I think my disc is failing

martypants16 said:
It is worth noting that it recognised the 1tb drive but only gave me about 950 actual gb for storage, the rest i assume taken up by "working" files....
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No, it's mainly 'taken up' by the way the capacities of discs are described. The disc manufacturers us the base 10 in their description, but computers use the base 2 (binary). I'll use kilobytes for the following example to keep the numbers smaller, but the same principle extends to Mb, Gb and Tb. A manufacturer will describe a drive that contains 1000 bytes as 1kb (10 to the power of 3), but as computers use base 2, their 1kb is actually 1024 bytes (2 to the power of 10). So the 1kb (manuf) disc is actually 1000/1024=976(approx.) bytes, hence the smaller size reported by the formatting process.
 
Black Hole said:
Try something else in the rear USB to prove the USB port, and try the dongle in the front USB.
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I assumed that front was storage and rear was dongles, shows what i know you see! Will try that tonight. happy if that fixes it as i dont use the wireless or USB "that" often in reality so happy to switch between the two.
 
I meant it as a diagnostic process rather than a permanent solution. There should be no physical difference between the ports, although it has been reported that sometimes a firmware update might not take with some combinations of UPD and front/rear port.
 
Trev said:
No, it's mainly 'taken up' by the way the capacities of discs are described. The disc manufacturers us the base 10 in their description, but computers use the base 2 (binary). I'll use kilobytes for the following example to keep the numbers smaller, but the same principle extends to Mb, Gb and Tb. A manufacturer will describe a drive that contains 1000 bytes as 1kb (10 to the power of 3), but as computers use base 2, their 1kb is actually 1024 bytes (2 to the power of 10). So the 1kb (manuf) disc is actually 1000/1024=976(approx.) bytes, hence the smaller size reported by the formatting process.
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See also Glossary entry KiB/MiB/GiB. This difference does not account for the Humax reporting 1000GB total (If I am reading post 50 correctly) and 950GB available, one would presume they were both calculated on the same basis. A long time ago we had a discussion about the "housekeeping" space usage, and did we not come to the conclusion it was about 50GB? 20GB is used in the TSR buffer for a start.
 
one would presume they were both calculated on the same basis
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Or even assume. But they don't. For instance my 120GB SSD reports 100MB NTFS recovery and 111.69GB system. (There are no duff 'sectors' on chkdsk). Chkdsk reports 117116925KB total, but the manufacturer calls it a 12oGB. Surely the Humax format procedure reports the total available disc space after the format regardless of TSR buffers etc.?
 
Hi. I am a newbie and need to replace my hard disk (escalating numbers of RED errors), but I don't know how I copy the schedule backup files to my PC. When I FTP to the Humax (using HumaxFTP user) I can only see a media folder containing Music, Photo and Video folders. I cannot get to /mod folder. If I try to CD to this folder I loose the connection!.
I assume that I don't have permissions to the backup location, so my question is how do I obtain root access so that I can FTP the backup files to my PC?
I have a new hard disk on the way, so I want to get everything prepared first. Hopefully I can fit the new drive, have Humax detect and format it and then copy back the schedule from the backup and the programs from the old drive. Also, could you please confirm that the customised firmware is not lost when the drive is replaced.
Thanks for your help.
Alan.
EDIT. FYI I have Fox HDR T2, and the new hard drive coming is the one reccomended (Samsung).
 
By turning off the native FTP server (Menu >> Settings >> System >> Internet Setting) and installing the custom betaftpd package, you will have unrestricted access to the file system.

Regarding custom firmware, only a small part is hosted in solid-state memory. You will need to backup and restore the HDD content, or reload it from the WebIF installer screen.
 
With BetaFTP you can log in as root/0000 up see the whole system. Schedules are stored under /var/lib/humaxtv which resides in flash so will persist when you change the hard drive. Webif backups are in /mod/var/backups.

You can also make a backup of the schedule databases to USB using the hidden menu I believe.


Posted on the move; please excuse any brevity.
 
Hi Guys. Thanks for your replies!
I was incorrect about the drive. I just checked on ebuyer. It is a Seagate 1TB Pipeline HD Hard Drive - 3.5" SATA-II - 5900RPM 64Mb Cache. I saw it somewhere on this forum when searching for how to replace a failing drive, but I don't know now where the post was.
When I first connected 1 week ago the error count was 12. Now it is 29. It can only get worse, and I already see lots of breakup and freezing with most new recordings.
What happens when I take the option after disk diagnostics to 'acknowledge current failures' ? I don't notice anything different after using this? By the way, I already tried mtce mode and fix-disk. It ran for lots more than the expected time and nothing got fixed.
Hi af123. You said that the schedule is not lost when replacing the hard drive? Really? If true then I don't need to copy backups. Please confirm if I need to copy the schedule files to my PC.

Finally, I'm not clear about the custom firmware. When the humax boots after replacing the drive, and after allowing it to format the drive, then do I have to re-load custom firmware from the usb stick where I have it saved? Or if WebIf available after changing the drive, can I then re-load the custom firmware from WebIf?
Sorry - I know these are newbie questions, but I want to be sure I have taken all necessary steps before swapping the drive, and know that I have all I need to put everything back again.
Thanks for your help.
Alan.
 
If the drive 'settled' at 29 then it still wouldn't be a problem, however if it keeps increasing and because you are experiencing breakup after a fix-disk maybe it's wise to be looking at a new drive. Af123 wrote the code so if he says it's safe in flash . . . . If you feel the need to back it up to P.C. then FTP them e.g. /mod/var/backup/auto-2013-Feb-22-18:06.rbk

My understanding is that when the new hard disk is in place that logging onto the Humax form a P.C. will display the Install Full Web Interface message and allow installation via the internet, so the Humax would need to be networked
 
OK. I now have root access so I can backup the necessary files for safety. Under the hidden menu I found an option to backup DB to flash. It seemed to work (very fast) but under this hidden menu I see no restore options. Is the Humax smart enough to use the DB in flash?
 
I have only ever tried to use the hidden DB backup once and it didn't work at all well, I don't know of any posts that document this feature, at the time the database was changing due to DSO so maybe the hidden option is not very good at handling changes to the database. I think you would be far better off using the rbk files
 
AlWilson said:
When I first connected 1 week ago the error count was 12. Now it is 29. It can only get worse, and I already see lots of breakup and freezing with most new recordings.
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Your experience is rather different to ours. When our box was reallocating sectors at a rate of two a day what we experienced was a couple of brief glitches each day which were barely noticeable. This continued in a reasonably steady state until the reallocated count reached about 1500 sectors at which point the rate began to increase rapidly and we saw symptoms similar to yours when the rate of reallocation was of the order of 40 sectors a day.
 
AlWilson said:
Finally, I'm not clear about the custom firmware. When the humax boots after replacing the drive, and after allowing it to format the drive, then do I have to re-load custom firmware from the usb stick where I have it saved? Or if WebIf available after changing the drive, can I then re-load the custom firmware from WebIf?
Sorry - I know these are newbie questions, but I want to be sure I have taken all necessary steps before swapping the drive, and know that I have all I need to put everything back again.
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I don't understand what there is to be not clear about. The USB firmware update process loads to the non-volatile solid state memory in the Humax, where the normal operating firmware and the settings are stored. This is not affected by changing or formatting the HDD. If you clear the HDD, the custom firmware will detect there are no support files on the HDD and when you try to access the WebIF you will be presented with the usual installer to download the support files from the Internet (see the Quick Guide post 2).
 
MartinLiddle said:
Your experience is rather different to ours. When our box was reallocating sectors at a rate of two a day what we experienced was a couple of brief glitches each day which were barely noticeable. This continued in a reasonably steady state until the reallocated count reached about 1500 sectors at which point the rate began to increase rapidly and we saw symptoms similar to yours when the rate of reallocation was of the order of 40 sectors a day.
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Hi Martin,
Yes, interesting. My bad sector count is relatively low compared with yours, but the breakup and freezing of new programs sometimes (though rarely) makes the complete program unwatchable. Signal strength is good, and more than one channel is affected. I could find no other reason for the failure, but only considered the hard disk as the problem after reading posts here and seeing these errors after installing WebIf. Oh well. When the disk is replaced I will see what I can do about re-formatting and fixing the old one. It might still make a good backup disk via USB after formatting as NTFS
 
Black Hole said:
I don't understand what there is to be not clear about. The USB firmware update process loads to the non-volatile solid state memory in the Humax, where the normal operating firmware and the settings are stored. This is not affected by changing or formatting the HDD. If you clear the HDD, the custom firmware will detect there are no support files on the HDD and when you try to access the WebIF you will be presented with the usual installer to download the support files from the Internet..
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OK. It's clear now. I wasn't aware what was stored in flash and what was on HD.
I'll review the guide, as advised.
Thanks and bets regards,
alan
 
AlWilson said:
Yes, interesting. My bad sector count is relatively low compared with yours, but the breakup and freezing of new programs sometimes (though rarely) makes the complete program unwatchable.
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Yes the difference is interesting. I am trying to develop some guidelines for when disks should be replaced. Could you have a look at the disk smartctl output (sorry I am not at home and can't remember exactly how it is labelled) and see if there are any offline or pending sectors? I never saw any of these but they might explain your problem.
 
AlWilson said:
My bad sector count is relatively low compared with yours, but the breakup and freezing of new programs sometimes (though rarely) makes the complete program unwatchable. Signal strength is good, and more than one channel is affected. I could find no other reason for the failure, but only considered the hard disk as the problem after reading posts here and seeing these errors after installing WebIf. Oh well.
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Have you tried the remedies available via the Telnet menu?
AlWilson said:
When the disk is replaced I will see what I can do about re-formatting and fixing the old one. It might still make a good backup disk via USB after formatting as NTFS
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Refer Things Every... (click) section 12.
 
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