What The #%&$, I need Seriuos help

[asylum]

I'm so frustrated. I built my HDA about a year ago, spent hours upon hours trying to get it to work. I unplugged it and set it in a corner and forgot about it. I have built another HDA using F12 and the original Amahi install code. I can see my HDA from my win7 laptop. I can see my shares. I can even write to them. The problem....where to start? I have a 250 G HD as the "root" (still not good with the terms, worked on MS systems for 25 years but not in networking or dealing with this crap!), anyway, and I have 2- 1TB drives to be used for backups of my 3 other win7 pc's. I have no idea why I cant see my drives from my laptop, they don't show up in the "Backup and Restore" option or in "My Computer". WTF! Again, I've spent hours and hours and hours and I'm ready to use my 20lb sledge on this thing. Heck, I somehow set up tigervnc and can at least run the damn thing from my laptop. I don't need another pc, I need my HDA to save my DVD's, Music, Pic's, Files and Backup's to. I'm so tired of reading through the countless blogs on what to do; and I still don't know what to do! This isn't, by no means, easy or simple or fool proof. IF THERE IS ANYONE WITH THE TIME TO SPEND ON HELPING AN EXTREMELY FRUSTRATED GUY OUT, PLEASE, PLEASE,-if not, I QUIT. I'll just stick to my Microsoft junk and buy external drives for backups.

[bertie40]

Are they on the same workgroup ?

Look in
Dashboard
Shares
Settings.

[asylum]

All 3 Win7 PC's (laptops) show WORKGROUP, HDA shows WORKGROUP.

[bigfoot65]

Does the backup and restore option of Windows 7 offer support to network drives? I do not see my HDA drives either.

Recommend you try mapping your drives in Windows 7 and see if that helps. I don't believe this is a Fedora/Amahi issue, but I could be mistaken. Also, is there any reason why you cannot use a Windows third-party backup program? There are many good free ones available.

[asylum]

First. Thanks for the interest in helping. I never really thought of a third party backup program, I suppose, in my mind, I was thinking that my HDA would somehow automatically solve the worlds (at least my) problems. I have so many questions and very little understanding that I don't no where to begin. Oh, and now I cant seem to access my server from my laptop.

[asylum]

Screw it. I shut it down. Too many issues and things aren't working the way their supposed to work. If I new anything about the Linux environment it would be a bit easier. Right now, I'm only wasting electric. I'll spent what ever time I can afford in the wiki's until I know what I'm doing. Thanks again for the help.

[mal]

Screw it. I shut it down. Too many issues and things aren't working the way their supposed to work. If I new anything about the Linux environment it would be a bit easier. Right now, I'm only wasting electric. I'll spent what ever time I can afford in the wiki's until I know what I'm doing. Thanks again for the help.

I have been very supportive of the Amahi guys because they have historically done this for fun and pure altruism. Fedora 12 and Amahi 5 was very stable and worked well for me. All the apps were free but the underlying OS was getting dated so I understand why they made the move. I understand the move to charging for apps and am personally supportive of that move. What I think they have been slow to do is move enough of those apps out of beta quickly enough so new users like your self are not seeing the best of it.

There is insufficient in the current build for you to understand why people like me stick with it, I'd agree with you on that.....but when Crashplan goes live I think you would be much closer to the "it just works" back up solution you seek..

My advice is keep an eye on the apps and when there are as many live apps as there are beta apps today, come back because I am sure your whole experience will be different.

HTH
Mal

[asylum]

I appreciate the understanding, from everyone. I am glad for an alternative to a Windows based machine. When I started my computer interest, it was Dos 5.0 and Windows 3.1. Wow, things have come a ways since then. I fired up my hda again because I couldn't stand for my desire to have this thing not work. Maybe my expectations are too high, I don't know? I did manage to get my Win 7 laptop to finally access the hda, wirelessly so I can run headless. That's a big deal and a first step to fine tuning this thing. I removed 1 of the 1T HD's to make things a wee bit simpler for me. I created 1 partition (NTFS) because, in my limited understanding, I want all my win pc's to save themselves to that drive. If there is another way, I'm open for knowledge. Still cant get my laptop to see the drive, I probably need to format it just as I would any other drive for Windows. Shouldn't I be able to mount the drive from the "search" box just as I can bring up the shares on my hda from there? This is my next obstacle. How do I change the hda's shares from the 250G hd, which is my "root" drive to another hd, if I even would want to do that? My thinking is, if I can see my shares from the laptop, I should be able to see everything from there. Too many unknowns. I'll keep plugging away 'cause I can't just let it go.

[ghstryder]

I appreciate the understanding, from everyone. I am glad for an alternative to a Windows based machine. When I started my computer interest, it was Dos 5.0 and Windows 3.1. Wow, things have come a ways since then. I fired up my hda again because I couldn't stand for my desire to have this thing not work. Maybe my expectations are too high, I don't know? I did manage to get my Win 7 laptop to finally access the hda, wirelessly so I can run headless. That's a big deal and a first step to fine tuning this thing. I removed 1 of the 1T HD's to make things a wee bit simpler for me. I created 1 partition (NTFS) because, in my limited understanding, I want all my win pc's to save themselves to that drive. If there is another way, I'm open for knowledge. Still cant get my laptop to see the drive, I probably need to format it just as I would any other drive for Windows. Shouldn't I be able to mount the drive from the "search" box just as I can bring up the shares on my hda from there? This is my next obstacle. How do I change the hda's shares from the 250G hd, which is my "root" drive to another hd, if I even would want to do that? My thinking is, if I can see my shares from the laptop, I should be able to see everything from there. Too many unknowns. I'll keep plugging away 'cause I can't just let it go.

If you can access it in Init 3 (headless) from your laptop, you don't have many problems, you just need to get pointed in the right direction. I'm not an expert, but I'm willing to try if you are. The devs are busy, but I'm confident someone will jump in if I get off track. It might take a day or two but I'm betting we can get a drive installed, and if we can get one installed we can get a pile of them installed.

[bt107]

I can sense your frustration but don't give up. I'm nowhere near an expert or even a competent amateur but I was able to get it going. Once you finally get it going you'll see what a really good system it is.

First a disclaimer, this is just my opinion and it's worth what you paid for it. That said, if I were in your shoes I would step back and start from scratch.

First, physically disconnect all drives except your 250G for the OS. This will make partitioning simpler when you install the OS.

Next, download a Fedora 14 DVD and follow the installation guide here http://wiki.amahi.org/index.php/Fedora_14_install_guide. (You can't do this headless so you'll need a monitor and keyboard.) At he bottom of the guide is a link to installing Amahi 6. Follow that but don't add anything to the Greyhole pool just yet.

Once you have Amahi running and before you add any data, add your 1T drives, one at a time, following the instructions here http://wiki.amahi.org/index.php/Adding_ ... o_your_HDA. Read this guide carefully so you'll understand what you're doing. Use ext4 as your filesystem. After you add each drive check your Amahi dashboard for the new drive.

Once you're sure Amahi sees your new disks you can add them to the Greyhole pool.

Your Windows machines should be able to see your shares on the network. I use XP not W7 so I can't comment on how to map drives in W7 but I have no trouble mapping shares with XP.

After you're happy with your setup you can install VNC and go headless if you want.

My machine is an old headless P4 2GHz with 1G RAM, 1 80GB disk for the OS and 2 160 GB disks for the storage pool. I copy directories from my XP machines to the Amahi shares using MS Synch Toy. Crashplan+ backs up the shares. I use Amahi DLNA to stream movies to my TVs. It's been running pretty much flawlessly for several months now.

Good luck with yours. Come back and let us know how it goes.