Hi everyone.

We have a Humax 9200T and up to now it's behaved impeccably well - until this afternoon.

When we came back in from shopping this evening, the menu no longer showed "Record" (so we couldn't select a recording to watch) and has gained a "Games" icon!!

Nothing records, not even using OTR. There is no longer any means of viewing/setting the date, but we can set the time.

It was OK earlier today.

Any one got any idea what could have happened?

Switch off at the mains, leave for a couple of minutes, switch on at the mains and cross fingers.

If that didn't work, it's probably the Hard Drive connection.

You'll have to open the box (cries of "Take the Money!") and check the cable conection.

What's happening is that the Hummy can't see the HD and, unsurprisingly, is therefore unabe to record or replay anything.

Strictly speaking, opening up the box voids the warranty.

If you phone Humax and explain the problem, they may well advise you to open the box. In that case, since you are following the official advice, the warranty should remain.

Thanks all,

Switching off for 2 to 3 minutes did not solve the problem, unfortunately. If only it was always that easy...

Got to wait until Monday before the help desk opens...

What I don't understand is why a Games icon should suddenly appear. It wasn't there before.

Btw, my wife reports that she got a pop-up box she had never seen before when a scheduled recording started. It asked if she wanted to watch the program being recorded. She left it (ie she didn't select either of the options [Yes] and [No]) and it chose to switch her to the program being recorded. It was after that we noticed the problem.

The Games icon always appears when the Record icon disappears. The Games icon is standard on the F2-FOX T, the basic set top box.

Thanks Big-les.

The implication is that this has happened before...

Yes but not to me. The first fix to try is to power off, sorry it didn't work for you. On the PVR-8000T many people reported that the IDE cable was not fully inserted into the disk or the motherboard, this could be the case hence the second fix is to take the lid off and have a look. Don't think about it yet but it could be that your hard disk has died, fingers crossed again. You could try a Default Settings but you will lose all your personal settings, schedule, etc. Your recordings will be safe.

Thanks. I'll try Default Settings after talking to Humax and getting their permission to open the box without loss of Warrranty (still 4 months left!!) and check the cables.

After that (all not being well), it looks like having to replace the hard drive since the format function is on the missing Record menu. I've found a couple of threads which deal with this.

Ha! Humax don't want me to open the box!!

They have sent me a fault report to fill in and post back (yes, post - to Ireland at that) + usual receipts etc.

Then they'll organise a courier to collect it, then sometime later they'll get round to looking at it, then they'll erase all the recordings, and then they'll send it (or a replacement) back.

I'll see what the boss has to say to that tonight when she gets in...

Does tyour 9200T have any warranty seals on it?
Mine didn't. If not how are they to know if you opened up the box?

If you have the facility you can email back the returns form, and a copy of the receipt.

Have you tried contacting where you bought it from? They may have a policy of simply swapping it for a new one, John Lewis did this for me.

Hi everyone,

thanks for your replies.

As a last resort, I turned the box off for more than an hour this afternoon - and, lo and behold, Record has reappeared in the Menu.

Good point about the seals - but they might not be obvious (I've come across screws sealed with a form of wax before now).

The PVR was purchased from hughesdirect via Amazon.

interesting, I found a while ago that a brief switch off did less than leaving it for 10 mins or so.

humax want my box back - see lost all recordings thread - I am insisting on a replacement, that they have promised, and its over 2 years old. I'm not paying anything - they seem to want to investigate the fault. they asked me not to do a format etc! I haven't been asked for the receipt either

Good luck with Humax, tvaddict37. Hope they find the bug and squash it pdq. That way we will all benefit soonest!

My initial turn off time was about 4 minutes - and I thought that that was long (in PC reboot terms)!

How on earth could a disk problem be solved by an hour's off-time? Unless the problem really lay with disk index structures held in memory...and memory that retains its contents for a fair long time after power down, at that.

My guess would be that your problem is a hardware problem with the disk, perhaps a poor quality joint and that an hour allows it to cool down and remove the displacements caused by thermal expansion. Your problem will almost certainly return and with increasing frequency; we have been living with the same problem for some months and have a new disk ready to fit when I have time (or the problem becomes terminal). TVAddict has a completely different problem with some sort of minor corruption to the file system (which could be cured by a format in a PC).

Could be so. Time, as they say, will tell. At least I have various options open to me in the event of total failure.

Thanks, all, for your help.