Freesat Arris box hardrive error

muffinhead

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120140530#Comment_120140530

In the UK you have up to 6 years to claim under the Consumer Rights Act 2015 if you can prove the item was inherently faulty. Under this legislation you'd be entitled to either a repair, replacement or (partial) refund, depending on the age of the item.

I successfully made a claim from a UK retailer for an electrical product that became faulty after 4 years of owning it by quoting this legislation.

dxhound2005

The 6 years is there for somone one who wants to use the courts if the trader does not play ball. The normal limit is 6 months, and the legislation assumes that the fault was not inherent if not reported before then.

In your case did the retailer ask for proof and accept it, or just gave a goodwill gesture?

NIMAN

Very few people would still have a receipt after so long.

muffinhead

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120142603#Comment_120142603

Initially the retailer asked me to obtain an independent report confirming the fault was not from misuse. However the manufacturer had issued a statement acknowledging that a number of customers had experienced the same fault so I sent a copy of this to the retailer which they accepted instead.

NIMAN

Emailed Freesat over weekend, got this reply today:

Thank you for contacting Freesat with your enquiry.

 You would of needed to run a full factory reset in attempt to clear the hard drive and rectify the issue. As you have dissembled the unit to repair it yourself we cannot offer any assistance on the matter as this automatically makes the unit void.

 I apologise we could not be of more help on this occasion.

I replied to say I have done the full factory reset several times, to no avail, hence the reason for me changing out the hdd. I got this reply:

Thank you for contacting Freesat with your enquiry.

 I cannot offer anymore assistance on the matter. I would recommend purchasing a new unit if you'd prefer.

That's me stuck with this annoying yoke .

Spn744

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120146814#Comment_120146814

I emailed but I’ve never opened the box and they’re sending a returns label via email. Don’t think they’ll do a return when they open it and see it’s an older box but fingers crossed.

Did you break a seal when opening the box? You could email from a different address and name such a partner or family member and just crack on daft that you’re unfamiliar with technology and you never opened it and wouldn’t even know how if prompted when they have the box.

Spn744

A guide to restore that Freesat emailed, it didn’t work for me but worth a shot for others.

“This sounds like there may be a hard drive fault here. To try to cure this and clear the hard drive, please first try a full factory reset via the mains. Just to make you aware that this reset will delete any recordings made.

 

To factory reset, just unplug the box from the mains. Then hold the power button on the top of the box down for 30 seconds. Once the 30 seconds is up, put the power back in whilst still holding the button down until you see the light on the box go from flashing blue to flashing red. You can then let go of the button and the box will reset itself.

 

Or you can factory reset via the settings. Just go to Home > Settings > System Settings > Box Reset > Factory Reset.”

My box reset but the message popped up again.

NIMAN

Yeah I am kinda resigned to just getting the message intermittently.

Spn744

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120147481#Comment_120147481

The box will eventually die. Same thing happened to me with coming and going but eventually it wouldn’t go away!

phixer

Hi, I had this problem. I factory reset several times and each time it worked correctly for 24 hours. I was about to bin it when i realised that each time it failed it had automatically switched itself off during the night. In settings you can switch this OFF. I switched the auto shutdown off a month ago and the box is permanently ON blue light lit and the fault has not re-occurred. It seems this fault is connected to switch off switch on. Hope this helps.

NIMAN

Worth a try.

Although I'd always prefer to shut the box into standby when not in use.

The idea of running a box permanently on just doesn't sit right.

So it would appear the act of putting it in standby is the issue?

walshtipp

I also had this problem some time back. I had to remove the hard drive from the freesat box and format it in ext4. Has been working fine since then.

NIMAN

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120185130#Comment_120185130

Surely the software on the Freesat box would format the drive in the correct format to begin with?

walshtipp

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120185227#Comment_120185227

I'm not sure why but this is the only thing that worked for me. That was about 8 months ago now.

Spn744

An update on the return of my Freesat box. I contacted them via email, stated the problem and then ran the diagnostic tests that didn’t help. I then provided a receipt that was within the 12 months, they required a screenshot of the Argos email receipt and don’t seem to have a way of cross referencing with the store. They then gave a Royal Mail pre paid return label to send it back (I live near the border) and once I sent the proof of postage they dispatched the new one on the same day before they even received the old box back! All of the above is required to have a friend or family member in the UK for a delivery address and access to a Royal Mail post office but happy to be not be out £220.

NIMAN

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120185130#Comment_120185130

Might have to try this now, as my box has given up the ghost completely.

It is now giving the error every 15min or so of viewing, so basically unusable.

walshtipp

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120346081#Comment_120346081

Also, it is not unheard of to have complete hard drive failure in these boxes. If removing and re-formatting the drive does not help, try a new 2.5" hard drive.

NIMAN

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120347772#Comment_120347772

I have now tried 3 different hdds in mine. The original plus 2 extra ones.

All gave the same error.

I have not tried changing it out yet to see if it will stop this error appearing every 15min, but will at start of the week.

Failing that, I will just put my 15yr old Humax Foxsat back in. So much for new, higher quality boxes!

agaskew

Sorry for resurrecting an old thread but in case it helps anyone, I had this exact problem - the box started complaining about the hard drive having a problem and the popup message would not go away no matter what (even though you could hear the TV behind it). The software on these Arris boxes really is garbage.

I opened up the box with just a regular torx (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6C6LLsWv6lo) and took the hard drive out. Connected the hard drive to PC using a SATA to USB cable - these are dirt cheap. I was able ignore various drive errors and to nuke the drive using fdisk and gparted (on Linux). The problem seemed to be it had lost its partition table. I'm sure these repairs can be done on Windows Disk Manager too.

I created an ext4 partition on the drive, put it back in the box but it still complained about "we detected drive errors", at least I could hit Ignore and get to the TV, even though Recording was disabled. Tried 'Delete Recordings' which says 'Drive formatted' - this is a lie. Also a full Box reset, still getting the annoying error.

So, pulled the drive back out, connected back to PC, deleted the ext4 partition and did not create any partitions at all - so partition table in place but no formatted partition. Put this back in and when the box powered up you could hear it formatting the drive this time. So far there are now no more error messages and its behaving.

I've re checked the drive after it was formatted by the box and it is indeed ext4, with a couple of files and folders put on there by the box itself. If the hard drive errors reappear, it may be time to replace the drive.

The box software seems to throw up this Hard Drive Error message when it detects anything it doesn't understand, such as a partition already being there.

enchilladas99

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122685017#Comment_122685017

The fix described above by agaskew also worked for me, repeatedly. It took about 5 minutes.
I didn't need to buy a new hard drive.
I just purchase a 2.5 inch SATA to USB-C connector for £8 on Amazon.
For any Mac users out there, I used the Disk Utility application, selecting Erase - MS-DOS (FAT) - Master Boot Record.
Once erased, I reinserted the drive into the Freesat box, then selected Settings - Box Reset - Delete Recordings Only.
Many thanks to agaskew for identifying this fix.

NIMAN

I'll give that a try in the New Year.

Does anyone know if you can just take the HDD out of the set top box and forget about recording? There's no need to be recording off Freesat now really anyway.

Or does the box look for a hdd of some sort being there?

jonny_b

Hi I was getting the same errors and eventually the box stopped detecting a hard drive. I just replaced the drive today but again the box is not detecting a hard drive. Doesn't even ask me for a hard drive and I can not see it in settings. I have done a full factory reset too

NIMAN

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123312328#Comment_123312328

That happened me a few years ago.

Tried another 3 Hard drives in it, none recognised. Must be a software issue.