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Watchguard X750e running pfSense on a SATA hard drive easily with about $10 mods

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  • F
    fibrewire
    last edited by Jan 14, 2016, 7:09 PM

    You could have just gone with a Microdrive  :)

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microdrive

    http://www.ebay.com/itm/230860368181

    1200px-Inside_a_1-inch_Seagate_ST1_Micro_HDD.jpg
    1200px-Inside_a_1-inch_Seagate_ST1_Micro_HDD.jpg_thumb

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    • V
      vizi0n
      last edited by Jan 14, 2016, 7:19 PM

      @fibrewire:

      You could have just gone with a Microdrive  :)

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microdrive

      http://www.ebay.com/itm/230860368181

      Yes I could, but due to the rarity, and possibility of cheap chinese knockoff, I prefer going the regular hard drive way. And it was cheaper to get 2 adapters for less than $10 vs getting a microdrive for $15-20 since I already had the hard drive. The turnaround is also quicker if I ever need to replace it.

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      • H
        harveje
        last edited by Jan 19, 2016, 1:35 AM

        SWEET
        I just ordered the parts to convert my 750 from CF to HD…
        Thank you

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        • V
          vizi0n
          last edited by Jan 19, 2016, 4:59 AM

          @harveje:

          SWEET
          I just ordered the parts to convert my 750 from CF to HD…
          Thank you

          Glad I could help. Keep us posted with the result!

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          • H
            harveje
            last edited by Jan 28, 2016, 2:31 PM

            Parts finally arrived and lesson learned so far…
            Pay attention to the sata to 44 pin adapter..... my pc board is vertical where yours in horizontal and inline with the watchguards port... I do have a 44 pin hard drive that I'm going to try now and if it fails mod something up for the sata drive and adapter to work.
            More to come

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            • V
              vizi0n
              last edited by Jan 28, 2016, 2:39 PM

              Yes, that is why I said that I searched for the right adapter with the right angle for the connectors.

              I think the one you got will not fit because the SATA connector will have to go down instead of up and it will hit the bottom of the case

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              • H
                harveje
                last edited by Jan 28, 2016, 11:23 PM

                well amazon prime to the rescue… but in the mean time I rigged a usb to ide setup and installed pfsense on on old  ide drive I found, loaded it, rebooted laptop to verify, removed cabling, added the dell connector and fitted the ide into the watchguard, slid cf card out, booted to bios, set disk in bios, and it will only boot up to the i/o's box. reset cyl in bios to 2, rebooted and same issue, set udma to auto, still stops at the same point..
                Then I had to leave for work so I'll mess again tonight.
                between this box, a new voip box, a friggin win 10 desktop that crashes and configuring a kodi-pi box my head hurts...

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                • H
                  harveje
                  last edited by Jan 29, 2016, 3:39 PM

                  well another pickle..
                  Finally got the ide to boot
                  toshiba 60gb with latest pf release
                  while booting it goes into the mountroot> routine
                  bios is set to manual, chs, 2 heads if I put it in auto detect it will not boot
                  drive is ada0
                  I've tried the ufs:/dev/….... that I could find in the forum but it will not get past that point
                  tried safe mode, verbose boot, etc..
                  Any ideas?
                  I'm running bios 6 or 7  checking now
                  Thanks,

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                  • D
                    DeLorean
                    last edited by Jan 29, 2016, 4:50 PM

                    @harveje:

                    Any ideas?
                    I'm running bios 6 or 7  checking now
                    Thanks,

                    Try with the Bios 8.1 , then you have ACPI for Cpu temp readings
                    and the CF card or Hard drive will be recognized automatically by the Bios without manual settings.

                    Good luck.

                    Grtz
                    DeLorean

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                    • H
                      harveje
                      last edited by Jan 29, 2016, 4:56 PM

                      Bingo…
                      That was the missing link.
                      Loaded 8.1
                      re set bios and she has booted twice so far straight to the console with an old ide drive and that dell connector
                      Man the hd makes a Big diff in load up time.
                      Now to get the lcd and fan control back working and my ports fixed..
                      AwEsOmE...
                      I guess I'm a total geek, I had a great running box with the CF card but could not stand that ide adapter not being used...

                      Thank to ALL.

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                      • V
                        vizi0n
                        last edited by Jan 29, 2016, 8:52 PM

                        @DeLorean:

                        Try with the Bios 8.1 , then you have ACPI for Cpu temp readings
                        and the CF card or Hard drive will be recognized automatically by the Bios without manual settings.

                        Strangely it works fine on mine with b7. Maybe something else comes into play somewhere. Any difference between ACPI from B7 and B8.1?

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                        • H
                          harveje
                          last edited by Jan 29, 2016, 9:47 PM

                          Actually I think I had 6 loaded, because I did not have a 7 file in by bios folder.
                          And I was not sure 8.1 took because it just went back to the prompt

                          The drive I have fits great and even has foam padding around it from the old application. I'll post a pic tonight.

                          I am beyond tickled.
                          Is there an easy way to load up the fan controller and lcd fix? Would a full backup import those items?
                          I think every upgrade wipes them out.

                          Thanks again

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                          • V
                            vizi0n
                            last edited by Jan 29, 2016, 11:16 PM

                            For the fans I use the script described here (option A) : https://www.hexhound.com/quiet-the-fan-on-your-pfsense-watchguard-firewall/

                            It allows you to set a threshold temperature and the fan adjusts automatically

                            For the LCD fix, what do you mean? I'm using lcdproc-dev and it works fine on my box, and when you backup your settings it should automatically reinstall the packages when you restore from a backup. At least, it did on mine

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                            • H
                              harveje
                              last edited by Jan 29, 2016, 11:59 PM

                              Yep, that's where I got my info last time, got to watch that vi command line tho…
                              I finally had to copy everything into a txt doc then copy and paste into pf

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                              • H
                                harveje
                                last edited by Feb 1, 2016, 11:04 PM

                                Well the ide drive fit and works so well I'm just going to use it and make a copy on a sata drive for a backup.
                                Updating the Bios was the key factor. Boot up time is way faster too.
                                Thanks to All

                                pfs-ide.JPG
                                pfs-ide.JPG_thumb

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                                • A
                                  arganox
                                  last edited by Nov 6, 2016, 3:01 PM

                                  Hi all,

                                  Sorry for resurrecting this thread but I figured it would be nice to keep the info together.
                                  I did perform this mod and all is running and booting ok.

                                  Though I did notice some strange errors in the logs when the devices is running:

                                  
                                  (ada0:ata0:0:0:0): READ_DMA. ACB: c8 00 97 9d 6f 49 00 00 00 00 80 00
                                  (ada0:ata0:0:0:0): CAM status: ATA Status Error
                                  (ada0:ata0:0:0:0): ATA status: 51 (DRDY SERV ERR), error: 84 (ICRC ABRT )
                                  (ada0:ata0:0:0:0): RES: 51 84 c6 9d 6f 09 09 00 00 50 00
                                  (ada0:ata0:0:0:0): Retrying command
                                  
                                  

                                  BIOS (v8) settings:
                                  IDE master is set to HDD
                                  Both IDE channel and Access mode are on auto

                                  IDE primary Master PIO and UDMA are set to Auto
                                  IDE HDD Block mode and IDE DMA transfer access are enabled

                                  I think the later two settings are posing these issues though not sure.
                                  Could anyone tell me how to fix this? or give me some pointers?

                                  Regards,

                                  Arganox

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                                  • stephenw10S
                                    stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                                    last edited by Nov 6, 2016, 10:53 PM

                                    That's using a SATA drive with an adapter or an old IDE drive?

                                    Steve

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                                    • A
                                      arganox
                                      last edited by Nov 7, 2016, 5:20 PM

                                      Steve,

                                      Thanks for the reply.

                                      I did indeed use a SATA drive with the same connectors as Vizi0n did.
                                      Forgot to mention that tiny detail  ::)

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                                      • stephenw10S
                                        stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                                        last edited by Nov 10, 2016, 4:30 PM

                                        Hmm, I would guess that's some quirk of the adapter maybe. Assuming the drive itself is good.

                                        Steve

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                                        • K
                                          kobzar
                                          last edited by Mar 13, 2017, 1:48 PM

                                          Wery thanks for this manual.
                                          I was repeat it in myself. And now all is fine.

                                          WatchGuard x750e + 2GB + SATA-IDE 320GB

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