CD drive playing up on my Liv Zen

[Lawrence001]

It suddenly started not reading discs in the middle of a ripping session.

Q1 I've looked it up and, being a Vortexbox/LMS based system the first port of call is to try clearing the cache before replacing the drive. Unfortunately, the password does not seem to be the default one so I'm struggling to get into the system to do this. I think I've found some instructions on resetting the password bit I need a keyboard and monitor to do this so I'm looking into that. I also emailed Nuno at Innuos in case he can help. In the meanwhile, if anyone has any advice on what to do I'll be most grateful.

Q2 if it is the drive, does anyone know where to get a new (or guaranteed refurb) slot loading internal DVD rewrite drive? I looked online and found one but the socket at the back looks different. I should have taken a photo while I was inside, but I didn't think. If anyone knows the different types of sockets that drives can have I will recognise it if I see it. (It was to one side of the rear and was about a third of the width, it had two plugs joined together, one was a bit wider than the other, if that helps??)

Thanks in advance for any advice.

[disarmamant]

Lawrence before trying anything at the Vortexbox command line you need to back up all your music folder onto usb disk.

You don’t really need a keyboard and a monitor. You can access the command line from a PC in the same network using a terminal program, I use putty. You can download putty for free. Log in to the Vortexbox as root, the default password should be vortexbox.

The dvd drive in the zen is likely to be a SATA (serial ATA) drive. It’s probably a Teac.

I found this online.

https://www.tekshop247.com/product_info.php?products_id=2373431&gclid=Cj0KCQiAgebwBRDnARIsAE3eZjSGj2xu7RdMzURGqxV2 QQysDMylTmzDXRaed8m0jVjivoNcyrKDnb8aAphNEALw_wcB




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[Lawrence001]

Lawrence before trying anything at the Vortexbox command line you need to back up all your music folder onto usb disk.

You don’t really need a keyboard and a monitor. You can access the command line from a PC in the same network using a terminal program, I use putty. You can download putty for free. Log in to the Vortexbox as root, the default password should be vortexbox.

The dvd drive in the zen is likely to be a SATA (serial ATA) drive. It’s probably a Teac.

I found this online.

https://www.tekshop247.com/product_info.php?products_id=2373431&gclid=Cj0KCQiAgebwBRDnARIsAE3eZjSGj2xu7RdMzURGqxV2 QQysDMylTmzDXRaed8m0jVjivoNcyrKDnb8aAphNEALw_wcB




Sent from my iPad using TapatalkThanks that's exactly what I tried, Putty and root/vortexbox. The password was rejected so I suspect that it was changed by Liv/Innuos. It seems I need a monitor and keyboard to interrupt the start up and go into a command mode where I can change the password.

Regarding the back up that's great advice and you've just made me realise I've spent ages in the past trying to copy my rips across the network when I could probably just plug a USB HDD into the Zen, doh [emoji38]

Lastly thanks for the link that looks like what I need. I've just gone and bought this one on eBay (not paid yet) and I suspect it might be a PATA not a SATA (didn't know the former existed) doh again [emoji23] Any ideas?


https://rover.ebay.com/rover/0/0/0?mpre=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ebay.co.uk%2Fulk%2Fitm%2F 142660394700

[struth]

admin is often used as a password and often username too

[disarmamant]

Regarding the back up that's great advice and you've just made me realise I've spent ages in the past trying to copy my rips across the network when I could probably just plug a USB HDD into the Zen, doh [emoji38]

I like the Vortexbox backup/restore utility. The Vortexbox will automatically mount the USB HDD when its plugged in. It will make a full backup and then subsequent incremental backups. If you have a hard disk failure restoring all your data is easy. I have used the backup on a number of occasions to restore everything after I have upgraded my Vortexbox server hardware.

The only drawback is you have to let the Vortexbox format the USB HDD in a Linux format before you can use it, so its pretty much dedicated.

Hope the new drive will sort it for you.

[Lawrence001]

I like the Vortexbox backup/restore utility. The Vortexbox will automatically mount the USB HDD when its plugged in. It will make a full backup and then subsequent incremental backups. If you have a hard disk failure restoring all your data is easy. I have used the backup on a number of occasions to restore everything after I have upgraded my Vortexbox server hardware.

The only drawback is you have to let the Vortexbox format the USB HDD in a Linux format before you can use it, so its pretty much dedicated.

Hope the new drive will sort it for you.I'm worried now, I don't want the HDD to mirror the Zen, I want to add the recently ripped files from the Zen to the substantial number of albums I've already got on the HDD. If the Zen formats the HDD it would be a disaster, a year's worth of rips gone!!

[Light Dependant Resistor]

As others are saying, back up your Flac files to a portable HDD - Download and use a Linux operating system like Linux Mint to see and use what is probably ext4 journal system used by Vortexbox
https://www.linuxmint.com/ I do not have experience with the Liv Zen, but have experience with yamaha CDRHD1500's, that similarly use a CDRW drive to address a hard Disc. Any errors in HDD
for example with the Yamaha , cause the CDRW drive to partially attempt writing, and generally be a pain.

If possible see if you can replace the HDD with a solid state drive type HDD rather than the earlier types, as these are very reliable.

[Lawrence001]

It's starting to get complicated now, this was supposed to be a simple fast ripping solution!! I've found the same drive as the potentially faulty one on eBay for not much moolah and will try that first.

[mikeyb]

I would have thought simply replacing the DVD drive will fix your problem.

Open up the box and you'll soon see which one will fit, as mentioned earlier no doubt be a Teac drive.

Take a few minutes to replace.

[disarmamant]

I'm worried now, I don't want the HDD to mirror the Zen, I want to add the recently ripped files from the Zen to the substantial number of albums I've already got on the HDD. If the Zen formats the HDD it would be a disaster, a year's worth of rips gone!!

If it worries you then the only solution is to buy a new USB Portable HDD and use it as dedicated Vortexbox backup drive. This is what I have done. I regularly plug the portable HDD in to the Vortexbox and make an incremental backup. I also keep the backup drive off site in my office for obvious reasons.


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[disarmamant]

It's starting to get complicated now, this was supposed to be a simple fast ripping solution!! I've found the same drive as the potentially faulty one on eBay for not much moolah and will try that first.

The Vortexbox software has been around for a good number of years now, I have been using it pretty much since it was first released. It is a simple fast ripping solution for CD’s and DVD’s which mostly works very well.

However. I no longer use the Vortexbox CD ripper to rip any new CD’s as I have had problems in the past with some older classical music CD’s, in that the file names the ripper generates are too long for a Windows system and sometimes contain cryllic characters from eastern block recordings, consequently the files cannot be copied from one PC to another under Windows.

Of course this is not a problem if you only use the Vortexbox backup utility, or you use another Linux based computer to backup your files.

I rip any new CD’s I buy now using the DBpoweramp software which I save directly to the Vortexbox music folder.


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[Lawrence001]

However. I no longer use the Vortexbox CD ripper to rip any new CD’s as I have had problems in the past with some older classical music CD’s, in that the file names the ripper generates are too long for a Windows system and sometimes contain cryllic characters from eastern block recordings, consequently the files cannot be copied from one PC to another under Windows.


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Yes I'm finding this and it's a pain. It seems to be when people have named each track with the artist/album/track method with several soloists and orchestra being named in each track, and the details have annoyingly found their way onto the CD identity database.

When I'm less busy I try to edit the file names before recopying but I suspect I've dropped several dozen tracks over the months annoyingly. I'd be grateful for any practical and not too time consuming solutions.

[Lawrence001]

The replacement drive arrived and the Zen is ripping again so all is well [emoji16]