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

vizi0n

Hi everyone,

Just thought I'd leave this here so someone looking to do the same could have the info.

Since I've had my X750e for about 2 months, I wanted it to have the "full pfSense experience" with logs/graphics and all. Running that on a CompactFlash was a bad idea, so I began looking into running pfSense on a hard drive. I encountered 3 problems for that.

a regular 3.5" IDE drive (commonly available) won't fit inside if I solder a connector on the board (height adds up and not enough clearance for the top cover to fit)
the 2.5" IDE connector is not the kind you can easily find an adapter for
2.5" IDE drives are getting hard to get a hold of and are often of a "small" capacity.

So, I wondered if I could install a commonly available 2.5" SATA drive inside. Well well, it sure is possible! Some how-to's online showed how it was done using a PCI-e card, it was a mess and waaaay too complicated. So I began digging.

Solution: I've found the "proprietary" connector to IDE 44 pin adapter on eBay listed as a Dell connector like some people mentionned. That was perfect. I've had to buy a lot of 5, so I have 3 left over if anyone wants one. Now to fit the SATA drive, I guessed that a male 44 pin to SATA could do the trick if it existed but I found no evidence online about this possibility. All I could find was people struggling with IDE drives and BIOS settings. So I searched for the right adapter with the right angle for the connectors.

Then I've found this : http://www.ebay.com/itm/251926632597 (7+15P SATA Hard Drive Female to 44Pin 2.5 IDE Male HDD Adapter Converter Z1)

This thing works wonderfully once you remove the "cable select" jumper. If you leave it on, it will default to Slave and not boot. If you remove it, then the drive will be automatically detected as Master. All this was tested with no CF card so I don't know if it changes anything when a card is installed.

Also, I didn't need to change ANYTHING about the hard drive in the BIOS. I've let all hard drive settings to AUTO. The only modification I did was enabling UDMA somewhere in the menus.

The only "negative" point is that the drive sticks out the back of the Firebox by about 1/8-1/4" (see photos below)

What you need :

2.5" SATA hard drive (mine's a 100GB Seagate ST910021AS if that matters)
44 pin (male) to SATA adapter (3$ on eBay http://www.ebay.com/itm/251926632597)
44 pin (female) to motherboard connector adapter (5 for 7$ on eBay http://www.ebay.com/itm/220813768916)
Rags or rubber to secure the drive in place
Just slightly longer screws for the back panel
Null modem cable to flash and setup the bios + do the initial pfSense config
optional : something to hold the hard drive in place at the back of the box if you have a flat back panel if you can't find long enough screws
phillips screwdriver, but I guess that's pretty obvious

Steps I've followed:

Prep work

if you are currently running on a CF, backup your settings first, you will be able to restore them
bend or remove (desolder) the jumpers on the 44 pin to SATA adapter as they might short on a metal bump that is directly underneath the adapter when you install it in the Firebox (see photo 3)
find some rags or spare rubber that you can use to prevent the hard drive from moving vertically inside the Firebox (I've used a few layers of neoprene rubber sheets)
make sure you have the B6 or B7 BIOS installed (I guess more recent should work too, I'm running B7). This is covered here : https://doc.pfsense.org/index.php/PfSense_on_Watchguard_Firebox#Flashing_the_BIOS

Installation

download the "regular" pfSense image and burn it to a USB key or CD (https://www.pfsense.org/download/mirror.php?section=downloads)
install the SATA drive in a laptop, boot the USB key/CD and install pfSense on the drive by following the installer menus
after the installation is complete, remove the drive from the laptop and prepare it for installation in the X750e by adding the adapters (photos 1-2)
remove the bottom plate at the back of the Firebox, slide the hard drive through the opening
shim it vertically (above and under) at the back using the rags or rubber then reinstall the back plate using a tad bit longer screws. Some watchguard have a curved backplate and some have a flat backplate. If you have the curved one you can install it so the curve points outside to allow for the drive to stick out a bit. If you have a flat panel, I guess you might need a thin aluminum flat bar to secure the hard drive and prevent it from poping out if you cant find long enough screws. (photo 4)
boot, press tab to enter the BIOS, make sure your drive is the primary Master, set all the drive's settings to AUTO, and enable UDMA somewhere else in the menus (sorry I don't have it in front of me right now)
save settings and exit
enjoy!

I hope this will be of any help to at least one person it the world! :)

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Photo 6

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fibrewire

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_thumb

vizi0n

@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.

harveje

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

vizi0n

@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!

harveje

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

vizi0n

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

harveje

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...

harveje

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,

DeLorean

@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

harveje

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.

vizi0n

@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?

harveje

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

vizi0n

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

harveje

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

harveje

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

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arganox

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

stephenw10

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

Steve

arganox

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 ::)

stephenw10

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

Steve