V6 hard drive failing, apparently support don't realise that hard drives fail

[angieV]

Recording/playback from my ancient V6 hard drive is failing, sporadic digitizing of image and lock-ups. Tried getting a new box but apparently support doesn't realise that hard drives fail. Stuck with failing hard drive despite 1 hour 51 minutes on phone to 5 different people. Now waiting to waste the time of a technician who is going to watch lots of programs with me until we find a dodgy part of a recording.

great stuff VM, been with you since Telewest 1991 and this is the knowledge you have. 

[japitts]

The VM forum staff should be along in a day or so to pick this up. In the meantime, there's a quick test to make sure it is the HDD.

You've not mentioned any issues with live TV, so I presume that's OK. Try pausing live TV for a short time and watch it delayed - this is also a recording and uses the hard drive in the same way.

If this breaks up, that will confirm HDD issues in-time for the staff to respond on here.

[angieV]

Cheers japitts. No, live tv is fine. Never had an issue with TV other than when some roadworks muffin puts his digger bucket through the fibreoptic cable somewhere upstream. I was told to upgrade to TV360 to fix the issue. If I'd known there was software out there to fix hard disks, I could have saved thousands in the past 28 years.

[Adri_G]

Hey, angieV.
Thank you for joining our help forums and welcome to the VM community, great to have you on board with us. 🙂

Sorry to see your V6 box is giving you this trouble lately and you haven't had the support we'd expect from our faults team, it's not been a great experience for you and we'd love to best help out.

We can see you've previously called our team in regard to the appointment in place and this has now been cancelled, could you please advise if its because you're not happy with the tech visit booked as a resolution or due to the V6 issue having restored, just to be sure?

Have you by any chance tried to switch to the 360 software using the new remote we sent and if so do you get an error or are you unable to perform the software migration due to the hard drive issues/errors you're referring to?

Please, share more and we're eager to support you further based on the feedback.

[japitts]

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@angieV wrote:

I was told to upgrade to TV360 to fix the issue.

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On the face of it, that's mis-selling & totally duff advice, all in one. A failed hard drive is a failing HDD regardless of what software is installed.

The equivalent would be your taking a Windows 10 laptop with failed HDD into a computer store and being told that changing to Windows 11 was the fix.

I'm not as blunt as this very often on this forum, but you were told utter nonsense.

[angieV]

Sorry japitts, That comment about software being able to fix my HDD was tongue in cheek sarcasm. I've changed sooo many HDDs in my servers/desktops over the years.

As for upgrading to 360, I've read up on it on these forums and guess I won't be upgrading. Current box does what I want. I sorted the HDD problem myself, seems the only way to get things done properly these days is do 'em yurself. 

[angieV]

Do you know, in the 34 years I have been with VM, via Blueyonder and Telewest, I have rarely called support. It has usually been for broadband, when it goes down. I have always been accused of it being my internal connections, when I have touched nothing, no settings have been altered etc. I have then waiting, without changing anything on my internal network, only to find a few hours later that magically it is fixed. It appears that support staff actually know less than most customers. With this HDD issue, I asked if the support operator at 'technical support' knew that HDDs wore out. She said she didn't. Well if that's not an indication of someone being in the wrong job.

[japitts]

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@angieV wrote:

I sorted the HDD problem myself, seems the only way to get things done properly these days is do 'em yurself. 

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How have you done this? VM don't replace HDD's in-home, they will replace the failing V6 with a new/refurb V6 and take the faulty one away.

Not just that, but unauthorised (read - well intentioned DIY) amendments to VM's kit & network is a bad idea on several levels.

If your box still has issues, the staff on here can arrange a tech visit to do the necessaries.

[Matthew_ML]

Hey angieV, thank you for reaching out and I am sorry to hear this.

I can see my colleague did reply to your post on Thursday did you see the reply at all? 

[angieV]

Yep, saw it. Now VM have forced my box to update so I have lost all my recordings, lost all my 98 series links, and have a crap system that fails to do what my V6 box did. I did not click the link this to upgrade, it was forced.

Thanks VM, won't be renewing when current contract runs out. See me on Sky.