SuccessOK as you rightly said I could not use a disk larger than 1TB in my Pace box without changing its MAX LBA.
So, as recommended, I used the manufacturer’s diagnostic tool which I downloaded from Samsung.
Just for confusion it is a zip file called ESTOOL300g_CDROM.zip which then uncompressed to in ISO image called Image(300g).iso
Using winiso this creates a bootable CD which automatically ran the program “ESTOOL.EXE”
If you had a dos boot floppy you could just use the dos file direct but finding a working floppy disk & drive was beyond me.
Anyway after trying several PCs with various SATA and CD/DVD abilities I eventually managed to get one to run the tool and recognise my 1.5Tb Samsung hard disk.
Set the LBA MAX SIZE (as in the instructions from Samsung) to 1000000Mb – Processed the command and VOILA a 1Tb drive.
Connected it to my Laptop using my USB caddy and checked it in the Disk Management. Found it correctly to be 1Tb but it had created a 500mb partition. Deleted this partition which made the drive exactly as required for copy+
Ran copy + and dumped the image of the original hard disk onto this new one.
Put it in the Pace digibox and hey presto a working drive. Recorded a few minutes of TV and played it back. ALL IS WELL!!!
Finally as i've time on my hands (semi retired) i'm definately going to get my hands on an Amstrad DRX890 (PVR5) as I want to make the most of the hard disks I purchased. Might even try a 2Tb assuming thats the max...
I'll let you know how it goes
Cheers