Ok. I partly answered my own question. I found the following thread here: Festplatte EInbinden / External Storage
From that thread: the “can’t read htaccess” is a symptom that there was not enough power to supply the internal drive.
Solution:
- Disconnect the external hard drive usb connection
- ssh into the nextbox and do a shutdown.
- Unplug and re-plug to start up.
- Once booted, wake-up the external drive. My drive is a WD elements that has a specific power button, although the functionality of the button is dubious. I saw that if you press the button while unplugged from usb, the drive wakes up and spins, obviously taking power from the wall plug
- Plug the usb cable from the drive to the nextbox
So far,partially good. I’m a little worried at what will happen if the external drive spins down. When the nextbox goes to access it, it will wake up, and I’m not sure if the power demand will come from the wall plug or the nextbox through usb. Seems like, to be sure, I should put a powered usb hub between the nextbox and the external hard drive.
There’s a problem left in that I can’t see the drive in the list of possible backups through the web interface. Via ssh, I can see two disks in /dev, but I’m not sure why the web interface does not give me an option.
Probably best to close this thread and I can open a different one with the second issue if needed.