Linksys EA8500 stopped recognizing SSDs, even after reflash

Installing and Using OpenWrt
1

Hi there,

This will be a long post, but bear with me because I'm starting to believe in witchcraft :stuck_out_tongue:

I've purchased a brand new linksys EA8500 and have been trying to get it working with OpenWRT in the last few days, but without full success.
Initially I had an issue with the OpenWRT FW flashing. Solved.
Then, a problem with soft reboots. Problem identified but not solved.

In the last days, one of the first things I did (successfully) was to attach a SSD disk to the USB3 port and with it I was even able to boot from it, although having some errors in the logs that don't seem to be a problem. With several troubleshooting actions to understand the erratic reboot behaviour, I did a few reflashes, but now I can't get any way of making the router to recognize the SSD again.

I have two different SSDs (Sandisk 120GB and Crucial 275GB) and two different USB3-to-SATA adapters (orico and white-branded) and I've tested all the combinations without success. I've tried both the USB3 and USB2 ports in the router.

Also, if I connect any of these disks/adapters to a linux machine, they are all recognized and automatically mounted.

If I connect an USB3 stick to the router, this is recognized and I can mount it normally, so I guess I should have all of the packages/drives for it, right?

All the reflashes were with the "keep configurations" box unchecked.

Whenever I plug the SSD, I just get confirmation about it on a "USB level":

[ 9331.789817] usb 2-1: new SuperSpeed USB device number 3 using xhci-hcd
root@OpenWrt:~# ls /dev/sd*
ls: /dev/sd*: No such file or directory

If I insert a USB pendrive, I get information at filesystem level:

[ 9495.626104] usb 2-1: new SuperSpeed USB device number 5 using xhci-hcd
[ 9495.659155] usb-storage 2-1:1.0: USB Mass Storage device detected
[ 9495.660127] scsi host1: usb-storage 2-1:1.0
[ 9496.721834] scsi 1:0:0:0: Direct-Access     TOSHIBA  TransMemory-Mx   PMAP PQ: 0 ANSI: 6
[ 9496.723159] sd 1:0:0:0: [sda] 121858560 512-byte logical blocks: (62.4 GB/58.1 GiB)
[ 9496.729478] sd 1:0:0:0: [sda] Write Protect is off
[ 9496.736512] sd 1:0:0:0: [sda] Mode Sense: 45 00 00 00
[ 9496.736878] sd 1:0:0:0: [sda] Write cache: disabled, read cache: enabled, doesn't support DPO or FUA
[ 9497.185555]  sda: sda1
[ 9497.188474] sd 1:0:0:0: [sda] Attached SCSI removable disk
root@OpenWrt:~# ls /dev/sd*
/dev/sda   /dev/sda1

Any suggestion?

2

A shot in the dark: what's the file system of the SSD disks and the USB stick you tried?

3

Just found the issue. The kmod-usb-storage-uas package is required for this kind of devices.

Maybe we should update the user guide?

The partitions are ext4.

These days have been a struggle, man! :slight_smile:

Thanks!

1 Like
4

Well, the user guide provides support for regular devices.

kmod-usb-storage-uas is mentioned here https://openwrt.org/docs/guide-user/storage/usb-installing

But I agree that this could be at least referenced in the user guide, probably a long with a link to NTFS support page https://openwrt.org/docs/guide-user/storage/writable_ntfs

Maybe after you are done with the victory dance you could edit the user guide to reference both pages. That would make finding the info easier

5

Please add that only on one page (https://openwrt.org/docs/guide-user/storage/usb-installing), not on both.

6

I was not suggesting to duplicate info. I meant that https://openwrt.org/docs/guide-user/storage/usb-drives could list the links to other related pages such as usb-installing and writable NTFS, so that the user know

1 Like