System ZD 1100 USB

[moncef_zellou]

Hello
I format the USB key which is located at the inner casing of ZD 1100 helped me how can I repair my zone director

[roy_peverett]

OK, sorry to be vague, thanks for asking.
No progress bar, just states completed instantly.

Have a dead ZD1100, rescue mode does not detect storage with original USB drive.
plugged generic 2GB usb drive in, clicked on FDISK comes up completed instantly, to be sure I have left it running FDISK for over an hour, then performed upgrade using 9.3 image as above notes.
Proved FDISK process is failing, plug usb drive back into windows PC it still has original format and has not changed.

[harley_mckittri]

Oh ok, looks like it's not liking that USB stick. It was nearly a year ago that I done this but I do remember it being weird about USB sticks - I intentionally got one of the cheap ones that has insides looking like the OEM one. Mine was one of those crap colored plastic ones with the swing around metal cover usually given out as promo/merch.



I'd try another USB stick and potentially see if you can get hooked up to the serial port so that you can see the debug log - it may have some detail on whats going wrong. Also try formatting the drive to FAT32 on your machine before going via the ZD1100 just in case.

The first post on this thread also mentions a specific type of drive, I guess there is every possibility that the system may have been designed around the type of drive Ruckus was intending to use.

Also remember this is option 1 of 2.

As Daniel and tadkasur have mentioned above you may be able to "repair" the OEM USB drive and clone it to a good drive too - I initially tried this but mine was totally dead.

[roy_peverett]

Many Thanks, spooky my memory stick looks exactly like the photo, but also tried other ones.
As an update I have managed to clone from a working ZD USB drive & successfully revived the dead one, but would still be nice to know why the rescue process didn't work.
Will get a serial console cable & give it another try.

[daniel_bronson_]

I've had this issue happen once again, and am about to try a USB stick like the one mentioned above. I'll report back how it went. It's worth nothing that the stick I succeeded with a year ago was a pretty old one. That may be a factor in my success. I'm not sure what the difference would be. Clearly I got lucky.

Also worth noting; Firmware 9.8 and above will indeed prevent you from upgrading without a support entitlement file, or something. However, 9.7 has no such restriction. Mine complained a little as I recall, but I was able to get it to firmware 9.10.x by jumping directly from 9.7.

[daniel_bronson_]

Here's an excerpt from my notes to my future self from a year ago. (I tend to adopt a conversational tone with future-me. It's calming);

"The USB sticks inside these beasts look to be SMI 3255AB or similar. They fail a lot. It is possible to resurrect them using the SMI Mass Production Tool. You may have to set the number of bad blocks higher than normal in the settings to achieve this. Presumably, you'll wind up with less usable storage, so I'm not sure what the point of this would be."

Perhaps this will provide some useful clues to someone else who's even more desperate.

Anyway, the USB stick I just tried failed, as did a vintage, 2GB SanDisk Cruzer. It was at this point that I dismissed screwing around with even lower-level USB stuff, since I'm not a huge fan of putting band-aids on band-aids, and frankly, my time is worth more than this. Ebay to the rescue. Two used ZD1100 units from two different sellers for $150 was acceptable to my employer. I'll put one or both of these in service next week as a stopgap, and then propose a sensible migration away from EOL hardware. Fortunately, I have consumer-grade dreck to limp by on until then. Apart from lower throughput, and dodgier coverage, my user base won't even know the difference for the few days we'll be limping.

If I'm sufficiently bored one day, and figure this out, I'll post more.