HDD locked up

For all discussions regarding the JVC HM-HDS1 (40GB hard disk and S-VHS recorder)

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Andy Cippico
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Post by Andy Cippico »

MerleOne wrote:Just a short update : I have now made more recordings on my HDS1, almost filling up the spinrite-repaired HDD and all the "frozen images" phenomenons seem to be gone now. So I guess it should be ok now, at least for some time.

Thanks again for the support.

.merle1.
Again, good news!
I wonder what Spinrite actually does? Does it repair the bad sector or add it to the drive's bad sector table? I would have thought the latter, but don't quote me.
MerleOne
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Post by MerleOne »

Well, hello again. This time the HDD is really dead. Makes horrible metallic noise when turned on and the JVC refuses to boot. I guess it's now time for a replacement. But the question is where can I purchased such a HDD ? I saw one on http://www.ultratec.co.uk/ some months ago but it's gone now. Maybe eBay or JVC support ?

.merle1.

PS : regarding spinrite : it is supposed to read/write several times sectors that have turned bad and in some case can revive them again. And it seemed to work, at least for 6 months.
Andy Cippico wrote: Again, good news!
I wonder what Spinrite actually does? Does it repair the bad sector or add it to the drive's bad sector table? I would have thought the latter, but don't quote me.
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Andy Cippico
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Post by Andy Cippico »

.merle1
Sorry to hear it's died. I had a brief look for a drive but didn't find many suppliers that were willing to publish a price. I saw one that was asking over ?100 for one. That's just crazy.
I notice that ebayer gdelargysold a couple of them very recently. You could message him to ask if he's got any more.
When I had to replace mine they were so hard to find that when I did find a supplier I bought two of them. I didn't want to take a chance not having another backup unit.
I wish you luck...
Andy.
MerleOne
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Post by MerleOne »

Thanks, will try that eBay address. I also hope JVC aftersale service has kept some of them !

.merle1.
smurf
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Post by smurf »

Andy Cippico wrote:Hi EagleFlyFree,
Thanks for dropping by. Your description sounds very close to what I had with my unit. Unfortunately, I still haven't found the direct cause of it.
Here's what worked for me on several occasions:
  • Unplug the unit from the mains and open it up.
    Disconnect the HDD ribbon cable (leave the power connector in)
    Power up the unit and wait for about 2-3 minutes, then unplug it from the mains again.
    Reconnect the HDD ribbon cable and power the unit back up.
    If it's anything like mine, you'll see it flash the logo quite a few times, then switch itself off. Once it's done that, try turning it on (using the normal power button at the front). It may recover.
If this fails, you might need to either replace the HDD or re-image it.
Let us know how you get on,
Regards,
Andy
Hi,
just wanted to drop by and say thanks for that :D. My HM-HDS1 also had the problem that it one day suddenly did not work correctly anymore and I could not power it on anymore. The HDD just kept making some clicking noise and the blue LED kept blinking. At first I thought I would need to get a new hard drive and possibly even need to get it repaired it at the JVC service (since you cannot clone a broken hard drive). But then I tried your instructions and now it seems to work again :) (only did a few tests like switching programs, pausing, resuming, etc., but all in all it seems ok again).
sahbi
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Post by sahbi »

Unplug the unit from the mains and open it up.
Disconnect the HDD ribbon cable (leave the power connector in)
Power up the unit and wait for about 2-3 minutes, then unplug it from the mains again.
Reconnect the HDD ribbon cable and power the unit back up.
If it's anything like mine, you'll see it flash the logo quite a few times, then switch itself off. Once it's done that, try turning it on (using the normal power button at the front). It may recover.
I too have tried this, but to no avail, it was clicking and sometimes constantly rebooting and now i have no screen coming up at all.

The drive also doesnt show up in bios, or either with spinrite or hdd regenerator as merle had tried/mentioned in a previous post.

My guess is that i need a hard drive too.
But im wondering if there is a way to make the vcr part work at least?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Wayne
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Post by Wayne »

it sounds like the drive died completely :(

as the operating system for the unit is on that drive it is unlikely that you will be able to get it working as as simple VCR, and to be honest, that side of it i never thought much of.

best bet is to grab another drive off ebay i guess and get the image that is floating around here and try and rebuild it.

do you have all the details of the drive you need ?
sahbi
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Post by sahbi »

Thanks for the Info Wayne,

I did get a hold of a drive off of ebay, and have written the image i got from the ftp site with ghost onto this drive.

The drive is D540X-4K

Now i dont get any picture at all, it used to display the boot screen repeatedly with the broken/clicking drive..

Now it just sits there with the blue light on...no image no nothing.
I tried the jumper settings slave master and cable select.

Im going to try and low level format the drive with the maxtor tools, re-image and give it another go.

The jumper is supposed to be on master or cable select?

Anyway, wish me luck in trying to get this beast to rip roarin' state for there is nothing like the sweet taste of victory, and all you guys get a sip of it when i succeed with all your help :D

In the mean time i'll read and re-read anything i might have missed in the forum here to get me on the right track, in case im off a bit..
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Andy Cippico
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Post by Andy Cippico »

sahbi,
Are you in PAL land? If not, the image you downloaded may not work on a non-PAL unit.
NB: This is only speculation, I cannot be sure unless a non-PAL user tries the image and reports back.
A.
Wayne
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Post by Wayne »

eek.... good point, i forgot about that :oops:

Drive should be master
sahbi
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Post by sahbi »

Thanks for the info on the jumper settings Wayne!

Andy, the machine is pal, my apologies for not being more specific.

So this is what i did , and please tell me what im doing wrong cos i still cant taste victory here, just bitter defeat...

- i have proceeded to write zero's to the drive with the maxtor tools under dos thus making it like factory default.

-then chose DISK-from image- and selected the ghost file which showed up in the dialog during ghost software, and it showed me a progress bar after warning me that all data would be lost.

-i waited 40 minutes and after that it said that it was completed.

-put it in the jvc and the blue light turns on at the front, and i see the drive being acceessed by the blinking light on the pcb of the maxtor drive.

-the blue light goes off a while later(5 minutes or so), and nothing.

-this cycle repeats.

Now, i still dont get the jvc boot screen and i watched the fan too, and it just spins a little during plugging in the jvc on the mains afther which the blinking starts.

-I did change the jumper from cable select to master, but still with no results

The drive is definitely a maxtor D540X-4K but just doesnt have that green sticker on it with 004C

All very weird.

First with the old clicking drive i got the jvc screen coming up and going away in a loop, then with this drive i see nothing at all.

Do i need to flash the firmware on it or something? swap some chip which has the firmware on it for the jvc to boot?

Swap the hdd pcb's yielded same negative results.

Maybe im just not doing it right with the ghosting, writing the image back that i downloaded.

EUhc0001.GHS
EUhc.GHO

is what i got 2gether they are abt 3 GB in size.

When i put the image back, it only shows the EUhc.GHO.

Im assuming this is a spanned image or do i need to ghost both images seperately?

Many thanks in advance PAL's as an NTSC image wouldnt have helped me... :)



So whats next?
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Andy Cippico
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Post by Andy Cippico »

shabi,

I'm assuming you've already looked at http://www.cippico.com/technical/jvc-hm ... models.htm

Are you sure the replacement drive is definitely model number 4K040H2?
As regards the image: yes, I believe it is a spanned one of about 3GB in size. Our man in the Netherlands (Geert Jan Laanstra) created that from a working system. I've used it myself on a replacement drive, so I know it works.

I can only think that:

1. You've got the wrong drive. Worth checking the p/no. exactly.
2. There are too many bad sectors on the drive, although to be honest I'm not entirely sure how JVC's OS treats bad areas.
3. The motherboard controller electronics are faulty.

Not sure if that helps, but it's all I can think of right now.
A.
Wayne
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Post by Wayne »

Flashing the eprom is only required if you add an 80gb drive and change the chip, otherwise it is not needed, provided you are using a direct replacement drive (of the same model number) Gerrt could confirm this further i'm sure

i have not encountered your issues before, and it was so long ago that i did mine i'm having trouble remembering everything.

Was there something in the instructions on formatting type ? ie NTFS or FAT32 ? i cant remember.

Does your drive work ok in the PC ? what about your old drive, have you been able to get that one to connect to the pc and at least be recognised ? if so, try HDDRegenerator on it (if you need that pm me)

sorry i cant help more.... but the lack of any initialisation from the software on the drive makes me think the unit is not seeing it or recognising it, which could be the formatting isuue i guess, its been so long sice i had to do mine !
sahbi
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Post by sahbi »

Thank you guys so much for your help.

I was looking around inside the machine, and i found 2 bulging capacitors.

Im going to try and replace those and see what else happens.

Thanks you guys for looking out for me even though its all been so long(Wayne ;-) ).

Would swapping the ide controller board help to make it work on another drive e.g. a 60 gb drive(maxtor) on the 4k040H2 controller board, and afterwards capping the drive in dos tools by filling in the capacity of the 40 gb and then do a zero fill, and afterwards a low level format in dos?

Im Obsessed!!!

I'll post back anyways after i get the caps and replace those.

Thanks again for all your info and help!
Wayne
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Post by Wayne »

Again Gerrt is the expert on this, but, if i understand things correctly, the data held on the eprom chip ties it directly to the model of drive, and thus will not work with any other drive model, even JVC found they screwed up in doing this, that is why when you send it in for repair, or request the parts, thay have to supply you a new eprom chip to work with the new drive they fit (80gb ... but you will still only get 40gb usable) ... they made a real pigs ear of that side of things i'm afraid, right back at the design stage and obviously found no way to correct it.

2 bulging capacititors is generally not a good sign, if you can get replacements i would do it, but again they must be of the correct values for correct operation
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