Thanks Wooshman. I will try what you say.
I am trying to achieve three things right now.
1. Make an off- system (I E on a fat32 USB stick) complete image backup for security and also to set up another ZGemma H2S that I have just bought for another room in my home to be identical to the first one. I understand that I must use the front for this.
2. To enable Timeshift to run on a 1 TB USB to be installed on the rear USB drive permanently.
3. To enable Recording on the same 1 TB USB in the rear USB drive permanently.
1 above is the most important because I want to be able to go back to the previous solid version when I make an error. When I press the green button it doesn't respond by doing the backup. Instead. it pops up a modal window saying:
"No USD-Device found for fullbackup!!
To back-up directly to the USB-Stick, the-stick MUST contain a file with the name:
backupstick or backupstick.txt"
... Yet that is exactly what I have done, including the empty file called backupstick.txt.
I am a bit lost as to what it is you are trying to do.
1. HDD added but it is ignored? In what way ignored? I presume you have initialised it and created a swap file if you want one (advised) With both of those things done your recordings and timeshift should then go to the HDD.
2. Adding BBC and ITV for NE England - what do you mean by want to add them?
On the USB you want to use to backup to, you have an emty txt file called backupstick.txt like you have said. When you put it in the box and go through the complete backup steps, pressing the green button will create the backup on the USB.
Things that may help you
Firstly.... put your box in deep standby and remove every device you have attached, HDD, USB, SD cards and then turn the box on. Once fully booted insert the HDD in the rear usb port. Give it 5 or so seconds and ignore any messages on the screen. Red button -> Plugins -> Mount manager. Make sure the device is mounted as Mount: /media/hdd. If it isn't, press the green button and press the left arrow a few times until /media/hdd is selected, then press the green button to save. This will restart your box.
Once booted, check that the mount name is now set to /media/hdd.
Now when you insert a USB stick in the front it should be seen as USB and and not hdd which can sometimes happen. You can check what it has called the USB by going into mount manager as above.
Again, I thank you for your help. I did as you advised. The mount manager tells me that my rear USB disk is :
USM:MQ01ABD100 Size 931GB Mount:/media
Device:/devsda1 Type:ext4 R/W
... Interestingly it still doesn't show up on my Windows network file system whilst ZGEMMA root and harddisk do.
You will gather that I formatted it from NTFS to EXT 3 with a nifty little tool I have in Windows and then uprated it to EXT 4 in ZGEMMA.
It's a USB-3 Drive which is useless for fast transfer rates to a USB-2 box, but it is probably internally a bit faster than a drive from USB-2 days.
Now to your swapfile advice. Do I assume that this is equivalent to virtual memory? And where would I set that up please? As you will know I have a tif slot and a good variety of
tif cards up to 64 GB. This seems to be to be the preferred choice because it is solid state. But what's the biggest I can use?
I know that too big a file can actually slow down swapping. Is there a good size for it?
Just as much to the point, though, HOW do I set it up please? My Timeshift settings include ...
timeshift Location .... /media/hdd/timeshift/
When I click on that, I get a lower level display that shows a Movie Folder and a Timeshift Folder and then a bookmarks area that says /media/hdd/timeshift/
I cannot work out how to get into the bookmarks area yet. Do I need mouse and kbd for that? Presumably I can put an expansion thingy onto the rear drive and do a click to get there. however I havn't a clue what I would do once I arrive if the bookmark is correct. :-) But it would be nice to know. Normally I would just do it, but even after 35 years in IT I am a bit frighted of my introduction to Linux. Talk about a new world!
Now, the original issue, complete backup. I am still getting the "No USB-Device found for full backup!!" message.
My USB is a new Sandisk 64 GB with all the Sandisk rubbish removed and an empty file added, created with Notepad++ on Windows 10 Home and called backupstick.txt.
Do I have to mount the USB perhaps, and does that mean that I need to mount the tif drive too? Sorry to ask such a question. Normally I would just give it a go. But it's chicken and egg. I daren't make big changes until I have a go-back-to backup.
Is there an idiot's guide to all of this? I feel a complete imbecile asking such questions. Maybe I am, but if so I would prefer to keep it a secret. :-)