Bobmoore - 10 hours ago »
It started with 3 files :-
I have tried different usb sticks and a portable hard drive.
Some give the error others say it is downloading but just hangs.
Thanks for the info about the file/s, just double checking, it should be impossible to get a file name with special characters, but you never know.
There shouldn't be a difference between usb sticks, any error should be repeatable. This suggests a problem with the usb sticks. Have you tried a (2,4,8,16GB usb 2.0) stick, fully formatted to fat32, not quick?
The foxsat uses a different file system that windows normally cannot read/write to. The last thing you want to do is connect the drive to a running windows pc as windows will want to format it as well as writing it's own i.d. to it.
It's still not 100% clear to me what does and doesn't work. I'm assuming the box still works, you've cleared some older files to make space, you can't delete the 3 files as above, the box won't take the new custom firmware.
If the disk is 100% full and you cannot delete any files then I could imagine there'll be problems installing updates/custom-firmware. In this case I don't think there is any other option but to connect the drive to a pc to delete a few files to make some initial space. There is a driver for windows that should allow windows access to the foxsat file system: https://sourceforge.net/projects/ext2fsd/files/Ext2fsd/0.68/Ext2Fsd-0.68.exe/download however if the filesystem is corrupted I'm not sure whether this will work. Best practice would be to boot to a linux live image.
With these things though there are many different approaches to try and fix problems.
Again, my first attempt would be the custom firmware route and don't be tempted to miss a step, particularly with the type and formatting of the usb stick.
2nd attempt, is the spare machine with a drive that has space on it and works? If you have a usb caddy, put the 1TB full drive in it and connect to the spare machine. You should eventually be able to access the external 1TB drive and delete some files, put the 1TB drive back into the foxsat and update to custom firmware.
3rd attempt, if the spare machine won't read/write to the 1TB or you don't have a usb caddy, you're back to a live linux image and clearing problems with this method.
4th attempt, assuming the windows driver works, delete the offending files, plus anything else you don't want to keep, put the 1TB drive back into the foxsat, after disconnecting correctly from windows and install the custom firmware.
5th attemp, assuming the windows driver works and you have enough space, copy the files off you want to keep including the associated files. This will take hours. Put the disk back into the foxsat and format it. Either swap disks again and copy files back or put custom firmware on the foxsat and copy the files back over the network, assuming both have ethernet cable connection.
From where I'm sitting, I'm convinced there is an initial problem with the usb stick/s you're using which would explain the similar problem with the spare machine. It's possible though the drive being really 100% full is causing an issue and if you can do anything to make a tiny bit of space, just one file/recording deleted will allow enough breathing space. Assuming the spare machine works properly then I don't see why attaching the 1TB via a caddy and deleting wouldn't work. and just for confirmation, the green 1TB drive you have is fine for the foxsat, some of the WD drives used to park their heads when idle every 7 seconds or so, not sure if yours is one of them, but that's the least of any worry at the moment.
Remember, deleting a small file can take 20 - 30 seconds for each one, always wait for a process to finish, if you use the windows driver and you connect the 1TB via a usb caddy make sure you eject/disconnect the drive once you've finished first in windows before unplugging the cable. A file once deleted won't re-appear, to start off with delete the smallest single file you can find.
let us know how you get on
