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Do you want to put bigger disks in your Iomega ix2-200? Did you do a bad flash, bricking your ix2-200 in the process (symptom: the White Blinking LED of Death or WBLoD) and do you want to recover it? Or did you buy this little NAS without it ever working (also the infamous WBLoD)? If the answer is 'yes' to any of these questions, this guide is for you.

Introduction

The Iomega StorCenter ix2-200 (Pricewatch) is a cheap stand-alone NAS which runs a combination of an unknown internal OS on its mainboard and Linux from the HDDs. The only thing the internal OS does is boot Linux from the first partition (which is a little over 2 GB and always in RAID1) of both disks. After Linux is started, you can configure the second partition (which uses the rest of the disk space) of both disks in JBOD or RAID1 for Shared Storage, iSCSI, etc. by using a web interface.

A flaw of the ix2-200 is that Linux is loaded from the HDDs. If something happens to both disks, the internal OS cannot boot Linux and there is no way to recover the OS on a fresh pair of disks. Symptoms of not being able to boot Linux are that after boot up the disks will spin up, but will never be read. The power light will just keep blinking and nothing will happen.

Unfortunately, the firmware which Iomega offers for download seems to be encrypted. Fortunately, by using the data from the original disks and some trial-and-error, I extracted the Linux OS and put it on a new single disk which can be used to boot the ix2-200 and rebuild a new RAID1-set. Know that the new disk has to be prepared in Linux for RAID1 usage, otherwise the internal OS of the ix2-200 won't accept it. I decided to put what I learned in this guide (including the extracted Linux OS from the currently available firmware: version 2.1.25.229), since a lot of people seem to have trouble with this NAS.

This guide was made using a desktop PC, Knoppix Linux V6.2 and a SATA-to-USB adapter to prepare the first disk for the ix2-200. You can also directly use the SATA controller on your motherboard if it is supported by Knoppix. If you are going to try this, make sure that no other disks (PATA, SATA or USB) are connected. This will make sure that the right disk is prepared and that not one of your system's disks is wiped by accident.

Note that I cannot provide the GPL licensed code for the files I provide here, since Iomega doesn't provide it either. The only thing I'm doing is providing the same binaries that Iomega is offering, although mine are in a usable format. I'm still trying to get the sources from them.

Warning: This guide is made for the ix2-200, not the ix2! As far as I know, these are two completely different machines. The instructions could work for your ix2 if you would have the original Linux OS files for it and use ~1 GB of space for the first partition. However, this was not tested.

Final warning: Of course, you do everything at your own risk. Also, according to Iomega you will void your warranty. I wonder how they are ever going to check this when someone would put the original disks back before starting an RMA...

The guide

1. Download ix2-200-2.1.25.229-files.7z.001 and ix2-200-2.1.25.229-files.7z.002 to /tmp. In Knoppix, you can use the web browser to do this.
2. Open the Terminal Emulator and use the following commands:
   code:
   

   1 2 3 4 5

   su root cd /tmp 7z x ix2-200-2.1.25.229-files.7z.001 tar xvvf ix2-200-2.1.25.229-files.tar rm -f ix2-200-2.1.25.229-files*

   
   The needed files are now decompressed and ready to be put on disk.
3. The next step is to prepare the disk. If you are using a USB-to-SATA adapter, you can connect it to the computer after the disk is powered on. Use the command 'dmesg' to find out which device-ID it gets. For this guide, we will assume the disk gets device-ID 'sda'.
   
   In the console which is still open, start 'fdisk /dev/sda'.
4. Use the 'p<enter>' command to check if the disk has any partitions. If it does, remove the partition table with 'o<enter>'.
5. Use the 'n<enter>' command to create a new partition. Make it a 'p'rimary partition, number '1', starting at cylinder '1' and make sure the last cylinder is '254'. Check the configuration of the new partition with the 'p<enter>' command. If the Device Id isn't 83, use the 't<enter>' command to make it hex code '83'.
6. Use 'w<enter>' to write the changes to disk and exit fdisk.
7. The partition should first be prepared for RAID-usage. Use the following command to make it part of a (broken) RAID1-set:
   code:
   

   1	mdadm --create /dev/md0 --level=1 --raid-devices=2 /dev/sda1 missing

   
   Just continue ('y<enter>') if you get any warnings about a current file system or that the partition was part of a previous raid array. Knoppix should report that array /dev/md0 has started after mdadm is done.
8. Format the new partition with the ext2 filesystem using:
   code:
   

   1	mkfs.ext2 /dev/md0

9. Now the only thing left to do in Knoppix is to copy the previously unpacked data to the disk. Use the following commands:
   code:
   

   1 2 3 4

   mount /dev/md0 /mnt/ cp -rf /tmp/ix2-200-2.1.25.229-files/* /mnt/ sync umount /mnt/

10. You are now done with the first disk. Before moving on, make sure that the partition table of your second disk for the ix2-200 is empty. You can do this by connecting it to your computer and by repeating steps 3, 4 and 6 of this guide (if you restarted Knoppix, make sure you use 'su root' before running fdisk).
11. You can now boot your computer back into your regular OS. Make sure you have a web browser ready, because we're going to reconfigure the Iomega StorCenter ix2-200.
12. Install only the first disk into the ix2-200 and power it on. Make sure that the network cable is connected to your network and wait for it to boot up. You know when it's done when the LED with the exclamation mark (!) next to it is starting to blink red after a minute or two.
13. The ix2-200 will have requested a DHCP address from your router. Look in your router's DHCP configuration/log which device requested the last address by looking at the most recent timestamp and/or the MAC address, which should begin with "00:D0:B8".
14. This guide assumes the IP is '192.168.1.11'. Use a web browser to go to http://192.168.1.11 . The Setup wizard will start. Walk through the wizard.
15. After you have finished the wizard, go to the Dashboard. The StorCenter will show a red circle with a white cross and the error message "The Iomega StorCenter device failed and some data loss may have occurred". This is the reason for the blinking red LED at the front. Don't worry, this is normal in this scenario.
16. Shut down the ix2-200, install the second disk and turn it on again. It will get the same IP again after the white LED next to the exclamation mark is on.
17. Go to the Dashboard in your web browser again. If the Status only reads 'Data Protection is being reconstructed', then the IX2-200 will have made the second partition and you are done. Enjoy your (new disks inside your) ix2-200. However, read the following step if the Status also reports that two disks with existing data have been found and if this message does not disappear after a minute.
18. If you get the message that two disks have been found with existing data with a blue circle with a white 'i' in it next to the message, do not click the message to initialize the disks. If you would do this, the ix2-200 would erase the two disks entirely, including the first partition of which the internal OS starts Linux. This would effectively brick the ix2-200 and force you to start over with this guide.
    
    Instead of initializing the disks, go to Settings -> Disks -> Manage Disks -> Erase Disks. Enable the check box at the top, select Quick Erase and click Apply. The ix2-200 will reboot after 30 seconds and show the Setup wizard again after 3-4 minutes. Finish the wizard again. After returning to the dashboard, the only Status message will be 'Data Protection is being reconstructed'. The IX2-200 just made the second partition. You are done.

Data construction can take one hour for every 250 GB of disk space of the RAID1-set. In the meantime, you can start adding and using Shared Storage, adding users and editing other configuration options. If you shut down or restart the ix2-200, the reconstruction of the RAID1-set will resume from the point where it stopped.

Tweaker tip!
If you want SSH access to the Linux OS, go to http://ip-of-ix2-200/support.html and snoop around. The username is 'root'. The password is 'soho' + the password you use for the web-interface. If no password is needed for the web-interface, the password of root is 'soho'. If the password of the web-interface would be 'abc123' the password of root would be 'sohoabc123'.

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