Author Archives: Richard

Iomega iConnect solutions?

A Pipe and a Keyboard Posted on by

I have noticed quite a few people landing here as a result of a search for Iomega iConnect.

After a lot of tests, trials and tribulations, I finally got my iConnect to work.  In fairness to Iomega, their support was second to none, as between us, we tried just about everything in the book.  It was  Régis in Iomega who finally cracked it.  I sent him a few software dumps and he noticed that the device was rebooting itself on a regular basis. 

The solution, while not ideal, works.  All I had to do was disable the Media Server. That’s all.

It’s not quite the end of my problems, as at the moment anyway, I can’t access the management area of the hub.  I have tried connecting directly using my browser, but it just says “server not responding” or similar.  I can’t connect using the dedicated software either – it connects and displays the iConnect but claims that the “device is currently unavailable”.

However……

The iConnect has been running now for around 72 hours.  I can access the drives that are plugged into it and it seems to be stable.  Leastwise, I have been copying large numbers of files back and forward across the iConnect without a single failure.

Seeing as that is all I require of it, I am happy.

The Iomega iConnect saga

A Pipe and a Keyboard Posted on by

It has been a busy couple of weeks with my iConnect.

After a lot of emails back and forth between myself and Iomega, we decided the unit was faulty.  I returned it to the shop yesterday and got a replacement.  The difference is amazing.

By now, I am somewhat of an expert on the Iomega iConnect!  I hooked it up to the laptop and lashed through the setup.  This time it went smoothly and it is now sitting on a shelf in another room with all its wee blue lights in the right places.  (One of the symptoms of the previous unit’s problems was that a port light would remain lit long after a device had been removed from it).

One of the “features” of the iConnect is that it can be incredibly slow to do things.  A reboot takes quite a while and external drives can take a couple of minutes to appear after being plugged in.  But then this is a device that really can be forgotten about once it is set up, so in the long term that isn’t a problem.

I must say I was impressed with the support I got.  Granted, my initial approaches met with a certain level of indifference, but once my status had been escalated, they pulled out all the stops.

All in all, I’m happy with my purchase.  Now.

Iomega iConnect

A Pipe and a Keyboard Posted on by

A couple of weeks ago, I bought myself an Iomega iConnect.

I had been sniffing around for a while for a USB hub, and I happened to be in PC World so I bought that model for the pure and simple reason that it was the only USB hub they had in stock.

Basically all I wanted was the ability to plug my external drives directly into the network, and this seemed to be ideal for the job.

I brought it home, unpacked it and plugged it in.  I installed the management software and away I went.

Simple?

No!

I have had nothing but trouble with the damned thing.

Initially, I connected the yoke directly to my laptop in order to configure it.  Documentation was crap, but it was a fairly straightforward process.  I gave it a static IP address, and named it FServer.  That was about all I had to do.  I moved it into the area where I wanted to keep the drives (which happens to be beside my router), plugged it in and connected all the drives.  I then went back to my laptop to start the process of mapping the drives backing up software.

I did a network search for the drives, but there was no sign of them.  I could see there was a device on the network called FServer but that was it. No hard drives.

Since then I have……

  • Moved the iConnect between the office and my laptop.
  • On the rare occasion I could connect to it, I tried static and dynamic IPs.
  • I have tried it with and without hard drives attached.
  • I have tried resetting it, but nothing happens if I do it as per instructions (holding in the reset button for 15 seconds – I went up to two minutes but the reset never happened)
  • I have tried resetting it by de-powering, and then re-powering with the reset held in.  That at least turned the status light red (which is the required result) but the damned thing stays on red and the only way to get it back to normal is to re-power it again, but the reset still hasn’t happened.
  • I have tried accessing it using Linux, Windows 7 and Windows 2000.  Same results on all systems.

I have trawled the Internet looking for help.  Iomega have a users forum, and I found quite a few roughly similar problems, but Iomega’s response seems always to be that a static IP should be used.  Tried that.  No good.

I connected it directly to my laptop again today to have another go.

I plugged it in, and nothing happened.  The Management software can see it all right.  It lists it as FServer with an IP of 192.168.1.9 (correct!).  However it says that it cannot be managed, nor is there any sign of the USB devices.  I tried pinging that IP and get no returns.  If it weren’t for the management software, I would say it didn’t exist at all.

I can see it in the Management window –

Iomega screen

I can see it in Windows 7 Network mapping –

Win 7 screen

But that is all.

I think it’s about time for a return trip to PC World?

[Filed under Linux server management software]

The flavours of Mint

A Pipe and a Keyboard Posted on by

I first installed Linux about six weeks ago.

It is really quite remarkable how easy I have taken to it.  I rarely use the Windows setup these days, and only boot into it if there is something specific I need to do, such as running Photoshop, as my Gimp skills are still not fully developed!

What has surprised me is the way I have started to experiment.  Last week for example, I scrapped my installation and did a fresh install of Linux Mint 10 Julia, which is still at the Beta stage.  It is only released with Gnome, but comes in both 32 bit and 64 bit flavours.  I decided to go for broke and install the 64 bit flavour.

The first thing that strikes me (apart from the very nice graphics) is the speed.  The developers have trown in a load of fancy gimmicks that allow your windows to dance around the screen or act like jelly, and I tried a few of them out.  The developers needn’t have bothered.  The system is so fast that I never get a chance to see the gimmick before the window closes.

Up until now I had been using KDE as my front end, but I am getting very used to Gnome at this stage.  Just for the craic, I installed KDE into Mint 10, and it works very well but does have a few minor quirks, which I would expect.  One major quirk is the inability to shut down.  It allows for Sleep, Hibernate and Log off but there is now way to shut it down without using the command prompt, or switching user (from myself to myself) and selecting Gnome.

There are a few things I really miss in Linux though.  The biggest one is probably Windows Live Writer which I used for all my blog posts.  The nearest in Linux is Blogilo which is very definitely the poor brother.  It lacks most of WLW’s features, and to my disgust, I can’t get even that to run under Gnome (and believe me, I have tried).  I have had to fall back on Scribefire which is a Firefox plugin and therefore platform independent.

If there is anyone out there who hasn’t tried Linux, I would suggest giving it a bash (hah! Linux joke!).  Like other flavours of Mint it can be installed within Windows so no partitioning, or allocation of diskspace is required.

Go on.  Give it a try.  You never know – you may become a convert?

You can download from here.

How to screw up a brand new laptop

A Pipe and a Keyboard Posted on by

I suppose some will argue that it is my own fault.

My new laptop screwed up on me during the week.

I suppose the easiest way is to chart the history that led to its downfall?

When I got the laptop home, I found that it had three primary partitions. The first was a small system partition that seemed to contain boot records. The next was the restore partition and the third was the main partition containing the OS and all the data.

I have always had a habit of separating my data from my OS, and many’s the time that has saved my bacon. I therefore split the main partition in two. So far, so good.

Then came my experiments in Linux.

I tried reducing the size of my data partition to make room for the Linux install. That was fine, and I ended up with about 40Gb of free space. However, Linux refused categorically to see it. This is when I learned that apparently one can only have four primary partitions.

Undeterred, I set about installing Linux within Windows itself. I didn’t want to use a VMC as that imposes too many restrictions. Linux Mint has the perfect solution – to create a file and use that as a virtual hard disk.

I liked Linux. It has come a long way since I first started messing with it in the early days when a UI was virtually unheard of. I liked it so much I decided to revisit the idea of installing it in its own partition.

Because of the four partition limit, I had to combine two of mine. There was a considerable amount of shunting around involved, but eventually I shifted all my data onto the OS partition, including my Mint installation, just in case anything went wrong. I deleted the old data partition and set about installing Linux Mint. It worked perfectly. I now had a duel boot windows 7/Linux machine.

As the old installation of Mint was no longer needed, I deleted it of my data disk. I also used a utility to delete the record from the boot record. That is where my problem started. The machine categorically refused to boot into Windows. It just went blank leaving me staring at a black screen. I couldn’t even access the factory restore partition.

I had previously made a set of DVD restore disks, so I stuck the first one in. I hoped it would have some hind of error checking but it didn’t. I found an old copy of Ultimate Boot Disk which had saved my bacon in the past, and that had a utility to edit the MBR. I edited it, to point to the correct partition but that just screwed thing up completely. Now I couldn’t get into Linux either!

I found a torrent for a Windows 7 restore disk on the Web. I burned it to CD and tried that. It immediately It told me that there were problems with my boot-up and claimed to fix them but it made no difference. Stuck again.

I decided the time had come to forget about my Windows data. I had most of it backed up anyway, though I didn’t fancy installing all my programmes again. I did a complete factory restore off the DVDs. It took ages, but eventually it announced that my machine was back to its original state. It wasn’t. Apparently the restore doesn’t touch the MBR which struck me as crazy!

I searched the Web again [luckily I had a spare machine!] and found one reference to restoring a Windows 7 MBR using DOS. I tried that and it worked. At last I was getting somewhere.

I now had a machine with Windows 7 but no programmes or data, and an installation with everything in it, but that I couldn’t access. I decided to reinstall Mint and suffer my loss of data.

During the Mint install, there was some confusion as to where I was installing it. It wanted to use a spare 3Gb of empty space, which was worse than useless. I eventually persuaded it to use the existing Linux partitions, and just for the hell of it, I told it not to bother formatting the main partition. It installed perfectly so now I was back in business, with just a case of installing all my programmes again.

I was wrong.

I booted into Linux and there was everything just as I had left it – all my programmes and all my data.

The more I see of Linux, the more I like it.

That full restore just about clinched it!