Troubleshooting

Imaging issues


A healthy drive appears to have many bad sectors during imaging

The issue is likely caused by a loose port connection, leading to read errors and even drive identification issues.

To completely reset the physical link, unplug the cable from both the port and the storage device, wait for a whole minute and plug it snugly back in.


A spinning 3.5" SATA drive in a USB enclosure does not spin

All USB ports of the Taskforce are designed to work with USB devices conforming to the USB specification. However, some USB-enclosed HDDs consume too much current at spinup, in fact violating the specification.

For such drives, we have equipped USB 3 and USB 4 ports with extra electric load capacity. Try connecting the drive to USB 3 or USB 4 ports.


When I image to the network, the speed is low

When imaging to network, there are two potential bottlenecks:

1. Network performance

It can be enhanced with 10Gb connection. Another important thing: Jumbo frames should be enabled in TaskForce settings, target computer/NAS network card and network switches/routers in between them.

2. Write speed of target network drive

It can be more difficult to improve. In particular, if one images several drives to the same network location. It leads to a situation when 8 source SSDs are read with 500 MB/s speed but the total writing capability of target network drive cuts it to just 400 MB/s. Distributed between 8 sessions, the speed becomes too low (400/8=50 MB/s per session).

The best solutions to achieve top speeds with target network locations:

  • A RAID consisting of SSDs
  • A NAS combined with a 10Gb switch. E.g. Ubiquiti EdgeSwitch 16 XG
  • A network server with many drives and great writing performance.


An M.2 NVMe drive does not get identified

Keep in mind that TaskForce support of drive hotplug for M.2 PCIe NVMe drives was added in firmware update 2021.4.

If you have earlier firmware version, to replace an NVMe drive, TaskForce needs to be powered off:

  1. Power off TaskForce. Remove the power cable and wait for 1 minute.
  2. Unplug M.2 extension with the M.2 drive installed and plug it carefully back in
  3. Power on the TaskForce unit.

When I click Continue upon selecting targets, TaskForce does not open the Imaging Settings page

The issue must have been caused by the browser cache.

  1. Go to Chrome browser settings
  2. Open Clear browsing data option
  3. Clear all the data after selecting All time range

Please note that TaskForce works properly only with the Chrome browser.


TaskForce issues


TaskForce booting does not get completed.

To make sure TaskForce boots correctly, reset TaskForce:

  1. Power off TaskForce
  2. Detach all devices and cables from the system (including PSU cable, Extension module, SATA cables, USB devices/cables etc). So the TaskForce should be just by itself with nothing attached to it at all.
  3. Give it 3-5 minutes to fully reset. There are a few internal circuits that need up to a minute to fully reset after power off, but I recommend waiting at least 5 minutes to be sure.
  4. Plug only the power cable back in (no network/USB/SATA cables etc).
  5. Power TaskForce on and wait for 3-4 minutes.

Internet Explorer renames TaskForce's .AFM firmware file into a ZIP file.

Internet Explorer identifies an AFM file as a ZIP file and automatically renames it to ZIP. Read this article about the reason Explorer does this. This issue only occurs in the Internet Explorer.

We suggest using other popular browsers, such as Chrome or Firefox.


IP address does not show when an Ethernet cable is plugged into the unit

Usually, your network router is responsible for assigning IP addresses to other computers or devices in the same network.

Make sure your router has DHCP support and it is enabled.


When I try to turn on the screen, a battery indicator starts blinking

Screen battery needs to be charged. Let the unit stay powered on for 5 - 10 minutes and avoid turning the screen on during this time. 10 minutes later, use the button on the screen to turn it on as usual.


I cannot find my network shared folder

Follow these steps to setup Windows network folder:
  1. Go to Settings > Network & Internet > Status > Sharing Options
  2. Open Private (current profile) section
  3. Select Turn on network discovery
  4. Select Turn on file and printer discovery
  5. Open Guest or Public section
  6. Repeat steps 3 and 4 for Guest or Public section
  7. Open All Networks section
  8. Select Turn on sharing so anyone with network access can read and write files in the Public folders
  9. Select Turn off password protected sharing
  10. Click Save changes
If the above has not fixed the issue, edit the folder share permissions:
  1. Open Computer Management window (pressing Win button and type in Computer Management)
  2. Expand System Tools > Shared Folders and click Shares in the left-side tree
  3. Right-click the shared folder in the central pane and click Properties
  4. Select Share Permissions tab
  5. Click Add to assign permissions to the shared folder for a user group
  6. In the dialog box, type Everyone and click OK
  7. Select Full control permission (Read & Write permissions) for the user group you have just added
  8. Click OK

We strongly recommend using the latest OS versions: Windows 10, Windows Server 2019/2016, Centos 7, Ubuntu 18.4. It is crucial for reaching high network transfer speeds.


I want to see the syslog for more information about the issue I am facing

To download the TaskForce logs:

  1. Connect TaskForce to the network so that you can access it from your PC
  2. An IP address is shown in the IP screen on the front panel of the unit. Let's say, it is 10.0.0.33
  3. On your PC, open Chrome browser and enter http://10.0.0.33/syslog
  4. Click Save
  5. This will download the logs to your PC's Downloads folder.

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