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Unable to connect to HDR Fox T2 via Telnet or PuTTY

Tracy M said:
Hi BH, that is a great suggestion! Can it be any SATA drive? Doesn't have to be a Seagate, right? As I found an old 3.5 inch Maxtor hard drive lying around, but the current drive cables weren't compatible.
Thanks :)
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If the drive cables aren't compatible, neither is the drive. Are you sure this Maxtor is SATA not IDE?
 
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All SATA drives should be compatible. If your drive has a long multi way socket on it (about 40 IIRC) and a 4 pin one, It's an IDE drive and won't work.
At £4.60 for a drive seems to be about the best way forward to isolate the problem to the drive or the mother board. Certainly a lot cheaper than buying a new far inferior box (unless you want all kinds of catchup TV)
 
Trev said:
All SATA drives should be compatible. If your drive has a long multi way socket on it (about 40 IIRC) and a 4 pin one, It's an IDE drive and won't work.
At £4.60 for a drive seems to be about the best way forward to isolate the problem to the drive or the mother board. Certainly a lot cheaper than buying a new far inferior box (unless you want all kinds of catchup TV)
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Thank you once again for your guidance...it seems the Maxtor is indeed an IDE drive. I know...I'm a muppet :(
 
I'm still with BH on this one. You really need to somehow establish whether it is the HDD or the motherboard that's causing the problem. Without access to a free 'test' HDD or HDD caddy to connect the suspect drive to your computer to try, the HDD suggested by him is probably the cheapest way to go. If that works OK, then get your 1Tb/2Tb replacement, safe in the knowledge that you are not wasting a bunch of money.
Tracy M said:
t seems the Maxtor is indeed an IDE drive. I know...I'm a muppet
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Nope. Easy enough mistake to make if you are not versed in the ins and outs of HDDs
 
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Tracy M said:
I know...I'm a muppet :(
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Not in the least - just in need of education. In this case, you didn't know what SATA meant but didn't think to ask for immediate clarification (or look it up for yourself). Not a huge mistake, I'm sure we've all done it at one time or another (I certainly have, it takes a deliberate effort to think "wait a minute, do I really know what that word means or am I just guessing so as not to appear stupid?").

You've been a lot more receptive than the real muppets who come on here thinking they know more about this stuff than us, and go off in a huff when we don't agree. We've been collectively picking the bones out of all matters HDR-FOX since 2010 - I guess that makes us the de facto experts.
 
Yep. Agree, that's exactly why I'm with you on the cheapie HDD. Although I should have put "caddy... with the required expertise" in there somewhere. 'Your' HDD idea is probably cheaper than a powered caddy/adaptor for a one off use anyway.
 
Yes, of course it could be. But how do you diagnose that quickly and cheaply without the necessary bits and expertise?
If the £4.60 HDD 'fixes' the problem, then it's the HDD and not the mobo or PSU. And the HDDs are easy to swap out.
If it doesn't fix it then further investigation is required.
(Anyway, it's good practice on how to swap out an HDD in a T2):D
 
Trev said:
Yes, of course it could be. But how do you diagnose that quickly and cheaply without the necessary bits and expertise?
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A cheap multimeter would be my suggestion (plus learning to use it).
If the £4.60 HDD 'fixes' the problem, then it's the HDD and not the mobo or PSU. And the HDDs are easy to swap out.
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and if it doesn't fix the problem then you still don't know whether the cheap drive is faulty or incompatible with the Humax or the problem is with one of the other Humax components.
 
So how would you suggest that Tracy proceeds Martin?
But at that stage, if you lack the expertise, you throw your arms in the air and shout help here.
Listening to see if the drive spins up is a possible, free, albeit pretty inconclusive test of the PSU. i.e. If it doesn't, there is possibly a PSU fault. If it does, the 12V rail is probably OK. I suspect that we are shooting above Tracy's head here. Please forgive me if I'm wrong Tracy.
Tracy M said:
I appreciate there is no crystal ball, but if I get another hard drive and it doesn't solve the matter, it is money I could have put towards a new box :(
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But the expense is fairly minimal with the BH cheapie.
 
I think faulty PSU would be little different from faulty motherboard as far as the OP is concerned - a sufficiently dead unit that replacement is the best course (for her). Besides, I'm not convinced the Telnet results would look like that if it was just a lack of 12V. The HDD is the most likely fault and a cheap probe will prove that if it works (even if it only works enough to detect sonething using fixdisk).

Okay, admittedly if the probe doesn't work either there remains a question whether it's two faulty drives or one faulty motherboard. Cross that bridge if and when we come to it - there is such a thing as over-thinking.
 
MartinLiddle said:
A cheap multimeter would be my suggestion (plus learning to use it).
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There's quite a big step from swapping out computer components in box that is turned off and digging around an exposed, live power supply with a meter.
My interpretation of the OPs knowledge and experience is that they can do the former but the latter would be tricky, possibly hazardous. (As with Trev, apologies if this is understating your abilities Tracy.)
 
Thank you all for your comments and indeed, every day is a school day and I wouldn't even have got this far without your very kind collective guidance and the reference information on this site! I have purchased and now await delivery of the cheapie hard drive suggested by Black Hole and will report back once I have endeavoured to run fixdisk on it. Thanks once again y'all! :)
 
Are you au fait with swapping out a HDD in the T2? IIRC, the main problem is the fan connector. It's damn fiddly to disconnect from the MoBo. Disconnect the other two HDD cables at the MoBo end then just undo all the screws noting from where they come. Reverse the procedure to refit. When re-connecting, fit the HDD leads at the HDD end first.
There is a guide somewhere but I can't find it just now. Someone more learned than I will be along in a bit and point you at it unless you have already found it.

PS: Health and Safety brief. Disconnect the box from the mains before opening it.
 
I had recourse to that guide recently, when changing my HDD.
Its very good - the only caveat is that for a certain class of colour blindness (which I have) the comments about pink and blue arrows don't help, but it's easy to work around.
 
MikeSh said:
There's quite a big step from swapping out computer components in box that is turned off and digging around an exposed, live power supply with a meter.
My interpretation of the OPs knowledge and experience is that they can do the former but the latter would be tricky, possibly hazardous. (As with Trev, apologies if this is understating your abilities Tracy.)
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Agreed. It's all very well using a multimeter to perform simple checks (blown fuse etc.) on an electrically 'dead' unit with the covers off, but using one in a live state is a different ball game, especially with switched-mode PSUs involved. You need to be VERY aware that the PSU has a 'hot' and a 'cold' side, and of the existence of what look like benign heat-sinks on it that could actually be sitting at mains potential. Even if not intending to probe the PSU itself, other voltage measurement points on some devices can be hard to access and precarious, and the risk of slipping and accidentally touching something you shouldn't is a possibility.
 
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