Hdd problem

The Dunc

Newbie
I have a 500gb hdd in a caddy attached by USB, but every few hours it loses connection and says no storage devices found, so cannot record or time shift.
I have to turn the box off at the back, unplug the USB, plug back in and reboot before its recognized again.
I've changed hdd, cable, caddy, and build, so can only be the box itself or some setting I don't know about.
Anybody got any ideas I can try please?
 
It's only a 2.5" hdd, I thought the USB would be able to power it.
I have a 3.5" powered nas I don't use anymore, but don't know if I can format it fat32 to try.
 
When u say format it to fat32, did u initialise the 500gb drive using the hdd setup menu to initialise it to ext3 and then convert it to ext4? As like u say if its only 2.5 drive then the usb should be powerful enough to power the drive itself.


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I didn't convert to ext4. Have just tried but it says 'cannot unmount, device or resource busy'.
So I guess it's something in my settings.
 
Ull need to disable timeshift settings first and then ull be able to unmount to complete the conversion. (Menu/setup/timeshift settings/ and change the part that says 2 secs to say disabled) Then remember to reenable your timeshift settings to what u had originally.


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Managed to do that, but the hdd still disappears after an hour or so and I have to restart the box again, but it only works if I turn the power off at the back.
 
Have you tried plugging into the other USB port to test it?
Try formatting the drive to Ext4 on your PC and then try it. (won't need initialising on the box).
 
Managed to do that, but the hdd still disappears after an hour or so and I have to restart the box again, but it only works if I turn the power off at the back.

Is it a usb2 or usb3 caddy? Also if you dont really use it, try disabling timeshift as it could be that thats causing it as its constantly writing to the drive and could be causing it to disappear.


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It's a USB2.
Tried it in the front, it worked at fist then the box crashed.
I'll try disabling timeshift to try and see if that's the problem, but to be honest I use that more than recording.

---------- Post Merged at 04:16 PM ----------

Don't know what I've done to it now but cannot get the box to see the hdd at all now.
 
Try another usb stick in it. If it cant see that then uve burnt out ur usb ports.


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Yes on both USB ports it doesn't see it.
I've put a small USB stick in now and done a couple of recordings and it seems fine, but am I right in thinking you can't timeshift with a USB stick?
 
So you've proved it's a problem with the drive rather than the ports. Timeshift needs Ext4 to work.
Plug the HDD into a PC and use Partition Wizard (in my sig) to delete the existing partition and create a primary Ext4 partition and try that.
You should just be able to power up the ZG and it will work without initialising. (provided the hdd isn't knackered anyway)
 
Think I've broken the caddy. Tried 3 different hdd's in it and they all power up and spin, but my PC won't see them now either, and they don't show up in the partition wizard.
 
You can get a 2.5 inch drive enclosure for about £7 on Amazon or eBay provided that it's a standard sata drive, which they mostly are. (I've got a Samsung that isn't).
 
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