# External drive going bad? / salvageable?



## cigar95 (May 23, 2008)

_(Edit on 9/26 to note that I just discovered a very simple solution that would have fixed this problem very quickly.)_

Only did a brief search for similar threads, so I apologize if this is well-known.

I have an external drive (1Tb WD10EADS, Antec MX-1, connected to an HR23-700), that has worked great for about two years. I will reboot about 2-3 times a week to switch between the internal and external drives, and occasionally to use a second external drive.

Last week, rebooting to the above-mentioned drive, and we reached the "checking satellite data . . . this may take a few minutes" screen. (Do I have the text right? It's the first one you get to with the formatted DirecTV background.) And then it hangs. I think the most I've let it go is about a half hour before giving up.

Question, then - does the system need to access the contents of the hard drive at any point prior to the screen where I'm seeing the hang? In other words, does the process have to successfully access *some* of the content on the disk in order to get as far as it does? Or could it get to that point even with an entirely toasted drive?

As a test, I can still boot to the other external drive - so the problem is not with my eSATA cable. (I know the cables can wear because they are not designed for continued plugging and unplugging.)

Are there any other debugging tests that can be done? Perhaps put the drive into a new MX-1? (My other external drive is a self-contained Fantom drive that I have never tried to open up, rather than an MX-1, so I have no clue if my WD HDD is even compatible with it. That's why I've not tried that test.)

Many thanks for any suggestions here. Losing the content on that drive isn't the end of the world, but there's some stuff that I'd really like to burn off to DVD before losing it.


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## Rich (Feb 22, 2007)

cigar95 said:


> Only did a brief search for similar threads, so I apologize if this is well-known.
> 
> I have an external drive (1Tb WD10EADS, Antec MX-1, connected to an HR23-700), that has worked great for about two years. I will reboot about 2-3 times a week to switch between the internal and external drives, and occasionally to use a second external drive.
> 
> ...


The weakest links I see are the MX-1 first and the EADS drive second. I see no indication from your post of a bad HDD, so I'd try a new external device with the old HDD (EADS) in it before I went any farther. The chip-sets in the MX-1s have failed in the past as have the chip-sets on most external devices. Nothing lasts forever.

I wouldn't even consider opening up the Fantom enclosure, you'll probably wreck it. I've tried that on other out-of-the box eSATAs and I wrecked them all. Actually, it was only two, an FAP and an Xtreme. Difficult to take apart, damn near impossible to put back together, but it is a way to save the HDD contained in the enclosure.

Rich


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## cigar95 (May 23, 2008)

rich584 said:


> The weakest links I see are the MX-1 first and the EADS drive second. I see no indication from your post of a bad HDD, so I'd try a new external device with the old HDD (EADS) in it before I went any farther. The chip-sets in the MX-1s have failed in the past as have the chip-sets on most external devices. Nothing lasts forever.


 Thanks, Rich. I had already ordered a new MX-1, guessing it was the most likely weak link. 
Does the fact that the boot process got as far as it did before hanging give us any useful info about the state of the HDD?


> I wouldn't even consider opening up the Fantom enclosure, you'll probably wreck it. I've tried that on other out-of-the box eSATAs and I wrecked them all. Actually, it was only two, an FAP and an Xtreme. Difficult to take apart, damn near impossible to put back together, but it is a way to save the HDD contained in the enclosure.
> 
> Rich


When I first got that Fantom drive maybe 18 months ago, I had read the long threads about how only select combinations of HDDs and enclosures would work on the DTV DVRs, and no one had ever mentioned my cheap Fantom drive, which I bought for another purpose, as a possibility. 
Just on a lark, when it arrived I hooked it up to my HR23, and was stunned to find it worked. I've used it ever since for long form stuff like the golf majors or the "royal wedding" for my wife.


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## Rich (Feb 22, 2007)

cigar95 said:


> Thanks, Rich. I had already ordered a new MX-1, guessing it was the most likely weak link.
> Does the fact that the boot process got as far as it did before hanging give us any useful info about the state of the HDD?


I think because you got past the "diagnostics" that are performed at the start of a reboot without getting a 14-XXX message (that would have been an indication of a failing or failed HDD) the HDD *might* still be good. But I have a 21-700 that's getting replaced tomorrow that recently took an hour to reboot. My wife suffered thru that without telling me. She got no error messages, but I'm pretty sure the HDD was shot. I'm also pretty sure the whole DVR is shot because of the things it did for several weeks while she stubbornly fought to watch all the shows she just had to see.

It's kinda hard to troubleshoot these things over the Net, but replacing the weak links in sequence will usually result in finding out exactly what the cause is. Best case scenario is the MX-1 failed for whatever reason. That's a cheap solution. Just from reading your OP, I got the sense that the HDD might be still good.



> When I first got that Fantom drive maybe 18 months ago, I had read the long threads about how only select combinations of HDDs and enclosures would work on the DTV DVRs, and no one had ever mentioned my cheap Fantom drive, which I bought for another purpose, as a possibility.
> Just on a lark, when it arrived I hooked it up to my HR23, and was stunned to find it worked. I've used it ever since for long form stuff like the golf majors or the "royal wedding" for my wife.


I've read some positive and negative posts about the Fantoms. Don't remember much about them. Not sure if they work on every HR. That's one of the major reasons why we recommend the MX-1s and the Thermaltake docking stations, we know they work on every HR model.

Rich


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## cigar95 (May 23, 2008)

rich584 said:


> It's kinda hard to troubleshoot these things over the Net, but replacing the weak links in sequence will usually result in finding out exactly what the cause is. Best case scenario is the MX-1 failed for whatever reason. That's a cheap solution. Just from reading your OP, I got the sense that the HDD might be still good.


Thanks again. Given that the disk was giving me no problems at all up until it stopped booting, I'm holding onto some optimism. It will be about a week before Amazon delivers my replacement enclosure, so I won't know for sure just yet.

A couple months ago, we suddenly began having issues with jerky playback that appeared on both of the external drives, but not on the internal. The common link was was the eSATA cable, and sure enough, replacing it fixed the problem. (There is some practical value to the scientific method!)


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## Rich (Feb 22, 2007)

cigar95 said:


> Thanks again. Given that the disk was giving me no problems at all up until it stopped booting, I'm holding onto some optimism. It will be about a week before Amazon delivers my replacement enclosure, so I won't know for sure just yet.
> 
> A couple months ago, we suddenly began having issues with jerky playback that appeared on both of the external drives, but not on the internal. The common link was was the eSATA cable, and sure enough, replacing it fixed the problem. (There is some practical value to the scientific method!)


I learned about replacing parts rather than troubleshooting them in the Navy. No time to troubleshoot components during a live fire exercise. Still works well for me.

Rich


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## cigar95 (May 23, 2008)

Received the new MX-1 yesterday, installed the existing HDD, and still the same problem - it hangs at "Satellite Settings - This will take a few minutes". So the problem is not the MX-1, nor is it the eSATA cable, which still works on my other external.

However, I did experience something new, by letting the process play out a bit longer.

First attempt - waited at the new screen for 8-10 minutes, then did an RBR as before;

Second attempt - waited longer, and after maybe 20 minutes, the glowing blue circle (this is a 23-700) switched from its gradual "rotation" to having three of the six blue segments (noon, 4, and 8, I think) flashing at me with no more rotation. Does this signal a particular error condition? At this point, did another RBR.

Third and fourth attempts - again waited a while, instead of flashing blue, the unit stopped putting out any signal at all. Not putting out a solid blank pattern as it does when resetting, but no signal, as it does when it's turned off.

At this point, I surrendered. The problem is apparently with the HDD.

Next step is to see if I can hook up the drive to a Unix machine and learn something about its status. 

Doing some internet searching, found an exchange on tek-tips.com, from just about a year ago, that mentioned a "dirty log" file resulting from a less-than-graceful shutdown - something I am generally careful to avoid. 

Perhaps mounting this will tell me something. Should I definitely mount it via the eSATA interface, or can I mount it as a USB and get the same status information?

Many thanks.


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## dpeters11 (May 30, 2007)

You can try a program called Spinrite from grc.com, not cheap, about $80, but it can get drives working again. I've heard success stories with TiVo drives.


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## Rich (Feb 22, 2007)

cigar95 said:


> Received the new MX-1 yesterday, installed the existing HDD, and still the same problem - it hangs at "Satellite Settings - This will take a few minutes". So the problem is not the MX-1, nor is it the eSATA cable, which still works on my other external.
> 
> However, I did experience something new, by letting the process play out a bit longer.
> 
> *First attempt - waited at the new screen for 8-10 minutes, then did an RBR as before;*


It's not gonna work if you keep hitting the red button. You have to pull the power cords on the external device and the HR. Then, after a minute or so, plug in the external device and give it a chance to spin up. Then give it another minute and plug in the HR. That works every time. If you still have the same problem, it's either the HDD or the 23. You cannot hit the red button with the external device running and connected to the HR and expect it to work correctly.

Rich


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## cigar95 (May 23, 2008)

Rich, in such a case, at what point is it safe to pull the power? From what I understand, pulling the power when the the drive is in the middle of reading or writing is often what causes problems with the drives in the first place.

But since it didn't work the first time, in exactly the same way it wasn't working last week, I have no reason to think that those resets would have worked in any case. At the time, I just didn't have anything else to besides "try again".

I figure my only step is to run some diagnostics on the drive itself and see if anything can be done. (And if not, then I have a couple of MX-1s to work with.)


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## Rich (Feb 22, 2007)

cigar95 said:


> Rich, in such a case, at what point is it safe to pull the power? From what I understand, pulling the power when the the drive is in the middle of reading or writing is often what causes problems with the drives in the first place.





> I just pull the plug on my HRs as long as they aren't recording or playing content. Never have had a problem doing this.


Just to be sure we understand each other, pull the power cord on the HR and pull the power cord on the external device. Wait a minute or so and plug in the external device. Give it a minute to spin up. Then plug in the HR. Works every time for me. Don't touch the eSATA to eSATA jumper cord between the HR and the external device, just leave it plugged into each device.

If you still have problems following this procedure, you might have a bad HDD or you might have a bad HR. Try running the HR using the internal drive and see if you still have problems. If you do not, it's probably the HDD.

Rich


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## P Smith (Jul 25, 2002)

dpeters11 said:


> You can try a program called Spinrite from grc.com, not cheap, about $80, but it can get drives working again. I've heard success stories with TiVo drives.


Many times I pointed that FREE program MHDD will check/remap bad sectors, will show S.M.A.R.T. table.
You can make bootable MHDD CD/floppy and don't care what OS your PC running.


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## cigar95 (May 23, 2008)

rich584 said:


> If you still have problems following this procedure, you might have a bad HDD or you might have a bad HR. Try running the HR using the internal drive and see if you still have problems. If you do not, it's probably the HDD.


Pretty sure it's some sort of problem with the HDD. The unit works fine from the internal, as well as with my other external.

Now just hoping somehow that some diagnostics might be able to identify a correctable disk problem.


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## admdata (Apr 22, 2011)

P Smith said:


> Many times I pointed that FREE program MHDD will check/remap bad sectors, will show S.M.A.R.T. table.
> You can make bootable MHDD CD/floppy and don't care what OS your PC running.


do you have a link to that program????

Thanks


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## Athlon646464 (Feb 23, 2007)

admdata said:


> do you have a link to that program????
> 
> Thanks


http://hddguru.com/software/2005.10.02-MHDD/

(I've never used it - I did a Google search for you. The author, Dmitry Postrigan, is legit, and that is his web site.)


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## TomCat (Aug 31, 2002)

cigar95 said:


> Rich, in such a case, at what point is it safe to pull the power? From what I understand, pulling the power when the the drive is in the middle of reading or writing is often what causes problems with the drives in the first place...


On a non-journaled PC drive, yes. On a DVR drive? Probably not. There are only 3 things that can be happening on a HDD while it is active on a DVR:

1) Writing a streaming media file to the HDD. Of course if you are concerned about the file it is writing (if it is making an active recording), don't pull the plug. Otherwise, pull the plug. The file will become orphaned and on reboot the OS will see it as a corrupted file and erase it. No blood, no foul.

2) Reading a streaming media file from the HDD. Of course if the wife is watching DWTS, don't pull the plug. If you do, playback ceases, obviously, and reboot returns the DVR to the initial state. The file you were playing is likely OK because it was already written before. The DVR will probably lose track of the PTS (presentation time stamp) so it will revert to the beginning of the program rather than allow you to pick up where it left off, however.

3) Reading and writing background tasks such as indexing routines. Pull the plug. These routines can be interrupted without peril and will pick right up where they left off at reboot.​
A power interruption on a non-journaled drive can force a HDD into an unknown state on a PC. Usually it will recover on its own but it can take a very long reboot to do that. It is still probably the last way you want to shut down any OS. A journaled volume means that the HDD has created a list of what it intends to do before actually doing it, and if interrupted it just refers to the list to get its bearings.

I think it is an unproven urban legend that pulling the plug can cause the actuator and heads to dive into the platters and gouge the media. Especially on drives made since 1990 or so.

Still, there are better ways to do this. I prefer to use the menu commands for restart. If they get hung, that is what the red button is for. If it gets hung, that is what pulling the plug is for (that and the long power down, which has proven valuable when all else fails). Using the menu commands probably lets the OS finish the particular task it is doing before it shuts down. It is as if it is given a warning "the user wants to shut down" and gets a reply from the OS "OK, wait just a sec while I finish writing this indexing file, then go for it".

If you use the menu command when shutting down a DVR that is recording a program, you probably will get an intact partial recording. If you use the menu command while playing back a show, you might get the PTS info stored first, allowing the show to be parked at that point rather than reverting to the start point (actually don't know-never tried it).


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## dpeters11 (May 30, 2007)

"TomCat" said:


> I think it is an unproven urban legend that pulling the plug can cause the actuator and heads to dive into the platters and gouge the media. Especially on drives made since 1990 or so.


This is absolutely true, but as you said, it's very old. Back before the voice coil days, you had to manually park the heads, with a command like wdpark.com (back when .company was used for programs). Considering the price of a 20 meg hard card for my Tandy cost $800 in 1987, I wasn't about to take chances. I ran it on very shutdown.


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## Rich (Feb 22, 2007)

dpeters11 said:


> This is absolutely true, but as you said, it's very old. Back before the voice coil days, you had to manually park the heads, with a command like wdpark.com (back when .company was used for programs). Considering the price of a 20 meg hard card for my Tandy cost $800 in 1987, I wasn't about to take chances. I ran it on very shutdown.


I remember having to stick a cardboard replica of a floppy disc into PCs when I had to move them. Sometimes "the good old days" really weren't all that good...:lol:

Rich


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## Athlon646464 (Feb 23, 2007)

rich584 said:


> I remember having to stick a cardboard replica of a floppy disc into PCs when I had to move them. Sometimes "the good old days" really weren't all that good...:lol:
> 
> Rich


Today I stick a cardboard replica of me in front of my webcam.................. :grin:


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## Rich (Feb 22, 2007)

Athlon646464 said:


> Today I stick a cardboard replica of me in front of my webcam.................. :grin:


I know what you mean, the whole aging process kinda sucks.

Rich


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## dpeters11 (May 30, 2007)

rich584 said:


> I remember having to stick a cardboard replica of a floppy disc into PCs when I had to move them. Sometimes "the good old days" really weren't all that good...:lol:
> 
> Rich


On the flip side, I can't really remember DOS crashing.


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## Rich (Feb 22, 2007)

dpeters11 said:


> On the flip side, I can't really remember DOS crashing.


I can. I was one of the first to use a PC on my desk, the first in my department, and all I had at first were hand-me-downs. Usually wrecked by folks who didn't have a clue or wouldn't read a manual. Then I got a Compaq and that was usable. Then we all got Macs and I never had to worry about DOS again. I've managed to block out or erase all those DOS commands from my mind.

Rich


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## Athlon646464 (Feb 23, 2007)

dpeters11 said:


> On the flip side, I can't really remember DOS crashing.


That would be like me saying "but my 10 speed never ran out of gas....." :grin:


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## cigar95 (May 23, 2008)

Courtesy of MHDD, I was able yesterday to run the low-level diagnostics on the drive. Once again, it passes with flying colors. However, attempting to load it on my 23-700 produces the same problem as before.

So we have eliminated as possibilities:

1 - the Antec enclosure
2 - the eSATA cable
3 - the physical state of the HDD

The only thing that I can think of that this leaves is some sort of file corruption on the HDD. We're going to try to mount it on an UBUNTU (sp?) system today and see if we can run any diagnostics. Perhaps a file table corrupted, or something similar, that can be rescued by UNIX itself.

If that fails, I suspect that I'll have to wave the white flag and declare my recordings lost. All those wonderful Connie Rubirosa episodes of Law & Order gone, not to mention my recording of Nightmare Before Christmas that I never got around to watching.

So any suggestions as to what I might look for with the drive mounted in LINUX?

Thanks.


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## P Smith (Jul 25, 2002)

cigar, what SMART table's values you got ? Did you run Scan with Remap=ON ? How long it took ? Did you get SMART after the check ?


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## cigar95 (May 23, 2008)

The SMART table showed zero reallocated sectors, so I presumed that a REMAP scan was unnecessary. Perhaps that was naive on my part. (A full scan takes a bit over three hours, so I didn't want to run another one.)

In the meantime, we tried connecting the drive, in enclosure, to an UBUNTU system via USB. The system could see the drive, and see the three partitions, and read the SMART data, but an attempt to mount it gave the "can't read superblock" error. 

At this point I should add that a google search revealed a dialog with a guy who came here a couple years ago while trying to similarly mount his DVR HDD, and our UNIX gurus on dbstalk and tex-info (I think it was) gave him the specific commands to use for the mount. My UNIX guy repeated those same commands, but we could not get rid of the superblock error.

Our next step is to connect the bare drive directly via the internal SATA connection to see if that makes a difference.

So does the "superblock" error tell us anything about the state of the drive?

Thanks much.

ETA - mounting directly via SATA changes nothing - superblock still can't be read.


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## cigar95 (May 23, 2008)

OK, the internet is truly a great source of virtual explosives. A site that appears somewhat intelligent (cyberciti.biz) describes checking a volume by running e2fsck by pointing to one of the "alternate" superblock locations. 

"Be sure to make a backup first . . . . ", of course, although backing up a half full 1Tb drive (to where?) could take a heck of a long time anyways.

Given that this whole process is probably a longshot, it's tempting to just roll the dice, and if it corrupts what I have on the disk, I'm not worse off than I am now, other than that there's no longer any chance of recovery.

How much do I really want back that recording of "The Last Templar" with Mira Sorvino?


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## TBoneit (Jul 27, 2006)

If it were mine I'd declare the data lost, and go to the next step. Download the drive makers diagnostic software and run that and let it fix anything it finds. That can cause data loss BTW. If it passes diags..... If it fails and says the drive is unrepairable it's Hammer time.

if it repairs then try the drive, if still no joy then try clearing the drive with something like Darik's Boot and Nuke and put it back into use for non critical stuff.


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## TBoneit (Jul 27, 2006)

rich584 said:


> I can. I was one of the first to use a PC on my desk, the first in my department, and all I had at first were hand-me-downs. Usually wrecked by folks who didn't have a clue or wouldn't read a manual. Then I got a Compaq and that was usable. Then we all got Macs and I never had to worry about DOS again. I've managed to block out or erase all those DOS commands from my mind.
> 
> Rich


I still open the command prompt nearly every day here at work. Some things you need to do there such some of the ipconfig and netsh commands.

I also use it to start regedit when working on a customers computer since I don;'t want them seeing it in the Run command and trying it out.and so on.

In XP the xcopy command still works where you can tell it to copy subdirectorys and keep working if it hits a bad file. Using Cut & paste or Copy and paste in windows explorer it stops at a bad file. Thus I can use it to filter bad files and then burn the rest as a backup.

Just two examples...


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## P Smith (Jul 25, 2002)

TBoneit said:


> If it were mine I'd declare *the data lost*, and go to the next step. Download the drive makers diagnostic software and run that and let it fix anything it finds. That can cause data loss BTW. If it passes diags..... If it fails and says the drive is unrepairable it's Hammer time.
> 
> if it repairs then try the drive, if still no joy then try clearing the drive with something like Darik's Boot and Nuke and put it back into use for non critical stuff.


I wouldn't take it as is, perhaps it would be more appropriate to you say "I'm declare I'm lost".  What is would be fair for WinPC guy....

Actually, OP didn't reach the point to declare such - he need to continue dig, the direction is right - find spare super-block and using it recover the partition.


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## P Smith (Jul 25, 2002)

cigar95 said:


> The SMART table showed zero reallocated sectors, so I presumed that a REMAP scan was unnecessary. Perhaps that was naive on my part. ...


It would be really better to post whole table ... There are more to worry then the one parameters.


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## cigar95 (May 23, 2008)

Here's the table. I think the RAW value is the one that reflects the current state, correct?


```
ID# ATTRIBUTE_NAME          FLAG     VALUE WORST THRESH TYPE      UPDATED  WHEN_FAILED RAW_VALUE
  1 Raw_Read_Error_Rate     0x002f   200   200   051    Pre-fail  Always       -       0
  3 Spin_Up_Time            0x0027   165   164   021    Pre-fail  Always       -       6741
  4 Start_Stop_Count        0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       173
  5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct   0x0033   200   200   140    Pre-fail  Always       -       0
  7 Seek_Error_Rate         0x002e   100   253   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
  9 Power_On_Hours          0x0032   083   083   000    Old_age   Always       -       12451
 10 Spin_Retry_Count        0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
 11 Calibration_Retry_Count 0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
 12 Power_Cycle_Count       0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       169
192 Power-Off_Retract_Count 0x0032   200   200   000    Old_age   Always       -       24
193 Load_Cycle_Count        0x0032   200   200   000    Old_age   Always       -       173
194 Temperature_Celsius     0x0022   118   110   000    Old_age   Always       -       32
196 Reallocated_Event_Count 0x0032   200   200   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
197 Current_Pending_Sector  0x0032   200   200   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
198 Offline_Uncorrectable   0x0030   200   200   000    Old_age   Offline      -       0
199 UDMA_CRC_Error_Count    0x0032   200   200   000    Old_age   Always       -       622
200 Multi_Zone_Error_Rate   0x0008   200   200   000    Old_age   Offline      -       0
```


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## P Smith (Jul 25, 2002)

Correct. (BTW, this is not by MHDD, no biggy )

UDMA CRC error rate is telling me your SATA cable/connectors are not good enough - check those, just in case.


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## cigar95 (May 23, 2008)

OK, progress!

We ran xfs_repair on UBUNTU, and this apparently has corrected the superblock.

I can now mount the partition in UNIX!!

The directory with all the action looks to be /viewer/segments, with lots of large mpg files. It also shows a fairly large directory titled "lost+found", which is a bit unsettling.

So now, tonight I take the thing home and fire it up once more on the old HR23-700. Cross your fingers.

(BTW, PSmith, the table you saw came from the UBUNTU disk manager program this time, as you may have suspected. Didn't go back today and run it through MHDD again.)

Thanks for all the hints so far, guys. Also thanks to my buddy at work who knows UNIX a few orders of magnitude better than I do.


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## P Smith (Jul 25, 2002)

Hope you did mount it correctly, with 'rtdev' parameter ...


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## cigar95 (May 23, 2008)

P Smith said:


> Hope you did mount it correctly, with 'rtdev' parameter ...


Yup. thank goodness for those who know what they're doing (and those who have gone before with the same problem).

Since I have the thing mounted, is there anything I can look for to see if its healthy? Or do I just hold my breath until I try to boot it tonight?


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## P Smith (Jul 25, 2002)

just fsck would be enough for start ...


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## Rich (Feb 22, 2007)

TBoneit said:


> I still open the command prompt nearly every day here at work. Some things you need to do there such some of the ipconfig and netsh commands.
> 
> I also use it to start regedit when working on a customers computer since I don;'t want them seeing it in the Run command and trying it out.and so on.
> 
> ...


I don't work. Don't have to, so I've managed to stay away from the C prompt for years and hope I never have to use it again....:lol:

Rich


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## cigar95 (May 23, 2008)

P Smith said:


> just fsck would be enough for start ...


We did xfs_repair, which is the second half of fsck specifically for the XFS file system.

And now I'm of to home, to reboot the system . . . . the anticipation is overwhelming . . .. . . !


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## cigar95 (May 23, 2008)

After all the hubbub, it still hangs at the same spot - "Step 1, getting satellite data, this will take a few minutes".

I notice that at the previous screen, the solid blue with "running receiver self-check" takes longer than with booting from my other drives, although it does eventually make it to the next screen.

So it appears my drive is physically all right, my file system is all right, the only thing that I can think of is that a particular *file* with critical data has been scrambled.

That may be more than is fixable with normal diagnostics, unless the trick is to identify the key file, delete it entirely, and then maybe the OS is sset up to rebuilkd the file on its own from what it finds on the disk.

Is that a longshot? Oh, you betcha. One way or the other, I'm getting to the end of this road.


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## P Smith (Jul 25, 2002)

lets wait, what the boot will bring ...


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## Rich (Feb 22, 2007)

cigar95 said:


> After all the hubbub, it still hangs at the same spot - "Step 1, getting satellite data, this will take a few minutes".
> 
> I notice that at the previous screen, the solid blue with "running receiver self-check" takes longer than with booting from my other drives, although it does eventually make it to the next screen.
> 
> ...


You don't have the best HR for one thing. That might be your biggest problem. Probably the worst HR that Pace produced. Never worked up to expectations. That HDD might work well on a better HR.

Rich


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## cigar95 (May 23, 2008)

rich584 said:


> You don't have the best HR for one thing. That might be your biggest problem. Probably the worst HR that Pace produced. Never worked up to expectations. That HDD might work well on a better HR.
> 
> Rich


Well, Rich, I just have the one, and it's done reasonably well for me up to now. Are there other versions of the 23 that are better? My only other experience was with my earlier R-15, before I had HD. (And of course, moving it to another box would be a solution only after I've given up on the current content.)

Actually, that's an intriguing possibility - another box wouldn't be able to play the recordings, but perhaps its own internal diagnostics whatever they might be, and if they exist, might be able to make something out of the existing file system, patch it up, and then send the box back to me in a better condition.

Am I just grasping at straws here? Or should I find a coworker with a better model of HR?


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## Doug Brott (Jul 12, 2006)

I haven't read the thread (shame on me) so I may be way off topic, but going from the title of the thread ....

I'm a firm believer in out with the old, in with the new (even if "old" is not really old). I never trust a failing HDD. Once I know that it's failing .. I move to "new" because generally speaking it's the easiest solution to the problem and cost is rarely a big concern. The problem (many times) is knowing that a HDD if failing.

Now, carry on with your regularly scheduled discussion :grin:


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## P Smith (Jul 25, 2002)

cigar95 said:


> Well, Rich, I just have the one, and it's done reasonably well for me up to now. Are there other versions of the 23 that are better? My only other experience was with my earlier R-15, before I had HD. (And of course, moving it to another box would be a solution only after I've given up on the current content.)
> 
> Actually, that's an intriguing possibility - another box wouldn't be able to play the recordings, but perhaps its own internal diagnostics whatever they might be, and if they exist, might be able to make something out of the existing file system, patch it up, and then send the box back to me in a better condition.
> 
> Am I just grasping at straws here? Or should I find a coworker with a better model of HR?


I wouldn't expect big variation in such basic OS functioning, usually the DVRs using same kernel ... as grasping straw perhaps.


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## Rich (Feb 22, 2007)

cigar95 said:


> Well, Rich, I just have the one, and it's done reasonably well for me up to now. Are there other versions of the 23 that are better? My only other experience was with my earlier R-15, before I had HD. (And of course, moving it to another box would be a solution only after I've given up on the current content.)


I only had one 23-700 and it failed in a week or so. There are several HRs that are "better", even the 21-700 is a much more reliable HR. The most reliable HRs that I have are my eight 20-700s, and my two 24-500s. I also have a 24-100, but I've only had it for a couple weeks and it's still running (which is a new experience for me with any HR ending in 100) well for my wife. I haven't tried an external HDD on it yet. The 24-500s are very finicky about having external drives on them. The 20-700s are reliable, almost as quick as the 24s and will take just about any external or internal HDD and external device. The problem is getting one that works and you're gonna have to be awfully lucky to get one from D* that works correctly. I bought six of them on eBay and Craigslist and they all worked quite well.



> Actually, that's an intriguing possibility - another box wouldn't be able to play the recordings, but perhaps its own internal diagnostics whatever they might be, and if they exist, might be able to make something out of the existing file system, patch it up, and then send the box back to me in a better condition.
> 
> Am I just grasping at straws here? Or should I find a coworker with a better model of HR?


I don't have the patience to try to fix HRs. I have twelve and they back each other up, so if one goes bad and is leased, I get a replacement right away. If one of my owned ones were to go south, I would try to get it running correctly again, if it's only a bad HDD, it's simple to buy a new HDD and replace it. All my owned HRs have a large internal drive internally and they all seem to run much better than putting an external device and HDD on them. Opinions vary on this, all I can do is relate my experiences with my owned HRs. I really prefer a large internal drive to an eSATA setup.

Rich


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## Rich (Feb 22, 2007)

Doug Brott said:


> I haven't read the thread (shame on me) so I may be way off topic, but going from the title of the thread ....
> 
> *I'm a firm believer in out with the old, in with the new (even if "old" is not really old). I never trust a failing HDD. Once I know that it's failing .. I move to "new" because generally speaking it's the easiest solution to the problem and cost is rarely a big concern.* *The problem (many times) is knowing that a HDD if failing.*


*That's the way I feel too, why waste time on something that's not gonna be reliable? 
*

*That is a real problem that can be simply solved by using an external HDD on the HR and seeing if that solves the problem. If it does, you know the problem is with the HDD, if it doesn't, it's something in the HR itself.

*

Rich


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## cigar95 (May 23, 2008)

Rich and Doug, I will say I don't disagree with you the idea of dumping my disk if it shows signs of going bad. I'm just hoping I might get it working long enough to burn off to DVD the stuff I really want to save. First task would be just reviewing what all I have on there. (I know I have all the episodes of The Event, but those can be had on DVD, along with a dozen or so episodes of Law & Order LA, and the last few episodes of the original Law & Order. The unwatched movies can always be found elsewhere if I really want them. Some figure skating for my wife. A few Golf Channel Top 10 lists. What else?)


Since the disk's UNIX file system is now intact and viewable, are there any key files on the disk that I might look at to see what all was in my catalog? Or maybe to see which critical file has gone bad? The file system itself is pretty complex, with all sorts of different folders and such, some with self-explanatory names, some without. (And I haven't even looked at either of the smaller partitions.)

Looking at the recordings themselves is interesting - the "mp4" files are named with date, time, and channel, but they aren't actually files at all - they are folders containing a whole bunch of 16Mb files that make up the recording. Those individual files don't seem to be viewable using your usual UNIX media viewer programs - I'm assuming it's related to the DTV proprietary encoding in one way or another.

I'm not far from the point where I just reformat the disk and use it for redundant backups for my iMac, but I'm still hoping to stumble across a Rosetta Stone of some sort that will allow my HR to read it.

Thanks again.


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## admdata (Apr 22, 2011)

yes those mp4 files are your saved programs, however you can't view them on anything but the org, DVR that recorded then, they are linked to only the box it was recorded on, it is Directv's way of making sure no one is "Stealing" there service.

IMO I would reformat the drive and be done with it, the programs are a lost cause, look at all the time that you have put into this, and you still can't access the programs on the external HD.


Sorry been reading this thread from day one, had to vent and get it all out.


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## P Smith (Jul 25, 2002)

We can't push him to do reformat the drive - give him time to reconnect it to origin DVR and check.


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## Rich (Feb 22, 2007)

cigar95 said:


> Rich and Doug, I will say I don't disagree with you the idea of dumping my disk if it shows signs of going bad. I'm just hoping I might get it working long enough to burn off to DVD the stuff I really want to save. First task would be just reviewing what all I have on there. (I know I have all the episodes of The Event, but those can be had on DVD, along with a dozen or so episodes of Law & Order LA, and the last few episodes of the original Law & Order. The unwatched movies can always be found elsewhere if I really want them. Some figure skating for my wife. A few Golf Channel Top 10 lists. What else?)
> 
> Since the disk's UNIX file system is now intact and viewable, are there any key files on the disk that I might look at to see what all was in my catalog? Or maybe to see which critical file has gone bad? The file system itself is pretty complex, with all sorts of different folders and such, some with self-explanatory names, some without. (And I haven't even looked at either of the smaller partitions.)
> 
> ...


You want to see those recordings? Again, rip the HDD out of the FAP, stick it in an Antec MX-1 or a Thermaltake docking station and see if it works. I'd bet that it will. What have you got to lose? If it doesn't work you can still reformat the HDD and use it somewhere else.

Or, you could get a replacement for the FAP. They do have a five year replacement warranty. Seagate would probably send you the next generation of their failed eSATAs, the Xtreme. Then, in two years, you'll have the same problem all over again.

I had the Xtremes, they exhibited the same symptoms you're seeing with your FAP after about two years of use and I took them apart and am still using a couple of the HDDs that were inside them. There was nothing wrong with the HDDs, it was something in the eSATA controller in the Xtremes that was causing the problems.

Rich


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## cigar95 (May 23, 2008)

rich584 said:


> You want to see those recordings? Again, rip the HDD out of the FAP, stick it in an Antec MX-1 or a Thermaltake docking station and see if it works. I'd bet that it will. What have you got to lose? If it doesn't work you can still reformat the HDD and use it somewhere else.


Rich, sounds like you might be mixing me up with a different thread. My disk has been in an MX-1 all along. (Recall that one of my steps was to put it in a _new_ MX-1 in order to rule out the enclosure as the problem.)

At this point, I've pretty much run out of bullets - having checked the physical disk and repaired the file system, there's not really anything left to try - if the problem was a corrupt catalog file, it doesn't appear that the diagnostics of the DTV OS can fix it.


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## Rich (Feb 22, 2007)

cigar95 said:


> Rich, sounds like you might be mixing me up with a different thread. My disk has been in an MX-1 all along. (Recall that one of my steps was to put it in a _new_ MX-1 in order to rule out the enclosure as the problem.)


Yup, I did. Sorry.



> At this point, I've pretty much run out of bullets - having checked the physical disk and repaired the file system, there's not really anything left to try - if the problem was a corrupt catalog file, it doesn't appear that the diagnostics of the DTV OS can fix it.


Time for a new HDD?

Rich


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## cigar95 (May 23, 2008)

rich584 said:


> Time for a new HDD?


It may indeed be time. And just because I have nothing to lose, perhaps once formatted, I copy the content of the old drive to the new one and see if it's readable. (A Hail Mary attempt? Admittedly so.)

The worst that can happen is that I have to reformat the new HDD a second time. (And since the diagnostic tests don't show physical problems with the original disk, I can probably still use it for other stuff.)

Rich, your posts elsewhere seem to say that "EARS" drives no longer have the compatibility issues that they did when first released, so that would be a good choice. (I don't have a 500, which seems to be the model with the most external drive issues.)


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## Rich (Feb 22, 2007)

cigar95 said:


> It may indeed be time. And just because I have nothing to lose, perhaps once formatted, I copy the content of the old drive to the new one and see if it's readable. (A Hail Mary attempt? Admittedly so.)


I've never had to copy one disc to another. Never had to run diagnostic tests on them. I have twelve active HRs mostly for backing each other up and if one HDD or HR fails, I dump it and get a replacement HR or HDD and start over. Were I you, I'd PM *CCarncross* and ask him exactly how he does it. I know he knows how to do it properly.



> Rich, your posts elsewhere seem to say that "EARS" drives no longer have the compatibility issues that they did when first released, so that would be a good choice. (I don't have a 500, which seems to be the model with the most external drive issues.)


I have an EARS installed in one of my owned 20-700s and it's working really well at the moment. Can't say how long it will last, but I have some EADS HDDs which aren't A/V rated either and they've been running for a couple years internally in my 20-700s. Don't know how many I have, I lost track of what's in what. I don't even know which 20-700 I stuck the 2B EARS in. I would suggest using an EURS rather than the EARS. They are made specifically for DVRs. The only reason I got the EARS was to see if it really worked. I tried one when it first came out and it didn't work then. Just an act of curiosity.

Yeah, I've had nothing but problems with the 500s and externals. Best to put the large internals in them if you own them (figured I'd add that just to save someone else the trouble of mentioning it).

Rich


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## CCarncross (Jul 19, 2005)

No need to PM, I'm here...

Use the process in the Tips and resources subforum, it works great. As far drives go, I highly recommend either the EVDS drives if you can still find them, or the newer EURS models, as they are the both AV rated, whereas I dont believe the EARS drives are.

http://www.dbstalk.com/showthread.php?t=167440


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## cigar95 (May 23, 2008)

Thanks for the pointers - it seems the process is much simpler if I'm not opening my HR, just doing everything externally. In that case, it appears we can simplify the process to

1 - use the HR to format the new fresh drive in the Antec MX-1
2 - remove from the MX-1 and mount the old and new drives under LINUX, using the SATA interface for both, not messing with any USB connections
3 - use the mount / xfsdump/ xfsrestore / umount sequence to copy the data
4 - put the *new* drive in the MX-1, connect to the HR, taking the appropriate precautions, and restart
5 - if it works, wonderful, if not, I can delete the partitions, format it fresh, and just begin again with a blank slate.

I'm also assuming that if I'm working with an UBUNTU system, there's no need to worry about getting GPartEd, correct?

edit to add - OK, now I understand that I should NOT just use my UBUNTU installation - downloaded and burned GPartEd with the proper version. New hard drive still in transit.

So one way or the other, my odyssey is approaching its end. It will take a few days to ship a new HDD. You guys have been very patient, and I've been very persistent in trying to preserve/recover the recordings. (Mira Sorvino in high heels will do that to a guy.)


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## cigar95 (May 23, 2008)

The following is reported from the general thread on copying hard drives, over on the "tips and tricks" board. I'm repeating it here just to close the loop on all the suggestions you guys gave me here. In the end, transferring the recordings from a drive gone bad to a new drive, when the well-established xfsdum/xfsrestore process doesn't work, is fairly straightforward.

--------------------------------------

All right, persistence pays off.

After much fiddling around, I have succeeded in transferring individual recordings from an unbootable but apparently intact HDD to a fresh system and played those recordings back on my HR23-700.

The process itself is quite simple, once it's all figured out. Basically, it amounts to six steps, once the two drives are mounted and the "label" identifying the program is located:
1 - copy one file (metadata of some sort) from its directory on the old drive to the corresponding directory on the new drive
2 - copy one folder (more metadata) in the same way
3 - create a directory to hold the actual recording data
4 - change the permissions to match those on the source drive
5 - copy the recording data, using xfs_rtcp
6 - change the permissions on the files containing the recording data

I'm not even certain the permission changes are necessary, but I did it to be safe. Step 3 is necessary because unlike the cp command, xfs_rtcp requires that the directory already exists - it won't recursively copy directories.

I also discovered, accidentally, that if you only do steps 1-4, the recording will still show up in your listing when you boot the drive. You can't watch it, of course, but you can find out what it was. This was particularly helpful to me, since I had a long list of programs and many of them I couldn't figure out what they were.

Each program has all of its data and metadata stored in files and folders whose name includes the date and time of the recording as well as the channel recorded. The naming conventions are also consistent enough that I can also write a script to automate the transfer of a large number of recordings sequentially.

There are two downsides to the process. The first is that the xfs_rtcp command is painfully slow. When using my drives mounted via USB at home over the weekend, it took about 90 minutes for every hour of recording. Even here at the office, it still takes about 45 minutes when the drives are connected via the eSATA interface.

The other possible problem is that a couple of the recordings have behaved flaky. I found that in one or two cases, not all of the recording files transferred. (Recall that every recording is stored as a series of 16 Mb files.) So I had to find which files were missing - not difficult using unix directory and "diff" functions - and transfer those few manually.

I don't know if this latter problem is due to the "not ready for prime time" nature of the xfs_rtcp command, or if it's related to the underlying problems that caused the older disk to freak out on me. (Recall that the problems were related to corruption of the *contents* of files on the drive, rather than to physical problems with the drive or to corruption of the file system itself.)

Now that I understand *most* of the process, I see that this can be used to transfer recordings between *any* two drives that are used on the same DVR, not just, as in my case, from a drive that has gone bad. This could be handy for those crazy souls who may use multiple external drives on a single DVR, or who own their DVR and might wish to move recordings between their external and their internal drives. (Admittedly, it's not a quick process, so the value of the move would have to be really high, such as if you have all the episodes of a series on one drive, and somehow one episode ended up being recorded on a different drive.)

In the process of tinkering around inside the file system, I also see that a whole bunch of "junk" accumulates on the drive - I see a whole bunch of entries in the list of recordings that look like they are somehow left over from long-deleted recordings. These are taking up a lot of real estate on the drive.

Is this process of sufficient interest that I should type up all the specific details and post them here? Or am I just the mad scientist who should be left to his own devices?


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## P Smith (Jul 25, 2002)

All details would be greatly appreciated. Please post them, perhaps open new thread "How to copy recordings from one DVR drive to other".

One thing you're really missed (I'm doing the same advise again and again ) - using self-bootable CD with MHDD, a) get SMART data, b) run Scan with Remap=ON, c) get second SMART data.
It will shows you a health of the old drive, will make bad sectors readable again (well, if a content of those sector readable, you will have full copy of those) and will show on second SMART, so you could estimate if the disk is diving down or holding well.


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## bobcamp1 (Nov 8, 2007)

P Smith said:


> All details would be greatly appreciated. Please post them, perhaps open new thread "How to copy recordings from one DVR drive to other".
> 
> One thing you're really missed (I'm doing the same advise again and again ) - using self-bootable CD with MHDD, a) get SMART data, b) run Scan with Remap=ON, c) get second SMART data.
> It will shows you a health of the old drive, will make bad sectors readable again (well, if a content of those sector readable, you will have full copy of those) and will show on second SMART, so you could estimate if the disk is diving down or holding well.


I can tell you that SMART can often be quite dumb, and simply fail to detect the errors that the O/S can. Obviously if SMART (or the O/S) is detecting it, your hard drive is circling the drain. But hard drives often fail when all of their SMART parameters are perfect. I just RMA'd one myself a few weeks back.

Also, I can tell you that the A/V hard drives are a scam. A few parameters that make a theoretical difference (but no actual measured difference) are tweaked, and the warranty is sometimes bumped up. You pay more, but they are the same exact hard drives with the same exact failure rates as regular drives.


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## cigar95 (May 23, 2008)

P Smith said:


> All details would be greatly appreciated. Please post them, perhaps open new thread "How to copy recordings from one DVR drive to other".
> 
> One thing you're really missed (I'm doing the same advise again and again ) - using self-bootable CD with MHDD, a) get SMART data, b) run Scan with Remap=ON, c) get second SMART data.
> It will shows you a health of the old drive, will make bad sectors readable again (well, if a content of those sector readable, you will have full copy of those) and will show on second SMART, so you could estimate if the disk is diving down or holding well.


OK, when I get a chance (things are a bit busy at the moment) I will write up the whole procedure.

Also, remember that I ran MHDD way back at the very beginning, and the physical drive itself was fine. (You commented at the time on a possible issue with the SATA connection, but since that was the connection to the computer and not the connection to my DVR, it was likely a non-issue.)


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## P Smith (Jul 25, 2002)

I don't remember - was it SMART-Scan-SMART three step process ? ...


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## P Smith (Jul 25, 2002)

bobcamp1 said:


> I can tell you that SMART can often be quite dumb, and simply fail to detect the errors that the O/S can. Obviously if SMART (or the O/S) is detecting it, your hard drive is circling the drain. But hard drives often fail when all of their SMART parameters are perfect. I just RMA'd one myself a few weeks back.
> 
> Also, I can tell you that the A/V hard drives are a scam. A few parameters that make a theoretical difference (but no actual measured difference) are tweaked, and the warranty is sometimes bumped up. You pay more, but they are the same exact hard drives with the same exact failure rates as regular drives.


While we can bounce around SMART-noSMART, value-novalue posts, I did a lot of work for IT, enough to appreciate a value of SMART, the programs and did salvage of many gigabyte of data for companies and did save money for its recovery. Perhaps the forum is not right place to discuss the aspects ... Or you are not experienced in IT chores.


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## cigar95 (May 23, 2008)

P Smith said:


> I don't remember - was it SMART-Scan-SMART three step process ? ...


I think I just did Scan-SMART.

The scan reported no changes at the time.


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## bobcamp1 (Nov 8, 2007)

cigar95 said:


> I think I just did Scan-SMART.
> 
> The scan reported no changes at the time.


Did you do the scan with remap on? That's the most useful feature of that program. Do that, then *immediately* copy the data off the drive. xfsdump/xfsrestore should work after that. If that doesn't work, then what you did appears to be an excellent plan B. I think in either event, you may have a few recorded programs that won't play back properly, but it's better than losing everything.

You can peek at the SMART parameters after the scan. If they show everything's OK, you still could very well have a failing hard drive. If they show things are failing, then your hard drive is definitely dying. According to Google, 56% of failing hard drives do NOT show any problems when you look at their SMART data. According to my "experience" (which is more than most people), that number is indeed around 60%.

I used to use Spinrite instead of MHDD, but it has too many incompatibility problems with modern motherboards for me to recommend it anymore. And it's not free.


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## cigar95 (May 23, 2008)

I believe I ran the scan with remap on, although at this late date several weeks later, I can't be sure. 

In any case, I believe that my problem was with the *content* of some key file being corrupted, rather than with bad sectors or anything like that - a standard xfsdump/xfsrestore copied the entire disk without any warnings or error messages, and the result was a disk that showed exactly the same "frozen" behavior as with my original drive. (That observation doesn't constitute "proof", but it might qualify as circumstantial evidence.)

So far I have found one of my recordings for which every one of the recording segments is no longer on the disk. (Each recording is stored in a very long series of 16 Mb files - depending on the show, it takes about 150-200 of these per recorded hour.) The transfer process was a little flaky when I was doing it via a USB interface, but it seems more reliable (and faster) doing it here at the office with eSATA.

I also have to say, the whole process of exploring the file structure and figuring out which files needed to be transferred and which permissions needed setting has been an interesting one. 

I could not have done it without the help of the dbstalk board members - for instance, I might never have figured out that I needed to copy the recording segments using the "xfs_rtcp" command, rather than a typical unix "cp". I copied a few programs using the latter, since it was much faster, and the DVR was perfectly happy playing them back. The only problem was that cp sent them to the regular partition, which is only 16 Gb, rather than the real-time partition, which is over 900 Gb. So it filled up very quickly.

Although I knew it was likely doomed to failure, I contacted DTV customer support and asked if they could put me in touch with someone in engineering to ask a few more questions about the file structure on the disk. When I described what I was trying to do, the reply I got was pretty much "you're not seriously trying to do that? We have no way to help you."

So as I said before, I hope to soon have a chance to write up the process in great step-by-step detail and post it back. I expect there are probably very few who want to do this themselves, but there will probably be some, and it would make me feel good to make a small contribution to the body of knowledge here.


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## P Smith (Jul 25, 2002)

Go ahead.

[I would do that if just one person would express his willing to repeat same procedure. Perhaps, an author of the program would see more interest to it and will make it work faster.]


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## cigar95 (May 23, 2008)

Details for the transfer process posted here:

http://www.dbstalk.com/showthread.php?t=195743


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## cigar95 (May 23, 2008)

I need to follow up on this old thread because I discovered there was a trivial fix to my problem. After all the work I did learning to copy the programs to a new drive, the fix is no longer necessary, but had I merely wanted to get the bad disk working, this very quick fix would have done the trick.

Recall that my recordings on the bad drive were undisturbed, but that there was something in the "system files" that caused the boot process to hang. So the solution was to simply replace the operating system.

With a brand new hard drive, I booted the DVR, which installed a fresh operating system on it. Made sure to allow time for it to download the latest system updates.

Then I used the well-known process, using xfsdump/xfsrestore, for copying an entire drive - but I copied *from* the virgin drive *to* the corrupted drive, remembering that this process will overwrite existing files, but will not touch any other files. 

Because this drive had no recordings on it, the copy process took all of 23 seconds. In the process, the fresh system over-wrote whatever file had caused the system to go bad - ergo, the old drive now boots just fine, and all of the old recordings are still there, except for one. Presumably that one was somehow involved in the corruption.

Since all my content had already been transferred to a newer, safer, and larger drive, this latest process was really just for my own intellectual curiosity. I can keep the drive around in case I need it in the future, or maybe I'll just reformat it and use it as a regular computer drive.


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## P Smith (Jul 25, 2002)

Lucky, the xfs programs doing not exactly dump -> restore, but dump -> replace_same_files_folders_only.


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## cigar95 (May 23, 2008)

Some of the postings in those long threads on the disk copying process made it clear that it would overwrite, but not otherwise erase. So it doesn't surprise me that this worked.

What bugs me is that I didn't think of this back when I was first trying to solve the problem. It would have saved me a heck of a lot of time, although I might never have discovered the fun little trick for transferring individual recordings. 

(I *did* try the same copy in the opposite direction, but that one failed because it just copied the corrupted file onto the new disk.)


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## P Smith (Jul 25, 2002)

Anyway, we should say thank you for developing new ways of the common task of rescue recordings from failed DVR drives.


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## purrdue (Sep 5, 2011)

Hi. I'm having a similar problem with my drive. I don't know if it's my HD dvr-hr 20 or my new wd 2 TB eurs I just got. I've been using the new drive for about a week and everything was working fine on a daily basis I would switch between my old Hitachi drive and the eurs drive at night to record new shows. I had about 10% filled and 2 days ago when I switched the drives it got stuck on the step 1 on the checking satellite settings for over 20 minutes so I reset same result, did that 3 times waited a total of an hour and it wouldn't boot went back to old drive booted no problem. After a couple of hours tried new drive again and it booted up this time but it did a software update and erased all programs. I tested it again after recording something and it restarted fine and even worked the next day when I switched. But same thing happened today wouldn't boot and then when it did software update and programs gone. Any suggestions what could be going wrong? I'm pretty sure I'm going to send the drive back but do I stick with the same kind. I can't have my programs keep disappearing on me and I like to keep seasons at a time before I start watching them. Thanks for any suggestions to my very annoying problem. Sorry for such a long post. SS


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## Rich (Feb 22, 2007)

purrdue said:


> Hi. I'm having a similar problem with my drive. I don't know if it's my HD dvr-hr 20 or my new wd 2 TB eurs I just got. I've been using the new drive for about a week and everything was working fine on a daily basis I would switch between my old Hitachi drive and the eurs drive at night to record new shows. I had about 10% filled and 2 days ago when I switched the drives it got stuck on the step 1 on the checking satellite settings for over 20 minutes so I reset same result, did that 3 times waited a total of an hour and it wouldn't boot went back to old drive booted no problem. After a couple of hours tried new drive again and it booted up this time but it did a software update and erased all programs. I tested it again after recording something and it restarted fine and even worked the next day when I switched. But same thing happened today wouldn't boot and then when it did software update and programs gone. Any suggestions what could be going wrong? I'm pretty sure I'm going to send the drive back but do I stick with the same kind. I can't have my programs keep disappearing on me and I like to keep seasons at a time before I start watching them. Thanks for any suggestions to my very annoying problem. Sorry for such a long post. SS


First thing I'd stop doing is switching drives constantly. That's a great way to screw something up. You sound like someone who should have multiple HRs. That solves the problem of having to switch drives constantly.

I know someone is gonna jump on what I say next and say that they've got an EURS that is running perfectly, but I've read far too many posts where the poster says that they've had that same sort of problem with the EURS. I actually kinda like the EARS, especially with a 20-700.

You'd probably be all right with another EURS if you stop switching back and forth between externals. In layman's terms, you're confusing the 20. If that's a 20-100, it's confused enough. If it's a 20-700, you might be on the verge of wrecking one of the best DVRs D* has produced.

Rich


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## purrdue (Sep 5, 2011)

rich584 said:


> First thing I'd stop doing is switching drives constantly. That's a great way to screw something up. You sound like someone who should have multiple HRs. That solves the problem of having to switch drives constantly.
> 
> I know someone is gonna jump on what I say next and say that they've got an EURS that is running perfectly, but I've read far too many posts where the poster says that they've had that same sort of problem with the EURS. I actually kinda like the EARS, especially with a 20-700.
> 
> ...


Thanks for your response. I do have more than 1 dvr I have 4 and the reason I have been switching the drives back and forth is I want to change the drive to the new one permanently but I have 75% of stuff I still have to watch on my old drive. It's a HR-20/700 by the way. I certainly wouldn't trust using the new drive for a while filling up 25% or more and then swap the drives after a couple of months to watch something on my old drive and when I went back to the new drive all my programs would be gone.


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## P Smith (Jul 25, 2002)

Rich, you're over emphasize the swap process. 

It's just same as the DVR turning OFF and ON.
Nothing unusual.
But the HDD model ... that's the whole idea of checking its reliability.


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## cigar95 (May 23, 2008)

purrdue, I can tell you right off the bat that your problem is different than the one I had. I had somehow had one or more files in the operating system get corrupted, and once I installed a new OS on the same drive, right on top of the old drive, it worked fine, and with the old recordings still intact.

The fact that you're seeing the problem repeated with what is purportedly a fresh OS each time seems to say that it's likely a problem with the drive itself.

I know that my thread buddy PSmith is going to recommend looking at the SMART data, and that's a good idea, but I would try one other thing as well - load the drive onto a computer and reformat it - doesn't matter what you reformat it with, just do something that will wipe out all the old stuff. That way, if the DVR re-installs are leaving some of the old system intact, the next reinstall after you reformat should truly give you a fresh system. 

(Having said this, it may be that the DVR really does do a full reformat when it installs a fresh OS - if that's the case, I'm sure someone will step in and say so, and in that case, my suggestion is just redundant.)


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## P Smith (Jul 25, 2002)

cigar95, just small remark (I thought it was once, but ..) - the DVR's Linux OS do not install OS or its parts onto the drive. The Linux creating file system and then use it as a storage of temporary data, yes - user's recordings/schedules/etc are temporary data and system logs, pure system temp files. But not OS parts - all the companies are too paranoid to allow ppl examine/modify programs and the OS data. Perhaps TiVo gave them the scare experience when everything what *USERS wants* was done .


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## cigar95 (May 23, 2008)

Yeah, I was a bit cavalier about using the term "operating system". Replace all that with "DTV working system files" - the stuff that the DVR needs to boot and show you your GUI and such, but apart from the data related to your specific recordings, scheduled programs, favorites, and so on. But not the Unix system itself.


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## Rich (Feb 22, 2007)

P Smith said:


> Rich, you're over emphasize the swap process.
> 
> *It's just same as the DVR turning OFF and ON.*
> Nothing unusual.
> But the HDD model ... that's the whole idea of checking its reliability.


That was the first thing I thought of when I read his first post. I think I'll stand firm on that opinion. I don't switch my external HDDs around and I have no problems such as he has. As for the EURS, I doubt that the folks that have them working are swapping them back and forth either. Something caused that 20-700 to wipe out all his recordings, something that's never happened to me.

And what's the big difference between what he's doing with his externals and what most of us do with ours? Going back and forth with them.

Rich


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## Rich (Feb 22, 2007)

purrdue said:


> Thanks for your response. I do have more than 1 dvr I have 4 and the reason I have been switching the drives back and forth is I want to change the drive to the new one permanently but I have 75% of stuff I still have to watch on my old drive. It's a HR-20/700 by the way. * I certainly wouldn't trust using the new drive for a while filling up 25% or more and then swap the drives after a couple of months to watch something on my old drive and when I went back to the new drive all my programs would be gone.*


I'd think the best way to avoid that is to watch the recordings on your old external HDD and then put the new external on the 20-700 and leave it alone. I don't think the reformatting process is to blame for the wipe-out of your recordings, it's probably the HR itself. That's where the OS resides.

Rich


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## cigar95 (May 23, 2008)

I can think of one thing that might be causing problems related to switching drives, and maybe it's obvious, but you never know.

DO NOT fiddle with an eSATA connection on a drive that is powered on. That was the one thing I did early on that caused me to lose programs once - I pulled the eSATA cable out of the external drive while it was still powered on, even though the DVR itself had been shut down, so the drive wasn't actually doing anything that I know of. It didn't cause my whole system to be wiped out, but a number of my programs disappeared, and a lot of the others became unwatchable because part of their recorded content disappeared.

Rich, are you aware of some mechanism that might cause problems with frequent rebooting, provided that the drives involved were not "mistreated" in the process? I'm not convinced that we can draw your conclusions based on the anecdotal samples, especially since I probably switch boxes a couple times a week and the only problem I've had with losing recordings was when I pulled a cable and apparently sent some sort of electronic "spike" through the HDD.


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## Rich (Feb 22, 2007)

cigar95 said:


> I can think of one thing that might be causing problems related to switching drives, and maybe it's obvious, but you never know.
> 
> *DO NOT fiddle with an eSATA connection on a drive that is powered on.* That was the one thing I did early on that caused me to lose programs once - I pulled the eSATA cable out of the external drive while it was still powered on, even though the DVR itself had been shut down, so the drive wasn't actually doing anything that I know of. It didn't cause my whole system to be wiped out, but a number of my programs disappeared, and a lot of the others became unwatchable because part of their recorded content disappeared.


Once you have the eSATA to eSATA jumper in place there are several things you don't want to do. One is moving the external device when it's on. I've destroyed a couple out-of-the-box eSATAs doing that. Another is pulling the jumper cable out when both the HR and external device are "on". I've been thru a lot of external devices and I highly recommend never removing the jumper once you have it hooked up. Several members have posted in the past that the jumpers are not meant to be plugged in and out. Apparently it's not that kind of plug that takes to multiple plug-ins. Not sure how much truth there is to that, but I don't do it.



> Rich, are you aware of some mechanism that might cause problems with frequent rebooting, provided that the drives involved were not "mistreated" in the process?


Frequent rebooting seems to be a good thing to do, if you do it correctly. I do it a lot because I have so many HRs (12) on my MRV. *CCarncross* reboots his HRs weekly, if I remember correctly, and he really knows what he's doing when it comes to external devices. I don't do it that much, but I do reboot them at least once a month. I have a couple external devices that the HRs don't pick up if I use the Menu Restart and I have to pull the power cords on them when I reboot. I've never had a problem caused by doing that.



> I'm not convinced that we can draw your conclusions based on the anecdotal samples, especially since I probably switch boxes a couple times a week and the only problem I've had with losing recordings was when I pulled a cable and apparently sent some sort of electronic "spike" through the HDD.


Pretty much everything I write about external or internal HDDs is based on my experiences with them. I'd call that "empirical" rather than "anecdotal". My opinions on the EURS are the exceptions, I've never had one. But I read every post that concerns external HDDs and have done so for several years. When I do something like that, I see patterns emerging and use those patterns to make judgments or form opinions.

Because I have so many HRs, most with 2TB drives, and use them to back each other up, I always have multiple copies of programs so I've never had to copy programs from one HDD to another. Don't know how to do it. I do know where the info is if I ever want to do it, but I really doubt that will happen. I never put HDDs on a computer to check them out, I think that's kinda like having a car battery go dead and recharging it. I just buy a new battery. I know a lot of the members are IT people and enjoy playing with HDDs, but I don't. If one of mine goes bad, I just buy a new one.

Think of it this way, *P Smith* is at one end of the spectrum and I'm on the other end....:lol:

Rich


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## cigar95 (May 23, 2008)

rich584 said:


> Several members have posted in the past that the jumpers are not meant to be plugged in and out. Apparently it's not that kind of plug that takes to multiple plug-ins. Not sure how much truth there is to that, but I don't do it.


I've read the same thing, and the physical nature of the connectors seems to be consistent with that. Based on that advice, I have a cable attached to the back of my HR, and my HDDs both have a cable. Then I have an adapter to hook the two together. If I'm going to switch boxes, the only connection that needs to be broken is at the adapter.

If the connection wears out, all I have to replace is an adapter and a cable or two, which means breaking the connection at the HDD enclosure only once in a great while. (Wearing out the connector on an enclosure isn't the end of the world, but buying a new $50 Antec enclosure is something I'd rather avoid. Wearing out the connector on the HR, on the other hand, is a disaster, since replacing the HR makes all the content on the HDDs useless.)

If the connection were analog, I'd be more concerned about using two cables and an adapter. Since the signal is digital, I'm more confident that if it works at all, it should work just fine.


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## P Smith (Jul 25, 2002)

Nay, the eSATA has been invented because of that: internal SATA connection should lasts 50 times at least; so there is came robust, well designed new eSATA pair what should withstand 1000 pairing ...


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## CCarncross (Jul 19, 2005)

Don't forget I have another reason for restarting my receivers every weekend as well...more info posted in the other forum section...

I have had absolutely zero issues with plugging and unplugging eSATA devices over the last 5 years...it is keyed, there is an up and down to the eSATA connector...if you try to plug it in upside down, you could damage the dvr and/or the cable....possibly what some here may have run into...some cables also have locking tabs...


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