Low power / hard drives won't run

[Peter Mork]

I'm having a horrible afternoon here. The drive of Miracle Club, opening here today, wouldn't run; that is, when you switch on the shoe (my word for the boot or whatever the boxy thing is called that you plug the hard drive into) there's no familiar whirr telling you it's powering up. Tried the same drive in other houses, again no power. Okay, I sez, must be a bad drive. But suddenly, trying other drives using the same power supply, drives that have proven functional - some start and some do not.

I have noticed the little yellow light on the shoe (see photo) which has a symbol that looks like a tin can - what's that mean? - glows dimly. Is that telling me the line voltage is too low, as in a local brownout? But other systems, including all projectors, are running faultlessly. And jeepers, I only need 5 volts, or is it 12, of DC, as that too much to ask? (The shoe, and the DC converter, both are marked "12v / 5v" - which one is it? Come on fellas, pick one and stick with it.)

Advice?

[Jim Cassedy]

I think I've seen them called a "CRU Drive Sled", although I've usually just referred to them as as
"that DCP drive thing" lol
> The power supply has two voltages because there's actually a bit of circuitry in the back part, so
the 5V is for the circuits and the 12V is for the drive (or maybe it's the other way around- - It's been
a long time since I've had to use one of those things, and I'm no expert on how they worked.)
> The little icon is sometimes used to represent a hard drive or some sort of generic "storage device".
I don't know why, since to me it always looked like a little can of soup, or a trash-can. When working
properly, it will rapidly flicker, which is some sort of indication of drive activity. So it may not actually
be "dim" but just flickering so fast that it just 'looks dim'.
Beyond that, I don't think I can be of much help. I was filling in last minute at a film festival event a
couple of years ago, and I went through three "sleds" and power supplies (in different combinations)
that were laying around the projection room before I found a sled / supply pair that worked.The little
pins in those power connectors have a tendency to get easily bent, but usually when that happens,
my experience has been that the "drive thing" either just won't work, or it may 'sort of work' until the
power supply becomes so hot you can't touch it, and smoke starts coming out of it.

[Peter Mork]

No, the yellow indicator is definitely not flickering, just dim. Whether that's intentional, as in meant to be read as a sign of failure somewhere, or just what happens when your drive can't kick into life, I can't say.
I'll try all the power supplies I can find, but I have a feeling the result will be the same. What I don't get is why some drives seem to work normally, and others don't. Including one for Oppenheimer, which makes me glad we're getting it on film.

[Carsten Kurz]

That's called a 'CRU MoveDock'. Yes, it needs both +5V and +12V. These CRU carriers originally were built for the older/larger 3.5" drives - these do need both voltages. The smaller 2.5" notebook/portable drives get away with a single +5V. I have seen a few CRU carriers with 2.5" drives in them, but the majority still carry 3.5" drives.

Maybe that powersupply, or the connector is faulty? Do you have colleagues nearby who would help you out with one for a test?
The dual voltage Mini-DIN connector power supply is at the same time common and not common. It won't be possible to buy one locally.

What type of server(s) do you use? There may be other ways to connect and ingest that drive, if it isn't actually dead.

You may find MoveDocks for small money on ebay.

[Peter Mork]

Yeah, I think I'll stick with calling them "shoes".
We have lots of power supplies and connectors (two flavors); tried swapping them out, but the drives that don't want to start - won't.

Our server sadly blew the motherboard some time ago. So it's back to ingesting everything "on site", like they used to do in the nickelodeon days.

Maybe if I turn off all the AC?

[Carsten Kurz]

But which playback server at the projector do you use? Dolby, Doremi, GDC, Barco? A device separate from the projector in a rack, or built into the projector?

[Peter Mork]

GDC Portable storage device (black box).

[Leo Enticknap]

I call them "rack mount CRU readers" and "portable USB CRU readers," which is a little clumsy, but at least is a reasonably accurate description of what they are.

Does Peter's MoveDock/portable CRU reader have an eSATA as well as a USB jack on it? GDC combined IMB/servers also have an eSATA jack on them, so I guess that might be worth trying, just in case the USB interface has suffered a hardware failure that doesn't affect eSATA.

But, as a general rule, agreed with everyone: when a portable CRU reader starts to misbehave as described, it's usually the inline brick power supply going bad.

[Stephan Shelley]

I ran into a similar problem once same type of server and the issue was being plugged into an outlet strip with CRU power supply. When plugged into the wall direct no problem. Not sure what was going on with outlet strip but if using one or an extension cord try a different one or go direct if you can.

[Steve Guttag]

CRU calls them a "Move Dock" but I've heard them called "sleeves." There are rackmount versions and table-top versions. CRU is definitely finicky about the power supplies. They have to make rated voltage and I've witnessed where people have used knockoff power supplies and the results were less than reliable.

[Brian Vita]

The problem was that the CRU container, not the drive, was beaten to hell and was not making a proper connection. This was true on both the drives. The drive with the feature was removed from the CRU shell and placed in another one. Once in there it loaded fine. There was no issue with the power supplies.

[Peter Mork]

>Does Peter's MoveDock/portable CRU reader have an eSATA as well as a USB jack on it?
Yes. Neither worked.
We brought in a tech guy this morning, who managed to get the drive to load, but I wasn't around and have no idea how he did it. And nothing seems to have changed. Some drives seem to come to life when plugged into the shoe, some don't. And at least one, for Barbie (opening Thursday), powers up but the system can't read it. Questions, we got questions!

[Brian Vita]

Peter, I explained how I did it in my post. The power supply wasn't the issue. The shells over the actually hard drive had bad connectors. They were beat to crap. I removed the physical hard drive and placed it in another shell. This was made difficult by the fact that every screw on the shell was stripped. Once the drive was placed in a shell with a functional connector I was able to ingest the content.

The CRU that you ingest is a SATA drive in the CRU shell. The drive is placed in the shell where it mates with a double ended connector. One side slips into the SATA drive and the other becomes the connector for the dock to mate with. It was that connector that had failed on BOTH of the drives that you had.

image.png
The Movedocks that I saw in the booth were also beat up. You had multiple power supplies as well as the USB2.0, SATA and USB3.0 versions all intermixed. I would suggest ordering new docks from us.

[Carsten Kurz]

With broadband & satellite distribution now being common, CRU drives are now used rarely. Which means, they are no longer replaced with new carriers, as the distribution companies now stock huge numbers of them. So, those in the field grow pretty old and worn. So, you would expect contact problems becoming more of an issue. Better be prepared to take out drives and use e.g. your own USB or eSATA dock as a failsafe method. These common disk docks can be bought for 20US$, and will now offer USB3 and/or eSATA. An eSATA dock or external drive enclosure will be the better option for servers offering only USB2, but an eSATA port.

[Steve Guttag]

And odd choice for CRU was on the receiving side (sleeve/move dock or actual frame in a rackmount) use exposed dual row stake pins. What I find odd about that choice of connector is that if ANYTHING is out of alignment, one (or more) of those pins can get bent over...and that is the end of that receiver. If you try to bend it back (and you have to take things apart to do it, it will break. It is too bad that they could have used something that guided the connections a bit better. I've changed MANY drive due to bent pins. Another unfortunate design is the flat head screws that hold the drive caddies together. How many times have they walked themselves out enough to allow the drive to go in...but not come out?

I agree that with satellite delivery, shipping HDD around is significantly declined. However, as MI7 and the image formatting debacle has demonstrated, they still remain the fastest way to get a version out. In any event, every theatre should have the means to support the CRU drive, for the foreseeable future. And, if you are a screening room or prone to 1-off presentations, they may be a critical means of playing off the drive if things don't go as planned.