Unbootable

Introduction
The screenplay hd pro takes about 20-35 seconds to boot normally when using the networking/video mode, and about 3 seconds when using the USB mode. It will have a flashing blue light during the bootup after you turn it on. Just after a firmware update, it may take up to 8 minutes before the light stops flashing.

If you have the drive connected to something through the lower USB port (the slave port), then it will boot in USB mode. In USB mode, you will not be able to watch video or see the screenplay menu, although you may still see the screenplay logo on the TV.

Fixing the flashing blue light problem
If, after the time has passed the blue light continues to steadily flash and you haven't seen the menu yet, your media partition may be unreadable by the drive.

Iomega's official response to the Disk Error or continuously flashing blue light is to download the firmware and install it, which will wipe your disk contents and replace it like it was/should have been from the factory.

These are the specific steps to get it working. Failure to follow these steps precisely may result in the drive not working.

1. Connect the drive via USB and apply the firmware. If it doesn't find the drive, try a different computer USB port. In one case, applying the firmware caused a crash while it was copying it to the drive and it had to be manually repartitioned. Apply the firmware with the option that removes all of the data on the drive (it is the option automatically selected).

2. After the firmware has been applied, select the "Safely Remove Hardware" option and then turn off the drive and disconnect it from the computer.

3. Plug it into a TV that uses RGB connectors instead of HDMI. You can use the HDMI connector, but you will get a blank screen and not see the firmware updating.

4. Wait. It typically takes it about 7-8 minutes to reapply the firmware and format the drive. Do not shut off the drive during this installation.

5. If you get a menu at this point, then you have a working ScreenPlay Pro. If you plug it back into the computer and it stops working again, then proceed to the Preventing the flashing blue light section.

If you don't get a menu on the fifth step, then try reformatting the drive with the FAT32 utility that comes with the drive. You could also reformat it for NTFS and then check it again. If it still isn't working, you may have a defective drive.

(contributions from wlvs, bluejade205x, Fluticus)

Preventing the flashing blue light
If every time you connect the device to the computer it stops working after you disconnect, then there are a few options you have.


 * 1) You can apply version R1.8 or later of the firmware.
 * 2) Norton Internet Security 2009 (or Karpersky 2010) makes some changes to the drive that causes the ScreenPlay Pro to no longer boot. Uninstall the Norton Internet Security 2009 if you have it. Disabling it does not stop it from making the NTFS partition unreadable to the ScreenPlay Pro. The 2007 version as well as the 2008 version appears to not cause the problem. " Norton Antivirus Gaming Edition" has also been confirmed to cause the problem, as has Windows Live Onecare, and other Antivirus programs may cause it as well.
 * 3) You can format it for FAT32 using the FAT32 formatting utility.
 * 4) You can connect it to a computer by the ethernet port instead.
 * 5) You can choose to connect it to a different computer instead.

Manual partitioning
Applying firmware and it crashed with just over 50% of the way complete each time. So we set up the partitions manually through Linux and were then able to do the firmware update. Now it is working. However, this may have been coincidental. It appears the problem may have been related to an antivirus scanner.

Here are the partition parameters, but don't try this unless you already know Linux and how to use the Linux fdisk command.
 * partition 1: cyl 10 - 74 (blocks=522112+) Id = 83
 * partition 2: cyl 75-106 (blocks=257040) Id = 83
 * partition 3: cyl 107-171 (blocks-522112+) id = 82
 * partition 4: cyl 172 to remaining id = 7

Reboot to windows, install the firmware.