System crash on CF card, can't seem to fix.

RouterOS General
1

I had a x86 system with a compact flash card in an IDE adapter running fine for years. Today it croaked and would keep rebooting itself after the login screen came up. I have tried to fix it by putting the same level of OS that was on it, it formatted the drive for what seemed like forever, then said it couldn’t put the original config on it because it may be out of space. When I rebooted it, it was back exactly as before. Reboot after login screen comes up. (btw, you can’t ever get a prompt when you attempt to log in).

So, next I took out the CF and put it in a USB adapter and put on my office computer and tried to do a netinstall. It saw the disk, but says failed evertime I attempt to install it.

So, back to the original x86 computer, this time I’m trying to install a previous version (it was at 3.18 and now I"m trying 3.13). This time is says “do you want to keep the current config”, of course I say yes, it then gives me the formatting warning, I say yes, and then it says that it couldn’t keep the config, current license does not allow that, and starts to format. No choice but to lose current config.

It is still formatting, erasing my existing config as far as I know, so I thought I’d throw this up here to see if anyone had any suggestions.

I have used over 100 routerboards without issues, but sure seem to have problems with x86 versions. As far as I can tell, it is not a pc issue. I tried moving the CF to another pc and had the same exact issue.

Tom

  • Update* After trying to format my CF drive, it failed with a message that there wasn’t enough disk space. This is a 4gb CF. It used to be enough, maybe not anymore. Maybe that is my trouble all along.
2

classic CF going bad… Ive had at least 5 this last year do this. Just email support@mikrotik with the license key and ask for a replacement. For $10 they will get you another license to install on a new flash.

3

Wow, 5 this year. Doesn’t really inspire confidence in cf cards. I put this in to be more reliable than a hard disk, but now I’ not so sure.

Tom

4

Got a new CF card today, installed very quickly, formatting was done very fast. Now I have to restore my data, unfortunately, it wasn’t a very recent backup, but I’ll be alright. I’m now figuring out the key issue.

Thanks for your help. I have but one CF installation, this one.

Tom

5

tom,

when running on flash i think there are some good things to keep in mind. write as little to the disk as possible. i changed the graphing time to 24h (still does 5 mins, just in memory), and changed the dhcp lease write to disk times to 24h, as well as minimized disk logging (or eliminated it is really the only option). You can also use my script in the wiki for backing up, I believe it helps the cheaper cards wearlevel better.

basically spend the extra money and get good cards. a handful of mine were kingstons and lexars, maybe one sandisk that was a cheap one. the new super fast 100X etc are even worse I think, but thats just my opinion. get a rock solid industrial CF from sandisk if you want 5 years or more. mine all died in about 2-3 years. I think with less writes as i mentioned above it will extend that a few years.

6

Maybe that is part of my problem. With the dude running on there compiling info all the time, maybe the CF isn’t a good way to go.

Tom