I recently upgraded my hard disk after a crash to a WD500 based on comments on this site. All went well with recording and playback working as before. One problem, however, and I have been unable to find any references to it elsewhere here. Just about everytime I turn off the 8300, it does a reboot. If I am recording something I lose about 5 minutes of the recording.
Any suggestions as to cause and possible cure will be most appreciated.

Bob
Further to me post of 12/23 re frequent rebooting, I believe I have found the cause. I had another device plugged into the switched outlet at the rear of the SA8300. I unplugged this two days ago and have not had a reboot. I don't know why this would have caused the rebooting but it would appear to heve been the culprit.

I just wanted to report some findings after some thorough testing tonight regarding cloning hard drives and spaning to a larger drive than the original.

In Active Disk Image (I'm using version 3.1.6) I have found that both the "Clone Disk" and "Create Raw Image" operations will produce a partition on the new hard drive that matches the size of the original image. So if you're going from a 160GB drive to a new 500GB drive, using these choices will indeed have you ending up with a 160GB partition on your new drive, essentially giving you the same space on your 8300HD box that you had before. This is as reported by other users in this thread.

In my testing I found however that if you use the "Disk to Image" operation, select the entire disk that you are looking to clone/copy, and then afterwards use the "Image to Disk" operation, you will be able to get a restored image that will span the entire size of your new hard drive. The Image to Disk option is the only one that provides the check box (that should be unchecked) to "Keep original size and location of partitions". With that checked, you end up with a restored image that is the size of the original and with it unchecked your new hard drive is completely used when you restore the image.

So my tests have verified that is how Active Disk Image works. What I don't know at this point is whether the "Disk to Image" and "Image to Disk" operations work properly with the 8300HD formatted drives. I've been doing my tests with old Windows hard disks I had lying around.

Here is a quote from the Active Disk Image manual:
"NOTE Because a clone is an exact copy of the source partition, you cannot change the size of the destination partition. If you choose a destination partition that is larger than the source, free (unallocated) space will appear after the cloned partition."


The clone drive function and the Raw Image function both seem to maintain the original image size without the option to resize when you're moving the image to a larger hard drive. Having read into this now, I'm wondering if anyone has actually used this software to move a 8300HD drive's contents over to a larger drive. The only way I can see this being possible with this particular software that everyone is talking about would be to use the normal Disk to Image operation, but I wouldn't expect these type of image to be able to properly read the data on a 8300HD hard drive as this is NOT a sector by sector copy using this method.

I hope to hear some more feedback from other users of this software.

I have used the Active@Disk Image clone function five or six times and it has worked perfectly each time. In my case, I use a laptop so I use USB->PATA/SATA adapters to access the external drives. The clone operations that I have done include going from 160GB to 500 GB as well as 160GB to 1TB. In all cases, I was able to see the full size of the larger drive on the 8300 diagnostics page.

LesE,
Thank you for replying. I'm glad to see your response and get some confirmation that the feature does apparently work. In the testing I've done (also with two IDE-TO-USB adapters) the clone function completes, but when I look at the larger drive afterwards (using Windows "Disk Management") I can see a smaller partition on the new drive (ie. a 160GB partition on a 500GB drive). Granted, I've been doing these tests under Windows with regular NTFS partitions and data, so perhaps the way Windows reports the partition is irrelevant when it comes to the proprietary file system that the SA boxes use. Now that I've seen your post I want to go run another test. Thanks again for your feedback.

I wanted to report that I have successfully cloned a couple of 8300HD hard drives last night and I have once and for all sorted out the mystery of using Active Disk Image for this purpose. I say "mystery" only because if you read through this entire thread, you will see that there are conflicting reports, so this process has been a mystery to me up until now. Specifically, previous reports stating that people had cloned their 160GB drives and ended up with only a 160GB "partition" on their new larger drives was what was really misleading me - that didn't make any sense to me as to why that would happen. I suppose there is no substitute for thorough testing, so that's what I did.

I put a 40GB drive into a 8300HD, recorded about 2 hours of HD programming and ended up with 72% of the drive used for 2 recordings. I used the Clone function in Active Disk Image and cloned the drive to a 160GB drive and ended up with 9% used for the same 2 recordings. The full capacity of the larger drive was available to me and this was reflected in the 8300HD diagnostics screens. With that success I cloned another drive, this time a different 160GB drive over to a new 320GB. The reported use went from 21% used with 40 recordings on the 160GB drive, to 9% used with 40 recordings on the 320GB drive. Again, all the space of the new drive was accessible.

The reason this works is this: If you're doing a Sector-to-Sector copy, as the Clone function does, the original drive is duplicated on the larger drive and the additional space above and beyond the capacity of the original is left alone. The 8300HD box however IS able to use that additional space without any issue because it formats it as it needs it using its propritary file system. If you use the same Clone function with a normal PC formatted drive, using Windows Disk Management you will see the results I got previously - ie. you will see a 160GB partition (FAT or NTFS formatted) on the new larger drive with unformatted space after that 160GB point. The clone function DOES NOT span the data on the first drive to the full size of the new drive, but that's okay because it doesn't need to for the 8300HD use that we're talking about in this discussion. Using the clone function for PC purposes is a different story as it would require some additional manipulation afterwards for the new drive to use all its space, but again that is not the case for the 8300HD.

I'm glad to finally have a full understanding of how Active Disk Image and the formatting of the 8300HD hard drive works. Hopefully this posting clears up the mis-information that had previously left me confused as to what works and what doesn't. Again I appreciate LesE having reported his results recently as well.

Thanks for clearing up the confusion. As a matter of interest, was there any data
on the on the source 40 GB and 160 GB drives before you recorded to them ?

Slyboy,

Thanks for the info, you explained quite well the process and in fact you clarified the check/uncheck option issue.

In regards to the software you used, you either have a full registered copy of the Active Disk Image software which you need in order to do a bootable CD/USB bootable and use the clone function or I think in your case, you were using like LesE did, usb adapters.

If you do not have usb adapters plugged to the hard disks, in other words, if you would only have a computer which had pata connectors, you would not have been able to use the clone function unless you did a bootable Active Boot Disk.

Therefore, I think that anybody that starts from scratch and does not have any software from Active, and do not intend to purchase a copy of Active Disk Image, you are better off to download from Lsoft Technologies a free copy of their Active Boot Disk. You follow the instructions in order to make a bootable Active Boot Disk cd or usb and from there you open your computer, unplug your present hard disk, plug to the pata connector(s) the pvr disk, plug the new disk, boot with the CD or USB disk and choose CLONE, point to the source and the destination disk and there you go. Make sure though that before putting the new disk in your pvr to dip it Cable Select.

This resolve another issue that I found people had, if you previously used the new hard disk in a computer, if will overwrite everything and give you full access when put in your pvr.

If the new people coming here needs to read more, see my post 306 and 319. Of course, you should also start reading a bit prior to 306 to understand why you should go this route.

Ruby

edit, Sly,

If you did not use adapters, let me know, I want to understand how you did it.
Thanks

Romulus - Good question to know the answer to, but as a preventative measure to minimize potential for problems I simply removed all partitions from the source drives before trying them in the 8300HD, and from the destination drives before cloning to them. Previously there had been Windows partitions and data on all the drives, but a simple deletion of all partitions ahead of time left the drives with nothing but "free space" as far as Windows is concerned. It's possible that the 8300HD would have just written over the data/partitions, but to me it's not worth questioning the outcome - I think it would be considered best practice to remove the partitions before using it for a non-Windows application. Another comment I'll throw in is that if you were to clone a drive to a destination drive that had data/partitions on it, one might find that the sector-by-sector copy would likely destroy the partition table at the beginning of the drive. That might do the same thing as deleting the partitions manually ahead of time, but again, why not just prep the drive properly first? I know where your question is coming from though and you ARE making me curious. LOL

Ruby,
I did in fact use USB-to-IDE adapters and did the cloning of drives from one to another. I would suggest that as long as you're not trying to clone the Primary active Windows drive (ususally the "C" drive) then you should be able to clone any other two hard drives in your system whether they're connected to the motherboard through the on-board IDE or SATA connectors, or through an external connection like a USB cable. The software doesn't seem to care as long as Windows can identify the drive is there and assign a drive number to it. Just avoid the situation where you're trying to clone one drive to another in a two-drive setup because one of the drives will be the active one. As you mentioned, the way around this would be to boot with a boot CD or similar device so that neither hard drive is active. BUT, in my opinion that is more work and more difficult, although less expensive for someone who doesn't already have the hardware that I have. One last comment regarding the jumpers that you commented on... the nice thing about USB adapters is that you can leave the hard drive jumper on Cable Select the whole time. They work fine in that position, which also how the jumpers should be set when connected to the 8300HD.

I would like to thank slyboy for cloning my internal HDD for me. It was my 160 to 320 GB HDD that was mentioned in post 366. I provided him with a new HDD and my PVR and came back the next day with the new HDD cloned and installed in the PVR. (the cloning process takes hours, so slyboy did that overnight)

Slyboy is extremely professional and we discussed options before the cloning, he tested the cloning process on his own drives and then kept me up to date during the process. At the end of the process he tested the PVR/new drive combination and advised me that everything worked perfectly.

I took the PVR home, reconnected everything, including the eHDD and everything functions properly, with the index intact and my programmes all accessible.


Some background information for those interested.

- Both slyboy and I re-read most of this thread and there was a lot of conflicting information. Yes, the internal drive upgrade works, but many people did not perform a drive upgrade and a cloning...

- Some posts stated that the cloning would allow for the additional space of a new larger drive to be utilized, while other posts seemed to imply that only the 160 GB would be "seen" by the SA8300HD. The confusion was increased when slyboy first tested a cloning under Windows, which only "sees" the original drive space and not the space of the larger drive, however, after further testing, slyboy knew that the SA8300HD would indeed see the new larger drive with the existing cloned information on it.

- Since I already had an external HDD (500 GB - enough room for my application), I thought briefly about only purchasing a 160 GB HDD. We were sure that would work. After some discussions with slyboy, for only $12 more, I purchased a 320 GB HDD and if the extra space were usable by the PVR, that would be great. If it weren't, then I wasn't out much.

- There were several reasons I went through with the cloning and why I contacted slyboy:

1. I had a number of recordings on the internal and external drive that I would rather not lose, especially at an inconvenient time - as you know, the index is on the internal, so if the index is lost, all recordings are inaccessible. I was hoping to buy some "insurance" (I wasn't concerned about the hardware, but what was recorded there.)

2. I had been seeing several error messages like "unrecoverable write error" on the PVR recently and I was concerned that the drive would fail completely at an inopportune time.

3. Occasionally, the index didn't work properly - i.e. a selection (or several selections) wouldn't play, but after a reboot it would.

4. Occasionally, the index wasn't even available - after a reboot it returned.

5. This all happened in the last month or so and although I've probably encountered any one of these issues once before, never were they so frequent.

6. Although, with a lot of time and effort and some equipment purchases, I could probably have performed this myself, I thought it better to utilize someone familiar with the procedure and who had all the tools at his disposal (tools to take the PVR apart, the correct software, the correct hardware to connect the drives to the computer, etc.). Often, it's best to use a professional.

7. My PVR is over 4 years old and I thought I might as well upgrade the drive and not worry about it for another 4 years...

Again, I'd like to thank slyboy for his professional assistance and I wouldn't hesitate recommending him to anyone in the GTA interested in such a procedure. His charge was quite reasonable.

57 - I really appreciate that post above, the link in the summary post of this thread, and the endorsement of my work. Thank you very much. I would be happy to help out anyone else who would like to get their drive cloned and replaced.

I've searched all relevant threads about the different drives in use. And most references to the barracuda 7200.10 seem to indicate issues when used externally.
I replaced the internal 160GB WD drive with a 750 GB barracuda 7200.10 drive before leaving on vacation in December and returned with a truck load of shows to watch! Pretty much every show has pixelation and audio distortion that happens at the same time.

It seems to happen a lot more often with HD recordings and it also happens when watching live HD programming. I checked the signal levels and they are -4 and -36 db which according to the FAQ is good.

1. Does anyone else have issues with the barracuda drives when upgraded internally? I checked the acoustic and power settings and according to the HDSCAN software the drive doesn't support either except for the spin up timer which is set to off.


2. Since I have a samsung 400 GB and a WD 500 GB sata drive, where is the best place to get the PATA - SATA converter in the Mississauga/Oakville area?
Canada computers doesn't carry the IDE-SATA01/04 adapters.

Hi Guys,

Just wanted to chime in with my experience using Linux to clone it. I got the Trinity Rescue Linux distro (http://trinityhome.org/Home/blog.php?front_id=15) and booted from a CD into a computer I had set up with the 2 disks from the PVR (old and new). Copying the data was as simple as doing this command:

dd if=/dev/sda1 of=/dev/sda2

It took about an hour to copy everything. Once I popped the drive into my PVR, it took a few minutes to boot and then my available space was updated and all my programs still available for viewing.

Cheers

Excellent and thanks. For anyone interested here is a Wiki page on DD (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dd_(Unix)).

alwzn4vr,
You didn't mention if your Segate drive was PATA or SATA. I looked for the small adapters you're been looking for but even the best small computer shops in our area didn't have what was needed to use a SATA drive in these boxes. As has been suggested in this thread, the best place to locate those things are on Ebay, but it's a guessing game as to which one to get. There has been some testing done on certain chipsets on various adapters - so that's the best indicator of which might work or not work at this point.

I just read an article on the trouble Seagate is having with their Barracuda 7200.11 series drives. In particular the 1TB version have an exceptionally high failure rate. At this point I would NOT recommend anyone experiment with this drive.

http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/374/1050374/seagate-barracudas-7200-11-failing

This would also apply to external drives enclosures as well.

RE: dd if=/dev/sda1 of=/dev/sda2

Assuming the only hard drives connected are the PVR HDD (master)
and the new larger HDD (slave) ; does sda1 refer to the master and
sda2 refer to the slave ?

I'd like to try this, but want to confirm before I proceed.

alwzn4vr,
You didn't mention if your Segate drive was PATA or SATA. I looked for the small adapters you're been looking for but even the best small computer shops in our area didn't have what was needed to use a SATA drive in these boxes. As has been suggested in this thread, the best place to locate those things are on Ebay, but it's a guessing game as to which one to get. There has been some testing done on certain chipsets on various adapters - so that's the best indicator of which might work or not work at this point.
the seagate drive is a PATA drive 750 GB 16 MB cache 7200.10 series.
The 2 other drives I have on hand are SATA drives.

Someone at work mentioned that the perpendicular recording in in the barracuda drives might be contributing to the issue. Seems like a bit of a guess to me. According to LeSe the IDE-SATA01/04 adapters are hard to find in Canada, so I'll probably have to order one on-line.

Update:
I replaced the 750 GB seagate drive with a 500GB Western Digital PATA drive.

So far after 2 days not a single audio drop out or pixelation !!!!

The drive is the Caviar Blue version.