Samsung Medison MySono U6: boot failure and dead panel keys after hard drive swap
What happened
The original hard drive had failed into read-only mode and was replaced. The first restore of the system image went wrong: as reported in the case, only two partitions appeared on the new disk instead of four, the unit did not boot properly, and part of the control panel was unresponsive.
What was checked
- Test the replacement drive itself before assuming the restore procedure is at fault.
- Inspect the partition layout after imaging: as reported in the case, the engineers compared what the image should produce (four partitions) with what was actually on the disk (two).
- Confirm the partition table type the image expects — the engineers discussed MBR versus GPT for this model.
- Prefer a clean drive with no active partitions, or wipe all existing partitions with a standard disk-partition utility before re-imaging.
Cause
The first image write was simply bad — an incomplete or corrupted restore, so most of the partition structure never made it onto the disk. The panel symptoms were a consequence of the half-written system, not a panel fault.
What was done
The engineers wiped the replacement drive completely so no leftover partitions remained, then repeated the image restore in full, keeping to the recovery procedure from the manufacturer's service documentation. Once the image was written completely, the unit booted normally and the control panel worked without any repair.
Safety
After replacing storage or restoring software on an ultrasound, run the full electrical safety check — protective earth continuity and leakage currents — before the machine returns to patient use.
Lesson: When a software restore half-fails, treat the disk as suspect: wipe it clean, verify the partition layout against what the image should produce, and re-image completely before blaming the hardware.
Covered in the course: Ultrasound Service — Level 2: Fault-Finding →
Written from an anonymised case shared by service engineers. It is not a manufacturer instruction and grants no authorisation. Independent note; names are trademarks of their owners.