Pro-668: Stuck at the Radio Shack Logo

any way to do a reset, brand new pro 668 stopped scanning and on reboot is stuck at the Radio Shack logo, cannot be read by the software. It checks the SD card ok then freezes, any thoughts, its only 2 weeks old

prepare another sd card via the software and try again. That would be my suggestion.

To reset a 668, the manual said to do this, Default Vals/Restore Factory Defaults Resets all settings to their default values except the welcome message.

Scanner Press SEL or to reset.
Default Vals/Restore Factory Defaults Resets all settings to their default values except the welcome message. Scanner Press SEL or to reset. Software General Settings - Restore Factory Defaults (button). Or File menu > Restore Factory Defaults.

cant get into the menu wont go past the RS logo on the screen and it wont read from software

Stuck on Radio Shack Logo Page

When I first bought my PRO-668, the same thing happened when I bought another card to replace the card that came with the scanner. I found out from reading the forums that not all "sd-type" cards work. This was an off-brand mfr of the card so I went back and bought a "sansdisk" card and never had problems again. I did run into a situation the other day though where the scanner locked up during scanning, I ran the "prepare sd card for use" on the current card from the software which formats the card, reloaded the software and it's been fine ever since. Hope this helps you.

Call this place & see what he say's

G&G COMMUNICATIONS
Gerry Oliver - Owner
7825 Black Street Rd., LeRoy, N.Y. 14482
Phone: 585-768-8151

Thanks everyone it was a bad sd card made a new one and we are back in business

I've come to the conclusion there is something wrong with these radios and the whole sd card thing vs having an actual memory.

Mine just died for the second time with a Sandisk 8gb card in it which replaced the factory one it came with which died itself.

No rhyme or reason to it. Can't do anything with the card at all in any program and "Prepare" card has never worked in software.

So ordered a couple more cards and will see what happens next.

Did you have an unexpected shutdown. Do you have your scanner battery settings to low not allowing the scanner to write to the SD card before the scanner dies. Are you using it in your car and dropping the voltage to low when the car starts. Listed below are some reasons I think some people are having card problems. These may or may not be related to your problems just some things to think about.

This may turn out to be user problems killing power by unplugging or removing batteries while powered on. The reason we do not see these problems in other uses of these cards they stay in computers until they are done reading or writing, people turn off the camera before removing the card or just download from the camera. What looks like is happening is when the power is turned on the file is read from the card and the file is left opened when the scanner is turned off the file is saved to the card and closed. This is happening in the psr-800 whistler ws-1080 the radioshack pro-18 and pro-668. These new hitec toys require you learning how to use them by reading and understanding how things work and using good common sense.

Ghstwolf62 said:

.....

No rhyme or reason to it. Can't do anything with the card at all in any program and "Prepare" card has never worked in software.

So ordered a couple more cards and will see what happens next.

Click to expand...

I had a few cards that wouldn't work and using windows formatting and EZScan formatting didn't fix them. Reading this forum I found the SDFormater program and after installing and running the format option on my "bad" cards they worked in my radio! Might be worth it to try, got nothing to lose,

buddrousa said:

" ... These new hitec toys require you learning how to use them by reading and understanding how things work and using good common sense ... "

Click to expand...

Wrong Forum, lol!!!

TAbirdman said:

I had a few cards that wouldn't work and using windows formatting and EZScan formatting didn't fix them. Reading this forum I found the SDFormater program and after installing and running the format option on my "bad" cards they worked in my radio! Might be worth it to try, got nothing to lose,

Click to expand...

+1 on SDFormater. Had issues mainly with the "old" Pro-18 with a couple of cards, this fixed them both. Have used it prior to updates on the 668 and never had a hiccup. I don't think the one that operates from iScan (either version) does a real great job, or maybe only provides a "shallow" (vs deep-level) format.

As far as SD vs "real" memory goes, well a ton of cameras phones and other devices use SD cards of one kind or another and seem to get along just fine. With proper care an SD card should do fine in a scanner as well. And if it does fail, well, getting it working again just means a trip to Walmart (or Amazon) rather than having to send the scanner off for an expen$ive repair...heck, I saw PNY-brand micro SD cards, with adapters, behind the counter at the local Dollar General store yesterday!

buddrousa said:

Did you have an unexpected shutdown. Do you have your scanner battery settings to low not allowing the scanner to write to the SD card before the scanner dies. Are you using it in your car and dropping the voltage to low when the car starts. Listed below are some reasons I think some people are having card problems. These may or may not be related to your problems just some things to think about.

This may turn out to be user problems killing power by unplugging or removing batteries while powered on. The reason we do not see these problems in other uses of these cards they stay in computers until they are done reading or writing, people turn off the camera before removing the card or just download from the camera. What looks like is happening is when the power is turned on the file is read from the card and the file is left opened when the scanner is turned off the file is saved to the card and closed. This is happening in the psr-800 whistler ws-1080 the radioshack pro-18 and pro-668. These new hitec toys require you learning how to use them by reading and understanding how things work and using good common sense.

Click to expand...

The first one I was updating the scanner when in mid stream it just crapped out. That was when I had all the problems with it not seeing the scanner or usb cable etc.

Ordered the Sandisk and it worked well until Tuesday. Decided like an idiot to take it out and use the card reader after seeing everyone saying it went faster that way.

Shut off power to scanner then ejected the card and that was the end of that.

The Iscan Prepare card function has never worked for me. I downloaded the SDFormatter software everyone talks about and did a quick format which got the Sandisk working fine.

But after taking it out of the scanner nothing will work. SDFormatter says it can't format the disk. Windows can't format it nor can the IScan program. So the card seem to just be dead. My computer won't even show it in there when connecting the reader to the computer.

I don't know about these hi tech things. I have to wonder if they're that great a thing sometimes. Seems more trouble than they are worth. People with Uniden scanners are have also had a lot of problems with the sd cards and while most of it is probably because they can't leave well enough alone and have to mess with stuff I have to wonder if maybe there aren't at least some real issues there too.

I know I've never touched my sd card in my 436 and have never had a problem.

This 668 though is another story. I'm real tempted to return it and call it a night on the bloody thing at this point. Even though the cards are only 8.95 its still a pain in the a$$. If it had regular memory I bet there wouldn't be this problem.

I'm afraid I don't have any devices beyond the 668 and 436 which use these memory cards so for me they aren't in everything.

Either way it would be nice if I had a functioning scanner which kept on functioning like my 600 does. Its been chugging along 24/7 since I bought it a year after it came out originally. Never a hiccup.

Thanks for the suggestions though. I had power connected but the scanner was off. I don't know if that makes a difference. Does it?

I know it doesn't say "Writing to SD Card" like my 436 does at power off.

Thanks for the explanation. You may be right and its something I am doing. Wouldn't surprise me.

TAbirdman said:

I had a few cards that wouldn't work and using windows formatting and EZScan formatting didn't fix them. Reading this forum I found the SDFormater program and after installing and running the format option on my "bad" cards they worked in my radio! Might be worth it to try, got nothing to lose,

Click to expand...

I got that based on what people here had said but it doesn't work on this either. Its like the scanner killed the card totally. Nothing recognizes it and nothing does anything to it.

Putting it in a card reader and plugging it into the computer doesn't even show up as existing. Same as first one.

Left scratching my head on this one.

I agree that using the SD cards for memory is/was probably a bad idea. I don't know why so many of the radios that use them have so many issues with them. I have a bunch of devices with them, cameras both still and video, and I've never had any issues with them, I dug my old 5megapixel camera, about 10 years old out and pulled the card out of it, and the pics and videos are still on it, and it's a card I put in the first day I bought it, because the one that came with it was like 64 megs and filled up too quickly. I haven't used that camera for about 6 years. I put some batteries in it and it fired right up and works great. So far, my 668 is fine, zero issues of any kind, but a friend has had a couple of "mystery" card failures on his. SDFormatter seems to have resolved them, so far.

Well on this one it turns out the brand new card reader I had bought died. On the off chance it was that I purchased a new and different card reader as well as two sd cards which all arrived today.

Stuck the "Bad" sd card into the new card reader and wala, it worked. Used SD Formatter and it worked now as well.

Put it back into scanner after reading library and DB into it and scanner is working again too.

Still its a PITA though.

These things are new to me and I'm trying to figure them at as I go. Buddrousa helped with his explanations about things so hopefully it will all work right now and most importantly keep working.

I haven't had any problems with my 436 but then again I haven't touched the sd card either. It seemed most of the problems were the result of people messing with them. Which could be a big indicator of what is wrong.

This scanner is only the second thing I've owned that uses these things. Too old for all this new tech stuff coming out. LOL

ratboy said:

I agree that using the SD cards for memory is/was probably a bad idea. I don't know why so many of the radios that use them have so many issues with them. I have a bunch of devices with them, cameras both still and video, and I've never had any issues with them, I dug my old 5megapixel camera, about 10 years old out and pulled the card out of it, and the pics and videos are still on it, and it's a card I put in the first day I bought it, because the one that came with it was like 64 megs and filled up too quickly. I haven't used that camera for about 6 years. I put some batteries in it and it fired right up and works great. So far, my 668 is fine, zero issues of any kind, but a friend has had a couple of "mystery" card failures on his. SDFormatter seems to have resolved them, so far.

Click to expand...

I have to disagree with that, and I'll tell you why. My Icom ID31 and ID51 store different profiles on a microSD card, and I have never had a problem with them. I'm going to take a leap and say it's just bad quality control on the cards.

If it was only factory cards in one brand scanner I might agree but you have two brands of scanners plus you have over the counter name brand cards also. Unless everybody is using the same brand cards.

I had/have all sorts of brands of cards in my cameras and PCs and they don't seem to have any issues, except they are kind of small. I looked at the cards I have in my little SD card case thing and they include

Sandisk
PNY
Kingston
Memtek (Can't read it very well)
Adata
Patriot
G.Skill
Trancend
Lexar
2 more I can't decipher. Some of these were really cheap.

These are all old, some have been unused for a decade, and they all still seem to work fine, in my cameras. Why radios seem to have so much trouble with them is a mystery. Maybe it's RF generated internally and the shielding is non existent? The old PSR-800 I had was a huge pain with it's constant card issues, that and it was pretty deaf caused me to sell it. The 668 is problem free, card wise, but it's the most sensitive to RFI radio I've ever had. It barely works at work on anything but 700 and 800MHZ trunked stuff.

I'm having the exact same issue with two separate SD cards... the 4gb that it came with and a 16gb Sandisk that I had laying around the house... scanner refuses to boot past the RS logo on both cards no matter how I format them (tried EZ Scan, SDFormatter, and Windows format). After each format, I prepare the cards in EZ Scan and see the files being copied over, open windows explorer and see the files on the cards, properly eject the cards from the PC, and then load the SD card in the scanner and power on..... Radioshack logo every single time. It's really frustrating. I'm picking up a brand new card tomorrow (Sandisk) and see if I can get that one to work.

I don't understand how I can see the files the scanner needs to boot on the PC, but the scanner doesn't.... like I said.... frustrating.

I'll report back on the results of my new card tomorrow.