Karat won't boot up

[Christopher6206]

Hello! So my Karat would not boot up today. I've been a little slow and have not turned it on in a few weeks. Before that I had been very busy and after I finished all the busyness I decided to do a full install for good measure. That went fine. And I did do one other small project after that went fine too. Today, I turned the Karat on and the screen on the front of the machine turned on and the progress bar displayed, but the light remained red. I had my HDV camera hooked up to one of the DV inputs but no USB connections aside from the keyboard and trackball. It sat there for 10min in that state. I finally re set it, unplugged the HDV input, and tried again. This time the same thing happened only the blue light came on which is normal. It sat there for another 15 min and never finished booting. I tried again with the OS disc in the DVD tray hoping I could just do another install but it just sat there for 1/2 an hour with the blue light on, and the progress bar all the way to the right. I finally stop that and just unplugged it. Let it sit there for an hour or so and then plugged it back in. It immediately booted up with all 2 projects in tact. Everything is fine. As a side note, normally when booting up, the Macrosystem logo and a few pieces of text will flash across the screen. This never happened when the machine was trying to boot up but failing. I never saw anything on either screen.

Should I be worried? Is there a hard drive failing? This machine was purchased new 1 and 1/2 years ago, so that doesn't seem right. Anyone with a similar experience or an explanation would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

Another side note: During the first time I tried booting up (when the light never turned blue only stayed red), the DV cable was hooked up at the front of the machine and into my camera. The camera was on in camera mode. I was planning to film and directly download at the same time. As I was waiting for boot up after awhile I heard a "click" from the camera like it had shut down. (even though it was plugged in, usually only powers down when on battery, after no use for a while) I looked at the camera and it had not shut down, and had also become unresponsive. The power light stayed on in the off position. There was date and time stamp in the viewfinder but nothing on the flip screen. (yes my lens cover was off) The menu didn't work, etc. I unplugged it too and it came back on immediately working fine. Would this have anything to do with anything? This camera's HDV port was replaced by Cannon less than a year ago ($800 repair) and the Karat is not reading the HDV in on the front or the back. I only have 1 6pin to 6 pin DV cable so I need to test that but it sure looks like that port went bad again.

[MichaelD]

A faulty cable (or port) can stop the machines from starting or can even make the machines serial number temporarily disappear too

Just test as best you can both cable (most likely) and sockets (least likely - especially as it's 6 pin) and then go from there.

Although definitely not impossible to have a HDD fault SATA drives are ultra reliable these days.

[LouBruno]

Just last week I replaced the SATA cable and for good measure I placed a new HDrive in my Karat and all is working well.