The new drive for the MythTV box arrived today and works! Well, let’s not be hasty; the BIOS recognises it. I won’t know whether it truly works until I actually try to put an operating system on it.<\/p>\n\n
To that end, I thought I’d try to start the FC4 install from a bootable DVD. FC5 comes out next Wednesday, but this would at least tell me that the system was finally ready to go from a hardware perspective. I pressed on the eject button of the DVD player to open the tray and… nothing. The LED on the front of the drive blinked a few times, but that was it.<\/p>\n\n
After searching the Internet, I came across a document describing Plextor’s blink codes<\/a>. It describes a different drive to the one I have, but Plextor’s blink codes seem to be the same across all models.<\/p>\n\n First of all, I was getting three blinks, which means ejection or loading error<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n After manually ejecting the tray, inserting a DVD and then closing the tray, I then get eight blinks, which means spindle failed<\/em>. None of the suggestions on Plextor’s site provided any relief.<\/p>\n\n Why me? Why me? I ask.<\/p>\n\n I’ve already had to send back the TV tuner card and order a replacement. That arrived today, together with the new hard drive. Tomorrow, I’ll have to send back the first hard drive and now also the DVD drive. More bloody delays and frustration ahead. All of these hardware problems would be bad enough if I had bought the parts locally, but having to send stuff back through the post is very tedious and time-consuming.<\/p>\n\n I’m beginning to wonder whether a working MythTV box will ever see the light of day by way of my hands.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The new drive for the MythTV box arrived today and works! Well, let’s not be hasty; the BIOS recognises it. I won’t know whether it truly works until I actually try to put an operating system on it. To that … Continue reading