Do I have a dying hard drive or other HW problem?

[drhendrix]

Hello,

I have a hacked Kenwood KHD-CX-710 interfaced through a Kenwood KCA-R71FM using the AUX port of the stock CD head unit in a 99 C5 Vette.  I still have the original 10 gig drive in the cartridge.

The first problem I had was that PMM reported the drive as full when it was not.  I formatted the DTA partition and the system worked OK for a couple of weeks.

Then I started the have problems during playback from the Keg.  It began with choppy playback and progressed to no playback.  I ran DMS repair with DMS Tools 2.14, and the system worked OK for a few days.

I then started to have problems with FF.  The FF would either not move the track position at all, or actually RW the position.  Also, the position on the track after resuming from a shut down would be a few minutes previous to where it was at shutdown.

So, I ran DMS repair on the drive again and it worked better for a couple of days.  But now, the FF problem is back, and the track position resumes a few minutes earlier on the track after shut down.

When I first ran the hack procedure I mistakenly ran the hack on the Keg unit twice, but it worked fine for a few months after that.

What can I do to diagnose these problems? 

Do I have to remove HD from cartridge to run a diagnostic such as spinrite?

Thanks for any troubleshooting advice.

[VorTechS]

Have you run a chkdsk on the drive?  If not, it's certainly worth doing so... and something certainly does sound a little off with it.

As you've run the hack already, it may well be worth getting another drive prep'd and ready - and you could do a test with the new drive to check that with the same media/firmware combination it provides more stability.

[drhendrix]

Thanks for the reply VorTechS.

I would like to ask a couple of questions regarding your reply.

1.  Is there any way to run chkdsk on the drive while it is still in the DMS cartridge?  I tried from a command window but could not get any results.

2.  Can I prep a new drive before I put it in the cartridge?  If so, how?  I got that impression from your reply.

Please excuse the noob questions, but I can't find any detailed info for troubleshooting the Keg system.  Am I missing something?

Thanks for your help.

Dennis

[VorTechS]

1.  Is there any way to run chkdsk on the drive while it is still in the DMS cartridge?  I tried from a command window but could not get any results.

You should be able to run chkdsk from a command shell (start, run, cmd, OK).  You chkdsk a 'drive' in the sense of a drive partition as opposed to an entire disk.
Take a look here for detailed information on how to do this.  http://support.microsoft.com/kb/315265

You'll notice from Windows explorer you have a PHTSYS and PHTDTA drive, you need to check both of these.

2.  Can I prep a new drive before I put it in the cartridge?  If so, how?  I got that impression from your reply.

If you pop the new disk in a USB caddy, then the DMS tools will still allow you to prep. that drive as it it were attached via a cradle.  Rather than showing up in the DMS device list as (DMS Cartridge) it will show up as a USB disk, and will only be listed when the tools are running in 'DMS Tools Mode'.

[drhendrix]

Thanks VorTecS,

I ran the chkdisk /r and /f, and no problems were reported.  I do not know what would cause the system to loose it's ability to navigate a track.  Any ideas?

I would like to ask another question though.  Can DMS tools prep a drive that is connected to an IDE cable?  I don't have a USB caddy right now.

Thanks
Dennis

[VorTechS]

At the moment the tools explicitly checks for drives attached via USB.  However, I could add an advanced option (perhaps a command line parameter on the executable) that would allow it to detect cabled disks too.

[drhendrix]

However, I could add an advanced option (perhaps a command line parameter on the executable) that would allow it to detect cabled disks too.

That would be much appreciated if you have the time.

Since the drive uses FAT32, do you think fragmentation could be an issue?

Thanks
Dennis

[VorTechS]

That would be much appreciated if you have the time.

Since the drive uses FAT32, do you think fragmentation could be an issue?

Thanks
Dennis

There shouldn't be any fragmentation on the PHTSYS drive which is where the 'system' resides and loads from... but it's not uncommon for files to mysteriously corrupt themselves.  If you do a lot of updates on the DMS, then the index files that the box uses could well be fragmented although I'd be surprised if that actually caused any problems, but who knows!

It'll take me a few days to add in the changes, as I'm not around for a couple of days due to work commitments.  I'll let you know when things are done.

[drhendrix]

I do delete and add files (talk shows) once or twice a week, so perhaps the phatsys is prone to some errors.  I'm still using the PMM.  Do you think the system could be more stable if I learned to use PHMM?

I'll let you know when things are done.

OK, thanks VorTech.

Dennis