Hard Drive Failure?

XRS

New Member
Greeted this morning with an instruction to format the hard drive, but it was unable to do this. So I guess either the hard drive or its controller have gone AWOL. Is it possible to set up a new (larger) hard drive without the old one working?
 
If you install a drive up to 1TB, the Humax should be able to automatically partition and format it for you. Anything larger than that will need some help - either plugging the drive into another computer to do the initial format or it can be done through the customised firmware command line.

However, it is possible that the customised firmware disk check utility may be able to recover the drive and your recordings even now.
 
Thanks for the info. You got my hopes up there, as I have the custom firmware installed, but when I used it I first had to re-install the web interface, and when it opened up again (after rebooting the Humax) it showed no recordings, so it looks like the hard drive is FUBAR. Any recommendations on which hard drive, either 1TB or 2TB?

Just looked at a 1TB, is this one suitable? It's the Seagate ST1000VM002.

Many thanks.
 
If you have the Custom Firmware and access to your Humax via Telnet, it's worth running Maintenance mode >> Fix-disk to see if anything can be done with your existing drive, Notes HERE. The standard 1TB drive that Humax fit is the Seagate Pipeline ST31000424CS
 
Well, it was worth a try. I now have the hard drive back, but have lost all my recordings. The worst part will be trying to remember what they were so I can get hold of copies. Just pleased I have an external 2TB with the precious stuff on.

I have no idea what went wrong (though there was a folder I had been unable to delete a couple of days ago) so should I change the hard drive as a precaution?
 
Take a look at the SMART diagnostics - they will give a clue. In your case it was probably just a file system error that could have been rescued if caught early enough (the failed attempt at a disk reformat might have been the last straw).
 
the failed attempt at a disk reformat might have been the last straw).
It probably mostly worked which is why the CFW web interface needed to be reinstalled - that's on the same area of the disk as the recordings.
 
Just looked at the SMART diagnostics, and the Airflow_Temperature_Cel is shown as having failed "In_the_past". Does this mean it would be best to replace it now?

Would I have been better to have run Maintenance Mode straight away rather than looking via the web interface first?
 
Line 190 on the SMART listings, can be ignored, it isn't supported on the Humax, line 194 is the one to take notice of, in the example line 194 >> Worst shows the drive has never got hotter than 58 Deg C which is normal. Lines in the SMART list to watch are 5, 197 and 198 >> Raw Values
Would I have been better to have run Maintenance Mode straight away rather than looking via the web interface first
Running Maintenance >> Fix-disk before attempting a Format may have saved more stuff, but it depends what was wrong with the HDD
 
Ah, right. Mine is showing a worst of 62.

Although the PVR booted into a format request it couldn't perform it and this is what highlighted the issue to me.

I still don't know what caused this problem, so am not sure whether to replace the hard drive. Your suggestions would be welcomed.
 
I still don't know what caused this problem, so am not sure whether to replace the hard drive.
As Ezra pointed out the important attributes are the raw values of 5, 197 and 198. If you can tell us the values then we can make an informed comment; otherwise it would be just guessing.
 
It's a bit difficult to say, I would definitely move 'keepers' onto your USB 2TB drive, (remembering that they must be decrypted) and watch the raw values in SMART lines 5, 197 and 198, if line 5 increase significantly or the other two increase at all, I'd say it's time to get a new HDD
 
The answer is 0 (zero) in each case.
I would say that it sounds OK to me. Our hard drive is slowly dieing with a day by day increase in the number of reallocated sectors and currently standing at just over 1200. However the box continues to perform well so I intend doing nothing for the moment.
 
just to add to the issues, I am no longer able to connect to the portal. I get an alert saying "An error occurred whilst launching the application http://localhost/portal/index.html. I had already updated to the latest custom firmware as I thought it might cure this issue, but apparently not. Should I wind back the custom firmware, reinstall the original and the the custom or is this more serious?
 
Having lost the contents of your hard drive, you have also lost the support files for the custom facilities. The custom TV portal pokes a new URL into the non-volatile memory area that normally links to the Humax servers, but the new target is no longer there. You will need to connect to the CF installation web page and reload the full CF (if you have not already done that) and then add in the custom portal package again (and anything else you want).
 
I still don't know what caused this problem, so am not sure whether to replace the hard drive. Your suggestions would be welcomed.

I agree with Black Hole. This was most likely just filesystem corruption that could have been repaired using the CFW fix-disk process had you not chosen to attempt to format the disk and has been resolved by the format. There doesn't appear to be anything wrong with the hard drive from what you've posted so I wouldn't replace the disk.
 
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