Hey all,

I'm a long time upgraded Tivo user looking to switch to an 8000HD for HD recording reasons (since Tivo has no plans to make a standalone HD DVR).

I have read that a couple of people have upgraded their drive. Well, let me correct that, they HAD their drives upgraded by the cable company. I don't consider this hacking by any stretch. It it my understanding that the drives are split into two partitions. One holds the OS, another is a funky file system possibly encrypted. Now I know the Tivo had two specific limits: could not accept a single drive larger than 130MB, and you had to "bless" the new free space for use.

I'd like to get one of these 8000 boxes. Of course you can't expect to slap a blank HDD into the unit and expect it to work. I would like to image the original drive, then transfer that onto say, a 250GB HDD. Has anyone tried this? Not being sure if the 8000 has similar limitations as the Tivo, this may or may not work. Also, this should maintain the supposed key protection system they have between the BIOS and the HDD.

Everyone seems to focus on getting the data off of the drive. I don't really care about that, nor am I trying to get free cable. I simply want more space. 80GB / 10 hours of HD programming is simply ridiculous. One Sunday of football will eat all of that. The 160GB model is thankfully available in my area. Still, drives are so cheap, it would be worth it to put a 250GB drive in. Please share your experiences if you've tried any experimenting. Thanks!

Tat
I would like to keep this post alive. I am interested in putting a larger HDD in an 8300.

Has anyone out there tried PowerQuest - Ghost? I understand the new versions handle non pc file systems.

Any cable guys out there want to tell us how they put a larger drive in their box?

As I understand it, the hard drive contains one 1 gig section for SA propriatary software, one 1 gig section set aside for "future use" and the rest is for recording and life buffering. I have seen the inside of the 8000's and 8300's and the chances that a TW tech could change out the original hard drive for a larger capacity one are pretty slim. Plus, I can't imagine the TW tech people wanting to assume that kind of liability! If they got it wrong they would likely have a hard time getting SA to replace the box under warranty, and would have to eat the cost of a useless box.

Your best would be to get the 8300 with it's SATA port and add in your own SATA compliant drive. Since the internal drive is a Maxtor, I would have to assume that their brand of external would work. I *think* that you can even daisy-chain 2 external drives, not just one.

Thanks - If I can connect another SATA drive to the 8300 I would be a happy man. Any idea on where I can find out a little more about connecting an external SATA drive?

Well, from what I can tell you can't choose which drive to record to...it will go to the drive with the most capacity at that time. If there is insufficiant room, the recording will NOT be split. All recordings put on your SATA drive can only be played back on the same DVR...you can't record from one and watch on another.

It seems that when you plug in the SATA drive, the next time you turn the DVR on you will recieve a set of banner instructions telling you how to properly format the new drivve to work with your DVR. I guess it is pretty straight forward.

I have only seen this done once and was not there for the begining of the procedure, so I don't have much more info.


*I just had the chance to look at the back of the Maxtor external SATA drive and it does not look like you can daisy-chain them together after all*

Thanks much.
I found an inexpensive SATA enclosure (pricewatch)
I have a SATA drive on hand.
I will give it a shot.

I have the older SA 8000, non HD unit, and it doesn't have any SATA connections that i can see but does have 2 1394 pots.
I wonder if I plugged in a 1394 external HD if it would also recognize and ask to format it?

I would definitely try it if i had a 1394 external enclosure, unfortunately I only have USB2. But if i knew this would work, I'd buy one.

Anyone tried this?

Thanks,
AnthonyNYC

Originally posted by AnthonyNYC
I have the older SA 8000, non HD unit, and it doesn't have any SATA connections that i can see but does have 2 1394 pots.
I wonder if I plugged in a 1394 external HD if it would also recognize and ask to format it?

I would definitely try it if i had a 1394 external enclosure, unfortunately I only have USB2. But if i knew this would work, I'd buy one.

Anyone tried this?

Thanks,
AnthonyNYC
I tried it on mine, and nogo.

Originally posted by AnthonyNYC
I wonder if I plugged in a 1394 external HD if it would also recognize and ask to format it?



The 1394 ports were never activated on the 8000 series.
AFAIK only the 3250HD had these ports turned on.

so.. anyone actually get the SATA port to work? i must be on crack. i bought an external SATA drive today and the connector does NOT fit into the back of my SA 8300? if anyone has any tips, i'm more than interested.

I hear from CES it is an "external" connector on the SA box. Same number of pins as a typical SATA wire, but special made for external devices.

So... has anyone gotten the 8000HD to expand its storage? If the 1394 port is disabled, what about an external USB hard drive?

I too am a long time TiVo user with a 120-gig hard drive that I upgraded a couple years ago.

I just cancelled an order with Albuquerque Comcast for the SA8000HD DVR when I could no longer stand the thought of a measly 6-15 hours of HD (everyone I asked had a different answer as to how much HD the thing can hold...and NO ONE knew the size of the hard drive).

This small hard drive along with the many bad reviews I've read about the SA software (much less user friendly than TiVo which my wife LOVES) has given me pause in making the "upgrade" to the SA8000HD.

Most if not all of those reviews I read were from several months ago...has the SA software been upgraded to where the average TiVo user will be satisfied with it?

Given that it HAS got better...

How to upgrade the hard drive in the 8000/8300.?

There are several problems:

1) It seems like Comcast issues the 8000HD in some markets and the 8300HD in others.

2) It's ONLY the 8300HD (correct?) that can accept the EX-ternal hard drive options.

3) If Albuquerque Comcast does not offer an 8300HD, and if I buy one on eBay or wherever, will it work with my local Comcast?

4) Someone has said that we users can NOT open the box on the 8000HD/8300HD and put a bigger hard drive in there? Is that right? It's just too messy in there? Of course there would also be the formatting issue to deal with.

5) Has anyone seen the Maxtor "QuickView Expander" external hard drives on the market anywhere? Or will these be available ONLY thru Comcast?

It shouldn't be this hard to upgrade that darn hard drive.

Maxtor QuickView (http://www4.maxtor.com/en/products/ata/consumer_electronics/forms/quickview_info_req.cfm)

My 8300 has not gotten better. It's only passable at best. I kept my directivo which I use most of the time and am paying to keep the 8300 as well just to have some HD dvr capability. I can cancel it at any time and may upgrade to the HD Tivo but there are issues with the long term viability of that now... so HD dvr life is just kinda rough these days. With both directivo and the 8300, I am getting by for the time being.

I think if you try to upgrade the hard drive yourself, the cable company will get mad. They lease them, not sell them. I don't think you can buy them from anywhere else. But I guess that's between you and your cable company.

From CES, I remember that the Maxtor external Quickview drive was sort of plug and play. So you don't have to replace the internal one. Haven't seen them in any store yet, at least with the SATA connection. Just USB and 1394.

Originally posted by wsalopek
I too am a long time TiVo user with a 120-gig hard drive that I upgraded a couple years ago.

I just cancelled an order with Albuquerque Comcast for the SA8000HD DVR when I could no longer stand the thought of a measly 6-15 hours of HD (everyone I asked had a different answer as to how much HD the thing can hold...and NO ONE knew the size of the hard drive).

This small hard drive along with the many bad reviews I've read about the SA software (much less user friendly than TiVo which my wife LOVES) has given me pause in making the "upgrade" to the SA8000HD.

Most if not all of those reviews I read were from several months ago...has the SA software been upgraded to where the average TiVo user will be satisfied with it?

Given that it HAS got better...

How to upgrade the hard drive in the 8000/8300.?

There are several problems:

1) It seems like Comcast issues the 8000HD in some markets and the 8300HD in others.

2) It's ONLY the 8300HD (correct?) that can accept the EX-ternal hard drive options.

3) If Albuquerque Comcast does not offer an 8300HD, and if I buy one on eBay or wherever, will it work with my local Comcast?

4) Someone has said that we users can NOT open the box on the 8000HD/8300HD and put a bigger hard drive in there? Is that right? It's just too messy in there? Of course there would also be the formatting issue to deal with.

5) Has anyone seen the Maxtor "QuickView Expander" external hard drives on the market anywhere? Or will these be available ONLY thru Comcast?

It shouldn't be this hard to upgrade that darn hard drive.

Maxtor QuickView (http://www4.maxtor.com/en/products/ata/consumer_electronics/forms/quickview_info_req.cfm)

The average Tivo user will never be satisfied with the SA8000/SA8000HD. Tivo users bash the SA8000 constantly and rarely ever have anything good to say about it. They expect too much out of it and are disappointed when they see that it is indeed not as user-friendly as Tivo. I'm sure if Scientific Atlanta wanted it to be as good as Tivo they certainly could have done so, but apparently they chose their own path. The Pioneer Passport interface is better than the SARA interface, so the amount of complaints depends on the software. Also, complaints from SA8000 owners have decreased in the past year and a half as subsequent software upgrades do tend to make things better so there is hope for the future that it will be more Tivo-like. The new version of Passport now appearing has extended search funtionality so things are getting better.

Alternately, as a former longtime 3-VCR time-shifter i am completely satisfied with my SA8000 (and my SA8000HD) and it's performance. It does exactly what it was designed to do and is much much easier and quicker than using VCRs. Still not as good as Tivo but for me it doesn't need to be.

Oh, and i've gotten a little over 20 hours of HD on my SA8000HD and still had disk space to spare on it's 150.6 GB hard drive.

1) True.

2) True.

3) If you buy one on EBay it will not work, period. AFAIK they're only owned and distributed by cable companies and are not available for private sale anywhere in the USA so if someone is selling one, it's stolen or abandoned and they have no right to sell it. Only a DVR supplied by your own cable company will work with your system. Mine doesn't work if i hook it up at my friend's house in the next town, and we both have the same cable company (but his home TWC office is 10 miles from mine). Many people buy one on EBay then come to AVSForum or the Explorer_8000 mailing list crying cause it won't work with their cable service. I follow this closely and so far nobody has gotten one to work yet because it's impossible. Some seek the advice of the forum or mailing list before bidding and we're able to steeer them away before they waste $100 to $500 (prices people have paid!!). Right now there are about a dozen SA DVRs on EBay, none of which will work for the eventual "winner". Pity.

4) I got a letter with my HD DVR stating that opening or tampering with the DVR is prohibited and doing so will incur a charge ($749 for HD DVR, $589 for DVR). I asked the cable guy that installed my SA8000HD about this and he said yes, if they determine that a turned-in box has been opened they will charge you, and will also make you sign an agreement and leave a large deposit before they'll rent you another cable box of any sort if you remain a customer or try to re-activate service. He seemed very knowldegeable so i have no reason to doubt him.

There are two guys on the Explorer_8000 mailing list who said they have successfully installed a larger hard drive and that it worked and they now have double the disk space, and discussed how they did it. Both units were SARA. Others have tried the same thing with their Passport DVRs but it did not work. I think one guy was in Canada where some cable affiliates let you buy the DVR from them instead of renting.

5) From what i remember reading they're supposed to be rented out by your cable company for a fee.

You can find out more hard info on these HD-DVR's in the HDTV Recorders Forum where they are extensively discussed. Because they're owned by your cable company, you'd be wise not to fool around with their "innerds". (You break it, you buy it.) But to address the original poster's question:

TimeWarner Cable intends the 8300 to be upgradeable with external hard drives via 1394 connection, not SATA as one might expect. Perhaps the reason for this is that multiple drives can then be daisy-chained using one firewire port. They will be integrated seamlessly into the guide, with programming on different drives showing up in different colors. Sounds bloody terrific, but I have no info on when they will implement this. BTW, my TWC here in Charlotte is running Passport on their DVR's & STB's.

I hear the SATA port is actually better (technically) than firewire. While it is not as widely available on most devices, it is supposedly 3 times faster than firewire. If they just make it compatible with PC it will probably have more features than firewire.
-Lane

Originally posted by archiguy

TimeWarner Cable intends the 8300 to be upgradeable with external hard drives via 1394 connection, not SATA as one might expect.

Of the many 8300's I have seen, none of them have 1394 ports, SATA only.
Perhaps it is a regional thing, or the newest revisions might have them, but I couldn't find any reference to 8300's with 1394 on the SA website either.

Hello all,

Finally got my 8300HD set up with my new HD TV. Works great. There are very clear instructions on how to hook up a SATA drive with the 8300, as well as a list of approved drives. If you have questions, I highly suggest snagging these manuals from the Scientific Atlanta website (you have to register for the Explorer Club to get to them, but it's free). Good point regarding opening the case- even if you only open it for curiosity they will assume you tried to steal cable and probably charge you. Anyway, with the SATA capability I think my problems are solved. I'll check out enclosures and give it a test when I can. So far I'm actually pleased with the 8300, but I'll post those 8300/Tivo comparison details in a different thread. Thanks all for the input! Go Patriots!

Originally posted by acmeshrhldr
Of the many 8300's I have seen, none of them have 1394 ports, SATA only.
Perhaps it is a regional thing, or the newest revisions might have them, but I couldn't find any reference to 8300's with 1394 on the SA website either.

They're customizable according to the particular needs of each cable company; ours have 2 firewire ports in addition to the SATA port.

The more I think about it, and now that I've seen specs on the new Maxtor expansion drives, I think my TWC contact was mistaken about firewire connecting these devices - they are likely to use SATA. More info, as I mentioned above, in the TWC 8000/8300 w/passport thread in the HDTV Recorders forum.

Where exactly did you find a list of the hard drives that can work with the 8300? I have looked a little on the sci-atl site, but did not see it. I did call my cable company and they know nothing of the expansion capability (and actually as usual were pretty clueless (was Brighthouse, but I have gotten similar answers from comcast). the guy insisted that the HD takes up no more room on the hard drive than SD and that you get 40 or 50 hours of it. Also insisted that I might as well just copy it to VHS, since the picture and sound of the SD stations are fully recorded (insisting that VHS recorded the full 5.1 channel sound as well.) He was the technical support guy.

Anyhow, if someone could just share where this hard drive compatability is and if anybody has actually gotten any of them to work?

I just downloaded the 8300 users guide from the scientific atlanta site, and it seems to talk all about the hard drives, but still says to check with your cable company to find out which hard drives are compatable.

Also, the instructions for changed the "time saved" of a movie on the 8300 seems to only work if you have more than one movie saved.....or if you have not already started watching your movie. If, on the other hand, you have started to watch the movie......selecting the movie plays it again, rather than allowing you to bring up any preferences.

Probably old news, but I found this link on maxtor SATA drives at Time Warner sites. It doesn't say where you can buy them.

http://www.shareholder.com/maxtor/ReleaseDetail.cfm?ReleaseID=151856&reltype=Product&maxtor_section=press

hmmm........sounds to me as if they intend to mainly sell them to the cable providers. I guess that way brighthouse/comcast/time warner, can "rent" them to you by the month.

Just got my SA 8300 from Brighthouse. I've never owned a PVR before, but find this unit easy to operate. Interesting to read about a possible HD expansion for the 8300. So far, I'm pretty satisfied w/the performance, and don't know how I got along without it for so many years!!

Cajieboy, if you think the 8300 is easy, you should see Tivo. It's so easy my parents could use it. ;)

Anyway, apologies- I thought page 5 of this doc contained part #'s to HDD's not Explorer models. I read it too quickly.

http://www.sciatl.com/customers/Source/7004920.pdf

Doing some research now. I think from looking at the back of the back of the unit, this will plug right in:

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=17-124-007&depa=0

For some reason, my wife likes the 8000HD more than the Tivo. Not sure why, but Tivo is way superior. (Maybe the fact that Tivo only tunes in the analog channels and my 8000HD gets all the digital tier....be she says it's more than that.)

I have 160 gigs (all my cable co's dvrs do) and that holds a good 25 hours of HD.

My local tech for TWC says that they will rent external SATA drives for the 8300 but that people (like us who are smart) can likely hook up their own. The data is encrypted on the HD, so he says there will be no extraction and you couldn't connect the SATA drive to a different 8300 (lets say yours breaks and you get a new one) cause the thing is keyed to the 8300 which you record it on.

My cable co is only using the 8300HD for multiroom DVr where other 3250s and such in the house can pull the shows off.

Originally posted by tattooedbones
Cajieboy, if you think the 8300 is easy, you should see Tivo. It's so easy my parents could use it. ;)

Anyway, apologies- I thought page 5 of this doc contained part #'s to HDD's not Explorer models. I read it too quickly.

http://www.sciatl.com/customers/Source/7004920.pdf

Doing some research now. I think from looking at the back of the back of the unit, this will plug right in:

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=17-124-007&depa=0

Thanks for the links. Interesting read. I know one DVR perk that the 8300 does not have & wish they did, and it's the 30 sec. advance button I once saw used on a Replay PVR at my sister's home. Really nice to be able to skip through those damn pesky commercials.

I haven't been recording that much HDTV due to the limited space on the hard drive. Fortunately, Brighthouse Cable has given me extremely good SD, which at times is near DVD quality. I'm going out of town for a few weeks on Wed. so I've been loading up the Gizmo w/all sorts of TV Series, Documentaries, HBO, etc. Hell,due to limited viewing hours in a given week, I probably will have to cancel my Blockbuster membership after it's all said & done!:D

Good info Thinker. Once my tax return arrives I may give this SATA thing a shot. I know reading in another thread that the 8000/8300 uses similar protection to the Xbox. An encryption key is shared between the bios (or some part of the motherboard) and the HDD. I guess when you add another HDD it will copy this key to the 2nd HDD. This is why you can't take the drive out and copy the info from it. I'm not wanting to copy anything, I just want to expand space.

has anyone TRIED this yet? I have the SATA port and would love to add a 300 gig Hitachi to it. Are there any limitations or recommendations on RPM speed or anything? I plan on going to NewEgg.com or perhaps even Best Buy for their return policy and pickin up an External Inclosure for a SATA drive and hooking it up this weekend.

Are there any limitations or recommendations on RPM speed or anything? I plan on going to NewEgg.com or perhaps even Best Buy for their return policy and pickin up an External Inclosure for a SATA drive and hooking it up this weekend.
I have *tried* (if you want to call it that) test-fitting a normal run-of-the-mill SATA cable, and it did not fit. The connection they're using has been referred to as "e.sata", which has similar pinouts, the same signaling, but a different connector more suited to external use.

The Highpoint external case listed a couple posts back is probably your best low-price candidate, and the special Maxtor DVR something-or-other described elsewhere is probably your turnkey deal, if you can find it anywhere.

I've had good luck with Newegg, and the Highpoint case is probably what I will do when I get the nerve up. The link above listed is for the retail package. I think I saw an "OEM" package for a few bucks cheaper.

Personally, I doubt you'll find either of those at Best Buy just yet.

I know no requirements for RPMs, and don't think it'll matter. SA is using Maxtor drives, because of the QuickView buffering, I believe. Pretty sure any SATA drive in an enclosure with correct cabling should do.

We also have unconfirmed reports from a local Bright House CSR that the external SATA is not yet enabled. See this post (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?postid=5146935#post5146935). Of course that may be an uninformed CSR just making something up. It's been known to happen...

Good luck to the "explorer" that ventures and gives it a try. We anxiously await your report!

Did anyone try this yet? BillJr? The posts were a couple weeks ago. I tried with an external SATA enclosure but like others, it did not work for me because I did not have the correct e.SATA cable.
I had purchased a highpoint e.SATA product months ago and was very unhappy with it and sent it back. I hope that other companies are offering similar products but haven't found any yet.

I had purchased a highpoint e.SATA product months ago and was very unhappy with it and sent it back.
What was your dissatisfaction with the highpoint e.sata? Curious, did it not work at all (for your configuration) or was it some sort of quality issue?

Going in knowing that it is a lower-priced more generic solution than Maxtor's (likely expensive and over-software'd) solution, I'm personally more preferential to the generic.

Sorry to say I have not developed the nerve to try this just yet...

i finaly open my 8300 box and swaped hard drives... funny things started happening to the box... gave an er.01-10 then started counting F000-999 then start over again.. couldn't read whats on the PVRs hard drive with windows, coudn't even copy the dang thing. would the os load on its own through the cable and install on the new hard drive? any thoughts on copying copying the drives binary to the other drive.. everything went back to normal when i put it back together... the only thing i didn't do is hoocked up the cable when i was screwing around with the box... think it might load/install on it own?

also any idea on how to load the OS into the new hard drive..

[/quote/]My local tech for TWC says that they will rent external SATA drives for the 8300 but that people (like us who are smart) can likely hook up their own. The data is encrypted on the HD, so he says there will be no extraction and you couldn't connect the SATA drive to a different 8300 (lets say yours breaks and you get a new one) cause the thing is keyed to the 8300 which you record it on.

My cable co is only using the 8300HD for multiroom DVr where other 3250s and such in the house can pull the shows off.[/QUOTE]

The 8300HD for multiroom DVR? Cn it do this? I was under the impression the 8300 came in different models, one for HD DVR and one for SD multiroom dvr. I thought it had to be one or the other?

Can someone tell me how the multiroom function on the 8300HD unit works and how to set it up?

On my 8300HD I can only store about 40 hrs. of programming, which in my case is a huge limitation. Reason being, I travel a lot and recently returned from a 3 week trip only to find that I missed many of the shows I had programmed to record due to this lack of HD space. I rarely even record in HDTV as I would like as it eats up so much HD to do so. SA should really do something about this glaring mistake, especially on any DVR that records HD.

Guys,

If you haven't already, read up on this (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=516559) thread:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=516559

In summary:
The external SATA port to add an external drive is enabled on most (all?) 8300's that are running the SARA operating system. Passport OS units (while some claim is a better interface) does not have this feature enabled yet.

The OS is stored on the hard drive, so if you put in a new empty drive, your unit will not boot.

Also, the recordings on your external AND internal drive are encoded with a hardware-specific key just for your unit. If you move either the internal or external drive to another unit, your recordings are unusable.

It is not known what file system type, partition type, file format, or even what type of encoding is used, so copying your old drive to a new larger one is going to be a dodgy affair. You'll probably end up with a partition size of your original drive, with unusable extra space on your larger drive.

After catching up on what others have done so far, then maybe let's talk here about that encryption schema...

/temple

"The Maxtor QuickView Expander external drive provides up to 300 hours of high-speed storage for set-top boxes equipped with external Serial ATA ports. The drive takes advantage of Maxtor’s QuickView storage technology, designed for streaming media applications and powering most of the DVRs on the market today."

I HAVE NOT USED IT SO I DO NOT KNOW IF IT WORKS

I CANT POST URLs
SO GO TO THE MAXTOR WEBSITE AND SEARCH FOR
"QuickView Expander "


GOOD LUCK

i got the

Scientific Atlanta 8300HD 250GB DVR Upgrade

at

DiscounTechnology

easy set up

it works great

i got the

Scientific Atlanta 8300HD 250GB DVR Upgrade

at

DiscounTechnology

easy set up

it works great

Could you elaborate more? What is your local cable co.? What did it cost? Can you upgrade through your local cable co.?

Could you elaborate more?Probably referring to Netegriti 250GB eSATA drive:

250GB - $199.95
http://discountechnology.com/s.nl/sc.2/category.12/it.A/id.220/.f

160GB - $159.95
http://discountechnology.com/s.nl/sc.2/category.12/it.A/id.249/.f

Similar to the Maxtor QuickView expander drives:
http://www.weaknees.com/maxtor_qvx.php

I've used the 300GB Maxtor on my Scientific Atlanta 8300HD and life with Cablevision is much much nicer. :)
After about three months NO problems to report.

I've used the 300GB Maxtor on my Scientific Atlanta 8300HD and life with Cablevision is much much nicer. :)
After about three months NO problems to report.

It would be extremely helpful if you would include your operating system and cable co./city. Thanks.

There are very clear instructions on how to hook up a SATA drive with the 8300, as well as a list of approved drives.

Thourough Instructions? ...Yes.
List of compatible drives? ...No.

The Explorer Digital Video Recorder User's Guide (http://www.scientificatlanta.com/ExplorerClubGuides/getting_started/4003870.pdf) states specifically to...
"Contact your cable service provider for a list of approved hard drive models for use with the 8300 DVR models."

I have successfully installed a larger IDE HD inside a SA 8300HD Explorer STB on the Cox system. You simply remove the 3 tamper screws (reverse star screws), tak eout the old HD (in this case it was a black Western Digital 7,200 RPM IDE) and install your new IDE drive (recommended to get a quiet and "media" type drive - but any IDE drive will work). Make sure you set the drive jumper to "cable select" and then plug the power back into your STB. The display will have all sorts of characters on it, and then start counting down backwards in hex, the time will appear and the box will act like its locked up. You can either wait for about 30-45 minutes until it resets or just unplug it again, wait 1 minute, then let it do its normal boot up (as if power was lost). All will be functioning as normal - check your new space available in the option screen or in the hidden diag screen.

I originally jad an external SATA enclosure, but was annoyed at leaving the drive on all the time so I looked for a better answer - and found one. You might want to save the original HD for return to your cable company as this could be considered hacking - even though you are not changing any software, just increasing the storage capacity - they still don't like it when you open their boxes. When/if you go to re-install the facotry HD, you will not get the hex countdown (which I assume is a formatting of the drive???) you will just experience the aforementioned "locked up" symptom which is cured by a power cycle/reboot.

This would save on the cost of a external SATA enclosure as well as the special eSATA cable.

Hope this helps some people out there - enjoy!

:)

I have successfully installed a larger IDE HD inside a SA 8300HD Explorer STB on the Cox system. You simply remove the 3 tamper screws (reverse star screws), tak eout the old HD (in this case it was a black Western Digital 7,200 RPM IDE) and install your new IDE drive (recommended to get a quiet and "media" type drive - but any IDE drive will work). Make sure you set the drive jumper to "cable select" and then plug the power back into your STB. The display will have all sorts of characters on it, and then start counting down backwards in hex, the time will appear and the box will act like its locked up. You can either wait for about 30-45 minutes until it resets or just unplug it again, wait 1 minute, then let it do its normal boot up (as if power was lost). All will be functioning as normal - check your new space available in the option screen or in the hidden diag screen.

I originally jad an external SATA enclosure, but was annoyed at leaving the drive on all the time so I looked for a better answer - and found one. You might want to save the original HD for return to your cable company as this could be considered hacking - even though you are not changing any software, just increasing the storage capacity - they still don't like it when you open their boxes. When/if you go to re-install the facotry HD, you will not get the hex countdown (which I assume is a formatting of the drive???) you will just experience the aforementioned "locked up" symptom which is cured by a power cycle/reboot.

This would save on the cost of a external SATA enclosure as well as the special eSATA cable.

Hope this helps some people out there - enjoy!

:)

This is a big breakthrough, jjamezz!

So let me get this straight:
The SARA operating system is stored on the hard drive.
You installed a new, blank internal drive, correct?
If that is the case, it sounds like your local Cox system pushed the OS to the box (the 45 minute delay), and set it up for operation.
Did you compare if any of your settings were retained or re-downloaded (i.e. scheduled recordings, etc.)?
Of course, your saved recordings were lost... Let's not give false hope to anyone reading this thread...
--or--
did you "clone" your old drive to the new drive in some way?

So the internal drive is a Parallel IDE, and external is SATA, eh?! What size did you put in? (trying to determine if there's a limitation for maximum size (i.e. LBA48 limit of 160gb.)

Agreed, if you start having trouble with the box, you'll have to put your old drive back in before the service tech arrives. Don't want to be switching drives in front of them before they take your box!

Thanks for pioneering, please post more details so others can benefit!
/temple

jjamezz,
Any additional details you can provide???
Thanks!
/temple

Yes, a 300G SATA drive works just great! I have tried a Maxtor Media Drive (quieter, and designed for streaming media operations) and it was just fine. The 8300HD will automatically decide on what to do with the new drive once you follow the proper installation instructions. Note: don't forget to get the eSATA cable, it's NOT just a run of the mill SATA computer cable.

-- How much TV do you wanna watch anyways??? ;) Considering a stock 8300HD comes with an 80G or 160G drive, a 300G drive will more than double the recording space!

This is a big breakthrough, jjamezz!

So let me get this straight:
The SARA operating system is stored on the hard drive.
You installed a new, blank internal drive, correct?
If that is the case, it sounds like your local Cox system pushed the OS to the box (the 45 minute delay), and set it up for operation.
Did you compare if any of your settings were retained or re-downloaded (i.e. scheduled recordings, etc.)?
Of course, your saved recordings were lost... Let's not give false hope to anyone reading this thread...
--or--
did you "clone" your old drive to the new drive in some way?

So the internal drive is a Parallel IDE, and external is SATA, eh?! What size did you put in? (trying to determine if there's a limitation for maximum size (i.e. LBA48 limit of 160gb.)

Agreed, if you start having trouble with the box, you'll have to put your old drive back in before the service tech arrives. Don't want to be switching drives in front of them before they take your box!

Thanks for pioneering, please post more details so others can benefit!
/temple

The re-load of the software didn't need to happen. From what I understand while reading some technical specs on the 8300HD box, the software is actually on a boot-ROM and the hard drive is used for settings and recordings. I can confirm that if you replace the internal HD you WILL loose all of your recorded shows as well as your scheduled recordings and settings.

When you replace your internal HD and not the external HD, you will get a "external HD is corrupted and needs to be formatted" error (similar to when you install a new external HD). Replacing the internal HD with the factory HD made the external HD recognizable again though.

All of the scheduled recordings were erased, as well as making the ones on my external unrecognizable. I assume the box makes the 2 drives form some sort of DRM/encryption bond, otherwise you could take your external HD to someone elses house and use it on their box to watch your shows, or share that PPV with others or something...

At first I tried the cloning routine using Symantec Ghost, and actually an array of other software programs known to read Linux, NTFS, and even FAT/32 hard drives--nothing worked. The drive is totally unrecognizable to any OS when I tested. It is not even recognized as a drive (other than in BIOS) so it wasn't just a matter of encrypted data, you cannot even "see" what's on the drive(s). :eek:


I have tried plugging the power cord of the external HD into the power port of the 8300HD box so I could switch the external HD on/off - but the ext. drive would not boot fast enough for the 8300HD to recognize it. I tried two different external enclosures thiniking that maybe the power supply of one of them didn't come up to spec fast enough, and both times it still didn't work. I even thought about splitting the 8300HD internal power supply connector, and using a SATA power adaptor for the ext. drive, but that didn't work either. The 8300HD appears to go looking for an ext. drive during its "POST" process, not during the boot process. :cool:

Basically, I just wanted to increase the storage space on my 8300HD. I wasn't looking to hack it or change anything else. It would be great to find a way to make the ext. HD power switchable. It could be done by SA to either make the eSATA hot-swappable or make it turn on the switched AC plus first, then boot the box as an easy option to work around changng their software too much. SA engineers - anyone listening? hehe!

I upgraded my internal HDD.

Original: Maxtor 160GB 4R160L0 5400RPM/2MB Cache
NEW: Maxtor 200GB 6B200R0 7200RPM/16MB Cache
(I already had this one, wanted to try it before bying a 500GB)
SARA: 1.88.14.3
OS: 6.14.67.1

There is NO tamper switch. the only thing you have to watch out for is the void sticker on the HDD. If you touch it, the acid from your finger will uncover a VOID label...

Connected the power cord, display "ERR60", "ERR63" then a countdown of about 8 minutes, display "PROC" then "UPGR" then "Boot". After 2 minutes the STB would "click off"... Waited 5-10 minutes a screen appeared on tv "Interactive programming guide, Loading Data. One moment." then the display showed "HDD-" I could hear the hdd... Waited 10 min. I pressed power on the remote and my default chanel came up. All of my stored shows where gone as expected. The attachments shows the before and after...

Diagnostics page 33/34/35 shows "unavailable" before and after...

I don't understand the "Free Space" on diag. page 18, it shows very small cluster (LBA) count??? Before and After.

I purchased a Kingwin external SATA drive case at Fry's, but the SATA 1 end of the cable is too large to fit in the small opening of the case (I checked and the connecters match, just can't squeeze thorugh the cutout on the case. (the eSATA end connects perfectly to the SA 8300HD). Anyone had any experience with this case? I bought the cable from directechnology (Comax cable).

cheers!

Eric (San Diego)

PS. Imagine my surprise when I found out that Directechnology's pick up location is just blocks from where I live!

Jjamezz,

Do you need some sort of tool to remove the reverse star tamper screws on the SA8300HD and, if so, where do you get one?

Lucky you! And to think I had to pay more in UPS charges than for the cable!!! hehe!

Well of course you need a special tool, you don't think they would make it THAT easy do you??? Luckily, the tool (more precisely the bit) is readily available at any electronics parts store. It's referred to as a security torx bit - though I can't remember the number it is...

Well of course you need a special tool, you don't think they would make it THAT easy do you??? Luckily, the tool (more precisely the bit) is readily available at any electronics parts store. It's referred to as a security torx bit - though I can't remember the number it is...

Anybody know which bit it is? I'd rather order just the one needed instead of a whole set (and take the chance that it won't be in it). Thanks.

I upgraded my SA8300HD (Cablevision, Brooklyn, SARA software) with the use of a 250GB IDE harddisk.($60 from ebay). Bought an external HD enclosure(internal Interface:IDE) SATA external interface (Newegg for $35) and an SATA I to eSATA cable (discountechnology for $18 + $7 shipping).

I now have 160GB(box) + 250GB = 410GB. More room for HD recording

The total cost for this upgrade is just $116. I would rather do this than open up the box to put in a new 500GB HD that cost over $300-$400 and also the fear of damage to the box.

The only disadvantage with the external HDD is that you have to leave it on permanently. If you are not concerned about this, then you can use any old IDE HD(If an SATA HD is not in hand) of anysize with any enclosure with an internal Interface of IDE (if you are using an IDE HD) and an SATA external interface and your ready to go. Don't be fooled by manufacturers selling an external HDD specific for SA8300HD. You can build it yourself.


Installation Procedure; Upplug the cable box.
Connect the external HD to the cable box with the SATA I and eSATA cable.
Plug the external HDD and power it up.
Plug the cablebox.
Wait a couple of minutes and the you will be prompted for a format of the HD.
Click yes and you are ready to go.
Note: You might have to upplug the cable box and the ext. HD before you see an increase in recording space. Follow the above instruction again. Always make sure you power up the ext. HD before the Cablebox.

What am interested in is how to edit the content of the encrypted ext. HD on a PC. Any ideas out there?

Hi all,

Some informations I want to share with everyone looking to upgrade their 8300 SD with a external drive. I have been looking around for this for some time now and I finally decide to go ahead and bought some stuff. So here's my recipe:

PVR : Explorer 8300 SD, OS -> SARA v1.88.14.3
Cable company : Vidéotron (Québec - Canada)
External enclosure : Vantec NexStar 3 (eSata + USB)
HD : Western Digital 250G Sata2 7200 RPM 16Mo cache (WD2500KS)

Plugs everything and work perfect!

Total cost 204$ CND or 178$ US (without tax!) (150$ hd and 54$ for enclosure)

So for those who are not afraid to do some hands-on, this is great value compare to some options available out there like:

Quickview QVX Expander - 160 Gig for 189$ US

or

From DiscounTechnology DVR 250G 199$ US


Hope this help! :rolleyes:

Steve

Anybody know which bit it is? I'd rather order just the one needed instead of a whole set (and take the chance that it won't be in it). Thanks.

It's T10. You'll also need a 5/64" allen wrench and a phillips screwdriver.

My 8300 SD had a Western Digital WD800 (80GB) EIDE drive. The file system was not recognized by Windows XP. We need somone to write a driver for the file system. Anybody? :)

Windows does see the drive, it just doesn't show up with a drive letter because the file system is unrecgonizable. In Windows XP, you can see unassigned drives by going to:
Start|Programs|Administrative Tools|Computer Management. Under Storage, go to "Disk Management".

So looks like this is a pretty straightforward upgrade...and the external enclosure seems the cheap way to go. But I am using an 8300HD via TWC in the Triad in North Carolina...and the box (as well as the 8300SD) has the Passport OS installed. Anyone figured out how to enable the SATA port on the 8300HD running Passport?

Thanks,
Rob

Not that I'm aware. Checkout the other thread for the SA8300HD w/Passport OS.

I also upgraded today to a 300gb Internal Diamond Max 10 ATA 7200 16mb buffer. (Manufacturers PN 6L300R0) Although an allen key was referenced in an earlier thread, I just needed a Phillips screwdriver and a Security Torx Bit #10. Security Torx bits are DIFFERENT from regular Torx bits in that they are hollow to accommodate the peg in the centre of the screw.

As posted in other threads, a hex countdown begins and I just walked away for an hour. Came back, powered up, tested and all is well. I went this route as I did not want yet another device cluttering things and running all the time. I had tried without success to use the power connector on the 8300 to power the SATA drive, but everything I tried to get it to be able to power down/up with the box failed. So, internal it was.

So looks like this is a pretty straightforward upgrade...and the external enclosure seems the cheap way to go. But I am using an 8300HD via TWC in the Triad in North Carolina...and the box (as well as the 8300SD) has the Passport OS installed. Anyone figured out how to enable the SATA port on the 8300HD running Passport?

Thanks,
Rob

Interesting...

My friend lives in Winston-Salem and is a TWC customer. His 8300HD has the SARA OS installed.

I'm a writer with Popular Science magazine who's working on an article about upgrading the internal hard drive of the Explorer 8000 series.

I just read the posts, in this forum, from the two guys who successfully opened their boxes and installed after-market hard drives themselves, and I'd be interested to hear from anyone else who found these instructions helpful, or who otherwise successfully upgraded his own box.

Thanks.

STRONTIUM,

Which operating system does your box have -- SARA or Passport?

Thanks

Hi,

Anyone tried upgrade on 8000HD yet?
I would try on my, but it is rented, so I would like to get at least a confirmation on anti-tamper switch first ;)

comer
====

Hi,

Anyone tried upgrade on 8000HD yet?
I would try on my, but it is rented, so I would like to get at least a confirmation on anti-tamper switch first ;)

comer
====
All of ours are rented, except perhaps for the folks in Canada, in which I think some cableco's allow purchase.

And no, I haven't tried this on my 8300 or 8000 yet. Sorry. Still trying to muster the courage (as well as watch and delete everything on the current hard drive).

It is running SARA. It has been running fine since the upgrade on Feb 20th. Nice to have the space to recored HD movies and not have to play 'catch up' with recorded material.

Ok, poped up my 8000HD open. So far so good - no trace of kill-switch or anything that resembles one at least :D

Does the drive manufacturer matter at all? Like everybody else I got Maxtor installed by default, but I got my hand on a cheap 320GB WD. Anyone installed anything beside Maxtor?

comer
====

EDIT: Re-read the thread and realized most of you have 8300 and WD anyway :) And it looks like the drive can be anything, not necessarily from the same manufacturer as default, right?

Looks like I've been successfull. Put 320GB drive inplace of 160GB in my 8000HD. When power cable was connected, showed usual "hal2" - "boot" then "powerTV" on the TV screen and then "your terminal is not authorized". I figured it's bacause it has not been in a streem for a few days. Then clock. When powered up TV shows blues screen with "scientific atlanta" logo and nothing else. Turned off (soft) and left like this for a few minutes - clock disappeared from the front display. Turned on - and everything's fine! :D
Diagnostic shows 625,129,152 total sectors - which is what WD has specified for this drive :) Trying to record an HD show to see how much space it would take - to estimate total capacity in "hours of HD" :D

I bought a 300 GB Maxtor SATA drive and a coolmax enclosure, pus a sata1 to sata2 cable. I installed it, all worked fine, but I found the drive was getting rather hot and a couple of times it shut itself off.

So I called up Tiger and arranged for a KingWin enclosure (with a cooling fan). Now it does not get hot and does not shut off but every so often the DVR seems to lose its connection to the drive. When that happens you can only watch programs on the internal disk and the percentage utilization only reflects the internal disk. If you select a program that was recorded on the external disk it just ignores your request and returns to the program list. I can turn everything off an on again and it comes back.

Anybody have any ideas why it loses its connection to the external drive ?

STRONTIUM,

Which operating system does your box have -- SARA or Passport?

Thanks


How do I find which OS my PVR is using?
Thanks!
Super

How do I find which OS my PVR is using?
Thanks!
Super

Click the following link for info on how to determine the OS:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=6225742&&#post6225742

Seems like it is a external hard drive power supply issue. MOST ext. HDs are not made to run 24/7... I had only experienced this problem with a cheapie external enclosure, and it has not shown up since changing to a better branded enclosure. Also, do you have your DVR and ext. HD on a backup battery? They are so cheap now and really what you are looking for is the line stabilization aspect of the UPS. You may be experiencing random power fluxuations as well.

My attempts to add a Maxtor Quickview 300G, to my 8300 have not worked out. I have tried two of them from Weaknees and both were unwatchable, with pauses, freezes, pixilization, and audio bursts. I guess my sata port is not up to snuff, even though I'm running SARA. JR

I also upgraded today to a 300gb Internal Diamond Max 10 ATA 7200 16mb buffer.

strontium, are you with Cox or TW? I have an 8300 on the way and would rather upgrade internal than external. Sounds like you are confirming there is no intrusion detection? Thanks.

For those that added an ext drive, are you having problems with trick-play (rewinding/fast forwarding live TV) as some have reported?

There is no 'Tamper' indication per se, but there is a sticker which is attached to the drive and the drive cage. Do not touch it as the acid in your skin will react with the label and VOID will be displayed. This is mentioned in an earlier thread. If you are careful with the cage though, it is easy to gently ease the drive away from the cage without touching the label, then replace the drive with the new item. I was just careful in case I needed to replace the original drive and maintain my innocence if the mod all went bad. Everything is still working well - loads of space.

I am with Cox.

I went to home depot and they did not know what a security torx bit was. Did anybody get it there? If so do you have a model number?

Thanks

Radio Shack
17 piece rachet screwdriver set
64-1904

Thanks!

Security Torx Bit #10. Security Torx bits are DIFFERENT from regular Torx bits in that they are hollow to accommodate the peg in the centre of the screw.

My bad, sorry.
Check an auto parts store, they may have one to hold license plate frames.
It looks like an Allen Wrench, not a screwdriver. Don't know what size.

Speedskater

On second thought, it may have been a Security Hex.

Parts-express.com has a 33 piece Security Bit Set #360-206, $13.90

MCM www.mcminone.com has a 7 piece Security Torx Bit Set #21-3241, $6.83

Hey everyone, we here at Glyph Technologies are actually working on releasing a drive specifically designed for the DVR market. It will be a modification on our GT050Q Enclosure which is all steel, internal power supply, quiet fan, and quiet metal mounting brackets for the storage mechanism. Additionally, we will be one of the first manufacturers to implement the use of Seagate's DB-35 drive, designed primarily for the DVR market. We will have capacities up through 700GB by the end of summer. If anyone wants some more information feel free to contact me via a personal message here.


-Josh



I bought a 300 GB Maxtor SATA drive and a coolmax enclosure, pus a sata1 to sata2 cable. I installed it, all worked fine, but I found the drive was getting rather hot and a couple of times it shut itself off.

So I called up Tiger and arranged for a KingWin enclosure (with a cooling fan). Now it does not get hot and does not shut off but every so often the DVR seems to lose its connection to the drive. When that happens you can only watch programs on the internal disk and the percentage utilization only reflects the internal disk. If you select a program that was recorded on the external disk it just ignores your request and returns to the program list. I can turn everything off an on again and it comes back.

Anybody have any ideas why it loses its connection to the external drive ?

Indeed, I am anxious for much more HD space. For a variety of reasons I don't want to mess with the internal; when I saw my SA-8300HD had a SATA port, I realized that's THE way to do it (computer stuff I know, hard drives and their interfaces I eat for breakfast!).

However, after a lot of googlin' it seems the issue boils down to what the provider provides (in my case, it's TW-NYC, Manhattan); what I don't know is if it's in the firmware of the box and whether that firmware is updatable and how, or is it in the OS (that obviously is downloadable/updatable). That why posts that say they did and it works without specifying the provider/location are less than useful.

So the relevant question for me (and the "others" on my island!) is "does anyone have any statements by TW-NYC about adding additional HDs to our 8300HD boxes?" Or, does anyone have any scuttlebutt about this issue in our area?

I just wanted to describe what worked for me, and some of the glitches I had to deal with..

My provider is Long Island Cablevision and the 8300HD has the SARA software.

I bought the Azio External SATA HD Kit from Newegg. This kit comes with the proper eSATA cable, no adaptor needed. It is a well designed little box. I was a little concerned because it has no fan, but so far it just gets warm, not hot.

I got a deal at Costco on a WD 7200 rpm SATA 400gig hard drive. Total cost of drive and enclosure was less than $200. As I said, I did not need to buy any extra cable.

At first it didn't work. I had followed Scientific Atlanta's instructions (get the "Connecting the 8300HDC Digital Recorder" guide from their web site) which say to turn off and unplug the 8300HD before plugging in the external drive, and then fire up the drive before plugging the 8300 in.

The 8300HD detected the drive, but said it was not working properly, check the cables, etc. I unplugged and replugged the eSATA cable and retried it several times with the same result.

Then I reversed the cable and this time it detected the drive normally and asked if I wanted to format it, which it then did.

My unit was at about 87% full when I added the external drive, and that did not change. I set it to record some more programs and waited for it to start using the new drive and the show increased space available, but it didn't happen. The space kept decreasing until it was at 98% full.

At this point I unplugged the DVR and rebooted it. It now gave a message that the external storage device was functioning. I checked the available space and it was showing 27%!

My conclusion is that you may need to play around with this stuff to get it to work, but that it is worth it to put your own drive and enclosure together compared to buying a dedicated drive like the Maxtor. The maxtor is over $300 bucks and I think you only get around 160 gigs, while I spent about $200, and got 400 extra gigs. And I can always use the drive with my computer if I get rid of the 8300HD, whereas the dedicated Maxtor drive will not work with a PC.

Thanks, I was having some issues and your post helped me out.

I reluctantly swithed my 5 Directivo's (1 HD) for 5 8300HD's and 1 4300

I will not go into The TIVO Rant but suffice to say I miss the smart menu's. Well the 8300hd has some good points. All the untis are now Dual tuner HD and I like the PIP as well as the greater flexibility to add IO Cable to more rooms.

Well I wanted to add space to the 2 units that are connected to HDTV display's and after reading all the post's decided to just swap the 160gig HD for a 300gig that was in one of my Directivo's.

20min to open 8300hd and swap the drives

10min later after all kinds of wierd numbers on display and 2 reboots everything came up fine and the new 300gig drive showed up in the diagnostics. I saved the original drive in a plastic bag and did not touch the Security sticker so I could reinstall it when I return the box to the Cable company.

I have to get some stuff on it to really be sure how successful it was. if any problems I will post here.

I will put a 500gig in My home theater 8300hd. and Will post if that works or not as well.


As for external SATA I may try to add one in future if needed. I do not archive so I think these present upgrades will suffice for now.


I have North Jersey Cablevision and SARA OS

Gary P.

Well I wanted to add space to the 2 units that are connected to HDTV display's and after reading all the post's decided to just swap the 160gig HD for a 300gig that was in one of my Directivo's.

20min to open 8300hd and swap the drives

10min later after all kinds of wierd numbers on display and 2 reboots everything came up fine and the new 300gig drive showed up in the diagnostics. I saved the original drive in a plastic bag and did not touch the Security sticker so I could reinstall it when I return the box to the Cable company.
Gary,

Congrats on the success.

Are we to presume you have SARA OS on your 8300HD's, or any chance you have Passport?

What geography are you in/what cableco.?

Thanks,
dean

Im sorry I have Sara OS

North Jersey Cablevision

I will edit Previoue post witht that.

Gary P.

I recieved a notice that on July 13th I would have to erase and re-setup any recorded shows that were in ch. 40 and lower due to a "system upgrade to enhance quality as well as increase storage space". Of course I was wondering what really was going to happen and prepared to loose the recordings I had stored and not watched yet - which I did not! So I followed teh instructions and re-setup my lower channel recordings. I had a 67% full drive before the upgrade, and after the upgrade I had the same. It was only when I recorded a show did I see the results of the increased storage space show up. After a one-hour non-HD show, my storage sapce dropped to 23% !!! I was amazed to say the least. I have over 60 shows HD and non-HD on my drive now and its just barely over 1/2 full! Whatever they did increased my "stock hard drive" storage space tremendously! I have noticed that my non-HD channels are a lil less than sharp and on my non-DVR (straight analog coax) TVs the picture is a lot worse. Bummer, guess I will have to make some time for the friendly Cox repair guy to come out and see what the deal is.

Anyways, I am now running the stock 80g HD and have AMPLE room for what I need to record. Too bad I spent so much money on the external options and then the bigger internal swap too.

well the hard drive did not change so I guess they changed the compression used to record. Maybe they went from mpeg2 to mpeg4 that would really increase the amount of hours a hard drive can recoed.

I hope that is true then it's good news.

Gary Pranzo
Media Impact

Does you box do multiple "speeds" for recording? When I got my first DVR, at first I was annoyed that it had NO settings for that; but I soon realized that all I really wanted was "no diff. in quality from real time." And that's exactly what it delivered, live and from the drive were identical (and we're talking all the way to the most stunning HD images, like something from DiscHD). So I have to actually watch stuff off the drive in a timely manner. And wait patiently for the passport OS upgrade that enables the SATA port so I can throw 500G into it.

Hi Guys,

I have 2 SA8300hd pvrs so day to day recording space is not an issue but I certainly find the idea of archiving my favorite films in HD attractive, more attractive in fact than purchasing one of the new HIRES dvd format players.

I've noticed in your discussions that external SATA hd/drvs are being used.

If I have to go that way I will but for the last 5 yrs I've been using a HTPC which is in the adjacent room of my HT with hdwre connections going through a grommeted hole in the baseboard and a Logitech RF cordless key/mse are the only items that move from room to room.

I already have an SATA 250gig internal drive and have found a US supplier of a 6' SATA 1 to SATA 2 cable.

Has anyone tried using an internal drive and if not are their technical reasons for this or are externals just a preference?

I also have a DVHS player which accepts firewire. Have any of you tried to move any archived material to one of these without dnrezing?

Thanks,
Peter M.

jjamezz,
Any additional details you can provide???
Thanks!
/temple


Don't know if anybody already finished this thread but yeah, replacing the drive is easy. Just buy a Maxtor IDE 300GB drive off eBay. To open the box ya need a torx wrench #10 bit. (Sometimes called 'security' bits or 'tamper proof' bits.)
Just go to Canadian Tire and get sku# 25-6272-8 "Tamper-Proof TORX for about $35 CND if you want a full set.

Disconnect and open the box with the #10 torx bit.
To get at the HD is a little tricky but possible with an ordinary phillips screwdriver.
Take out all the screws holding the drive in place. (also with a #10)
Use a razor blade to very gently peel the tamper sticker off the hard drive.
(Don't pull back on it or it'll change color and read 'VOID'.

Pull the old hard drive out like any ordinary computer HD.
Put the new 300gb hard drive in and reconnect everything.
(I left mine loose inside and just stored the screws inside the unit for the future when I want to swap the drives back.)

Start it up.
The box display gives error things and does a bunch of number stuff for awhile so just go do something else for 10 minutes.
Basically just keep checking every few minutes while it goes through the whole booting up process then if it stops, just hit the power button again and it'll reboot.
After a few of times of hitting the power button you get the stupid green message
"your drive is not ready... please wait"
(.... which everybody knows is a crock since you can wait for hours staring at this message and nothing will happen)
Just power off one last time and power up and yer ready to go.

To check the HD space, hold down the 'select' button and wait for the mail light to flash. While still holding it down press the 'info' button and scroll down a couple of pages. The middle column should now read 278GB for a partition size and 272gb of free space. (the rest is probably taken up by the operating system)

Hi,

It would seem that one of the most important aspects of using an SATA hd'drv for extra storage on an SA8300HD is that it is pristene and will not compete with SA's OS.

Reading the following may help.

http://www.digitalhomecanada.com/content/view/1283/98/

Peter M

While SA may or may not supply an OS, it seems all cable companies put their "own" OSes on these boxes (far as I know, SA only supplies this box to cable companies).

It gets more complicated... there are 2 major OSes (known as SARA or Passport) and a few variants (differing versions). AND the same cable company uses different OSes in different markets. I'm in with probably a million cable customers in Manhattan, NY with an older version of Passport that does NOT allow use of an external SATA drive.

Another example, only the very latest SARA update has 4 times fast... yet the oldest version of passport has had to for quite a while.

I am trying to upgrade the internal drive on an Explorer 8300HD. I am using a WD2000 drive as a test (before I go out and spend some $$$ on a 500 GB). I have followed the various recommendations on this thread.

When I plug in the unit, the unit appears to start formatting the drive. The display shows a "r xxx" counting down in hex to 0. Once that finishes, I get a "Proc" message, followed by a "Upgr" message for a few seconds and finally a "Er 54".

At that point, the unit appears hung. The Power button does not work. If I unplug the unit and plug it back in, it goes through the same sequence again.

Has anyone else seen this?

TIA

Farmer

FWIW I recall that it took a long time of TiVos being out there before the whole "replace" the internal drive got consistent and repeatable. Since I got my first SA DVR (4-5 years ago) I have not seen near as much interest in "upgrading" the internal drive. My guess was that dealing with it was simply better obscured than what TiVo did years ago.

What IS slowly rolling out is an ability to actually USE the eSATA port on 8300HDs. Some folks have successfully added 750G drives! There are tons of issues and a lot of disparity, but the trend is absolutely clear, at some point this is going to be THE option for increasing storage (yeah, the geek in me would still think about 500G internal with a 500G external, but hey, I'm an American, so I have that constitutional right to be piggy about it<g>).

First of all I would like to thank everyone with the wonderfull hint you gave.
I registered in this forum because of this.
I bought a 8300HD yesterday and I replaced my HD today from an 80gb to a 300gb.
Was a little worried a couple of time.. when it was on the Blue Screen for a long time.
And it kept turning itself off..
and I kept turning it back on..
but it went flawlessy..

This got to be a very easy thing to do.. I have left my 80gb hd in the package of the 300gb with the sticker on it that I have not touched at all..

Thank you all

Cheers

PMarch

First, Many thanks to those you provided the initial information on how to open and change the internal hard disk on a Scientific Atlanta 8300 HD PVR.

I was able to successfully test and replace the internal 160 GB drive with a Maxtor 300 GB (6L300R0). Once this test was successul, I went out and bought the Maxtor 500 GB (6H500R0) and this is the final internal disk in my system.

It is interesting to note that the 300 GB is slightly quieter than the 500 GB. The next task is to change the mounting bracket to reduce the noise created by the disk.

I used my cell phone to create short videos of the upgrade process. If anyone is interested, let me know. Specifically, when you insert a new hard disk and plug in the power, the is the sequence of events that will appear on the display:

- NU -
<blanks out>
Er 60
Er 63
Fr LA
Fr 00
...
Fr 09
h 057
... (this will count upwards and wrap a few times)
h ###
d ###
r ---
d 3d4 (value may change based on disk size)
r 3d4
... (count down)
r 000
Proc
UPGr
boot

Unit power cycles (I powered the unit ON after 1 min)

hdd -
- NU -
boot

Unit power cycles (I powered the unit ON after 1 min)

Then the unit finally started receiving the cable signal and all was normal.

To verify the size, enter diagnostic mode. Press the Select button on the front until the Message icon appears on the front display. Then press the Info button. The first diagnostic screen should appear. Press the Vol- to go backward until you get to the hard disk screens. There are several screens which will provide hard disk information.

Good Luck!
:)

Thanks to everyone for the info.

I just installed a Seagate 500 GB IDE drive inside the 8300HD. Got similar results with the HEX # counting down, had to turn off the box twice, but finally got it to work.

I'm having some weird problems. It seems that on scheduled recording, the DVR only saves 16 minutes of the recording. I was only watching another channel today and saw it record the whole 2-hour show, but when I went to play it back, there was only 16 minutes.

I previously had a 300GB external SATA drive connected with no issues, but didn’t want an extra piece of equipment hanging off the box – hence the 500 GB upgrade.

Anyone has similar results? Is the 500 GB drive just to big for the 8300 to handle?

I had the same problem. I installed the 500 GB internally and strange things started to happen. I my case, the system would never remember the HD settings (480P, 720P, ...) and always powered up in SD mode.

I removed the 500 GB and went back to the 300 GB and have not encountered any problems since. SARA must have some upper limit for the drive.

FWIW, I have read speculation that limited RAM in the 8300's may be a factor in it being able to keep particularly large directories (from large drives) in memory. However, I have seen posts from those that have used up to 500G externals drives (making it 160 internal plus 500G external) functionally.

OK it was successfully done in Quebec City, but how about other locations/cable companies?

Hey, Riverside_Guy,

The guy in Quebec City only installed a 300 GB drive internally. I have yet to see a post for a successful larger internal drive.

Farmer

Hi,

At 10gigs pr hr of HD internal drive installation will soon become tedious for a serious archiver.

I purchased a 2 meter SATA1- II cable which passes though a grommeted hole in the baseboard of the HT to my office. I now only use the power front end of the OB box and carved a whole out of the side of an empty Kleenex box to hold the drv (business side up for ventilation)

The 160gig internal is full and I've written down the programs.

Inow have a 250,300,320, and a 750.

I'm hoping that someone can figure out how to marry something liked a timed record, ie 8pm-10pm that might work with an ATI AIW phantom timed record.

Peter M.

Hey, Riverside_Guy,

The guy in Quebec City only installed a 300 GB drive internally. I have yet to see a post for a successful larger internal drive.

Farmer

Indeed that's an issue; but I'd like to hear about a TWC-NY customer doing this to a 8300HD. There is a VERY big difference in the exact same hardware used by different cable companies functions.

Hi,

Hers a cheap way to test the SATA port.

Install an sata drive into a PC but only send it power. The SA8300hd need an SATAe ended cable the drive needs SATA 1.

Unplug (from the wal)l the SA. Connct the two units making sure the outboard drive is receiving power (PCs on).

Plug the SA bsck into an electrical socket and let it boot back to the time of day on its face. Then hit the on button.

If it works the SA will show you a big screen telling you so and asking if you want to format. Hit the yes button AND WAIT.

When it's finished go to your recoeded programs and hit the B button. If the SA say's yuy've used 12% but have 42 programs recorded your good to go in a more permanent way.

Peter M..

Did someone put a 500gb in the 8300HD without problems ?

Thank's

Did someone put a 500gb in the 8300HD without problems ?

Thank's
I was wondering the same, what is the largest internal drive anyone's gotten to work? I don't seem to recall seeing any posts where anyone sucessfully got over 300 gb's internal.

For any Canadians around here, Futureshop ran a deal today 8300hd pvr for $299 plus $100 off your cable bill. You can basically own this PVR if you're in Canada for $200. When I went they were selling out fast, so you'd better hurry.


-F

Hi
I have a Maxtor 250 & 300 as well as a Seagate 320 & 750.

I have had some hiccups on the 750 which were possibly my fault. I generally go foward 6 days in my Rogers Cable TV guide and setup my records going backwords.

Unfortuneately, I occaisionally start watching a recorded HD program while I've fprgotten that two other programs have sarted recoding. Basically this is a nonno, and will create havoc with the other two records and stammering in the program being watched.

For films I always do a trial record in the standard manner. I then ff it to the beginning and press stop. I then make a note of how many minutes of PROMOs are on the front end. I then go to the end of the film and ff backwords to the credits and again press stop and make a note of the minutes lost on the backend.

When I recod it a second time I do a manual record hoping that I'll get only the film, (or at least very little waist. HD at 10gig perhr is bad enough so any space I can save, particularly if I'm thinking of a long term archive is like money in the bank.

Peter M.

I just called Time Warner Cable before buying this external hard drive (Maxtor QCV 300MB) to increase capacity. The tech I talked to said that the port on the back of the Cable Box (8300HD) has been disconnected to prevent external devices from being hooked up. Not sure if that was a BS answer to get me off the phone or not. Has anyone tried this and got it to work?

The cable box is a TWC 8300HD and the external drive I want to purchase is a Maxtor QVC 300MB. Will these work together?

Hi,
It would seem that the 8300hd is made by Scientific Atlantic. The I/O ports on this model allow a great deal of flexibility.

The bad news is that these ports ie: SATA, Firewire, cable card and such are under the controle of your cable provider. That said, the general level of training given to customer service people is often not the best.

In Ontario the largest is Rogers. If I remember correctly the fact that our SATA port was live was learned (and announced in these forums) by one of it's customers well before Rogers was oipenly supporting it.

If you decide to experiment remember that the cable has tobe SATA1 to SATAe or 2 at the other end.

If you have an SATA drive but not a separate powered enclosure, you can install it in your PC but only connect the power cable. It's the *#)) that has to recognise and format it.

Good luck,
Peter M.

I am a Cablevison Customer in New Jersey. (Cablevison uses SARA). I just purchased a Maxtor 300GB QVX Expander External Hard Drive and attached it via SATA to an SA8300HD. Worked flawlessly and my recording time went from 62% to 22%. :)

There are a few other threads devoted to external drives, I thought this one was for those swapping out the internal one...

Hi, I'm in Ottawa and Rogers is my cable provider.
Has anyone successfully installed an internal 500GB drive into their 8300HD?

Did you run into any issues?
Which model of drive are you running?

Thanks in advance,
Andre.

Looks like there hasn't been much activity on this thread for a while but here goes my question anyway:
Are there certain boxes that will only work on certain cable companies?

I got a box from my buddy on the east coast. He was running SARA and my neighbor's box is running SARA. I plugged the box in, it showed the time, then it rebooted, acting like it was updating. It gave the same errors as above when you replace the HD and then started counting backwards in hex. I figured "cool, it's updating." Well after it counts down to 000 it shuts down. I power it on and it says "boot", then just show a black screen on the TV and ---- on the front display panel.

I've tried replacing the HD with a 40 gig I had laying around with the same result. I've checked the diagnostics and it's running sara... I can load up the diagnostic and shut the thing down, then load it up again with no problems, it just wont load the user interface for some reason...

Any suggestions?

All the SARA activity moved to:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=593271

anyone know how to copy files from the explorer 8300 hd pvr I mean the saved showes .

Looks like there hasn't been much activity on this thread for a while but here goes my question anyway:
Are there certain boxes that will only work on certain cable companies?

I got a box from my buddy on the east coast. He was running SARA and my neighbor's box is running SARA. I plugged the box in, it showed the time, then it rebooted, acting like it was updating. It gave the same errors as above when you replace the HD and then started counting backwards in hex. I figured "cool, it's updating." Well after it counts down to 000 it shuts down. I power it on and it says "boot", then just show a black screen on the TV and ---- on the front display panel.

I've tried replacing the HD with a 40 gig I had laying around with the same result. I've checked the diagnostics and it's running sara... I can load up the diagnostic and shut the thing down, then load it up again with no problems, it just wont load the user interface for some reason...

Any suggestions?

You need to push a new docsis config file to it (among other files). You would need to be running a tftp server. Also you have to get ahold of the cable comp. tftp server's IP. Then grab the correct files and edit them. I'm not even going to get started on how to access the box's management Ip and port #.
I would say take the thing apart and use it as a learning tool. Even better scavenge the box for it's componets. It does have a built in docsis compliant cable modem.
Have Fun

Costco is selling a Seagate 750GB HD, Model # ST307504FPA1E3-RK, I don't know much about this stuff, could anyone verify if this would work as an external HD for a 8300HD? Seagates site claims eSATA 3 Gb/sec (max) and a Spindle speed of 7200 RPM.
TIA

jwizzle - when you boot the SA8300 it "talks" to the cable company head end site to load the "latest and greatest" SA software that your cable company is running, and it also checks their data base to make sure that unit is authorized on their system and authorized for your home. When you buy a SA box on eBay or one of those places, you can later use is as a boat anchor.

romioo - as far as I know nobody has been able to copy off the saved HD shows in HD to tape or HD DVD. You can copy them off to a standard VCR in SD. Just follow the instructions in the manual - but I got the idea that you wanted them in HD.

I live not too far from 07Sierra07 and have a similar question. Are there models known to work well and other HD models known to rather be avoided? Any good suppliers in the Ottawa area? Thanks.

Hi, I'm in Ottawa and Rogers is my cable provider.
Has anyone successfully installed an internal 500GB drive into their 8300HD?

Did you run into any issues?
Which model of drive are you running?

Thanks in advance,
Andre.

I just bought the following from TigerDirect.com, Calvary 3.5in 250GB SATA-3G Ext HD eSATA/USB 2.0 $79.97. I hope it works. It has all the necessary cables, hardware, and software. Any opinions?

I just bought the following from TigerDirect.com, Calvary 3.5in 250GB SATA-3G Ext HD eSATA/USB 2.0 $79.97. I hope it works. It has all the necessary cables, hardware, and software. Any opinions? That looks like a pretty good deal to me. Personally I was thinking about a 500GB internal upgrade to avoid the extra piece of gear on the shelf.

I didn't want to lose all my movies, which would happen if I installed another internal drive.

I didn't want to lose all my movies, which would happen if I installed another internal drive.I understand that. Mine's basically empty now and would like to perform the upgrade before the fall series get started. I've been hearing that Western Digital drives such as the one in the title work best in the 8300HD PVR but they are not the most common in my area. I am still wondering if others have had successes with different brands/models.

I'm having a hard time finding an answer to this question...

Will an external work with non-HD version of the SA 8300? No matter how I search, all the results come back for the SA 8300HD. I just got it the other day, it has a USB port on the front and a SATA on the back. Any help is greatly appreciated.

That looks like a pretty good deal to me. Personally I was thinking about a 500GB internal upgrade to avoid the extra piece of gear on the shelf.

DO NOT BUY! I couldn't get it to work. The HD is fine ( 250G ). The enclosure is noncompatible. I ended up getting a Rosewill RX358-S to put the HD in. Now everything is "hunky dory".

Y'all need to ask such questions on the external drive thread. A few things that are clear is that just about all cable guys disown external drives, they ALL will claim they aren't "supported." The reason is they probably know that the support in the software they deploy is simply garbage. So data has been collected by users indicating which drives (and which cases) seem to work better than others. Which I find weird as I'd bet you 100% of those drive/case combos work just fine when hooked up to... a real computer that really does understand what volumes mean...

I called Comcast in Pittsburgh, PA. I have a 8300 HD DVR. It has a SATA connection as well as 2 connections marked 1394 (if I recall the number correctly). The person who answered the phone did not know about the capability to expand with a hard drive. They took a message and the guy who called back said to buy any SATA drive and have fun.

Everything for the intallation was ok. But after when i was watching the TV i had a lot of compression errors. Image and sound glitch. It was a 500 gb IDE 16mb buffer 7200rpm. Too big hd ? Will i get the same result with a Western Digital 320 gb ? My original hd in the 8300HD is a Western Digital WD1600.

Thank you for helping. 20 hours of HD recording is not enough and i don't want an external drive. I had a lot of troubles with that. When i power failure occurs the external drive was not recognized... i had to unplug the 8300HD to get it works again. Lost a lot of recorded problem with that.

That's the reason for me to want an internal hard-drive.

Sorry for my english :)

Everything for the intallation was ok. But after when i was watching the TV i had a lot of compression errors. Image and sound glitch. It was a 500 gb IDE 16mb buffer 7200rpm. Too big hd ? Will i get the same result with a Western Digital 320 gb ? My original hd in the 8300HD is a Western Digital WD1600.

Thank you for helping. 20 hours of HD recording is not enough and i don't want an external drive. I had a lot of troubles with that. When i power failure occurs the external drive was not recognized... i had to unplug the 8300HD to get it works again. Lost a lot of recorded problem with that.

That's the reason for me to want an internal hard-drive.

Sorry for my english :)

You replaced the internal drive? What location, cable company, software and software version are you running? Something tells me you are in Quebec. For most of us, we need to hear from someone in the US doing this successfully.

The key question is whether the entire firmware, RTOS, and application package can be downloaded. I've read one or two posts saying this worked in Canada, but none from the US.

You replaced the internal drive? What location, cable company, software and software version are you running? Something tells me you are in Quebec. For most of us, we need to hear from someone in the US doing this successfully.

The key question is whether the entire firmware, RTOS, and application package can be downloaded. I've read one or two posts saying this worked in Canada, but none from the US.

Yes, i'm from quebec. The cable company is Videotron.

If anybody can tell me if i will get these problems even if i put a 320 gb Western digital it would be fine. Thank you :);)

Yes, i'm from quebec. The cable company is Videotron. If anybody can tell me if i will get these problems even if i put a 320 gb Western digital it would be fine. Thank you :);)

mterio, you may have seen my posts in this thread. I have replaced the 160 GB WD disk in my 8300HD with another WD hard drive (WD5000AAKB) and it has been working fine for weeks. I am also on Videotron. I had read in another forum that it was better to stick to WD hard drives and someone had recommended that model and that's why I picked it up.

I have noticed that the new 500GB drive is a bit more noisy than the original 160GB but not to the point of being annoying. Having the extra space is real great though :)

mterio, you may have seen my posts in this thread. I have replaced the 160 GB WD disk in my 8300HD with another WD hard drive (WD5000AAKB) and it has been working fine for weeks. I am also on Videotron. I had read in another forum that it was better to stick to WD hard drives and someone had recommended that model and that's why I picked it up.

I have noticed that the new 500GB drive is a bit more noisy than the original 160GB but not to the point of being annoying. Having the extra space is real great though :)

Hi, sorry about that, i hav'nt seen your post. So you've put a WD5000AAKB without any glitches and problem in sound and image ? I'm currently ordering one. I really hope that you're right :) Thank you very much for answering me. I'll post the result of my upgrade when i'll receive the drive next week.

Thank you again :)

(...)So you've put a WD5000AAKB without any glitches and problem in sound and image ? (...)
Yep, that's correct and it has been running fine for a couple of months now. This is where I got very good info on the upgradre process:
http://www.digitalhome.ca/forum/showthread.php?t=15719

Yep, that's correct and it has been running fine for a couple of months now. This is where I got very good info on the upgradre process:
http://www.digitalhome.ca/forum/showthread.php?t=15719

Thank you very much. Ordered the exact same drive from TigerDirect and everything goes as smooth as butter :)

Now i can record more than 60 hours of HD contents.

I agree with you that this drive is a little more noisier when recording but only when you mute the tv sound. With the sound on we don't ear anything.

Again.. Thank you very much !

SA8300HD with brand new 500 gb INTERNAL hard-drive. :):p:):p:eek::D

Thank you very much. Ordered the exact same drive from TigerDirect and everything goes as smooth as butter :) (...) Glad to hear about your success mterio. I must say I was impressed with the level of info I got from the newsgroups and very enthusiastic with the results. I find it very neat when people work together like that.

I also have the SA 8300 (SARA software)(Not HD!). I think there's an esata port on the back (have to check again to see if it's really just firewire) and a usb port on the front. Is the USB port on the front functional and how can I find out what ports are active? Furthermore, is there a way to turn on said ports which are inactive? Finally, is there maximum HD size such that anything beyond this maximum will not be recognized by the DVR?

I also have the SA 8300 (SARA software)(Not HD!). I think there's an esata port on the back (have to check again to see if it's really just firewire) and a usb port on the front. Is the USB port on the front functional and how can I find out what ports are active? Furthermore, is there a way to turn on said ports which are inactive? Finally, is there maximum HD size such that anything beyond this maximum will not be recognized by the DVR?
I did'nt try bigger than 500gb. So i can't tell you that there is a limit. But up to 500gb it works fine. I suggest you the eSata Western Digital hard-drive. Since they are the best drives for these models. Be sure to test your PVR every time you get a power failure. Because the SA8300 and SA8300HD may not see your external HD. So you may have to reboot your PVR (unpluging the power cable) when your external hard-drive is fully powered-up. That's the reason why i changed the internal hd... Hope you'll be fine with my explanations. On the SA8300 you'll get about 312 hours of recording using an external 500gb hd + the 50 hours of the 80gb internal hd. The usb port is for future upgrade that will never happen... and my cable provider (Videotron, Canada) disbled the firewire ports. I can't tell if yours is the same but i suggest you an eSata external hd since it's faster. Good luck !

I have re-plunged into an internal drive upgrade due to my dissatisfaction with the external SATA box. Since upgrading to it a couple years ago I have been plagued with relentless audio dropouts and pixelization that I put up with to get the capacity. I was even using the Maxtor Quickview Expander! which should have worked.

None of this was happening on my bedroom SA8300HD (which is stock).

I purchased a Western Digital WD5000AAJB (500GB) last week and installed it this weekend. After 6 days of misc recordings I am happy to report not a single audio or video problem. The only thing that bothered me was the seek noise from the WDC drive.

The specs on that drive show Seek Mode 0 and Seek Mode 3 with the latter being the quietest. Unfortunately WDC did not release an Acoustic management utility (makes you wonder why they specify the difference) but I determined that the Hitachi Feature Tool will work and allow you to adjust the seek mode on various HHD, including WDC.

I determined that the WDC drive came from the factory with acoustic management disabled and when I set it to quiet mode the seek noise dropped dramatically with no apparent impact on performance. BTW, I changed the acoustic management after I had programs recorded and the programs were still there when I put the HDD back in the STB.

The tool can be downloaded at http://www.hitachigst.com/hdd/suppor...tm#FeatureTool if you are interested.

This is a link to the article I read that lead me down the path even though it doesn't speak directly about the 500 GB drive.

http://www.digit-life.com/articles2/.../wd3200jb.html

Particulalry this section...

There is also another interesting point here — WD Caviar SE drives from the latest generations officially support the seek acoustics (and performance) control via the Acoustics Management register. WD drives used to have no seek acoustics management before or it was in the bud. And the operating noise in senior WD drives (e.g. the WD2000JB and its counterparts) was rather ugly. However, WD has worked hard on this issue the last year resulting not only in a significant spin noise reduction, but also in an expert approach to the seek performance/acoustics management policy. As a result, the WD3200JB and the WD2500JB under review (as well as the WD2500JD, manufactured at the same period of time) officially support two seek modes — Performance Mode 0 and Quiet Mode 3. The former (default) mode is enabled when 254dec or 255dec is written to the register (255dec for the WD3200JB and the WD2500JD by default, 254dec for the WD2500JB) and the latter — when the register contains 128dec. An attempt to write any other value to this register (from 129dec to 253dec) results in the register automatically resetting to 128dec (that is the maximum quiet seek).

WD drives used to have the same register values (without resetting, this time) for quiet and noisy seek modes before. However, the average seek time of 7200rpm Caviar models would change only by 1ms and made practically no sense. And now the quiet seek mode slows down the WD3200JB by 4ms at an average, 7ms in case of the WD2500JB (see the diagram above), having become almost indistinguishable against the spin noise of the drives.

If the manufacturer announces Mode 0 and Mode 3, it would be logical to assume that there exist two more seek modes (that is four modes in total) in these drives. But that's not true — these drives have only two seek modes. And, by the way, WD Raptor WD740GD unofficially has two seek modes as well, but the difference between them is just 1ms (by the average disk access time). Unfortunately, the acoustics management utility from Western Digital is not yet freely available (but it exists). That's why regular users will have to use third-party utilities in order to toy with seek modes in these WD drives to obtain noiseless or high-performance operation (for example, Hitachi Feature Tool). I also used a Windows utility, Abacus HDD Acoustic Manager (hddacman), in my experiments.

I have the SA8300HD. I did the internal upgrade to a Western Digital 500GB (WD5000AAKB) IDE drive successfully and took some detailed step-by-step pictures to share. Thanks everyone for all the helpful information in this thread!

You'll need a Torx10 Security Bit:
http://img181.imageshack.us/img181/8979/img1343mediumcj3.jpg

Remove the 3 Torx10 Security Screws from the back:
http://img181.imageshack.us/img181/7527/img1328mediumuh7.jpg

Then remove the cover:
http://img172.imageshack.us/img172/3515/img1332mediummn8.jpg

Remove the 2 regular Torx screws holding the cross-bar and then remove the 8 regular Torx screws holding the side panel:
http://img181.imageshack.us/img181/7753/img1334mediumic7.jpg

Slide the side panel out just enough to remove the 4 Philips screws (top) holding the HDD to the top bracket. Unplug the ribbon and power cable. Notice the purple "warranty void" sticker. Fortunately, this can be lifted (carefully) without damage. Someone said that the acid from your finger will change the sticker to "void". I haven't noticed this but didn't look closely either. To be safe, you can wear gloves or wrap some tape around your fingertips:
http://img181.imageshack.us/img181/2158/img1335mediumex6.jpg

Slide the side panel out all the way. The HDD is still attached to the side panel, but is now detached from the top bracket. The "warranty void" stick is undamaged. With the HDD out, you can now easily remove the top bracket:
http://img181.imageshack.us/img181/5778/img1337mediumvi3.jpg

Remove the 3 Philips screws holding the HDD to the side panel. Here is a picture of the original 160GB Maxtor drive. Notice there is a layer of grey gooey substance (perhaps to minimize vibrations):
http://img181.imageshack.us/img181/196/img1339mediumqz1.jpg

Here is the original 160GB Maxtor beside my new 500GB Western Digital HDD (WD5000AAKB). Look at your original 160 HDD and notice it is set to "Cable Select". Duplicate this pin setting on your new HDD:
http://img172.imageshack.us/img172/1470/img1341mediummd9.jpg

Finally, reverse the procedure with the new 500GB HDD and put everything back together. Hookup your TV cable, your video and power and turn it on. It will reboot several times automatically and in about 15 mins, you should see the clock again. You are now finished. Since the "warranty void" sticker is undamaged, this mod is completely reversible (as far as I can tell).

Disclaimer: This procedure will void your warranty and may damage your hardware and/or software. Proceed at your own risk. Obviously, do not attempt this procedure if you do not own the equipment (e.g. rental units).

thanks for the info. Most of your pics would not process. I got alot of red X in a box. You must of used a format I can't access. Your info would of helped greatly if only all the pics showed.

The pics are viewable on my computer. They are just standard jpeg hosted by "imageshack.us". Maybe their server was down when you were looking. Can you see them now? Is anyone else having problems seeing the pictures?

No. Pictures loaded fine.

v/r,
C-F

The pics are viewable on my computer. They are just standard jpeg hosted by "imageshack.us". Maybe their server was down when you were looking. Can you see them now? Is anyone else having problems seeing the pictures?

The pictures display fine on the thread and can be printed from the IE window.....BTW, I submitted another post but cannot see it now.....can another IDE drive like a Seagate be used if the WD5000AAKB isn't available?

Im a former employee of TW, I live in the Cincinnati, OH area and was wanting to know If anyone had any success adding a new internal harddrive that uses the passport software?

Thanks in advance,
G

Far as I know, NOBODY living in the US has posted being able to swap their internal drive for another. Several of our northern neighbors HAVE done this... but they do NOT get signals from a US cable provider.

Is it possible to take out a Maxtor drive in one of these and just install a clunker drive and return it to Cable provider and let them know the item doesn't work to get a new one? Seems the counter customer service are idiots. Can this be done?

You could do that...

The cable company could then normally charge you the cost of the entire box without any recourse (usually ~$450); and - depending on the terms of service you agreed to when subscribing - cancel your service permanently.

They may be able to file for civil or misdemeanor criminal charges, depending on your local laws.

Why not simply drop off (return) the box one day, and then order a new one (with installation technician to check the lines and signal strength) the next day?

v/r,
C-F

Hello, I've read through this whole thread and know that when you connect an external eSATA HD to the 8300, you will get extra storage capacity. To make sure you always record to the external HD, make sure the internal HD is always full.
I have also read that you can not simply take the external HD from the 8300 and plug it into a PC with windows XP / Vista installed, the formatted HD from the 8300 is simply not readable.

My questions:
1. Has anyone taken the time to see what the 8300 formats the drives to? I.E. NTFS / FAT / FAT32 / Linux (EXT2 or EXT3)?

2. Is it possible for someone to make a driver to read the format of the 8300 when plugged into an XP / Vista (I.E. NTFS)?

3. Has anyone tried plugging the drive from the 8300 into a linux system and trying to see if a linux system can read the drive?

my brain is basically mush right now from 5+hrs of reading through this site and can not find the answers to the questions above :)

Hello, I've read through this whole thread and know that when you connect an external eSATA HD to the 8300, you will get extra storage capacity. To make sure you always record to the external HD, make sure the internal HD is always full.
I have also read that you can not simply take the external HD from the 8300 and plug it into a PC with windows XP / Vista installed, the formatted HD from the 8300 is simply not readable.

My questions:
1. Has anyone taken the time to see what the 8300 formats the drives to? I.E. NTFS / FAT / FAT32 / Linux (EXT2 or EXT3)?

2. Is it possible for someone to make a driver to read the format of the 8300 when plugged into an XP / Vista (I.E. NTFS)?

3. Has anyone tried plugging the drive from the 8300 into a linux system and trying to see if a linux system can read the drive?

my brain is basically mush right now from 5+hrs of reading through this site and can not find the answers to the questions above :)

None of the above. SA uses a proprietary format.

Far as I know, NOBODY living in the US has posted being able to swap their internal drive for another. Several of our northern neighbors HAVE done this... but they do NOT get signals from a US cable provider.

Wrong :)

I'm in the midwest, Time Warner Cable is my provider. I have an Explorer 8300 that was recently upgraded to the "Navigator" interface by them over the wire.

A bit of background. I'd called a year ago or so and had them upgrade it before I was scheduled to receive it. They did, everything was "ok" if not slower than the Passport(?) software was.

About a month after, I got home and my box had downgraded itself back to Passport. And the problems started. It got slower, it locked up from time to time. It had problems deleting programs, so I resorted to just setting a huge 24 hour program, then canceling it (to get the DVR to kill off what was already on the Hard Drive). I adjusted to how it worked, and had few problems, I could record, watch the Picture In Picture and all that.

Two weeks ago, my son told me that the TV had a message on it, so I checked it out. Navigator finally again (woo...not!).

But -- what's that? No recorded programs on it, my schedule was all gone. And on the list screen, it said 100% full. Couldn't schedule recordings, pause / rewind said that the hard drive was full and the operation couldn't be done. Called the Cust Svc number, and the lady was really nice, did a hard reboot of the box over the wire (it took about 5 minutes). After that, it still said 100%. She recommended I bring the unit in to them, to have it swapped.

I've been considering pulling the HD (or at least just hooking it up) to a Linux PC to see if I could see anything on the HD partition, and possibly delete anything that might be on the file system.

Then I found several forums talking about the fact that you can have the box reformat itself by holding pause, then something, then something else .. (which I was not able to get it to do).

I did find a diagnostic menu, Front Panel: Hold select until mail flashes, hit the Channel -, then list three times.

Saw a thread about replacing the Hard Drive, so I happened to have a 120gb sitting around. Couldn't find a security T-10 sitting around (I'm sure I have one SOMEWHERE, heh). The front panel pulls off fairly easily (I noticed one of the side tabs is broken already). Then you can lightly (CAREFUL) lift the lid enough, to pull the power and IDE cable out of the front / top. Har har. So hooked it up, turned on the box, and it did

BOOT
RELO (i think)

Then it counted down in Hex, rebooted again, did the _--- -_-- --_- ---_ thing.

Rebooted again, and it records very well, no problems. YAAAY!!!

I might just hook an IDE to the internal drive, and wipe it to zeros, or I might just leave it the hell alone :)

No, I don't own this box, that's why I didn't reg with my full name.

But it DOES work in the US with Time Warner cable (at least in the midwest).

None of the above. SA uses a proprietary format.

So there is no way to get the .tsp files off the hard drive like you can with some Dish Network DVR models?

How did you come to find out that it was a proprietary format?

I was able to upgrade the 80 gig internal hard drive to a 250 gig drive. not sure how much record time I have yet or how much of the drive is available (I've heard that they max out at 160gb but that may not be true).
I'll let you know as I find out more.:)

HEllo..


I'm trying to sell my 8300HD box.. anyone interested? I bought it off ebay and there was no HD inside i put my own inside and it works fine.. the only thing is i got twc and i called today and they said its not in their inventory so they cant activate it.. email me at Mienhguy@Gmail.com and offer me something.. thanks.

October 11, 2008, i noticed some strange codes on my cable box, it was counting down to like r 000 on the display, i know that the count down is just a
cable box upgrade, then i saw a message, "Proc", i heard about Proc, but what does that mean? i think it means processing, but i'm not sure. then i see, "boot", which happens all the time the box is rebooting, the display would go blank for a couple of minutes, then show the time.

Thefarmer, i would like to see the short videos of the cable box upgrade you have on the cell phone, i am interested.

First, Many thanks to those you provided the initial information on how to open and change the internal hard disk on a Scientific Atlanta 8300 HD PVR.

I was able to successfully test and replace the internal 160 GB drive with a Maxtor 300 GB (6L300R0). Once this test was successul, I went out and bought the Maxtor 500 GB (6H500R0) and this is the final internal disk in my system.

It is interesting to note that the 300 GB is slightly quieter than the 500 GB. The next task is to change the mounting bracket to reduce the noise created by the disk.

I used my cell phone to create short videos of the upgrade process. If anyone is interested, let me know. Specifically, when you insert a new hard disk and plug in the power, the is the sequence of events that will appear on the display:

- NU -
<blanks out>
Er 60
Er 63
Fr LA
Fr 00
...
Fr 09
h 057
... (this will count upwards and wrap a few times)
h ###
d ###
r ---
d 3d4 (value may change based on disk size)
r 3d4
... (count down)
r 000
Proc
UPGr
boot

Unit power cycles (I powered the unit ON after 1 min)

hdd -
- NU -
boot

Unit power cycles (I powered the unit ON after 1 min)

Then the unit finally started receiving the cable signal and all was normal.

To verify the size, enter diagnostic mode. Press the Select button on the front until the Message icon appears on the front display. Then press the Info button. The first diagnostic screen should appear. Press the Vol- to go backward until you get to the hard disk screens. There are several screens which will provide hard disk information.

Good Luck!
:)
Thefarmer, i would love to see the short clips of the cable box upgrade you said you have, i am really interested.

I tried installing an external drive and it ended up screwing up my 8300HD. It runs Mystro Time Warner Raleigh/Cary NC. The pic locked up a couple of times, I got a message saying it failed to format the external drive, and now it won't boot. The Mystro screen is stuck on 4 boxes and the display just shows four non moving dashes "- - - -". I've tried multiple resets including leaving the box unplugged for days, still a no-go. The reformat/factory reset by getting the mail light to turn on isn't working for me. Tonight I tried holding in select during a reboot and I got something new. The box has no on screen display but the display on the 8300HD initially read "CORE", went blanks and now displays two dashes which move horizontally toward each other and then away from each other. They do this back and forth and it's been doing this for over an hour now! I wonder what kind of mode I have entered!

Hello,
I did what many people said.
Judt opened the box , exchange the hard drive an voila.
I bougth a 1TB hitachi wich was sata and Bougth an adapter to make it IDE.
I now have a flawlessly working explorer 8300HD recording up to 260 hours of HDTV content.
Thanks for all your help guys:):):):):):):):):):):):):):)

tlh1005, just so you would know, the 4 non moving dashes mean your box is not authorized and the 2 moving dashes mean that you have to wait for the upgrade, tried it once, got 2 moving dashes. but the bad part was it never upgraded for an hour. I guess just leave it out like that for longer.

Hello,
I did what many people said.
Judt opened the box , exchange the hard drive an voila.
I bougth a 1TB hitachi wich was sata and Bougth an adapter to make it IDE.
I now have a flawlessly working explorer 8300HD recording up to 260 hours of HDTV content.
Thanks for all your help guys:):):):):):):):):):):):):):)

All of the reports of successful changes of the internal drive seem to be from Canada...

You boot the box (unplug and plug the unit), and when the LED displays "boot", press and hold POWER and SELECT at the same time. the reciever will show a "Fr.LA" text, then some d and r--- and then start the (famous hex countdown). in 2 minutes or so, the box would display "Proc", then "boot" again (it'll boot).
then the time would show up and it would be suitable to turn it ON. all set.

So there is no way to get the .tsp files off the hard drive like you can with some Dish Network DVR models?

How did you come to find out that it was a proprietary format?
This is what I'm trying to accomplish. I'd like to save movies or other TV shows onto my Computer. Is there an easy way to get the files off the PVR and onto the computer without having to manually remove the PVR Hard Drive each time? Thanks.

Cheap + Easy = SD (http://www.amazon.com/Diamond-VC500-Touch-Capture-Device/dp/B000VM60I8/)

Quality + Easy = Expensive (http://www.hauppauge.com/site/products/data_hdpvr.html)

Quality + Cheap = ~Hard (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=403695) or ~Harder (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=593271)

v/r,
C-F

hi guys... can someone help me out with my rogers 8300HD that i wanted to upgrade the internal drive to 1TB due to drive error. could someone suggest a 1TB HD that is compatible for 8300HD... but i was thinking of buying any brand of 1TB sata drive and buy SATA to IDE Hard Disk Mini Vertical Bridge Adapter Card from dealextreme sku12537 do you guys think it will work? sorry cannot post any link yet...Thanks!

I know this thread had been idle for a while but I wanted to post my results.

I'm on Cox in Arizona and just swapped out the internal drive (WD WD1600BB) of my Explorer 8300 HD for a Maxtor STM3500630A 500gb and so far so good.

ROM 1.52.1901
OS 6.14.93.1
SARA 1.89.27.1

I purchased a Fantom 1TB G-Force Hard Drive - Dual Interface (eSATA & USB 2.0) - External Hard Drive and it's working with the SA8300HD (Cablevision Long Island) but it seems that the external drive constantly enters an idle state and then is no longer visible to the DVR. In order for new recordings to be saved there, I have to flip the power switch on the external drive to turn it off and then back on. Any ideas?

I purchased a Fantom 1TB G-Force Hard Drive - Dual Interface (eSATA & USB 2.0) - External Hard Drive and it's working with the SA8300HD (Cablevision Long Island) but it seems that the external drive constantly enters an idle state and then is no longer visible to the DVR. In order for new recordings to be saved there, I have to flip the power switch on the external drive to turn it off and then back on. Any ideas?I've done more googling but still can't seem to find anything to address this issue. Does anyone else have a problem with their eSATA drive "timing out" or entering "sleep mode" so it is no longer seen by the DVR?

i finaly open my 8300 box and swaped hard drives... funny things started happening to the box... gave an er.01-10 then started counting F000-999 then start over again.. couldn't read whats on the PVRs hard drive with windows, coudn't even copy the dang thing. would the os load on its own through the cable and install on the new hard drive? any thoughts on copying copying the drives binary to the other drive.. everything went back to normal when i put it back together... the only thing i didn't do is hoocked up the cable when i was screwing around with the box... think it might load/install on it own?

Did you happen to take pics of the guts by any chance? I want to open mine just out of curiosity but I don't want to have to pay charter a huge "Destruction of Charter equipment fee"

I've done more googling but still can't seem to find anything to address this issue. Does anyone else have a problem with their eSATA drive "timing out" or entering "sleep mode" so it is no longer seen by the DVR?

This issue clearly points to TWC actually having little idea of how to run some aspects of their own business. Do they say they support external drives? No. Do they saw they won't allow them? Again, No.

What they do is kinda turn a blind eye to the fact that some of their software/hardware do support such a function. And then break it. Like early versions of ODN seemed to support externals, while the last three 3.x version seem to not support it. You can't complain because TWC can claim they never said they'd support it. BUT they know damn well they have and that there is a segment of their base that wants and needs such support.

Instead of being clear about it, they clam up. The probably figure they have enough predatory other moves to forestall losing too many customers...

This issue clearly points to TWC actually having little idea of how to run some aspects of their own business. Do they say they support external drives? No. Do they saw they won't allow them? Again, No.

What they do is kinda turn a blind eye to the fact that some of their software/hardware do support such a function. And then break it. Like early versions of ODN seemed to support externals, while the last three 3.x version seem to not support it. You can't complain because TWC can claim they never said they'd support it. BUT they know damn well they have and that there is a segment of their base that wants and needs such support.

Instead of being clear about it, they clam up. The probably figure they have enough predatory other moves to forestall losing too many customers...Thanks for the commiseration. I know I was taking matters into my own hands with the drive, but figured it was worth it if I could get it to work. By the way, I have Cablevision, not TWC, not that it really makes any difference. :p

Austin, TX here with Time Warner, SA8300HD on Sara.

I replaced the 160GB hard drive with a 300GB IDE hard drive that I had lying around. It's working fine and the diagnostic displays show that I have the full capacity available.

The tricky parts were:

-- As noted you need security Torx drivers. I got mine from amazon.com, here: http://www.amazon.com/SMALL-SCREWDRIVER-SECURITY-TAMPER-PROOF/dp/B000FIXXBA/ref=pd_cp_hi_1 but there were lots of choices.

-- It would be a good idea to take pictures or write down which screws go where. There are a lot of them.

-- Make sure you jumper the new drive "cable select". It will NOT WORK otherwise (which I found out the hard way, wasting an hour).

-- It reboots and counts down twice. It takes a long time (like 45 minutes).

The hard drive I used, a Seagate ST3300631A (300 GB 7200RPM IDE), doesn't play well with the SA8300HD. In the morning, after the drive has spun down overnight, I hit power-on on the box, and the drive takes about 30 seconds to start up. Then the box doesn't like this and thinks there's a drive error, and goes through the whole hex countdown and reboot sequence which takes 15 minutes or so. It doesn't lose my recordings, though, so it's not reformatting.

Then, I have to catch it and power it up before the drive spins down again, or the whole sequence is redone!

Anyone have recommendations on a drive that works better?

I am not sure what happened but now it all seems good. All I did was open up the box and reseat the cables. There has been no reoccurrence of the failure. The drive spins up just fine now whenever I turn on the box.

In my experience problems don't usually "fix themselves" but maybe this time it did.

I just upgraded the internal HD to 1.5TB SATA , TWC Hudson Valley.
You can also copy your old recordings to the new drive if you want to, the file system is Linux.
see digitalhome.ca/forum/showthread.php?t=15719

I just upgraded the internal HD to 1.5TB SATA , TWC Hudson Valley.
You can also copy your old recordings to the new drive if you want to, the file system is Linux.
see digitalhome.ca/forum/showthread.php?t=15719

Thanks for sharing the information. It appears that sector-sector copy works well. I will give it a try this weekend.