Prepping for 1183

Community Playground General Discussions
1

Ok, very happy there’s a new release, looking forward to my weekend project with this update! Running a Vera 2, a few items I’d love feedback on in advance:

  • Planning on starting over, rebuilding my network from scratch, just want a “clean” setup. So assuming I should hit the “Restore factory defaults” from the UI, then go in and do the upgrade. Any reason not to take this approach?

  • As I go back and add my z-wave devices, is there any pro/con as to what order to do it in with respect to proximity to where the Vera will sit ? Start at the furthest devices and work my way back in ? Or closest and work my way out ? Or Z-wave is smart enough to build the mesh the right way and it won’t matter? FYI, all my devices are Leviton Vizia RF+.

  • See there is now an option to add a USB flash, store logs there, but the USB needs to be unformatted. Have a lots of USB drives laying around, all with some sort of format, any idea how to “unformat” such that Vera will be able to use it ?

Any other words of advice appreciated, hoping for good things with this release!

thx

2

[quote=“tejchicago, post:1, topic:167553”]Ok, very happy there’s a new release, looking forward to my weekend project with this update! Running a Vera 2, a few items I’d love feedback on in advance:

  • Planning on starting over, rebuilding my network from scratch, just want a “clean” setup. So assuming I should hit the “Restore factory defaults” from the UI, then go in and do the upgrade. Any reason not to take this approach?
  1. Have used this in the past to clean things up and worked well for me
  • As I go back and add my z-wave devices, is there any pro/con as to what order to do it in with respect to proximity to where the Vera will sit ? Start at the furthest devices and work my way back in ? Or closest and work my way out ? Or Z-wave is smart enough to build the mesh the right way and it won’t matter? FYI, all my devices are Leviton Vizia RF+.
  1. I don’t think it matters in current version of zwave but “coming soon” version will be able to use hops to add new devices so if choosing I would start close and work out as I use “full power inclusion” at all times when possible instead of hassling with the battery, only very few situations require otherwise
  • See there is now an option to add a USB flash, store logs there, but the USB needs to be unformatted. Have a lots of USB drives laying around, all with some sort of format, any idea how to “unformat” such that Vera will be able to use it ?
  1. I would like to know this answer too, anyone?

Any other words of advice appreciated, hoping for good things with this release!

thx[/quote]

3

I used a pre-formatted drive and you’ll find that almost all off the shelf ones are already pre-formatted anyway!

The reason for the warning is a general statement due to the fact that there are certain formats that may cause the script that Vera uses to not be able to format the drive correctly with a Linux file system.

A couple of users had issues with drives that were formatted or used with a Mac.

Bottom line, if the drive is formatted with FAT then it has a good chance of working.

4

I went through 2x pre-[Mac]-used Drives (2g and 1g, different vendors), both of which failed. I then tried a new (direct from packaging) Maxell drive [2g]) that also failed.

I ended up using one of these 4GB units (no affiliation etc, just “nearby”):

http://www.frys.com/product/6106999?site=sr:SEARCH:MAIN_RSLT_PG

It’s nice and small once you remove the swivel cover, so doesn’t really impact closet-based installs (etc).

5

I picked up a sandisk drive from radioshack when I was getting more zwave devices that were on clearance. The sandisk drive works like a charm. Just giving you another option. The drives I have sitting around did not work with vera.

  • Garrett
6

hummmm, is there a difference between a new drive and a clean FAT format on a used one? As mentioned most are formatted when new

7

There is probably more to it than just format. We use older Linux kernels at work (2.4X) with our kit, and it can be sketchy what works and what doesn’t :slight_smile:

8

Question is out there … can one take an old drive and just format it to FAT???

9

Its not that simple it seems like funky partition structures and device class may also play a part :slight_smile:

Just try it! :wink:

10

Thats all I did, I had a old usb stick from a few years back, formatted it as fat in windows and then plopped it in Vera2, worked like a charm

11

To unformat a drive, run Windows Disk Management. Click on Start, Run and type in diskmgmt.msc . Press enter. The Disk Management window will open, and you’ll see all of your physical disk. The hard drive in your computer will likely be Drive 0.

First find your thumb drive in the drives listed. If you don’t see it, try “Rescan Disks” from one of the menus up top.

To delete the partition on the thumb drive (which is the same as “unformat”), right click the thumb drive line on the right side of the display and select Delete. (The wording may vary slightly depending on which version of Windows you’re using, but the concept is the same.)