Moving hard disk from Sky+ (standard) to SkyHD box,possible?

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Moving hard disk from Sky+ (standard) to SkyHD box,possible?

Postby kungfuman228 » Mon Jan 17, 2011 2:17 pm

I currently have a normal sky+ box which has had the hard disk upgraded using a 750gb sata WD 'ecogreen' type drive. I believe 80gb of this is reserved for anytime and therefore have about 670gb for my recordings. Going to have sky+HD installed later this week and have a few questions:

1. can you just swap the hard drive out with the one I have now and it will still recognise the recordings? I think the box is a Amstrad DRX280 (from the compatibilty list) therefore has 'big' endian format.
2. If possible, will anytime now take up 250gb instead of the 80gb?
3. If this is not possible, will the workaround this be: 1. Back up my existing recordings onto my PC. 2. Insert my 750gb into the new sky+hd box and perform a FSR so it will format the drive correctly. 3. Remove the hd from box and copy back the recordings onto the drive?
4. I will contemplate upgrading to a larger drive, am I understanding correctly that at the moment most 1tb drives are compatible with most of the sky+hd boxes (leaving 750gb recording space)? 1.5tb/2tb drives are only compatible with the newer Amstrad boxes but I will need to have a fiddle to get the box working with a beta version of copy+ and I wont be able to restore my existing recordings.

TIA for any replies.
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Re: Moving hard disk from Sky+ (standard) to SkyHD box,possi

Postby pcbbc » Mon Jan 17, 2011 2:42 pm

kungfuman228 wrote:I currently have a normal sky+ box which has had the hard disk upgraded using a 750gb sata WD 'ecogreen' type drive. I believe 80gb of this is reserved for anytime and therefore have about 670gb for my recordings.
A normal Sky+ box would have a PATA disk, not SATA. So unless you have an adapter board installed, you have a PATA drive.

1. can you just swap the hard drive out with the one I have now and it will still recognise the recordings? I think the box is a Amstrad DRX280 (from the compatibilty list) therefore has 'big' endian format.
Drive would need to be SATA, and destination box would need to be big endian (most HD boxes are big) AND the box can **NOT** have the new Darwin software release.
SD to HD transfers/copies are no longer possible once the destination box has Darwin.

2. If possible, will anytime now take up 250gb instead of the 80gb?
Assuming there is sufficient free space, yes.
Do not suggest transferring if there is insufficient free space to make up the difference - so delete stuff on SD box to make 250-80=170GB of room first. Otherwise planner will show FULL and box may well malfunction.

3. If this is not possible, will the workaround this be: 1. Back up my existing recordings onto my PC. 2. Insert my 750gb into the new sky+hd box and perform a FSR so it will format the drive correctly. 3. Remove the hd from box and copy back the recordings onto the drive?
Copy+ does all it's own formatting, so it is pointless to format the drive first.
The only point in doing this is if you wish to use the supplied (presumably 500GB) drive instead of the 750 (because it is PATA or unsuitable). In this case copy direct from source to destination (you will need to delete the existing partition off the "empty" destination 500GB).
Again, this transfer will ***NOT** work if destination box has Darwin.

4. I will contemplate upgrading to a larger drive, am I understanding correctly that at the moment most 1tb drives are compatible with most of the sky+hd boxes (leaving 750gb recording space)?
All HD boxes will function with a 1TB drive or one type or another, subject to it being "compatible".
Nobody knows what makes a drive compatible with a particular box. Also older boxes (Thomson for example) are known to get slower with larger drives.

1.5tb/2tb drives are only compatible with the newer Amstrad boxes but I will need to have a fiddle to get the box working with a beta version of copy+ and I wont be able to restore my existing recordings.
Correct - And I only recommend a drive over 1TB with a Darwin upgraded box, as otherwise you will get recording overwrites with any new recordings until such time as you receive Darwin.
As this advice is incompatible with transfer from SD (you need a NON-Darwin box for that to work), do not recommend a drive over 1TB!
This advice is really only relevant if coming from a HD box without Darwin to a HD box *with* Darwin (yes that is currently possible)!

There is currently no upgrade path to keep recordings if you have:
1. Darwin on the source box, regardless of destination
2. Source box is SD and destination box has Darwin (destination without Darwin may still work)
That is, until such time as a Darwin compatible Copy+ is released. This will probably NEVER resolve point 2 - SD to HD transfers - which IMHO will be impossible ongoing (planner formats have diverged to far).
No time scales for a release at present - Sorry.

Also I can not guarantee SD to HD transfers definitely work any more even if you do NOT have Darwin. They have definitely stopped working since Darwin.
So if it doesn't work for you, I'm sorry. Please make other backups of your recordings if they are that important. :(
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Re: Moving hard disk from Sky+ (standard) to SkyHD box,possi

Postby kungfuman228 » Mon Jan 17, 2011 3:21 pm

Thanks very much for such an informative and comprehensive response.

Yes, the drive in the current sky+ box is sata, I had to get sata and power adapters when I upgraded.

Guess I'll wait until I get the new box and see which type it is and if its worth doing the upgrade.
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Re: Moving hard disk from Sky+ (standard) to SkyHD box,possi

Postby kungfuman228 » Mon Jan 17, 2011 5:42 pm

I've just been reading about this 'Darwin' upgrade which is apprently done for Anytime+ and 3d, both of which I have no interest in. If by luck I dont get a Darwin box, I'm wondering: How is the software rolled out to the boxes? Will it automatically do it or will I have the chance to say no to the upgrade?
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Re: Moving hard disk from Sky+ (standard) to SkyHD box,possi

Postby pcbbc » Mon Jan 17, 2011 6:11 pm

If the HD boxes does not have Darwin yet, you should be able to transfer.
There is no need to worry about getting Dawin later. This should not be a problem.

The issue is that Darwin is one step too far in terms of planner versions, and can no longer convert the old SD planner databases any more. It is expecting a more recent version.
The previous HD software release could still perform the conversion (because the release previous to that shared a common format with the SD boxes). So you need a pre-Darwin HD software release to upgrade your SD planner database to the "old" HD format.
Then when Darwin comes along it will convert the old HD planner format to the new Darwin format.

Kind of like having Windows 95 (SD), then upgrading to XP (HD) and finally Vista (HD Darwin). This was probably supported.
However I doubt going direct from Windows 95 to Vista on Windows is an option any more than SD direct to Darwin is on Sky.
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Re: Moving hard disk from Sky+ (standard) to SkyHD box,possi

Postby kungfuman228 » Wed Jan 19, 2011 12:10 am

ah right, so if i manage to get a non darwin box, then by plugging in my existing hard drive, this should correct the planners and should therefore future proof it when the darwin upgrade comes.

Last question, how do i tell if the box i get has darwin installed?
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Re: Moving hard disk from Sky+ (standard) to SkyHD box,possi

Postby pcbbc » Wed Jan 19, 2011 11:12 am

kungfuman228 wrote:ah right, so if i manage to get a non darwin box, then by plugging in my existing hard drive, this should correct the planners and should therefore future proof it when the darwin upgrade comes.
Your existing box is an Amstrad DRX280 which is SD.
SD boxes use PATA drives while HD boxes use SATA, as I explained in my first post.
You can NOT just plus this straight into the HD box.

Last question, how do i tell if the box i get has darwin installed?
SYSF version number on the system details screen.
Anytime+ functions.
Network option in setup.
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