting via USB immediately kills Network/LAN abilities.

[johnD]

(12-28-2008 08:54 AM)bozothedeathmachine Wrote:  Hi all.

I can see my A110 with IFS Drives browser, but it won't let me assign a drive letter to the largest partition of the NMT. I have a 1TB drive, so the shared partition is 903GB. Does the tool have a limit to what it can mount?

I'm using XP SP3, could it be that?



Thanks.

ETA: This is an XP thing. There's a little info about it on the FS Driver site. I tried it on my Vista box and it works fine. Too bad all my crap in on my XP box.

Help!!

I have the same problem with mine. Did anyone find a solution for this? Thanks!

[chris57]

Try these different Ext drivers that are for XP:-
http://sourceforge.net/projects/ext2fsd

Originally these were specified but they do not work for Vista.

[villasg]

(01-01-2009 05:59 AM)chris57 Wrote:  You can manage your files just like in Windows with the Ext drivers, you must format the internal HDD to Ext and install the NMT apps to be able to do this.

There are NO NMT's that do not use Linux filesystems. NMT is a middleware made by Syabas using Linux

@vilasg

Why are you connected to your TV whilst using the USB cable?

The idea is to connect via USB to your PC and then make the internal HDD part of your PC drives system. Connecting via USB immediately kills Network/LAN abilities.

You have right .
This is my mistake
When have disconect the TV all work good
Thanks a lot
Have a nice year

[maxxx]

(01-01-2009 05:59 AM)chris57 Wrote:  There are NO NMT's that do not use Linux filesystems. NMT is a middleware made by Syabas using Linux

I'm new to this, but have seen some similar units that I think don't use Linux file system. Perhaps not as versatile as PCH:
http://www.mediagateusa.com/html/mg35ndas.html

[chris57]

No, and not NMT's either im afraid. NMT is a Syabas development so to be an NMT the player has to use Syabas's NMT middleware which is Linux based. The use of Linux has enabled some very useful and quick user developments.

Back on topic have you seen the amendment to the thread first post with regards Windows XP? Try using the Ext2Fsd drivers rather than the Ext2Ifs drivers if you are having problems AND are using Windows XP. These drivers were originally used but Vista users were unable to use them so Ext2Ifs drivers were used as they claim compatibility with both XP and Vista. They work great with Vista and also seem to work fine for the majority of XP users. For those like yourself that have run into difficulties try the other drivers. The download has documentation and FAQ.

[maxxx]

(01-01-2009 11:55 PM)chris57 Wrote:  No, and not NMT's either im afraid. NMT is a Syabas development so to be an NMT the player has to use Syabas's NMT middleware which is Linux based. The use of Linux has enabled some very useful and quick user developments.

Back on topic have you seen the amendment to the thread first post with regards Windows XP? Try using the Ext2Fsd drivers rather than the Ext2Ifs drivers if you are having problems AND are using Windows XP. These drivers were originally used but Vista users were unable to use them so Ext2Ifs drivers were used as they claim compatibility with both XP and Vista. They work great with Vista and also seem to work fine for the majority of XP users. For those like yourself that have run into difficulties try the other drivers. The download has documentation and FAQ.

Thank you for the clarification and other help. I did try Exf2Fsd, unfortunately with same results. I could have stayed with Ext file system, but file and folder management was just not as perfect as with NTFS and I didn't wish to have any issues in that respect.

I'm not too unhappy, since my needs are pretty much met with the setup I have (myiHome for connection btw NMT and PC, bunch of USB drives via USB hub + internal HDD formatted to NTFS).

[chris57]

XP Users having problems try when installing selecting the 'Automatically Assign Drive Letter' option and
plug in A110 USB cable in PC......
open file explorer and see if A110 has received a drive letter form windows ..
Now only go to the Share on 'SMP8634 Share (Pch-a110)' folder and add your folders and stuff there.......and only there....

[edawg636]

(12-30-2008 05:19 AM)maxxx Wrote:  Installed ext2/3 driver as per instructions. OK

Installed and formatted internal HDD (1TB) and NMT applications, assigned drive letter. OK

PROBLEM:

Windows XP can see the new drive, but cannot browse (don't see any folders or even size of the drive) - message:

"The disk is not formatted. Do you want to format it now".

I too ran into this problem today. I had been using an internal hard drive without issue. It was formatted to ext3 and had the nmt apps installed. I was able to copy files from my pc to the nmt hd via network just fine.

Last night I started a large file transfer of several movies to the nmt hd and today found that the operation had stopped on my pc. When checking the nmt, I noticed I no longer had a hard drive showing in the source list. I connected my laptop to the usb slave port and viewed the drive using ext3ifs program and all three drives showed "linux." I could assign drive letters, but windows always said they were not formatted.

I ran the mountdiag.exe program on the drive and it said there was a revision or something that could not be addressed. I unhooked the usb and rebooted the nmt. It wouldn't boot and the hard drive light stayed on continuously. I rebooted again and it booted fine but still showed no hard drive.

I decided to take the loss of the couple movies that had actually been moved to the nmt hard drive from my pc the night before and reformat the drive using the nmt setup wizard. Well, that didn't work either. The nmt would just lock up with the hard drive light stuck on at the screen where you pick ext2/3.

I then tried re-connecting the hard drive to my laptop via usb, reformatting each partition in windows and then repeating the nmt wizard, still to no avail. I finally decided to just pull the hard drive out and put it back in my pc. I am running myihome from my pc anyway, so what is the point of having a hard drive in the nmt? For me, there is none. I'm not using it as a nas or anything, just a streamer and the web apps.

I guess my concern is that the ext3 format may be too fickle and "non-mountable" with errors. If you don't have a linux box to hook it to and run a file check with, you are hosed if this happens.

[chris57]

You cannot get Windows, even with the ext drivers installed, to format the HDD, the NMT has to do that.

So if you get a format option do NOT format with it.

Try the automatically assign drive letter if you have XP.

I would also suggest transferring in chunks of <20Gb until chkdsc comes to the SETUP>Maintenance section of the NMT firmware, one after next hopefully. I would not leave it to do it overnight. You need to be there when it finishes to unhook.

[edawg636]

I was not trying to use windows to format in ext. I was just trying to wipe the drive clean so the nmt could format it, which it still could not.

The transfer I was doing when everything went wrong was via smb, not usb (ot for this thread I know), so no need for me to be there to unplug anything.

Maybe I will put a hard drive back in the nmt when the file check utility gets implemented, but until then it's a risk in my opinion unless you either have a linux box that can fix the errors or you keep another copy of your movies on a different drive.

[baekel]

Hey all,

hope one of you can help me with this
firts off im a noob tbh
i installed the internal hdd in the pch, then i connect the pch to my pc.
When i use the program ext2 volume manager i see the hdd but fully free and as RAW ( dunno what that means)
I cant assign a letter or anything.
As told i can only see the internal hdd using the ext2 volume manager and also using:
My computer/ properties drive c/ hardware

[mikael1984]

(01-10-2009 12:04 AM)baekel Wrote:  Hey all,

hope one of you can help me with this
firts off im a noob tbh
i installed the internal hdd in the pch, then i connect the pch to my pc.
When i use the program ext2 volume manager i see the hdd but fully free and as RAW ( dunno what that means)
I cant assign a letter or anything.
As told i can only see the internal hdd using the ext2 volume manager and also using:
My computer/ properties drive c/ hardware

If a partition is corrupted in Windows, possible (but not all) symptoms are:
Invalid media type reading drive Abort, Retry, Fail?
File system is displayed as "RAW".
Windows may ask if you want to format the drive, such as warning "disk not formatted. do you want to format now?". Such as the follow picture.
File names contain "weird" characters.
"Sector not found" messages.

I don't know if this is the case but you should be able to see the hard drive and it's contents. Try and reformat it again in PCH using the NMT apps.