forum.excito.com

Hi y'all...

I bought the bubba 2 without a disk. Bought a WD green 1TB drive seperately and installed it (as far as I can see, properly). Then the brown stuff hit the proverbial rotating device... Installation!

I looked around in the manual and found mention of 'reinstallation', which required a USB stick. I have quite a few different ones at my disposal and also Linux for any weird manipulation of the keys, so I thought I'd be fine. However, I haven't been able to install the thing yet.

When I stuck a USB key into the bubbaserver, started it with the powerbutton held, the blue led would start blinking. And continue blinking. I left it for an hour. Still blinking. Tried another USB key, tried repartitioning and reformatting it under linux, blinking blinking blinking.

Then I grabbed a external USB harddisk. Put the files on it. Connected it.. Same thing. Slow blinky blinky.

So back to the last USB key I had left.. Put the files on it. Stuck it in.. And, something changed: instead of a slow blinky blinky, it's now blinking very fast, and nothing seems to be happening. Soooo.. Did I break it? Or, what do these blinkies mean?

I have set-up my Bubba and Bubba|Two from "no disk" situations, so I will offer some suggestions.

1. Before installing the hard drive into your Bubba enclosure, assure that you have a good drive.
I do this by installing in a PC running MS Windows and using the manufacturer's software.
In your situation you can check that partitions can be created and removed -- on this drive.
2. Once the drive appears to be okay, it is ready for installation into Bubba|Two.
3. Read the ongoing WD Green drive discussions -- for suggestion of pre-configuration settings on your drive.

Here are the steps, from the Installation / Reinstallation section

1. Download the recovery image at: http://update.excito.net/install/latest/bubba-two/
2. Insert the USB memory stick in to your PC (minimum size 256 MByte) and format it, select FAT32 as file system if prompted. The USB stick must have a partition table.
This is an important step to remove previous partitions/formats from the USB memory stick.
I use my MS Windows PC for this step.
The USB memory stick MUST BE FAT32 file system !
3. Unzip the downloaded recovery image to the root catalogue on the USB stick.
Extract the files (UnZip) from the ZIP to the root directory of the memory stick
4. Shut down Bubba|Two.
The Bubba|Two manual's Hardware section has the steps for installing the hard drive into the Bubba|Two enclsoure
5. Remove power to Bubba|Two.

Now you are ready to place the image on the hard drive.

6. Place the USB memory in one of Bubba|Two's USB ports, which one doesn't matter.
7. Make sure that Bubba|Two's WAN port is connected to internet; this is needed during installation (to set time etc.).
This is an important step -- WAN port, NOT the LAN port.
8. Hold the power button pressed, keeping it pressed, and plug in the power cord to Bubba|Two again.
9. Wait until Bubba|Two begins to flash its LED, hold the button pressed for 5 seconds then release it.
This is a bit confusing. I hold the power button until the LED flashes -- and as I hear the drive spin up/head unpark -- I release the power button.
Bubba|Two will now automatically format the disk, and install the Linux file system on it. The installation will take about 15 minutes to complete with a 1 TB disk. Wait until the LED stops flashing.
For my Seagate 500 GB it takes less than 10 minutes for partitioning, formatting and installation.

A quick note here, the rapid blinking is a good sign, it shows that Bubba have accessed your usb-stick and is in the process of installing.

/PA, Excito.

beatgr,

Thank you for your reply, but I have gone through all those steps (except checking the harddisk in another PC...). The problem was mostly that I would like to know if anyone knows what the blinking meant.. What does the slow blinking mean? What does it mean if the led blinks fast? I have also seen it blink long, short, long, short, etc. Does that have a specific meaning?

pa wrote:A quick note here, the rapid blinking is a good sign, it shows that Bubba have accessed your usb-stick and is in the process of installing.

/PA, Excito.

Ahhh.. Thanks. I will leave it overnight then, to see if it finishes after a long time...

The installation should not take that long, it should be done by now.

Is it still rapidly flashing?

/PA

pa wrote:The installation should not take that long, it should be done by now.

Is it still rapidly flashing?

/PA

I restarted the installation, and it has been sitting next to me for about 20-30 minutes, rapidly flashing.

Shoikan wrote:

pa wrote:The installation should not take that long, it should be done by now.

Is it still rapidly flashing?

/PA

I restarted the installation, and it has been sitting next to me for about 20-30 minutes, rapidly flashing.

I had this problem on my no-disc Bubba. with the led flashing for days and about twenty installation attempts. As soon as I connected Bubba Two to a LAN lead for internet access It all went fine. 1 Tb in about 25 mins.

Despite what the manual says, if the Bubba can't pick up the time and date from the web, then it seems to freeze the installation.

Flyingdancer wrote:

Shoikan wrote:

pa wrote:The installation should not take that long, it should be done by now.

Is it still rapidly flashing?

/PA

I restarted the installation, and it has been sitting next to me for about 20-30 minutes, rapidly flashing.

I had this problem on my no-disc Bubba. with the led flashing for days and about twenty installation attempts. As soon as I connected Bubba Two to a LAN lead for internet access It all went fine. 1 Tb in about 25 mins.

Despite what the manual says, if the Bubba can't pick up the time and date from the web, then it seems to freeze the installation.

Hmmm.. Thanks, I will give that a try tonight. Will keep you guys posted.

Ok, I received the USB stick from eXcito with the installation image, I hooked it up, directly to the cable modem, I reset the cable modem so it will recognise the Bubba server, and tried to install.

It was blinking fast for about 45 minutes before I tossed in the towel... What gives?!

Hi,

The fast blinking shows only that the button has been pressed and that it has entered installation mode. After a while, if everything is OK, it should begin blinking _even faster_ while reading from the usb stick.

Anyways, my guess is that you received a bad usb stick. Unfortunately, one batch of sticks didn't have the correct files installed, and yours might be one of them.

Please download the zip file from http://update.excito.net/install/latest ... ll-1.1.zip. Delete everything on your Excito stick and replace that with the unzipped archive and give it another try.

My deepest apologies for this inconvenience, and hope that this helps.

Johannes,

No worries, I really like the rather swift responses from eXcito so far, it's just the frustration from not being able to troubleshoot the process myself very well... Ah well, I'll give it another try tonight. Thanks for your input once again.

Good news, folks... I've been able to install it, and it seems to work just fine now.. No more worries for me (for now anyway )

Johannes, thanks again for the swift responses and your assistance!

Glad to hear that.