MontysEvilTwin
Well-Known Member
The maintenance mode recovery options are long known: see here. I have been tinkering with a second-hand unit that I bought stuck in 'Nearly Ready': see here.
For this model to boot up correctly, the hard drive needs to contain the required partitions and be powered up (radical, I know), otherwise the unit will get stuck on the 'Nearly Ready ' screen. So if anything is wrong, it won't boot. No wonder so many boxes get into this state. If the fault is due to a failing hard disk or PSU it is an easy fix. In my case I think the problem is down to the way the main board distributes power to the hard drive and I think this is a common fault. On the HDR-FOX, the power management seems pretty simple: in essence the power to the hard drive is switched on during boot up and switched off at shutdown. On the DTR-T1000 it is more complicated: presumably due to the requirements of the different eco modes and options, there is more scope for the software to switch the power on and off and it seems that the switching can go wrong.
As indicated in the first link, the maintenance mode USB/ internet recovery will often get the box running again. If this does not work I would then try the factory reset option. Sometimes the first procedure is not enough, and the box still won't progress past 'nearly ready'. Whenever I have run the factory reset afterwards, it has never failed to get to the set-up wizard, and once this process has been completed it has always booted into the fully operational state afterwards.
During my tests, the box got stuck in a state whereby it could not get past 'nearly ready' but the maintenance recovery procedures were failing to run. The disk was powered on start-up, but the power was being cut on entering maintenance mode. If the disk is not spinning during maintenance mode, all options except for 'software reset' will fail immediately. The 'software reset' option appears to work at first, but the box locks up and has to be rebooted. I could only get around this by disconnecting the disk's power cable and powering the disk from an external source. Then the USB/ internet recovery procedure worked ('Upgrade OK' on the front panel). Briefly turning off the external power made the box reboot. I reconnected the power and ran the factory reset procedure from maintenance mode. This worked too. I turned off the power to reboot the box and then shut everything down before the box had got past the 'Humax' splash screen. I reconnected the hard drive to the main board and closed the case. On rebooting the disk span up immediately and the box booted into the wizard and is now operating normally again.
Occasionally the hard drive on this unit still spins down during operation. If this happens, the system thinks the drive is full and refuses to schedule recordings. Usually a reboot is all that is needed to get it working again. I think this intermittent fault may be hardware related: I did buy it as faulty after all. I have an idea though. In high eco mode, the USB ports are continuously powered while the unit is on. Even if the supply to the hard drive has dropped the USB ports are still powered. These ports are little use on this device and I have wondered about replacing the 3.5 inch drive with a 2.5 inch one and using the main board connection that is normally used to power the front port to power the drive. I think this should work fine with the box in high eco mode.
For this model to boot up correctly, the hard drive needs to contain the required partitions and be powered up (radical, I know), otherwise the unit will get stuck on the 'Nearly Ready ' screen. So if anything is wrong, it won't boot. No wonder so many boxes get into this state. If the fault is due to a failing hard disk or PSU it is an easy fix. In my case I think the problem is down to the way the main board distributes power to the hard drive and I think this is a common fault. On the HDR-FOX, the power management seems pretty simple: in essence the power to the hard drive is switched on during boot up and switched off at shutdown. On the DTR-T1000 it is more complicated: presumably due to the requirements of the different eco modes and options, there is more scope for the software to switch the power on and off and it seems that the switching can go wrong.
As indicated in the first link, the maintenance mode USB/ internet recovery will often get the box running again. If this does not work I would then try the factory reset option. Sometimes the first procedure is not enough, and the box still won't progress past 'nearly ready'. Whenever I have run the factory reset afterwards, it has never failed to get to the set-up wizard, and once this process has been completed it has always booted into the fully operational state afterwards.
During my tests, the box got stuck in a state whereby it could not get past 'nearly ready' but the maintenance recovery procedures were failing to run. The disk was powered on start-up, but the power was being cut on entering maintenance mode. If the disk is not spinning during maintenance mode, all options except for 'software reset' will fail immediately. The 'software reset' option appears to work at first, but the box locks up and has to be rebooted. I could only get around this by disconnecting the disk's power cable and powering the disk from an external source. Then the USB/ internet recovery procedure worked ('Upgrade OK' on the front panel). Briefly turning off the external power made the box reboot. I reconnected the power and ran the factory reset procedure from maintenance mode. This worked too. I turned off the power to reboot the box and then shut everything down before the box had got past the 'Humax' splash screen. I reconnected the hard drive to the main board and closed the case. On rebooting the disk span up immediately and the box booted into the wizard and is now operating normally again.
Occasionally the hard drive on this unit still spins down during operation. If this happens, the system thinks the drive is full and refuses to schedule recordings. Usually a reboot is all that is needed to get it working again. I think this intermittent fault may be hardware related: I did buy it as faulty after all. I have an idea though. In high eco mode, the USB ports are continuously powered while the unit is on. Even if the supply to the hard drive has dropped the USB ports are still powered. These ports are little use on this device and I have wondered about replacing the 3.5 inch drive with a 2.5 inch one and using the main board connection that is normally used to power the front port to power the drive. I think this should work fine with the box in high eco mode.
