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HDR Fox T2 hdd problem

B

BrownEyes

New Member
Hi,
my HDR has been working fine for about 18 months. Last week it displayed the message "disk needs to be formatted for access." and does not display any content. (There should be about 300GB of off-air TV.)
I've tried powering down and re-booting with the same result. So far I've resisted the invitation to format the drive as I would like to recover the recordings if possible - what use is a PVR if you can't access the recordings? Everything else appears to be working normally.
Have had no response from Humax support.
Any suggestions please?
 
The only way to recover this other than reformatting the disk is to install the customised firmware and then run the fix-disk utility.
 
af123 said:
The only way to recover this other than reformatting the disk is to install the customised firmware and then run the fix-disk utility.
Click to expand...
Thanks for prompt response. I may need a bit of hand-holding though.
I've downloaded and installed the CFW 2.13, (was 1.02.28 previously.) and this is confirmed on the front panel display at start-up.
I can access the Humax TV Portal and access the available services - although iPlayer doesn't seem to want to actually play any content - it just stalls at the start.
I cannot access my HDR from my pc browser, (Firefox,) - it reports "address not found"
LAN is cabled to a Plusnet (Thompson) router, and accessing this in the browser shows the HDR MAC address as a connected unknown device.
I still get the nag to format the hdd to enable access on starting the HDR.
So, apart from loading the initial CFW, I'm no further forward.
 
OK, your IP connection would seem to be running.
What IP address does the Humax report? It's somewhere under the System menu option.
What happens if you open a Command Prompt window on your PC (I presume you're running Windows) and type ping followed by the Humax's IP address?
If that works, do the same thing with telnet and you should get a "humax #" type prompt.
 
BrownEyes said:
Thanks for prompt response. I may need a bit of hand-holding though.
Click to expand...
THIS TOPIC (click) should help (see particularly post 11 and notes in post 12). From a Telnet session on the PC you will need to Open a connection to the IP address listed on the Humax menus at Menu >> Settings >> System >> Internet Setting >> Configure LAN, you should get a "humax#" prompt where you type the "fix-disk" command.

You will need to ensure the Telnet client is not set for Windows end-of-lines, see notes HERE (click).
 
Thanks to prpr and Black Hole for replies. I think I'm progressing - slowly - but not there yet!
IP address is 192.168.1.75
Ping from command prompt sends and receives 4 packets, av round trip 1ms.
Telnet returns the "humax#" prompt. (Win 7 doesn't load a Telnet client by default so I followed Black Hole's link and loaded PuTTY.)
Typing "fix-disk" at the prompt produces a "warning that this procedure will freeze the Humax for up to 2 hours....... Do you wish to continue? Y/N"
Selecting "Y" rebooted my HDR, but this seems to be working as before, complete with nag to format disk before it can be used.Re-sending the command - as per Black hole's instructions - didn't seem to make any difference.
As far as I'm aware ( HDR and TV are in different room to pc,) I haven't yet managed to download the Full Web Interface as my browser still doesn't find the HDR. So I suspect I don't have a useable Fix-disk command?
 
What firmware does the Humax report? You said 1.02.28 above, so has that changed to 1.02.29 ?
AFAIK, CF 2.13 only works on top of 1.02.29 not 1.02.28
 
I think what has happened here is the command has aborted because you are using Windows line ends. Instructions on the wiki page.
 
Black Hole said:
I think what has happened here is the command has aborted because you are using Windows line ends. Instructions on the wiki page.
Click to expand...
I cannot find a wiki reference to Windows line ends / end of lines as such. I assumed this was the "uncheck CR" in the PuTTY config instructions refererred to in post #5. Anyway, I've tried it both ways to no avail.
I can communicate with my HDR by Telnet because the first "fix-disk" command reboots it. But it just reboots - it does not go into maintenance mode to receive the second "fix-disk" command.
I don't understand (amongst many other things,) why I can't see the HDR in the browser. If I could, and tried to dowload and install the Full Web Interface, presumeably this would fail because the hdd would not be accessible. I assume this is why I can see and navigate initial pages on the portal but can't actually download any real content.
As you will have gathered by now I'm no BYT, but now its become a challenge not to re-format the drive!
 
The "unset crlf" command in Windows Telnet is what I am talking about, and whatever the equivalent is in PuTTY. Fair enough, the point about Telnet/fix-disk is that you should not need the full WebIF or to load anything to the HDD. af123 or xyz321 will have to advise.
 
Try "netstat -lt" to see what listening sockets there are. This should show if the web server is running.
Try "sh -x /bin/fix-disk" to see if that reveals any more about what it's doing.
 
BrownEyes said:
I cannot find a wiki reference to Windows line ends / end of lines as such. I assumed this was the "uncheck CR" in the PuTTY config instructions refererred to in post #5. Anyway, I've tried it both ways to no avail.
Click to expand...

It's the Return key sends Telnet New Line instead of ^M option in PuTTY. It should not be checked.

To force maintenance mode, try these commands from within the telnet session (humax# prompt shown for context)

Code: 
humax# touch /mod/boot/maintenance.boot
humax# reboot

You should then see the box restart in maintenance mode - the front panel will show MAINTENANCE once it's ready. At that point, telnet in again and try fix-disk - post what happens and we'll help with the next bit.
 
prpr said:
Try "netstat -lt" to see what listening sockets there are. This should show if the web server is running.
Try "sh -x /bin/fix-disk" to see if that reveals any more about what it's doing.
Click to expand...
Utterly irrelevant for anybody without the necessary competence. The user just wants a simple command to type without further confusion.
 
I really do take exception to that comment.
I wasn't necessarily expecting the user to understand the output (but they might and they might learn something if they don't).
They can of course could post it here for somebody else to look at and somebody might learn WHY it wasn't working.

Now kindly GO AWAY and think about it before slagging me off.
 
af123 said:
It's the Return key sends Telnet New Line instead of ^M option in PuTTY. It should not be checked.

To force maintenance mode, try these commands from within the telnet session (humax# prompt shown for context)

Code: 
humax# touch /mod/boot/maintenance.boot
humax# reboot

You should then see the box restart in maintenance mode - the front panel will show MAINTENANCE once it's ready. At that point, telnet in again and try fix-disk - post what happens and we'll help with the next bit.
Click to expand...

If I send as you've written - with a space between "touch" and "/mod etc" it reports "no such file or directory"
If I send without space, ie "touch/mod ..etc" it reports "-/bin/sh: touch/mod/...etc not found"
Sending "reboot" ends the session and reboots the HDR (shows CFW 2.13) and back into normal mode.

Thanks for patience.
 
It needs the space.

It appears CF2.13 has not installed properly. What is the loader version reported at the bottom left of the Humax splash screen at boot?
 
I see what's going on now and it is something that will be fixed in CFW 2.14, but for now:

Code: 
humax# mkdir /var/lib/humaxtv/mod
humax# fix-disk

should get you into the right mode.
 
af123 said:
I see what's going on now and it is something that will be fixed in CFW 2.14, but for now:

Code: 
humax# mkdir /var/lib/humaxtv/mod
humax# fix-disk

should get you into the right mode.
Click to expand...

The mkdir command seemed to be ok.
The fix-disk command returned the warning about freezing the unit..... proceed Y/N?
Sending "Y" returned " -/bin/sh: y: not found"

HDR did not reboot, just carried on.

I've moved the HDR into the same room as my pc, so it's only connected to my lan, not the TV or aerial, but it was showing the loader as a7.3 before.
 
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