Pfsense on Watchguard x750e - Upgrade from CF to HDD?
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Currently running pfsense on a 4GB CF card and I want to upgrade that. What would be the easiest way to upgrade to an IDE hard drive, and what is that little adapter part I need to allow the HDD to interface with the motherboard?
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By far the nicest way is to use the appropriate caddy from a laptop and a 2.5" ide hard drive. Some laptops that use it are given in the doc page.
If your box has the ide header populated you can fit a standard drive with some hardware mods to fix it.
At least one user has fitted a PCIe SATA card and attached a SATA drive.Steve
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How to know if the IDE header is actually populated? From the sound of it, look like mine doesn't.
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If it's populated you have the connector on the PCB. If not you just have solder pads. It's pretty obvious if you it.
Steve
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Nope, I don't!
I got CN_IDE1 with just the solder pad and also got CN_IDE2 with a connector I haven't seen that before (looks like a 2.5" drive??). So, how much trouble I'm asking to get the drive added? Best! -
Yeah, CN_IDE1 is the standard IDE header. To use the CN_IDE2 connector you need, at a minimum, the adapter that connects from that to laptop drive. If you get the caddy too it's much nicer.
For example: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/271705830391Steve
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Thanks Steve!
By adapter, do you mean this: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/171126316387
Also, can this one be used as well? http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/291142771682I believe that's bus powered? Best!
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That adapter might work but it's not the same as the one I linked to. The caddy definitely won't work.
Steve
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Thanks Steve!
So, I assume, the other side of the adapter (in the picture) with the caddy in eBay, that you liked, is for the CN_IDE2 to directly connect to it? Best!
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Yes, exactly.
It was the same caddy used in the X-Peak which I put up some pictures of here:
https://forum.pfsense.org/index.php?topic=25011.msg154292#msg154292
and
https://forum.pfsense.org/index.php?topic=25011.msg129676#msg129676Steve
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Thanks for the conformation, Steve! Ordered now.
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Hi Steve,
The caddy arrived and it was a perfect fit. Very happy to see the HDD in the case.
However, it cannot really boot off it at all. If I attach the HDD to laptop, it boots off the disk without any error at all. The jumper is set to "Slave" in the HDD and it's being detected correct by the BIOS:
Phoenix Technologies, LTD System Configurations +==============================================================================+ | CPU Type : Genuine Intel(R) processor Base Memory : 640K | | CPU ID/uco: 0695/45 Extended Memory :1039360K | | CPU Clock : 1.30GHz Cache Memory : 512K | |------------------------------------------------------------------------------| | Pri. Master Disk : LBA,PIO 4, 512MB Display Type : EGA/VGA | | Pri. Slave Disk : LBA,PIO 4,40010MB Serial Port(s) : 3F8 2F8 | | Sec. Master Disk : None Parallel Port(s) : 378 | | Sec. Slave Disk : None DDR2 at Bank(s) : 0 2 | +==============================================================================+but after the Memory Test, all I get a blank screen on the serial console a "Booting OS…" on the LCD display. I followed the instruction, as you outlined here: https://forum.pfsense.org/index.php?topic=56234.msg300946#msg300946 Any idea what's am I still possibly missing?
Best!
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Finally worked!!! :)
It was my bad to start with: Forgot to enable the serial port console and then caught by the v2.2 DMA access issues, which needs to be disabled beforehand. once these two things fixed pfSense started booting without any problem. Used a 40G Toshiba MK4026GAX.
I didn't have to do verbose boot or enter ufs:/dev/ad1s1a during the boot though. The only thing needs to be fixed now is the fan-speed control, which seems to be broken in 2.2 for fanctrl-new script.
Thanks for your help, Steve!!
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No problem.
You should be able boot with DMA enabled if you don't have the CF card in though. I have a box here doing that.[2.2.2-RELEASE][root@pfSense.localdomain]/root: dmesg | grep ada ada0 at ata0 bus 0 scbus0 target 0 lun 0 ada0: <toshiba mk2018gap="" m1.42="" a="">ATA-5 device ada0: Serial Number 32K60131T ada0: 33.300MB/s transfers (UDMA2, PIO 8192bytes) ada0: 19077MB (39070080 512 byte sectors: 16H 63S/T 16383C) ada0: Previously was known as ad0 Trying to mount root from ufs:/dev/ada0s1a [rw]...</toshiba>[2.2.2-RELEASE][root@pfSense.localdomain]/root: camcontrol negotiate /dev/ada0 -v Current parameters: (pass0:ata0:0:0:0): ATA mode: UDMA2 (pass0:ata0:0:0:0): ATAPI packet length: 0 (pass0:ata0:0:0:0): PIO transaction length: 8192 (pass0:ata0:0:0:0): tagged queueing: disabled ata0: SIM/HBA version: 1 ata0: supports SDTR message ata0: scan bus sequentially ata0: HBA engine count: 0 ata0: maximum target: 1 ata0: maximum LUN: 0 ata0: highest path ID in subsystem: 0 ata0: initiator ID: 0 ata0: SIM vendor: FreeBSD ata0: HBA vendor: ATA ata0: HBA vendor ID: 0x8086 ata0: HBA device ID: 0x266f ata0: HBA subvendor ID: 0x8086 ata0: HBA subdevice ID: 0x266f ata0: bus ID: 0 ata0: base transfer speed: 3.300MB/sec ata0: maximum transfer size: 131072 bytesSteve
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Already tried without the CF card in - it does't even start booting after the POST/Memory Test. Is there anything else to do in BIOS for that?
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No. I don't think so. I think the drive is configured as master and is detected as such.
What BIOS version are you on though? I'm running 8.1Steve
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Mine not 8.x for sure, 7b i think. Is 8 branch stable now?
Also, where do I get the 8.1 BIOS? -
Yeah, I've seen no reported issues with it.
You can get it here: https://sites.google.com/site/pfsensefirebox/home/XEBIOS_81.BINSteve
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One quick question: After flushing the BIOS, where/how do I check the BIOS version? Best!
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The easiest place to check it is at the boot POST screen.
It may be possible to read it with some utility from the pfSense command line, I haven't tried that. Any utilities I did use were under 8.1.
You can read it from FreeDOS with the biosid command but that's less convenient.Steve
