I swapped the HD yesterday.

I've just put the original into a SATA enclosure & connected it to the HDR.

To my surprise it plays back all of the recordings.

However while a C4 recording played perfectly the BBC HD & ITV HD encrypted recordings did play, but with a lot of picture breakup.

I can only think the HDR's USB socket is USB1, not USB2???

Well, that would be a drag since caddying HDs was another answer to its small storage space.

What do you see if you hook it up to a windows-with-linux-reading-software box, or a linux box?

Thats next. Just coping music files from old disc to HDR at the moment.

Just as I was typing this it occurred to me to try coping the BBC HD recording from the USB to the HDR.

the usb numbers are dependent on the order they are connected, they are not static.

Sorry, was referring to the USB format standard speed, not the HDR's connections.

USB1 = 12MB/s, USB2 = 480MB/s or something like that.

USB 2.0 not USB2 ohh yes I see now but it's worth noting my post

YES!!!

I copied an encrypted recording of the BBC HD Test Card from the old disc to the new. Plays perfectly.

Great news, getting my replacement drive tomorrow, will get myself a caddy tonight. Thanks for the update.

Why not try my eSATA mod?

http://foxsatdisk.wikispaces.com/

And son_t is ahead on this one as well:

http://foxsatdisk.wikispaces.com/The+HDR+filesystem

Edit: So, can you just play those .ts files with a suitable player? What happens with the encrypted ones?

Tia.

Ideal, have a suitable caddy already, just need the SATA to eSATA connector which shouldn't be hard to track down. Did you put this up yesterday, I checked it out a couple of days ago and this section wasn't in there?

I don't suppose there is a way of formatting a RAID device that would be recognised by the Foxsat HDR and connected via eSata? I've got a 5 Tb Thecus box but no eSATA connectivity on it.

That's excellent new - thanks so much for sharing.

Means I can wait till I really run out of space before upgrading the hard drive, safe in the knowledge I won't lose all my precious recordings.

Yes, all went up yesterday. I've been testing this mod out but I thought I'd make an effort just before Xmas to get this info out... for those people wanting more recording space... Where to get the SATA to eSATA is also on the wiki.

If you are going a head with a disk replacement and void warranty, then it might be best to invest a bit more to get - what is essentially - unlimited storage for your recordings...


I'm afraid SATA and eSATA interfaces to the internal hard disk only... BTW, the HDR can not and does not read a drive connected to the USB ports IF IT DOES NOT have an internal disk connected! (At least I could not get it to work without an internal - needs some else to confirm, here.)

As for NAS and RAID storage - I've don't have access to such things so can't test. Whatever you want to use - it has to have a eSATA/SATA interface to link it with the HDR (to the motherboard). Maybe someone can find a convertor/bridge to work. Getting a NAS device to work would be the next step in this mod... and would be great for accessing the hard disk (via the network).

1TB Western Digital WD10EVCS AV-GP back in stock at Scan. £80.33.

AVForum members with 20+ posts can get free delivery.

The eSATA/USB2 enclosure and a SATA to eSATA is available there too:

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Newli...SATA-Enclosure
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/2m-Sc...Cable-(RB-452)

If you want to implement the eSATA mod

Yes, I thought that the box looked a bit empty but what's that in the right hand front - looks like a space for a DVD drive?

CAM slot

So if my understanding is correct I can do the eSATA mod put my hard disk into the caddy and it functions as normal but it also allows me to connect the caddy to my PC at the same time and access it that way too ?

If this is the case then it might be possible to use the ext2 driver for Windows http://www.fs-driver.org/ and be able to play the file in Vista Media Centre. That would be perfect.

Any chance you could try that son_t ?

Oh and first post so hi everybody

Woody

I would be interested to know if a copy protected file can be copied to another disk under linux/windows and played from that disk on the same or another machine?

You can physically connect the PC and HDR to the same drive but only one device can be powered-up at any one time. Who knows what might happen if a scheduled recording started while the PC was left on!

It would be nice to have the HDR disk simultaneously connected to a NAS - maybe having a second disk scheduled to back-up the main disk in the small hours would be a work around. But it's getting messy, think I'll hold-out a while to see what networking capability is introduced.

Does anyone know if its possible to clone the data from the existing drive to a 1TB drive using something like Ghost or Acronis TI?

Thanks.

Hi Woody and welcome

As usual there's a couple of snags

First the the EXT3 format needs to be set up using 128byte rather than 256byte using the mkfs.ext3 switch -I 128.

Secondly and more annoying is that the foxsat does not properly unmount the drive requiring a boot into linux to properly unmount the drive before the windows driver can access the disc. As linux can write to a ntfs partition it's just as easy to transfer the files in Linux as you have to boot into it anyway.
Last edited by grahamlthompson : 18-12-2008 at 14:38

Usage is in exclusive mode only - i.e. either the HDR can access the HDD or the PC access the HDD - not both at the same time...


HD recordings can be manipulated in anyway you want. However, I had lots of problems dealing with the HD recordings (nothing will process or play them in their entirety) and I suspect they are encrypted. But maybe you will find them otherwise... and tell me what software you use and the spec of your PC... I am happy just to be able to move them about and back to the HDR to play...


The timers will simply not work, as the HDR will not be able to find the internal HDD while it is connected to the PC. That is all...


I have no experience of these NAS devices - so can't say, but one thing is that, I am unable to find a NAS device with an eSATA interface. There are NAS devices with USB, but whether they work in non-exclusive mode (access to the storage while connected to a PC via USB and access to the storage via the network - at the same time!), is another unknown. Maybe someone with one of these could tell us...


No need for cloning software. Just format the new disk using the HDR, and using Linux or similar, copy ALL the files from Video directory on the recording partition over. (And copy the reserve.info over too if you want to keep your schedules...)

Just a couple of comments here. Copying the files back from a USB drive to the internal takes ages and can only be done one at a time. Even for non-HD content it would be nice to see a new eSATA interface to the HDR though I suspect the best we will get will be USB3.

son_t, thanks for your tips. I've swapped out the internal drive but for now have not opted to change the drive interface from SATA to eSATA but may well do so when either the 1TB drive fills up or Glastonbury 2009 is shown in HD.

It would be handy if there was an easy means to copy over the recording schedule from drive to drive. That way you could have multiple boxes around the house and play the media where you want to while not missing out on any recordings. The only viable way would seem to be to have a dedicated Unix PC with two eSATA interfaces but then if I was going to that trouble I might as well just run Media Center with two HD satellite tuners and be done with it.

SON_T, I think you might be insterested in this...

http://www.cooldrives.com/4posaiisw3ba.html