N66U - Seagate backup plus 3 TB drive wiped out after upgrading to latest asuswrt

[gujju1973]

Hi all,

I have n66u router...last night, I upgraded to the latest asuswrt merlin build 376.45....after upgrading and resetting the settings, my Seagate backup plus 3TB hard drive wouldn't mount. I disconnected the hard drive and connected it to a windows 7 computer. Windows is asking me to format the hard drive before continuing. Windows is reporting that hard drive is in RAW format. Before it was in NTFS format. How can I restore this without losing any data? Am I the only one affected.

Similar thing happened to WD Elements external hard drive after upgrading to 376.44...all the files got erased but the format remained as NTFS...hard drive became totally blank.

Please help me and let me know if I am doing anything wrong? How can I restore my data? Please help!!!

 

[F5ing]

http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk_Download

Great for recovering lost/deleted partitions. I've not tried the newest version (7.0) but have used the 6.14 version successfully many times...

I've also used this successfully a few times:

http://www.partitionwizard.com/download.html

 

[gujju1973]

Thanks for the info...I will try out these software programs.

But did I do anything wrong that this happened? I tried mounting a 16GB FAT32 usb drive and even that is not mounting...remains unmounted. I tried both the USB ports on the router. It was mounting fine in 376.43...am I doing anything wrong?

 

[F5ing]

Don't know. What shows up in the system log that refers to the attached drives?

 

[gujju1973]

The router system log shows the following when I plug in Kingston 16GB usb drive.

Aug 25 09:28:56 kernel: hub 1-1:1.0: unable to enumerate USB device on port 2
Aug 25 09:28:56 kernel: hub 1-1:1.0: unable to enumerate USB device on port 2
Aug 25 09:28:56 kernel: usb 1-1.2: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 40
Aug 25 09:28:56 kernel: hub 1-1:1.0: unable to enumerate USB device on port 2
Aug 25 09:28:56 kernel: usb 1-1.2: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 41
Aug 25 09:28:57 kernel: hub 1-1:1.0: unable to enumerate USB device on port 2
Aug 25 09:28:57 kernel: usb 1-1.2: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 42
Aug 25 09:28:57 kernel: hub 1-1:1.0: unable to enumerate USB device on port 2
Aug 25 09:28:57 kernel: hub 1-1:1.0: unable to enumerate USB device on port 2
Aug 25 09:28:57 kernel: hub 1-1:1.0: unable to enumerate USB device on port 2
Aug 25 09:28:57 kernel: hub 1-1:1.0: unable to enumerate USB device on port 2
Aug 25 09:28:58 kernel: hub 1-1:1.0: unable to enumerate USB device on port 2
Aug 25 09:28:58 kernel: usb 1-1.2: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 47
Aug 25 09:28:58 kernel: hub 1-1:1.0: unable to enumerate USB device on port 2
Aug 25 09:28:58 kernel: hub 1-1:1.0: unable to enumerate USB device on port 2
Aug 25 09:28:59 kernel: usb 1-1.2: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 49
Aug 25 09:28:59 kernel: hub 1-1:1.0: unable to enumerate USB device on port 2
Aug 25 09:28:59 kernel: usb 1-1.2: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 50
Aug 25 09:28:59 kernel: usb 1-1.2: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice
Aug 25 09:28:59 kernel: scsi21 : SCSI emulation for USB Mass Storage devices
Aug 25 09:29:01 kernel: scsi 21:0:0:0: Direct-Access Kingston DataTraveler 2.0 1.00 PQ: 0 ANSI: 2
Aug 25 09:29:01 kernel: sd 21:0:0:0: [sdb] 31506432 512-byte hardware sectors (16131 MB)
Aug 25 09:29:01 kernel: sd 21:0:0:0: [sdb] Write Protect is off
Aug 25 09:29:01 kernel: sd 21:0:0:0: [sdb] Assuming drive cache: write through
Aug 25 09:29:01 kernel: sd 21:0:0:0: [sdb] Assuming drive cache: write through
Aug 25 09:29:01 kernel: sdb: sdb1
Aug 25 09:29:01 kernel: sd 21:0:0:0: [sdb] Attached SCSI removable disk
Aug 25 09:29:01 kernel: sd 21:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg1 type 0

I think I will go back to 376.43 firmware...anything special I have to do to downgrade?

 

[gujju1973]

I tried downgrading to 376.43 and the procedure went successfully but the router still shows as having 376.45 firmware. How do I downgrade to 376.43? Please help!

 

[F5ing]

Did you do a factory reset after the flash? Not sure it's required when switching between these two versions, but it can't hurt (other than forcing you to spend the time to reconfigure from scratch).

 

[Chrysalis]

I tried downgrading to 376.43 and the procedure went successfully but the router still shows as having 376.45 firmware. How do I downgrade to 376.43? Please help!

thats worrying, have asus blocked downgrades to try and enforce region locking?

 

[RMerlin]

thats worrying, have asus blocked downgrades to try and enforce region locking?

Of course not. You can take off your tin foil hat now...

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk

 

[F5ing]

thats worrying, have asus blocked downgrades to try and enforce region locking?

Didn't think of that!

But I'm thinking "no". I've read quite a few posts from folks talking about being dissatisfied with Merlin's 376.45 (due to Asus' changes to radio strength and region lock) and a number of them seem to have successfully reverted to an earlier version.

I've been holding back on the upgrade myself, being worried about blocked downgrades. I was close to upgrading, figuring by this weekend, I will have read enough new threads of successful reversions.

Now I might hold back for even another week or so.

 

[F5ing]

Missed Merlin's post.

Tin foil hat removed, balled up & trashed.

 

[Chrysalis]

Yeah I remember reading others have downgraded also

 

[gujju1973]

Thanks for all the responses.

Yes, I did a factory reset after I flashed the new version 376.45 but still ran into problems with the hard drives. After I tried downgrading to 376.43, I noticed that the firmware still shows as 376.45 but I am able to mount the hard drive.

Is there any special procedure to downgrade to 376.43?

 

[gujju1973]

I tried uploading the firmware 374.43 again and it worked this time. Not sure what was happened before. Something funky was going on for sure.

Thanks to everyone.

 

[F5ing]

I've read in a few posts where users seemingly had to flash a second time for a successful transition. I've never had that problem so can't really say what the cause might be (other than maybe timing).