i did the hd upgrade my dad bought the hd it was a 500gb i don't remember if it was a seagate or a maxtor BUT it worked PERFECTLY for like 2 weeks and now it is 78% full (my dad is a bit record happy, he records stuff and nvr watches it) anyways the problem is i just went downstairs to watch sumthing but as soon as i turn it on like it plays an hd channel fine for about 4-5 seconds and then starts lagging and hd makes a sound like it is recording, if i tune to a regular defiinition channel this problem disappears, when i try to watch recorded hd stuff=same problem.... i turned it off for now will turn i on tmrw morning see if the problem still persists. Any ideas? maybe the videos are too fragmented and it has to recrd to too many parts of the hd at once? (thats just my guess) but even if that was the case ther is no way to defrag as far as i know...

Perform a cold reboot of the STB (unplug, wait a few seconds, replug).

See: Tips for SA STBs. (http://www.digitalhome.ca/forum/showthread.php?t=17719)

Turning the unit off doesn't help since off is really more like standby, although it can spin the HDD down.

"just as cool"??

You could fry an egg on mine most of the time...I was hoping the WD drive would not put out as much heat.

Can anyone verify? Is it the drive or the unit that runs so hot?
The replacement disk got a good workout last night and the PVR case seemed to be about the same temperature compared with the original HDD, ie. just warm. The main heat does come from the HDD and not the other electronics in the case.

My external drive in a fanless aluminum case runs much hotter, all the time, either while at idle or during heavy use. What specific drive did you install, and how do the specs compare to the WD 500gb?

today it was working alot better, guess the problem fixed itself but it still lags occasionally during anyhting hd live or recorded or while recording anyhting like it lags for a split second every 15-20 seconds or so, so i will go with 57 advice and shut it off for a few hours and see if that fixes if not i might tell my dad to call up rogers to give us the 8300 as we have the 8000 dunno if the upgrade will cost $$ tho?? the 8000 is what rogers gave us when the cable guy came...

thnx

I was told that hitting the following keys at the same time did perform a reboot the same way unplugging the machine did:

Vol +
Vol -
Info

As far as I could tell from the display in front of the 8300HD, it looked like a cold reboot but I don't claim to be an expert in the matter...

If you read the link I provided in post 82, you'll see that a cold reboot (unplugging) sometimes accomplishes more than a warm one (buttons). That's why we recommend a cold reboot.

I've been using the approx 20 hr limit as a feature to get us to watch and delete shows but I finally broke down and took took the plunge.

I got the WD5000AAKB from Canada Computers.

Knowing I was going to do this soon, I've been searching for the tamper proof T10 bit from several places and I concur with others in this thread about their reports. The first guy at Canadian Tire had no clue what I wanted and pointed me to the socket section. I eventually found the T15 & T20 tamper proof bits and showed it to him and asked where was the T10 version. Even after I had educated him on what a tamper proof bit, he wasn't willing to help me look. Brutal. I tried a second CT store and this guy knew what I wanted but said they didn't have it. I then told him the sku number of the set and sure enough they had it but I didn't want to pay that price (btw, the set was in with auto headlight parts display). Someone had said Snap-on but they wanted $11 for shipping the $8 bit. Another had said Home Depot but I couldn't find it there even with the knowledgeable tool guy who was willing to help. I got the bit at Sayal. They had a 7 piece set for $7 and a 33 piece tamper proof for $8 (I think regular price is $18). I went with the larger set.

The first tamper proof screw came off easily. The second one I had problems with and I ended up using a T15 on that. My T10 bit was now somewhat stripped. The third (middle) screw I couldn't get off with either bit. Since I had two of three screws off, I had some play in the metal and was able to work it enough to allow me to get the case off in spite of the screw that I couldn't loosen. Yes, there is minor damage but it's only noticeable when viewed from the back. I wonder though if I should've got the 7 piece set as perhaps the quality on the larger set wasn't there which caused me to strip the screws.

Replacing the drive from that point was less than 5 minutes. Bplayer's description shows what to expect although I didn't noticed the glue until after I had the old one out. The security tab was easily removed.

It took about 15 mins for the various reboots etc. One time I looked at it and the display had "HDDF" - my first thought was hard drive failure but as soon as I thought that, the display went blank and it carried on with its initialization.

Many thanks to those who blazed the trail.

Glad to see people posting their experiences. Not sure why the external hard drive thread is way more popular than this one. :o
With more and more positive comments we might convince more to come to the other side. :cool:

I still think it is a better value to buy a socket set when it goes half price at CTC. Every house should have one and it comes with tamper proof bits!

Has anyone tried a 500 internal with a 500 external for what is probably the largest possible recording space with current drives?

My upgrade to the WD5000AAKB is still working fine and am very happy with it. The only thing that we have noticed is that the new hard drive is a bit more noisy than the original one. It is noticeable when Fast Forwarding/Rewinding and when there is recording taking place while watching a recorded show. Not a big deal but something we have noticed.

I'm wondering ...

For all you folks who have replaced the hard drive on the SA8xxx PVRs, have you tried doing anything with the drive you took out?

Specifically, I'm wondering if anyone has tried mounting it on their computer to see what files exist on the HD. All the recordings have got to be on there *somewhere*.

Inquiring minds ... :)

Yes the files are there but you cannot access them. The file system is proprietary and the data encrypted. You can image the drive if you want keep the data. You would have to put the image back on the same drive.

I tried when I changed my external drive to a bigger one. The smaller drive is now on my PC. The PC did not see any file (the index is on the internal drive and the file are encrypted anyway) and wanted to reformat it (which I did). I don't know what would happen with an internal drive since it also contains the file index, but like I said, the files are encrypted.

I too was wondering but I have a different question.

Has anyone tried re-installing the original drive? I'm curious if one can watch recordings that existed from when it was pulled?

I don't have a need but was just curious.

I have not tried reinstalling the original drive, but I am 100% sure that it will work and allow plyback of recordinds that were there when it was removed. Authorization of the box is tied to the serial number of the box (or some internal electronic identification, not the HDD. You do not have to get the box re-authorized when the HDD is swapped.

I have re-plunged into an internal drive upgrade due to my dissatisfaction with the external SATA box. Since upgrading to it a couple years ago I have been plagued with relentless audio dropouts and pixelization that I put up with to get the capacity. I was even using the Maxtor Quickview Expander! which should have worked.

None of this was happening on my bedroom SA8300HD (which is stock).

I purchased a Western Digital WD5000AAJB (500GB) last week while in the USA and installed it this weekend. After 3 days of misc recordings I am happy to report not a single audio or video problem. The only thing that bothered me was the seek noise from the WDC drive.

The specs on that drive show Seek Mode 0 and Seek Mode 3 with the latter being the quietest. Unfortunately WDC did not release an Acoustic management utility (makes you wonder why they specify the difference) but I determined that the Hitachi Feature Tool will work and allow you to adjust the seek mode on various HHD, including WDC.

I determined that the WDC drive came from the factory with acoustic management disabled and when I set it to quiet mode the seek noise dropped dramatically with no apparent impact on performance. BTW, I changed the acoustic management after I had programs recorded and the programs were still there when I put the HDD back in the STB.

The tool can be downloaded at http://www.hitachigst.com/hdd/support/download.htm#FeatureTool if you are interested.

ltj

Very interesting lonetreejim! I didn't know anything about these kinds of settings.

I was checking out the differences between your WD5000AAJB and my WD5000AAKB. http://www.wdc.com/en/products/productspecs.asp?driveid=303 and http://www.wdc.com/en/products/productspecs.asp?driveid=297

WD5000AAJB:
Seek Mode 0 - 26 dBA
Seek Mode 3 - 29 dBA

WD5000AAKB:
Seek Mode 0 - 33 dBA
Seek Mode 3 - 29 dBA

I've noticed my drive is noisier than the stock drive especially when I'm watching something while another show is being recorded.

Can you speculate if the specs have a typo or if they changed the meaning of the modes? Would my drive benefit from this tool too?

Again, I don't know much about hardware but I'm surprised to see a Hitachi tool work on a WD drive.

Hard to say if it's a misprint or they just renamed the modes. In any event, this is a link to the article I read that lead me down the path even though it doesn't speak directly about the 500 GB drive.

http://www.digit-life.com/articles2/storage/wd3200jb.html

Particulalry this section...

There is also another interesting point here — WD Caviar SE drives from the latest generations officially support the seek acoustics (and performance) control via the Acoustics Management register. WD drives used to have no seek acoustics management before or it was in the bud. And the operating noise in senior WD drives (e.g. the WD2000JB and its counterparts) was rather ugly. However, WD has worked hard on this issue the last year resulting not only in a significant spin noise reduction, but also in an expert approach to the seek performance/acoustics management policy. As a result, the WD3200JB and the WD2500JB under review (as well as the WD2500JD, manufactured at the same period of time) officially support two seek modes — Performance Mode 0 and Quiet Mode 3. The former (default) mode is enabled when 254dec or 255dec is written to the register (255dec for the WD3200JB and the WD2500JD by default, 254dec for the WD2500JB) and the latter — when the register contains 128dec. An attempt to write any other value to this register (from 129dec to 253dec) results in the register automatically resetting to 128dec (that is the maximum quiet seek).

WD drives used to have the same register values (without resetting, this time) for quiet and noisy seek modes before. However, the average seek time of 7200rpm Caviar models would change only by 1ms and made practically no sense. And now the quiet seek mode slows down the WD3200JB by 4ms at an average, 7ms in case of the WD2500JB (see the diagram above), having become almost indistinguishable against the spin noise of the drives.

If the manufacturer announces Mode 0 and Mode 3, it would be logical to assume that there exist two more seek modes (that is four modes in total) in these drives. But that's not true — these drives have only two seek modes. And, by the way, WD Raptor WD740GD unofficially has two seek modes as well, but the difference between them is just 1ms (by the average disk access time). Unfortunately, the acoustics management utility from Western Digital is not yet freely available (but it exists). That's why regular users will have to use third-party utilities in order to toy with seek modes in these WD drives to obtain noiseless or high-performance operation (for example, Hitachi Feature Tool). I also used a Windows utility, Abacus HDD Acoustic Manager (hddacman), in my experiments.

The WD5000AAKB also has disabled the Acoustics Management. I changed it to enable (which is the Hitachi Feature Tool's recommended setting) as per lonetreejim's post. My recordings too are unaffected after the change.

I immediately started two recordings and FF'd an existing one. The noise level has dropped way off now. Thanks lonetreejim!

I just did this now so I'm going to assume I will have the same lack of issues as lonetreejim reported (aside, I just posted an issue with PBS but that was recorded and watched before I did this exercise).

I recommend others installing a WD drive that you change the Acoustics Management setting before installing in the pvr.

Aside, since my upgrade I've been averaging around 50% capacity which is way more than the stock drive holds. It is a nice luxury not having to be ruthless with the recordings as I was before the upgrade.

A recap - I had mentioned I used T15 for one of the external security screws. I had a close look at it today and I think it really was a T15 as there was no stripping or rounding of the sides and the T15 bit fit snug. How/why they weren't all T10 is beyond me as you think the machine/person who screwed it in originally would have trouble getting it in with a T10 bit.

Is the WD5000AAKB drive still available in the Toronto/Mississauga area? I looked at the usual stores like Canada Computers, and none of them carried it. I assume this is the best drive for the SA8300HD internal upgrade.