jons1.smith – 5 hours ago  » 

I have a male to female cable. It could be faulty as some of the pins seem to be wired unusually (not that I know what usual is here!) – please could you let me know exactly which each of the 9 pins on each side should be connected and how? Thank you!

You want pin 2 at first end connected to pin 3 at the second end; pin 3 at first end to pin 2 at other end and pin 5 at one end connected to pin 5 at the other end. No other pins are required for this specific task.

jons1.smith – 1 hour ago  » 

So I think the cable is ok for what we are tying to do here.

My original answer to the question appears to have got lost. I agree the cable should be fine although my test cable only has pins 2,3 and 5 connected.

Are there some more things I can try?

I take it that you have flash9200 running and counting down and then you are switching on the mains power to the 9300T? Flash9200 has been very widely used so I am struggling to understand your problem.

Is there something more basic I have missed?

Really hard to say; can you describe in excruciating detail what you are doing please?

jons1.smith – 4 hours ago  » 

I have tried a few things, and one of them was to plug my USB to serial converter directly into the PVR – and not using the null modem cable (..maybe when you have a usb to male serial converter the null modem cable isn’t necessary?)

Well done; I hadn’t realised you had a USB to serial with a male connector. They are quite rare in my experience as most are designed to have the same connector as an IBM PC. I think you have very clearly demonstrated that the cable isn’t necessary in this case.

On running Flash9200 something happened very quickly and the PVR said ‘MENU’.

It will happen very quickly as the amount of data to be uploaded is tiny.

I guessed that I should try the upgrade again using the ‘slow’ option and more seems to have happened this time.

No need but no harm done.

I am quite encouraged actually and I am wondering if it would be a good idea to try using humaxrw to troubleshoot the endless reboot cycle (I saw somewhere that one of the options to try is ‘humaxrw 1: -z’. I am happy to be guided by you as to the next thing to do though!

With the aerial out, see if you can get to the Menu and do a reset to default settings would be the first thing I would try.

I thought you said earlier you had already tried humaxrw -Z if not then try again? I doubt it will help but you could try reinstalling the firmware now you have a working flash9200. You can download the software from http://beta.humaxonline.co.uk/freeview-sd

It is a long time since I have used one of these boxes; is there anybody else who has suggestions as to what else to try (Luke, xyz321)?

jons1.smith – 1 hour ago  » 

Further to this, I uploaded the new firmware, but it didn’t seem to help. I uploaded the other .hdf and that managed to reset things so it could retune could retune, view TV channels, etc. I kept the disc disconnected and this worked fine until I powered it off and on again.

So near and yet so far.

It seems to have forgotten the new .hdf and again just goes to standby rather than showing TV channels. Do the .hdf files get loaded to part of the hardware that is kept alive by battery power?

No battery needed, it is flash RAM.

This is such an old box that such a battery would long ago have expired? If there is such a thing, is there a replacement part for it?

Alternatively, I am wondering if this PVR is past it and is ready for the bin?!

I am beginning to think the Flash RAM is end of life. There have been several reports of problems with 9300T (and not for other models) which I have long suspected are flash RAM failures. In my view if the flash RAM has failed then the box is scrap. But if you have a spare drive try with that first before scrapping. Sorry if I have wasted your time.

jons1.smith – 2 hours ago  » 

I tried putting in a spare disc as you advised. It offered to format it and worked perfectly. Watching TV, recording programs, playing them back, all perfect.

I guessed that if the box was suddenly feeling well, that I could copy the programs off the original disc onto the new disc and everything would be ok.

Unfortunately on powering off and on, the Flash RAM has forgotten everything and I am back in standby.

I think that is pretty conclusive, pity.

From here I am thinking I could see if anyone has an old 9300 with at least a working Flash that they would like to donate, and I could then proceed with figuring out how to copy the programs onto a spare disc and get that going.

Have you considered a refurbished HDR-2000T from Humax Direct for £89 with a years warranty? My technophobic partner found the step from a 9200T (very similar user interface to a 9300T) to and HDR-2000T pretty straightforward and the HDR-2000T is a more competent PVR thatn the 9300T.

jons1.smith – 1 hour ago  » 

Thanks Martin – do you know if it uses the same format for the disc recordings? – i.e. could I copy recorded programs from the old 9300 disc onto a disc being used in a 2000-T?

The HDR-2000T will play the .ts files. The other files associated with a recording are not the same on the HDR-2000T so you will lose some functionality on playback but they will play.