HPX250: HPX250 Host Issue Part 2

Michael Johnstone

Michael Johnstone

Member
Well - on the advice of some of the more learned minds around here, I acquired what I think is the best possible and most fool-proof rig for off-loading P2 cards in the Host mode. What I have is an HGST 1 TB 5400rpm Hard Drive mounted in a Panasonic AG-MBX10G Disk Tray - powered by a Tekkeon MP3450i at 5 v DC. I connect it all together and the disk spins up, the camera is in "Host" mode and alas...the disk is not recognized by the HPX250. The HDD icon in the P2 thumbnail page menu is greyed out and the scrolling cursor just skips over it when trying to select it. The manual says if the drive is connected the HDD indication in the upper right corner of the screen stays illuminated and it will turn red if it's somehow not in a usable state. Well that's not lit up in any fashion either. I've tried 3 different USB cables - all fairly new, stout and none longer than 24". Do I need one of those USB cables w/the terminator filter gadget on it? I heard that didn't matter. Now the drive hasn't been formatted but isn't that supposed to be done by the camera while it's hooked together? Or could it be It's not being recognized because it's not yet formatted? If so, can I format it normally from my Mac? And if so, should it be FAT 32, NTFS or what? The HPX250 manual talks about a format called "Type S" which is done by the camera. Of course the manual also refers to the quite obsolete P2 Store AJ-PCS060G w/it's 60 GB limitations so is there a more up to date solution I'm not aware of here? Some small detail I've overlooked? I think the camera has the latest firmware (v.10.36-00-0.00). HELP!!
 
It appears that you didn't format your HGST hdd by the HPX-250. It's should be either FAT or Type S. All new hdd purchased is completely blank and must be formatted by your device. You shouldn't use Disk Util on your Mac OS to format the drive. It's a bit hidden to format your hdd on the HPX-250. It will take about 23-36 hours to zero-out (full secure erase) a 1 Tb hdd to simulate the brand new drive w/ nothing on it. I don't have that luxury to simulate a new hdd and provide the steps. But I recall how I did mine when the hdd was new. Keep exploring the menus and you'll see the util to do a format once the hdd is selected. Type S is not efficient because let's say you have a 64 Gb P2 and you only shot 4 Gb. The entire 60 Gb is wasted and is pre-allocated to Type S. The advantage w/ Type S is that it has verification and also on the MSU-10, it lets you know if you duplicate the offload. On the other hand, FAT won't support the verification feature w/ Type S. The biggest advantage of FAT is that it only use whatever you shot and not the entire 32 Gb or 64 Gb pre-allocated partition. If you have all 64 Gb P2, the maximum Type S you can hold on a 1 Tb hdd is 15. W/ FAT, it varies because if you don't fill the 64 Gb P2 cards up, you can get as much as 30-35, depending on how you shoot. Personally I like to change to different P2 card for different scene/location. I do not like to cram all in one. This makes file management, logging, and database search drastically easier than cramming everything in to a 64 Gb w/ too many locations.
 
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Wow! What a wealth of information and what a nice compact rig. You say you run it while the case is closed? Don't you worry about overheating? Or do you have vents cut into that Pelican?
But OK - you say I need to format the drive and I figured that much (and I now get the difference between FAT 32 and Type S). But how?
"Keep exploring the menus and you'll see the util to do a format once the hdd is selected."
Click to expand...
- but "once the HDD is selected" - therein lies the rub. The HDD icon is greyed out and can't be "selected". There's no HDD on the menu to select. That whole HDD Explore screen is nowhere on this camera. All the physical devices are there: The AG-MBX10G, the HGST drive, the Tekkeon power supply, the HPX250, an 8" USB cable connecting the MBX10 to the Tekkeon w/the correct voltage (5vdc), a 24" USB cable connecting the 250 to the MBX10 everything's plugged in right, camera's set on "USB Host", I can hear the disk spinning up so I know the cable connection between the pwr supply & the drive is working. Now for the connection between the drive and the camera - Is there a special cable designated as USB 2? Maybe one with that little filter/shunt doo-dad on it? Or will a standard high quality plain USB cable work as I've been told? The cable connecting the camera to the MBX10 drive enclosure is the only variable I'm not 100% sure of. I swapped out that cable with similar but shorter ones a couple times but still no joy. Everything else is dead on according to what you told me in that first thread. The 250 is just plain not seeing that drive. It's got to be the cable - right?
 
Here is the step by step that I did on my working HPX-250. Some of these are redundant on your end, but it should shed some insights to what went wrong w/ yours. When you mentioned the HDD icon grey out, I hope the USB HOST connection is not broken on your HPX-250. That's the only possibility that I can think of. Simple accident like plugin the USB the opposite end may short the USB HOST MODE board at some point. They designed the USB cable where you will have to push extra hard if it's on the wrong end. At that point it'll be too late if there's power applied. It's pretty hard for all three USB2 cables to go bad. My cables are standard, nothing special or exotic about it except w/ gold plating.

1) Plug in the two USB cables to your Mac fr. the MXB10 (power & data). If the hdd is empty, it will prompt you to initialize the hdd or ignore. If you see this, then we know that the MXB10, HGST 1 Tb hdd are all good. 2) Unplug all USB cables fr the Mac. You can plug in the MXB10's POWER USB portion to the Mac that's on or the Tekkeon battery pack. MXB10 power should lit up green.
3) Plug the USB cable to the HPX-250 "USB Host" and the other mini-B USB to the MXB10's SIGNAL. 4) Turn on the HPX-250. Turn and hold the rotary on switch to the right to go to P2 thumbnail mode. Keep turning to the extreme right until you can't turn it and hold another few seconds. At the upper rt, you should see the "HDD" icon right next to the battery status appear. If you turn the power knob to the right even longer, the bottom screen will display in yellow color "USB HOST". At this point, the firmware will magically have the "HDD" appear on the thumbnail (THUMBNAIL, OPERATION, PROPERTY, METADATA, HDD, EXIT). Prior to this you won't see the "HDD" function added when you press menu.. As you press the menu and go to HDD, select EXPLORE. Here it should show you the 2.5" hdd parameters. Press MENU again. This will take you to another submenu. It should show OPERATION or EXIT. There you select FORMAT HDD under operation. It will prompt to DELETE ALL DATA. Answer YES. Click on MENU and select EXIT to to back to the root of the P2. There press MENU again and go to HDD. You can now EXPORT either Slot 1, Slot 2 or ALL. It appears that the HPX250 can only do Type S format fr. my HPX-250. Under the HDD/SETUP, you have the option to VERIFY ON or OFF. I always leave it on as it doesn't hurt to verify. The nice thing about this is that when the status passes 50%, it will go to VERIFY mode. You can either cancel it or let it finishes it routine w/ out affecting the copied P2 media to the hdd. To sum up, the tricky part here is to keep turning the knob all the way to the right for a few seconds more so that it will go to USB HOST mode. One it appears, simply cease the pressure and it will stay there until you go to camera mode. If you don't do it, the HDD icon and USB HOST at the bottom will never show up.


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The AG-MSU10 consumes very little wattage. Each full 64 Gb P2 download averages only 12 mins then it will automatically shut everything off (via customizable menu), including the internal MSU10's internal MXB10 hdd tray. This is something that the HPX-250 can't do until the battery dies out. There's never a heat concern even the case is closed for extended period of time. The heat output is even lower on SSD drive. It's not a big issue unless you're out in the desert w/ 120 degree F. Then I'd open the case for air vent. Most of the shoots I open the case every few hours to offload new P2 cards. So air circulation is always there. Cutting hole in the Pelican case would render it non-water proof.
 
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And remember that Panny does not support (and it will not work) offloading 64GB P2SD cards in host mode. You can copy them in Device mode to a computer.
 
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