frankh1949 Posted March 24, 2013 Share Posted March 24, 2013 Hi guys, my name is Frank and I'm a semi retired IT guy who also got involved with CCTV as part of the package. I moved from Bedfordshire 2 yrs ago to West Wales to get away from the yobs, vandals etc.. there are some cracking looking sheep here and I bought a new pair of wellies !! Anyway.. although crime is not a problem here I want to put some cameras up to keep an eye on the dogs as my yard and garden is to the side of the property so its difficult to keep an eye on. I have 4 cheap cameras left over from past jobs and a Xvision tdvr 8 with a failed HDD so I opened the DVR and confirmed the Master HDD was knackered and tried to play events from the Secondary drive which would not play....I had already reset the box to factory defaults. I plugged a camera in to prove that the rest of the box worked and could see the image behind the list of events. I was unable to return from the list to the menu as the system froze. I powered down the box but now cannot boot the system as it hangs on "System initialize" I found a switch inside the box which just reboots but does not get past the problem. I've removed the battery,pushed the internal switch for 60 seconds and left battery out for 10 minutes all to no avail. I've disconnected all drive cables, ribbon and power but cant get past initialisation. Any ideas/ suggestions, other then the bin? Thanks Frank Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MrHappy Posted March 24, 2013 Share Posted March 24, 2013 does it start w/o the HDD fitted ? Mr Veritas God Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
james.wilson Posted March 24, 2013 Share Posted March 24, 2013 Have you tried replacing the drive? securitywarehouse Security Supplies from Security Warehouse Trade Members please contact us for your TSI vetted trade discount. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
frankh1949 Posted March 24, 2013 Author Share Posted March 24, 2013 With both drives fitted, (1 failed 1 good) it used to boot ok but no events could be accessed, when I disconnected the failed master drive it booted and displayed the list of events on the secondary drive. Since then it will not boot with drives in or out.. Is it possible that the saved boot up data is corrupted? Does leaving the backup battery for 10 mins usually reset to defaults? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
james.wilson Posted March 24, 2013 Share Posted March 24, 2013 How would defaulting it help. You may be able to image the drive and then replace them securitywarehouse Security Supplies from Security Warehouse Trade Members please contact us for your TSI vetted trade discount. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
frankh1949 Posted March 25, 2013 Author Share Posted March 25, 2013 Thanks for the responses guys. My logic is this: Even with new unformatted drives fitted the box should boot to allow you to access the menus to format the drives. Prior to the box not getting past the initialize stage, the system would boot as follows: With the faulty primary drive and good secondary and cd connected it would boot and detect the cd but no drives and would give access to all menus With the primary drive disconnected it would boot and detect the cd and secondary drive and show files on the secondary drive. With all drives disconnected it would still boot ok After resetting to factory defaults via menu it booted. So to get through the boot sequence it doesnt need drives fitted... it will just check and report none detected. I know it doesnt need cameras fitted to boot so what else is it checking for??? hence my thoughts re setting defaults in case its set to look for something that doesnt exist. It has not booted since connecting a camera to test when the box was powered up, the camera is good and works fine. I know if you go by the book you really shouldnt plug a camera in when box is powered up but I've never killed any equipment doing so. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
james.wilson Posted March 25, 2013 Share Posted March 25, 2013 I wouldn't expect it to kill it either securitywarehouse Security Supplies from Security Warehouse Trade Members please contact us for your TSI vetted trade discount. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lwillis Posted March 25, 2013 Share Posted March 25, 2013 I've never seen one be killed by unplugging a camera . Have seen them not hoot up if it detects a faulty drive and it will try and read info from it and can get stuck if it finds a dodgy sector . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sjsturner Posted March 26, 2013 Share Posted March 26, 2013 I've never seen one be killed by unplugging a camera . Have seen them not hoot up if it detects a faulty drive and it will try and read info from it and can get stuck if it finds a dodgy sector . Its not an owl dude! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lwillis Posted March 26, 2013 Share Posted March 26, 2013 Twit twoo! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sjsturner Posted March 26, 2013 Share Posted March 26, 2013 Lol Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
frankh1949 Posted March 26, 2013 Author Share Posted March 26, 2013 I think I'll give up. I replaced the faulty drive and still the same. I did find that if I removed the backup battery for 20 mins, then powered up, the box would try to initialize but go to blank screen after about a minute. Not sure why. I can get a 8 cam for £50 +hdd so may buy myself a late Xmas present. Thanks for the suggestions. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
digitalwitness Posted March 28, 2013 Share Posted March 28, 2013 Make sure the second drive is now set to master, just in case make sure you use the same cable as the previous master also. Check the system clock if you can, problems with the system clock can cause errors and corrupt the recorded database. I suspect issues with the clock, as when you connected the camera the DVR may have tried to record. Also DVRs that auto detect PAL or NTSC often use channel 1 for this usually on boot up. While the hard drives do not have the boot software on them (usually on embedded DVRs), the do offer information with regards to the recorded database (dates, times, etc), if this is corrupt it can stop the DVR from fully booting. If the DVR boots ok without any hdds then this can be an explanation. BTW the TDVR is quite old and obviously using IDE drives (can be hard to get these days), brand new they were not great and second hand I can only see trouble so I would suggest replacing regardless but a £50 8 channel is possibly going from the frying pan into the fire. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
frankh1949 Posted March 28, 2013 Author Share Posted March 28, 2013 Make sure the second drive is now set to master, just in case make sure you use the same cable as the previous master also. Check the system clock if you can, problems with the system clock can cause errors and corrupt the recorded database. I suspect issues with the clock, as when you connected the camera the DVR may have tried to record. Also DVRs that auto detect PAL or NTSC often use channel 1 for this usually on boot up. While the hard drives do not have the boot software on them (usually on embedded DVRs), the do offer information with regards to the recorded database (dates, times, etc), if this is corrupt it can stop the DVR from fully booting. If the DVR boots ok without any hdds then this can be an explanation. BTW the TDVR is quite old and obviously using IDE drives (can be hard to get these days), brand new they were not great and second hand I can only see trouble so I would suggest replacing regardless but a £50 8 channel is possibly going from the frying pan into the fire. Thanks for the comments, Yes I set the drive to master and swopped the ribbon cables to try variations. I thought that by removing the battery and waiting for the volts to the rom to decay I would have put the system back to factory defaults and all stored configuration would be lost so getting rid of any conflicts. As far as I know this box should boot up without drives. Without access to menus I'm stuffed really. Yes its an old dvr, I installed it in a car repair / mot station around 2005 and its been faultless up to the drive failing. Its cost me nothing and would have been good enough for my use here. I think I still have an account with Y3K but havent had their trade price list for ages Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Boxshifter Posted April 5, 2013 Share Posted April 5, 2013 There could of been some BOOT/Set-up programming or drivers on the original master drive which could of been erased if you formatted the drives. Have you seen if you can download some new driver software for the unit? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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