Stuck at Initializing... with Red Drive

[Daniel Soderberg]

I've got 3 Red Drives, and for some reason, only with a certain 320GB one which I used the other day just fine, when booting up the camera with this certain one connected, the camera gets stuck forever at the Initializing... screen.

Please help.

Thanks,
Daniel

 

[conrad gaunt]

its easy to think you've found the weak link when you haven't (not saying you haven't, just that it can be hard with r1s). Anyway, keep testing all the drives and make absolutely sure its that drive, and not all of them. i say this, because in my experience, these sort of problems tend to be drive cable related (always have a spare one of those in a sealed bag, regardless of this problem. never buy an 18inch cable)

First though, try booting, and then attaching the drive after (if you haven't already). If you find the camera freezes after takes, or you get dropped frame, its more suggestive of drive cable

 

[Daniel Soderberg]

its easy to think you've found the weak link when you haven't (not saying you haven't, just that it can be hard with r1s). Anyway, keep testing all the drives and make absolutely sure its that drive, and not all of them. i say this, because in my experience, these sort of problems tend to be drive cable related (always have a spare one of those in a sealed bag, regardless of this problem. never buy an 18inch cable)

First though, try booting, and then attaching the drive after (if you haven't already). If you find the camera freezes after takes, or you get dropped frame, its more suggestive of drive cable

Thanks Conrad.

I will try these when I get a chance.

Why stay away from the 18 inch cable?

Thanks,
Daniel

 

[conrad gaunt]

Thanks Conrad.

I will try these when I get a chance.

Why stay away from the 18 inch cable?

Thanks,
Daniel

Because a Red employee I won't name said they had great difficulty getting them through QC, and to avoid. Maybe the situation has improved, but my understanding is they have a large failure rate. I used/owned one, it was a real pain and more prone to breaking/kinking than the smaller ones etc

These lemo cables are prone to breaking, especially as they stick out the back of a r1, and sometimes a DP will want to take the camera to the floor and tilts it up etc, thus kinking the cable

The problems they create can be intermitant, which makes them a little harder to spot ie, sometimes drop frames, sometimes not. Sometimes a faulty one can cause camera freeze when hitting stop, yet footage is fine after a reboot and check (a real pain on a shoot).. which initially made me "not believe" it was a cable problem , as surely that would lead to data loss/corruption, but thats not always the case ..

Using a CF card is sometimes a good way of checking whether a problem is drive/cable related, or camera related etc..but won't narrow it down to either specifically

Testing with a CF card helped me narrow my initial problems (ancient history now) down to disks or drive cable. Eventually i narrowed this to cable.

Also, is the drive showing up on your machine/pc/mac etc ?,

When you do this test, remember: red drives can take a while to show up sometimes on computers, other times they show up nearly immediately (even on he same computer) so allow enough time for it to appear before writing it off as broke. I've had them take 5min or more at times (normally on someone elses mac book, but occationally on my imac)

Also, there used to be a problem with non-powered (ie, fw 800) drives getting wiped when connected to computers (just mac books I believe, and not when powered externally), though that problem seems to have gone away (maybe different/newer macbook models) and I rarely get out a drive power adapter now unless a client needs usb2, and red undead is there backing us up nowadays in a worst case scenario

Also, R1s are full of cables, and they are sensitive to resistance and stuff (I'm not electrical, but was told by an unnamed but reliable source), and so can be a little sensitive.

My Red wouldn't boot on a shoot in Ireland recently. It was by a loch, it was raining and misty. I turned off the fans (to stop damp air upsetting the electronics), and placed it in the foot area of the passenger side of my car and blasted air con onto it (in case it was damp in any way, or temperture related)..problem went away. Theres not a lot you can do in these circumstances. I'd seen this problem before. I initially rang Red Europe and they suggested it was my CPU and I was f****d, but I thought "no, Ive had this once before and its worked since then", and luckily their guess was wrong

 

[Ian Edwards]

its easy to think you've found the weak link when you haven't (not saying you haven't, just that it can be hard with r1s). Anyway, keep testing all the drives and make absolutely sure its that drive, and not all of them. i say this, because in my experience, these sort of problems tend to be drive cable related (always have a spare one of those in a sealed bag, regardless of this problem. never buy an 18inch cable)

First though, try booting, and then attaching the drive after (if you haven't already). If you find the camera freezes after takes, or you get dropped frame, its more suggestive of drive cable

+1 for the 18" cable. I've seen this problem several times with it.

 

[Michael Totten]

you can try initializing from a computer as well. This has helped me in the past.
One on of my drives (same problem you're experiencing ) I had to send it into Red for repair.