Is this HDD on its way out

Peso

Member
Hello everyone. Seeking some advice, again.

One of my HDRs this morning was stuck with Custom FW 4.1.3 in the display.
Power cycled same thing.
Opened it and unplugged HDD. The box started correctly.
Dug out a HDD caddy and hooked up the drive to Linux laptop. I could see all partitions and their content.
Using Gnome Disks I checked each partition for errors. None were reported
Ran Fix Errors anyway on all but media partition and plugged it back in to the HDR.
Same problem.

Returned to my laptop with it. It just so happened I booted the laptop with HDD connected and powered in its caddy.
Got these messages as Linux booted.
USB 2-3: device descriptor read/64, error -110
usb 2-3: device not accepting address 5, error -110

Quick Google and read it might be about the USB ports power draw being exceeded. But it’s in a self powered caddy?
Tried another USB port on the laptop. Same messages, just different port number.

Booting laptop with HDD powered, it doesn’t show once Linux is running. Connecting HDD after laptop boot it sees it.

Currently coping content off the drive. Pending next step.

Is it new drive time (it is the original). Or is there something I can do?

Cheers for reading this.
 
I can't make any sense of that. I could understand it if it was an untried HDD, but not as the existing (previously working) HDD.

All I can think of is that somehow its interface has gone marginal.
 
Could the error Linux reported at boot have been caddy related rather than the HDR HDD? It was a cheap caddy.
It still wants 5 hours to copy the recordings off. When done I’ll connect the caddy’s original HDD to it and see what the laptop says at boot then.
 
One of my HDRs this morning was stuck with Custom FW 4.1.3 in the display.
Power cycled same thing.
Opened it and unplugged HDD. The box started correctly.
Dug out a HDD caddy and hooked up the drive to Linux laptop. I could see all partitions and their content.
Using Gnome Disks I checked each partition for errors. None were reported
Ran Fix Errors anyway on all but media partition and plugged it back in to the HDR.
Could you explain why you didn't run Fix Errors on the Media partition?
Is it new drive time (it is the original). Or is there something I can do?
Please could you post the SMART data for the hard drive so that we can give you a fact based answer rather than guessing.
 
Hello Martin,

I didn’t run fix (did run check) on the media partition as it warned fix can damage files. At that point I hadn’t copied the recordings so didn’t want to risk them. Am copying them now.
Hoped there may just have been a damaged file in the partition with all the CFW program files in it.

I will source the SMART info.

Thank you
 
Here are the SMART stats. Reads like my last medical checkup.
 

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What model of disk is this? With nearly a million load/unload cycles I'd say you've got the wrong sort, or something else is wrong.
200 bad sectors is not great either.
I think I'd be looking to replace it, with the correct model of disk!
 
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The disk is a WD AV-GP WD500AVDS. Built in 2010.
I seem to recall replacing the factory 320 with this a over a decade ago.
What would be a good replacement from the market these days?
 
200 bad sectors is not great either.
Actually, I might have mid-read that as it says 0 sectors. Maybe it's not as bad as I thought. It would be better if you posted the output of the command line version of smartctl rather than the GUI version.
Run e2fsck on the media partition and then try it again in the Foxsat.
 
Hello prpr. I hope this the data you wanted.
I’ve nearly got the all the programs backed up. Will carry out the disk check and try it back in the HDR. Fingers crossed.

Just notice I spelled the thread title wrong. Whoops!
 

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Good morning.

Have run e2fsck on all partitions. HDR still hung on Custom FW 4.1.3.

I connected the HDD that was in the external caddy (a single NTFS partition) to the HDR and it booted as normal. So the HDR appears to be healthy.

Put the caddy HDD back in it’s caddy and booted the laptop with the caddy connected and running. Got the same device descriptor read/64, error -110 with that HDD attached. So that must be a cheap caddy problem and nothing to do with the HDR HDD.

I think we’ve shown all hardware (except for my rubbish caddy) is good. As I’ve backed up all the recordings would it be worth wiping the drive and any potential corruption and seeing if the HDR will play with it then?
 
A happy ending.
With recordings safely copied I deleted all the partitions on the HHD from inside the HDR. Connected it back to the HDR and it booted as it should.
It’s now re-formatted, software reinstalled and ready to go back in the loft where it lives next to the satellite multiswitch.

While it was connectable to a tv took the opportunity to set up scheduled recording for Channel 4HD via the remote scheduling package (you need to perform a retune via the onscreen GUI to make it work). So a silver lining to a lost weekend.

Thank you to all offered their expertise and knowledge.
 
Well!
The repaired HDR was put back on top of a second I have in the loft. I turned everything off while pulling cables etc.
The flipped the rockers on the back of both. The “repaired” machine booted correctly. But the other one, that has been on last night and sent me a Pushmail, didn’t get past the Custom FW 4.1.3 in the display.
Turned on and off, nothing changed.

This morning extracted it and removed the HHD. As before it fired up fine on a laptop.
This time decided to delete the folder /mnt/hd4/opt. This is the documented way of resetting the CFW and having to download all the packages again.

Reassembled HDR2 minus the opt folder and it booted as normal.
Completed installation of CFW. While the box was out retuned for Channel 4 HD. installed Channel Editor and rebooted
 
Appologies the last part of my post (#16) doesn’t seem have appeared. It should continue like this….

…the box a few times. All worked.
Put both boxes back in their place. Set about installing all the remaining packages on HDR2. Once everything was installed set it to reboot.
But it now, with all packages installed not just Channel Editor it, got stuck at Custom FW 4.1.3 again in the display.

Could it be a malware thing?

Tomorrow I will erase disk like I did with HDR1. Unless anyone else has a different suggestion.
 
My third and final HDR, the main one in the living room has, when rebooting to set recordings the other can’t do, also stopped at the CFW in the display.
 
Have you tried booting it without the network connected? Three of them all doing the same thing points to something environmental I would think, but what exactly it's difficult to say, without having access/time.
 
Good idea. Alas no.
I did save most of the log files from HDR2 before deleting the opt folder. Do any of them detail what happens at boot?
 
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