WD7500AACS (750GB Western Digital GreenPower) HDD

Which replacement drives can you use and which do people recommend?

WD7500AACS (750GB Western Digital GreenPower) HDD

Postby Jeff » Thu May 01, 2008 7:23 pm

Had this a few weeks and all was well.
Trouble started with some programmes stopping and starting,unwatchable.
Then returned back to normal.
Today it was the same, unplugged the box from the wall socket, plugged it back in and to my horror the planner was empty indicating nothing on the hard drive,99% free.
Recorded something and did the the switch off again, the programme I'd just recorded was still there thus eliminating unplugging the box being the cause.
Is it possible if I hook the drive up to the computer the recordings may still be there and enable me to copy them, or should I forget the upgrade business and put the old drive back in.
Any help would be appreciated. :cry:
Jeff
 

Postby Jeff » Thu May 01, 2008 9:13 pm

Forgot to mention, the box is a Thomson Sky HD
Jeff
 

Postby Jeff » Thu May 01, 2008 10:10 pm

Just recorded a 1 hour HD programme, used 7%, usually about 2%.
It obviously looks like the box did a full reset.
I guess I need to take out and format again using copy+
Anyone have any ideas why this has happened ?
Could it happen again ?
Is the upgraded hard drive to blame ?
Anyones help would be appreciated.
Jeff
 

Postby Jeff » Fri May 02, 2008 10:04 am

Am I boring you ? judging by the replies perhaps it's only me I'm boring ha ha.
Just realised you have to copy a recording on the drive to format it or whatever, done that and put it back in the HD box.
What I did notice when I unplugged the sata leads was the smaller lead had a piece of plastic broken off, thus making the connection a little loose, maybe this caused all the problems, the drive does seem to be more responsive now when using the remote, play fast forward etc.
Maybe there's JUST !! someone out there may be interested or find my findings useful. :D
Jeff
 

Postby pcbbc » Fri May 02, 2008 10:14 am

Jeff wrote:Just recorded a 1 hour HD programme, used 7%, usually about 2%.
It obviously looks like the box did a full reset.
Sorry to hear that :(

Unfortunately this seems to be a "feature" of the Sky software, upgraded drive or not. Please see this thread where we discussed it.

I guess I need to take out and format again using copy+
Yes, you will need to do another copy, or a backup and restore with Copy+. It can not do a straight format because it requires some of the empty (but initialised) database files of your existing disk that it can not create from scratch.
It's fine to use the 1TB drive in it's current state as the source disk for the backup. Then just delete the partition on it from Windows Disk Management and restore from the backup.

Anyone have any ideas why this has happened ?
My guess is that there is some recovery code in the Sky firmware which goes something like:
if (the disk file system looks totally unreadable) {
re-format disk;
}

Not the brightest piece of coding in my opinion, but I guess someone thought it was better than the box not functioning at all and generating a support call. :shock:

Could it happen again ?
Perhaps...

Is the upgraded hard drive to blame ?
...the consensus on the thread I linked to was probably not, as it has been seen with non-upgraded drives also.
However it's hard to determine if an upgraded drive makes it more or less likely, but without any evidence of that I'd assume not.
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Postby Jeff » Fri May 02, 2008 10:27 am

Thanks for the reply, I guess it's fingers crossed from now on.
If it happens again I might figure out a way of extending the connections to have the drive external, it's a real pain opening and closing the box.
Jeff
 


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