got a toy to play with

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

Moderators: andywilks, Geert Jan

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Wayne
Posts: 48
Joined: Sat Feb 26, 2005 11:19 am

got a toy to play with

Post by Wayne »

ok, so i saw a faulty HM-HDS1 on ebay and after a couple of enquiries figured "yup ... dead HDD" ... so i had a bid, got it for ?19 :)

well. it arrived to day, so i unpacked it, pretty much as described, just the basic unit no extras, no problem as i dont use my remote anyway as i have a pronto all in one.

cracking it open gave me a bit of a surprise, not to mention the handful of foam flowpack that was in the tape mechanism :roll:

it's got a Maxtor 80gb Drive fitted :?

also found one other problem, some hamfisted oaf of a technician has broken a portion off the top of the display panel circuit board, just to the left of the tape slot .... idiots, 7 broken tracks. Luckily no damaged components so with 3 hard board repairs and 4 wire jumpers i should be able to sort that out.

When i asked about the errors they said it simply sat there flashing the blue drive light and never booted up .... which is exactly what my unit did when the drive went. I have a couple of spare drives (condition unknown) and another one i know works, but is currently in a mates pc a couple of hours away which was working fine the last time he used the pc, so i will have to consider running HDDregenerator on the 2 i have and see what happens

Strange thing is, i cant see any changes on the circuit boards .... i thought that the 80gb repair job by JVC required you to swap out the drive, plus one of the eprom chips due to the drive firmware checks :? anyone care to help out here with some info ?

here's the drive details from the drive fitted, i might try and run maxtors drive check utility on it and see if anything comes to light.

Havent been able to power it up yet, as i'm still waiting for the glue to set on the circuit board repair before i repair the tracks ... i could have got lucky and that was the problem, but somehow i doubt it


Maxtor DiamondMax 16 80GB ATA/133
Code: RAMC1TU0
LBA: 160086528
Mfg Date: 27Nov2003
Part No:4R08OL0 6214P1
Wayne
Posts: 48
Joined: Sat Feb 26, 2005 11:19 am

Post by Wayne »

:D :D :D :D :D

i got it working .... had to do a small track repair on the front display panel circuit board (useless heavy handed repair technician damaged it at some point !)

Then i used a spare 40GB Maxtor drive i had (one that had failed with my original image on it) ... imaged it with the clean image from Geert's FTP and voila, it works :)

conclusions ...
1) ?19 + ?11 postage was a steal :lol:
2) The original attempt to repair it would appear to have consisted of only a drive change to the newer 80GB drive, and no eprom chip change, unless the chip is backwards compatible with the 40GB drives which i doubt
3) I might actually have a brand new 80GB drive, imaged with the JVC image, that has never been used, only spun up and then when it failed the drive id check, shut down :)


thats what i call a result :)
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Andy Cippico
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Posts: 84
Joined: Tue Jan 18, 2005 8:54 am
Location: England

Post by Andy Cippico »

Hi Wayne,

That's really interesting. I wonder who tried to fix it? Probably not a JVC repair centre.
Are you saying the 80GB drive it came with didn't work?

I'll get AndyWilks in on this thread. He may know what LSI chip is needed for the 80GB drives. Then you can tell from your board whether you have one or not.

Sounds like you got yourself a bargain. Nice one!
Andy.
Wayne
Posts: 48
Joined: Sat Feb 26, 2005 11:19 am

Post by Wayne »

personally i think the drive is good, it might have been a JVC centre that tried to repair it, they tend to contract out to "authorised" repair centres and some of these are less than perfect.

The fact that the 80GB drive is of the correct type makes me think that is is a genuine replacement and as such will have the required image on it, but i have no real way to tell, i've messaged Geert and when i get a chance i'll image it and send it to him and see what he thinks

when i originally powered it up after repairing the display board, the drive ran nice and quiet, no head bounce or bearing noise, and sounded like it was initially searching but was then instructed to stop, just like the flash rom had interogated it, got the wrong value returned and thus decided not to play ball


EDIT: sorry, didnt really answer your question then.... you are correct when i tried using the original 80GB drive supplied with it, all i got was the flashing blue light for a minute then it would shut down, just like drive or image failure, 40GB with good image works just fine :)
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andywilks
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Joined: Mon Jan 24, 2005 11:38 am
Location: Pendle Witch Country, Lancs

Post by andywilks »

Broadband down today so sorry for late reply.

If someone has just replaced the drive with even the correct JVC imaged data, it won't work unless the eeprom (the 39VF800A) is changed. You should be able to tell if it has since the soldering will almost certainly look shinier etc.

If the 80Gb drive you have has a D04F sticker or writing on it then its the pucker JVC imaged replacement for the earlier drives.
They only use half of it so don't think if you get it working you can expand its storage hours :(

Sounds like somones only done half a job.

I do have a correct EEprom for a D04F ready to use - and a drive - now if we can replicate the eeprom data and get an IC then the drive you have , could then be used if needed. :P

Geert Jan did have the eeprom for a while - perhaps he has read the data from it?
Wayne
Posts: 48
Joined: Sat Feb 26, 2005 11:19 am

Post by Wayne »

hi andy.

yes it does have the little sticker you talk of.

can you confirm exact location of the chip in question and i'll take another look, but when i first looked at it, i did look over most of it, and saw no signs of disturbance anywhere, except the broken section of display panel board, just to the left of the tape slot - u know the bit ? where the main chassis has a plastic "support" to stop the board flexing, well that had been pushed on too hard causing the support to fracture the board, thats all fixed now.

i know the storage space cant be extended, thats no problem anyway.

i think your right though "half a job" sounds all too familiar these days :(
Wayne
Posts: 48
Joined: Sat Feb 26, 2005 11:19 am

Post by Wayne »

forgot to say, when you said you have a chip ready to use and a drive, does your drive have the JVC image on it already ? as i will, when i get a chance clone this one into a ghost image for Geert's ftp
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