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Broken Recovery drive


geritz81

Question

Hi,

 

I have an issue on my HC2 box, I cannot create backups anymore. My drive shows disconnected and a checksum is not completing.

Also after a reboot all lights go on and after approximately one hour it runs like normal. So rebooting the box is taking multiple hours to complete :-(

I am running on 4.100 and would like to upgrade due to a message on a few websites stating that there is a security breach in previous versions.

 

Creating a backup triggers a new screen, flickers a brief moment and finishes without generating a backup image.

 

I have contacted fibaro and they did check the HC2 remotely but they are not able to fix the issues.

I need to ship the box to Poland! I read a few topics about the RMA because of faulty/corrupted recovery modules.

Is there a local alternative ? Anybody who can share some experiences on the shipping to Poland ?

To be honest, I cannot unplug the box since all my home lighting/cams/heating are managed via the HC2. This really makes me doubt about whether I should continue on a Fibaro setup..

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Try repairing the structure of your recoverystick on your Pc or Mac. On Mac I would recomend installing a trial version of extFS from Paragon and use the regular Disk Utility. (or fsck). If you`re useing Windows I recomend 

Please login or register to see this link.

 It's free.  I've managed to repair the recoverystick on one of my HC2 on my Mac with extFS and Disk Utility. If you need a new "diskimage" for your recoverystick I can help you with a "virgin" 4.140 image for HC2 if you PM me.

 

 

Thomas

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I think this one is better. This helped me (two times) with my HC2 broken Recovery stick.

Please login or register to see this link.

This is much cheaper than sending your box to Poland (for 90 euros).

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  • 20 hours ago, thomas.hvindenhaug said:

    Try repairing the structure of your recoverystick on your Pc or Mac. On Mac I would recomend installing a trial version of extFS from Paragon and use the regular Disk Utility. (or fsck). If you`re useing Windows I recomend 

    Please login or register to see this link.

     It's free.  I've managed to repair the recoverystick on one of my HC2 on my Mac with extFS and Disk Utility. If you need a new "diskimage" for your recoverystick I can help you with a "virgin" 4.140 image for HC2 if you PM me.

     

     

    Thomas

    A 'virgin' image will that be accepted by the HC2 unit ? I thought I have read some posts that you need to ship the box to Poland because each recovery stick is uniquely linked to the HC2 unit. If that is the case it will not help to flash the drive with a new image from another HC2, or am I missing something? Thanks for your help! All options are better than shipping the box for 90 euros to Poland, and even worse...not being able to contoll all your devices for a few weeks...

    16 hours ago, RH_Dreambox said:

    I think this one is better. This helped me (two times) with my HC2 broken Recovery stick.

    Please login or register to see this link.

    This is much cheaper than sending your box to Poland (for 90 euros).

    I am going to try that one, First attempt fails because also my PC is not able to read the disk properly..looks like the drive is pretty messed up.. But I will try it on a few other laptops/pc's...maybe I get lucky enough to take out an image and restore it again :-)

     

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    Remenber that the first read oparation can take weeeeery long time, 5 hours ore more depending on the Recovery stick health.

    EDIT:

    About the "Virgin image", you can not copy the image to another USB stick because a serial number is encoded in the hardware.
    You can boot the box with an "Virgin stick" but you can not save or use any existing backup.

    Edited by RH_Dreambox
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  • 43 minutes ago, RH_Dreambox said:

    Remenber that the first read oparation can take weeeeery long time, 5 hours ore more depending on the Recovery stick health.

    EDIT:

    About the "Virgin image", you can not copy the image to another USB stick because a serial number is encoded in the hardware.
    You can boot the box with an "Virgin stick" but you can not save or use any existing backup.

    The box is running like normal but I am stuck because I cannot back it up anymore. So upgrading is going to be like living on the edge :-( 

    The reading of the image with the Win32DiskImager is failing after around 20mins..so probably there is a nasty bad sector on the drive causing not to be able to take an image of the disk.

    The serial number info is readable through ChipGenius.

    Question is when I take the virgin image and update the serial number with ChipGenius..will that be an option ?

    24 minutes ago, thomas.hvindenhaug said:

    In case of damaged files on broken recovery stick one could copy files from the "virgin" diskimage and replace damaged ones on the stick.

    If I open the drive on PC it sometimes shows empty, no files at all...pretty sure that this is due to an error on the drive, since I have not removed/deleted anything from it..

    If I do see the files on the drive it is not copying Image.gz because of an error.

    Edited by geritz81
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    The serial number info is readable through ChipGenius.

    Question is when I take the virgin image and update the serial number with ChipGenius..will that be an option ?

    If you have an "Virgin image" copy, then I think it should work. But it is WERY important that you use your own serial number.

    So take a screen dump and print out so you don't forget the number.

     

    And keep in mind that you must first do a low level formatting to eliminate bad sectors.

    There is a risk of doing this, but could it be worse than it already is?

    Please, keep us updated!

    Edited by RH_Dreambox
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  • So final conclusion after a few nights of trail and error:

    I tried to create an image of the drive, like suggested on the johandraaisma website. I was using the Win32DiskImager software which was recommended 

    on the website. That was failing sometimes after 15 minutes, sometimes after 4 hours. I could not pinpoint the rootcause why it ran into an fail to read data error. 

    Tried multiple usb ports, reinstalled drivers but all without succes.

     

    When I tried ImageUSB from Passmark (

    Please login or register to see this link.

    ) free software. Creating the image took almost 8 hours but it was succesful

    Writing back the imge to the drive was peanuts, and succesfully completed after 15 minutes.


    After putting the drive back in de HC2 and rebooting it, I was surprised. The HC2 booted like normal, not all lights remained on and after a minute it was running as usual!

    Backup procedure is possible again and I was able to upgrade the HC2 succesfully.

     

    Now fingers crossed that this is not going to happen anymore..I will save and guard my local image of the drive :-) 

    Thanks all for thinking and posing options to resolve!

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    On 10/15/2017 at 11:40 PM, geritz81 said:

    So final conclusion after a few nights of trail and error:

    I tried to create an image of the drive, like suggested on the johandraaisma website. I was using the Win32DiskImager software which was recommended 

    on the website. That was failing sometimes after 15 minutes, sometimes after 4 hours. I could not pinpoint the rootcause why it ran into an fail to read data error. 

    Tried multiple usb ports, reinstalled drivers but all without succes.

     

    When I tried ImageUSB from Passmark (

    Please login or register to see this link.

    ) free software. Creating the image took almost 8 hours but it was succesful

    Writing back the imge to the drive was peanuts, and succesfully completed after 15 minutes.


    After putting the drive back in de HC2 and rebooting it, I was surprised. The HC2 booted like normal, not all lights remained on and after a minute it was running as usual!

    Backup procedure is possible again and I was able to upgrade the HC2 succesfully.

     

    Now fingers crossed that this is not going to happen anymore..I will save and guard my local image of the drive :-) 

    Thanks all for thinking and posing options to resolve!

     

     

    Hi, 
    I saw that you had an issue with the HC2 and managed to do a recovery stick. 

    I have the error where the LED lights "pulsate" at startup until the final LED should come on, but instead all lights go out. 
    Connecting a monitor I used to see the Intel logo but couldn't access the BIOS.

     

    According to Fibaro support I may have a corrupt/damage SLC image.

     

    Did your recovery stick just replace the recovery USB device? Ie you could enter the recovery mode? Or was your HC2 "dead" in a similar way to mine? 

    I'm curious to see if your fix may salvage my HC2. 

    The shipping cost back/forth to Poland is more than what I can buy a used HC2 for, so this unit will be "laying around" if I can't get it solved ?

     

    Many thanks

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    Support might be right, the internal drive might be damaged. But... Did you check CMOS battery? They last 5-7 years.

     

    Please login or register to see this link.

     

    Version 4.5XX does not use that "stick" known as a recovery drive, it boots from the internal drive. Only older version used that stick. It's best to remove it.

     

    BTW you are reviving a topic from 2017...

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    22 hours ago, petergebruers said:

    Support might be right, the internal drive might be damaged. But... Did you check CMOS battery? They last 5-7 years.

     

    Please login or register to see this link.

     

    Version 4.5XX does not use that "stick" known as a recovery drive, it boots from the internal drive. Only older version used that stick. It's best to remove it.

     

    BTW you are reviving a topic from 2017...

    Hi Peter, 

     

    I have tried changing the CMOS battery but that didn't change anything. I was really hoping this would do the trick. ?
    After changing the CMOS battery I can no longer see the INTEL screen. It's now just black "no source connected".

     

    I have tried with the USB stick and without the USB stick. Still nothing.

     

    Yes, from 2017, nostalgic, but it seemed to contain a way I haven't tried yet, so I gave it a try. I'm open to anything at this stage really ?

     

    Thanks 

    Edit: sorry, I do still see the INTEL screen I notice now.. It's visible for ~10 sec and then goes black for 2-3 sec and then come back. 
    I can't press F2, F7 nor F10 (the options provided for Boot options, BIOS etc)

    Edited by Piffis
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    34 minutes ago, Piffis said:

    After changing the CMOS battery I can no longer see the INTEL screen. It's now just black "no source connected".

    Sounds like a power issue. After removing the battery and plugging it back in after about 10 seconds the system should say something along these lines: "CMOS checksum invalid" iirc. On the VGA or HDMI output, that is. It's a standard Intel compatible motherboard.

     

    36 minutes ago, Piffis said:

    I have tried with the USB stick and without the USB stick. Still nothing.

    If you had 4.5XX on that HC2 definitely try without the stick, it can prevent booting. In any case, you should still see something on your monitor.

     

    38 minutes ago, Piffis said:

    Edit: sorry, I do still see the INTEL screen I notice now.. It's visible for ~10 sec and then goes black for 2-3 sec and then come back. 
    I can't press F2, F7 nor F10 (the options provided for Boot options, BIOS etc)

    Not sure what key it is, might even be "ESC". Next step I'd try if you have Linux skills is this... Make a bootable drive. See if that can boot and work for more than 10 seconds. To rule of if this s a motherboard problem... If it is stable, next step is check "grub" and "fsck" the internal drive.

     

     

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