If the rumours are true than Motorola will be releasing a firmware upgrade next year that will allow bigger drives and external drives.

There are also rumours in the US that another "Motorola compatible" DVR with twice the HDD size is coming out. If I recall correctly, it's Panasonic?

I understand it to be PANASONIC as well initially, eventually followed by a PVR from SAMSUNG. I have only heard of Comcast signing agreements with these vendors. When its available here, I think its anyone's guess.

If the rumours are true than Motorola will be releasing a firmware upgrade next year that will allow bigger drives and external drives.

i reallly hope so.

Don't hold your breath....we all know the Shaw track record.

I think my 6412 Phase II has a bad hard drive. The #$@%ing thing keeps telling me the Hard Drive is full so I can't pause, rew, FF or record. Tried Factory Reset which formats hard drive (replay, 3x list, dvr), Cable Company Zap and Force download from Cable company (within the boot option). Can I just slap a new 120GB HD in? Does Manufacturer matter?

thanks for any info

tmac

If you wish to slap in a new drive, get a 160 GB HDD, as discussed earlier in this thread.

Tmac, the unit is under warranty- just call Shaw, explain your issues and get it swapped out.

Thanks for the replies

cgyclaytonmagnet: I own this unit and it is past the warranty date. I called motorola and they gave me the run around so I'm SOL there.

57: I thought the phase II model could only access a max of 137GB due to the LBA limitation. Will the 160Gb work with no issues? I have a new WD 120GB drive with 8MB cache ready to install. Will the WD drives work?

thanks again
tmac

I know the Phase III supports a 160gb(I'm using a 300gb SATA) not sure about Phase II. The Phase III devices uses SATA hard drives. Phase II may use EIDE (search)

If you have the same type of hard drive as the one inside, your 120GB should work without issue, assuming your problem is just the hard drive.

Yeah it's an EIDE Drive....Hopefully it's the drive unless anyone has heard of the Full Hard Disk issue before and has a better fix.

thanks again
tmac

The 100% full mis-read is a S/W glitch. It's supposedly fixed (well, not fixed, just worked around) by rebooting, and/or deleting programs, if I remember correctly.

Yeah it's an EIDE Drive....Hopefully it's the drive unless anyone has heard of the Full Hard Disk issue before and has a better fix.

thanks again
tmac
The 100% full bug has been mentioned many times on this board...however, it is ALWAYS repairable by deleting one thing from the drive which will reset it to the proper percentage. If your's is not fixable by this method, then it may be a more serious problem.

I always keep a couple of 1 min clips on the drive so I have something to delete in the event that I encounter the 100% full bug. I also set the Delete Priority of everything I want to keep as "I Delete", leaving the 1 min clips as "Space is Needed", so the machine will automatically delete one if it encounters the bug when I'm not around.

I guess I should have mentioned that even after I format there is no drive space. The DVR recording screen is blank with no recordings available to delete.

thanks
tm

I guess I should have mentioned that even after I format there is no drive space. The DVR recording screen is blank with no recordings available to delete.

thanks
tm

Ahh, sounds like you might have a dead HD...I suppose if you already have a 120GB one handy, then use it, otherwise I'd upgrade to the 160GB one. As mentioned, the PIII units need a SATA drive, prior to that I think you need an EIDE drive.

Thanks for all the posts to my questions.

tmac

Tmac - I don't believe the factory reset formats the HD. I had the same problem as you are describing but it got better when I did a reformat. To format the HD follow the instructions here (http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/How_to_use_a_Motorola_DVR/Resets#DVR_HDD_Reset).

It worked for me.

this may be a stupid question, but is there any way that a non-dvr dct can run a firewire hard drive? could there be a hard drive with recorder package that can record the streamed video through the firewire like one could do with a computer?

If the STB has active firewire out and if the programme/channel not protected with 5C, then you can record the programme on an HTPC in "real time".

See the Digital Home FAQ (under help) "Recording HD".

this may be a stupid question, but is there any way that a non-dvr dct can run a firewire hard drive? could there be a hard drive with recorder package that can record the streamed video through the firewire like one could do with a computer?

The Motorola DCT6200 is a DVR-ready set-top box that is capable of recording to an external HDD.