ROCK USB storage not detected after last update

[CoralRad]

After last update I lost my USB attached storage. First I lost one port which was used as back up for my music files, then after reboot I lost the USB port with my primary music files. Is this an OS problem? Do I need to reset BIOS? Or is this hardware failure and I need a new Intel NUC?

Intel NUC 8 Mainstream Kit (NUC8i7BEH) - Core i7
Crucial 8GB Single DDR4 2400 MT/S (PC4-19200) SR x8 SODIMM 260-Pin Memory
SAMSUNG 970 EVO Plus SSD 250GB NVMe M.2 Internal Solid State Hard Drive

[Suedkiez (Just a fellow user like you)]

What disk format does your USB storage have, NTFS maybe?

[CoralRad]

Yes it is.

[Suedkiez (Just a fellow user like you)]

Sounds like it might be caused by the better/safer but therefore stricter NTFS support in RoonOS build 254. There were quite many of these, for instance here:

@danny

Roon OS 254 changed to a much more stable NTFS driver, but it’s pickier about improperly ejected drives (part of the stability effort). I had 2 people having similar issues plug the drive into Windows, run CHKDSK on Windows, and then eject the drive. When they plugged it into a Roon OS machine (1 was ROCK, 1 was Nucleus), it showed up.

NTFS USB drive not seen

Yah, the old driver was known in some cases to corrupt the drive completely, so we updated the driver. The new driver is less tolerant of error situations. We aren’t fans of NTFS on Linux at all because of all this mess. exFAT is far less troublesome… but you have what you have and it’s painful to convert.

More in the linked thread (and quite many others)

[CoralRad]

Thanks. I missed these. I guess I should reformat the discs to exFAT and then reload the music files so this doesn’t happen again.

Thanks for your help, running chkdsk/repair/eject fixed the problem for both drives.

[CoralRad]

So how do I safely reboot the NUC in the future without this happening again? Is there a way to eject the USB attached drive?

[Suedkiez (Just a fellow user like you)]

Good question. Windows, Mac, and regular Linux systems all have ways to safely remove disks, in the graphical interface and as text commands. Essentially, they stop write access, inform the disk that it will be removed (so that the disk firmware can write cached contents to the disk), and remove them from the operating system’s table of attached disks.

RoonOS does not seem to have such an option that is accessible to the user on the admin interface. Therefore, I would always power down the Nucleus before removing external disks.

The thing with NTFS is that if it is uncleanly removed, it leaves a “dirty” flag on the disk and NTFS drivers then refuse to access it until this is fixed, e.g. by a CHKDSK or equivalent commands in NTFS drivers for Linux and Mac.

This would not happen with exFAT, but nevertheless, powering down the Nucleus before removing disks is always safest, I suppose.

[Rugby (aka Daniel or Big Dan)]

I always power down a ROCK NUC prior to removing a USB drive. That is the only way you know the OS has nicely closed everything down. While you can disable USB storage in ROON. I don’t think that is the same as “remove safely”.

[CoralRad]

I don’t remove the USB drive from the NUC. But I do have to power down the NUC and restart it occasionally. So I thought that might be causing the problem.

I ordered a new USB hard drive and will format it to exFAT and copy my files to it and replace the older drive so it shouldn’t be a problem in the future.

[Rugby (aka Daniel or Big Dan)]

Yeah, all my USB external drives are exFAT and I haven’t had an issue with them on a ROCK NUC for 6 years (?!)