Upgrading with 250Gb Hard disk
 

Ok,

I decided to upgrade my Sky+ box to a 250Gb Hard disk, just wondering if anyone else has done this and if so what problems you have found etc?

Ive read a thread over at DS, which gives full instructions etc, and have been building / repairing PCs for years so am fairly confident. Just really looking for real experiences etc...


KP

Re: Upgrading with 250Gb Hard disk
 

i aint , but i seem to recall something about the box complaining about the amount of free space being wrong :erm: :D

Re: Upgrading with 250Gb Hard disk
 

AFAIK the new software release to coincide with SKY160+ gets around this?!

Re: Upgrading with 250Gb Hard disk
 

I also believe this is the case, it should recognise the full 250GB ok.

Re: Upgrading with 250Gb Hard disk
 

Yeah, thats what i read, with the new firmware it should be able to read it... i was just wondering if it would cause any issues, i.e. programs getting lost etc........

Re: Upgrading with 250Gb Hard disk
 

AFAIK the old firmware was OK keeping programmes etc. it was just the %age free that was wrong (minor issue?) at the end of the day, if it's all wrong you've got a 250gb HDD for your PC!

Re: Upgrading with 250Gb Hard disk
 

:)

Well will do it tonight (maybe, depends on how much ive had to drink)

Will let you know how it turns out, and what problems (if any) i come accross :)

KP

Re: Upgrading with 250Gb Hard disk
 

Personally, I think you should do it after Xmas. If things go wrong then you'll miss the Queen's speech :(

I might do the same with my box if yours doesn't fry it! :p:

Re: Upgrading with 250Gb Hard disk
 

I take it he's blown it up, as we've heard nothing else since. :)

Re: Upgrading with 250Gb Hard disk
 

The hard disk is a bugger :(

Basically according to DS you should initialize the drive using maxtors powermax (no probs.... done) then you should use a program called wvset to turn write verify off (found the program, no probs, but it cant find the hard disk :S) then you should use a proggie called amset to put it into quiet mode (found the program, but again it cant see the hard drive)

Currently doing a low level format using the powermax software, and will try again :)

Re: Upgrading with 250Gb Hard disk
 

Amset will only work from pure DOS mode, you can't do it within windows (it won't detect the drive, as you've already found out), burn a Boot CD with those 2 apps on and give it another go.

Re: Upgrading with 250Gb Hard disk
 

Already using a dos boot disk..... pure dos.... nothing else.....

This low level format is taking forever (21 hours so far) and judging by the numbers, at least another 2 hours to go.....

Ive tried looking on Maxtors site, but cant find anything..... i really hate maxtor drives :( but according to DS they have the best success rate in Sky+ units :(

Im just gonna see if there is a new version of the util or something, cos powermax sees the drives no probs..... but these other 2 dont :(

Re: Upgrading with 250Gb Hard disk
 

Low level formats are a nightmare, it took a couple of hours to format a 4 gig drive years ago using that method. Not sure what to tell you about AMSET, works perfectly using a dos boot CD here.

Re: Upgrading with 250Gb Hard disk
 

Well after the low level format all worked perfectly..... had it installed for a while now and its all going smoothly..... only thing is the hard disk is a little noisier, (you hear it spin up when you power the unit up, but thats all) Ive been recording junk just to test it, its about 20% full so far, and i have about 24 hours of Tv to watch :O :O :O

Ive kept the old drive, cos i have the extended warranty on the sky+ box, theres no security stickers or anything, so i can just swap the drives over should i need to have it repaired or anything :)

A worth while update :)

Re: Upgrading with 250Gb Hard disk
 

Question - If you connect the old drive to your PC can you see any data on the drive? - I was thinking of a mod to my SKY+ to allow a docking solution for Laptop 2" HDD's and then I could burn programmes to DVD using my PC

Re: Upgrading with 250Gb Hard disk
 

iirc it is formatted differently so you cant read the data using a pc , i might be wrong though :disturbd: :disturbd: :disturbd:

Re: Upgrading with 250Gb Hard disk
 

Ive not tried it to be honest, i will give it a go tho and let you know.

Im not sure, but i think i read somewhere it operates the drive with a ntfs partition, so if thats the case then should be able to see it for sure *-)

Re: Upgrading with 250Gb Hard disk
 

Glad your upgrade went well. :D

Re: Upgrading with 250Gb Hard disk
 

Hi there - just joined today

I have tried to install a Maxtor DiamondMax 10 250GB IDE ATA/133 16MB 7200RPM without success.

I did a full low level format and a full housekeeping. The housekeeping took only three minutes - which seemed too short.

Kept getting "system fault" error - so I replaced my original 40 GB - but I had to do a low level format on it too to get it back up and running. It runs very very hot!!

D

Re: Upgrading with 250Gb Hard disk
 

Can Freeview boxes with hard disks be upgraded to bigger disks?

Also, what's the DS forum?

Cheers

Re: Upgrading with 250Gb Hard disk
 

http://www.humvee.co.uk/sky.htm should tell you all you need to know re Sky upgrades.

Re: Upgrading with 250Gb Hard disk
 

I'm going to get a nice big drive and see if I can do it :)

Re: Upgrading with 250Gb Hard disk
 

I just looked at the back of my box and it's got a warranty sticker on it - so I guess I can't upgrade my box for 12months :(

Re: Upgrading with 250Gb Hard disk
 

Update

Sky came out to fix a problem with my box, which they promptly replaced.

The upshot of which is I now have a pace v2 box and no warranty stickers. So I'm going to get a 250gb hdd :)

Re: Upgrading with 250Gb Hard disk
 

Does anyone know what the correct hard disks are to get now and where to get them (160 or 250gb). I've had a look around but the information on DigitalSpy etc seems to be out of date in that the hard drives mentioned are nowhere to be found.

Any ideas?

Re: Upgrading with 250Gb Hard disk
 

BlueRaja - from what I've seen, it is the spin-up time that's more important than the disk size.

This means that a lot of 7200rpm drives do not spin up fast enough - e.g. the Maxtor Plus10's - PLEASE CORRECT ME IF I'M WRONG HERE! I have a 300Gb Plus10 that I'd love to install.

I'm looking to put a 250Gb MaxlineII as a backup plan, but I've not seen if that is on the DS list...

http://forum.digitalspy.co.uk/board/...ad.php?t=30514

laters!

Re: Upgrading with 250Gb Hard disk
 

Hi Thanks for the info - and welcome to the forum.

I found that site when i was hunting for info - you may see that i have also asked a few questions over there too. The upshot of that is that it appears that a lot of people seem to be going for the Samsung Spinpoint drives as replacements.

Not got one just yet - but its on the cards.

Re: Upgrading with 250Gb Hard disk
 

In January 2006 issue of home cinema choice has the following tips.

Align the new bigger drive with the holding brackets and then attach them.

Ensure that the new drive's jumpers are on cable select.

Screw the holding brackets and drive back into place, do not overtighten.

re-attach the ide controller cable and coonect the power cable.

Replace the case and ensure the side panels are properly locked.

connect your box and power up.put your box through a full system reset.
to do this select the services menu ,then press 4-0-1 select, which will take you to the set up installer menu.choose full system reset.

The box will then go into its housekeeping routine and when its finished the box will drop into standby.the upgraded system should be ready to use from that point.

They do advocate using the maxtor with a 7200 rpm.

Re: Upgrading with 250Gb Hard disk
 

I've got the Maxtor DiamondMax 10 250GB IDE ATA/133 16MB 7200RPM (6B250R0) in a V2 pace box and it seems to work fine and it's running a lot cooler than the original can't have taken much more that 3 minutes to do "House keeping"

Re: Upgrading with 250Gb Hard disk
 

The recordings on the Sky+ hard disk are scrambled (encrypted), so there is no way to extract the video to a PC for recording to DVD.

I upgraded the hard disk drive on my Sky+ box to 250GB with an upgrade kit from Xtendedplay (http://www.xtendedplay.co.uk). They sell Consumer Electronics (CE) drives that are specifically designed for PVRs and provide upgrade kits with instructions that ANYONE can follow:

http://www.xtendedplay.co.uk/sky-har...rive-p-47.html

My Pace Sky+ box now has 130 hours of recording space.... a massive improvement from the standard 20 hours... NICE!!!