Fixing Intera Boot Issue


johntxl

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I managed to fix my Sawyers that no longer boots into Intera5.3 after CMOS battery replacement.     The SSD is encrypted and key to controller the SSD is on, thus cloning a working SSD from another working Sawyer controller will not work.   However, cobotteam (Portland, OR) are still repairing Sawyer Controller, however you will need to send you entire controller to them for repair.  The cost quoted (Oct 2024) was around $500 if it's just to reinstall Intera.  They also do hardware repairs.

Anyway, I managed to fixed my Sawyers by using ddrescue.   My workstation runs Debian/GNU Linux OS and I don't know if this method will work in other Operating Systems. 

I used ddrescue, link,  to copy the entire SSD, ie

ddrescue -d -n  /dev/sdc SawyerSSD.img SawyerSSD.mapfile

It'll probably take around 24~48 hours, depending on how much errors the SSD has, I ran my till the percent recovery rate was ~0.1% every few hours, and ended up with a ~94% recovered disk image.   I then copied the rescued disk image to a new SSD.

dd if=SawyerSSD.img of=/dev/sdd status=progress     

This process will take a couple hours to 6~7 hours depending on if it's USB2 or USB3.

I then reinstall the SSD, and on bootup enters Intera Boot Manger by pressing R during the initial boot process, link.

SawyerBootManager.jpg.cf928bc3a9130364b37460683bc2fe4c.jpgSawyerBootManager.jpg.cf928bc3a9130364b37460683bc2fe4c.jpg

 

Once the factory set is completed, Intera 5.3 boots up and Sawyer is functional again.   Using this method I was able to fix one Sawyer with No operating system found error, another with kernel panic error.  I also was able to finally upgrade to Intera 5.3 for 6another Sawyer running Intera 5.2 but error out during factory reset.    I think the batch of Hynix SSD used in the original controller are faulty and that's why we see so many non-boot issues on this forum.

Anyway, hope this method will also work for you.    If this method works for you, the next time you purchase anything, please take a look at the country of origin label and do your best to minimize buying products made in authoritarian countries.   Don't be that guy who prints "Patriotic USA Bible" in China, a country that has neither freedom of speech nor freedom of religion.

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