Samsung HA250JC Seek Noise

[LexLuthor23]

Hi all,

I recently began experiencing problems with my TiVo which I put down to the HDD (stuttering picture, random reboots, lost audio on reboots etc.). Having read through the forums, I decided to replace the 120GB Seagate with a Samsung HA250JC as I wanted a quiet drive. Well, it's not at the moment.

Not wanting to upset my 3 year old (he really likes his Elmo :) ) I followed Hinsdale to restore and keep recordings. Everything seemed OK but the random reboots persisted (unfortunately, I subsequently found that "random" really meant at about 4am every day after two hours of no signal as Sky had been in stand by - turned that "feature" off now) so I decided to restore the drive from my original 120GB image (no recordings) which had all my preferred utilities installed already. No errors and TiVo was up and running BUT there is a significant seek noise (audible from 6 feet) coming from the drive. The seek noise is constant and occurs whether recording, watching, live buffering or in standby. (I cannot honestly remember when I first restored the drive with recordings whether it made the seeking noise, though I know that it didn't during the restore process)

OK, so now what can I do to identify/correct the problem?

I know from blindlemon's post here (http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?p=4152306#post4152306) it is possible that the drive is the problem and may need to be RMA'd. How does one confirm this? I don't know what the HUTIL from Samsung does, but will this identify and resolve without trashing the drive contents?

Could a forced green screen sort the problem and rebuild the MFS file system? If so, what command initiates this and where do you run it from (Telnet I guess)? Would this delete the /var partition and my hacks?

Any guidance would be appreciated.

Thanks in advance.
Lex

[AMc]

I don't know what the HUTIL from Samsung does, but will this identify and resolve without trashing the drive contents?
It's a utility provided by Samsung to test drives before you can report a faulty drive and return it for replacement. IIRC You download it and extract it onto a floppy disk then reboot with the Tivo drive connected to the PC. Again IIRC there are some non-destructive tests but the most thorough surface read/write test will destroy the data on the drive - there are plenty of warnings before that happens.
You can also use the utility to set the acoustic properties of the drive - though all 3 of my Samsungs have arrived set to quiet as default.

As usual don't boot into Windows with the Tivo drive connected or it will mess up the boot record and you'll have to fix it before you can use it in Tivo again.

Forcing a green screen will not do anything to fix an underlying problem with the drive and won't help in this situation. If the drive noise is as bad as you say I don't think you have a choice but to use HUTIL and then RMA the drive. At least you can use the 120GB in its place now you know why the Tivo was rebooting.

[blindlemon]

There is a CD version of HUTIL now and you can use that to test the drive and set the drive to "quiet" mode. All the HA250JCs I've purchased in the last year have had quiet mode set to "off" so I expect yours was the same.

If it fails HUTIL, or if it still sounds sick after changing the quiet mode setting then you can get a replacement via www.rexo.co.uk - normally within a few days.

[LexLuthor23]

AMc / blindlemon

Thanks for the info. Will try the the HUTIL over the weekend and report. If it fails, RMA it is.

Cheers.
Lex