GE DVMRe CT II (DVMRe-16CT II) Hard Drive Swap, Firmware...

[jhook24 0]

Hi,

I know this is an old system but, I have been tasked to repair my company's GE DVMRe CT II's. The main problem with the ones coming in is Hard Drive failure. This is totally understandable for all the work these things do. So, I've read the posts on swapping Hard Drives and the possibility of needing to upgrade the firmware and I have come to a block.

 

I have replaced the drives in the device with ones I thought would be compatable. Each drive is now a Western Digital WD3200AAJB 320GB PATA. However, after installing the drives, (making sure that the master/slave jumpers are correct), instead of it reading 1200GB it only shows 579GB.

 

I upgraded to Firmware 6.29 but, it still only shows 579GB.

 

Any insight?

 

Thanks so much!

 

Joe

[CCTV_Suppliers 0]

You will have roughly 10% capacity loss regardless which set of drives you use. Since you installed two 320G drives (total of 640G) minus 10%, will give you what you already are seeing. What Amperage power supply do you read from external power supply? If it is 5.2A version, I will strongly recommend to get the one that has the capacity of 7.5A - part number is PSU-7.5.

 

Good luck.

[Angus 0]

Not trying to ruin your thread.. but wondering where can i pick up a PS for one of these? There are several dvr's on ebay but all without power supplies....

 

Thanks

[jhook24 0]

You will have roughly 10% capacity loss regardless which set of drives you use. Since you installed two 320G drives (total of 640G) minus 10%, will give you what you already are seeing. What Amperage power supply do you read from external power supply? If it is 5.2A version, I will strongly recommend to get the one that has the capacity of 7.5A - part number is PSU-7.5.

 

Good luck.

 

Thanks for the reply! I installed four 320G drives. The power supply I am currently using puts out 5.2A. Do you think PSU-7.5 should do the trick? I'm with Angus, I'll start my search for PS for these puppies. We have about 25 DVRs in the field and I anticipate one coming in every other month, but, then again, these things are pretty tough.

 

 

Joe Hook

[jhook24 0]

Not trying to ruin your thread.. but wondering where can i pick up a PS for one of these? There are several dvr's on ebay but all without power supplies....

 

Thanks

 

I found this pretty quickly.

http://cctveasy.com/catalogsearch/result/?q=PSU-7.5&x=23&y=7

 

 

Joe Hook

[CCTV_Suppliers 0]

You will have roughly 10% capacity loss regardless which set of drives you use. Since you installed two 320G drives (total of 640G) minus 10%, will give you what you already are seeing. What Amperage power supply do you read from external power supply? If it is 5.2A version, I will strongly recommend to get the one that has the capacity of 7.5A - part number is PSU-7.5.

 

Good luck.

 

Thanks for the reply! I installed four 320G drives. The power supply I am currently using puts out 5.2A. Do you think PSU-7.5 should do the trick? I'm with Angus, I'll start my search for PS for these puppies. We have about 25 DVRs in the field and I anticipate one coming in every other month, but, then again, these things are pretty tough.

 

 

Joe Hook

 

Joe, if the system works fine after changing hard drives and without any hiccups, then you do not have to change the power supply... Most of the time the problem becomes fairly obvious - system will not start up, random restarts and shutdowns, etc... If the system is performing well after replacement of drives, leave it alone.

[jhook24 0]

Joe, if the system works fine after changing hard drives and without any hiccups, then you do not have to change the power supply... Most of the time the problem becomes fairly obvious - system will not start up, random restarts and shutdowns, etc... If the system is performing well after replacement of drives, leave it alone.

 

That's just it, I replaced the Hard Drives with new ones. The system booted without a hitch. It just reported the wrong HD capacity. I was talking to one of the security guards about this and he pulled a burnt out 3.5 Amp PS out of the garbage saying, this is the reason we ordered up the the 5 amp power supplies. I'm thinking that once the storage technology becomes unreachable that will be the end of these things.

 

Joe Hook

[CCTV_Suppliers 0]

Joe, if the system works fine after changing hard drives and without any hiccups, then you do not have to change the power supply... Most of the time the problem becomes fairly obvious - system will not start up, random restarts and shutdowns, etc... If the system is performing well after replacement of drives, leave it alone.

 

That's just it, I replaced the Hard Drives with new ones. The system booted without a hitch. It just reported the wrong HD capacity. I was talking to one of the security guards about this and he pulled a burnt out 3.5 Amp PS out of the garbage saying, this is the reason we ordered up the the 5 amp power supplies. I'm thinking that once the storage technology becomes unreachable that will be the end of these things.

 

Joe Hook

 

You can say that - these are proprietary power supplies and we could not replace them with anything generic. We went ahead and bought the entire stock before they sold their security business to UTC...

 

DVR's hard drives read reporting less than the entire capacity is ok... as I said before, you will loose roughly 10% of the entire storage anyway, so you are fine there. I remember the initial 3.5A power supplies that were frying like crazy and then 5.2A units arrived and they held up ok for a time being until larger capacity drives arrived... then we saw the problem that started causing random restarts, shutdowns, etc... When they came up with the 7.5A version, then everything went back to normal...

 

The URL above is one of our websites... so you can easily place an order online if you want or PM me, I can help.

[jhook24 0]

I was just working with Security and I happened to notice a DVMR connected using a 7.0A Power Supply. The guard indicated that they had a bunch of them in the back. I took one and plugged it in to my test unit. With 4 320GB HDs installed, it still comes up with 579GB not at least 1200GB. This is a GE Power Supply P/N 4010-0028.

 

Now here's the thing. I'm looking at "Output:12.0V___7.0A" is this what I need to be looking at. (I wish I were more electricly technical.)

If so. I am now at a loss to know what could be cause the huge drop in acknowledged space.

 

Thanks!

 

Joe

[CCTV_Suppliers 0]

I was just working with Security and I happened to notice a DVMR connected using a 7.0A Power Supply. The guard indicated that they had a bunch of them in the back. I took one and plugged it in to my test unit. With 4 320GB HDs installed, it still comes up with 579GB not at least 1200GB. This is a GE Power Supply P/N 4010-0028.

 

Now here's the thing. I'm looking at "Output:12.0V___7.0A" is this what I need to be looking at. (I wish I were more electricly technical.)

If so. I am now at a loss to know what could be cause the huge drop in acknowledged space.

 

Thanks!

 

Joe

 

Joe, you do and and will not loose storage space because of power supply!

 

You pickup any hard drive and any capacity and connect to any system, regardless if Windows, Linux, etc... and rule of thumb is that even though your hard drive will say lets say 500GB, but you will only have available roughly 450GB... It is how drive manufacturers calculate available capacity vs. actual capacity.

 

Without going into too much technical explanation, here is a url that I think gives a fair explanation on available hard drive space vs. actual - http://compreviews.about.com/od/storage/a/ActualHDSizes.htm

 

So, power supply has nothing to do with loss of hard drive space! The part number is the correct one too... so, it is the best power supply available for this unit.

 

There is another GE part number that is available - DVMRE PSU KIT... it is exactly the same as GE Power Supply P/N 4010-0028 and as PSU-7.5 - I guess GE labeled the same part with three different part numbers..

 

Good luck bud.

[jhook24 0]

I really do get that. I understand the loss of some hard drive space I've been in IT for over 11 years, but four times 320 Gig will give me at least 1 Terra-byte. I set up another DVMR using 4 320GB old maxor drives, I booted up and it displayed 1200Gig which equals over 1 Terrabyte. I want to know why the DVMR is pretty much robbing me of 2 hard drives when I use 4 of these Western Digital Drives. 570gb-1200gb = a 48% loss of space, not the normal 10%. The reason I went with the 7amp power as a possible fix was per your recommendation below. I am only and always plugging in 4 Hard Drives, not 2. Thanks for bearing with me.

 

You will have roughly 10% capacity loss regardless which set of drives you use. Since you installed two 320G drives (total of 640G) minus 10%, will give you what you already are seeing. What Amperage power supply do you read from external power supply? If it is 5.2A version, I will strongly recommend to get the one that has the capacity of 7.5A - part number is PSU-7.5.

 

Good luck.

[CCTV_Suppliers 0]

Joe, why are you using 4 hard drives?? Sorry, I missed the fact that you are using these many drives... thought you are using only 2...

 

I have not tested this system with 4 drives - always used 2 drives only... two 500GB and in some cases two 750GB drives - the only other obstacle to overcome was to make sure these systems have the latest and greatest firmware. I think you mentioned that you did such an upgrade, so using two drives to achieve 1TB barrier should work.

 

Again, the power supply has nothing to do with system's ability to recognize number of drives... - These new power supplies with 7.0-7.5A capacity is more than adequate.

 

I am sure you are assigning Master/slave setting correctly on such drives right?? Another option you can explore is by changing the drive ribbons... who know, one of the may be bad - that could cause the system not recognizing the drives.

 

Let me know.

[jhook24 0]

Joe, why are you using 4 hard drives?? Sorry, I missed the fact that you are using these many drives... thought you are using only 2...

 

I have not tested this system with 4 drives - always used 2 drives only... two 500GB and in some cases two 750GB drives - the only other obstacle to overcome was to make sure these systems have the latest and greatest firmware. I think you mentioned that you did such an upgrade, so using two drives to achieve 1TB barrier should work.

 

Again, the power supply has nothing to do with system's ability to recognize number of drives... - These new power supplies with 7.0-7.5A capacity is more than adequate.

 

I am sure you are assigning Master/slave setting correctly on such drives right?? Another option you can explore is by changing the drive ribbons... who know, one of the may be bad - that could cause the system not recognizing the drives.

 

Let me know.

 

The DVMRe CT II comes with 4 320GB hard drives. They are 2 bolted to each other by a metal plate there is a piece of thick paper between the the 2 sets. The jumpers are set correctly. Master/Slave for one set of 2, Master/Slave for the other set of 2. I attempted to bootup using only 1 set of 2 and it again reported a 48% drop is Hard Drive space. I really think it's the these Hard Drives because I yanked the ones out a good DVMRe CT II (Maxor drives) and the test unit reported 1200GB. I think my next step is to contact Western Digital and see whats so different about the new drives I'm using. I really am a bit curious about these things.

 

Joe

[jhook24 0]

I got this from Western Digital.

 

"The product we recommend for video recording equipments such as your DVMR is the WD AV. The model number on the drive we recommend is WD3200AVJB."

 

I had the WD3200AAJB. We will be ordering up 4 of the AV models. I will post the results.

 

Thanks!

 

Joe

[CCTV_Suppliers 0]

Very cool

 

I used both WD and Seagate drives, various storage capacities... did not see any difference in performance or functionality.. I will be very curious why WD is recommending these drives rather than what is commonly available.. have not seen this problem before.

 

Let us know results when avail...

 

Good luck

[jhook24 0]

Well, I got the new drives. Same deal. Not showing full capacity. I called WD to pick their brain. I am now in the process of writing zeros to an entire drive to see if THAT does the trick. Someone from Experts Exchange suggested that there may be a raid controller on the device. That could provide an answer if the Maxtor drives didn't show a full TB. Since is shows a full TB that I would guess that raid has nothing to do with it. I just don't get why the Maxtor drives work and the Western Digitial drives don't.

 

Hey, is there HD configuration stuff on the DVMR? Maybe the MAXTOR drives were configured on the device.

[CCTV_Suppliers 0]

Very interesting... never seen this problem...

 

Well, I got the new drives. Same deal. Not showing full capacity. I called WD to pick their brain. I am now in the process of writing zeros to an entire drive to see if THAT does the trick. Someone from Experts Exchange suggested that there may be a raid controller on the device.

 

There is no raid controller in this system. As many of these units that I worked on, never had an issue bud.

 

That could provide an answer if the Maxtor drives didn't show a full TB. Since is shows a full TB that I would guess that raid has nothing to do with it. I just don't get why the Maxtor drives work and the Western Digitial drives don't.

 

Odd... very odd. Even though I prefer WD drives, it made no difference even when we used Seagate. Since technology may have been improving on drives, it is possible mismatch of the controller chipset vs. chipset of the drive. I have seen something similar on a very old DVMRe unit (over 10 years old) that was unable to read any new drives and at any size - instead, we used very old PATA drives from the stock - and it worked. Could not explain it nor there was any support from GE or from hard drive manufacturers. We even changed the ribbon cables and revisited the bios updates and no difference. I tell you, older hard drives actually last much longer than the newer technology drives - I have system in the market that still function without any problems even after 10 + years of use.

 

Hey, is there HD configuration stuff on the DVMR? Maybe the MAXTOR drives were configured on the device.

 

Not that I know of... there is a very limited bios control, but nothing has to do with HD configuration, as this type of DVR has auto configuration utility that allows to not only recognize the drives, but to format and prepare for its own proprietary format use. I will say this - if Seagate drives work, then use Seagate drives... or find older PATA drives..