sundance-communications.com/forum Forums Other TDM Phone Systems VoiceMail Systems and Programming HELP needed w/Amanda@Soho Voice Mail System

My company has had an Amanda@Soho VM4 in service since 2000. It was moved in 2005, when we changed office locations and has worked fine until about 2 months ago when it failed. We called for service and were informed that both the hard drive and the power supply were bad. They suggested we replace the system with a new one, somewhere in the $1500 price range, with programming. I found a used system on eBay for a good price and installed it right away. It worked fine for about 3 weeks and then it began to have issues. It stopped automatically answering, we couldn’t transfer to voice mail, and we couldn’t access the system at all. I did notice that the red disk LED was on for a period of time and then went off. I have reset the system and also shut it down, but nothing seems to work. I tried to replace the hard drive on the original system and used the new power supply, but it also doesn’t work. I’m at a loss; I now have 2 systems and no voice mail. I contacted the seller and he gave me the link to this forum as he had no clue as to what was wrong. Can anyone help me out in determining how do to get the old system to see the new hard drive or how to figure out what went wrong with the newer one? I had been trying to find a hardware manual for this, but could not. Any help would be greatly appreciated before I spend any more money on this.

Replace it with the newer flash SOHO unit. The old ones usually died about 4 or 5 years after installation. If you get a used one it will be old already and you'd be taking your chances. I wouldn't waste anymore money on it. Don't know about FLA, but $1500.00 is what I would have charged to replace it, program it, and warranty it, here in CALI.

Thanks for the info. By the way, I was wrong about the cost of the replacement, we were quoted $2300. How good are the newer units, as I found a refurbished one on eBay with a new flash unit and power supply for about $400? Would I be taking a chance with this one?

Sincerely,
Bob

Every time you are buying used equipment on the Internet you are taking chances.

You didnt mention the make and model of your phone system ,there may be options other then Amanda.

The phone system is a Panasonic 824 system. I don't know what happened yesterday, maybe the phone fairy came in, but the replacement system I purchased on ebay started working again. Anybody have any thoughts on that? All the mail boxes were still set up like we did them when we first installed it a couple of weeks ago. All I know is that it was disconneted and powered off for about a week, then connected and powered on and it started working again.

Sounds like the flash memory is going bad.

If it has a Hard Drive it's going bad.
Might last a week or a year.
Get a TVA 50 Panasonic system voice mail, much easier.

I had trouble programming the newer Panasonic KXTA 824 with the disconnect #9# for the SOHO FLASH. After a lot of time with Amanda, I went to the TVS 50 to get around it.