I think he meant removing the drive to fit it inside the Humax.

Fair enough.

I'm not so sure about that. Most consumers won't open up a PC or a PVR. I'd expect anyone opening up a Humax to be capable of a simple disk swap. Forum members aren't typical consumers.

If you move the HDD to an external caddy/cradle with a usb and extend the sata connections then you can archive anything on the disc (HD encrypted or not) using a linux booted PC. The external HDD performs exactly the same as if the drive were in the Foxsat. With the foxsat off unrestricted access is available by a PC over USB.
Doing the following easily allows you to move existing HD recordings to a new HDD.

Install the old disc in the caddy/cradle (if it's a slot in cradle it takes seconds) with the foxsat off.
Copy all the recordings from the old disc to a ntfs partition using a linux booted computer.
Switch everything off, replace the drive in the caddy/cradle with the new larger drive, switch on the foxsat and install the new drive.
Switch off the foxsat, and reconnect the linux booted PC and copy all the old recording from the ntfs partition to the new drive.
Disconnect the PC, boot up the foxsat, all your old recordings are now on the new larger disc.
As I have a cradle I have not bothered as it's very easy to slot in the old drive into the cradle to watch the old stuff anyway.

oh right - I'm easily confused Thanks..

There are very people who would attempt a swap themselves - I'd guess enthusiasts only.

Couldn't you unofficially offer warranty support on a couple of conditions:

1. The HD was one of an approved list of compatible models - there are only 1 or 2 PVR specific models out there from major manufacturers noteably WD and Samsung, so testing them would take no time at all and considering you have been considering greater capacities it wouldn't be wasted testing to test eg 750GB and 1TB from those manufacturers.

2. That any swap of the hard drive for an approved model had been performed in a manner that hadn't physically damaged any other components in the box and hadn't involved any alterations to the design of the box or its components.

That should cover any potential problems.

I put a 500gb hitachi drive in mine yesterday, it worked fine, but the heat it kicked out was shocking(i think you could fry eggs on the top)

Put the standard drive back in , cool as a cucumber now.

I will get a special pvr drive in a few weeks one of the green power ones.

In my experience it peels off easily though !!

the samsung 1TB runs very cool in mine

Could you tell me which model that is?
Thanks

Has anyone tried the 1.5TB or 2TB drive from Western Digital ?

This one : http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.asp?driveid=615

I know people have the 1TB version of the same drive, its just hard to come by and the 1.5TB version is now only £30 more expensive.

Also, just found the 'WD10EADS' for sale - does that one work?

As the drive in the Foxsat is a Samsung 320GB Pipeline HDD then is would make sense that the 1GB Seagate Pipeline HDD ST31000322CS would be the ideal replacement.
I have the 500GB version in my Toppy, and it's virtually inaudible.

If you are enquiring about an internal replacement, so far I have only seen one post from someone who managed to make a 1.5Tb drive work and that was not straightforward. WD drives with a EV in the model are known to work (It's a guess that the V stands for video). PC drives with built in data aerror chacking can acuse problems in pvrs.

Yes internal drive required.

So I shouldn't just get the 'WD10EADS' then - wait for a 1TB 'WD10EVDS'

That would be my advice yes or of course as is looking likely a replacement model

Woot, found them available at Dell.co.uk for £65.99 with Free delivery

Nice Christmas present to myself

I.ve upgraded to 1TB Drive 3.5 drive replacing the original Seagate with a Samsung. 1TB is the maximum the box will handle. The recveiver will detect the new drive and re-format and set partitions- about 2/3 minutes to complete

I got utterly peeved off when a full disk didn't mean just lost recordings, but somehow triggered an error that caused the box to just wipe everything on the disk. Great to have 100% available again, crap to have lost all the recordings, to what seems like a "known bug" with the ext3 filesystem, which the Foxsat doesn't seem to handle gracefully ;-( ...

If you look through my posting history you'll see my comments about the 1TB upgrade, which for someone who knows how to swap a drive in a PC is a total no-brain operation. If it hadn't been for the fact that I actually think the Foxsat is a good box I would have chucked it in the bin after that misery. The 1TB upgrade is absolutely worth it.

Of course, what happens when the 1TB fills up and the Foxsat panics again is anyone's guess, it might just mean three times more recordings lost than the previous time ...

Any drive with a capacity beyond 1 TB isn't handled well. Stick to 1 TB max. The default 320GB drive is a Seagate Sata drive. It's a straightforward process to switch the drive (bearing in mind that if you do this when still under warranty then you break the warranty conditions) If you lack IT knowledge and some practical experience then better to get someone who has to do the job for you. - the receiver will detect the new drive and request you OK that the drive be formatted. I haven't had any running issues since switching mine.