Replacing the JVC HM-HDS4 hard drive
Our JVC VHS-/HDD video-recorder suffered from memory-loss. Increasingly, the blue HDD indicator on the frontpanel failed to illuminate after switchingon the VCR.
The JVC servicedepartment in the Netherlands advised me to unplug the powercord for a least an hour,after which it should be fine again.
We had to repeat thisexercisemore and more often, so I called JVC again and asked if there was service menu inside.Also, could I defragment the harddisk? No, apparently these things were not possible.
On Andy Cippico’s website I found some information about problems with the HDS1 and the operating software that is installed on the HD. That worried me; what would happen if my HD failed? What would it cost when JVC replace the HD?
I read about the drive geometry, which is critical:“replace the HD with an identical type”.
Inside the HDS-4 I found a Maxtor 80GB“DiamondMax 16”, type no. 4R080L0, ATA/133. On the Maxtor there was an information label:
158.816 sectors, 16.383 cylinders, 16 heads and 63 bytes/sector.
A suitable clone was found: the Maxtor 80GB“DiamondMax Plus 9”, available with a 2MB (p/n 6Y080L0) or a 8MB cache buffer inside (p/n 6Y080P0). I ordered the 8 MB version and there it was, on the bench, next to the old HD from JVC.
Now I needed software to clone the HD. I already had a copy of Ghost 2003 for Windows, Partition Magic 6.0, Drive Copy 4.0 and Ghost 9.0 for Windows, but none of them let me physically copy (clone) the HD. All those programs were looking for a partition, but that was invisible due to the special JVC format on the HD.
So I read about DFSEE in Andy’s manual “Cloning and Backing up the JVC HM-HDS1 Hard Drive”. Looking on the internet, I found a trialversion on the website of DFSEE.
I installed the old HD as a Master, the new HD as a Slave and started DFSEE.
It took more then 18 hours (65.935 seconds ;-) to clone the HD,and the program ended with the warning: Master boot record is not valid, no partition recognized
Ignoring this, I disconnected the 2 drives from the PC, moved the jumper on the new drive back to Master and connected it to the JVC.
Yes, there was light, the magic blue light on the frontpanel, indicating the system was healthy.
I hope this short story will help others with their JVC problems.
A word of advice: when your HDD-VCR starts giving problems, replace the HD yourself, before you are unable to clone it!
Ben Erkens , ben(at)berkens.demon.nl