Bought a Hitachi HDR255 on eBay about 3 months ago. It had v.4.8 installed and, like many others on this forum, I had all sorts of problems getting it to boot up, and after I'd achieved that, it was very unstable, taking ages to do things and frequently locking up completely. Luckily, a v.5.2 OAD cropped up, so I upgraded, which improved things out of all recognition. However, since then I have had a couple of episodes when it has locked up and become completely unresponsive, usually when I've asked it to do too many things at once. The first time, I was able to get it back (eventually) by pulling out the mains plug, waiting a few seconds, and then plugging it in again. This latest time however, I've done the same thing dozens of times and it just won't boot up properly. There's nothing else I can think of to do - the remote and the button on the front of the box don't do anything. Any ideas?

What are the symptoms exactly? When you plug the box in, does the front panel come on at all, does the power light flash green/red or does it never change from red?

Thanks for getting back to me. The first thing to say is that the box has now gone back to the vendor for a refund (hopefully) as it's still within their quoted guarantee period. However, these were the symptoms, in case it's of interest. On turning on the power the LED would flash about 4 times, then glow dim red for about 15 seconds. Then the display would show "Load" for literally half a second, then got to "0000" with a flashing green LED. From here, one of two things could happen; a) it would just stay like that for ever, with the hard disc spinning but not actually working (ie no faint clicking as the read/write head moved) or b) after about 20 or 30 seconds the LED would glow continuously with "0000" on the display, the disc would work (ie click) for a while, and then stop completely (ie stop spinning), still with the steady LED and "0000". At no time would the remote or the front panel power button do anything. I think just once I got "hdd" on the display for a short time.

From reading these forums it seems that reliability problems with PVRs are unusually common, more so than with TVs or other similar gadgets. Do you think there's something inherently technically difficult with the whole concept of PVRs? Is there such a thing as a reliable PVR at the moment?

Ok, so returning the box was the right thing to do - it was definitely a hardware failure (HDD or mainboard, but probably the HDD). I'd also be 99% sure this was the same fault that the original owner had when it was returned to Argos, assuming you did buy this refurbished. There is always a risk when buying refurbished goods, of course, in that they may still be faulty as they were not tested/repaired properly. I doubt many do a full test on the hard drive which can take several hours.

The weak link in any PVR is the hard drive, just as it usually is in a PC. Being a mechanical device, hard drives have a relatively high failure rate. That said, although some can die within days/weeks, some can go on and on for years without any trouble.

The question of software reliability is a different matter though - often reliablity problems of that nature are down to a mixture of poor programming, lack of proper testing and/or lack of thought / common sense.

However, for all the problems you see reported online, you have to remember all the other thousands/millions of owners who have never had a problem with a PVR who never have a reason to report that fact .

Yes, I did buy it "refurbished" and the point you make about the inherent risks of doing that is obviously a very good one. Serves me right I suppose!

I wouldn't quite say that. There are some great bargains to be found with refurbished stock - the problem is the lucky dip element. I'm sure a percentage of Argos returns in particular are of non-faulty fully functioning units, perhaps returned for no good reason or because of problems with a old software version being used. Of course, it all comes down to the price you pay - if paying a fraction of the new price then it may be worth a punt.

This could have been my post. I reckon when I attempt to turn mine on in the morning I may get a hard disk failure.

This evening it froze just as I was doing an advert skip, and would not respond to any commands so have switched off at wall.

this freezing and needing power off has happened 2-3 times lately and I have been hearing the hard disk access (sort of a tinkly noise) so I reckon a hard disk failure. The previous 2 times I have breathed a sigh of relief when it came back on with library intact.

I did take a risk and bought second hand but even if I had it from new and had a hard disk failure later down the line it would still have been a lot of programmes to lose, even if unit under warranty.

I'm not happy at the thought of losing hours of unwatched programmes , at least with my VCR it was only 4 hours tape, but then again I would not have recorded so much in those days.

A bit of an update...

Have now received a full refund for the faulty Hitachi box, including the return postage, so that's a relief. As an example of the triumph of optimism over experience, I have replaced it with another Vestel clone, an Agora PVR320, also bought cheap on eBay (£42.98 to be precise) though not from the same seller as the Hitachi! It has v.3.5 firmware and, touch wood, is working perfectly so far, though no doubt it will slow down a bit as the HDD fills up. It's absolutely identical to the Hitachi, except that it has channel up and down buttons on the front and the LED and display seem to be brighter (big deal). The only tiny irritation is the fact that with the 3.5 firmware one can only get full programme info via the Guide rather than with a double press of the info button while watching the programme, but I can live with that for now. If there ever is another OAD I will probably update it to 5.2, but so far, so good!

Thanks for the update. The mystery deepens as to the origins of the Agora boxes - since yours came with v3.5, it is possible that the mainboard originated from a Hitachi branded model. Then again, maybe it was the safest version to used what with the v4.6/4.8 trouble, depending on when the units were produced. Obviously, I'd expect any recently properly refurbished models to be shipped with v5.2.

Anyway, glad you got a refund and now hopefully a working replacement box. I think we may have seen the last of the T835 OADs, but I've been proven wrong before .