Install Debian on WD My Cloud home

Hi I have a quick question , Am I going to loose my data ? like movies and tv shows in public folder

yes

Edit 28.04.2020 : others people confirm that you won’t loose your data

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Thank you very much for your clarifications Western1.

I though we wouldn’t need to install an OS on the bootable drive (but just the files from forth32).

Anyway now you can access your data by just connecting the MCH through USB for example right ? And do you need to do any special configurastion (dynamic dns) to access your my cloud home from outside of your network ?

I’m pretty sure that you need a bootable USB sitck, not just copy/past the file from forth32, i let you try and add your info here !
After install, you will have an OpenMediaVault installed on the MCH, like a NAS, with all feature that OpenMediaVault (v4) can have.
You will have to configure it to access from outside (and of course, you will have to configure your ISP)
If you don’t have time to search how to configure it (the OpenMediaVault forum is full of how-to and articles) or if you know how, you should probably stay on the system provided by WD.

I bought this device to access it remotely from external device, even when my ISP is not working so I didn’t give a try to access my NAS throw USB, as I already have an external HDD connected like that.

i managed to install it successfully but I cannot install docker plugin . and by the way media files did not removed it was removed into a backup folder in the srv folder . Any one managed to install docker plugin

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Should this work also on MyCloud Home Duo?

It seems that MCHD has some sort of software RAID:

Feel free to test it and let us know :wink:

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Tried it and it does’t work.

However, looking at this a bit closer, I doubt anyone here managed to get debian on WD MyCloud Home for real. Here’s why:

  1. user forth32 never mentions that a bootable USB is needed, just his files on a MBR/FAT32 USB stick. This doesn’t make any sense, since operating system WD-Android should be replaced with Debian and so Debian needs to come from somewhere. Does Debian just magically appears on MCH? His files are just a bunch of configs and addon software, there is no operating system to install. The only way this would work is that WD-Android would pick up forth32 script, then some script would download Debian, then it would flash boot partition, then reboot to Debian and so on. I don’t think this is what’s going on here.

  2. If bootable USB is needed for MCH device to boot from it, I wonder what kind of Linux boot-image this should be? I doubt that just any random Linux distro image would work since MCH is an ARM device, so It should have been ARM-Debian image and one that is not an install-ISO, but some ready made live-ISO. BTW, suggested CentOS image doesn’t make any sense. My bet is that bootable USB is actually not needed, though.

  3. bootable images in general do not just pick up any random files or scripts that you put on the USB next to other system files. I don’t understand how this could ever work: “just flash USB with a random Linux ISO and put some extra files on and they’ll be executed.” Well, they won’t.

I’ll be glad if anyone here can prove me wrong and posts some proof-of-life of Debian on MCH with a bit more profound explanation how is this supposed to work.

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Hi @mdvrk, just to confirm you that, following Forth32 steps, I got Debian on MyCloud Home. Openmediavault is running since yesterday (uptime 12 hours). I was not able only to run some plugins (e.g. docker). Also data stored on the disk remain available (I found them in \smb folder).

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Hello Ricardo, thank you for your report.
I’m also block with Docker plugin, as @ahmedespo told.
I found another ISO on the same russian website, with the same problem (no docker plugin) (@mdvrk : for this one, follow the same steps forth32 gave us.)
All the others options seems to works smoothly, despite the SMBv1 option on W10, but at least, it’s very cool to have it.

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Hi guys, I confirm it can be done, and it’s very easy, too! I’m going to report my findings and a couple of questions:

  1. You don’t need a bootable USB, just follow the instructions (MBR, FAT32, block 0…)

  2. At first, I tried with the second “ISO” linked by Western1, but I had no luck. I suppose that version is an “upgrade” rather than a “stand-alone” installation? Anyway, the link provided in the first post works flawlessly.

  3. It’s OMV 4 Debian 9; unfortunately, it’s quite outdated and close to EOL.

  4. It’s kind of a snapshot, rather than a clean install, and I think forth32 explains it in his posts. There are a bunch of folders and subfolders in the main share, there are a lot of pre-installed plugins, there’s even a “readymade” SMB shared folder…

  5. My WD Cloud Home is much quieter, and the transfers are much faster. Just what you’d expect from a NAS…

  6. I think forth32 also explains that there is a way to revert back to its original state, but I wouldn’t know how to do it. In any case, I’m under the impression that the original WD partition isn’t erased in the process, and/or that the files are there, somewhere, intact. Dev/sataa has a capacity of 7,28 TB, but it is a 8TB disk. I don’t think it’s just a matter of rounding: 8 - 7.2 = more or less the files I had on the WDCH

And here come the questions:

  1. Can I safely delete all those folders? (see point 4) If they are required by the OS, I shouldn’t have permissions to modify them, right?

  2. If my assumption is correct (see point 6) is there a way to access the “WD partition”, format it, resize it and so on?

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Many thanks @asachang for your feddback, you seem to learn russian faster than I do :wink:

I was able to start on the second link I provided, but maybe because I was on the first install (OMV 4 Debian 9) ? :face_with_raised_eyebrow:

As I still not use it completely, just tell me which folder you want to delete in order to me to test and verify if it’s still works.
My file systems (3To) on OMV show 6 parts where DATA took 2.68 TiB, USR 1.94 GiB, VAR 774.89MiB, DEBIAN, the same and 2 others parts without info.
I think you can access the WD partition directly via “files systems” onto OMV, by plug it onto your PC or via “shell in the box” plugin, no ?

Yes, I guess you’re right. Did you lose the previous configuration? Is it worth updating or, as they say, if it’s not broken, don’t fix it?

Well, basically all the folders that come “out of the box”… for instance, the data folder: it’s full of com.android… subfolders, most of them are empty (or are there hidden files?), but some of them do have some files that appear to be of some use. Ditto for the samba folder, backups folder, and so on. Also, because I have a Mac and use AFP, I noticed that you must create new empty folders and share them using AFP, you can’t just use one of the existing ones. This is not the case for SMB and FTP; in fact, I managed to browse those folders after I made them accessible via FTP (the data folder is already shared via SMB).
I’d like to have a clean system without leftovers from previous installations. There were 3 gb in the data partition… with due respect to forth32, who knows what’s in there? Of course, it’s all my fault: it’s my first time messing with OMV, I don’t know what I’m doing! :grinning:

Same for me. I wonder if the WD partition is one of two unmounted partitions, but I don’t want to break something. sataa18 has file system vfat and no label, could it be the one?

We should have some help understanding how to install a clean version on Debian ?
Does anybody know a CLI to reinstall debian with the same custom kernel used by forth32 .
Please guys keep this thread up and running

To everyone wondering about installing Debian (OMV) on MCH.
I tried it and it works .

@ahmedespo to reinstall a clean version on Debian:

  1. Turn off your MCH device and remove the power cord.
  2. Plug the USB containing the extracted files from wd-mycloud-home-debian.7z (link in the first post) in the MCH port.
  3. While holding the Reset button, plug in the power cord. (Don’t release the reset button, yet)
  4. The MCH light indicator will rapidly flash and than it will dim to a steady light. (This might take around 20 seconds maybe)
  5. Now you can release the reset button.

The process might take 3 to 5 minutes. The device will reboot after installation.
Don’t remove the USB until your device is discoverable on the network under “wdnas”.

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Thank you for your work on this subject.

I’m new dealing with WD, but I have experience with Linux. I’m not sure about this, and I hope you can resolve my doubts:

Could I use this on my WD Home Duo?
Does the Debian OS remove all the WD previous OS?
Could I access to the device from a different network after installing?
Could I install a different cloud, as Nextcloud, in this Debian distribution?
Will this NextCloud accessible from a different network of my local?

If someone could guide me in this objective it will be more than welcome.

Thank you in advance.

My Cloud Home and My Cloud Home Duo are 2 different devices.
Since you are able to swap HDD on the Duo device, this may change the whole process of Installing Debian.

There’s this thread: Intalling Open Media Vault (alpha state) (finished, there is an easier method now, i keep the post for research data))
I have never tried the method, but It’s more likely to find the answers you are looking for there.

In case you want to Install Debian on a My Cloud Home device,
I’ll be more than happy in guiding you through the process and answering your questions.

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Hello, you cannot use this on the Home Duo, they are different devices, Home Duo has a 4GB eMMC, that´s where the OS resides, I manage to make a rescue usb that boots into minimal linux (for rooting or make changes on the OS), the info is on one of my post, and right now i manage to install OMV but have limitations and is not an easy process. Right now i manage to repartition the eMMC and install debian 10, but i have an error trying to install OMV5, I working with someone from 4pda forum to try to make an script to make easier the installation process. By the way in this case if you want to install debian, you lose the original firmware, but you alway can recover it if you make a full backup of the eMMC

Thanks for your answer.

Recently I recover an old pogoplug V4 with a 16GB USB, with an Arch Linux and Nextcloud, but it is very very slow. That’s why I’m thinking about a similar process over the WD HDD.

If I can help you in this project, I will be glad to add my effort

Thank you again.

Thank you I will follow this link and see what happens.