Formatting Hard Drives in a DW Blackjack MINI

Formatting Hard Drives in a DW Blackjack® MINI™

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Affected Roles:  Administrator, Owner

Related Digital Watchdog VMS Apps:  DW Spectrum® IPVMS

Complexity:  Medium

Software Version:  DW Spectrum® v3.2 or newer

Last Edit:  May 27, 2021

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Formatting Hard Drives

On occasion, it may be beneficial to format the Hard Drive(s) of the DW Blackjack® MINI™.  This action is typically performed as troubleshooting if the DW Blackjack® MINI™ has begun to experience issues with data corruption, storage failure, etc.

As the DW Blackjack® MINI™ is a “headless” server, meaning that there is no visual display connection for the unit, settings and system management must be performed through the device’s web client using a web browser.

This article will outline how to format the internal Hard Drive(s) of a DW Blackjack® MINI™ through the web client.

**IMPORTANT:  Formatting a Hard Drive will result in the loss of all saved data on that drive.  Regardless, keep in mind that this may still need to be done to resolve some storage issues.

Supported/Affected Devices:

• DW Blackjack® MINI™ (DW-BJMINIxT)
• DW Blackjack® MINI™ w/ RAID (DW-BJMINIxTR)

How to Format Storage for a DW Blackjack® MINI™

To format the Hard Drive (HDD) of a DW Blackjack® MINI™:

1. Open a web browser on a computer that shares the same local network (LAN) as the DW Blackjack® MINI™ (or that can connect externally/WAN).

Enter the IP Address and Port of the DW Blackjack® MINI™ using the following format to connect with the unit’s web client.

• • Example IP Address:  192.168.1.50
  • Example Port:  80 (default)
  • Example URL:  http://192.168.1.50:80

**NOTE:  If you do not know the IP Address of the DW Blackjack® MINI™, you can use DW IP Finder™ or check in the DW Spectrum® Client to identify the address of the headless server.  Otherwise, the default IP Address is 192.168.1.200

2. Once you have connected with the DW Blackjack® MINI™ web client, enter the Administrator login for the unit.
   • Default Username:  admin
   • Default PW:  admin1234

**NOTE:  The login information for the DW Blackjack® MINI™ and DW Spectrum® IPVMS are two separate logins. Use the login for the DW Blackjack® MINI™ to access the settings of the device itself and not the video management software.

3. After logging in as an Administrator, click on the Storage tab.

Locate and click the Format button.

4. The Storage Format window will display.

Select “Maximum Capacity”, then enter the Administrator Password.

Click the Apply button to confirm.

5. A final confirmation message will display.

Click the OK button to begin the HDD format.

6. Allow the DW Blackjack® MINI™ to complete the formatting process.

Once the format has finished, a confirmation message will display.

Click the OK button to confirm and complete the HDD formatting process.

**NOTE:  If you encounter a failure message during the formatting process, please stop all activity and restart the DW Blackjack® MINI™ before reattempting to format the HDD.