Russound SMS3 Boot Up Problem

Hi Mike,

Found your post, but sorry to say that I don't have much experience with the SMS3 servers yet.

The detail you incuded from bootup provides clues that the disk drive has developed unrecoverable read errors likely due to failed sector(s). Sector 4152 is even singled out by the error.

You mention that the system has been up and running for a year so it's likely that you're just out of the 1-year warranty? If not purchased through an authorized dealer, you'll have difficulty obtaining service from Russound regardless if it's in or out of warranty. If you're in this position and don't have much else to loose, I'd recommend enlisting the help of a computer tech or a friend that knows computers. In the end that SMS3 is really just a PC running Linux on an IDE disk drive. There are a number of disk drive utility programs that may be successful in repairing the disk if it's removed and installed in a PC where these utilities can be run. Russound may have some proprietary stuff going on, but in the end, it's just 1's & 0's to the drive repair utility so it may work?

Did you ever connect an external disk drive to back up your music? If so, you've got a snap shot of all the configuration settings & audio files that can be used to restore this data to a replacement or repaired SMS3 (to my knowledge this backup cannot be used for disaster recovery to restore the system files on a failed SMS3 drive, it only restores custom settings and the music once the SMS is repaired or replaced).

Sorry I can't offer more assistance... if you're out of warranty, the only thing I can suggest is to try the PC drive repair utilities.

Please let us know if you make any progress with repairs!

Cheers,
Paul

Mike,

This is uncharted territory for me so take any advice with the caution that you proceed at your own risk. It sounds like you're left to last resorts anyway, so I'd propose to remove the disk from the SMS3 and install it as a secondary drive in a PC where you can run drive utilities. These should run independant of operating system and you can start with windows check disk which is built into the Windows operating systems.

If you have access to more sophisticated software tools, by all means try them too. I'm not much of a Linux guy either, but to the drive tools, they should just be looking at this as data and sectors and not really looking for OS specific info. If I'm wrong, hopefully someone else will correct me here and offer some caution or other advice?

Happy to hear that you've received some positive feedback from Russound. I've been please with their level of service and commitment as a dealer.

With your music already on a PC, you may want to look into the J. Rivers's Media Center add-on software written by hyslopc on this forum. I don't have any experience with this, but I know that a number of others are successfuly using it. This would provide control and meta data feedback to the keypads and musci control, but won't replace the video interface or pictures function of the SMS3 if you were using those.

EDIT - Link to thread about JRivers/Russound integration:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...highlight=jrmc

What about Russounds new iBridge to dock an iPod for MP3 playback? Not sure if you currently own an iPod or how large your music collection is, but this may be a workable solution for ~$1K even if you have to buy both (and you'd end up with a portable music device too).

Cheers,
Paul

Alot of it depends on how the drive was originally formatted and whether it is locked or unlocked. I don't think Windows can natively read a Linux formatted drive which may be formatted in any number of ways (ext2, ext3, reiserfs, xfs and jfs). Windows of course reads Fat32, Fat16, and NTFS. There are even some oddball formats out there like FatX (X-box drives most notably) that neither reads natively.

You can try here: http://www.stellarinfo.com/download.htm for some free downloads to see if you can even read the data. If so, then you can opt to purchase the software to try to repair the drive.

Be sure you buy 3 sound cards of different manufacturers or ones that support multiple soundcards for a single driver. Identical sound cards are notoriously difficult to get to coexist if the driver pack is not written for such an application. You could also buy an M-Audio style card which has multiple channels on a single card.

Be careful not to boot into windows with the Linux drive installed. Windows will write to the drive and mess it up. You need a Linux boot CD or a bootable disk diagnostic utility to try and repair the drive.

YMMV, this is information from working with TiVo (Linux) drives that I have done in the past.

Al

As far as specific SMS3 info goes, I installed one 18 months ago and replaced it (lost all music) 9 months later for a failed disc. I don't remember the error codes, but it wouldn't get past the boot screen either. Russound said it was a total hard drive failure.

Thats the only 1 I ever did.

I have an SMS3-250 that also crashed. No big deal since I had a 250gb backup right....wrong, for some reason it reformated that also when it crashed. That really sucked. I sent it back and Russound was able to recover about 70% of my stuff, but all the artwork and personal settings were gone. I really love the SMS3, but now I keep 2 - 250gb drives backed up at all times just to prevent another catastrophic failure.

I just installed my Russound CAM 6.6 and was looking at all the various methods to play my MP3s. I found CASATOOLS @ www.casatools.com and bought a barix exstreamer. CASATOOLS allows me to play my songs over the russound and control the Russound via the pc and control my music via my UNO-S2s. What I really love is that connecting through the exstreamer allows me to keep my PC where it is and connect to the Russound via the exstreamer and a network connection. If you want to play more than one song at a time, just add another exstreamer. They are small and < $200 each. Very nice, easy and cheap alternative. I am glad I found them instead of buying the SMS3.

My SMS250 also died with a boot error.

I have had no luck fixing it.

Total peice of junk. I would not recommend anyone buy one.

I have now converted it into a windows xp box running jriver media center with the russound plugin - very nice!

Chris

Howdy, count me in as another person with a SMS3 that has died with an assumed Hard Drive failure.
I have not fully looked at the disk yet, but will give that a try first.

Questions:
1. I assume if I place a new blank hard drive in the SMS3 that it will not flash/download the operating system onto the drive. I know my Dishnetwork imbedded LINUX systems I think do this to recover from a corrupted hard drive.

2. Anyone interested in me sending you a blank hard drive and you using GHOST or something like that to make a copy of your hard drive so I can place it in my system to get it back running again.

3. Any tips in sending it back to RUSSOUND? a. Yes, I didn't buy it from an approved dealer, didn't know it was going to be such a big deal until I called them asking about. Will they confinscate it? :-) b. I just want them to fix it, put a new formated hard drive in it, I'll pay for the cost of the hard drive and the install and then send it back. What could be so hard about that? c. I've already talked to them so they have my name/address etc. Wish I would have just been anonymous, that way I could have just said, "We moved into this house....and there was this SMS3 installed and it quit working....that is all I know....".

4. I wish I never would have bought the thing, now that I know about JRMC and the plugin.

5. Chris, when you converted yours to a xp box, was there any other surprises about that? For example does it have a COM port that you used with JRMC? Do the 3 Audio out ports show up under XP or did you have to do something extra with that. I think that is what I will do with it if I can't restore it back to origional use. Either that or buy a PC and equip it to connect to my RUSSOUND CAV.

Thanks in advance for the help!!!!

Mark Antry
Bountiful, UT

I have a solution for all your SMS3 woes. Assuming your hardware is still fine and its your disk that has died. Just go out and get a new 300gb hard drive and use the g4u linux bootable cdrom to install a new image to the hard drive you just bought.

G4u works by booting up on any pc (a SMS3 is a pc) you want to clone and then ftp'ing a perfect hard drive image to a network ftp server someware (say on another pc on your local network). You just then do the process in reverse. Boot up on the SMS3 again with a blank hard drive in and then download the ftp'ed image back.

The only downside is you need a working SMS3 to get an image off but I am sure there are plenty of those around. I now have a spare drive for my sms3 sat in a cupboard with a fresh image on for when it fails again (and also a copy of the image too on a shared drive).

I would add that Russound fixed my sms3 for me by putting in a new hard drive but I had to pay for that and it was certainly more that the cost of a 80$ 300gb drive.

So there you have it - as long as you have a g4u image of a working sms3 you simply need to buy a new 300gb drive (any will do), bung it in the sms3 (replacing the old one) and boot up g4u. Give g4u the ip, username and password of the ftp server you have the image stored on and leave it overnight to download onto the empty disk sector by sector. Once done take the cdrom out and reboot. Voila working sms3. So where can you get that image from ..............................

Chris

Mike,
I just repaired my sms3 hard drive. Did you get yours working?
ML

Just came home and found my SMS3 has also failed due to what appears to be a bad hard drive. Anyone have any luck in getting their units back in service by installing a new drive? Anyone have an image of an SMS3 drive to assist in formatting a new virgin drive?


Mr Lutron, how did you get yours back in service?

botcher,
I used Maxtor's hard drive utility and repaired the bad sector. I then copied the drive with GU4 and installed a new drive. Works great now. I may try to use JRIver or some other device. The software on the SM3 is very problematic. I do like the way it loads a cd. I do not like the delete functions.
The files seem to remain on the hard drive. They may get overwritten someday but for now they are stuck there. I hope this helps. Let me know how you make out.
ML

Thanks for the quick reply, Lutron.

Being a tech/engineer for a living, I decided I couldn't let this thing drive me crazy, pulled it out of my rack, and brought it over to my workshop this evening. Once I had it on the bench, I immediately discovered that I get no video, no POST (power on self test), and the CDRom drive will not open when the eject button is pushed. I then pulled the cover. The power supply board manufacturer was nice enough to label all of the pins on the ATX power connector, and ALL voltages were properly present. I then disconnected both the HD and CDRom IDE cables, and still no POST or startup from the motherboard. Not even any error beeps, so this leads me to believe the motherboard is dead. Even with the DDR ram stick pulled, no beeps. Once I disconnected the IDE cables, the CDRom drive began to respond to the eject button, which I've seen happen on bad pc motherboards, so that was another telltale sign of motherboard failure.

The hard drive sounds like it spins up once power is applied, so hopefully my music data (and HD) is still good. I have backups of all my MP3s, but even still, it's a lot of work to clean up the tags and restore them to the SMS3.

I started searching the web for details on the motherboard, and its a VIA EPIA-M mini-ITX board, but customized (Russound had the parallel and audio jacks deleted, and hard wired the three audio jacks to their custom RCA output board).

I'll be calling Russound tomorrow to see what they have to say. Very upsetting for a $2000 box to just fail. I can understand a HD failing, but the motherboard should not fail this early in its life.

I'm debating whether I should try to boot the HD in a PC (disconnecting the original PC drives, of course), and see if it will run on a PC so far as to allow me to transfer my music data off of it via my network connection..........

Anyone else here have a motherboard fail in their SMS3?

And I was planning to listen to music ALL weekend long while painting the bedrooms... So much for that idea!

Russound will not be much assistance if you tell them you opened the unit. I have located the board also, as a just in case scenario. I cooked my CD drive but found a replacement. The drive has been discontinued. I did boot the hard drive to my spare PC.
Getting all the cover art is an issue. I don't know where that data is stored on the SM3.
I wish the SM3 would get the cover art when transferring MP3 files. It only downloads art during CD ripping. Did you check the board for a reset jumper? Very unusual for a board to go like that.
ML

No reset on the board, just a BIOS clear/reset. I tried that. Also checked the BIOS battery, as those are known to cause issues when below a certain voltage. But no luck there either.

I had no idea so many SMS3 were failing....

Ive installed 6 or 7 and 3 failed!!!, two on seperate occasions for the same customer!, make sure you have the back up hard drive. The good thing is that Russound fixed all servers free of charge, im not sure if they were even still under warranty.

I beleive it was the SMS3 with Maxtor hard drives that failed....they no longer use them.

Pro99,

My SMS3 uses the newer WD server series hard drive. It appears the motherboard died rather than the hard drive. Spoke to Russound yesterday, and evidently they have had a few motherboard failures as well. The motherboard is made by VIA, and I suspect that these mini motherboards may be suffering from the famous bad capacitor issue that resulted in a class action against VIA a few years ago.

They also claim the Maxtors were failing so much that they switched to the WD server series drives, and things have been better since. They also stated they would fix my unit under warranty since it appears to be a known issue. It appears they are trying to make good on the fact their product used flawed components. I can't ask for much more that that.... Good thing it was purchased from an authorized distributor!

you guys think the idock to the mac mini is a good substitute? You can do music video and even internet radio from the control panel.

I am another one of thos "lucky" people who bought a Russound SMS3 (from an authorized dealer), and now have a failing HD. Russound will not help me, and I was not aware of the procedure to replace my drive until AFTER the failure, else I would have ghosted it.

I am unable to repair my drive, and am desperate to find someone who has an ghost image I can use to get my SMS3 back up and running.

Is there anyone out there who would be willing to help me? I am looking for anyone with an image I can use.

Please email me directly: dl (at) sitehound.net

Thanks,
-Dana

Dana,

If you did purchase the unit through an authorized dealer (Russound can verify by serial number), they should be happy to do out-of-warranty repair work for you.

You'll have to send the unit to them and pay for repair...

Paul

If you have a system that Russound refuses to support you can get VIA EPIA-M boards. The board will not be an exact replacement so more work will be required to get the whole SMS3 thing working. I have done one of these and it is not a drop in solution. I also would suggest replacing the caps used on the DC-DC supply while you are in there, mine were starting to fail.

Hi All

Looks like I may have a dead motherboard too. What replacement board did you use prop-head and what changes did you have to do to get the new board working?

Thanks in advance.

You guys rock! this is a lot of good information on the SMS3. I only wish I found this before purchasing the server. I'll definitly be using some of the info here to backup my system.

Just a quick question, I just go my unit two days ago. It's running just fine, but how do you turn it off or restart it?

what am I missing?

thanks in advance

shaka