I am the original poster of this May 2022 thread and want to share an update with other members about losing my recorded programmes following a software update and how, thanks to the advice from others here, I believe I have found the cause. Long reply ....
My problem first arose 6 months ago, my VU+ Uno after a software update to OpenVix 6.2.009 failed to load the existing internal SSD. The VU+ listed the drive but it was not usable - the software kept wanting to initialise the drive, which I resisted in case the existing recordings on it (four months worth) were still there.
Instead, I installed and initialised a new external USB WD 1TB drive and that worked fine for a month, but then one day that too failed exactly like the SSD but not during an update. The VU+ just failed to display the recorded programmes, even though the VU+ again reported the drive as being attached (and wanting to initialise it).
I tried again with a third external drive and that too failed after about two months. I gave up after this, thinking I must have a faulty VU+. I put it all away in a cupboard for a few months and forgot about it.
Then last month I decided to add a good UPS to my streaming devices (where none had been before), I already had another UPS running in the same room protecting a PC. The first UPS used to kick in once or twice a day and I always thought it was just doing a regular self-test of the battery. But with the second UPS installed in the same room I heard BOTH UPS's always activating at the exact same time, together. The second UPS also has an LED display and I could see the voltage was dropping from 231 volts, sometimes down 219 volts for less than a second or two, before returning to 230 volts.
Member Huevos, early in this thread had offered the suggestion that maybe the drive in my VU+ had been corrupted by a power outage. I believe my experience with the two UPS activating at the same time confirms his theory. I had no idea my mains power was fluctuating like this. I have had the VU+ Uno plugged into the UPS for a month and there have been no further drive issues with the VU+.
And regarding all the recordings on the three different drives, I had hoped to view the drives to see if there was anything on them. Member bellet in the thread suggested I use DiskInternals and I in the last few day I installed that on my Windows PC and hooray, all the recorded programmes on all three disks (nine months worth of my wife's recordings!) were still there intact on all the disks. So using DiskInternals I copied them all onto to an external WD drive (NTFS) and they were all saved sucessfully. The ordering of the files was a bit of a dog's breakfast when plugged into an Android player, so I plugged the drive into an old dis-used UltraPlus STB and the files names and programme description are all viewable just fine, just like they were in the VU+.
In summary, I believe power fluctiation and surges have indeed been the cause of all my problem, but this did not corrupt the drives because I have been able to recover all the recorded programmes from them. So could it be a hardware issue, or a software issue in the VU+ ? Could the VU+ be super-sensitive to voltage fluctuations? Any thoughts?
A final request: Given none of the three drives were corrupted afterall, how can I possibly get my VU+ Uno to rediscover them? The two external WD drives were automatically located by the VU+ (when I attached them) in the following location: media/sdb1 - but how do I add it as a path within the VU+ (because it is not listed when I search the different directories). I would like to learn more about default file paths in the VU+ and whether I can create the path media/sdb1, then plug in the drives and see if they work again in the VU+.
Thanks again to everyone here for your advice. I hope my experience might benefit others in the group.
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