[grahamlthompson]

Originally Posted by RonnieMarath

i used that option to reformat the internal HDD, i wasn't sure that it would list all available drives to format, Thought that was only for reformatting the internal one.

Is there a faster way to copy everything back to the unit? Would telnet be quicker or does it need to encrypt everything again?

The attached drive is an option if connected. I guess ftp would be quickest but you would need to find out from HDR FOX T2 owner about your problems. For future reference Easeus Partition Manager (the free version will format EXT3 under windows without resorting to Linux).

You could always leave them on the usb drive and watch them directly from there.

[RonnieMarath]

True, i could keep a good portion on the external drive, but as the internal drive is so big i feel like i should be using it

I can restore it all slowly, there's no rush as i can watch it from the HD anyway.

[OwenSmith]

Originally Posted by RonnieMarath

i tried ftp to see if i could see whats currently on the box, but there seem to be only 3 folders i can see, My Video, Pictures, and Music ( as i recall) , but each time i tried to go into teh Video folder it disonnected the session .

The HDR Fox T2 has a TinyFTP server, so it is limited in what commands it supports and many of the unsupported ones just disconnect the session. I use FileZilla as a client on my PC and this works well with the HDR Fox T2 since it detects what sort of server it is talking to.

However, FTPing files off the HDR Fox T2 does not decrypt them, not even SD. To read off with FTP you need to copy the files to USB stick or external drive to decrypt them, and then FTP from the external drive which the HDR Fox T2 will do.

[RonnieMarath]

I was using the ftp client from windows xp command line. surely a basic command like cd would be suppported? seemed to close as soon as i tried to go into a folder.

I was mostly interested in FTP as a means of backing up the HDD in order to reformat it, so i would have been happy to have them encrypted, as they were to go back on the box anyway, but as it happens, i have to change the box, so if they were encrypted i guess i would have been stuck.

But for future maintenance would it be much quicker to offload the HDD via ftp encrypted? ( It took me 36hrs to decrypt and copy 550GB to the external USB drive.)

[grahamlthompson]

Originally Posted by RonnieMarath

I was using the ftp client from windows xp command line. surely a basic command like cd would be suppported? seemed to close as soon as i tried to go into a folder.

I was mostly interested in FTP as a means of backing up the HDD in order to reformat it, so i would have been happy to have them encrypted, as they were to go back on the box anyway, but as it happens, i have to change the box, so if they were encrypted i guess i would have been stuck.

But for future maintenance would it be much quicker to offload the HDD via ftp encrypted? ( It took me 36hrs to decrypt and copy 550GB to the external USB drive.)

Ftping them off the hard drive without first copying to usb won't help you unless you use the vitual usb drive dodge described in a thread on Hummy TV. As you say the encryption key for the new box will be different. Uploading the decrypted copies by ftp should be fine. Presumably it's the decryption overhead that makes it so slow.

Something like Filezilla I imagine will be better.

[OwenSmith]

Originally Posted by RonnieMarath

I was using the ftp client from windows xp command line. surely a basic command like cd would be suppported? seemed to close as soon as i tried to go into a folder.

I was mostly interested in FTP as a means of backing up the HDD in order to reformat it, so i would have been happy to have them encrypted, as they were to go back on the box anyway, but as it happens, i have to change the box, so if they were encrypted i guess i would have been stuck.

But for future maintenance would it be much quicker to offload the HDD via ftp encrypted? ( It took me 36hrs to decrypt and copy 550GB to the external USB drive.)

cd is not supported by the TinyFTP server in the Humax. I tried the Windows command line FTP and got very frustrated. I then tried FileZilla based on a recommendation here and I love it, it is a wondeful bit of software and you'll never go back to command line having used FileZilla. It has a very nice clean installer, nothing complicated or dodgy.

Offload by FTP is much quicker than USB, it's the decryption that makes it so slow. Be careful though, if you reformat the hard disc even in the same Humax (ie. without swapping the box) it is not known if the encryption key remains the same. If the key is randomly generated on format, then your encrypted backups as worthless because a reformat (to fix a broken disc image) would render them unplayable.

I don't bother backing up my HDR Fox T2, it's only TV and if I lose it then I lose it. But if I did deem it worth backing up, I'd be backing up decrypted copies.

[grahamlthompson]

Originally Posted by OwenSmith

it is not known if the encryption key remains the same. If the key is randomly generated on format, then your encrypted backups as worthless because a reformat (to fix a broken disc image) would render them unplayable.

I don't bother backing up my HDR Fox T2, it's only TV and if I lose it then I lose it. But if I did deem it worth backing up, I'd be backing up decrypted copies.

It is known, you can swap and reformat the hdd with impunity. The key is derived from the box MAC address and serial number. It's not random at all and not stored on the hdd. THe HD FOX T2 does not even have one, It still records with a unique key to a usb drive. You can record to different drives and replay content from an any of them on the HD FOX that recorded it.

[OwenSmith]

Originally Posted by grahamlthompson

It is known, you can swap and reformat the hdd with impunity. The key is derived from the box MAC address and serial number.

Thanks, that's useful to know. What would be even more useful would be cracking the encryption by reading the key, so that encrypted files could be read off the box and then decrypted on the PC which should be much faster.

[grahamlthompson]

Originally Posted by OwenSmith

Thanks, that's useful to know. What would be even more useful would be cracking the encryption by reading the key, so that encrypted files could be read off the box and then decrypted on the PC which should be much faster.

Have a look at Hummy.TV some work on this there.

[OwenSmith]

Originally Posted by grahamlthompson

Have a look at Hummy.TV some work on this there.

I read hummy.tv but the threads on the modified software have become so monstrously branched and convoluted discussing many topics in one thread that I don't have the will to read and attempt to decode them.

[skind56]

Originally Posted by RonnieMarath

1 - hard disk getting noiser when recording.
2 - recorded programs have missing sections , signal suddenly breaks up like corrupted data, and then skips several minutes and carries on ok.
3 - while watching recorded program, screen freezes and goes blank ,with message saying someting about no signal- channel scrambled . as if signal was lost during recording.

issue 2- seemed to be while the box was recording something, and disk activity was high(noisy). Once the activity subsided usually within a minute, the playback carried on ok.

Has anyone had similar issue to these, or any solution other than stepping back firmware?

Ronnie, I have been having these problems recently. Did you manage to format your HD and did it make any difference or did you just get a new box?

[Paul_H]

Deleted cause I posted in wrong thread.