SMT550 Hard Drive Failure - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: eflyersteve
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: September 07, 2023, 04:51:29 pm
content: All,Curious if anyone here has had to replace their hard drive in an SMT550 or other PNP from XY? I have a new machine that is a few weeks old and has been working great until one morning I switch it on and when loading windows it tells me there are issues with the drive and it attempts to fix them. Then the PC shuts down and boots again and repeats the cycle.After some back and forth with Jim at XY, he sent me software and driver links. I've installed on a new SSD with windows 10 and when connecting to the PNP the servos seem to work fine (it homes) and the camera displays the image but I get a warning that cable1 is unplugged. I'm 100% positive that no cables have been disturbed. Jim first told me it was a setting in the software but would not tell me where to look. He then told me it is the version of Windows 10. So I installed Windows 10 Pro and am still getting the same issues. They finally agreed to send me a new drive that has been pre-configured with software and drivers from an SMT550 but in the meantime, I have some boards that I need to run for a customer.If anyone has gone down this same path, please let me know how you got back up and running. FWIW - the SSD they include in the machine costs about $19 and as soon as I receive the replacement, I'll make a clone of it and install a more reliable drive.Thanks!!

author: eflyersteve
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: September 15, 2023, 01:11:24 am
content: For what it's worth, I'm about a week and a half into the machine being down and while I was promised a replacement drive last week that I had to pay $100 for (so much for replacement parts provided for the first year) it just shipped today.This company and Jim have been simply the worst to deal with. Just jumping through the same hoops over and over. You'd think that with two pick and place machines and a reflow oven purchased from them over the past year they would be more interested in helping, but no.An engineer there did upload a ghost image of one of their drives from a machine but couldn't download it because I'm restricted in the USA. Paid a service to download it today. Working on that tonight. But I have little faith the image is everything I'll need.Sorry for the rant. Just wanted to warn everyone out there considering a purchase to have second thoughts. If you do get one, and I knew I should have done this, make sure you make a ghost image of the drive as soon as it arrives.

author: 48X24X48X
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: September 15, 2023, 05:42:27 am
content: I guess you missed the nightmare story of this same episode happening to you right now in the forum on another owner. I helped that guy to get his HDD sorted out with a couple of nice chaps over here. Just get straight from HWGC, no need middle man and all those sort of bull. Wondering why people are still buying from them...

author: Jackster
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: September 15, 2023, 08:32:12 am
content: Quote from: 48X24X48X on September 15, 2023, 05:42:27 amThey have a bigger web presence than HWGC.I think selling on AliExpress helps.

author: eflyersteve
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: September 15, 2023, 04:36:09 pm
content: Yeah, I missed that. They finly sent a replacement drive out last night. I hav3 no faith that they understood that I need a fully loaded functioning drive with all the software ready to go. We will see when it finally arrives sometime on the 22nd. About three weeks being down. So far they sent me a .gho image and then send instructions to use USBoot to install. However USBoot doesn't restore .gho files. It looks like Norton ghost is no longer offered and semantic ghost suite takes a ton of hoops to jump through to get I guess. Anyone have an idea how to restore from a .gho file? I'd like to think I'm not totally incapable but I'm about saturated at the moment.If i can get a suitable image, I'll archive it to share with others in the same predicament. Also, I have reached out to HWGC directly and have received no response.

author: Jackster
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: September 15, 2023, 08:13:26 pm
content: Quote from: eflyersteve on September 15, 2023, 04:36:09 pmSend me the file.DM here or join the Discord, link in my sig below.

author: thm_w
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 15, 2023, 08:43:30 pm
content: There is no way to pull the settings from the original drive? Put it in another PC and read whats on it.Just because the OS is corrupt does not necessarily mean the configs are also corrupt. Depends on how easily the configs are to access though, if its in a file or in the registry, etc.

author: eflyersteve
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: September 16, 2023, 01:31:28 am
content: File is a bit over 9Gb - how should I get it to you?Meanwhile, I'll poke around the discord. Note that on the original failed hard drive, it was windows system files that got corrupted and could not be recovered. I did recover everything else if that would help. However I've copied over some of the configuration files (sorry, I forget the term they use) and it continued to report cable 1 was disconnected. I did compare some of the older logs versus the new ones from the new installation and there seems to be come attempted communication with COM1 that wasn't happening in older versions. It could be that I'm missing a driver. If anyone has a complete driver package they could share that might help.Thanks!

author: eflyersteve
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: October 20, 2023, 04:42:35 pm
content: Never did get help on the discord unfortunately. However I did receive the replacement drive with software from Jim and it worked. I made a clone of the drive immediately after verifying it would work. I then had to leave for two weeks and am just getting back to calibrating the machine.I did manage to recover files on the failed hard drive. Would anyone know if there are files from the old drive that I can load to avoid having to repeat calibration (config files)?I really have been happy with the machine otherwise. Just make sure that if you purchase one, clone that drive immediately and back up your files to a network drive.Thanks!