What filesystem is on main/mirror disk?

[MaxCorvette]

Hi,

I'm wondering what filesystem the WL-700 uses on the mirror disk?
I erased and formatted it using the WL-700 disk manager.
Now I have the mirror disk here on my desk [since router is going back DOA] and tryed to see what's on it using a Knoppix5.0 boot CD as I thought it would have a Linux based filesystem on it but Knopix says it's an unknown file system and can't show anything??
Now I'm wondering what the use is of mirroring if you can't see what's on it anymore when the router or main disk fails??
Does anyone know how the disk can be read by some other operating system then the WL-700?

[MaxCorvette]

I also asked ASUS support, but no reply yet.
Nobody here knows???

[MaxCorvette]

Hmmm,
Everybody hopes to get Custom Firmware for this router but nobody knows what filesystem is used??
I guess then the Custom Firmware won't be available soon..
I saw in another post that it is running a Linux version.

I didn't lose any data or something like that, but when I choose the option mirroring it should at least be useful. If data isn't accesible by some other OS then the WL-700 it's useless or am I missing something??
Or is nobody using the mirror option? I am using it also as a NAS so data like pics and music won't be floating around on all computers.
This was one off the reasons I bought it, to make sure data won't be lost when a HDD crashes...

Can someone please respond if they know?

[leonsio]

/dev/ide/host2/bus0/target0/lun0/part2 on / type cramfs (rw)
/dev on /dev type devfs (rw)
proc on /proc type proc (rw)
usbdevfs on /proc/bus/usb type usbdevfs (rw)
ramfs on /tmp type ramfs (rw)
ramfs on /shares type ramfs (rw)
ramfs on /foreign_shares type ramfs (rw)
/dev/se/2 on /shares/MYVOLUME1 type reiserfs (rw)

[MaxCorvette]

Reiserfs it is....
Hmmm....I think knoppix should be able to read a reiserfs formatted disk.
I'll try to find info on this.
Thanx leonsio.

[MaxCorvette]

I finally got an answer from Asus....it raises more questions then it answers...

I'm also using the WL-700 for NAS perposes and have set up that the internal drive is mirrored to
an external USB-HDD.
Now I'm wondering if the router or internal hard drive fails how I'm able to get the data of the mirrored
drive.
I'm guessing it's a linux filesystem, but yesterday I tried accesing the USB drive from within a Knopix
boot CD startup and it told me there was an unknown filesystem on the USB-HDD.
Can you tell me what OS can acces the mirrored drive? Or wich Filesystem is used?

The mirror means that if the files are over
the size of one disk and then it will automatically saved on the other disk just like one disk.
the HDD inside is formatted as EXT2/EXT3. It is a linux format. So you can use linux to take a
look at it.

Well I tried to do this with the mirrored disk I had setup, but Knoppix wasn't able to mount/reqognize the disk. But I have to say that that router went back DOA because one of the USB ports wasn't working.
Now I have a new WL700ge and setup the mirror again. Haven't checked yet if Knoppix is able to read it now [it takes 4,5 hours to mount the disk!!].
But Asus came back to me with another answer regarding the for me somewhat strange 'mirror' function...it sound more like JBOD mode then a mirror mode.

As i understood from the manual and reviews on the net, the mirror option is like a normal raid1
solution, you are explaining it as if it is JBOD mode.
There is a mirror option and a spare option.
I think you explained how the spare option works, or am I mistaken?

i checked that before i replied you. In fact i also thought here mirror meaned the things on Raid0 are the same with the ones on Raid1. But here maybe it is different. And i will also check that in future. So as i said last time, it means if you have overwritten the hard disk, then it will automatically be written on the other disk.

Has anyone else setup the mirror or spare option in the diskmanagment?
Or am I the only one that thought it was a nice option to have a raid1 setup on the router??
Is anyone able to access a disk formatted with the WL-700ge on a regular Linux system?

Also the bootlog shown here shows clearly it has a reiserfs partition on it...makes me wonder if Asus know anything about their own product
I'll try to access it with a knoppix DVD [haven't setup Linux on HDD], this should work? or not?

thank you for any help on this subject you can give me...

[MaxCorvette]

I've been trying to access the USB-drive formatted by the WL-700 as a mirror disk in Knoppix and under WindowsXP [with a selection of reiserfs tools].
But the drive can't be recognized by neither.
Also the remaining disk space, after setting up the mirror [160GB], was formatted with the WL-700. Also this partition won't show up in Knoppix or WindowsXP.
This way the Raid1 option seems pointless since the data can't be recovered by any other OS.

Anyone here have a suggestion on how to do this?
Or has someone already done this?

The raid option is one of the main reasons I bought this router, since I mainly use it as a NAS/router.

Guess I should have bought a LinkSys NLSU.....and kept on using my old router... this really sucks

[d3viant]

MaxCorvette > I believe that the mirror disk only works when plugged directly into the wl-700Ge - so it does act as a mirrored disk, but as it is a software solution, only the wl-700Ge recognises that it's a mirror of the disk in the router.

[MaxCorvette]

MaxCorvette > I believe that the mirror disk only works when plugged directly into the wl-700Ge - so it does act as a mirrored disk, but as it is a software solution, only the wl-700Ge recognises that it's a mirror of the disk in the router.

OK, but this doen't make it any less useless.
I have a Raid1 solution on my desktop computer and if I take a disk out it works on any other PC. I expected something like this...

But the remaining part of the USB-HDD is a second partition.
This also can't be recognized. Is this because the first isn't recognized and therefore the rest also can't be seen?

Wish there was an Back-up option in the router like the Linksys NLSU has, then there wouldn't be any problem.

[mumsoft]

I've been trying to access the USB-drive formatted by the WL-700 as a mirror disk in Knoppix and under WindowsXP [with a selection of reiserfs tools].
But the drive can't be recognized by neither.
Also the remaining disk space, after setting up the mirror [160GB], was formatted with the WL-700. Also this partition won't show up in Knoppix or WindowsXP.
This way the Raid1 option seems pointless since the data can't be recovered by any other OS.

Anyone here have a suggestion on how to do this?
Or has someone already done this?

The raid option is one of the main reasons I bought this router, since I mainly use it as a NAS/router.

Guess I should have bought a LinkSys NLSU.....and kept on using my old router... this really sucks

I really thought I could use the WL-700gE as my backup device, then attach an equal sized disk to it, use it as a mirror, move it to a safe place, and then, when all went wrong, attach this mirror to my Linux pc and restore from it.
But Asus must have decided otherwise. It uses an invalid partition table on both the internal disk and one that you plug in and define a volume on. Surely it uses ReiserFS. But fdisk, both on my pc AND from within the router itself complain about the invalid partition table:

dev/se/2 on /shares/MYVOLUME1 type reiserfs (rw)
# fdisk /dev/se/2
Device contains neither a valid DOS partition table, nor Sun, SGI or OSF disklabel
Building a new DOS disklabel. Changes will remain in memory only,
until you decide to write them. After that, of course, the previous
content won't be recoverable.


The number of cylinders for this disk is set to 955115.
There is nothing wrong with that, but this is larger than 1024,
and could in certain setups cause problems with:
1) software that runs at boot time (e.g., old versions of LILO)
2) booting and partitioning software from other OSs
(e.g., DOS FDISK, OS/2 FDISK)
Warning: invalid flag 0x0000 of partition table 4 will be corrected by w(rite)

Then If you have the courage to w(rite) to it, the disk is no longer recognizable by the NAS in the browser.
So, you can use an external disk as a mirror, but only in combination with the NAS. Very, very weird.

Now I'm planning to format my second drive in a normal way with reiserfs, then mount it via telnet at the NAS, en then cp some valuable stuff, if that is at all possible.
Sure, if I plug in a vfat formatted 60GB image tank, it is recognized by the NAS and it will copy anything on it to the usbdrive directory. It also automatically makes a share for it. But so far I have had no success.

Marc

[chlubb]

i mirrored my usb hard drive. it shows up in the disk management of the router software but there is no directory or way to access it.
As everyone said above, what is the point of this?
There is physically no way to see whats on it or access it, how does it make this useful, has anyone figured it out?

Chris

[mumsoft]

i mirrored my usb hard drive. it shows up in the disk management of the router software but there is no directory or way to access it.
As everyone said above, what is the point of this?
There is physically no way to see whats on it or access it, how does it make this useful, has anyone figured it out?

Chris

As I understand it after much trial and error, if one of the disks fail, you can replace it with a new one, and specify the disk-with-data as a base for the new mirror. Then it will receive all the original data by rebuilding the mirror, which will take several hours. With my 250GB version, it took over 6 hours.
I agree it is a shame that the disk is not accessible/mountable for a normal PC

Marc

[d3viant]

It's because asus didn't actually write anything to copy files from one drive to another on the fly - they went for a software RAID-1 solution instead, which makes the partitions on both drives unreadable without the correct raid software

[mumsoft]

It's because asus didn't actually write anything to copy files from one drive to another on the fly - they went for a software RAID-1 solution instead, which makes the partitions on both drives unreadable without the correct raid software

That is right. It gave me a clue.
I tried to mount the external drive (again) with the command:
mount /dev/sda1 /media/usb-disk
I got:
mount: onbekend soort bestanssysteem 'linux_raid_member'
which means: unknown filesystem 'linux_raid_member'
So I tried my partitioner in Suse Linux. It showed /dev/sda and /dev/sda1 with Linux native filesystem. I changed that in Linux Raid. Then it was mounted!
I could also mount it by hand with this command:

mount -t reiserfs /dev/sda1 /media/usbdisk
If I don't specify -t reiserfs it won't mount (see above)

If I plug this drive in Mr. White it is still recognized correctly.
That opens possibilitities, doesn't it? I don't know whether it is necessary to change the partion type beforehand. Just give it a try.
Anyway, I could now copy some stuff on the disk at my pc, and use it when plugged in Mr. White.
Wow!

Marc

[iczfirz]

Just to share.

To me I just do rsync to external USB HD for my valuable data in regular basis. But still feeling no good if my internel harddisk die.

Anyone know what if the internal disk die if there is no exteral mirror at all?
Is this white brick able to setup itself and usable again with the new harddisk insert?

~May