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Using an external HDD with foxsat


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Old 04-04-2009, 18:20
theShadowman
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I have seen many threads that refer to storing programs on an external hard drive, and as my foxsat begins to fill with decent programs I would like to transfer some of them on to an external HDD.

Can someone explain the exact procedure for doing so, particularly how I need to format the new HDD and how it's done. Once I have the disk ready I think transferring to it is relatively easy (correct me if I am wrong here) I am running XP Pro on my computer, but I believe, if I have read correctly, that windows is no good for the foxsat files. Any help would be great.

Thanks Robert
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Old 04-04-2009, 18:48
grahamlthompson
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I have seen many threads that refer to storing programs on an external hard drive, and as my foxsat begins to fill with decent programs I would like to transfer some of them on to an external HDD.

Can someone explain the exact procedure for doing so, particularly how I need to format the new HDD and how it's done. Once I have the disk ready I think transferring to it is relatively easy (correct me if I am wrong here) I am running XP Pro on my computer, but I believe, if I have read correctly, that windows is no good for the foxsat files. Any help would be great.

Thanks Robert
The foxsat can use usb drives formatted FAT32 or Linux EXT3. FAT32 only supports files up to 4Gb but for SD that's normally adequate.

When you plug in a usb device a message appears on the screen

Press Media Opt+ and choose file manager. Your USB device is on the right your recorded files on the left. Press right and click OK on the drive icon (normally SDA1) to open the root folder, now go left and move to any file, the green copy button will now be activated so just press green. You will get 3 files on the usb drive, the one you want is the .ts file (transmission stream). The free VLC player will play it on your PC and also convert it to a .mpg (Programme Stream) file suitable for burning to DVD

Last edited by grahamlthompson : 04-04-2009 at 18:49. Reason: typo
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Old 04-04-2009, 18:58
theShadowman
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Thank you Graham

Do I format the disk to FAT32 using my pc? If so do I just go to "My Computer" select the drive (plugged in to USB slot) and click "format"

Robert
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Old 04-04-2009, 19:19
grahamlthompson
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Thank you Graham

Do I format the disk to FAT32 using my pc? If so do I just go to "My Computer" select the drive (plugged in to USB slot) and click "format"

Robert
More or less, if it's larger than 32Gb windows can't format it but there is loads of free software that can . In any case USB sticks are already FAT32 and External USB drives are usually the same to maintain compatibilty with earlier versions of Windows to XP.
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Old 04-04-2009, 19:53
germanycalling
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More or less, if it's larger than 32Gb windows can't format it but there is loads of free software that can . In any case USB sticks are already FAT32 and External USB drives are usually the same to maintain compatibilty with earlier versions of Windows to XP.
I was not so lucky with my Toshiba 1TB external. It was formatted to NTFS and my HDR did not recognise it. Thus I took the EXT 3 route and it works a treat. Having archived loads of stuff it still seems to be only 8% used. Even if that is a plumber's estimate it is a great addition to any Humax HDR, IMHO. At 89 Euros each for a Western Digital over here they don't break the bank either!
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Old 04-04-2009, 22:30
KDH
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Mine's hooked up to one of these

http://www.comet.co.uk/shopcomet/pro...TAL-WDH1U10000

- bought it when Comet were selling them at £64 at Xmas

works well - hours and hours of stuff on it and only 6% full - can play back directly from it and turns itself on and off with the HDR and also the disk stops spinning when its not being used even if the HDR is on.
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Old 05-04-2009, 08:24
woolfynorm
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Mine's hooked up to one of these

http://www.comet.co.uk/shopcomet/pro...TAL-WDH1U10000

- bought it when Comet were selling them at £64 at Xmas

works well - hours and hours of stuff on it and only 6% full - can play back directly from it and turns itself on and off with the HDR and also the disk stops spinning when its not being used even if the HDR is on.
What file system has it got, I.e. is it FAT32? Can it be read by a PC, I sometimes like to burn files to DVD?

Woolfynorm.
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Old 05-04-2009, 09:51
KDH
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FAT 32 - yes it has been hooked up to the PC - you can set up folders on the PC quicker than with the HDR
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Old 05-04-2009, 10:01
theShadowman
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I was not so lucky with my Toshiba 1TB external. It was formatted to NTFS and my HDR did not recognise it. Thus I took the EXT 3 route and it works a treat. Having archived loads of stuff it still seems to be only 8% used. Even if that is a plumber's estimate it is a great addition to any Humax HDR, IMHO. At 89 Euros each for a Western Digital over here they don't break the bank either!
Thanks GC When you say you took the EXT 3 route, are you talking about the same Toshiba HDD. How do you take the EXT3 route?
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Old 05-04-2009, 11:43
woolfynorm
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FAT 32 - yes it has been hooked up to the PC - you can set up folders on the PC quicker than with the HDR
This will have the 4Gb limit, any issues with this?

Woolfynorm
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Old 05-04-2009, 11:45
grahamlthompson
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This will have the 4Gb limit, any issues with this?

Woolfynorm
Depends if you want to archive HD 4gB is only about 25mins for BBC HD.
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Old 05-04-2009, 12:44
awo1949
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Depends if you want to archive HD 4gB is only about 25mins for BBC HD.
In practice, you can't copy HD anyway due to the copy protection (unless you mess about with manual recording in non-freesat mode). So HD is probably not an issue.

The practical limitations are with SD recordings, where somewhere between 1hr45min and about 3hrs will hit the 4Gb limit, depending on channel. The 1hr45min is based on a 1 hour recording I have from BBC1 which is 2.26Gb, and should be typical for BBC. Other channels have a lower bit rate, so your mileage will vary. This means that you will have difficulties with most sports events and some films. As BBC don't have ad breaks, the majority of films will be just within the limit, but there will be a good few that aren't. Remember that it is not the length of the film that counts, but the length of the timeslot it is transmitted in as the HDR will continue to record BBC's own form of advertising after the film ends. As a very rough guide, a 2.5 hour slot might be OK for ITV and a 3 hours slot might be OK for some other channels.
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Old 05-04-2009, 13:08
srhill
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Depends if you want to archive HD 4gB is only about 25mins for BBC HD.
so basically, there is no way to copy HD recordings out to an external HD?

As they are likely to be > 25mins long and take up considerably more disk space than SD recordings, this would seem to be a limiting restriction - anyway round it?
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Old 05-04-2009, 13:18
awo1949
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so basically, there is no way to copy HD recordings out to an external HD?
For the vast majority of people, that's correct. But it is possible. First, you have to do the recording manually in non-freesat mode. Second, the HDD has to be formatted in EXT3.
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Old 05-04-2009, 13:19
grahamlthompson
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so basically, there is no way to copy HD recordings out to an external HD?

As they are likely to be > 25mins long and take up considerably more disk space than SD recordings, this would seem to be a limiting restriction - anyway round it?
Yes you can but you need a EXT3 formatted HD. Switch to nonfreesat mode, switch off and on again about 15sec later. Tune to BBC HD and press red, (press red again if you wish to set a recording duration). The resulting recording is archiveable and not encrypted (Same as any other generic free to air HD pvr). Short recordings can be copied to a fat32 drive (Usefull for messing with on a PC)
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Old 05-04-2009, 14:04
germanycalling
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Thanks GC When you say you took the EXT 3 route, are you talking about the same Toshiba HDD. How do you take the EXT3 route?
Yes, I changed the Toshiba drive to EXT 3 and all is well. The Toshiba was an impulse purchase from a small supermarket. Went in for coffee and veg, came out with external hard drive, coffee & veg and a big smile! Sleek all aluminium case etc for 98 euros.

To format it I used GNOME partition manager although there are other routes to do this. Please see Grahams post here http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/forums/s...45&postcount=7

and beyond

Using such a drive gets the big thumb's up here
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Old 05-04-2009, 15:08
awo1949
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Does anyone know if the HDR will allow copying between its two USBs? Or does it only copy between the internal HDD and one of the USBs?

The reason I ask is that one of the trade-offs in deciding whether to format an external hard drive to FAT32 or EXT3 is that an EXT3 drive cannot be read on a PC (at least, not without a lot of complication). However, if the HDR allows copying between USBs, that offers a solution for getting the occasional archived recording on to a PC.
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Old 05-04-2009, 15:27
GaseousClay
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Does anyone know if the HDR will allow copying between its two USBs? Or does it only copy between the internal HDD and one of the USBs?
no it won't I've tried this long ago
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Old 05-04-2009, 21:11
woolfynorm
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Yes, I changed the Toshiba drive to EXT 3 and all is well. The Toshiba was an impulse purchase from a small supermarket. Went in for coffee and veg, came out with external hard drive, coffee & veg and a big smile! Sleek all aluminium case etc for 98 euros.

To format it I used GNOME partition manager although there are other routes to do this. Please see Grahams post here http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/forums/s...45&postcount=7

and beyond

Using such a drive gets the big thumb's up here
Any issues with reading ext3 in windows?

I formatted my 160Gb disc ext3, but couldn't get the above to read them!! Had to go back to FAT32, any ideas?

Woolfynorm
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Old 06-04-2009, 09:31
grahamlthompson
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Any issues with reading ext3 in windows?

I formatted my 160Gb disc ext3, but couldn't get the above to read them!! Had to go back to FAT32, any ideas?

Woolfynorm
There are drivers available to allow EXT3 drives to be read under windows. The one I tried did not work so I simply boot my laptop into Linux on the odd occassion I need to access the Foxsat drive.
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Old 06-04-2009, 11:11
mbsnr
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I have used this to read Ext3 drives in XP Ext3 for Windows

It was written for Ext2 but it does read Ext3 drives as long as they have been dismounted cleanly and have no entries in the journal (ext3 creates a journal of entries that require writing to the disk if there is an unclean dismount). Ext2 doesn't have this feature so will only read clean Ext3 drives without journal entries.
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Old 06-04-2009, 11:15
grahamlthompson
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I have used this to read Ext3 drives in XP http://="http://www.fs-driver.org/do...t3 for Windows.

It was written for Ext2 but it does read Ext3 drives as long as they have been dismounted cleanly and have no entries in the journal (ext3 creates a journal of entries that require writing to the disk if there is an unclean dismount). Ext2 doesn't have this feature so will only read clean Ext3 drives without journal entries.
That's the root cause of the problem. The foxsat does not unmount a ext3 volume. To get a PC to read it you need a PC booted into Linux. As linux works with ntfs you might just as well use Linux to archive recordings
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Old 06-04-2009, 11:25
mbsnr
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That's the root cause of the problem. The foxsat does not unmount a ext3 volume.
I see. I don't have a HDR so didn't know that.
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Old 06-04-2009, 12:45
grahamlthompson
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I see. I don't have a HDR so didn't know that.
It's one of a long list of requested bug fixes. Hopefully a new firmware release will fix
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Old 06-04-2009, 20:50
woolfynorm
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That's the root cause of the problem. The foxsat does not unmount a ext3 volume. To get a PC to read it you need a PC booted into Linux. As linux works with ntfs you might just as well use Linux to archive recordings
But the HDR won't write to a NTFS drive, or am I missing something?

Woolfynorm.
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