# "Entering diagnostics mode..."



## CenturyBreak (Feb 28, 2007)

Powered up my HR23-700 last night after Sons of Anarchy had finished, and the display was frozen on one frame of the show, presumably from the buffer earlier during the recording... then a minute of video, followed by 30 seconds of freeze... rinse and repeat.

During this time, the box was unresponsive to commands from the remote, and also from the front panel, with the exception of the Info banner eventually popping up.

Time for an RBR.

After the restart, it went into receiver self-check, then almost immediately to a hard drive scan, indicating 2xx errors (can't recall the exact scary number!) and then X errors repaired.

I thought the worst case scenario would be let it repair what it could and then copy to a new drive. This worked well (albeit slowwwwwllllyyyy for my HR20 a few years ago...

I left it overnight and this AyEm it was back on receiver self-check, with no progress after several minutes of me randomly checking the self-check.  So... pressed select on the front panel to get to diagnostics mode.

Nothing. It just sits at "Entering diagnostics mode..." After 10 minutes, I pulled the plug, waited 15 minutes, plugged it back in, and it again gets to the self-check and sits there. Similarly, if I press select, it just sits at "Entering diagnostics mode..."

I'm presuming this is more than just drive errors, but I can't get to actual diagnostics to see... I seem to recall power supply issues with the HR23 in the past, but I don't recall if this applied to the -700 model.

Any thoughts... other than call for a replacement? How about hooking up a blank external drive to see if it boots to that... and if not...

Thanks in advance.


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## litzdog911 (Jun 23, 2004)

Connecting an external eSATA drive will help you determine if it's the internal drive that failed. That's the most likely cause of this problem. For about $20 DirecTV will replace that dead DVR (free if you have their Equipment Protection Plan).


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## CenturyBreak (Feb 28, 2007)

Thanks... that's my next step.

I was just concerned since diagnostics mode won't even get past displaying "Entering diagnostics mode..." and show the menu for diagnostics mode!

I'm presuming the initial hard drive scan last night went through a pile of errors and corrected them before giving up and shouting "UNCLE!!!"


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## CenturyBreak (Feb 28, 2007)

Update:

The good news... it's just the drive.

The bad news... it's the drive. 

The HR23 is owned rather than leased, so I'd pulled the 500 gb WD AV-GP and popped in a 1.5 tb WD Green drive (probably EADS at that time) when the receiver was brand new.

I'd put the original drive aside and today I popped it into a Thermaltake Blackx, connected the dock, rebooted the HR23 and had a normal reboot within 10 minutes.

Now to see if gparted can copy from the 1.5 tb drive... or if it's too far gone. Time to read that looooong thread again to see if there are particular errors I should be looking for...

That's tomorrow's project!


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## litzdog911 (Jun 23, 2004)

Keep us posted.


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## CenturyBreak (Feb 28, 2007)

Will do. Thanks! 

Of course, there's a slim chance the fault is with the sata controller for the internal drive rather than the drive itself... mind you, it's likely still 99.99% chance that it's the drive and only 0.01% that it's the controller... :righton:


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## Kevin L (Nov 16, 2005)

I have a similar problem that I was just going to post a new topic. Came home the other night and the HR44 was frozen on live TV. Could not get it to respond, so pulled the plug on both the HR44 and the RAID eSata enclosure. Repowered the eSata and then the HR44 as normal. HR44 booted to internal drive. Went to the Settings menu and restarted the HR44, pulling the power plug when the lights went out. Shut down the eSata, waited 30 seconds, repowered the eSata, waited 30 seconds, then powered the HR44. Came up with Receiver Self-Check. Sat on that for a while, pressed Select, then it came up with Entering diagnostics mode and stayed there. I let it sit there while I switched to my TiVo Roamio Pro to watch TV. Later on, went back to the HR44 and it was still on Entering diagnostics mode.

Tried repeating shutdown and power-up several more times with the same results. Even let it sit for about 18 hours, and still didn't make any progress. Powered down again and re-started without the eSata connected. HR44 started fine on the internal drive. Tried swapping eSata cable. Didn't make a difference; won't start with the eSata attached and powered.

Next, I'm going to attach another eSata drive to see if that works. If it doesn't work, then I expect the problem would be with the eSata port on the HR44, and I'm screwed with content on the RAID. If it does work with the different eSata drive, then I expect the problem is with the RAID enclosure.

Question 1: If I connect the RAID to a Windows PC, is there anything I can do to test things that won't cause loss of content?

Question 2: They still make the same enclosure (it's only 18 months old). If I order a replacement enclosure, and install the four drives from the bad enclosure, will that keep access to the content?

Thanks for any insight. if the mods want me to post a new topic with this, please let me know.

Kevin L


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## goober22 (Sep 8, 2004)

CenturyBreak said:


> Update:
> 
> The good news... it's just the drive.
> 
> ...


it's the drive - know your pain!

Just FYI,

I used EADS drives as well but now use these: WD20EURx. They are AV rated for DVR, PVR, video surveillance recording, multiple streaming of HD, etc.

They come in SATA II & III:
http://www.amazon.com/WD-AV-GP-Video-Hard-Drive/dp/B0042AG9V8/ref=sr_1_1?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1413494711

http://www.amazon.com/Western-Digital-AV-GP-Intellipower-WD20EURX/dp/B00DXOJJQQ/ref=sr_1_2?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1413494711

They also come in 3GB versions, WD30EURx


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## CenturyBreak (Feb 28, 2007)

Fun day yesterday. 

In preparation for trying to copy the old drive, I pulled it and popped in a WD20EURS that I'd picked up a while ago, just in case. My plan is to copy the old drive, if possible, to a WD20EZRX (regular 'green' rather than AV-GP)

Quick reboot, formattin storage device, etc. and back to what-passes-for-normal. 

Shut it off and fired up the old WDTV to watch some Netflix, paused what I was watching and went to make lunch. Came back to the family room 5 minutes later to see the 'receiver self-check' display for the HR23... a reboot of the HR23 had switched the HDMI switch back to Input 1!

Since it was sitting there in 'receiver self-check', my heart sank and I thought "Oh sh!t... here we go again!" ... but hitting select brought up diagnostics mode rather than just endless "Entering diagnostics mode..." and the hard drive test was okay. So... baby steps. Exited and the reboot proceded as normal... and quickly, as the drive was empty. 

Back to the WDTV and Netflix... for ~ 15 minutes... at which time the TV screen went black again as the HDMI switch reset to Input 1 with yet another reboot of the HR23. This time it was downloading 08CA.

I never knew that my el-cheapo HDMI switch had this lovely signal-sensing 'feature'... but it's come in handy, letting me approximate the number of reboots over the past 23 hours. It was 5 (!!) that I know of within the first 8 hours, including another pair within 30 minutes of each other, flushing all the guide data... again. Plus at least one more overnight.

I know that, as with CLEARMYBOX, there will be a few reboots until things stablilize, but this is wild.

So far, no more guide-flushing pairs of reboots since just before prime time yesterday, so: baby steps.

Eventually I'll get to gparted and trying to copy the old drive... silly me, thinking that working from home this week would give me plenty o' time to do stuff!  :lol:


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## RunnerFL (Jan 5, 2006)

Kevin L said:


> I have a similar problem that I was just going to post a new topic. Came home the other night and the HR44 was frozen on live TV. Could not get it to respond, so pulled the plug on both the HR44 and the RAID eSata enclosure. Repowered the eSata and then the HR44 as normal. HR44 booted to internal drive. Went to the Settings menu and restarted the HR44, pulling the power plug when the lights went out. Shut down the eSata, waited 30 seconds, repowered the eSata, waited 30 seconds, then powered the HR44. Came up with Receiver Self-Check. Sat on that for a while, pressed Select, then it came up with Entering diagnostics mode and stayed there. I let it sit there while I switched to my TiVo Roamio Pro to watch TV. Later on, went back to the HR44 and it was still on Entering diagnostics mode.
> 
> Tried repeating shutdown and power-up several more times with the same results. Even let it sit for about 18 hours, and still didn't make any progress. Powered down again and re-started without the eSata connected. HR44 started fine on the internal drive. Tried swapping eSata cable. Didn't make a difference; won't start with the eSata attached and powered.
> 
> ...


1. You won't be able to "mount" the box or see files on Windows. The HR44 uses Linux. Any attempt to mount the drive or view data without the proper file system drivers (if the correct ones are still available for Windows) could result in data corruption or loss.

2. If you do get a new enclosure you'll need to set the RAID mode first before inserting the drives and that MAY retain your content. If you insert the drives then set the RAID mode all content will be lost.


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## Kevin L (Nov 16, 2005)

RunnerFL said:


> 1. You won't be able to "mount" the box or see files on Windows. The HR44 uses Linux. Any attempt to mount the drive or view data without the proper file system drivers (if the correct ones are still available for Windows) could result in data corruption or loss.
> 
> 2. If you do get a new enclosure you'll need to set the RAID mode first before inserting the drives and that MAY retain your content. If you insert the drives then set the RAID mode all content will be lost.


Thanks, Runner.

I was able to mount another eSata drive, so the problem lies with the RAID box. It's the Sans Digital TowerRAID TR4UTBPN. I'll have to think about what to do. I was going to order another and try to move the drives and see if they're intact, but Newegg is not carrying it at the moment.

Since I may write off the recordings, I'm considering a different, newer RAID box.

Thank you,
Kevin


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