Help Required Full factory reset for Freesat UHD 4k 500

[cowboyonrails]

Same here, followed the recommendations on this site and save £214! RESULT.

Hi my mum has this problem with her 500gb Freesat box saying encountered a problem and suspect it's the hard drive.

Does anyone have any help on how to replace the hard drive and any links to a replacement hard drive.

Thanks

 

[Couch-potato]

My neighbour had a Arris Freesat box that came up with the reboot message and wouldn’t move from it. She bought a new box but loaned me her old box to see what could be done, though this was my first encounter of this box type.
I had a spare drive of a suitable size and capacity so I removed all partitions using Windows (an important step it turns out) and installed it. The box booted up ok and I was able to schedule recordings and use live pause.
I then hooked up the defective drive to a usb enclosure and was able to format it using Windows and then run chkdsk with no reported problems. I wasn’t able to stress test it so it is possible that there is a defect that I haven’t yet encountered.
The next step was to unpartition the drive and reinstall it in the Arris box. It booted up ok and I was able to use live pause and make recordings.
The following is my calculation and may already be known to regular users of this box….
i believe that the Arris box checks for a valid box on boot up and if the drive is broken or is corrupted enough to make the drive unrecognisable it puts you into the reboot message and of course gets stuck in it as there is no option to attempt to reformat the box regardless of its state. Taking the drive out and repartitioning it is a workaround.
Once you get stuck on the reboot message your recordings are effectively lost anyway.
it is entirely possible that the drive is defective and the problem will pop up again. However, it is also conceivable that there is a bug in the hardware or firmware that sometimes corrupts the drive to make it unbootable.
My neighbour will keep the box as an emergency spare. Neither her or I have spare LNB connections to give it a good test.

 

[Satspot]

You can repair the drive in Linux using a utility called Test Disk. Best to try that first before reformatting the disk. Fairly simple process too.

 

[Couch-potato]

You can repair the drive in Linux using a utility called Test Disk. Best to try that first before reformatting the disk. Fairly simple process too.

Interesting. It has been a long time since I’ve had a computer with a Linux installation. I think that the Arris box has an OS way closer to Linux than Windows but is it close enough for a Linux OS to repair an Arris box hard drive format?
In any case what I did by removing and unpartitioning the drive is beyond most people’s comfort zone, as is removing the drive and repairing it using Linux.
The bare minimum you need to get the box up and running again is a suitable screwdriver and a new drive.
Whilst I knew from a web trawl the Torx bit set I needed I decided to go to a hardware store - a real one with a counter and helpful assistants - with the box. With the help of the man behind the counter I bought a screwdriver that fitted, designated as a TX10. Cheaper than the set and available immediately.
As for the hard drive the Arris box had a 500gb 2.5“ Toshiba drive but was happy enough with my Western Digital. Amazon sell the Toshiba drive for about £12 but bigger drives (max 2gb) are available. Given that price starting point buying a new drive makes more sense if you don’t have a suitable usb enclosure or access to a computer.

 

[Satspot]

Yes of course if recovering the files (recordings) is of no interest to you.

 

[Couch-potato]

It was my neighbour’s box and she had moved on by buying a replacement.
Repairing the drive and recovering the recordings should be of great interest but personally I don’t keep anything on my satellite hard drive that I’m not prepared to lose, I archive stuff elsewhere. But, yes, many people keep lots of recordings on their drives and being able to recover them would be of great interest but requires other equipment and a fair degree of knowledge.