Hmm...I have used a LaCie drive with my Mac Mini for ages. Never turned it off and it never overheated. Perhaps it varies with the model? Mine is a 500gig. Runs quite cool in fact.

philip

"We've had the 9242 for about a month, and have had no problems with our hard drive."

Well mine worked fine for quite some time as well. Then one day I went to look at an archived movie and it froze after 15 minutes. Then tried to restore it and it would stall at random points. Almost made it once. But I'd go through the hassle of having to reboot the receiver and so on as it thought the EHD had been disconnected.

The hard drive is fine and runs great with both my Mac and a Linux system. Perhaps I'll try reformatting it in Linux and reinstall the transferred files. Just haven't bothered as I am waiting for the October time-frame for Bell to fix what I feel is a problem with the 9242 usb system software. Trying various hard drives is a possibility except you'd never be sure that one they they'd stop working with the 9242. Even if I found one that worked I wouldn't put anything I really wanted to see on it until Bell TV says they have fixed the problem.

philip

I do think that's a great idea. However, the problem is the EHD's seem to stop working at random times. I don't see how anyone can claim that any of them work. There have been a variety of hard drives that have worked and then stopped working with the 9242.

I guess if a certain brand worked for months then that would be a good sign.

philip

Yes, maybe there is a specific brand that works with all flavours of 9242, including those that are incompatible with the LaCie. That would be interesting to know.

PS: For those who care to follow up my own predicaments with Bell, my latest unit had its front panel buttons fall inside the unit. Well, after refusing to have my receiver replaced for a fourth time in a row and almost a month without HD, I have requested and obtained from Bell the authorization to repair my 9242 receiver myself without voiding the warranty. It took me less than two minutes. They keyboard panel had never been clipped into the frame, talk about poor craftmanship and absence of quality control...

My Trekstor 1 TB has been working fine since day 1 of the software roll out. Thats around 2.5 months. I have over 70% of the drive used. From what I can gather here, it seems the trekstor drives have good compatibilty with the 9242.

1. Hard Drive - Western Digital 500GB EIDE 100 7200RPM 16meg Cache
2. Enclosure - ADS USB2/Firewire
3. BootStrap - 1714RFHD

I occasionally have problems when moving programs to the EHD. If I am watching TV while the transfer is proceeding and go back to see how the archive is progressing and the progress bar is at 0 (no green). The USB drive does not disconnect and all I have to do is cancel the archiving and start it over and it works the second time.
I have no issues with playback from the EHD and I don't usually move the programs back to the internal drive.

I reported the problem to Bell via the Support Chat on Bell's WebSite.

I'd like to see others post similar specs/comments,

Grelber

I have tried the following:

1: WD MyBook 1Tb Home Edition (pauses at random spots during viewing for 40 seconds)

2. LaCie 750Gb from Bell World (USB disconnects after a few minutes

3. WD Cavalier? 200Gb IDE in Nextstar 3 enclosure (works fine)

in all cases Bootstrap 1714RFHD Software Version V182RFHD-N

Dave

". WD Cavalier? 200Gb IDE in Nextstar 3 enclosure (works fine)"

Doesn't the Nextstar 3 enclosure only accept sata drives? I've seen other cases where IDE drives work. Perhaps there's something to that. I've tried 2 different sata drives (one being the LaCie 500gig designed by Porsche) and neither works for playback. Archives fine but then you just lose the video to the drive. Moreover the files are encrypted so you can't move them elsewhere. Sigh ...

philip

I've got an old external 160GB WD One Touch drive that seems to work fine. It does go into standby/powersaving mode, with the only effect being a delay in accessing the PVR menu (ie, press PVR and the menu won't pop up until the drive spins up). Transferring to, and playing from, this little drive has been flawless. No loss of PVR functionality to date, but I have full confidence that Bell will find a way to f it up.

It only gives me about 20 hours of HD, but it is perfect for archiving kids shows, and freeing up space for current timers when there is a backlog of unwatched programs. I can't imagine keeping hundreds of hours of recorded TV and I have several of these drives laying around, so no need for a monster drive for me.

Doing a list of what hard drives do and don't work is a good idea, but honestly, I think that should be done in a new thread and this thread should be used to update people on what's going on with Bell and what they've been told by the techs recently.

Fact of the matter is, the 750 GB Neil Poulton design La Cie External Hard Drive is the one Bell recommends and sells, so that is the one that should definately work. If others work, that's great, but I bought the La Cie EHD so I want Bell to figure out how to make the 9242 work with that one, not tell me go by another one made by another manufacturer because they screwed up and can't fix their own problem.

In terms of updates, I called again this week and got the standard "We are aware of this problem and are working on a solution. We hope to have it solved as soon as possible, and ask that you bare with us as we adapt to this new feature." I never bothered to point out that they should have "adapted" to it before profiting from it, but did let them know I'd be calling back for an update in a few days.

"Fact of the matter is, the 750 GB Neil Poulton design La Cie External Hard Drive is the one Bell recommends and sells, so that is the one that should definately work. If others work, that's great, but I bought the La Cie EHD so I want Bell to figure out how to make the 9242 work with that one, not tell me go by another one made by another manufacturer because they screwed up and can't fix their own problem."

Well they should really refund your hard drive purchase if it doesn't work. The fact is there is nothing special about that particular drive. The La Cie drives often don't spin down which is probably one reason they chose them. If they get it to work with the La Cie drive it'll work with almost any sata drive interfaced to usb2.

They were quite specific about the fix being ready by the end of October (to me at least).

I do think it is worthwhile to have discussions of other drives in this thread. If we were restricted to information from Bell you might find no posts for weeks on end

This whole thing really frustrating and while it may be Bell's fault the real culprit in all of this is the encryption being forced on everything digital.

philip

I don't know about you, but I am not sure I would do that.

Your posts on the 9242 EHD issue have been most level-headed.
Do you have any recent news to be shared from Bell on the update?
Thanks.
john

Closing as the V183 thread has opened.

Hi,

Excuse me for my english, I'm french

I ask to person that have an Archos !

I just bought an Archos5 to connect to my 9242 receiver...

A problem is when I connect my Archos to my 9242, it ask to format my Archos's drive...
I am afraid to accept because I don't want damage my Archos !

Does I have to format this ?
Does this will erase Linux (OS) from my Archos ?

Thanks