Help with Linux/Busybox/Samba, nothing to do with Humax

Andybrody

Member
Hi I hope you can help or a least point me in the right direction.
I have built a NAS from an old Linux (do not know which version) based media player.
Connected via 1 of 2 USB sockets and a 4 port USB hub are four USB HDD's
all are formatted to NTFS by win 7 and have lots of data stored (I hope I do not have to copy off and reformat unless really necessary ).
The media player has BusyBox V1.1.3 installed and a Samba server (do not know which version) , so far so good.
The NAS is hard wired to the network and all 4 HDD's can be seen and accessed ( read/write) from any pc/android device on the network.
The problem that I have is that if the NAS is rebooted or has a power cut when it comes back
on the HDD's will/may be in a different (random) order and then it is difficult (almost impossible) to find a file required.
When the HDD's are viewed via network (on win7 pc) they just appear as C D E F(no names).
I can Telnet into the box and gain root access if I type

fdisk -l
I get the following response
Traxdata_MMS login: root
warning: cannot change to home directory
BusyBox v1.1.3 (2009.12.18-04:22+0000) Built-in shell (ash)
Enter 'help' for a list of built-in commands.
/ # fdisk -l

Traxdata MMS.png

as you can see there are 4 HDD reported but they will appear in a random order
when rebooted.
I do not know why 3 of them have Win95 Ext'd (LBA) partitions as all 4 were
formatted on a win7 machine with NTFS.
What I'm asking help with is there any way that the 4 drives can be fixed into one position
so I can easily find files via the network.
Thanks in advance of any help that can be given.
PS I only have a very very basic knowledge of Telnet commands
I have without success (do not know how to) tried to install updated version of BusyBox and other executables.
I hop that someone can help with this I'm at my whit's end
Andy
 
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Looks like you need to investigate the partition tables for the 3 HDDs which report Win95 partitions, as these (as quoted) overlap the NTFS partitions, which isn't a good position to be in.
Once you've sorted that, you can use the UUID method to get unique mounts, or you can do it by label (which, for safety, should have been labelled on a Windows PC).
You may need to find a tutorial on partitioning and also one on labelling - I do it, but cannot rely on my memory for details (especially not to the extent of not missing vital steps)
 
Looks like you need to investigate the partition tables for the 3 HDDs which report Win95 partitions, as these (as quoted) overlap the NTFS partitions, which isn't a good position to be in.
There is nothing wrong with that. They are 'logical drives' in DOS/Windows speak and are wholly contained within the extended partition.
You may need to find a tutorial on partitioning
Suggest you read one yourself so as not to give out duff advice!
 
You're right - but the real problem is that I need better glasses, as I couldn't cope with the small characters.
As I also said - I do it on a regular basis, but where I can read the info more easily.
 
Tablets have the advantage of pinch-zoom.

Edit: Ctrl+Scroll in Windows.
 
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Hope to have found way around this problem.
Currently copying off files then going to reformat all drives to EXT2 then copy files back (using ext2Fsd) from windows machine to Hdd's.
The reason for this is that the copy of Linux/BusyBox that is on the unit has a facility to label Ext2 drives as standard, all I have to do when all re-installed drives and reconnected is to figure out how to use Linux commands to operate it, that should be fun I may be back to ask for more help
Thanks for now
Andy
Ps only another 6Tb to go
 
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