Has the hard drive failed ?

[SilvaDragon]

Hi,

I have an Amstrad sky plus box, according to info on services menue it's model number is A2PO524, I'm wondering if the problems I'm getting are caused by the hard drive failing.

Problems are - I cannot play back any recordings at all, when I try it freezes, then crashes, and now the screen just goes black.

I cannot delete any recorded programmes, if I try nothing happens, system crashes eventually

I appear to have no access to anything on the hard drive at all, it appears completely dead, though tv guide etc all work normally, anything involving stored recordings doesn't.

All programme info for recorded programmes is blank, I can still view sky planner but thats all.

The box is about 2 to 3 years old. It worked fine two days ago, though recordings would occasionally get brief sound failure or pictures would seem to jump or freeze for a couple of seconds. Then yesterday two programmes failed to record with a technical error msg, I didnt pay too much attention to that, simply deleted them, thinking maybe there was some kind of minor glitch or power cut. Later when I tried to watch recorded programmes, then I found I couldn't. Tried turning box on and off at mains, still no joy.

Is hard drive failure the most likely cause ? Or could it be something else ?

Is calling sky my best bet ? Any idea how much it would cost ? I've had an expensive few weeks, had to pay for new boiler, new washing machine, money is tight. I dont want to face a £200 bill or something.

Thanks for any help.

[Koala5]

May well be but I think the Amstrads also suffer with power supply problems as well which can result in weird problems.