Hi my Digihome DTR80's hard drive seems to be struggling a bit these days.It stutters when watching a recorded program while recording another. I might look to change the drive. I know there's a 160gb version of this recorder. Is 160gb the max size it will take? Mine has the T825 board. Thanks in advance.

The maximum size for the T825 is 320Gb, I think - certainly, nothing bigger than that will work. The largest capacity shipped from the factory were models with 250Gb drives. That said, the stuttering might not be due to the HDD, but obviously it's hard to say without trying. If you have a spare drive lying around then fine, but buying a new drive might not be a good idea if it doesn't help.

Thanks for that. It's not always too easy to find smaller capacity drives these days. After posting I found some info about new firmware(13.0) that helps with stuttering apparently. I've ordered a lead so i can update the pvr. I'll try that first and see what happens.

Sorry, I assumed your box already had v13.0 since there was an over-air update broadcast a couple of years ago. The issue of stuttering on these boxes has always been somewhat of a mystery. I think the trouble is that there are multiple causes which have similar or the same stuttering symptoms. The v13.0 software was aimed at stuttering problems that happened overnight in some areas at DSO. By all means give it a shot though. If it doesn't work, you could try connecting the drive to your PC and try running Western Digital's Lifeguard diagnostic program on it to see if it detects any errors (if it does, then at least you will know the HDD has to go).

Trawling through past threads, somebody did try a 500Gb drive in a T825 (albeit it was a SATA drive via adaptor), and only 327Gb was used. So, a larger drive may be usable - just the extra capacity will not be used.

Of course, the cost of a new hard drive also has to be factored against the price of a new or refurbished PVR. For example, you can pick up refurbished T835 boxes for around £40 (e.g. Agora branded) which is essentially a more compact version of the T825, with less connectivity options. And that price probably isn't that different from buying a new HDD. New T835 boxes seem to have rocketed in price and are poor value for money these days, compared to the newer HD models where you can get a 1Tb T7650 (Logik branded from Currys) for £160 - again similar in operation to your Digihome. Argos do a 320Gb T7650 (Bush) for £150, but obviously the Currys price is better value.

Thanks for all that info...very useful. Don't know why my machine never updated the firmware. It's on auto update and never turned off. You're right about the newer HD ones being worth a look at though. I'll have a tinker with this one first and see how the land lies then. I thought about reformatting the drive...Does this mark off bad sectors not for use in the same way that a pc does?

Good question. Probably not, but not 100% sure - it might do so at a software level, but that is not really much good. I know people have had HDD problems, and a format worked for a little while, but soon the problem returned. If it is developing bad sectors, then it's likely to get worse. The Western Digital Lifeguard program has an option to map bad blocks at a hardware level though, so that could be worth a go, if it does have bad blocks. I keep saying Western Digital, but obviously if your drive is from a different manufacturer, then try the appropriate software from that manufacturer instead (I remember the old T810 models used to have Samsung 80Gb drives).

Hi I managed to get the v.13.0 firmware on. Seems to be working ok but the program info(whilst watching tv) seems to have disappeared. The info button brings up the banner with the channel and prog name(now and next) but on pressing again it used to bring up the info now it just turns off. The prog info is on the full guide but that means losing the channel briefly. Is this just a quirk of this firmware? I had 10.2 before. Thanks in advance.

Yes, this feature was removed apparently due to legal reasons at the time (Gemstar patent). The feature was not present in the newer models that superceded your Digihome DTR80, but the latest v5.2 software update re-instated the feature for the T835 model, and the HD models now have this feature back.

Never mind..Oh well...One step forward...etc At least I know it wasn't a corruption of the firmware when loading. Thanks again for your expert help!!

Yes, well, this was surely the biggest change people complain about, especially those who upgraded from an older model to a T835. It's one of those features that just becomes second nature to use and you don't notice how valuable it was until it has gone.

It took a fair amount of convincing to get this feature re-instated in newer models, but fortunately it happened in the end.