So which method ended up finally working? The rootfs.img or the mybook.img and then resizing the datavolume in gparted?
The rootfs.img. I was never able to get a complete load of the mybook.img from a thumbdrive.
It would load from an external USB drive (I had it on a 1T external), but the last attempt I made was before formatting the MBL to NTFS to remove all remnants of the past life.
I believe that reformatting to a foreign format allowed the script to completely prepare the drive and install the image, where just using the script to modify the original partition through Parted or Gparted must have missed something.
Overall, just cabling direct to the drive, giving it enough time to load the UI, giving it a static IP and doing a destructive factory restore may have been the easiest path.
In my case, I had lost access to the UI. All data was still on the drive (and recovered), and Twonky still ran.
My guess is the complexity of options in setting SSH, remote access, my cloud, etc created additional data that wasn’t being addressed in the upgrade.
I am more familar with process control use of Linux, where the the OS was available in archived form and could recreate the OS at will on any failure. Additional time to load, but a little more failsafe. In that configuration, if you noted any problems in the OS, you could create a critical failure and force reloading of the OS. More of a Brute Force approach, where saved data is not always recovered.
Hi nfodiz,
I have problem wih MBL not entering to sleep mode ever.
What could be the possible problem you think of?
Thanks.
It could be some service on the drive keeping it awake, a mapped share on a desktop that is always on seems to like to wake up the drive constantly or a device on your network could be keeping it awake. I have a Boxee Box media streamer in my daughters room and as long as that thing is powered on the MBL won’t sleep.
It’s really just a troubleshooting game you have to play, but I would try disabling services on the drive like remote access to see if things change. Try un-mapping the drive if you have a pc that is always on. Check other network devices by taking them off the network to see if anything changes.
About all I can think of…
Just my 3pence.
I have debricked my 2TB MBL after running “dd” with mybook.img and using gparted to extend the data partition (mybook.img was from 1TB MBL).
Just a word of warning for everyone using USB ENCLOSURES to rescue/debrick their MBL drives - if something is not working for you - try using SATA-eSATA cable or hook the drive up to the PC via direct SATA cable.
It looked like the debrick.sh script worked, no errors, etc but I could not get the MBL to boot up (white light after powering up).
After replacing usb enclosure with sata-esata cable and connecting the drive to the laptop - voila - all worked.
Also…if you are into hacking - MBL has a serial *UART* port- you can easily take advantage of it and connect it to Raspi or via USB to your PC (at least if your MBL is not booting you can see the console output and tell why). Good diagnostic if you have nothing else.
Thanks to nfodiz for your scripts.
The script is uactually the work of Dan Kvelstad on the mybookworldwiki forums. I just put an easy to follow guide together 
And yes a direct e-sata2sata or sata2sata connection is highly recommened. I havent seen much success from people using usb2sata.
I found good guide here too http://mybookworld.wikidot.com/forum/t-399367/help-in-unbrick-my-book-live
As far as the drive in my book is WD20EVDS-63T3B0 its a good drive, but don’t get it how to unbrick this #$%^ anyways
I have been working on unbricking a WD Live 2TB, managed to salvage data from it but have now had to retire the drive as it fully died. I bought a new 3td WD green drive and have been struggling with getting the MBL OS loaded and the MBL with the 3tb installed fully functional. I followed the debricking process on the 1st page of this thread and had success upto loading the drive back into it WD case but then on connecting power and the LAN, the LED on the front of the unit ended up settling as a solid red. I was unable to access the drive through the dashboard or using ssh. (incidentally I was able to get the debrick process to work properly with a 160GB drive but not with the 3tB or a 500GB drive that I also had lying around)
I then tried the approach of mounting the mybook img outlined on page 5 of the thread onto the 3TB drive. I received the appropriate terminal window information:
4700+0 records in
4700+0 records out
4928307200 bytes (4.9 GB) copied, 185.112 s, 26.6 MB/s
Getting excited I loaded the drive back into the enclosure and powered up - this time the drive booted and I was able to get into the dashboard. My concern was what should have been a 3TB drive was reflecting as 0TB in the MBL dashboard.
A factory reset failed to resolve this. but at least gave me a steady green light (largely - it is on solid for most of the time but will blink off then on again briefly every other minute or so) on the front of the unit afterwards. So near yet so far!
Any ideas appreciated - I feel I can’t be far off but am not sure how to resolve from here.
Thanks
I’m gonna put a new guide together for this soon.
That image is from a 1TB MyBookLive so after you run those commands from the system rescue cd, you need to then open gparted on the system rescue cd and browse to the drive and extent the data partition and hit apply changes up top.
Then boot up and do a quick factory restore and you are good to go…
PS. I have a virgin 3TB MyBookLive image as well now which would eliminate this extra step in gparted, I just need to upload it.
@ Tagore I put up the v2.0 guide. Please give it a try and report your results in that guide.
http://community.wdc.com/t5/My-Book-Live/GUIDE-Debrick-MyBookLive-v2-0/td-p/567582
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Thanks for posting up the new 3tb relevant guide so quickly.
First time I tried the process, I was able to get into the dashboard (though the LED on the drive settled at red after booting) and start the quick factory restore process however the device then hung at the device initializing stage. well it was stuck there for around 30mins so I got impatient and disconnected the power and LAN and started over - with hindsight perhaps I should have waited longer.
The second time round I figured that not having wiped the 3tb drive first on a windows machine, so that it was all unallocated space may have been an issue, so did so and then tried again. Once again I got the right terminal output after mounting the mbl image. Booted up the drive and LED went from blue to white to red. Was able to get into the dashboard. It prompted me to upgrade the firmware. Thought I would give that a try but unsuccessful as I received a prompt stating that there was insufficient space for an upgrade.
I then set the device for a quick factory restore. It indicated the restore was successful but then stuck at the device initializing stage for about 30 mins - I then received a message that the mbl has timed out waiting for reboot and suggesting i disconnect and then reconnect through the dashboard.
I then tried closing the dashboard and reconnecting - and this time round was prompted again to upgrade the firmware - thankfully this looks as though it has been a success. The drive is indicating a 3tb in the dashboard, the front LED is green and I have just succesfully copied a file over the network onto the drive.
It hasn’t been easy but we got there.
Nfodiz - you are a star.
Thank you.
You’re welcome, I tested it myself on an unallocated blank 3TB drive to make sure it was working before I posted the image. Upon doing a Quick Restore, mine only stuck at the initializing page for maybe 5-10 minutes though and then it finally went to the Good status at the bottom and everything worked great.
At any rate, I’m glad you are up and running again
NFODIZ, I have read all 34 pages of this topic & it seems nobody is having the same problem I am. I cannot get the resue cd to boot to the “desktop”. It will boot to the menu, I choose “directly start the graphical enviroment” & it goes through a series of “checks” for lack of better description. It errors out & never goes to a “desktop”. I have no idea how to save the log & put it up here on the forum for you to see. Any help would be appreciated.
Note, I am using an AMD 64 bit cpu with all drives disconnected except the MBL drive. I was able to copy all of my data to a second MBL
See if it will let you boot to a command line using one of the other menu options. If you can get there, we may still be able to get you going.
I didn’t expect you to reply back so quickly. I have been trying to get a laptop up & running so I can post on here with it while I use my desktop for debricking but it’s not working.
I’m going to give it another go here in a bit. Is there a way to save the log so I can post it here or will I have to type the log to let you know what happens?
I got it. I ended up burning the iso using imgburn. Took me burning 7 discs before it worked.
mkdir /mnt/usb
mkdir: cannot create directory ‘/mnt/usb’: File exists
root@sysresccd /mnt/usb % mount -t vfat /dev/sdb /mnt/usb
mount: /dev/sdb is already mounted or /mnt/usb busy
root@sysresccd /mnt/usb % cd /mnt/usb
root@sysresccd /mnt/usb % mdadm -s /dev/md0
mdadm: -s does not set the mode, and so cannot be the first option.
root@sysresccd /mnt/usb % mdadm s /dev/md0
mdadm: An option must be given to set the mode before a second device
(/dev/md0) is listed
root@sysresccd /mnt/usb % mdadm -S /dev/md0
mdadm: stopped /dev/md0
root@sysresccd /mnt/usb % ./debrick.sh rootfs.img /dev/sda
********************** DISK **********************
script will use the following disk:
Model: ATA WDC WD20EURS-63S (scsi)
Disk /dev/sda: 2000GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/4096B
Partition Table: gpt
Disk Flags:
Number Start End Size File system Name Flags
3 15.7MB 528MB 513MB primary
1 528MB 2576MB 2048MB ext3 primary raid
2 2576MB 4624MB 2048MB ext3 primary raid
4 4624MB 2000GB 1996GB ext4 primary
is this REALLY the disk you want? [y] y
********************** IMAGE **********************
********************** IMPLEMENTATION **********************
everything is now prepared!
device: /dev/sda
image_img: rootfs.img
destroy: false
this is the point of no return, continue? [y] y
mdadm: /dev/sda1 appears to contain an ext2fs file system
size=1999808K mtime=Sat May 25 02:24:49 2013
mdadm: size set to 1999808K
mdadm: creation continuing despite oddities due to --run
mdadm: array /dev/md0 started.
mke2fs 1.42.7 (21-Jan-2013)
Filesystem label=
OS type: Linux
Block size=4096 (log=2)
Fragment size=4096 (log=2)
Stride=0 blocks, Stripe width=0 blocks
125184 inodes, 499952 blocks
24997 blocks (5.00%) reserved for the super user
First data block=0
Maximum filesystem blocks=515899392
16 block groups
32768 blocks per group, 32768 fragments per group
7824 inodes per group
Superblock backups stored on blocks:
32768, 98304, 163840, 229376, 294912
Checking for bad blocks (read-only test): 0.00% done, 0:00 elapsed. (0/0/0 errdone
Allocating group tables: done
Writing inode tables: done
Creating journal (8192 blocks): done
Writing superblocks and filesystem accounting information: done
mdadm: added /dev/sda2
synchronize raid… done
copying image to disk…
3999616+0 records in
3999616+0 records out
2047803392 bytes (2.0 GB) copied, 148.089 s, 13.8 MB/s
mdadm: stopped /dev/md0
all done! device should be debricked!
root@sysresccd /mnt/usb %
I haven’t put the drive back into the enclosure or tested yet because I wanted to post the log first. Thank you for this write up!!!
Sorry for the late response, I was enjoying some outside time yesterday. The log looks ok… I would screw the board back onto the drive with 2 screws for now and hook up ethernet then power and see if it boots and you can access the dashboard before you put it back in the enclosure. If all looks good, shut it down using the dashboard and reassemble.
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No problem nfodiz. I wasted the biggest part of yesterday trying to get my old laptop fired up so I could post on here while using my desktop to debrick my drive. I didn’t realize that I would be able to access the internet through the MBL drive while using the systemrescuecd.
I did have to run the “smart” script afterwards. I also lost my Twonky server somehow but after using your “restore/downgrade firmware” tutorial I decided to update to the latest firmware (again). This time everything worked flawless. I now have DLNA Media Server. Thank you for this tutorial!
Thank you for a clear, concise guide. It worked for me right away. There was, however, one strange thing:
after I had restarted the MBL (3TB) and updated the firmware, I sshed (is that a verb?) in and was looking at the disk and file structure and noticed there were two mds in /dev: /dev/md0 and /dev/md1. Examining them with mdadm --detail, it turned out each contained one of the two parts of the RAID 1 array with the second part ‘removed’:
/dev/md1:
Version : 0.90
Creation Time : Mon Sep 10 23:06:11 2012
Raid Level : raid1
Array Size : 1999808 (1953.27 MiB 2047.80 MB)
Used Dev Size : 1999808 (1953.27 MiB 2047.80 MB)
Raid Devices : 2
Total Devices : 1
Preferred Minor : 1
Persistence : Superblock is persistent
Update Time : Wed May 29 04:02:41 2013
State : clean, degraded
Active Devices : 1
Working Devices : 1
Failed Devices : 0
Spare Devices : 0
UUID : 877427bb:91a15acd:fd94d722:ce5a2e4b (local to host MyBookLiveNew)
Events : 0.713
Number Major Minor RaidDevice State
0 8 1 0 active sync /dev/sda1
1 0 0 1 removed
and:
/dev/md0:
Version : 0.90
Creation Time : Wed May 29 02:06:01 2013
Raid Level : raid1
Array Size : 1999808 (1953.27 MiB 2047.80 MB)
Used Dev Size : 1999808 (1953.27 MiB 2047.80 MB)
Raid Devices : 2
Total Devices : 1
Preferred Minor : 0
Persistence : Superblock is persistent
Update Time : Wed May 29 00:58:14 2013
State : clean, degraded
Active Devices : 1
Working Devices : 1
Failed Devices : 0
Spare Devices : 0
UUID : 18798e5c:14faccb9:c44c77eb:7ee19756
Events : 0.166
Number Major Minor RaidDevice State
0 0 0 0 removed
1 8 2 1 active sync /dev/sda2
I took a deep breath and did a mdadm -S /dev/md0
then
mdadm --manage --add /dev/md1 /dev/sda2
it rebuilt the array:
/dev/md1:
Version : 0.90
Creation Time : Mon Sep 10 23:06:11 2012
Raid Level : raid1
Array Size : 1999808 (1953.27 MiB 2047.80 MB)
Used Dev Size : 1999808 (1953.27 MiB 2047.80 MB)
Raid Devices : 2
Total Devices : 2
Preferred Minor : 1
Persistence : Superblock is persistent
Update Time : Wed May 29 04:15:48 2013
State : clean
Active Devices : 2
Working Devices : 2
Failed Devices : 0
Spare Devices : 0
UUID : 877427bb:91a15acd:fd94d722:ce5a2e4b (local to host MyBookLiveNew)
Events : 0.789
Number Major Minor RaidDevice State
0 8 1 0 active sync /dev/sda1
1 8 2 1 active sync /dev/sda2
and it was still intact when I rebooted. The RAID 1 array now looks like the one on my other MBL (never debricked).
I realize that this may have come up already, but a quick scan of these 34 (!) pages didn’t find anything related, so I thought I would tell my tale.
Interesting find, I will have to compare my 2 drives and see if I have the same issue
