Hi,

I've upgraded my HD to a 1TB WD.

The upgrade has gone fine and everything is working.

However, I'm having some diffculty copying my recordings back from my old HD to my new HD.

I've put the old HD in an Icy Box external USB caddy and connected it via usb. However, I'm getting a message on the Hunny saying "unable to read the conencted USB drive. Please reformat in either EXT2/3 or Fat32".

I haven't done anything to the old drive other than remove it so the file system should be compatible.

Any suggestions?

PS I did reset the box just in case.

Not a suggestion but may be an idea why. It's known that due to a current bug EXT2 drives don't work over USB (No problem with EXT3), the internal drive may be EXT 2 formatted.

Possible workaround if you have a PC. Make yourself a linux boot up CD I have found this version very user friendly

http://www.slax.org/

Boot your PC into Linux and connect the USB drive. You should be able to copy all the data from the drive to a ntfs partition.

Reformat the drive EXT3 and copy all the files back.

This might help (slax is more user friendly tham Nimble X)

http://www.avforums.com/forums/frees...ml#post8348697
Last edited by grahamlthompson : 27-01-2009 at 17:52

Hi Graham,

Thanks for the reply.

I just found this in the Wiki under Ext2:

http://www.fs-driver.org/

Its an instalable driver for EXT under Windows that allows Windows to use EXT drives. So I might give this a try 1st.

Ok not quite understanding how the drivers going to work its looking at my other system drives and I don't want to convert them!

Playing on the safe side, I'm looking at your CD then Graham.

If I format to EXT3 from within that won't it delete my existing files?

Linux will write to ntfs, if you read my OP I said copy the files off the usb drive to the ntfs drive for temporary storage. Then format the drive. After the format simply copy them all back. Slax has a gui file manager very similar to windows file manager so you can drag and drop files in the same way. Remember to right click the usb drive and choose safe removal. this properly unmounts a linux volume.

Make sure you have the right device name before you format (It should be obvious from the source of the original files).
Last edited by grahamlthompson : 27-01-2009 at 18:58

Hi,

As you say, not doing anything to the 320GB drive and just putting it in an external enclosure should not be a problem

If it helps :-

I upgraded the HDD with a Western Digital WD10evcs and installed the 320GB Seagate in a Newlink enclosure from Scan.

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Newli...SATA-Enclosure

I was able to copy all of the contents back to the new HDD via USB without problem.

One thing I did notice, was that although I could play all of the SD content directly from the external drive, some of the HD content would not play properly.

So, the Humax may not like the Icy Box ????

Pete.
Last edited by Watchband : 27-01-2009 at 19:03

That's a good point, no one has ever actually said that an encrypted HD file will play over USB as you can't normally put them there anyway. In my case (no pun intended) the internal hard drive is moved to an external esata caddy. I can swap my new drive (1Tb WD) with the old drive at will as the foxsat still thinks they are still inside the stb.

Hmm.

Looks like I have a problem with the caddy and compatability. Says its compatible with Linux but I wonder if its a driver issue.

Also, can I transfer HD files back over USB (I know you can't play them because of HDCP) but can they be transferred?

I will try 5 things for you tommorow

1 Check what the original drive file system is
2 Record short encrypted BBC HD to it
3 Copy this to a FAT32 USB stick
4 Try and play this file from the fat32 stick via the foxsat usb port
5 Try copying the HD files back to the HDD using just the foxsat usb after deleting them to see if they will still play.

Incidentally I guess the device you got is a really a case, for some reason thay now call them caddys.. A caddy used to be device that let's you swap drives by pulling one out and sticking a new one in, No screws or anything, takes seconds. They seem to call them cradles now though.

like this one
http://www.storagedepot.co.uk/Extern...c883/p753.aspx

It's not HDCP that stops you playing the files (that stops you copying a video directly from the hdmi), it's the data in the file that is encrypted. If you knew how it was encrypted you could unscramble it and play it on anything. If you record unencrypted HD using non freesat mode it's still HDCP protected you can't connect the hdmi to anything other than a HDCP compliant device.
Last edited by grahamlthompson : 27-01-2009 at 21:01

That's not what I found. BBC HD played fine through component once in non-freesat mode.

Hi,

Just checked and this is the enclosure that I purchased ---

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Newli...B-20-Enclosure

Yes, the HD files copied back OK to the internal HDD via USB.
There was just one that had a couple of very short glitches.

Pete.

Hi Graham,

A few problems:

1. I don't know how to check what file system is in use - I don't have a Linux PC nor a Mac nor do I have the drive in the box anymore - I don't really want to re-install it to be honest as its not worth risking a working 1TB drive and box just to test the drive.

2. I don't own a USB stick. Nearest I have is an SD card and USB reader.

Recordings made in non freesat mode are not encrypted and can be output over component quite freely and even copied directly from component with suitable equipment. They will still be HDCP protected though. HDCP is nothing to do with the file contents. It's a requirement that copyright HD material can only be output from a HDMI port that is equipped with HDCP. This requires that the equipment informs the sending equipment basically it's not a device for copying in a process called handshaking. Unless you can turn off this protection (there is a menu option not sure if it does anything) then outputting even non encrypted HD material will require HDMI handshaking.

There is a gadget that attatches to a hdmi port that effectively lies to the sending equipment (it handshakes) and outputs component. It's very usefull for those who have HD capable TV's/Projectors with only component inputs. Google HDfury 2.

More info here

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HDCP

Hope this also answers your post

1 Tried to identify whether the original drive was EXT2 or EXT3, not knowing a fat lot about linux could not find out how to do this. But as others have now posted they can read the original drive over usb it seems pretty sure it's EXT3

Copied a short encrypted file to a fat32 usb stick.
The file played from USB but with lot's of pixellation. At a guess the USB stick's not fast enough to cope with the encryption. Non encrypted HD content plays back fine. I have a faster fat32 drive so I will try a faster source.

After deleting the original files from the foxsat hdd and replacing them with the files from the usb they played back fine.

Suggest you go ahead and create a linux start up disc and see if your pc can read the original HDD in the caddy when booted into Linux. If not then you know that the problem lies with the caddy. It might actually be faulty

The OP's problem is most likely to be the Icy Box (or rather the HDR not getting on with it...)

The HDR's USB bandwidth/throughput is not big enough for playback of HD recordings off the external drive...

It is EXT3. Why keep re-inventing the wheel? http://foxsatdisk.wikispaces.com/ubuntu

Well I just recorded some BBC HD in non freesat mode and copied it to a usb stick. Replay from the usb stick is flawless. Surely if the USB can copy HD in less than real time it's got to be fast enough to play it. ?

Dunno. I've only tried it with Enc HD recordings... maybe it is having to 'decrypt' on the fly that is causing the bandwidth/throughput playback problems...

How short was the un-Enc HD recording? Try an hours worth, see if it is still successful...

I already have, before I did the the HDD disc mod I used a 256Gb EXT3 HDD to archive and playback programmes longer than 1 Hr no problems. As you say encrypted HD has severe problems, which is exactly what my posting said.

I suspect its a compatability problem with the caddy. The caddy works fine on my pc so I suspect the interface electronics and the Humax aren't getting along.

I'm going to order a Newlink caddy like this (the one posted above is out of stock unfortunately):

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/NewLi...port-for-25-35

I'm hoping being the same brand the interface electronics will be the same and thus compatible. I also know I can use this type of caddy in the future when messing around switching drives.

Does anyone know if you need a Linux compatible memory USB key drive or can any key drive work? I've been looking at a few from the point of view of software updating but many don't state Linux compatability.

Didn't read your post (in reply to yourself!)... Anyway, what is worth saying is worth saying again

(Where did you say, over 1 hr?)

This is the one I bought

http://www.allcam.biz/catalog/produc...roducts_id=693

But as I simply moved the internal HDD into it using the esata connections I can't confirm that it will work over USB to the foxsat (The foxsat has now no internal HDD). It works fine talking to the foxsat by the direct sata connection and a pc by usb

Yeah, sorry, confused the two there.

I did not as I assumed 5 mins would have shown any problems and replay of non encrypted HD from USB has been confirmed as OK in other postings.