DVMRE 16eZt Drive size incorrect

[pscrev20 0]

I have a GE DVMRE 16eZt-500 that both drive faild in during a power outage. I ordered two new WD2500AVJD drives for it and installed them. It is now showing that it only has 273GB installed. If I disconnect 1 drive, it show about 133GB. Any one know why it is not showing the full 500GB anymore? I upgraded the firmware and checked the boot firmware and it is all up to date now. I had replaced one of the drives several months ago and did not have an issue, but now that I have replaced 2 drives, it is not showing up properly. Drive tests in the system show that both drives are fine. Any help would be great.

 

Thanks

[scorpion 0]

I know I am asking a dumb question.

 

Is it set for master / slave?

[pscrev20 0]

No question is too dumb to ask, but yes, they are both set to master/slave according to the old drives.

[nexus6 0]

I have a GE DVMRE 16eZt-500 that both drive faild in during a power outage. I ordered two new WD2500AVJD drives for it and installed them. It is now showing that it only has 273GB installed. If I disconnect 1 drive, it show about 133GB. Any one know why it is not showing the full 500GB anymore? I upgraded the firmware and checked the boot firmware and it is all up to date now. I had replaced one of the drives several months ago and did not have an issue, but now that I have replaced 2 drives, it is not showing up properly. Drive tests in the system show that both drives are fine. Any help would be great.

 

Thanks

 

the drive's specs:

https://www.westerndigital.com/en/products/products.asp?driveid=590

 

Try to conect one to a' PC and see what the size realy is,Maybe its a' wrong partion tabel.

 

greetings

 

Nico the dutch man

[pscrev20 0]

Try to conect one to a' PC and see what the size realy is,Maybe its a' wrong partion tabel.

 

Tried that, computer sees it as a model WD2500AVJB with 233GB available. Interesting note: one of the bad drives was a WD2500AAJB which is the commercial version of the AVJB and the DVR sees it as a full 250GB drive

[CCTV_Suppliers 0]

What does not make sense is that you mention that you upgraded the firmware and still unable to have the system recognize the drives... Where did you get the firmware and are you sure that you updated it with the correct firmware? What if the firmware update that you used was not intended for this unit?

 

If so, I will suggest to change the ATA cables - seen many damage over time...

 

I also seen external power supply fail, which caused ambiguous problems - system not starting up, hard drives not getting recognized, video flickers, etc... so, do change the external power supply too.

 

We are able to drop up to two 750GB PATA drives in this type of unit for overall internal storage of 1.5TB... Common drives are 500GB size and most of our users want 1TB internal storage. Nothing special about it, but make sure you are using the latest available firmware...

 

Good luck!

[pscrev20 0]

The firmware came from the GE Website for this unit. http://www.gesecurity.com/portal/site/GESecurity/menuitem.11620ebca5cc0a06574efe10140041ca/?vgnextoid=55a63668cd0a9110VgnVCM100000592d7003RCRD

I've tried a different IDE cable, same result. I've tried a different power supply, same result. Any more Ideas? I'm begenning to feel that I might have to send the AV drives back and get the standard ones since I know they work.

[nexus6 0]

I'have no more info either,maybe 2x250GB comercial drives.

 

greetz

 

Nico

[rory 0]

are the drives totally blank, no partition at all?

Also, the older GE DVRs could not handle 2x 7200rpm drives without a power upgrade.

[CCTV_Suppliers 0]

are the drives totally blank, no partition at all?

Also, the older GE DVRs could not handle 2x 7200rpm drives without a power upgrade.

 

Very correct assessment Rory...

[CCTV_Suppliers 0]

The firmware came from the GE Website for this unit. http://www.gesecurity.com/portal/site/GESecurity/menuitem.11620ebca5cc0a06574efe10140041ca/?vgnextoid=55a63668cd0a9110VgnVCM100000592d7003RCRD

I've tried a different IDE cable, same result. I've tried a different power supply, same result. Any more Ideas? I'm begenning to feel that I might have to send the AV drives back and get the standard ones since I know they work.

 

Yup, this is what we use too... did you use the firmware uploader and did you see the successful upgrade message?

 

Assigning Western Digital drives for Master and Slave could be tricky - pin sets are to be set so that Master drive is available with Slave present. Otherwise, it may read much lower capacity than intended.

 

Try another set of hard drives.. we had no issues with up to two 750GB PATA drives.. as long as the motherboard was functioning correctly. We seen many of these motherboards fail as well and sometimes gave us intermittent problems similar to your description.. and the only way to "fix" it was to get another motherboard.

 

Get yourself some test drives with higher capacity than 250GB - lets say 500G and try it one at a time... just make sure that you assign these drives correctly.

[pscrev20 0]

Ok, I had a commercial 250gb maxtor 7200rpm drive here and installed it... the DVR detected it just fine. I checked the original drives and they were 5400rpm and the one I had repalced a few months back was a 7200rpm. The power supply is a 12v 5.2amp.

 

As for updating the firmware, I used the built in web page to do it. It all completed successfully.

 

Also verified that both drives are blank with no partition table on them, and tripple checked the jumper settings, the 1st drive is set to "master with slave" and the second drive is set to "slave".

 

I'm looking in to sending back the 2 AV drives and putting commercial drives back in since I seem to be having problems with the AV series. I checked to see if I could find a Segate SV series, but the few I saw in PATA were not worth the price.

[CCTV_Suppliers 0]

Ok, I had a commercial 250gb maxtor 7200rpm drive here and installed it... the DVR detected it just fine. I checked the original drives and they were 5400rpm and the one I had repalced a few months back was a 7200rpm. The power supply is a 12v 5.2amp.

 

As for updating the firmware, I used the built in web page to do it. It all completed successfully.

 

Also verified that both drives are blank with no partition table on them, and tripple checked the jumper settings, the 1st drive is set to "master with slave" and the second drive is set to "slave".

 

I'm looking in to sending back the 2 AV drives and putting commercial drives back in since I seem to be having problems with the AV series. I checked to see if I could find a Segate SV series, but the few I saw in PATA were not worth the price.

 

Do you have extra drives on hand higher than 250GB? For testing purposes, it will be interesting to find out if the problem is the new drives or something else...

 

You mentioned that you changed the power supply too... which is 5.2A version. I know that we had many problems with this power supply and instead started using GE 7.5A version - here is the part number: PSU-7.5AMP. This is a GE part, so it is available...

 

Besides the fact that 5.2A power supplies were failing, it became more obvious that they did not have enough juice once we started changing hard drives with 7200 RPM drives and even higher capacity.

 

Let us know what you decide.

[rory 0]

Was not the power upgrade was something internal, as GE at the time told me we had to goto their place and become certified with them to be able to buy the part from them?

[CCTV_Suppliers 0]

Rory, you are correct... I know we have plenty of these power supplies in stock... along with certifications to work on this type of DVRs... but, GE CCTV is no more.. we still have them...

[pscrev20 0]

Ok, I ordered two new 500GB commercial drives. It appears to not like them either. I seems that it may not like the new WD drives. The spare 250 I tested was a Maxtor I had. I had a WD in there before with no problem though. Must be something WD has changed in their drives. I'll see if I can dig up some Seagates an try them or something. As for the power supplies, the spare one I tried was a 5.2A as well.

 

CCTV_Suppliers - do you have drives/psu that will work with this unit? I'm starting to get tired of looking around for them.

[CCTV_Suppliers 0]

We have plenty in stock...

 

Here are few links:

 

1. 7.5A Power Supply - http://cctvportal.com/dvrs/ge-psu-7-5amp-power-supply-for-cbr-dsr-and-dvmre-products-ntsc-117-vac-7-5amp.html

 

Various size PATA drives also avail - from 80GB, 160GB, 200GB, 250GB, 300GB, 500GB and others...

 

My suggestion is to send the entire system to us for evaluation at no cost to you. If repairable, then just pay for one hour labor, the parts and shipping costs... I will give you warranty on replaced parts..

 

GE (or should I say UTC Fire & Security) will not touch this unit and even if they do, they will charge arm and a leg. One of customers sent a 4-channel DVMRe unit for repair and they were quoted $1,200 not including $200 flat fee for evaluation. This unit came back to us and the overall costs were substantially lower.

 

Please PM if interested. Once we receive the unit, I will get back to you for the costs and upon approval, we can make this pup to work.

 

Let me know and thanks.

[pscrev20 0]

I talked to the my supervisor and he agrees that we would like to send it to you to verify it is functioning properly. If you would please give me a # I can call and discuss what drives we would like and costs, that would be great.

 

Thanks

[CCTV_Suppliers 0]

Just sent you PM...

[rory 0]

how did a huge company such as GE get sold out to an unknown name like the one you mentioned?

[CCTV_Suppliers 0]

how did a huge company such as GE get sold out to an unknown name like the one you mentioned?

 

Rory, UTC Fire & Security is not a small company... Besides, GE was never geared to be a major player anyway - security industry was not one of their strong holds... rather, an opportunity to explore if they can become a major player... they never designed anything new, rather bought companies right and left and added to their portfolio...

 

GE sold all their security division for $1.8 billion...

[rory 0]

Rory, UTC Fire & Security is not a small company... Besides, GE was never geared to be a major player anyway - security industry was not one of their strong holds... rather, an opportunity to explore if they can become a major player... they never designed anything new, rather bought companies right and left and added to their portfolio...

 

GE sold all their security division for $1.8 billion...

 

Ok thanks .. somehow i missed this whole sale thing

Never heard of UTC but i will take your word on it ..

BTW I just had to use my old WaveVue software for a DVR which we put in place to temporarily replace a PC DVR which went down (cant get parts until Monday). It worked so well and quick that I decided to put the software back on my site for free download:

http://www.bahamassecurity.com/software/utilities/wavevue.asp

Not sure if it works with newer GE DVRs or not, also its an older setup.

 

Unfortunately I could never sell GE DVRs again here .. 45% customs duty on them as not PCs (10%) and the first cost is WAY too high .. they just work which is nice though .. but bottom line is always cost.

[rlit 0]

So was the problem with the drives or with the dvr. I'm new to your forum and have read all the post on the ge dvmre that I could find. I also have the same problem with the WD3200AAJB when trying to upgrade the drive. Software Ver is 5.71 and Boot Ver is 1.03.