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Replacing and upgrading the DVR530 Hard Drive (will Void your warranty!)

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#1 · (Edited by Moderator)
About the Author and this thread - ARR is a former Shaw employee who worked for several years assisting the Star Choice team that developed and tested the Star Choice DVR530. He previously posted on the Digital Forum as digitaldude.

This is a revisit of a topic discussed in previous posts and hopes to shed some clarity for those interested.

DISCLAIMER: If your unit is under WARRANTY, then this procedure is NOT recommended.

A little history:

The very initial hard drive in DSR530's were Maxtor, but never went into production with that model as it proved unreliable and not up to the task.

The CE version was chosen for it reliability and performance.
Read the specs here: http://www.seagate.com/docs/pdf/datasheet/disc/ds_ce.pdf

A little known fact is that ~ 30K 'special' dsr530's were shipped with the Seagate 250GB hard drives for in house use at a major N.A. auto manufacture that operates their own DCII transponder and had been using Moto DSR4XX units, but needed a DVR and the 530 was the ONLY DCII DVR around.

While its easy to criticize Moto/*C for selecting the 160GB, initial plans which I took over spec'ing originally had the 80GB and the 120GB was only a consideration as they were being used by the cable HD PVR's and only recently in the DCT6416 went to 160GB. I examined the cost and made a case for our current 160GB, so be thankful we got that.


continued....
 
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#215 ·
Is this thread still alive? Hopefully...

Hi all, I'm new to this forum and think it's great what people have accomplished here. So I'm having issues upgrading the hd in my 530. I was really excited when I found out I could upgrade my hard drive and gain more HD recording hours. So I went online and purchased a Seagate ST3750640A 750 GB drive...paid $115 US plus shipping and duty. The drive came in a sealed electrostatic bag and looked brand new. Well, 8 months went by until I finally decided to part ways with my recorded stuff and swap drives before the new season's started. Followed the instructions on here to perform the swap...and all went well, except the new 750 gb drive would not spin up. It just buzzed and made a "beeping" noise every few seconds. I am really dissapointed. So instead of spending big $$$ on another IDE HD, I've decided to do a SATA mod...but I don't know how to do it. I know some stuff about computers and electronics (built my own desktop, etc) but I'm no pro thats for sure. What things do I need? If I purchase the three items listed in 7ninty's post above, is that all I need (plus a SATA drive)? I need help, please!
 
#218 ·
I ordered the three items listed above by 7ninty, so hopefully I can make this work now with a sata drive. I have a new 630 in the box waiting to be activated, but I have to deactivate my old 400 series reciever first, and then activate the new 630 in it's place. Is this easy? I have to be careful and keep within the 6 reciever per bill limit, as per SD. I haven't had the 530 that long (1.5 yrs) and it's been great but the storage capacity is too small. I also have the 530 connected to an HDMI splitter which connects a samsung 58" plasma through 75 feet of hdmi cable...and works flawlessly.
 
#220 ·
Drives

In my experience any drive brand works, 2T and down (tried 3T but receiver only saw a portion of drive) don't know about the sectors, but have used older drives and the lastest 2T drives and they all worked no problem.

The 630 receivers only seem to work with 1T drive or smaller, again make does not seem to matter
 
#221 ·
Success!

Got the parts from StarTech this morning, and now I have 364 HD hours and 1456 SD hours of recording! I purchased a Hitachi Deskstar 7K3000 2TB 7200 RPM SATA drive and so far it's working great. This drive does use the older 512 sector size vs the new 4K sector size, so I'm not sure if the new type of drives will work or not. Guess the only way to know is to try it.

I did encounter a couple of problems along the way though:

-the StarTech IDE-SATA adapter has the selector pin for choosing the drive type (cable, slave, master) on the same side as the IDE pins. When you go to plug the StarTech adapter into the DSR530's IDE board, this selector pin hits the 4 pin power plug on the DSR530's IDE board, meaning you can't plug the adapter into the DSR's board. I was crushed about this and wasn't sure what to do. So instead of trying to find another solution, I took a BIG chance/risk and unsoldered the 4 pin plug and moved it to the other side of the board (on the DSR530's IDE board). I was super careful and tried not to get the board too hot, but it worked.

-this takes time!! After hooking everything up and plugging in the reciever, perform a master reset, then get a hit from SD. Some channels won't come in and the guide won't fill in for approx 1.5 hours. So be patient!

-the blue light on the Drive dock is too bright, will have to cover with tape

-just a warning to anyone who places the reciever out in the open, make sure no one touches it our bumps it. It's best to have it behind the glass on your entertainment unit, or away from kids/pets.

If I could find a SATA extension cable, there should be enough room to fit everything inside the receiver (sans the drive dock). The extension cable would allow the new drive to fit where the old one does, with the adapter boards behind it. I think this would be a better setup because the drive would get the heatsinks to help keep it cool (my 2TB Hitachi is a little warm, but not hot) and the reciever would appear stock. If I can find a cable that would work, I may try this.

Nonetheless, I am super happy about having such huge recording reserves. My receiver is also snappier and quicker in every way. A big thanks to 7ninty (and Digitalhome) for posting the information/parts needed to do this!
 
#222 ·
StarTech IDE-SATA adapter

I can see comparing my original board from a few years ago and the picture on Startechs website that the location of those Master-Slave-CableSelect Pins have changed sides. Mine are on same side as SATA connection and now it appears they are on IDE side.

Moving power plug to opposite side (or removing it completely as not needed any more) or maybe changing the Drive type selection pins to opposite side on startech board, would be the options. OR finding a different converter board setup as older version, maybe startech has both versions.

NEW
http://ca.startech.com/HDD/Adapters/25in-and-35in-40-Pin-Male-IDE-to-SATA-Adapter-Converter~IDE2SAT

OLDER
http://www.digitalhome.ca/forum/album.php?albumid=251&pictureid=1141
 
#223 ·
Recording Problems

So I thought everything was working good (except for heat issues with the 7200 RPM drive and the StarTech Swap box; I ended up transfering the old heat sinks to the new drive and prob solved), but I've been having some recording issues. When I record a program, sometimes it will only play a portion of that recording and then stop, refusing to play the rest of the program. Other times it won't even play it, even though it shows up in the DVR list. I've don't ever recall this happening with the original 160GB drive. To try and fix the problem I've unplugged the receiver and also tried a couple of reboot's with the power button.
An example of my problem would be I recorded Ice Road Truckers and it was playing fine, until about 15 minutes left...then it automatically stopped and I couldn't play the remaining program, even though it showed 15 minutes remaining in the info bar. So I recorded the program again, only this time it only plays for a few minutes and stops...again showing the full program time remaining in the info bar. What gives?

Should I try a different drive? Only thing is I'm worried about the new 4k sector size...


On another note, I sucessfully deactivated my two old 401's for new 630's. It was quick and easy and I had no probs with SD. However, I'm not liking the new 630 that much...the guide is less responsive than my old 530 (can't scroll as fast). Oh well, sometimes new things take time to get used to.
 
#224 ·
Recording Issues

I also noticed that when a recording starts, the picture freezes on the channel I'm watching. If you change the channel it comes in again. I've tried switching coax lines around even though my signals are in the 80's. Also tried plugging in the 4-pin molex on the Motorola IDE board.

???
 
#225 ·
Recording Not Playing

Also had that occur this week on a program, cannot remember which one on my 630 receiver. So that would make me believe issue is related to the transmission of signal or something beyond hardware.

Program showed as completely recorded but wouldn't play, so I just deleted it.

Will watch over next few days to see if occurs again.
 
#226 ·
I don't know much about the Hitachi and would agree a 4K cluster is most likely to be trouble since the VXWorks format may not support it.

On some of the WD AF drives (Green for sure) you can add a hardware jumper to align the 4K sectors. That 'may' play better in there.

I bought a couple of Seagate 500GB IDE's that are a perfect fit for the application, but my 530 died before I could place them in service.

Figured 500 vs the 160 was more than enough capacity based on balance of usage and not wanting to have to try and watch 100+HD hours of shows or worse, loosing it all either.

This way there is no fuss with much of anything.
The USD-IDE interface is a 100% mechanical fit.

As I've moved onto a HTPC with dual 12TB media servers, they are available.
 
#227 ·
Recording problem seems to be solved

After hooking up the 4-pin molex power plug to the original IDE board, recording/playback has been seemless and trouble free. Before when I was having trouble, there were error messages in the diagnostics data A2 debug. They were:

ERROR: pUsbBulkDev = = Null in getUsbBulkDev
ERROR: Failed in getDrivePower

over and over again for 6 pages, then:

userRestart called by SysCtrl
copy: error reading file after copying 65536 bytes
userRestart called by SysCtrl

Then I connected the 4-pin plug on the old IDE board (after seeing "Failed in getDrivePower") and everything seems to working great...knock on wood. If anything, this old DSR530 is lightning fast compared to the new 630. Time to hack that one I guess...
 
#231 ·
Hitachi 2TB

Well, it's been awhile now since I did the ultimate SATA mod to my DSR530. All I can say is that I'm totally satisfied and the setup has been nothing but 100% stable. In fact, everything is working so well that I went out and bought another Hitachi 2TB so that I can enjoy this receiver for many years to come. I also added a cooling fan to the hard disk to ensure long drive life (the drive is encased in the original heat sinks, sitting on top of the rear left corner of the receiver). This fan (attached to the underside of the drive) keeps the entire receiver cool. The right rear corner used to always be moderately warm to slightly hot...now it is completely cool. Excellent!

Here are the things I used to accomplish this:

-StarTech 40 Pin Male IDE to SATA Adapter Converter
(http://ca.startech.com/HDD/Adapters/25in-and-35in-40-Pin-Male-IDE-to-SATA-Adapter-Converter~IDE2SAT)

-StarTech LP4 to SP4 and LP4 Power Y Splitter Cable M/F
(http://ca.startech.com/Cables/Compu...splitter-Cable-2-Large-and-1-Small-end~PYO2SL)

-Hitachi Deskstar 7K3000 HDS723020BLA642 -2TB 512K Sector Size
(http://www.hitachigst.com/internal-drives/desktop/deskstar/deskstar-7k3000)

-Vantec IceberQ Hard Drive Cooler
(http://www.vantecusa.com/en/product/view_detail/452)

-Original heat sinks from old 160GB drive

I think it's important to note that a 512K sector size drive must be used. Don't quote me on this as I have not tried the newer 4K drives, but logic tells me it would more than likely cause problems. If someone does try a 4k drive and it works, all that much the better because the 512K drives are already becoming hard to get, and will eventually become extinct like IDE.

I must tip my hat to 7ninty and others for their posts in this thread which helped me accomplish this. Thanks! :)
 
#232 ·
I used your instructions to install new disks in 2 PVRs here in Mexico. I had to wait for the guide for a long time after asking for a reset online. Then I had to go into the hidden menu and ask for a retune of tuner 2. Now it works again receiving signal from the satellite rather than the dreaded 39!.

Bought the second PVR off craigslist in Toronto for $85. It worked fine for 3 months.
 
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