Pretty sure I had an error 63 show up in one of my boots when I was troubleshooting my external drive. It could sometimes see the drive and sometimes could not, I didn't see any errors once I resolved the external power supply problem I was having with the external drive though.

Originally was trying to PM slyboy but his mailbox is full, so I hope he sees this.Recently bought the new 8642 and now own one 8300 that i bought a year ago, this 8642, plus my original 8300 for which I pay $25/month rental. The issue is that I had expanded this rental 8300 to 3 terabytes of external HDD boxes all of which are tied to this 8300's index. I'd like to return this box (they say I can pay $500 to "own" it but it would have no warranty since it is 3.5 years old) but then I don't think I can access these external drive recordings if I do that. So, then i thought, maybe I can just clone the 160GB on this 8300 then return the box to save rental costs. Then again it's only $25 a month, so maybe I should just keep it and eat the costs. Any ideas/help would be much appreciated. thanks in advance.

You can't clone the drive and use it in another PVR. The index will not stay intact because it's tied to the PVR via a code. This has been discussed before in this or the external drive thread several times.

Cloning will not help. Cloning will ONLY work if the new drive goes into the same PVR. There is no way to migrate recordings from one PVR to another, internal or external.

Edit: 57, I could make some witty comment about great minds but why bother.:)

Hello, I am new in the forum.
I have a problem with my internal HDD. The PVR give me a message that it cannot access the HDD.
Do you know if that's a problem with the HDD (it doesn't say is a writing error) or maybe the interface.

Can the PVR only work with the external PVR and remove the internal?

Thanks for the answers.

1. Try a cold reboot. (link below)

2. If you don't mind loosing all your programming, try a reformat of the internal drive. (link below)

http://www.digitalhome.ca/forum/showthread.php?t=17719 SA FAQ.

3. You could try cloning the iHDD, or getting it cloned, as per post 1 of this thread if you wish to keep the index/programming. A computer may, or may not be able to do this, depending on the condition of the drive.

4. No, the index is on the internal HDD, as discussed in this thread, so it won't work without it.

By chance I found a WD5000AAKB in a cut-price electronics store so I swapped out the 320GB drive (which was working fine) to get more space.

The new 500GB drive is working well, very quiet and cool. But it never seems to power down -- spins constantly even when not recording for 24h or more. On the plus side switch-on is instantaneous.

When the drive wears out in a couple years I guess I'll just reinstall the 320GB.

Next job will be to upgrade the HDD in the 8642 I got yesterday. Will post in the 8642 thread.

Hello,

I have recently upgraded my PVR internal HDD in my SA 8300 (non HD), from 80GB to 320GB.

I went to the SA Diagnostic Screen and found my way to the DVR HDD INFORMATION.

However I need some help decoding some of this information, I am hoping someone can help me.

Drive:
Model: DC WD3200AAJB-00J3A0
Serial WD-WCAV25279797
Firmware: 01.03E01
Size: 625142448

File Systems:
ITFS
Size: 2097152
Capacity: 1048576
Cluster Size: 2
Free Space: 1007216
Bad Blocks: 0

AVFS
Size: 618693900
Capacity: 131637
Cluster Size: 4700
Free Space: 126391

Below are some other pages that refer to the HDD (pages 34-36 of 39)

HDD Info (this section everything is "unavailable"
Partition Info - HDD1 (this section everything is "unavailable")
Partion Info - HDD2 (this section everything is "unavailable")

Try a cold reboot of the PVR to see if pages 33-35 become active instead of unavailable. These pages show appropriate GB for my drives on my two PVRs.

The AVFS capacity is an indicator of the HDD size, but I don't know the direct correlation between this number and say GB. The Free space is obvious (relative to capacity) and yours shows about 96% free, 4% used. (should be able to corroborate this number approximately under "List - Preferences".)

You can see that Size = Capacity x Cluster Size.

I have two PVRs one configured as 320 GB internal/1 TB External, while the other is 160 internal/250 External and my numbers are obviously higher. The first 3 numbers of my AVFS capacity are 539 for the 1320 GB and 162 for the 410 GB. Yours shows 131 for 320 GB, so the proportions are correct, approximately.

A portion of the internal HDD is set aside for IPG and Index.

Just did the cold re-boot, first it said Er 51, then it started the hex countdown; the time came back, after about 45 mins it let me access the hard drive by pressing the LIST button and now I get an error that says:

Disk Trouble

There are problems with the storage disk.

Recording and Playback are not available at this time.

Also, when I acess pages 33-35, everything is still "unavailable" when I go to the DVR HDD INFORMATION page, everything is blank. Like there is no Hard Drive installed in the STB.

I cold booted again, but no go....same thing....very confused! I left it unplugged from everything over night. Now the display seems to be counting up in an endless loop. The hard drive comes on briefly for a minute or so, clicks a few times, then spins down.

This was supposed to be a brand new 320GB hard drive. I think after reading all these posts I am going to exchange it for a WD5000AAKB. I am unclear, after I get this hdd, can I just simply install in PVR, or will I need to follow some additional steps? I don't care about my previously recorded programs, I just want a working PVR!

Was the PVR working after the upgrade? Sounds like a poor connection, bad install, or perhaps a bad drive? If you can get the PVR to boot, you can do a "last resort" reformat of the drive, per the FAQ in post 566. Or take it out and see if you can reformat on a PC and whether it works on a PC?

Yes immediately after I upgraded it was working; except that it would not record when programmed to do so. We then discovered the programs that were listed were not even recorded, it would kick us out to the DVR playback screen if we tried to watch it.

I then formatted the hard drive successfully and after 2 or 3 cold-reboot attempts, I was able to get the STB working, however the hard drive is not recognized nor do I hear it on. If I cold re-boot, the STB will boot up the hard drive for a 1 minute or so, then I hear it shut down, and the box will continue through the boot up procedure.

I have ordered the WD5000AAKB and should have it Monday or Tuesday, but I want to ensure that it is only a Hard Drive issue, as the original hard drive for this box was acting up as well...it was pixelating and also not recording.

I guess I shall see upon install.

Should I do anything to this hard drive prior to install, assume that I don't care about previous recordings (they never recorded anyways)

Ok, so I got the WD 500GB AAKB. I installed it according to the instructions (except that I did not adjust the accoustics, or clone anything) When I reconnected the STB, ER 63. Once again, it is now counting up, instead of down.

So I installed the old 80GB original HDD, and got the STB and PVR working (at least for now). I got a message after everything downloaded that said "Your DVR is now authorized to playback recordings without connect to cable"

I decided to install and format the AAKB in my PC which I am currently doing. I am going to also download the tools to adjust the acoustics, although I personally do not find the HDD very distracting. I will update as things progress.

Poison since you are using the NON HD version of the 8300. The "8300SD" or just 8300 I wonder if the drive size is limited? You tried 320GB which is 4X the normal capacity. I am trying to hunt around this thread to find other 8300 posts but it is difficult since the posts all refer to the HD version. If I find anything on the SD version I will let you know.

I just installed the 500GB (after formatting it in my PC) into the STB, so far so good. I will try recording several programs tonight, and view them tomorrow and report back.

I am still not sure how to tell exactly how much space the PVR recognizes.

I will check the diagnostic screen's later tonight and report what I find as well.

Drive:
Model: DC WD5000AAKB-00H8A0
Serial WD-WCAS*******
Firmware: 05.04E05
Size: 976642096

File Systems:
ITFS
Size: 2097152
Capacity: 1048576
Cluster Size: 2
Free Space: 1000822
Bad Blocks: 0

AVFS
Size: 970324400
Capacity: 206452
Cluster Size: 4700
Free Space: 200562

This section below has not changed with any HDD that I have installed, I wonder if this is for external devices?

HDD Info (this section everything is "unavailable"
Partition Info - HDD1 (this section everything is "unavailable")
Partion Info - HDD2 (this section everything is "unavailable")

Under recording prefs it says that I am using 1% of the HDD, and I calculated that I have 5.68 hours of SD programs recorded.

Under recording prefs it says that I am using 1% of the HDD, and I calculated that I have 5.68 hours of SD programs recorded.This would seem to indicate that it's using the 500 GB. If I recall correctly, an 80 GB HDD on an SD machine was capable of recording about 50 hours of SD. Since you have only 1% instead of 10%, this would indicate a much larger than 80 GB HDD. I suggest you record a long programme - say 10 hours (extend the recording time of a single recording), take a reading (diagnostics and prefs), then delete that recording and redo the readings. The delta should then give you enough information to diagnose what's happening. A 10 hour recording would be about 20% of an 80GB HDD, and only about say 3% of a 500 GB HDD. This would show up in the Prefs and in the free space diagnostics.

It's not possible to do an exact calculation because the number of SD channels per QAM (roughly 37 Mb/sec) varies between about 8-12 SD channels, depending on the channel. An SD programme would take roughly 1.6 GB for each hour.

Try to choose a "normal" channel like CTV to record, rather than a premium channel like TMN (more bandwidth) or a little-used channel like MuchMoreRetro (less bandwidth).

Has anyone tried more recent drives from future shop or Best buy in a 8300PVR? My current PVR drive is overheating, stalling and given me problems. It is the 320GB model, but I have not opened it up yet - gotta get to Princess Auto.

Your safest bet is the WD5000AAKB. Bewawa in Markham has it and
shipping is only $5. The WD5000AAKB is known to work well with the 8300HD.

I just replaced my hdd in my 8300hd pvr today with a WD5000JBRTL Caviar Blue that I puchased at Best Buy for $90.29 w/taxes.Install went flawlessly and the whole procedure,from disconnecting pvr to reconnecting and reboot,took exactly 15 minutes.New hard drive is much quieter than original and more than 3X more space.The info on this forum is great.Thanks to all who've posted.

ps.Canadian Tire is selling a 33 piece Torx bit set(securityTorx Included) for $12.99 stock #054-3690-0