Yesterday my Humax DTR-T1010 would not power up and got stuck on "Nearly ready". More worrying I found I could not enter maintenance mode, the screen went blank and nothing happened even after waiting 30 minutes. I called Humax and was advised that the machine was dead and given the cost of repair he advised me to buy a new YouView box to replace it.
Given that I had nothing else to loose I decided to open up the box and have a look around. I found that unplugging the hard drive allowed maintenance mode to start which seemed to indicate a problem with the hard drive. I then connected the hard drive to my PC and ran a test on it, it worked fine. So I deleted the partitions and put the dive back in the Humax. I was then able to reload the system via the internet and I now have a working Humax (less my recordings).
To summerise my fix for being unable to start maintenance mode was;
Opened up Humax box.
Locate and disconnect the SATA data cable from circuit board.
Try to turn box back on and try to access maintenance mode.
If you still can't get into maintenance mode then this fix will not work.
Remove hard disk from Humax box
Connect to Pc or laptop using a SATA to USB connector
Use operating system tools to check health of drive and consider replacing if errors found
Use the operating system tools to clear all partitions on the drive (loosing any stored programs)
Replace hard drive in Humax
Rerun maintenance mode and use bottom option to rebuild box.
Done!
Obviously depending on the nature of the problem this may not work but definitely worth a try if it is a choice between scrapping the box or trying to fix.
This takes no more technical skill than that required to change the hard drive on a computer. The hard drive connectors are exactly the same as on a desktop computer and would be recognisable to anyone who has ever opened up their computer. The PSU is not shielded so you do need to take more care then opening a PC.
I should also point out that if you don't have a Sata to USB connector (which cost under a tenner) you could plug the Hard drive directly into the motherboard of you computer in exactly the same way as adding a second hard drive. Google "repartition Windows hard drive" to find out how to clear the partitions and remove the data.
I hope this helps someone with similar problem.
