pioneer dvr 550 hdd failure

[mister_to_you]

hi i have a Pioneer DVR 550 HX i had over 2 hours on the hdd and while recording it suddenly said 0 minutes hard drive full so i optimize for 600 minutes and when it got to no minutes remaining it wouldnt finish so i left it for about half an hour after it reached no minutes and turned the unit off now it comes up with e02 error is there a way of by passing that so i can retrive my files or is there a firmware option because i dont want to reinitialize the hdd and lose everything? thanks

[Krispy Kritter]

Considering the fact that you received an error and then continued to use the unit anyway, it sounds like there was already an issue with the recorder and you files may not even be on the HDD. If the player can't read the drive, there isn't much that you can do except reinitialize and/or format the HDD. I doubt that will even solve the issue anyway and you will likely need to take the unit to be serviced.

[mister_to_you]

the files were ok before i optimized i think they will be ok if i can get back on the hdd then record files i want and then format but the optimize wouldnt finish and i dont have any option but to format to continue could i down grade the firmwarm or upgrade to get rid of the message?

[orsetto]

Unfortunately these recorders all use non-standard file systems, and perversely don't include an option to "repair" occasional file corruption, so once the drive encounters an error, you're pretty much out of luck. By the time the recorder suggests "optimizing" its often already too late: optimization will fail, as you've experienced. (Optimization messes with your files and moves them around, if the process fails at any point the recorder can no longer "find" your videos, resulting in a permanent error state.) Changing the firmware won't help and would probably make things worse. The recorder cannot fix its own drive without erasing it, and no computer will recognize or repair the drive if you remove it, so its either erase/format or see if Pioneer Service can help (doubtful). Supposedly there are a couple of very expensive Unix-based hard drive recovery tools, and a few (*very* few) lucky people have reported success repairing their drives and saving their videos with them, but the effort and expense required are usually not worth it.

The two most important rules of thumb are: 1) back EVERYTHING up to DVDs as soon as possible after recording to the hard drive, and 2) never let the hard drive get more than 80% full. True, its very annoying to buy a recorder that advertises "74 hours on the hard drive" only to have it display an on-screen "disk full" alert at just 55 hours, but thats how they work. Since they can't do even the simplest HD maintenance, they need tremendous amounts of headroom to function properly. Lots of people live successfully on the edge for years with a 95% full drive, but it isn't a good idea. At the very least, back up regularly: even near-empty hard drives can tank unexpectedly on these units.

[mister_to_you]

what would a firmware up grade down grade do as all i want to try and do is not use the hard drive just acesss it to recover some files or how much would it cost for pioneer or a specialist to recover the data on there and if they could recover and it was formated could i use it again

[orsetto]

The firmware for a DVD/HDD recorder is really its operating system, more-or-less. Changing it is usually not possible unless the mfr offers an update to fix a known problem (rare). Your Pioneer 550 encountered an error on its hard drive which made it think it was 100% full, you then unfortunately made this worse when you engaged the "optimize" function. When optimizing, the recorder temporarily deletes and restores all the files on the drive to move them closer together and open up larger blocks of blank space. If it hits a snag in the middle of the process, the drives table of contents gets corrupted and the recorder loses track of where the videos were on the drive. This is a problem specific to the drive, even if you put the drive into an entirely new Pioneer recorder the problem will not go away: the drive is ruined, changing firmware will not help because no matter what a recorder simply cannot read the damaged drive directory.

There's a very slim chance a sympathetic Pioneer Service Center might be able to fix your drive. If they agree to try it would likely cost at least $150. More often than not they won't agree to try: it takes too much time and they can't guarantee it will work. With a problem this bad (drive failed and then optimization failed on top of it), only professional data rescue companies have the tools and expertise to tackle it. Fees range from $400 and up at reputable firms like DriveSavers. Unless you have irreplaceable family videos on the drive, it really isn't worth it. Most anything you recorded from broadcast or cable can be recorded again later, or bought on commercial DVD.