Checking HDD

[raymondjpg]

I have a DP P2, maybe three or four years old, that should have some life left in it.

Today I saw some tvwiz format files in the recordings list and when I went to delete them it wouldn't do it and instead said it needed to do a HD check.

OK so far, but the check never progressed beyond about a quarter of the way along the progress bar. I tried to power off the P2, but it would not, so I killed power at the mains. Now when I restore power the P2 goes through its startup routine but then declares on the front panel that a HD check is needed. Then all I see is a black screen with the HD check stuck at about a quarter of the way along the progress bar in the top right of the screen.

Is there any way I can jog the P2 out of this mode so I can get to the setup screen to initiate a HDD check from there?

[peteru]

Sounds like you have a large HDD. Let it run overnight.

[raymondjpg]

Sounds like you have a large HDD. Let it run overnight.

It is only a small HDD, 500 GB I think, but I will let it run overnight. Thanks for the suggestion

[Grumpy_Geoff]

Try re-seating the drive cables. I had to do that a few times with my DP-Lite i, as it'd be doing similar to yours, The data cable to the motherboard was the problem I think. It didn't matter how long I left it, it never completed the check. I couldn't format it neither, as that always came back saying failed. The Lite i still works to this day, it was on yesterday feeding the U4 via HDMI-IN

[raymondjpg]

Try re-seating the drive cables. I had to do that a few times with my DP-Lite i, as it'd be doing similar to yours, The data cable to the motherboard was the problem I think. It didn't matter how long I left it, it never completed the check. I couldn't format it neither, as that always came back saying failed. The Lite i still works to this day, it was on yesterday feeding the U4 via HDMI-IN

Thanks for that suggestion. I pulled it out and reseated the SATA cable and connected it to power. It still declares an HDD check is necessary on the front panel, and after five minutes Is still seemingly checking as I cannot power it off yet. I'll leave it overnight and see if it finished the check. If it doesn't it looks like another T2, or maybe a U4 although the latter seems to be somewhat unreliable according to what I see in this forum.

[Grumpy_Geoff]

...If it doesn't it looks like another T2, or maybe a U4 although the latter seems to be somewhat unreliable according to what I see in this forum.

Bollocks - my U4 is rock solid, and I'm not alone there
You could also try a different HDD in the P2 just in case it's the drive.

[raymondjpg]

Bollocks - my U4 is rock solid, and I'm not alone there
You could also try a different HDD in the P2 just in case it's the drive.

That's some affirmation but grampus has resorted to a T3. If the U4 is rock solid I'd probably go with that and work it into the gigabit portion of my network.

I replaced my original P2 because I thought that the HDD in that was flaky, but I will take it out and try it. I also have a Seagate pipeline 1 TB somewhere I could have a go at fitting.

[raymondjpg]

The HD check completed eventually. I don't know how long it took but I estimate it at something over two hours for a 500 GB disk. There are no longer any tvwiz files in the recordings list. Everything else appears to be functioning as it should.

I don't know if reseating the SATA connector helped but it was probably worth doing

[jcraigau]

My DP-P2 always says check HDD when I turn it on.
I've left it overnight and its still going in the morning. The status bar looks like it is at 100% but nothing happens.
The only way to get it out of this is to power cycle it.

[Paul_oz53]

My DP-P2 always says check HDD when I turn it on.
I've left it overnight and its still going in the morning. The status bar looks like it is at 100% but nothing happens.
The only way to get it out of this is to power cycle it.

This is often a sign of a failing power supply. It could be a HDD fault too but one of my P2s had a number of faulty small capacitors on the motherboard that also had to be replaced. Contact Mark (aka Warkus on this forum) at Decisive Computer Solutions. Affordable quality repairs are his speciality.

[Brainz]

My DP-P2 always says check HDD when I turn it on.
I've left it overnight and its still going in the morning. The status bar looks like it is at 100% but nothing happens.
The only way to get it out of this is to power cycle it.

My DP-P1 had problems when the HDD was nearly filled to capacity. The filesystem would become very unstable and ask for HDD checks on startup. Eventually I lost a whole bunch of files that I am still trying to recover on my T2 with the P1 drive in an external dock. Not much fun!

[jcraigau]

I've had it repaired once already.
It corrupted a bunch of files so in the bin it goes.
V2 got delivered today so fun times ahead.

[jasewell1]

I had this problem but I discovered the cure.

BEFORE switching off at the mains ALWAYS press the blue Beyonwiz circle on the front of the unit and WAIT until the STANDBY display ends and the time shows. THEN switch off at the mains and all will then restart normally. You can also use the End Session button on the remote.

In the event the disk will not check, no matter what, a solution is as follows.

Open the case and remove the hard disk and put the disk into a PC and let the Windows 10 reformat the disk.
Then put the hard disk back into the Beyonwiz and it will totally reformat it without any problems.

You can replace the disk in the beyonwiz with a larger disk as it is just a standard PC style disk. This gives more recording capacity.

Sometimes a hiccup occurs and the beyonwiz will delete recordings off the disk. To avoid this you can transfer recordings from the beyonwiz disk to a Windows 10 disk using yardwiz or WizFX Windows software. Both work OK.

I put the recordings on a UBUNTU LINUX disk and the free Ubuntu software can read the .ts files straight away. Also the Windows VLC media player can play the .ts files. Similarly the beyonwiz can access the files on the Ubuntu LINUX disk or the Windows 10 disk over the network and play the .ts files.

[MrQuade]

This zombie thread is scaring me!

[Gully]

This zombie thread is scaring me!

Must be a different virus!

It's a strange post indeed, not sure who approved it.

[prl]

Not me, but I may well have if I'd seen it first. It might be a test post that will be followed up with spam, but it seems a bit too on-topic for that, though I wouldn't be surprised if that's what it turned out to be.

Anyway, the user is still in probation

[Grumpy_Geoff]

..., but it seems a bit too on-topic for that, ...

Yep, every part of the post is accurate, as far as I'm concerned.

[Gully]

..., but it seems a bit too on-topic for that, ...

Yep, every part of the post is accurate, as far as I'm concerned.

Well it is harmless enough to wait and see but not sure about the assessment of it being accurate - where is the "End Session button on the remote" ?

[Grumpy_Geoff]

Well it is harmless enough to wait and see but not sure about the assessment of it being accurate - where is the "End Session button on the remote" ?

Power button, top left. Not every button on a BR-01 or BR-02 remote is labelled. jasewell1 is obviously referring to a DP-P1/P2.

[Gully]

Well it is harmless enough to wait and see but not sure about the assessment of it being accurate - where is the "End Session button on the remote" ?

Power button, top left. Not every button on a BR-01 or BR-02 remote is labelled. jasewell1 is obviously referring to a DP-P1/P2.

Yes I figured the model and I guess you could call it that at a stretch.

[peteru]

The user posted from an IP address that is allocated to Telstra in NSW, so in this instance I would suspect that the user is either a blackhat or naive user, rather than one of the typical spammers we have seen so far.

Given the proliferation of bad actors as of late, I'd err on the cautious side and treat the user with suspicion. The post does have a number of signals that should raise security eyebrows. It fits the profile of a targetted attack, rather than random mass spamming.

[jasewell1]

Geez you blokes are paranoid. I am a genuine user and I bought DP-P2 some years ago and the only problem was crook sectors on the hard disk which occasionally would wreck a playback of a recording. I subsequently replaced the hard disk with a bigger one which goes well.

One nice thing with the DP-P2 is you can skip over the ads in a recording using the arrows.

Back to the crook sectors on the disk. When Windows 10 formats a disk it blocks out any crook sectors so they never get used.

The DP-P2 does not seem to do this and so the crook sectors will wreck any recording that uses them.

One little issue is the DP-P2 can't produce the sound on Sydney channel 75 and ch 78 which are of not much interest anyway. The normal Samsung TV is OK with ch 75 and ch 78.

If the DP-P2 copies a recording to a PC it comes over as a messy list of little files that can be played on the PC with VLC.

If yardwiz or WixFX is used then the recording comes over as a .ts file which is much neater and in standard format.

The DP-P2 works without problems so I have not bothered to upgrade it. WizZilla seems to be full of bugs.

[prl]

Geez you blokes are paranoid.

The board is subject to regular spamming attempts, and occasionally malicious attacks that have destroyed the database underlying the forum software. "Just because you're paranoid, it doesn't mean they're not out to get you"

The probation system was introduced to help reduce the amount of spam that gets through to the forum and to help with weeding out malicious attacks.

Sometimes spammers try to make more genuine-looking posts in order to get past the probation, though that's infrequent. I didn't actually think your post was one of those, and though I didn't approve it, I probably would have.