Not booting when HDD connected

Help and Support Vero 4K / Vero 4K +
1

Hi All

I’ve added a 160Gb HDD to my Vero 4K tonight (old-but-working one lying about, bought a powered enclosure for it and formatted it to NTFS). I’ve had to shutdown or reboot the Vero 4K a couple of times tonight and it won’t reboot with this HDD connected. I’ve had a good look round the forum but can’t find anything. I’m guessing it’s trying to look for an OS on the HDD but I’ve no idea how to change or stop this. Any clues?

Thanks

2

Does it hang at Please Stand By?

Some HDD caddies don’t handle halted endpoints properly which can hang the boot. There’s a proposed fix for this but we don’t have a way to safely offer this as an update yet.

Sam

3

Hi Sam, thanks for the quick reply. Not sure what this means TBH, sorry. I don’t see anything on screen when it’s shutdown (via SSH). When I remove the power cable from the Vero and reconnect, nothing happens. If I remove it again, then remove the HDD I get a quick flash of the red light on the front of the Vero. If I then reconnect the power to the Vero it boots fine. I can then connect the HDD and it works as expected.

4

OK – that doesn’t sound like the same issue.

It sounds like the device isn’t getting sufficient power. Can you confirm if the USB HDD is externally powered (it should be)

Does the HDD work after being attached after booting?

Sam

5

Yes, I’ve got it connected to a 2.0A USB port on a mains socket

Yes, I can read and write from/to it with no apparent issues

6

Okay – I’m not sure what would cause that. I could understood if it hanged at the splash screen; but not if you don’t see anything. It’s possible that the power draw is borderline during bootup.

Sam

7

Yeah weird one, I assumed it might have been looking for something on the HDD at startup which isn’t there but nothing happens at all on screen. I’ll try it tomorrow with other supply methods (5v 2A PSU and the other available USB port on the socket) but I doubt this will be the issue. The port was working fine and charging my phone before I connected the HDD. Either way it’s not a massive ballache, if I do need to reboot I’ll just remove the HDD while the Vero is shutdown.

8

HDDs draw a lot more power than a phone, especially when spinning up

Sam

9

But surely not 2A? I’d be amazed if a 2.5" HDD drew that much even when the motor is starting up. I’m pretty sure the sticker on it said 750mA, not sure if that’s peak or average.

10

I assume it is a 2.5’’ HDD you placed into an external USB-SATA enclosure.

Some ideas:

  • Does it make any difference if you disconnect the power supply of the enclosure and try to reboot without it, means is the power supply faulty/not working at all?

  • Does it work if you first power up the drive and then power up the Vero4k? This would mean something happens while reboot which leaves the enclosure in an unusual state … and this is usually an issue of the enclosure.

11

That’s correct

Just done some tests and some weird stuff is happening but it looks like a problem with the USB/mains socket.

Firstly I removed the 5V supply to the HDD and the Vero boots up fine and reads from it (haven’t tried writing to it though).

I then connected the HDD power to a 5V 2A iPhone PSU in a different socket away from the one I was using (with the USB ports). Before I had chance to put the power lead back into the Vero it booted up but kept rebooting. I’m guessing it’s getting some power from the HDD USB port?

When I reconnected the Vero power, it booted as expected. When I rebooted (with the HDD connected to the iPhone charger) it still rebooted, and played files.

So then I put the HDD power cable on the other USB port back on the original socket (it has two) and I was back to square one. Both USB sockets will charge my phone, albeit I would imagine much less current draw, but neither will allow the Vero to boot. So I’m a bit stumped really. The spec of the socket is 2.1A and this should be plenty unless there is something about it that either the HDD or the Vero don’t like. I can’t think what though.

12

So, the power supply you use for the HDD enclosure does not belong to it means came from the same vendor?

13

Yep, it didn’t come with one, just a USB to DC power cable.

14

Well, the intuitive way to solve this situation is to look for a power supply that works, but your sentence above makes me fretful. I’m not sure whether this is “normal” that the Vero 4K can be powered using one of its USB ports.
Mine is connected to a powered USB hub with 3.6 A and I have never ever seen that this is working that way.

15

Well it all seems to be working now without a PSU for the drive now anyway so I probably could have got away with a non-powered caddy. I’ve got a newer 1TB drive (unpowered) which I might try later and see what happens. No idea regarding the rebooting issue. I double-checked; the power lead was definitely not connected to the Vero and it kept rebooting with no input from me. It would get to the Kodi page then start up again.

16

This should be working with most external HDDs anyway. Even the Pi delivers enough power through the USB ports to power most external 2.5" HDDs.

17

Yep, I tested this meanwhile as well: The Vero 4k can be powered via its USB ports.

In your case I’m not sure whether this is an intended function of an enclosure to provide power+ground outside since in parallel operation you connect power+gorund of two different power supplies which is not a good idea at all. Don’t do that!

Well, @Chillbo and me will not see such operation using the USB hub since the hub’s port to the Vero(host) is not powered at all.

18

Oh, yes. Did miss that fact… :+1:t2:

19

Last question: What enclosure is it? Brand and model?

(Belongs to those devices I’m putting on my personal blacklist.)

20

Oh well I think I’ll just leave it as it is then i.e. no power to the HDD. Thanks for all the help chaps. :+1:

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