Recently my setup has been acting up.
Rp3
Samsung evo plus 32gb microsd
Insignia powered 4usb 3.0hub
Western digital pocket hdd 500gb
Stontronics power supply
I can’t remember what version but it’s last been updated in July 2016. Even prior to that, it was running stable as a headless media server. It began about a month ago where I couldn’t remote in using VNC or ssh. I couldn’t even get display when I plugged it in via hdmi. I had to resort to unplugging and plugging the power. I’m also certain this has caused corruption. Since then, every time I reboot a PID shows upon boot. Also after about 10-15 minutes Ican no longer open anything. I am able to click and start the run window but terminal or anyth8ng else will respond.
Interestingly, whenever I do a proper reboot p, I am able to use it n8rmally for 10-15 mins… every time I open Firefox it asked if I want to restore my last session even though I properly close and exit it every time…
Anyway I feel like I corrupted the install and would like to resinstall dietpi. My question is, ways the best and fastest method to perserve the media that is in my hdd… previously I just hooked it up to my pc and backed it up and then reinstalled and transferred it back after a fresh install… but that’s a pain. I would like to know if I can install a fresh copy of the most recent raspberry pi and my hdd data will be there still without messing with it.
I believe I did move the ainstall off my microsd unto the hdd and usuing the microsd as the boot.
Please excuse my extreme igornance and lack of knowledge. Not that great on anything besides a Windows machine and even that I’m no expert.
Thanks in advance!
I’d say get a new SD card, remove the HD, reinstall diet pi on the new card, reinstall all the programs you were using then reconnect the HD. Dietpi drive manager will help you remount it. Don’t format it and your media files will be intact. With a good SD card I doubt you’ll gain much by running the OS from a USB 2 attached HD anyway - use the HD for media files only.
Once the system is running again use dietpi-backup and backup the system to a directory on the HD. Next time you’ve a problem just restore the backup.
John
THanks for the help and suggestion john.
I did as you said and everything well went. i bought a new microsd card, installed and mounted external hdd. two observations i have:
1)i installed VNC4 and every time i log in via VNCVIewer, i still get a PID error. however, when i can click or tap things, they will load and programs will start.
2)is there a way to rename the hdd mount? right it is some absurd long alpha numberic name
things two things are by far better than having to reboot the machine every time i want to download a new file to the hdd.
i do have one last question, does downloading files on to my ext hdd wear out my microsd card?? i download on average 3-4gb worth of anime every week onto my external hard drive. i was just wondering if its like an SSD where it still counts as write and erases even though im saving information on to my disk drive and not my SSD cuz the data has to pass through it.
best regards
1 - Don’t know, don’t use VNC.
2 - Unmount the extrernal HD (# umount /mnt/a7a6sa7s6as6a76s76s for example) and make a new directory for it in /mnt
Edit /etc/fstab and change the long alphanumeric name to the name of the directory you just created.
mount -av will remount the drive
Using the HD as you are will minimise SD wear but all drives have a finite life. Use diet-pi backup and backup to the HD or external USB flash drive regularly as insurance.
John
I had to provide two power sources for my install, for some reason the power supply wouldn’t provide enough current to run both the drives and the pi together…with two my nextcloud server runs like a champ with no issues