HDR-7500T booting problem solved

[GregM]

It seems these forums don't attract much interest these days and I guess there are multiple reasons for that. But if you are like me and are hanging onto this method of recording and viewing FTA TV for as long as your Humax will continue working (because you likr to be able to use the great IceTV EPG and you LOVE to be able to flick through the ads), this post may help some day.

After 11 years of faithful service and a hard drive replacement a few years ago, my dear old Humax spat the dummy three nights ago. It would boot up and display the onscreen logo and then it would flash green a couple of times and then drop back to standby. I presumed it was a power supply issue, so provided external power directly to the HD in order to lessen the load on the power supply. That didn't work, but the machine would boot up fully when I disconnected the hard drive. So I attached the hard drive to my computer and tested it. It was working, but very sick.

I hooked up a brand new Western Digital 1tb SATA hard drive (cost $45) and the machine booted fine and  offered the drive format function. Once the drive was formatted and after a short wait and a reboot, the IceTV EPG guide had re-populated all the programs (that I presume are stored on a HD partition), the Humax was back on deck.

I hope this may help someone else to rescue their ailing Humax HDR-7500T, as there are very few other options, since Humax and the other similar PVR manufacturers have stopped serving this diminishing market.     

[MD]

Well done Greg and many thanks for the help it should give Humax 7500/10 users who can no longer buy a new Humax as their preferred PVR option.

[nedsnow]

Hi GregM

I have two HDR7500Ts with EXACTLY this problem. When the first one failed, I assumed that the fact it would boot with the HDD disconnected probably meant a fault in the disk controller. When the second one failed, I found your post in a Google search, and immediately tested it. I plugged my original IceBox SDD in, and the Humax booted as you described. I bought two brand new WD 1TB drives, but neither one fixes the problem. I plugged in a 1TB 2.5in drive from an old laptop, and it worked fine. I then tried copying the first GB of the 2.5in drive to one of the new drives using dd, but it still wouldn't accept it. Do you have any idea what's stopping the Humax from accepting these new drives? They work fine on my computer via a USB case.

Ned