crashing and green screen

Menu >> Settings >> System >> Data Storage >> Format Storage. The "format" offered during a Menu >> Settings >> Installation >> Factory Default operation is only a quick format (erase file system) and not at all what you want.


No, probably not.
thanks Black Hole - yes found that option - although the option is greyed out since it can't be read by the Humax. I logged into telnet and it said disk was unmounted. I did wonder if I'd inadvertently gone back to an old firmware which was making a difference - but I think from what I've read, the HUmax would still recognise a drive there whatever firmware I was running.

re: green screen - I've left the Humax connected to the old HDD overnight and no crashes. I haven't tried playback of any of the recordings, but they do seem to be there.
I will disconnect the scart and reconnect the hdmi cable and see if it goes back to green screen.
on start up (when connected to hdmi cable) there is a thin green line on the right hand side of the screen - have you seen this before?
I've tried two different hdmi cables (but haven't tried two different hdmi slots on the TV)
I don't know how sensitive the HDMI input slot is - but could it be damaged? if it were damaged, what would happen?
should I be thinking about buying a 2nd hand machine...!?
thanks again!
 
If the new disk isn't discovered by Seatools Bootable in the same way that the old one is, that should be a good enough proof of death. You could take pix of the screens to support your return.
 
...
I tried connecting the external drive straight into the usb port at the front of the Humax and using the opt + button, but the Humax said that there was not enough storage. I'm assuming that this is due to the incompatible formatting. However, it could be because it's not a compatible USB stick

given that all my backup files are on the external drive under an exfat format - I don't really want to reformat the external drive.
...
You need the exfat package loaded and the exfat filesystem must be in a partition (it almost certainly will be). Then the external drive should appear in the list shown with Media>Storage(Blue)>USB and you should be able to copy stuff off with the on-screen UI subject to available space on the external disk.

While adding context for the link-averse, I noted your use of "USB stick" vs "external drive". Shouldn't make any difference in principle but "USB stick" implies a smaller capacity to me.
 
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Oops, sorry :sleep:

It is generally best to quote everything relevant - if there's anything quoted at all it's not unreasonable to assume it's all there!
 
hi everyone, just an update on this.
I finally got a new HDD - one that actually works. I plugged it into the Humax and immediately it gave me the option to reformat.
I duly did so and great it worked...
but only for a limited amount of time. It's now crashed again and showing the green screen.
So, any thoughts:
1. Is it for the scrapheap?
2. is it for ebay for 'repair'?
3. I had a quick look at ebay for a replacement - now I have bought my £75 2tb drive - should I buy a 2nd hand old one and replace the drive?
I found an HD Fox T2 (rather than HDR Fox T2) - will that 2tb drive work?
4. or should I buy new - and in which case - which one?

thanks again - the saga continues!
 
should I buy a 2nd hand old one and replace the drive?

I would say yes, the firmware cannot be changed on later models.

Last time I looked working HDR Fox T2 were bid to about £60-£70, a bit cheaper if no remote.
 
thanks both
will stick with the HDR fox T2 then - and just wait for one to come up!
any thoughts on my one - is it definitely dead (it's a challenge now!)?
 
...will stick with the HDR fox T2 then - and just wait for one to come up!...
I won one early this morning for £66.75, including postage.
I sniped using Gixen (pay for, server based) which swanned in 2-3 seconds before the end of the auction.
The other 4 active bidders are probably miffed.
 
I don't understand the psychology of eBay bidders. The idea is that you decide the maximum you are prepared to pay under any circumstances, and bid that figure with the hope that if you win the auction you will pay less (just one increment more than the next highest bid). If you lose, that's fine 'cos you weren't prepared to pay the price it reached anyway.

What actually seems to happen is people try to pay as little as they can by bidding low - and then find they have to bump up their bid as they keep getting outbid. Pointless. The consequence is they risk exceeding their maximum by accident, and risk losing the auction in the lottery of the last few seconds. It is an absolute 'no no' to lose something you really wanted by bidding lower than you could afford, and an absolute 'no no' to be goaded into paying more than you can afford so as to win.

To defeat that (and it has worked on several occasions), I decide what my absolute maximum bid is and then withhold it until the last few seconds so nobody knows I am competing with them. There is no point in getting involved early. Then my bid either wins straight off or is too low and I don't care anyway. I understand there are apps that can do this for me, but I do it myself (sometimes at inconvenience of timing).

It would be much fairer if all bids were sealed (including the reserve price), and the final sale price was the average of the reserve price and the winning bid (that way both the seller and the buyer make a margin, or there is no sale) - but eBay has no interest in being fair, they make money on achieving the highest price. Another mechanism could be modeled on the Dutch auction - the price starts high and gradually decreases until somebody clicks "buy".
 
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Ah, Black Hole is a manual sniper!
Yes, bidding late with the maximum you are prepared to pay is good advice.
Bidding low and early with a succession of small increments is to me an exercise in frustration. Some may find it exciting.
 
Most people don't really understand how the eBay bidding system works and have no idea what sniping is or that it can be automated (with apps external to eBay).
So as in everything else in life, knowledge is power (aka profit). :D
 
I decide what my absolute maximum bid is and then withhold it until the last few seconds so nobody knows I am competing with them

Same method I use.

The minimum reserve price on ebay is £50 which makes bidding pointless sometimes.

I see some have the habit these days to submit multiple bids at the same time, I suppose in the hope they might save a few pence on minimum bid price if they win, what they don't know is others will spot their 'pre-bids' then bid up the item till the highest bid they had made is 'active'
 
thanks - I've been running it all afternoon while away - have come back and it's showing this:
Code:
Sun Dec 16 14:47:40 GMT 2018: Checking partition /dev/sda2...
e2fsck 1.42.13 (17-May-2015)
Pass 1: Checking inodes, blocks, and sizes
/dev/sda2: |=== - 5.9%

if it stays like that for the next hour - is there any other fix? as it kept crashing last time I tried to use the fixdisk.
I'm running the latest custom firmware I believe (couldn't see any more recent than 2017).

the disk is readable for a while before it crashes - any other thoughts on how to salvage?

thanks!
My 1TB took 16 hours on its first time. I was amazed but it paid off. Run it at least 3 times and each time it will get quicker. If the previous time is similar to the current run, then you know you're in a good place.


Sent from my SM-G950F using Tapatalk
 
@Ian's post reminded me of the OP's original issue, a month ago:
have left it for a few hours and nothing. given my experience in Feb and again this weekend, looks like it will keep crashing and so won't get to the end of the fix disk. Is there any way around this crash?
...
As far as I can see, the OP's crash was that fix-disk ran e2fsck on partition 2 of the disk and this hung after running overnight.

The following procedure may help, if fix-disk didn't work. You need a week (say) when you won't be needing the HDR for watching or recording programmes, or you can extract the disk, put it into a USB SATA caddy and run a similar procedure from a Linux PC/laptop: a live CD such as GParted Live should be fine, but the description below assumes the disk is being fixed in the HDR as /dev/sda.
  1. Get the HDR into Maintenance Mode with a telnet connection: choose the "cli" option.
  2. Run a SMART report on the disk smartctl -x /dev/sda: note in particular the physical sector size in the Sector Sizes: line of the "INFORMATION SECTION" and the raw values of the following Vendor Specific SMART Attributes: Reallocated_Sector_Ct, Current_Pending_Sector, Offline_Uncorrectable.
  3. Unmount the disk's partitions: for i in 1 2 3; do umount /mnt/hd$i; done
  4. Run the badblocks program to cause the disk firmware to fix any bad blocks. Unlike the built-in SMART test smartctl -t long /dev/sda, this can cause the disk firmware to remap failed sectors, but as it's run across the SATA interface it's much slower. Unlike reformatting or dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda bs=4M the filesystems need not be erased.
    Code:
    # -b block size - use the physical sector size
    # -c blocks at once - something bigger than 1000 to speed it up
    # -n non-destructive - some chance of recovering the file system
    # -s show progress
    # -t pattern - write zeroes to disk (but non-destructively!)
    # -o output bad block list (empty, we hope; would need to be munged to make filesystem block numbers)
    # use abduco to keep it running as session "bb" across telnet connections
    abduco -c bb badblocks -b 4096 -c 1024 -n -s -t0 -o /tmp/bb.lst /dev/sda
  5. Wait a whole long time, perhaps most of a week if the disk is large. Use abduco -a bb if necessary to reconnect to the session and check progress. If a power cut or other interruption occurs (the output file will be lost), you should probably start again, although you could append a (guessed) starting physical sector number to the original command if you believe all blocks up to that point have been tested and not found bad.
  6. Check the output bad block list. If all bad disk sectors were corrected by firmware (remapped to spare good sectors when written with zeroes), the output file should be empty. Run smartctl -A /dev/sda and compare the new raw values of Reallocated_Sector_Ct (may be higher), Current_Pending_Sector (should be 0, if the bad block list was empty), Offline_Uncorrectable (if previously >0, may have been reduced, or not, apparently depending on the vendor).
  7. Some sectors may have been remapped possibly resulting in corrupt files or filesystem structures, especially if the new Current_Pending_Sector count is less than the original one. If the new Current_Pending_Sector count is greater than 0, some sectors are still bad possibly resulting in corrupt files or filesystem structures; you may wish to give up on fixing the disk in this case, or you may still try to fix the disk to recover some precious recording; the (uncorrected) bad physical sector numbers should be listed in the output file.
  8. If no (uncorrected) bad blocks were found, run the e2fsck to check the partitions on the disk:
    Code:
    # -f force checking
    # -y go ahead and fix
    # -v verbosely
    # -tt detailed timing statistics
    # use abduco to keep it running as session "fsck" across telnet connections
    # do it for the first and third partitions (small)
    abduco -c fsck sh -c "for i in 1 3; do e2fsck -fyvtt /dev/sda$i; done"
  9. If these both worked, proceed to partition 2, for which the file system check may need more memory:
    Code:
    mount /dev/sda3 /mnt/hd3 
    dd if=/dev/zero of=/mnt/hd3/.swap0 bs=1M count=128
    mkswap /mnt/hd3/.swap0 && swapon /mnt/hd3/.swap0
    abduco -c fsck e2fsck -fyvtt /dev/sda2
If (uncorrected) bad blocks were found by badblocks and (as for OP's disk) the physical and logical sector sizes differ, it will be necessary to convert the listed physical sector numbers to logical, multiplying each by physical_sector_size/logical_sector_size (8 in this case):
Code:
cat /tmp/bb.lst | (while read num _; do echo $((8*num)); done )>/tmp/bbl.lst
Run fdisk -l /dev/sda to display the starting logical sector numbers of the partitions. Split the list of bad logical sector numbers into three partition bad block lists, those less than the starting sector of partition 2 in file #1, those greater than the last sector of partition 2 in file #3 and the rest in file #2. Adjust the block offsets in the non-empty resulting files, say for partition 2 starting at p_start:
Code:
cat /tmp/bbl2.lst | (while read num _; do echo $((num-p_start)); done )>/tmp/bbl20.lst
When running the e2fsck command in 8 and 9 above, if there is an adjusted partition bad block list, just add the -L option with the name of that list file. Also, order your replacement drive!

After file system checks have run successfully, you should be able to reboot into a working system which will have enough life to recover any files that weren't broken by bad sectors.
 
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