Last September i replaced the original 160GB drive in my 4 year old SA8300HD Rogers box which I own with the WD3200AAKB Pata because the recordings were freezing etc. Everything was fine until about 10 days ago when some of the same annoying problems started to come back. I don't care about cloning. I am told that the problem is heat.

Has anyone tried the WD3200AVJB or the the 5000AVJB in this box?

What about using a 2.5" notebook drive? They are as fast, smaller, produce less heat, and are often more heat resistant.

I did do a search of this discussion, and have not found any mention of 2.5" or 2.5in drives. Sorry if this has been discussed under other terms.

Costs are a little higher, but not enough to matter, and certainly worth it if they reduce the failures.. It may require a 2.5" to 3.5" mounting bracket, and it will need an adapter to go from IDE to the version of IDE used on notebook drives, but both the mounting bracket and adapter are inexpensive.

You can get 2.5" IDE drives up to at least 320Gb, and 2.5" SATA drives up to 750Gb (9.4mm high) or 1Tb (12mm high). I just replaced a 500Gb Seagate Momentus XT with a Western Digital Black 750Gb in my Fujitsu P770 laptop, and the 750Gb drive draws less power and may produce less heat. The 500Gb Seagate went into my girlfriend's PC, and it is working very well. I don't see why the same would not work in an HD PVR.

If you search this thread for "laptop" you'll find several previous posts discussing.

If you search this thread for "laptop" you'll find several previous posts discussing.
I did not think to search for "laptop", since 2.5" drives are not for laptops only. For example, the 1Tb 2.5" drive does not fit into any laptop on the market I am aware of. About 12 yearsa ago I had a Toshiba laptop that would have physically allowed it to be installed, but the laptop was IDE only, so the point is moot.

12mm high 2.5" drives are for data centres, and some of the 750Gb 9.5mm were originally marketed for data centres.

By searching for "laptop", I found one person - pclam - who did give it a try in November 2010. He encountered minor issues with mounting the drive, and gave the results from a 10 minute test. There were no further messages, so it is unclear if anyone else has tried, or if pclam has continued to use the laptop drive.

Has anyone else tried using a 2.5" drive? If so, what happened? Is it still working?

Is pclam still willing to post here? If so, are you still using the 2.5" drive in your PVR?

I want to upgrade another 8300HD PVR with the WD5000AAKB drive, but it seems that Canada Computers is mostly out of stock, and other stores don't seem to carry it any longer.

What are people using to upgrade to these days, and where can I find one?

I checked for you and the computer stores I expected to have the WD5000AAKB are indeed out of stock.

But don't despair, go to ********** and you will find it for about $90 the price you should expect. Search for WD5000AAKB

And a word of advice, don't get suckered into paying for the upgrade. "Some" charge an outrageous sum ... but appear to be good doers but only want to rip you off ... do it yourself or get a computer savvy friend to help.

Good luck!

With the WD5000AAKB quickly disappearing from stores, is there a #2 choice for 500 GB PATA drives to upgrade the internal drive?

I have a Rogers 8300PVR and I'm running out of drive space.
I have had multiple issue with power outages and firmware upgrades with the external drive connected to the PVR through the esata port.
Do the newer 8300HD pvr's have sata ports or are they all IDE?
And is it as simple as cloning one drive to the other for the instructions?
Are there any special button sequences?
Any help would be great! Thanks.

Your post was moved to this existing thread. Please read post one since it has all the answers to your questions. I will summarize:

1. All internal drives need to be connected using IDE (PATA), not SATA.
2. If you wish to use SATA, you need an 8642.
3. Some people used a SATA adaptor per the other thread (link in post 1), however, they are problematical, especially after the late 2010 firmware
4. You can clone the iHDD, however, you cannot make use of additional drive space if you do so.
5. There is no way to "move" the programmes from your eHDD.

Hi All,

I am just trying to replace my HD for the first time. 160 GB was just not enough. So I put in the new drive but I got an error then it starting to count up. HXXX etc...... It has been doing this for about 10 min. Is this normal? It is just formatting the HD?

Thanks for the information.

ult4dr

Yep, that just the firmware being download to your device.

Read post 1

Thanks very much, SuperGoop, Ghost, and the others providing information in this thread. I just got my hand on one of the few remaining WD5000AAKB drives and installed it without a hitch.

One perhaps interesting thing of note: the drive inside my unit was a Western Digital WD1600BB, not a Maxtor drive.

The drive in our 8300HD is also a 160 GB WD drive.

We have 6 hours of shows left to watch, them I'm switching out the 160 for the WD5000AAKB I bought a couple of weeks ago and will just use the internal drive only - too many issues of late with the external drive.

My parent's PVR was freezing every few seconds when watching live and recorded programming so I decided the change the drive to the WD 500GB that everyone recommends.

What takes most people 10 mins took me 2 hrs. Here's why:

If it can happen, it probably will and will and will...

First things first, I start opening the case using my trusty security T-10 screwdriver I got from Deal Extreme a long time ago was finally put to good use. The problem was that the screws were so tight I had extreme difficulty removing one of them to the point that the screw became damaged. After trying everything possible, I finally got it out using a different type of bit (3 points bit called 3.0).

OK, so I follow the instructions on the first post and all is easy. Install the new drive (the old was also a WD) and put everything back together. Great, the worst is done, right? WRONG!

So I put everything back in, plug it all back in and see the Hxxx displayed and counting up (skipping every 3 numbers, like H003 then H006 and so on until the upper 800s). Looking at the various posts, it's normal to see this sort oif things, so I just wait.. and wait and wait. After 30 mins, I just go for dinner as I ready it could take 45 mins. I didn't want to restart it as it could damage something. After over an hour, I start getting worried. I then realize that I plugged the cable COAX from from the wall into the cable OUT.. Duh!!!! So, I switch things and it looks better. It does it's thing and I then see the normal Rxxx hex countdown and reboot. Then the clock. Yeah!!! Not so fast!

Pressing LIST, I get the "Device not ready" message. So I wait and wait. Nothing. I then see in the first post that it may need a forced reformat. So I do that, it does it's countdown and back to the clock. Still "Device not ready". Not good.

I then notice the drive is quiet, just too quiet, actually totally silent, during boot up, formating, etc.. Would I have a bad drive, anything is possible today! So decide to open the box and take a closer look (and listen). All the cables are nice and secure. So it's not that. I really think my drive is DOA. Then I decide to switch with the old to see if the other drive starts up, and it does.. So it's my drive. Then, just when I was about to give up and remove my new drive, I notice the SLAVE/MASTER jumper is not set the same way as my old drive. On the old one, it's set as CS (Cable select) while on the new drive, it's on the opposite side (Since the drive was installed, I couldn't see the label anymore) So I flipt it, power up the unit and I hear the drive spin.. YEAH! Wouldn't thing be the last of my problems?

Yes it was. I put everything back in place, it does its usualy firmware download, then I get the clock, then a minute later, HDDH appears, followed by HDD-, then it reboots. A while longer, the clock appears and I can record!

Wow, that was fun.

Hi. For anyone still looking for a drives, i've found that the drives listed as

WDBAAV5000ENC-NRSN are in fact WD5000AAKB drives in a retail package. I ordered it from PC-Canada thursday and received it today. However, i've put it in the 8300HD and it seems it still does that thing with the H countdown.. Don't know if it'll eventually stop or what.

Make sure the cable feed (COAX) is connected to the PVR and that it's in the "cable in" port :)
See my previous post with my experience..

The WDBAAV5000ENC-NRSN has an 8MB buffer vs. 16MB on the WD5000AAKB. Not sure how much of a difference it makes. I disconnected my external and I'm running just with the internal Maxtor now and it probably only has 2MB. It's usually silent unless it's doing something like recording two HD streams at the same time. I'm thinking a bigger buffer on a new drive might minimize the seek noise.

Did you get it working?

This afternoon I was finally able to swap out the WD 160GB drive in my 8300HD for a WD5000AAKB.

It started off on a frustrating note, as I didn't clue in to the fact that the Torx bits I had were standard bits, not security bits.

A trip to Canadian Tire resolved that issue. (Powerbuilt brand, CT product number 25-6272-8, $14.99).

If anyone goes to Canadian Tire looking for Torx Security/Tamper-proof bits, they keep them in the automotive section, not with the regular Torx bits (why make things simple?).

Anyway, the PVR started up, did it's rxxx hex countdown, rebooted, and the time displayed.

Found a post in this thread that reports the same AVFS size as what I see on the diagnostic screen, so it looks like I'm good to go.

Hello everyone.

Have done lots of reading over the past few days and feel fortunate to come across this group.

I have a comment & question.

For the torx security bits, I found that using a small flat screwdriver I could easily break off the "nib" in the middle and then use a regular torx end. This could save you buying the security torx if you have no other need for them.

My question is regarding the WD hard drive everyone keeps mentioning, the WD5000AAKB doesn't seem to be in stock anywhere I've looked (Softchoice, Canada Computers, a local supplier, Tigerdirect etc. Even some of the models for the AV WD series appear to be unavailable. The Seagate drives (DB35.3 series) appear to be a thing of the past too.

Anyone have some recommendations since the drive must be 500GB or smaller where they have successfully swapped the HD?

Thanks,
Porcupine

As has been mentioned in several threads, that model is very difficult to find now, however, the WD 320GB IDE/PATA drive is still available.