We've installed a lot of the GE DVMRe units over the past few years and a few have had drive failures despite using UPS devices and cooled racks. The drives used in these DVRs are mostly always Maxtor. The drive failure usually exhibits a "clicking" noise and won't boot up. Depending on the DVMRe model it may have more than one drive making up the total capacity (configured as Master/Slave with jumpers on the drive). We have taken this up with our local Maxtor Agent and they came back to us and said that the problem is most likely caused by corrupted microcode (firmware) on the hard drives system controller PCB. This microcode is contained in a memory IC on this PCB and contains, among other data, a list of the defects on the drive (all drives have defects from new). This list is updated continuously as the drive ages to prevent those areas on the drives platters from being used. This list seems to get corrupted for whatever reason and causes the drive to fail. When the drive is initially powered up, a logic check ensures that the drive has attained the necessary speed before launching the heads across the platter. If the drive can not attain a 'Ready' state, the logic is repeated for a pre-determined number of times causing a clicking sound. Maxtor provided us with their PowerMax software to try repair the drive via an IDE cable hookup to a PC but since the DVMRe format is non-standard it won't work properly. What we have tried that does seem to work on a dual drive DVMRe is simply swapping the respective Master/Slave jumpers on both drives and this will force a complete reformat of both drives (All Data Is Lost Though). On a single drive unit we have tried swapping a drive from another DVMRe with the same symptoms with the same success. These actions should only be used when you don't have a new replacement drive immediately available and need a temporary solution for your customer. The first course of action always is the warranty available through GE though. Hope this helps someone in a fix !!
