Bricked BCD536HP Help Needed

[BigEvil]

I'm thrilled to have purchased two of these wonderful new scanners (one to replace my dedicated scanner for my LAPD live feed and the other which will eventually serve as a remote scanner to monitor on my iPhone wherever I go.)

Unfortunately I'm having some major issues which has resulted in the inability for one of my scanners to function at all.

I've narrowed the problem down one of the SD cards. Since I bought two 536HPs I was able to try switching out the the SD card from one to the other(one works perfectly in both scanners, the other has issues in both scanners). Both were working before originally writing data to them from sentinel so I'm assuming something got corrupted along the way.

This leave one of my scanners bricked(as seen in the picture below) because its useless without the SD card. Very frustrating to say the least after the hefty investment. Any ideas and help greatly appreciated.

Originally no matter what I did I couldn't get Sentinel to recognize this particular scanner/sd card properly.

At one point it showed up as A:/ESNXXXXXXXXXXXXXX or something and gives me the following when trying to read/write etc.

Finally I performed the following steps

1) I formatted the card via a computer, which did nothing.
2) performed a all clear reset of the scanner which kept the same sd card error message up.
3) I connected/disconnected the scanner a few times after the all clear to the computer and noticed FINALLY in sentinel that it was showing up (this time as E:/XXXXXXXXXX)

4) For the first time ever I was able to do a "clear user data" from sentinel which appeared to take (the software gave me a successful dialog).

5) unfortunately the scanner is STILL giving me the dialog on the front panel

I'm a bit at my frustrations peak at the moment since I've spend a few hours troubleshooting and can't get it to take so any help is incredible!!

 

[kd7eir]

I'm thrilled to have purchased two of these wonderful new scanners (one to replace my dedicated scanner for <a href="http://www.broadcastify.com/listen/feed/3711"> my LAPD live feed </a>, and the other which will eventually serve as a remote scanner to monitor on my iPhone wherever I go.)

Unfortunately I'm having some major issues which has resulted in the inability for one of my scanners to function at all.

I'm a bit at my frustrations peak at the moment since I've spend a few hours troubleshooting and can't get it to take so any help is incredible!!

Try copying all the data from the working SDCard to the 'sick' SDCard and see what happens.

 

[BigEvil]

That was a superb idea(sometimes helps to have someone stap back!).

I formatted the sick card back to FAT32 and called it NO NAME (not sure if that is important but thats what the other one is called).

using Chronosync I cloned the good one over to the bad one and whala. works!

Thanks so so much.

Will attempt to program via sentinel in the am and report back. Needless to say, great progress!

 

[kd7eir]

Sweet. I know that I would be hard pressed to get any sleep if I were facing such an issue.

 

[troymail]

I did a similar thing the other day and struggled to restore the SD card. I finally got it working but not without some hiccups (crap, that didn't work -- think - ok, try this). There is probably a description somewhere of how to prepare a new SD card and/or fix a corrupted card but I haven't looked too hard for it.

Over this weekend, I plan to dig in and learn more so I'm better prepared to deal with it next time (I corrupted the SD card on my PSR800 again yesterday and of course it was while I was on the road). Having a 2nd card ready to go is very important!

As far as copying from one SD to another -- that's great if you have a working 2nd radio with the same programming and a computer handy to do that job. The (next) best thing is always having a 2nd card loaded and ready to go.

 

[BigEvil]

As far as copying from one SD to another -- that's great if you have a working 2nd radio with the same programming and a computer handy to do that job. The (next) best thing is always having a 2nd card loaded and ready to go.

thats a good idea. SD cards have gotten so cheap its worth keeping a backup handy just for times like these.

 

[RF23]

It seems a number of people are having similar problems but I suppose some bad SD cards are expected. It is possible this one problem SD card may not be dependable so I would recommend having a backup for it for sure.

I have made copies of good SD cards for my HP-1 to other SD cards successfully (as back-ups) but UPMan recommends the following for proper formatting of SD cards for use in Uniden scanners:

https://www.sdcard.org/downloads/formatter_4/

I think a "Sticky" of good instructions on the BEST way to make back-up SD cards and recover from problems like you had would to be useful to us all. I thought I saw some instructions on how others were handling their SD cards here on RR, I will do so more searching to see if I can find them. Of course how many of these posted methods are recommended by Uniden would be another question.

 

[KE4ZNR]

If someone writes up an Micro SD card guide I will add this to the existing sticky FAQ Post.
Marshall KE4ZNR

It seems a number of people are having similar problems but I suppose some bad SD cards are expected. It is possible this one problem SD card may not be dependable so I would recommend having a backup for it for sure.

I have made copies of good SD cards for my HP-1 to other SD cards successfully (as back-ups) but UPMan recommends the following for proper formatting of SD cards for use in Uniden scanners:

https://www.sdcard.org/downloads/formatter_4/

I think a "Sticky" of good instructions on the BEST way to make back-up SD cards and recover from problems like you had would to be useful to us all. I thought I saw some instructions on how others were handling their SD cards here on RR, I will do so more searching to see if I can find them. Of course how many of these posted methods are recommended by Uniden would be another question.

 

[RadioDaze]

If this article is to be believed, it's a wonder SD cards work at all:
SD Card Hack Shows Flash Storage Is Programmable: Unreliable Memory

 

[Randdon]

You can also take away from this that you can get a larger storage card and copy the system files over and have a larger capacity card. Not sure how large a card the scanner can address but I would bet you could put at least an 8 Gig card in!! Why? Because you can.

As well, there is memory, and then there is memory. Years back I worked for a Premier Compaq certified repair depot, Compaq used to send stuff to us that they couldn't fix! Anyway, in Compaq's you used either Compaq Memory at a huge premium, or you could use Kingston Memory. Nothing else! You could put a piece of someone else's memory in but by days end you would have problems!

SD cards are made in such numbers and haste that the failure rate is really high. I would say consumers will see a 1 in 20 - 30 failure rate, so beware of companies that tell you no returns on Memory ... there is a reason for that policy, they know they sell junk memory.

 

[Randdon]

If this article is to be believed, it's a wonder SD cards work at all:
SD Card Hack Shows Flash Storage Is Programmable: Unreliable Memory

Yeah it's actually back to the point of the old original hard drives where you had to mark the bad sectors in the drive manually in the Bios so that the computer wouldn't crash and burn cuz it hit a bad spot !!! I used to hate that! :O)

 

[radioman2001]

Totally amazing, I can't wait for the hack to use them instead of an Arduino

 

[kd7eir]

If this article is to be believed, it's a wonder SD cards work at all:
SD Card Hack Shows Flash Storage Is Programmable: Unreliable Memory

Considering that they only used SD Cards from a small, obscure company called AppoTech, and their sample size was so small as to be virtually nonexistent, combined with strictly anecdotal evidence of supposedly hacked SD Cards in China, while not naming the source of such cards, manufacturer of such cards, etc, lead me as a security specialist to not believe a word they say.

As for downgrading bad cards based upon defects, that has been done with CPU's for decades - nothing new there.

With flash memory being the steaming pile of dung that they claim it to be, it's a good thing that virtually no consumer products rely on flash memory...


All in all - just a cheap, pathetic grab at 15 minutes of fame by a group of amateurs.

 

[kd7eir]

You can also take away from this that you can get a larger storage card and copy the system files over and have a larger capacity card. Not sure how large a card the scanner can address but I would bet you could put at least an 8 Gig card in!! Why? Because you can.

The scanners can take up to a 32GB card.

 

[cherubim]

It's worrying that a scanner can be rendered inoperable when out in the middle of nowhere without a microSD backup or laptop in sight. What's even more troubling is that most people are averse to making backups of their data.

I suspect a lot of doorstop scanners in the future as many will assume their scanner is toast when the microSD card gets corrupted.

 

[vstream02]

It's worrying that a scanner can be rendered inoperable when out in the middle of nowhere without a microSD backup or laptop in sight. What's even more troubling is that most people are averse to making backups of their data.

I suspect a lot of doorstop scanners in the future as many will assume their scanner is toast when the microSD card gets corrupted.

It's not that serious...my PSR 800 crapped out once. Loaded a new SD card and boom back in business...

 

[jkahn]

.........snip...

https://www.sdcard.org/downloads/formatter_4/

I think a "Sticky" of good instructions on the BEST way to make back-up SD cards and recover from problems like you had would to be useful to us all. I thought I saw some instructions on how others were handling their SD cards here on RR, I will do so more searching to see if I can find them. Of course how many of these posted methods are recommended by Uniden would be another question.

First: Marshall- I think there is at least one version of instructions for using the above SD card formater here in RR already, maybe under one of the PSR800 forums.

I have multiple SD cards for both my HP-1 and my PSR800.

I have never had a problem with the HP-1 (8Gb card) which does a fair amount of recording between dumps to the laptop. I have never come close to using all the storage space. I bought a 16Gb card, which works, but have never had to use it, so it is my HP spare.

The PSR800 is another story. Unplug from the cig-plug in the car without turning off the unit..oops...scragged the card. Sometimes it just craps out by itself. I ALWAYS carry a spare, programmed card with me for the 800. I have used a 16Gb card in the 800, but as the size increases, so does the initial load time whenever you turn it on, as it checks the card as it loads. 16Gb card takes almost 75 seconds to load. 4Gb takes 15-20 seconds. I have never noticed this kind of lag with the HP-1.

I am hoping that I find a $500 bill on the sidewalk, because I really want a new Uniden!

JK

 

[SCPD]

memory

it may have been a high cost but I dont see why we don't have a 32gb internal memory like in cell phones. I dont think costs are that high for that anymore, maybe when it first started.