Different batches of 9242's definitely behave differently. My replacement seems to be working flawlessly wrt the EHD. I transferred all shows from old 9242 onto EHD, plugged EHD into new 9242, it recognized the drive as being associated with another receiver, updated it to work with the new receiver, and all programs have played flawlessly to this point on the new receiver (from the EHD, not transferred onto new receiver's HD).
My old 9242 was completely buggered up by the 183 software, with some issues that I had never experienced with the numerous 9200's or the limited time I had the original 9242 on v182.
I also noticed the lack of lag when accessing the PVR list while EHD is idle. Instead of waiting for the EHD to spin up, it simply displays the contents of the internal drive, and spins up the EHD in the background. I've also noticed a shorter lag in skip/restore function, and also the search for events after creating a timer. This may just be a by-product of my old 9242 being so buggy though.
FWIW, my EHD is an old Maxtor One Touch 160gb drive, that does go into standby. I get about 25 hours of HD with this little piece. Not bad for an otherwise (almost) useless little drive.
The other day I was watching an SD channel and noticed when I swapped over to tuner 2 the video on tuner 2 was ... "shaky" ... sort of skipping. Both tuners were live, tuner 1 was tuned to an SD channel as well. Chaning tuner 1 to HD channel made no difference, tuner 2 was still choppy. Changing tuner 2 to HD resulted in a clear not choppy video... change back to SD and choppy again.
I left the receiver on tuner 2 and power cycled, the problem switched, now tuner 2 was clear, but tuner 1 was choppy, again only when watching SD. I tried recording the choppy SD channel and it corrected most of the problem, only 'skipped' once in a minute or so.
What's going on???
My setup is 1 dish (500) into SW44, 2 feeds into 9242, both sats have decent signal strength 85+
The tuners run completely independant. Often there are video and/or audio differences between them for legacy reasons. A reset usually returns both tuners to "normal" operation.
I purchased my 9242 2months ago along with a Seagate 1TB drive using a Vantec enclosure. I also had the dreaded disconnect error after archiving a couple of HD football games. The EHD disconnected during playback and crashed several times while trying to restore archived recordings.
I called Bell technical support and was told they knew about the issue with the EHD and are working on a fix by end of October. I complained a little and was awarded a $25 credit on my next bill.
The firmware 183 seem to have fixed my EHD problems. I was able to restore my archived HD content back to receiver. I then archived some other programming that I didn't care to lose. Played it with no problems. I then archived a full HD football game. Played it with no problems as well. I did notice that the audio drop outs are still happening, but that doesn't really bother me. I hope they will address that with the next firmware update.
I feel for those who are still having issues with the 183 firmware. Hope it gets resolved soon.
Does anyone know what versions of the 9242 are still having the EHD disconnect problem and which are not with v183 of the firmware?
I have a 9242 with a hardware ID of RFHD-N using v183 of the firmware and I still have the EHD disconnect problem using a Lacie 750 GB. I remember reading that some folks did not have the disconnect problem with 9242 that had a hardware Id of RFPD-N even using V182 of the firmware.
You can find your firmware via the Menu: 6-1-3-Next-Next.
I also have a 9242 with the hardware Id of RFHD-N With V183 firmware and I have problems w/ the disconnect so maybe your on to something. When I called bell about my issue, they didn't hesitate to offer to send me another 9242. So maybe this is the batch that has the problem?
Just bought this PVR new 1.5 months ago, but have RFHD-N (which I presume is older than RFPD)
bootstrap 1718
f/w 183
Maxtor 300GB in a Vantec Nexstar enclosure.
Had to wipe EHD because it was full and would still reboot receiver on access following the fw update.
Now still can't play smoothly from EHD, nor restore anything back from EHD without it erroring on xfer about 50% through the copy process (consistently).
Doesn't reboot the receiver on access any more but it's still useless for me to use this EHD.
For someone with such a recent new purchase, do I have a way to get Bell to send me an RFPD unit which is also new, instead of refurb?
Any way for me to safely get my PVR's recordings transferred to the replacement unit?
It sure would be nice if you could connect two receivers together via ethernet or USB.
Do people who are having problems restoring recordings to the internal HD's also have problems playing directly from the EHD's? If not, then why even bother to restore? I don't see the value of restoring at all. Assuming Bell can get this to work by playing from EHD, why even have the restore function as an option?
Meatbag, assuming the new receiver will work, just transfer all recordings onto EHD, then play from EHD on your replacement 9242. Mine worked fine, hopefully yours will too.
Been waiting for the update before I add a EHD. Other than LaCie, what works without problems? I've got Seagate SATAII 500G in NexStar 3 cases on my computer. Quiet and fast, 32M cache. I can put that together for just over $100. Any issues with SATA drives?
Been waiting for the update before I add a EHD. Other than LaCie, what works without problems? I've got Seagate SATAII 500G in NexStar 3 cases on my computer. Quiet and fast, 32M cache. I can put that together for just over $100. Any issues with SATA drives?
DaDD, I have 2 seagates 500GB (same HDs as yours) in JBOD (just a bunch of drives) mode in a Nexstar MX box. My 9242 reads 1000hrs standard def and 133hrs in hi def. No problems observed, works just fine. The only thing is that the Nexstar is equiped with a fan and it does generate some noise but I find it to be quite tolerable.
After waiting for 10 days the replacement pvr finally arrived, after sychronizing it by phone, it took the usual several hrs for all the programming to return, I did a check switch. And behold everything works as it was advertised. I can play back and archive from the EHD, and also restore programs to the pvr. My new/refurb 9242 is in good shape, it has v183, RFHD-N and bootstrap 1714. So far so good, I would recommend to anyone-else out there who is still having problems to get their pvr replaced. thanks everyone for your informed help.
I have tried many EHDs, the only it works 250G Comstar with V182/183.
I picked up another Lacie 750G yesterday, it used had issue with USB disconnect but this time is different problem.
After in play for a while, the picture suddenly was freezed and the receiver reboot. A message showed up to ask you to disconnect power for 5 minutes! I could not access to internal ED until I disconnected USB port.
Quick question can you put other stuff on EHDD or has to be used solely with the PVR. I have music and pictures need to back up off my lap and wondering if could use the same EHDD to do this as one I'll use with the PVR, or if need to seperate EHDD. Thanks in advance.
I came home yesterday, the receiver did not display external hard drive any more. I was trying to archive my 30hr recordings in morning, but now EHD is not spinning any more. It's new Lacie 750G drive I bought 1 day ago.
I will try to exchange for another one, see how it will go.
Well I went ahead and purchased the Zdata 640GB drive and it was recognized and formatted fine. Gave me 85Hrs HD. I transferred a bunch of recordings and everything looked good.
I started watching an SD show (lower bandwith) and about 15 minutes in.....gasp...the dreaded disconnect message. How depressing.
I have firmware V183 , hw id RFHD-N and bootstrap 1714. Has anybody been able to get around the disconnect problem in 183 by doing anything other than swapping out the 9242 ? It has worked flawless for me for a year so far with almost zero audio drop outs and was brand new when I got it. (It's a rental). I would hate to swap it out for some beat up referb.
What about swapping USB cables ? Rebooting etc ? Anything like that work for anybody ?
Chances are that you might have to swap the machine, the good thing is is that its a rental and they (Bell) have no choice but to give you what you pay for. I my self encountered eternal problems with my rented 9242 and Bell inturn sent me a refurbished one which kicks ass with no problems at all. My external HDDare a pair of Seagates 500Gb in a Nexstar MX encloseur and thus far, not a single problem. I think it might be worth it to get a refurbished one. I do know that Bell has swapped a ton of 9242s, there might be a bad batch in the Bell warehouse which Bell is trying to pawn off on their clients. God knows when it comes to Bell. As for the USB cable, I know there is a max length for the cable, I think its either 15 or 20 feet, the best is the shortest. rebooting would simply flush the RAM and reset the system not necessarly fixing the problem. Good luck
I spent the morning talking to Bell India and the first guy (very nice , polite and efficient) instructed me to do the usual unplugging the EHD , doing a hard reset on the 9242 etc. Told me to try again and call back.
Well of course it happened again and I called them back and after he put me on hold for 5 mins or so , came back and said that its a known problem and they are working on it. He said there is nothing wrong with a my drive and that its a bell problem and they are working on a solution.
Well I have 14 days to return the drive to the store so now I am not sure what is the next step. Anybody else been told they are "working on it" ?
nothing is being worked on, as this is NOT a known issue by bell tv. Bell TV is not aware of any of this. please call back and request a supervisor if the agent tells you that again. there was a fan issue known on the 9242 after the version was updated, that was fixed the day it was adressed.
Well, I got my first EHD disconnect last night. Fortunately I had a backup of the movie on my MythTV, or my wife could have been quite upset.
Later, I hooked the drive up to my Kubuntu 8.04 desktop to check the status of its contents. The kernel first ran the ext3 journal file on both partitions, then mounted them, and I was able to check that the files appeared to still be there and looked to be OK. (Of course, the files on the EHD are known to be thoroughly encrypted, so I didn't bother trying to play them.)
When I reconnected the drive to the 9242 this morning, it behaved normally, and I let a 1 hour recording on the EHD play out to be sure. I was afraid I wouldn't be able to access the drive again from the 9242 at all, so this was a pleasant surprise.
But this will sure be annoying if it keeps happening.
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