HDR 1000S 500gb HDD Failure

This fault is intermittent but for long periods. My hdd became recognised again this week out of the blue. Pause and rewind live tv now functions and the recordings are visible once again. I read another thread somewhere where this happened to someone....then it failed again on his. It looks like I can put my repair on hold until it goes wonky again. I'm guessing if its a capacitor or resistor it may come and go depending on temperature, humidity etc. Don't ask me why I draw that conclusion.....its merely a theory based on a basic knowledge of chemistry and physics and how materials can expand and contract making electrical connections intermittent.

Just posting this for the benefit of future Humax owners who might land here via a search engine. It was faulty for about a month. Now its back working but for how long is anybodys guess. Glad i didn't bin the box anyway.
 
A pals 1000S has just stopped working and I have it in my place. I've tried another drive but the box doesn't detect it, and it doesn't prompt a format. From reading this thread it seems like it might be a resistor/capacitor problem on the mainboard. Is this something I can change and if so where is it. It seems a HDD USB caddy could be added as an alternative measure. If I go down this route and use the existing drive, will the recordings already on there be available and new ones added.?
 
peterpi said:
Is this something I can change and if so where is it.
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I don't think anyone has worked out what the faulty component is. The only options are to get the box repaired (See post #4 in this thread) or to scrap it.
It seems a HDD USB caddy could be added as an alternative measure. If I go down this route and use the existing drive, will the recordings already on there be available and new ones added.?
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You certainly can't record to a USB drive.
 
goffy said:
This fault is intermittent but for long periods. My hdd became recognised again this week out of the blue. Pause and rewind live tv now functions and the recordings are visible once again. I read another thread somewhere where this happened to someone....then it failed again on his. It looks like I can put my repair on hold until it goes wonky again. I'm guessing if its a capacitor or resistor it may come and go depending on temperature, humidity etc. Don't ask me why I draw that conclusion.....its merely a theory based on a basic knowledge of chemistry and physics and how materials can expand and contract making electrical connections intermittent.

Just posting this for the benefit of future Humax owners who might land here via a search engine. It was faulty for about a month. Now its back working but for how long is anybodys guess. Glad i didn't bin the box anyway.
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Hi my HUMAX HDR-1000S has just wiped off all my recordings (went from 96% used down to 0%) and will no longer record. Is yours still back to normal?
 
I'm not sure having no recordings is the same as having a non-functioning drive (as per the motherboard fault discussed in this thread). Go into the menus and see what storage is reported (I don't have a 1000S, on a HDR-FOX the relevant menu navigation would be Menu >> Settings >> System >> Data Storage).
 
Black Hole said:
I'm not sure having no recordings is the same as having a non-functioning drive (as per the motherboard fault discussed in this thread). Go into the menus and see what storage is reported (I don't have a 1000S, on a HDR-FOX the relevant menu navigation would be Menu >> Settings >> System >> Data Storage).
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Thanks. I did that and got “ Connect a USB hard drive (HDD) to the box to be able to record programmes and pause live TV.”
 
Jenevers said:
Thanks. I did that and got “ Connect a USB hard drive (HDD) to the box to be able to record programmes and pause live TV.”
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:rolling:

Sorry, that's not so much a comment on your problem as the completely false wording of the message - there is absolutely no possibility connecting a USB drive would enable recording capability (see post 4):
MartinLiddle said:
the message you have seen is a red herring
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OK, so it is confirmed you have a dead HDD, or (likely) the same motherboard fault.
 
ProcPSU Back anoted.jpgProcPSU Front annoted.jpg
I have a HDR1000S and HDR1010S, both not recognizing the HDD. With plenty time on my hands I decided to try to fix them. Both discs checked out ok connected to a PC and using Discinternals Linux reader. Looking at the SATA spec, there are two data channels each of two conductors which should be capacitively coupled. Under magnification the tracks are visible, going diagonally from the disc socket towards the processor, with four chip capacitors visible. I confirmed there is continuity from the socket to the capacitors, the capacitors read as 9nF, and there is a credible resistance on the processor side showing that there is continuity there. So the problem is not the disc connecting to the processor. I also tried an alternative data cable and external power to the disc. Next I checked each voltage convertor on the main board. These are recognizable by having a square inductor with some capacitors and semiconductors and there are about 10 of them. I checked the DC and ripple voltage on each, high ripple being suggestive of capacitor deterioration. The only suspicious reading was from the one between the processor and the SCART socket which is probably the processor supply. Modern processors use low voltages, but 0.93V seems a very low and odd voltage. Both units were the same. I got a data sheet for this voltage convertor controller chip (A0Z1025D). It works by having its output voltage reduced to 0.8V by a potential divider and fed back to control pin. This voltage was correct on the board, but probing it tended to make the processor reset. I tried injecting up to 2.5V into the convertor output, and forcing the feedback pin to different voltages, which again tended to make the processor reset. At some point it started seeing the recordings again, and worked for a few days. This suggests my interference temporarily re-made an intermittant open circuit. I would add plated thru-hole to resistor and capacitor as possible failure candidates. This is how the different layers of the multi layer board are connected together. I looked at the potential divider which sets the 0.8V feedback, which is on the back of the board. It is not possible to check the resistor values in circuit other that to see a lower limit to what their value might be. The 5K reading is consistent with the recommended values in the data sheet. Apart from the expected two resistors of the potential divider, there is a third resistor connected to a track which heads towards the processor before disappearing to a different level. It measures as 27K and is connected to about 1.2V which means it is reducing the convertor output. It is possible that it is part of the power saving features and adjusts the voltage depending on what the processor is doing. I can't find a data sheet for the processor, which has been identified as a Broadcom 7346/56/55 in other posts. Does anyone know what the correct processor supply voltage at this point is on a good machine or on the processor data sheet?
 
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Jenevers said:
Hi my HUMAX HDR-1000S has just wiped off all my recordings (went from 96% used down to 0%) and will no longer record. Is yours still back to normal?
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Yes it is. And Humax just did a software upgarade OTA recently which suprised me given how old this box is and that the company are not in the Freesat market anymore. I wonder if the missing recordings might be software related.
 
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goffy said:
Yes it is. And Humax just did a software upgarade OTA recently which suprised me given how old this box is and that the company are not in the Freesat market anymore. I wonder if the missing recordings might be software related.
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I think the nature of the change in the software update makes it very unlikely that that it will be responsible for the loss of recordings.
 
Does anyone know if this known fault also affects the HDR-1100S? Or is it unique to the 1000?

Mine just went again tonight. I noticed the rewind had become slow and unresponsive on the run up to this latest failure and the lyp sync kept drifting off but rectified when the box was put into standby and restarted.
 
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