So does the Apricorn EZ-BUS-DTS-EKIT also include USB? The Apricorn site says yes but neither ZipZoomFly or NewEgg mention it. NewEgg comments mention their are two, with and without, with the same model number.

So does the Apricorn EZ-BUS-DTS-EKIT also include USB? The Apricorn site says yes but neither ZipZoomFly or NewEgg mention it. NewEgg comments mention their are two, with and without, with the same model number.

I had the exact same question and I'm waiting for the enclosure to arrive so I can see for myself. I'll let you know about it when it comes in.

New WD HD coming out specifically for DVR's and audio/video recording, WD5000AVJS

Link (http://www.westerndigital.com/en/company/releases/PressRelease.asp?release={B1A99C2C-27CC-4575-9CC3-253DA4AB6A63})

Hi guys - I would appreciate any replies to this question, even if it's to point me to a previous post that already covered this or to give me suggestions for better search terms....

I purchased an external 300GB Seagate eSATA HDD, turned off the 8300HD, unplugged it, connected the eSATA cable, turned the HDD on and let it power up, and then plugged the 8300HD back in. It goes straight to boot, and never prompts me to format the external drive. It doesn't even give me an error screen saying the drive isn't compatible or anything.

What the heck am I doing wrong? I know many others are using these Seagate external drives, and I didn't do anything monumentally stupid like buy the USB version and jam a USB cable into the eSATA port :)

I've disconnected everything, powered everything down, tried to troubleshoot, but I have no idea why this seemingly simple process has failed to produce anything -- not even an error message! I'm pretty tech-savvy and have installed hard drives in laptops and built external drives before, so I don't know why this ostensibly plug-and-play solution has eluded me.

So, what are the dumb things that I could have done that I should check first?

Thanks in advance....

(BTW - I'm running SARA v. 1.89.18.1 and I have COX cable in San Diego)

So does the Apricorn EZ-BUS-DTS-EKIT also include USB? The Apricorn site says yes but neither ZipZoomFly or NewEgg mention it. NewEgg comments mention their are two, with and without, with the same model number.


Yes. I have one on my PC as well using USB.

Hi guys - I would appreciate any replies to this question, even if it's to point me to a previous post that already covered this or to give me suggestions for better search terms....

I purchased an external 300GB Seagate eSATA HDD, turned off the 8300HD, unplugged it, connected the eSATA cable, turned the HDD on and let it power up, and then plugged the 8300HD back in. It goes straight to boot, and never prompts me to format the external drive. It doesn't even give me an error screen saying the drive isn't compatible or anything.

What the heck am I doing wrong? I know many others are using these Seagate external drives, and I didn't do anything monumentally stupid like buy the USB version and jam a USB cable into the eSATA port :)

I've disconnected everything, powered everything down, tried to troubleshoot, but I have no idea why this seemingly simple process has failed to produce anything -- not even an error message! I'm pretty tech-savvy and have installed hard drives in laptops and built external drives before, so I don't know why this ostensibly plug-and-play solution has eluded me.

So, what are the dumb things that I could have done that I should check first?

Thanks in advance....

(BTW - I'm running SARA v. 1.89.18.1 and I have COX cable in San Diego)

I have the same drive. Similar circumstances on the initial install, but then I disconnected the eSATA cable while everything was on and immediately got an error notification pop-up saying the drive had been disconnected. I then rebooted (with the drive disconnected) and then plugged it in again after the boot and got a pop-up offering to format it. I did and then everything worked just fine.

Keep fiddling with it and also check your diagnostics screen for the log on the hard drives. You should see the initial detection, the disconnect and the format logged. If you don't then it is possible, in your configuration and provider that the eSATA port isn't activiated.

I have seen more than one post indicating hot-plugging the external drive made all the difference.

I have seen more than one post indicating hot-plugging the external drive made all the difference.

That is a PASSPORT ONLY thing (hot-plugging).

With SARA you should unplug the box, plug in the SATA connector, power up the enclosure, power up the box. You should then get a prompt to format. Wait 5 minutes (you will not get a format complete screen) then unplug the box again. Plug the box back in, and after reboot you should get a 'drive is ready to use' screen. If you get a 'problem with connection' screen, try again.

xnappo

That is a PASSPORT ONLY thing (hot-plugging).

With SARA you should unplug the box, plug in the SATA connector, power up the enclosure, power up the box. You should then get a prompt to format. Wait 5 minutes (you will not get a format complete screen) then unplug the box again. Plug the box back in, and after reboot you should get a 'drive is ready to use' screen. If you get a 'problem with connection' screen, try again.

xnappo

Thanks for the advice, but I've already tried this several times. I'll unplug everything, connect the eSATA cable, power up the hard drive, and then plug in the box. It goes straight to "boot" and never prompts me to format. I don't even get a 'problem with connection' error message or anything.

Mike suggested the possibility that my eSATA port on the 8300HD isn't active. Should I just call Cox technical support, would they be able to activate it remotely? I'd be surprised if that were the problem because other San Diegans with Cox have had success with the 8300HD and this specific Seagate drive. I'll Cox and see what they say....

In the meantime, I appreciate the suggestions and keep them coming! :)

Mike suggested the possibility that my eSATA port on the 8300HD isn't active. Should I just call Cox technical support, would they be able to activate it remotely? I'd be surprised if that were the problem because other San Diegans with Cox have had success with the 8300HD and this specific Seagate drive. I'll Cox and see what they say....

In the meantime, I appreciate the suggestions and keep them coming! :)

There have been many report of customer service saying the port isn't active, and *0* reports of a truly inactive eSATA port(again on SARA - Passport is a different story). Customer service will be no help though because this is not a supported feature.

I suppose it is possible your eSATA port on your box is bad, since it isn't something that gets tested. Unfortunately it could be a lot of things! Do you have a SATA connection on a computer you can check the drive with?

xnappo

There have been many report of customer service saying the port isn't active, and *0* reports of a truly inactive eSATA port(again on SARA - Passport is a different story). Customer service will be no help though because this is not a supported feature.

I suppose it is possible your eSATA port on your box is bad, since it isn't something that gets tested. Unfortunately it could be a lot of things! Do you have a SATA connection on a computer you can check the drive with?

xnappo

Unfortunately, I only have a laptop with no eSATA connector. I already thought about that, because that seems to be an obvious first step in troubleshooting. Maybe I'll ask a friend to check the drive on their computer...

thanks again for the help

Anybody else have any suggestions? Any obvious troubleshooting things I missed (besides making sure the drive itself works, though I doubt that's the issue)? Other people are using the 8300HD running SARA from Cox with this Seagate external drive with no issues, and I'd love to get mine to even give me so much as an error message letting me know it's there!

Thanks again...

Greetings everyone. I've got a SA8300 that I use for HD from TWC here in Austin. After stumbling onto this thread and forum, I used the information to pick out an external drive for my 8300.

First tried the Seagate FreeAgent Pro 750Gb that was on sale at Fry's. It connected and was recognized by the 8300, but had an error message indicating that it was unavailable and to check the power and data cables. Was never offered the option of formatting the drive. Tried rebooting numerous times to no avail.

As part of the troubleshooting process I picked up a Seagate 500Gb eSata external drive. It was recognized as soon as I connected it and I was prompted to format it. I rebooted the box one more time and stopped there, as my drive usage with it dropped from 82% to 18%. I might return the other drive, or keep it for other uses, haven't made up my mind yet. I appreciate the advice in this thread, it made an undocumented process as painless a possible.

Not sure if it was the capacity or the external box on the FreeAgent that caused the problem, and I'm not inclined to take it apart to troubleshoot further as I have something that works.

Tex

Anybody else have any suggestions? Any obvious troubleshooting things I missed (besides making sure the drive itself works, though I doubt that's the issue)? Other people are using the 8300HD running SARA from Cox with this Seagate external drive with no issues, and I'd love to get mine to even give me so much as an error message letting me know it's there!

Thanks again...
Got any neighbors or nearby locals with a working system to try it on? It could be your STB, but usually comes down to bad connections.
FYI, the drive is added after the boot process completes. Some have had to reboot once or twice to get an electrical connection between the devices, but it shouldn't be that hard.

vegggas

buycom has what looks like a good deal now an a 500GB USB/eSATA external HDD by Cavalry...$129
Will this work for extra storage on a Scientific Atlanta 8300HD?

thanks a lot to everyone who helped out! installation was super easy and the 8300 recognized the 500GB/16MB WD Caviar drive fairly quickly. formatting didn't take too long but the reboot did. lookin forward to recording more shows and in HD.


SARA - Western Digital Caviar 500GB - Apricorn EZ Bus DTS Enclosure

you guys do know that you can replace the original drive in the unit with any bigger drive. it works perfectly. i have a 750 gb drive and all is well.once you place the new drive and reboot, the unit automatically formats it.

you guys do know that you can replace the original drive in the unit with any bigger drive. it works perfectly. i have a 750 gb drive and all is well.once you place the new drive and reboot, the unit automatically formats it.

And, I assume you know that by opening the box you are exposing yourself to paying the box when Cablevision gets it back. :cool:

I have a Seagate eSATA 500Gb on my computer and was thinking of adding another one to my 8300HD. My only concern is that since the Seagate has no fan, it enters "sleep" mode quickly and very often and can take several seconds to "wakeup" Is this a problem noted by anyone using it with their DVR? I would think that once it starts being written to it would continue spinning until the write is complete, but, would the 8300HD notice a lag in startup or care?

And, I assume you know that by opening the box you are exposing yourself to paying the box when Cablevision gets it back. :cool:

i own my box.

you guys do know that you can replace the original drive in the unit with any bigger drive. it works perfectly. i have a 750 gb drive and all is well.once you place the new drive and reboot, the unit automatically formats it.

Absolutely not true! Read some of my previous postings on my trials and tribulations in attempting to replace the internal ATA hard drive with a new 500 gb drive. Just flat didn't work!

I even tried an 80gb ATA drive that I had in my parts bin just in case it was the large size. That didn't work either. And the original drive would not read or duplicate on my PC with a number of drive copy/editing/partition management utilities. They all said drive unreadable; no partitions enabled. Even tried under a Linux boot, and the Linux o/s wouldn't read the original drive.

Passport software though, so maybe with SARA it might work, but I have no way of knowing with my box and provider.

I have a Seagate eSATA 500Gb on my computer and was thinking of adding another one to my 8300HD. My only concern is that since the Seagate has no fan, it enters "sleep" mode quickly and very often and can take several seconds to "wakeup" Is this a problem noted by anyone using it with their DVR? I would think that once it starts being written to it would continue spinning until the write is complete, but, would the 8300HD notice a lag in startup or care?

See my previous posts. My ultimate solution is an external eSATA Seagate. Works fine under Passport software.

Absolutely not true!

Passport software though, so maybe with SARA it might work, but I have no way of knowing with my box and provider.

i have sara, and it 100% works. i have been using a larger hard drive since the 8300 came to cablevision(3 years ago)

I hooked up a Cavalry 250gb esata/usb drive without a hitch to my 8300HD (sara). It was a little unnerving knowing when to re-boot as you never are told when the formatting is complete. I have tested writing and reading. Is there a way to tell which programs have been stored on the external drive?

I'm a Cablevision customer in Weschester NY hooked up to a SA 8300 HD DVR and i'm interesting in purchasing the SATA Seagate external HDD that some forum members have bought. I do have a question regarding the cable needed to hook up the HDD to the cable box. It does not seem that the port at the back of the 8300HD accepts an eSATA cable (which comes with the HDD). Is the box configured with an internal SATA cable (like the ones found inside computers) or am i doing something wrong and it is set up to accept the eSATA version of the cable? Thanks in advance for any feedback.

I'm a Cablevision customer in Weschester NY hooked up to a SA 8300 HD DVR and i'm interesting in purchasing the SATA Seagate external HDD that some forum members have bought. I do have a question regarding the cable needed to hook up the HDD to the cable box. It does not seem that the port at the back of the 8300HD accepts an eSATA cable (which comes with the HDD). Is the box configured with an internal SATA cable (like the ones found inside computers) or am i doing something wrong and it is set up to accept the eSATA version of the cable? Thanks in advance for any feedback.
The odds are you really have a SATA cable that you are trying to plug into the 8300. Sometimes these are referred to as Type "I" connectors while the regular SATA is referred to as Type L". The designation is significant here as it really describes the slot on the end of the connector.

I'm a Cablevision customer in Weschester NY hooked up to a SA 8300 HD DVR and i'm interesting in purchasing the SATA Seagate external HDD that some forum members have bought. I do have a question regarding the cable needed to hook up the HDD to the cable box. It does not seem that the port at the back of the 8300HD accepts an eSATA cable (which comes with the HDD). Is the box configured with an internal SATA cable (like the ones found inside computers) or am i doing something wrong and it is set up to accept the eSATA version of the cable? Thanks in advance for any feedback.

I'm not technical, so I bought a Seagate eSATA 300GB drive with its own enclosure and the cable it came with worked just fine.

Rich N.

FYI - I added a drive today without once rebooting the 8300HD box. I used a Western Digital 500 GB (mentioned previously) with Apricorn shell. Plugged it in while the box was on, got the popup asking to format. Said yes. After about half an hour nothing had happened, so I turned off the external drive. Got a warning message on the 8300HD but dismissed it. Then turned back on the external drive. Popup said a drive was connected that can be used for storage, I said yes, and just like that the space used went from 51% to 11%.

I have (I believe) the latest SARA version 1.89.xx. I don't know if my procedure was the best way to do it, but I hate going through the hard reboot process so I just did it my own way. ;)

Sometimes, if my PC is acting funny I just kick it and things get all better. :eek: :D

I took the plunge with the Apricorn EZ-BUS-DTS-EKIT ($39.99) and a Samsung SpinPoint HD501LJ 500GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA ($129.99), both from Newegg.

I turned off the 8300, connected the drive, powered it on and then turned on the 8300 -> nothing.

Rebooted the 8300 -> it recognized the drive and asked to format it. No update regarding if format was done or on progress. I let it go for about 3 hours - still no update. Intermittently I kept checking the available space and it remained at the original 50%.

Rebooted the 8300 -> Message came up saying that there is an external drive that it can use -> Space available went down to 10%. Tried an HD recording and it worked without any hiccups.

I have Cablevision in Westchester county, NY with SARA 1.88.23.a100. I have my 8300 connected to a Slingbox through S-Video and now I can watch live TV as well as all my recordings from anywhere. Time-shifting combined with place-shifting. Whoo-hoo!

Thanks raidbuck. For some reason, the eSata cable that I was using to try the port was not fitting. I'll just go ahead and get the Seagate then. I'm assuming that all the SA 8300HD boxes should be the same hardware-wise so what worked for you should work for me hopefully! I'll post the results. Thanks again.

davehancock,

Which cable goes with the 8300, the L-type or type I? Thanks.

davehancock,

Which cable goes with the 8300, the L-type or type I? Thanks.
Click here to view the various SATA connectors (http://www.cooldrives.com/saiandsaiiin.html) including L-type and I-type.

I don't know what the heck i'm doing wrong then. I have an L-type connector and it does not go in at all.

davehancock,

Which cable goes with the 8300, the L-type or type I? Thanks.

Type "I" and not Type "L"

Anybody else have any suggestions? Any obvious troubleshooting things I missed (besides making sure the drive itself works, though I doubt that's the issue)? Other people are using the 8300HD running SARA from Cox with this Seagate external drive with no issues, and I'd love to get mine to even give me so much as an error message letting me know it's there!

Thanks again...

So, an update on my situation...

I returned the Seagate external eSATA drive and order a 400gb Cavalry eSATA/USB drive from Newegg. Got the drive, did all the right stuff, plugged it in, nada. Rebooted the 8300, reconnect, etc. etc., still nothing.

I am now convinced that it's the 8300HD and the eSATA port on the box is not active. Two separate eSATA HDD's have failed to produce anything so much as an error message. The box is just not seeing the external drives.

It's frustrating, because on the San Diego HDTV forums there are others who have 8300HD's from Cox and have successfully added external eSATA drives. Is there anyway to activate the eSATA port? Should I tell Cox to just send me a new 8300HD and hope the new one works?

Thanks Dave. Do you know if the Seagate or other external hard drives usually come with a type I connector?

Anybody else have any suggestions? Any obvious troubleshooting things I missed (besides making sure the drive itself works, though I doubt that's the issue)? Other people are using the 8300HD running SARA from Cox with this Seagate external drive with no issues, and I'd love to get mine to even give me so much as an error message letting me know it's there!

Thanks again...
Plug everything together and power up both the 8300 and the external drive - the order is not important. Now simply power off and back on only the external drive - leaving everything connected. The 8300 should recognize the drive with some such message about formatting the drive. Reply yes.

Hello, all:

I just acquired and installed an Apricorn DVR Xpander 500, which includes a 500GB HD, enclosure and eSATA cable for US$199. I was a little leery because my SA 8300HD was supplied by a local (rural) cable operator, not one of the biggies (Time Warner, Comcast, etc.). When I called the operator, Guadelupe Valley Telecom Coop (GVTC), they presumed it wasn't possible to attach an add-on drive so they couldn't suggest one.

I checked the firmware on the 8300 (SARA 1.88.24.2) and since it wasn't Passport I reckoned I'd give it a try. The Apricorn turnkey product came with a simple set of instructions -- the same as we've seen in this thread. I followed them and my available storage went from 74% to 16%! The only difference between the instructions and real life was that the 8300 didn't confirm that it had formatted the new drive until I power-cycled it again.

In addition, I can pause/rewind/FF live TV with the new drive. Apparently that issue is specific to Time Warner.

Yes, I might have been able to save a couple bucks cobbling together a DIY system, but total time from "open box" to "660GB Storage" was about 15 minutes (mostly waiting on the 8300). If you have a cable operator that you haven't read about here, 1) verify that the firmware version of your system is compatible and 2) make sure you can return whatever drive you get.

In addition, I can pause/rewind/FF live TV with the new drive. Apparently that issue is specific to Time Warner.Kev, This issue is specific to Passport (which only relatively recently added ANY external HD capability). TW has both SARA and Passport systems.

Argh. I should've done a little more Google searching to discover that nobody has gotten a Seagate FreeAgent Pro external drive to work with the 8300HD. It doesn't even detect it.

Comcast, Southern New Jersey, SARA 1.88.25.1

I'll update the database to warn others too.

500GB Maxtor (7H500F0 model) with SABRENT EC-ESTS eSATA enclosure working 100% fine still for over a week now. I have it mostly full, HD recordings while 2 HD's are recording work perfectly for playback, and it cost just $130 shipped for everything (I had an I to L connector cable already, since the enclosure is an L-type and the SA8300HD needs an I type). 660GB total, tons of space and enjoying it a lot :)... thanks to all who made this thread. I have it on a Comcast SA8300HD in CT.

So I ended up buying the external 500GB Seagate hard drive and connected it last night to my SA 8300HD (Cablevision NY-Westchester). After rebooting the box, a message asked me whether i wanted to format the external HD, said yes and the formatting started. I think the formatting only takes less than a minute looking at the LED activity on the Seagate. No message after that. Rebooted the DVR and it recognized the drive. My used space went from 76% to 11%, positively awesome!

This morning, something weird happened, however. My wife turned the Seagate on FIRST (I had turned it off for the night) and the DVR SECOND but then a message appeared saying "the DVR needs to be reset to be used with the external drive, this will take 2 minutes". After rebooting the DVR, another message said "wait 10 seconds after disconnecting the DVR before disconnecting the external drive". the DVR seems to work fine now but I don't recall reading about this sequence of events in the thread. Anyone had the same experience? Could it be related to the fact that the Seagate was off and the DVR needed time to recognize it? Do most people leave their drive on all the time?

If anyone is looking for an external Seagate drive, I bought mine for $151.59 from theNerds.Net. The box came in 48hrs, no problem. Thanks to everyone on this thread for the valuable info and a special thanks to Dave Hancock, raidbuck, and pepar for helping me understand the difference between L1 vs type I Sata connectors.

Anyone had the same experience? Could it be related to the fact that the Seagate was off and the DVR needed time to recognize it? Do most people leave their drive on all the time?


Leave the drive on all the time.

xnappo

This morning, something weird happened, however. My wife turned the Seagate on FIRST (I had turned it off for the night)


You don't need to turn it off every night. I've had mine on the entire time for almost a year now with no problems. Also leave PC's on full 24/7 with no issues with no power save setup except to turn off the monitors.

You don't need to turn it off every night. I've had mine on the entire time for almost a year now with no problems. Also leave PC's on full 24/7 with no issues with no power save setup except to turn off the monitors.
I've had mine (my enclosure has a fan) on 24/7 for two years with no problems.

I have done some searching here, but can't find the info I thought was here: if you add an external SATA drive to your 8300, and you have PASSPORT software on the DVR, does it disable the ability to pause, FF, REW live TV? As much as I need more storage (I mean, I can hardly record one HD movie without getting rid of everything else I have on there now - slight exaggeration), this would be a deal breaker for me, given that my family and I use this function all the time.

I want more storage but don't want to pay money for another 8300. TW gets enough of my paycheck as it is.

I live in NYC, have Time-Warner, and consequently suffer. :)

Yes. Passporters call it "trick play", but I believe it is only disabled when a recording is going to the external drive. I'm sure pepar or someone will correct that if needed.

I have a 3250HD and my local cable company is Time Warner. Friends of mine have added an external hard drive to increase recording time but have lost the setup instructions and I was referred to AVS to which I am brand new. Can you help me to find the setup instructions for the 3250HD external drive? Does it have to be a SATA drive?

Well, my 500GB external Seagate HDD just died on me, what a bummer...The DVR stopped recognizing it so I looked at it and the hard drive just stopped spinning, just dead. Unreal, I had Seagate products before in computers, never had a problem. Have to call customer service now to see what the deal is with a replacement. I was so enjoying the extra capacity!

I have a 3250HD and my local cable company is Time Warner. Friends of mine have added an external hard drive to increase recording time but have lost the setup instructions and I was referred to AVS to which I am brand new. Can you help me to find the setup instructions for the 3250HD external drive? Does it have to be a SATA drive?

The SA3250HD is an STB only. No DVR. What your friends have is the SA8300HD-DVR. It has a SATA port for expansion drives. Both devices have firewire (IEEE 1394) ports designed to offload content to a D-VHS tape deck, but TWC has taken care of that by disabling them at the firmware/software level so they no longer work. Thanks TWC! :rolleyes:

You need to "trade in" your 3250 for an 8300 if you want DVR functions, as well as the ability to add an expansion drive.

Yes. Passporters call it "trick play", but I believe it is only disabled when a recording is going to the external drive. I'm sure pepar or someone will correct that if needed.
That is correct. Every now and then, the feature will return but disappear again just as mysteriously. I've never been curious enough to delve into it, but my *assumption* is that it is depends on which drive is being used. I've never been curious enough because, other than Today in the mornings and CNN at other times, we watch no live TV. Everything is recorded for time-shifting (and commercial-avoidance) purposes.

"Trick play" has to do with where the buffer is being written. If it is written to the external drive, you get the bug. If it's writing to the internal drive, you don't get it. The speculation of it magically working again probably is because the internal drive has more space than external (i.e. external is fairly full and you watch a delete some stuff that had been on the internal drive), the buffer would revert to the internal drive.

Just plugged in an external drive to my TWC 8300HD. It recognized it and formatted OK. Problem is that I am getting a lot of pixelation and sound breaks. I disconnected the drive and it seemed to go away. Any suggestions? BTW, the cable that came with the eSATA drive was esata on both ends. I thought I was going to have to get another with different ends as described in the early posts here, but it fit and works. Don't knwo if an "L" connector would affect the performance on not.

Just plugged in an external drive to my TWC 8300HD. It recognized it and formatted OK. Problem is that I am getting a lot of pixelation and sound breaks. I disconnected the drive and it seemed to go away. Any suggestions? BTW, the cable that came with the eSATA drive was esata on both ends. I thought I was going to have to get another with different ends as described in the early posts here, but it fit and works. Don't knwo if an "L" connector would affect the performance on not.

Seriously, how are we supposed to tell you ANYTHING with that info?

What is your location?
What software?
What case?
What drive?

xnappo

:eek: :cool: post deleted

Thanks for the warm welcome! Is this supposed to encourage people to participate in this forum?

Anyway, the drive is a "Beyond Micro" 250 GB eSATA from Tiger Direct. I don't know what the internal drive is. It's got 8MB, and runs at 7200 RPM. The OS on the DVR is Passport, and I'm located in Raleigh, NC. I cannot post a link to the catalog with a pix, but you can see it on the Tiger Direct site.

Don't knwo if an "L" connector would affect the performance on not.The connector configuration only relates to it's fitting. It sounds like your cable is type "I" on both ends and fit. As Xnappo says, we need more info to be able to help.

FWIW - According to Tiger Direct, the ATA drive itself is Samsung.

Hello:
I got a good deal on a coolmax esata & USB.2.0 enclosure, does anyone have any experience with this brand, also is there a lot of difference between the 8Mb and 16Mb cache size do I really need to get the 16Mb HDD

THANKS!

Rogers Cable, SA8300HD running SARA.

I have a 500 GB Western Digital WD5000AAKS in a Vantec NexStar3 NST-360SU-BL external enclosure.

On April 19th, the PVR and the enclosure lost contact with each other. Hard reboot resolved the problem. Same thing happened again on the 23rd. Basically every 3 or 4 days I need to hard boot my PVR in order for the devices to keep talking. This combo works great when the two devices talk.

Any idea what the issue could be? Bad/incorrect enclosure? Bad Sata to eSata cable?

FWIW - According to Tiger Direct, the ATA drive itself is Samsung.

I don't think anyone has any experience with that drive/enclosure combo. If you are sure the cables are all secure I would try to return it and buy something with a high level of success from the database(s) in my sig.

xnappo

Just wanted to report a successful HD addition to my SA8300HD. Thank you to the many users here at AVS, especially those that take the time to help others.

My 8300HD is using Sara Version 1.88.25.1, I am a Comcast customer in southern NH (formally adelphia).

I used a Western Digital WD5000AAKS in a Apricorn EZ Bus DTS EKit. I saw this combo reported as working with Comcast service several times in the Sara database.

The drive went into the enclosure easily, although the internal wire had to be twisted up some to get it to fit back into the case with the HD.

I simply followed the instructions listed several times in this thread. Unplug 8300HD, plug in Sata connector from HD, power up HD enclosure, power up 8300HD.

After 8300hd finishes boot-up, it displayed a message asking if I wanted the drive formatted. After answering "yes", message went away. No other indication is given that drive formatting is complete. I did check the space available at this point and it indicated that the drive was not yet recognized. I waited about 5 minutes, unplugged 8300hd and then powered it back up to reboot. After reboot was complete, I checked my hard drive space available to determine if the drive was recognized. My usage had gone from about 50% to 9%, so I knew I had a working expansion HD. I did not get a message after the second reboot "drive ready to use" as was mentioned in another post, but this may be due to different Sara versions.

I highly recommend using a combo drive/enclosure reported as working with your cable provider to increase your chance of success.

One comment about the Apricorn enclosure is that the fan definitly is not silent. Neither is the 8300HD for that matter, but since the enclosure fan is always on you will always here it unless you have it in a cabinet of some kind.

In case anyone reading this happens to know, is there a way to quiet the 8300HD some? Has anyone opened the case to put rubber grommets on the HD screws or used any other method to quiet the box down, maybe replaced the stock fan with a better one. I'm not saying my unit is loud, just makes more background noise that my tivo.

Thanks again for all the input around here. Big help.

Rick
NH

One comment about the Apricorn enclosure is that the fan definitly is not silent. Neither is the 8300HD for that matter, but since the enclosure fan is always on you will always here it unless you have it in a cabinet of some kind.

In case anyone reading this happens to know, is there a way to quiet the 8300HD some? Has anyone opened the case to put rubber grommets on the HD screws or used any other method to quiet the box down, maybe replaced the stock fan with a better one. I'm not saying my unit is loud, just makes more background noise that my tivo.

Thanks again for all the input around here. Big help.

Rick
NH

The 8300 doesn't have a fan; not sure where you're coming from...? The Apricorn enclosure does, however, and you're right about it being annoying. I plan on disconnecting its fan when I get the chance. IMO, it's not needed.

The 8300 doesn't have a fan; not sure where you're coming from...? The Apricorn enclosure does, however, and you're right about it being annoying. I plan on disconnecting its fan when I get the chance. IMO, it's not needed.
Let us know how that goes. My Apricorn enclosure is behind me where the projector and all the equipment is, and its fan is actually more noticeable than the projector's!

But I'm just happy it works. Getting that Seagate FreeAgent Pro was a mistake, but at least my Western Digital + Apricorn enclosure works. Woohoo!

Let us know how that goes. My Apricorn enclosure is behind me where the projector and all the equipment is, and its fan is actually more noticeable than the projector's!

But I'm just happy it works. Getting that Seagate FreeAgent Pro was a mistake, but at least my Western Digital + Apricorn enclosure works. Woohoo!

If you don't mind, could you put your 'success' entry in to the database too? It is really getting to the point where the data says that combination is almost sure to succeed.

Thanks,
xnappo

It looks like it must have been a problem with the TWC service...it's working well now...no more pixelation. There was a small problem of the drive going into "Standby" last night, but I need to get more data on that one before I bother you again.

Thanks, guys!

To the noobs; it's a real good idea to put location, STB, service provider, and STB software rev into your sig. ALL of that info is really critical for those who might offer help/suggestions. Look to guys like xnappo and I for examples.

Now about the 8300HD and noise. Yes it does NOT have a fan, so what you hear is the "ticking" of the internal drive. Generally speaking, you will hear this even when the unit it off, because each of the 2 tuners is actually writing to their respective buffers. However, you CAN do something. Generally speaking, it seems the VOD channels do not buffer. If you set each tuner to a VOD channel, you will find the 8300 dead silent.

Nm

Now about the 8300HD and noise. Yes it does NOT have a fan, so what you hear is the "ticking" of the internal drive. Generally speaking, you will hear this even when the unit it off, because each of the 2 tuners is actually writing to their respective buffers. However, you CAN do something. Generally speaking, it seems the VOD channels do not buffer. If you set each tuner to a VOD channel, you will find the 8300 dead silent.

Or any of the music channels, I believe.

Or any of the music channels, I believe.They are worth a shot, but some have reported that they do buffer on some cable systems in some markets, so they may not work as a solution.

I just bought the Cavalry 500GB (CAXM37500) eSATA for $119 from buy.com (after rebate), hooked it up to the SA8300HD and booted both up, the display on the STB went through a Hex listing down to 0 and then it booted up and said it said it was going to format the drive. However, it didn't show the space added to the STB. So I restarted the STB and then plugged the drive in and within 15 seconds it said that it's able to use it and to restart the STB if I disconnect it. Whole process took about 10 minutes max.

I haven't tested much more than record a show and watch it (no issues)...I'll have to do more testing...

The HD in it is a Western Digital (Caviar SE16 WD5000AAKS). Only issue was the HD was loose inside the case, so I had to re-attach it to the the Sata board and re-tighten the screws...so I guess I can live with that if the drive lasts!

I am not currently running the fan in the unit, but I might, I just hate the little bit added noise it creates.

I searched this thread for "defrag" and noticed some people were proposing to connect their external drives to a PC and defragment it, while others noted that since the file system is proprietary, that would not be possible.

Has it been established that the 8300HD does not defrag the external drive during downtime as it does the internal drive?

Has it been established that the 8300HD does not defrag the external drive during downtime as it does the internal drive?

I don't think it's been established that the 8300 HDD ever gets defragged. We've had discussions on that and some suggest that because the files are extremely large, there is not the fragmentation that occurs during typical computer usage, thus no need for defragmentation. To my knowledge, it's never been conclusively proven one way or the other.

Yes, it can defrag the drives when not in use. It does it by volume, so it should be be defragging both drives, but there are no diagnostics to either prove or disprove that theory. Defragging can be manually initiated if you can setup your STB to power up to non-buffered channels. I will get both tuners to not buffer, then do a reset and let it sit for the night (or day). After about 15 minutes, it will start chunking in a cycle as it moves data around the drive(s). See the tips and tricks thread for more.

vegggas

Or any of the music channels, I believe.
They do buffer on my local system -- TWC-NYC. On our system, you have to tune to a VOD channel (well, one on each of the 2 tuners) to stop the buffering.

Yes, it can defrag the drives when not in use. It does it by volume, so it should be be defragging both drives, but there are no diagnostics to either prove or disprove that theory. Defragging can be manually initiated if you can setup your STB to power up to non-buffered channels. I will get both tuners to not buffer, then do a reset and let it sit for the night (or day). After about 15 minutes, it will start chunking in a cycle as it moves data around the drive(s). See the tips and tricks thread for more.

vegggas
You have observed this on SARA or Passport?

Scott, with several SARA specific threads lised in his sig, I daresay it's SARA.

Yes, it *might* be the only thing about SARA that could make Passporters envious. :)

I am posting to give a working example in San Diego for TWC.
I used a Segate 300GB external HD pn ST3300601XS-RK from pcmall item #7118780 for $110.

I am in San Diego with TWC and Passport 2.6.002

First time It came back on it told me the drive wasn’t working properly, so i just turned off the dirve and tried again–the next time it asked to format after a minute or so and is working great so far.
I used the cable that came with the drive.
Current total space is 407BG.

Anyone have an External drive working in the Time Warner Syracuse/Rome/Utica (Central New York) Market? I talked with a TWC rep today and they couldn't confirm whether or not the port was active or disabled. They claim the 1394 port will work for one way communications. When I get a chance I'll go grab the software version and post the pertinent info. I'm assuming whether or not this will work is dependent upon the software.

Anyone have an External drive working in the Time Warner Syracuse/Rome/Utica (Central New York) Market? I talked with a TWC rep today and they couldn't confirm whether or not the port was active or disabled. Typical cable company response to the eSATA port (actually, they usually say that they "don't support it"). Anyway, YES, there have been several reports on our local HDTV site of the drive working in the Central NY area. Just check Xnappo's database for what works. :)

Yes, it *might* be the only thing about SARA that could make Passporters envious. :)Well, we don't have a "trick play" problem, but I know that doesn't affect you since you only watch recorded content. :)

Typical cable company response to the eSATA port (actually, they usually say that they "don't support it"). Anyway, YES, there have been several reports on our local HDTV site of the drive working in the Central NY area. Just check Xnappo's database for what works. :)

Xnappo's database? Where is that? I Googled, but the only results I got were AVS posts. Thanks for the help.

Xnappo's database? Where is that? I Googled, but the only results I got were AVS posts. Thanks for the help.He's a frequent poster here and the link to his database is in his signature.

Anyway, here is the link: Xnappo's Database (http://baseportal.com/cgi-bin/baseportal.pl?htx=/xnappo/main)

I looked in Xnappo's Database and didn't see any listings for Charter (bad sign?). I'm wanting to hook a Seagate ST3500601XS-RK 500GB eSATA (have not bought it yet) up to my SA8300 (non HD). I have seen examples of success with earlier software levels than mine and this drive with other providers in the database. Do the software upgrades come from SA and are simply installed by the provider in which case the right software level and drive combo should work regardless of provider or does the provider matter also (in other words do I have a good shot at this combo even though no Charter mentions in the Database)?

My info: Charter Newtown CT, SA Explorer 8300, SARA 1.89.20.1

(in other words do I have a good shot at this combo even though no Charter mentions in the Database)?

Provider doesn't matter. I think your chances are pretty good. Let us know, and add to the database either way!

xnappo

Well, I took a deep breath and took the plunge, adding a Seagate external eSATA hard drive to my 8300. Picked the Seagate because it has an ultraquiet fan and people have reported that it works with Passport. Took it out of the box, hooked it up, rebooted the 8300 (unplugging it) and plugged it in. It gave me a message saying that drive was not responding properly, but when I unplugged the drive, it said "Drive Disconnected" - reboot. Anyway, the diagnostic screen showed that the DVR was not recognizing this drive -- and I rebooted about seven or eight times, trying the drive plugged in during reboot, not plugged in, etc.. I was about to give up when I held the eSATA cable leading into the external drive firmly to make sure it was connected securely and all of a sudden the hard drive started clicking and the pop-up came up asking me to format it. Since then it has worked perfectly. Two days in -- we'll see how it goes. Seagate's documentation suggests that if the drive is not recognized, you should try connecting it with a new eSATA cable, so perhaps their cable (which came with the drive) is not the best. I'm worried that if the cable gets nudged the tiniest amount the connection will fail, but everything's working fine for the time being. After a month I'll report back.

I have to say I probably overdid it by getting 500 GB instead of a 300. I was so starved for space, what with my daughter seeming to record EVERY program on the Disney channel and wanting to be able to keep a number of HD movies on the drive that I went whole hog. The internal drive on the 8300 holds 148 GB and now I'm only up to 190 GB.

Another observation: regarding the famous PASSPORT bug disabling "trick play", sometimes I can pause live TV that I am not recording and unpause it without any trouble. ( I don't think this is because the buffer was being written to the internal drive, because the internal drive should be full.) FF and REW do not work unless I start recording the show I'm watching, however.

I had added my equipment to my profile, but not my sig, so I thought I'd correct it. (BTW, when you go to edit your signature, what's with the warning "NOTE...Do not list equipment in your signature." Isn't it most helpful to have this info in your sig?)

I have to say I probably overdid it by getting 500 GB instead of a 300. I was so starved for space, what with my daughter seeming to record EVERY program on the Disney channel and wanting to be able to keep a number of HD movies on the drive that I went whole hog. The internal drive on the 8300 holds 148 GB and now I'm only up to 190 GB.
If you record a lot of movies - quasi-archive them for viewing "whenever" and/or decide to record an entire new season of multiple shows to (re-)watch them in order, you may yet see the wisdom of more vs. less.

Another observation: regarding the famous PASSPORT bug disabling "trick play", sometimes I can pause live TV that I am not recording and unpause it without any trouble. ( I don't think this is because the buffer was being written to the internal drive, because the internal drive should be full.) FF and REW do not work unless I start recording the show I'm watching, however.
The bug is not that you can't pause live TV, it's that you can't rewind and play from some earlier point. It is also that, after pausing and hitting play, it begins live with you missing everything that happened during pause. Short pause and you might not discern the lost time; do it for a few minutes and you'll easily spot it.

Congrats and welcome to the eSATA Expanded Storage Club! You will soon be receiving information on the secret handshake.

I had added my equipment to my profile, but not my sig, so I thought I'd correct it. (BTW, when you go to edit your signature, what's with the warning "NOTE...Do not list equipment in your signature." Isn't it most helpful to have this info in your sig?)Some folks in other forums (HDTVoice is one) add a laundry list of every piece of electronics they own and in many posts the signature is significantly larger than the post itself. While AVS doesn't allow that, they either don't police it (since there is a character limit) or they've simply allowed us to add the needed info to minimize the number of times we have to ask before we can give accurate answers to questions. You'll notice that most of us keep it to a single line, but I've seem sigs elsewhere with 10 lines or more.

Some folks in other forums (HDTVoice is one) add a laundry list of every piece of electronics they own and in many posts the signature is significantly larger than the post itself. While AVS doesn't allow that, they either don't police it (since there is a character limit) or they've simply allowed us to add the needed info to minimize the number of times we have to ask before we can give accurate answers to questions. You'll notice that most of us keep it to a single line, but I've seem sigs elsewhere with 10 lines or more.
I think they intend for us to use the Public Profile feature available when a member left-clicks on our member name to the left of our posts. I'm sure it's universally unused - both by the profile owner and the other membership.

The bug is ... that after pausing and hitting play, it begins live with you missing everything that happened during pause.
I find the bug is that when you hit Pause, it pauses, and when you hit play, it plays from the point where you paused, but (and here comes the buggy part) if you hit LiveTV it will not jump forward to the live feed. You are stuck in a delayed feed, and the only way to get back to the live feed is to change channels and then change back to the channel.

Passport w/ esata of course

I find the bug is that when you hit Pause, it pauses, and when you hit play, it plays from the point where you paused . .
Did you try pausing a longer time - say 3-4 minutes - so that whatever's happening "live" would be noticeably different from the paused point? If you truly can pause and resume from the paused point, can you rewind or fast forward from there?

edit: Except for pay-per-view and music channels (any others?), we are never watching live; it is always buffered.

Some folks in other forums (HDTVoice is one) add a laundry list of every piece of electronics they own and in many posts the signature is significantly larger than the post itself. While AVS doesn't allow that, they either don't police it (since there is a character limit) or they've simply allowed us to add the needed info to minimize the number of times we have to ask before we can give accurate answers to questions. You'll notice that most of us keep it to a single line, but I've seem sigs elsewhere with 10 lines or more.

Or how about those boards that allow all manner of graphics in the sig? And having them animated!

But my favorite is boards tha have tons and tons of smilies AND do shoutcast where you have 90% of the page taken up by them with three-five words of actual content.

I added an external drive to my 8300hd but at least daily, I get an error stating that "the DVR needs to be reset to be used with the external drive, this will take 2 minutes". After rebooting the DVR, another message said "wait 10 seconds after disconnecting the DVR before disconnecting the external drive". After the reboot, everything is ok and I can see the extra space. But this error is cropping up almost daily sometimes in the middle of watching something off the dvr.

Any suggestions?

Hey Everyone,

I've had an external SATA drive attached to my 8300HD for some time now. I'm interested in upsizing the 160GB drive I put in there when I first did it.

Is there any way anyone has found to copy the material on the drive over to my new drive so that I don't loose anything I've recorded.

I scanned back in the thread a bit, but couldn't find anything.

Thanks!

Hey Everyone,

I've had an external SATA drive attached to my 8300HD for some time now. I'm interested in upsizing the 160GB drive I put in there when I first did it.

Is there any way anyone has found to copy the material on the drive over to my new drive so that I don't loose anything I've recorded.

I scanned back in the thread a bit, but couldn't find anything.

Thanks!

Can't do it. The data on that drive can only be read from the original DVR that recorded it and it can't be moved to another drive. I don't know why you can't "clone" the drive to a new drive in a computer - since it's a bit-for-bit perfect copy, it shouldn't matter. But other posters say it can't be done.

We've been discussing the option of swapping it out for another drive. I believe that will work just fine. What you need to do is to make a list of everything that's on your recordings list. Then, when you attach a clean new drive, go through your recordings list to see what will play. The ones that won't are on your other drive. They'll play when you connect it back up. The ones you recorded on your new drive will show up too (everything shows up on the list as it's created and stored on the internal drive).

Give it a shot and let us know how it goes!

archiguy,

I'm not sure that is EXACTLY what others have said or tried. You definitely can't clone it to play on another DVR. I admit I don't know much about cloning drives, but is it even possible to go from 160G to say 500G via cloning? Even if it is, it still seems better to go with your recommendation and simply get another SATA drive/case and swap when needed.

If you could image a 160GB drive onto something larger, the "something larger" may then have only 160GB of space. Based on Paul Liu's posts, at least swapping has a chance.

If you could image a 160GB drive onto something larger, the "something larger" may then have only 160GB of space.

How can that be? If you image a "full" 160 GB drive onto a new 500 GB drive, it should obviously then have 340 GB free. But something tells me there's more than common sense at work here. :confused:

Seems to be alot of activity here. I'm going to be experimenting soon with an eSATA drive and I'll post my results.

In the meantime, if everyone would check out our website www.UticaHDTV.com and sign our petition to help allow competition into the marketplace, it would be a big boost. Thanks!

How can that be? If you image a "full" 160 GB drive onto a new 500 GB drive, it should obviously then have 340 GB free. But something tells me there's more than common sense at work here. :confused:Like I said, I don't know much about cloning, but if you take a 160G image and put it on a larger drive, you still have a 160G image. I'm sure in the PC/MAC world there are partition utilities that can recover the extra capacity, but we're not talking a PC with such utilities on the 8300 and the format used on the 8300 is proprietary, isn't it?

Like I said, I don't know much about cloning, but if you take a 160G image and put it on a larger drive, you still have a 160G image. I'm sure in the PC/MAC world there are partition utilities that can recover the extra capacity, but we're not talking a PC with such utilities on the 8300 and the format used on the 8300 is proprietary, isn't it?
That's precisely what I meant! Imaging is different from copying. There's a "ghost" of a chance there's a way to move content by imaging - file structure, encryption, etc. And unlikely, IMO, that there's a way to copy content.

I'm on BHN in Orlando with an SA8300HD on Passport Echo V2.6.002. I just purchased a Western Digital My Book Premium ES external hard drive (500GB, model WD5000F032) and connected it to the 8300HD using an eSATA-to-eSATA cable purchased from monoprice (actually bought two cables from them). I've tried several variations (found in this thread) for connecting it to the 8300HD (including rebooting several times), and the DVR still does not see the drive. The most I've been able to get it to see is disconnecting the drive error in diagnosticsm, so it would seem to know something is there, but not getting very far. I've tested the drive on my PC and it would appear to be working fine (at least WD Diagnostics thinks so).

Anyone tried this combo and have it working?

I just got this drive (I had a credit and this was the only affordable eSATA they offered). Unfortuately, I searched here after I bought it.

I looked at all the messages, only a few, and don't see that anyone got this drive to work. I can't return it, and I don't need any more hard drive space, so I'd like to get it to work. Do I have any hope?

I tried all the suggestions in this forum and on SA web site, and only get the "The external recording device is not functioning properly" message. When the 8300HD reboots it talks to the drive, judging by the drive access light, and if I hot disconnect, I get the disconnect warning message, but I never get the format message.

Thanks for any help.

I tried all the suggestions in this forum and on SA web site, and only get the "The external recording device is not functioning properly" message. When the 8300HD reboots it talks to the drive, judging by the drive access light, and if I hot disconnect, I get the disconnect warning message, but I never get the format message.

Thanks for any help.

I think your best bet is to try to take the drive itself out of the case and try another case (that you can hopefully return if it still doesn't work).

xnappo

Last ditch effort for any more suggestions...

I posted a couple pages back about my inability to get my 8300HD to recognize any external eSATA harddrives. I'm on COX Cable in San Diego, and I know for sure that others are doing fine with their 8300HD's and external drives out here.

I've now tried the Seagate External 300GB eSATA drive, and now a Caviar 400GB external eSATA. Neither one failed to garner so much as an error message from my cable box.

I've eliminated bad cables or bad drives as possibilities. I know for sure others are successful here in San Diego with the same equipment (including that Seagate drive). I've tried hot-swapping, unplugging everything, pretty much every combination of plugging in and powering up you could think of. And, again, I never get ANY response from the 8300HD -- every instruction says I'll be prompted to format or get an error message prior to the "BOOT" sequence starting, but it always goes straight to boot.

So, before I return this second drive, any last thoughts? At this point, I'm convinced it HAS to be an inactive eSATA port on the 8300HD. I suppose I could ask COX to swap out my 8300HD for a different one, but then I'd lose everything I've recorded already.

Any last suggestions for activating my eSATA port or anything else before I return the drive and head out to buy a DVD-recorder to assuage my full hard drive?

Thanks in advance...

Last ditch effort for any more suggestions...

I posted a couple pages back about my inability to get my 8300HD to recognize any external eSATA harddrives. I'm on COX Cable in San Diego, and I know for sure that others are doing fine with their 8300HD's and external drives out here.

I've now tried the Seagate External 300GB eSATA drive, and now a Caviar 400GB external eSATA. Neither one failed to garner so much as an error message from my cable box.

I've eliminated bad cables or bad drives as possibilities. I know for sure others are successful here in San Diego with the same equipment (including that Seagate drive). I've tried hot-swapping, unplugging everything, pretty much every combination of plugging in and powering up you could think of. And, again, I never get ANY response from the 8300HD -- every instruction says I'll be prompted to format or get an error message prior to the "BOOT" sequence starting, but it always goes straight to boot.

So, before I return this second drive, any last thoughts? At this point, I'm convinced it HAS to be an inactive eSATA port on the 8300HD. I suppose I could ask COX to swap out my 8300HD for a different one, but then I'd lose everything I've recorded already.

Any last suggestions for activating my eSATA port or anything else before I return the drive and head out to buy a DVD-recorder to assuage my full hard drive?

Thanks in advance...
Did you ever post your software and version?

Did you ever post your software and version?

Yes, thanks for reminding me because I didn't reiterate it in this last post. I'm running SARA at the latest version (1.89.something ... not home right now to check).

Hi - I have been reading page after page of this amazing thread! Do you know if the SATA works with the time warner cable 8300HD's in NYC? One of the sites that sells these external SATA's says it does not. I looked on Xnappo's db but did not find any info about this.

Thank you!

Hi - I have been reading page after page of this amazing thread! Do you know if the SATA works with the time warner cable 8300HD's in NYC? One of the sites that sells these external SATA's says it does not. I looked on Xnappo's db but did not find any info about this.

Thank you!You didn't say it (you should add it to your signature - cause it is important) if you were on SARA or Passport. Being NYC, I'll guess it is Passport. The ability to add an external drive is relatively new to Passport, so some of the sites may not have been updated to reflect this.

Also Xnappo has two databases - one for SARA and one for Passport. Here is the link for Passport. (http://baseportal.com/cgi-bin/baseportal.pl?htx=/xnappo/passport)

Last ditch effort for any more suggestions...

I posted a couple pages back about my inability to get my 8300HD to recognize any external eSATA harddrives. I'm on COX Cable in San Diego, and I know for sure that others are doing fine with their 8300HD's and external drives out here.

I've now tried the Seagate External 300GB eSATA drive, and now a Caviar 400GB external eSATA. Neither one failed to garner so much as an error message from my cable box.

I've eliminated bad cables or bad drives as possibilities. I know for sure others are successful here in San Diego with the same equipment (including that Seagate drive). I've tried hot-swapping, unplugging everything, pretty much every combination of plugging in and powering up you could think of. And, again, I never get ANY response from the 8300HD -- every instruction says I'll be prompted to format or get an error message prior to the "BOOT" sequence starting, but it always goes straight to boot.

So, before I return this second drive, any last thoughts? At this point, I'm convinced it HAS to be an inactive eSATA port on the 8300HD. I suppose I could ask COX to swap out my 8300HD for a different one, but then I'd lose everything I've recorded already.

Any last suggestions for activating my eSATA port or anything else before I return the drive and head out to buy a DVD-recorder to assuage my full hard drive?
If you've connected everything with neither piece powered and then turned on the ext drive and then the 8300HD without the drive being recognized AND hot-plugged the two without the drive being recognized AND eliminated bad data and power cables AND futzed endlessly to be sure the connections were solid, I can't think of anything else except for a defective 89300HD.

Did you try pausing a longer time - say 3-4 minutes - so that whatever's happening "live" would be noticeably different from the paused point? If you truly can pause and resume from the paused point, can you rewind or fast forward from there?
Yes, the pause is for enough time so it is easily distinguishable from the live feed. Yes, the resume play resumes from the paused point. No, Rewind and Fastforward do not work. No, when hitting LiveTV it does not jump forward to the live feed. The only way to get to the live feed is to switch channels and then switch back to the channel.

I invite you to try it and see if you have the same results.

Passport with esata of course

Yes, the pause is for enough time so it is easily distinguishable from the live feed. Yes, the resume play resumes from the paused point. No, Rewind and Fastforward do not work. No, when hitting LiveTV it does not jump forward to the live feed. The only way to get to the live feed is to switch channels and then switch back to the channel.

I invite you to try it and see if you have the same results.

Passport with esata of course
Right now, I *can* pause, rewind and fast forward (to the "live" point) live TV which, by our current wisdom, means there is more empty space on the internal drive than the external drive, and live buffering is being done internally.

If you've connected everything with neither piece powered and then turned on the ext drive and then the 8300HD without the drive being recognized AND hot-plugged the two without the drive being recognized AND eliminated bad data and power cables AND futzed endlessly to be sure the connections were solid, I can't think of anything else except for a defective 89300HD.

Well, poop. I figure that's the case, but like I said, swapping out the 8300HD means I lose all my programs. I'm hoping someone knows some magical way to activate the eSATA port or something. Thanks for the response...

Well, poop. I figure that's the case, but like I said, swapping out the 8300HD means I lose all my programs. I'm hoping someone knows some magical way to activate the eSATA port or something. Thanks for the response...
I don't think it's a matter of "activating" the eSATA port as I believe the ports are all activated these days. More likely, you just have a bad box.

There's no magic, it's availabe in the core OS. It sounds like your eSATA port is physically damaged, like a physical serial port on a PC can be damaged. Maybe a previous San Diegan tried to connect an unknown device to the port, damaged it, then returned it for the next victim.

vegggas

batpig: Before swapping the box and losing your content, try some more futzing with the connections to the external drive, both from the external enclosure to the 8300HD AND the connections INSIDE the external enclosure.

Or get a second DVR to try the external drive, while keeping the first. If it works, use the new one, and then keep the old one until you watch all the content you care about. Then decide to return it or not.

vegggas

There's no magic, it's availabe in the core OS. It sounds like your eSATA port is physically damaged, like a physical serial port on a PC can be damaged. Maybe a previous San Diegan tried to connect an unknown device to the port, damaged it, then returned it for the next victim.

vegggas

This comment interests me. Are you saying the eSATA driver is in PowerTV? Meaning that Passport, SARA and Navigator all have access to the same driver?

Thanks,
xnappo

Wow, this thread is huge.. and in the hopes to avoid creating another thread in this forum, I was hoping to ask a couple of questions, albeit they might have already been covered in this 160+ page thread, and I apologize for that.

I am currently living in San Diego, CA, and am looking to replace my Series2 TiVo with a SA8300HD HD-DVR. Obviously, since I am in this thread, I am interested in utilizing the eSATA port for additional recording space.

My question is this:
- Are only certain eSATA drives compatible, or can I purchase any eSATA drive and essentially plug & play for extra recording time?
- Are there any size limitations, for example: is a 750GB just as compatible as a 320GB eSATA drive?
- More specifically, would the Seagate Free Agent Pro Desktop 750 GB USB / eSATA External HD ST307504FPA1E2-RK work with the SA8300HD?

Thanks for all the help!

Wow, this thread is huge.. and in the hopes to avoid creating another thread in this forum, I was hoping to ask a couple of questions, albeit they might have already been covered in this 160+ page thread, and I apologize for that.

I am currently living in San Diego, CA, and am looking to replace my Series2 TiVo with a SA8300HD HD-DVR. Obviously, since I am in this thread, I am interested in utilizing the eSATA port for additional recording space.

My question is this:
- Are only certain eSATA drives compatible, or can I purchase any eSATA drive and essentially plug & play for extra recording time?
- Are there any size limitations, for example: is a 750GB just as compatible as a 320GB eSATA drive?
- More specifically, would the Seagate Free Agent Pro Desktop 750 GB USB / eSATA External HD ST307504FPA1E2-RK work with the SA8300HD?

Thanks for all the help!

Examine the database(s) in my sig... There are a few drives that don't work - definitely stay away from Seagate 7200.10 drives.

xnappo

Examine the database(s) in my sig... There are a few drives that don't work - definitely stay away from Seagate 7200.10 drives.
I just finished going through that, for the most part the "comments" are lacking any good information, some say it worked fine, and others say the same drive has glitches on HD content.

- Also, how do I know if my DVR is Sara or Passport? I haven't even ordered the SA8300HD yet from Cox, is that always either Sara or Passport?
- Is there a good list of "problem free" 500GB+ configurations?
- Is it preferred to buy an external enclosure + HD, or a manufactured external hard drive w/ enclosure?

- Also, how do I know if my DVR is Sara or Passport? I haven't even ordered the SA8300HD yet from Cox, is that always either Sara or Passport?
If the GUI looks like it is from 1987, it is SARA else it is Passport. I am pretty sure Cox in San Diego is using SARA (there are other ways to tell too, but I can't remember off the top of my head).

- Is there a good list of "problem free" 500GB+ configurations?

No, but from the database you can tell that this combo has great success:
Apricorn EZ Bus DTS EKit Western Digital Caviar SE16 WD5000AAKS

- Is it preferred to buy an external enclosure + HD, or a manufactured external hard drive w/ enclosure?
Personal preference. I prefer to know exactly what drive is in the enclosure.

xnappo

No, but from the database you can tell that this combo has great success:
Apricorn EZ Bus DTS EKit Western Digital Caviar SE16 WD5000AAKS
Perfect, this is a good place for me to start.

Thanks for your help, and I'll be sure to post here after I've attempted the install.

Perfect, this is a good place for me to start.

Thanks for your help, and I'll be sure to post here after I've attempted the install.

BTW - here is a picture of the SARA Guide:
http://gallery.avsforum.com/data/508/medium/sara_guide.JPG

And Passport:
http://gallery.avsforum.com/data/508/medium/passport_guide.JPG

xnappo

P.S. useful images for someone who can modify the first post of this and tips and tricks?

batpig: Before swapping the box and losing your content, try some more futzing with the connections to the external drive, both from the external enclosure to the 8300HD AND the connections INSIDE the external enclosure.

Or get a second DVR to try the external drive, while keeping the first. If it works, use the new one, and then keep the old one until you watch all the content you care about. Then decide to return it or not.

Thanks both for the good suggestions. I'll futz away a little more, and try opening the enclosure up and futzing in there.

The second DVR troubleshoot suggestion is a very good one. I'll give that a shot, still got 13 days before the drive has to be back at Newegg if I'm not gonna keep it.

Thanks again...

I have a follow-up question, based on a reply from a Cox customer service representative...

The Cox rep. says that if the eSATA drive is disconnected/reconnected, then all programming data will be erased:

In addition, if you move the (HD) DVR and unplug the SATA hard drive, it will reformat when it's reconnected and all programming will be lost.

This worries me somewhat, I was under the impression that the eSATA drive would only be re-formatted if it was moved to a DIFFERENT HD-DVR, not if it is simply unplugged from the eSATA port during a move or accidental disconnect.

Can anyone please clarify this? Will the drive re-format if it is simply disconnected (accidentally or intentionally), and then re-connected to the same HD-DVR?

Thanks in advance...

I have a follow-up question, based on a reply from a Cox customer service representative...

The Cox rep. says that if the eSATA drive is disconnected/reconnected, then all programming data will be erased:

This worries me somewhat, I was under the impression that the eSATA drive would only be re-formatted if it was moved to a DIFFERENT HD-DVR, not if it is simply unplugged from the eSATA port during a move or accidental disconnect.

Can anyone please clarify this? Will the drive re-format if it is simply disconnected (accidentally or intentionally), and then re-connected to the same HD-DVR?

Thanks in advance...
Another amazing "CSR-knows-diddly-but-speaks-authoritatively-anyway" story. "We" recommend that both the external drive and the 8300HD remain powered and connected all the time (8300HD can be turned off and still be "powered"), but from the posts here it seems rare that recordings are lost. It does happen, but I haven't seen a correlation between loss and what your CSR said. I lost my recordings on one of my 8300HD's one time after an extended power loss, but not on my other 8300HD or 8300.

There's no magic, it's availabe in the core OS.

This comment interests me. Are you saying the eSATA driver is in PowerTV? Meaning that Passport, SARA and Navigator all have access to the same driver?

Thanks,
xnappo
Yes, compatibility is in the core OS of PowerTV and works across all 8300 platforms. SARA and Passport create the GUI's to show the screens for the external drive and wether or not to allow memory utilization and resources to be used.

vegggas

I've got a Maxtor Quickview Expander that I just hooked up to my TiVo S3. TiVo is acknowledging the fact that it is hooked up I can see the increased HD space available but the Quickview is shouting out 8 flashing orange lights. I know it's not suppose to do that but I have no idea what it means and I cannot find anywhere on Seagates site any info on this. Does anyone still have their instruction sheet and can explain the 8 flashing light thing?

I've got a Maxtor Quickview Expander that I just hooked up to my TiVo S3. TiVo is acknowledging the fact that it is hooked up I can see the increased HD space available but the Quickview is shouting out 8 flashing orange lights. I know it's not suppose to do that but I have no idea what it means and I cannot find anywhere on Seagates site any info on this. Does anyone still have their instruction sheet and can explain the 8 flashing light thing?

Does the Tivo S3 now support eSATA?

Does the Tivo S3 now support eSATA?

Well, I can't say if they support it or not but we found out a way to get it to work.
'nuff said. The S3 has a special screen that comes on and says "your external hard drive is now connected." And my HD hours were increased from 32 to 71 hours with the Maxtor Quickview that I had hooked up on my SA 8300. However I'm uncomfortable about those 8 flashing lights so I think I'm going to get a different eSATA drive....Unless someone can tell me what those flashing lights mean.

Does the Tivo S3 now support eSATA?Better yet, do questions that have nothing to do with an SA8300 belong in an SA8300 thread?

Better yet, do questions that have nothing to do with an SA8300 belong in an SA8300 thread?

Well, they do when they concern eSATA that is made specifically for the SA 8300.

Well, they do when they concern eSATA that is made specifically for the SA 8300.

Ah, now I understand. Your original post should have said:

"I bought a Quickview Expander made for the SA8300 and am trying to use it with my TIVO S3. It seems to work - however the LEDs on the case are all flashing. Can someone using one with an SA8300 and Quickview Expander tell me if this is normal?"

Right?

xnappo

Does Apricorn still offer an eSATA enclosure without a bridge chipset? It looks like most of their current models now use a bridge chipset for USB output.

I'm looking for an enclosure with good ventilation and some acoustic insulation, but I don't want a bridge chipset. I want a straight SATA->eSATA connection without any extra processing.

Does Apricorn still offer an eSATA enclosure without a bridge chipset? It looks like most of their current models now use a bridge chipset for USB output.

I'm looking for an enclosure with good ventilation and some acoustic insulation, but I don't want a bridge chipset. I want a straight SATA->eSATA connection without any extra processing.The last time I spoke with one of Apricorn's TSRs, he indicated to me that all current enclosures would have the dual support, regardless of the descriptions posted by sellers. Fortunately, all of mine were bought before USB was added. It might be worth a call to Apricorn to see if anything has changed. Since all of my experience is with the Apricorn eSATA encolusres, I can't recommend another brand, but someone else surely can. :)

Scarlett

The last time I spoke with one of Apricorn's TSRs, he indicated to me that all current enclosures would have the dual support, regardless of the descriptions posted by sellers. Fortunately, all of mine were bought before USB was added. It might be worth a call to Apricorn to see if anything has changed. Since all of my experience is with the Apricorn eSATA encolusres, I can't recommend another brand, but someone else surely can. :)

Scarlett

While I agree it is ideal not to have a USB chip in the enclosure - the one Apricorn uses does not seem to interfere with operation in any way. The database clearly shows high levels of success with Apricorn.

xnappo

While I agree it is ideal not to have a USB chip in the enclosure - the one Apricorn uses does not seem to interfere with operation in any way. The database clearly shows high levels of success with Apricorn.I've yet to see a bridge chip that didn't impede performance to some degree, be it 2% or 20%.

Looking back at past reviews, Apricorn got much of its positive press back before they added the bridge chip for USB. That didn't hurt compatibility, but it's not clear to me what that did to the performance.

I've yet to see a bridge chip that didn't impede performance to some degree, be it 2% or 20%.

Looking back at past reviews, Apricorn got much of its positive press back before they added the bridge chip for USB. That didn't hurt compatibility, but it's not clear to me what that did to the performance.
Indeed, but a mitigating factor may be that the SATA (I) bus is nowhere near saturated with the load presented by a two-tuner DVR and that even a 20% performance hit does not adversely affect performance in DVR applications.

To the previous post, I would also add that I have not looked at these enclosures in quite some time. Apparently, some enclosures now split the SATA connection, with one end going to the bridge chipset and the other going directly to the eSATA connection on the enclosure. That way, there is no impact on eSATA performance.

For owners of the newer Apricorn enclosure with eSATA + USB, is it clear how they designed the unit? Do they split the SATA connection before it is run into the controller?

I've yet to see a bridge chip that didn't impede performance to some degree, be it 2% or 20%.

Looking back at past reviews, Apricorn got much of its positive press back before they added the bridge chip for USB. That didn't hurt compatibility, but it's not clear to me what that did to the performance.

Well, I have one with a bridge chip and it works just fine(in heavy use for six months). And most of the other database entries are the model with the chip. Before that I had an AZIO case with the chip and it did not work.

The only case I know of that is eSATA only is here:
http://www.epowertec.com/enclosure_tp301sa.html

xnappo

To the previous post, I would also add that I have not looked at these enclosures in quite some time. Apparently, some enclosures now split the SATA connection, with one end going to the bridge chipset and the other going directly to the eSATA connection on the enclosure. That way, there is no impact on eSATA performance.

For owners of the newer Apricorn enclosure with eSATA + USB, is it clear how they designed the unit? Do they split the SATA connection before it is run into the controller?

Funny you ask - actually the case AZIO I had that DIDN'T work definitely split the connection. I am not positive but I believe the Apricorn case goes through the chip(I say this because there is a jumper on the board that makes me think the board can be used for two SATA -> one USB type connections, I didn't look at the traces that closely).

However I am not convinced this is bad from a signal point of view(though from a data rate point of view I agree it must be). These differential high speed interfaces are very sensitive to loading - by splitting the signal from the hard drive the loading is messed with pretty significantly. I would guess doing so is actually running the interface out of spec.

Keep in mind the SATA controller in the SA8300 is only 1.5GB/s, plus the original Maxtor Quickview drives were *IDE* drives with an IDE->SATA interface, and they are known to work well. I think signal integrity is more important than data rate here.

[EDIT]
Another interesting little fact from Wikipedia(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_ATA) - the eSATA specification requires more electrical compatibility range than SATA:

Minimum transmit potential increased: Range is 500–600 mV instead of 400–600 mV.
Minimum receive potential decreased: Range is 240–600 mV instead of 325–600 mV.

xnappo

With this discussion of Apricorn enclosures, I haven't seen any comments (perhaps I have missed them) in Apricorn's packaged solution: the Apricorn DVR Xpander (http://www.apricorn.com/product_detail.php?type=family&id=37). Any experiences with this yet? I checked Xnappo's database (SARA), but I did not see this unit there.

With this discussion of Apricorn enclosures, I haven't seen any comments (perhaps I have missed them) in Apricorn's packaged solution: the Apricorn DVR Xpander (http://www.apricorn.com/product_detail.php?type=family&id=37). Any experiences with this yet? I checked Xnappo's database (SARA), but I did not see this unit there.

I assume that Apricorn is using their own case and just putting in a drive.

KevDiver put in a successful entry to the database.

His post is here:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=10337944&&#post10337944

You may also be interested in the post that follows :D

xnappo

I assume that Apricorn is using their own case and just putting in a drive.

KevDiver put in a successful entry to the database.
Thanks, I didn't recognize the model number.
You may also be interested in the post that follows :D

xnappo :o I remember the comment now, but became really aware of the Apricorn packaged solution from a post in our local forum.

It looks like a good deal. :) (I'm still doing fine with my 250GB Maxtor/ePower combo - but every now and then someone locally asks me for advice.)

The only case I know of that is eSATA only is here:
http://www.epowertec.com/enclosure_tp301sa.htmlAnother is the ToughTech eSATA (http://www.wiebetech.com/products/toughtech.php) (model TTE-0).

I am new to the forum and attached an external drive to my 8300HD last weekend (TW Columbus). It worked and I have read how the recordings switch back and forth between internal and external, depending which has more room. I have noticed that I can no longer rewind while watching LIVE television. What I have gathered is this function will not work while using the external drive? Is that correct? If so after it fills up, I should be able to use rewind half the time? (When the internal drive is capturing)?
Also using Passport with Time Warner, how can I see the percentage or disk space data? For instance how much space is available?
Thanks for your help.
Mark

SA 8000HD & 8300HD w/ Passport software (TWC) (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=453804)

v/r,
C-F

This is a monster thread and I just don't have the time to read through all of it.

I'm a TW customer in charlotte,nc.

I'd like to know how to check my SA8300HD to determine what software its running?

AND

What is the best (large disc space & reliable) external drive package that this forum can recommend? A preassembled combo (cable, drive, case, etc) would be great but not a deal breaker if I have to build it up.

Links to a reliable vendor to order the drive would be greatly appreciated.

Again, I have no doubt that these questions were answered many times in the 160+ page thread...my apologies for what I'm sure are repeated questions that others have asked.

Thank you!

This is a monster thread and I just don't have the time to read through all of it.

I'm a TW customer in charlotte,nc.

I'd like to know how to check my SA8300HD to determine what software its running?

AND

What is the best (large disc space & reliable) external drive package that this forum can recommend? A preassembled combo (cable, drive, case, etc) would be great but not a deal breaker if I have to build it up.

Links to a reliable vendor to order the drive would be greatly appreciated.

Again, I have no doubt that these questions were answered many times in the 160+ page thread...my apologies for what I'm sure are repeated questions that others have asked.

Thank you!

Read the first post of this thread:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=471859

xnappo

Read the first post of this thread:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=471859

xnappo

Read entire first page per your advice.

The (2) suggested ways to enter diagnostic mode do not work on my SA8300HD

- Press and hold Select on front of unit until Mail light starts to flash, then press INFO.
- Press and hold Pause on remote until Mail light starts to flash (around 10-15 seconds), then press Page Up (-). On some remotes, Page (+) might need to be used instead.

My original questions still stand. I have an SA8300HD (very recent issue) I'd like to know how to enter diagnostic mode and see what software versions its running.

AND

Can someone suggest a quality eSATA external drive kit to use with the 8300HD? I'm looking on ebay and there appears to be many flavors to choose from.

Thank you!

Read entire first page per your advice.

The (2) suggested ways to enter diagnostic mode do not work on my SA8300HD

- Press and hold Select on front of unit until Mail light starts to flash, then press INFO.
- Press and hold Pause on remote until Mail light starts to flash (around 10-15 seconds), then press Page Up (-). On some remotes, Page (+) might need to be used instead.

My original questions still stand. I have an SA8300HD (very recent issue) I'd like to know how to enter diagnostic mode and see what software versions its running.

AND

Can someone suggest a quality eSATA external drive kit to use with the 8300HD? I'm looking on ebay and there appears to be many flavors to choose from.

Thank you!

I'm in Southern Pines, on TWC via Fayetteville with Passort 2.6.002. I can get the diagnostic data just by selecting channel 999. Not sure if that will work for you in Charlotte, but it's worth a try.

Westy77, are you running SARA or Passport? The first post (that xnappo pointed you to) has a very simple test that tells you which: Look at the pictures and see which one matches your setup.

If you're running Passport, then you may find this post helpful: Passport Tips and Tricks (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=&postid=4547722&highlight=guide+tips#post4547722). See the end of that post for instructions on how to access the diagnostics info. You'll also want to pay attention to the many, many posts regarding Passport behavior with external expansion drives.

While it may be unfair of long-time users here to brush off your questions with a trite, "Already asked and answered--read the 160+ pages of this thread," it's also unfair of you to take the attitude, "I can't be bothered to even try to search for the info I want, just help me already."

This site has a handy search feature that can help you find information in 160-page long threads. Making an attempt to use it will go a long way toward establishing friendly relations with the long-time users here.

In the meantime, once you figure out whether your box is running the SARA or Passport software, go back to the first post xnappo directed you to, and check out the appropriate version of the SA8300HD eSATA Compatibility Databases. You'll find data on what specific drive/enclosure combinations and external drives have and have not worked for other users. That's about the best answer anyone could give you to your question re: external drives.

Jim

Westy77, are you running SARA or Passport? The first post (that xnappo pointed you to) has a very simple test that tells you which: Look at the pictures and see which one matches your setup.

If you're running Passport, then you may find this post helpful: Passport Tips and Tricks (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=&postid=4547722&highlight=guide+tips#post4547722). See the end of that post for instructions on how to access the diagnostics info. You'll also want to pay attention to the many, many posts regarding Passport behavior with external expansion drives.

While it may be unfair of long-time users here to brush off your questions with a trite, "Already asked and answered--read the 160+ pages of this thread," it's also unfair of you to take the attitude, "I can't be bothered to even try to search for the info I want, just help me already."

This site has a handy search feature that can help you find information in 160-page long threads. Making an attempt to use it will go a long way toward establishing friendly relations with the long-time users here.

In the meantime, once you figure out whether your box is running the SARA or Passport software, go back to the first post xnappo directed you to, and check out the appropriate version of the SA8300HD eSATA Compatibility Databases. You'll find data on what specific drive/enclosure combinations and external drives have and have not worked for other users. That's about the best answer anyone could give you to your question re: external drives.

JimI had almost the same thing composed and temporarily lost my internet connection, so you beat me to it, darn it. :)

Can someone suggest a quality eSATA external drive kit to use with the 8300HD? I'm looking on ebay and there appears to be many flavors to choose from.IMHO, if you are looking on eBay, you are looking for trouble. Many of those are probably ones that didn't work for whomever tried them and couldn't be returned. Some might also be just for connecting to a PC and not a DVR.

There seems to have been a miscommunication between me and DMILANI. I wanted him to REPLACE the first post in this thread with what he just posted. I sent him another PM, so hopefully I got it right this time and the first post will contain the above links, etc., as well as his original post. Sorry for the confusion.

Read entire first page per your advice.

The (2) suggested ways to enter diagnostic mode do not work on my SA8300HD

- Press and hold Select on front of unit until Mail light starts to flash, then press INFO.
- Press and hold Pause on remote until Mail light starts to flash (around 10-15 seconds), then press Page Up (-). On some remotes, Page (+) might need to be used instead.



Thank you!
Westy77, we have Passport here in Charlotte. Press and hold the Select and Exit buttons on the 8300 and after you hear the tone and see diag on the 8300's display press Exit again. This will send you to the diagnostics pages on channel 611. You can exit by tuning to any other channel. You can go back to 611 as many times as you want until you turn the 8300 off.

Westy77, we have Passport here in Charlotte. Press and hold the Select and Exit buttons on the 8300 and after you hear the tone and see diag on the 8300's display press Exit again. This will send you to the diagnostics pages on channel 611. You can exit by tuning to any other channel. You can go back to 611 as many times as you want until you turn the 8300 off.

Interesting that you have to go through all the button pushing after every power cycle on the 8300 before you can access 611. I've just been selecting the TWC Fayetteville area equivalent diagnostic channel, 999, without priming it with the button action. I wonder if that's a local option.

Westy77, we have Passport here in Charlotte. Press and hold the Select and Exit buttons on the 8300 and after you hear the tone and see diag on the 8300's display press Exit again. This will send you to the diagnostics pages on channel 611. You can exit by tuning to any other channel. You can go back to 611 as many times as you want until you turn the 8300 off.

Location is also critical... I have Passport as well, but the 8300's service menu is on 1999, not 611 (same procedure to GET to it). Still, one can NOT manually tune to it, one does have to go through the button dance. However, we have a tunable single screen which says what version of Passport at 996. BUT other passport areas on the same version have a different channel number to tune to for that function.

BTW, 601-649 or so are all the digital music channels.

The Apricorn DVR Xpander is a EZ Bus DTS E with a modified fan. The fan has been replace with a quieter fan. Also it does not have the software or usb cable.

FWIW, the first post has been updated by DMILANI per my request and it contains the same info he posted earlier. Now folks can be referred to the first post for links to xnappo's databases and the other links to IPG images for determining software type (Passport or SARA). I hope it helps.

The Apricorn DVR Xpander is a EZ Bus DTS E with a modified fan. The fan has been replace with a quieter fan. Also it does not have the software or usb cable.

It does have the USB port though?

Thanks for the info,
xnappo

Westy77, we have Passport here in Charlotte. Press and hold the Select and Exit buttons on the 8300 and after you hear the tone and see diag on the 8300's display press Exit again. This will send you to the diagnostics pages on channel 611. You can exit by tuning to any other channel. You can go back to 611 as many times as you want until you turn the 8300 off.

Exactly the info I needed...greatly appreciated.

I was able to confirm that (as you stated) my 8300HD runs the Passport software...and in my case Echo ver. 2.6.002

So at this point I just need to review the Passport compatability list and see what works best for me. Any specific recommendations (favorites) before I select something from the list?

Noone has posted their results / feedback after trying the 500gB Seagate (model# ST3500601XS-RK) in the passport compatability list on page 1 of this thread? Anyone using this drive with good results? I like Seagate and 500GB will keep us out of trouble :)

Looking forward to getting the external drive setup...I swung by BB on the way home today and was amazed to see external 1 TB drives on the shelf for $400. I recall my first PC HDD being around 120mb ! :)

Thanks again gang!

Westy

Exactly the info I needed...greatly appreciated.

I was able to confirm that (as you stated) my 8300HD runs the Passport software...and in my case Echo ver. 2.6.002

So at this point I just need to review the Passport compatability list and see what works best for me. Any specific recommendations (favorites) before I select something from the list?

Noone has posted their results / feedback after trying the 500gB Seagate (model# ST3500601XS-RK) in the passport compatability list on page 1 of this thread? Anyone using this drive with good results? I like Seagate and 500GB will keep us out of trouble :)

Looking forward to getting the external drive setup...I swung by BB on the way home today and was amazed to see external 1 TB drives on the shelf for $400. I recall my first PC HDD being around 120mb ! :)

Thanks again gang!

Westy

Generally speaking, you can use compatibility data from SARA on Passport - but I am not confident in the other way around right now.

I would recommend and Apricorn enclosure and this WD drive: WD5000AAKS.

If you are a Seagate fan stay AWAY from 7200.9 and 7200.10 drives. The DB35 line (7200.3) is a good choice - though we have less data than with the WD RE16 line.

xnappo

Generally speaking, you can use compatibility data from SARA on Passport - but I am not confident in the other way around right now.

I would recommend and Apricorn enclosure and this WD drive: WD5000AAKS.

If you are a Seagate fan stay AWAY from 7200.9 and 7200.10 drives. The DB35 line (7200.3) is a good choice - though we have less data than with the WD RE16 line.

xnappo

I hit up the apricon website:

http://www.apricorn.com/product_detail.php?other_info=specs&id=10&type=family&anc=#bottom

Just add a good drive and I'm all set....you get the correct eSATA cable with the apricon kit right?

Very nice...this should do the trick.

You guys have this down to science...making it too easy for us common folk!

Westy

I hit up the apricon website:

http://www.apricorn.com/product_detail.php?other_info=specs&id=37&type=family&anc=#bottom

I don't see anywhere on the site where they actually state what brand of hdd they ship in the enclosure. Cool lookin product.

Are you stating that they sell just the enclosure on its own?

Westy

Yes:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817362002

xnappo

xnappo,

Thank you! I have the apricon case and 500GB WD drive on order from newegg. Total was $166 and that's including shipping. Terrific prices. Case was $39 and drive was $119.

Looking forward to the install. I will report back with my results.

Again thank you for the quick help.

Westy

xnappo,

Thank you! I have the apricon case and 500GB WD drive on order from newegg. Total was $166 and that's including shipping. Terrific prices. Case was $39 and drive was $119.

Looking forward to the install. I will report back with my results.

Again thank you for the quick help.

Westy

Good luck - and remember to use Pepar's instructions for Passport linked in the first post...

xnappo

Westy77 hit the nail on the head...all you guys make this soooo easy! After reading through many pages of this thread and checking the database, I purchased the Apricorn EZ-BUS-DTS-EKIT enclosure and the WD5000AAKS from Newegg. Within 30 minutes my 8300HD was recording on the new drive! So far I’ve seen no problems (further testing to come this weekend) and will be adding it to the database. Much thanks to everyone… :)

Tom

I guess I'll have to update my database entry for my Apricorn+WD5000AAKS combo, since I'm now getting a couple glitches per hour (and I skip through commercials so maybe it's more). Pretty annoying when they obscure important dialogue. Annoying but not a huge deal. I'm still happy to have an extra 500GB of storage.

I guess I'll have to update my database entry for my Apricorn+WD5000AAKS combo, since I'm now getting a couple glitches per hour (and I skip through commercials so maybe it's more). Pretty annoying when they obscure important dialogue. Annoying but not a huge deal. I'm still happy to have an extra 500GB of storage.

Have you checked your signal levels to be sure it isn't a problem with the source?

xnappo

I'm in Southern Pines, NC using an 8300HD (Passport 2.06.002) on TWC, via Fayetteville.

I recommend that anyone using the SA8300HD with an external SATA drive consider installing a small UPS system for protection from power interruptions. I recently installed a 500GB Apricorn Xpander drive, which worked perfectly for a couple of days. I then watched as a whole house, or beyond, very benign power loss, which lasted for less that a couple of seconds, and didn't even reset any of my digital clocks, forced the 8300 into a hard reboot. The unit wasn't recording anything when the outage occured.

The reboot showed ER51, ERLA very briefly, then it went into a very long, long countdown cycle, and extended reboot, ending up with an error message that the external drive was not functioning properly.

Since that moment, I was never again able to successfully hard boot the 8300 if the Xpander was already in a running state, and I could only force the 8300 to accept and use the drive by keeping it powered off until after the 8300 had completed its boot. That made for a great deal of inconvenience and uncertaintly. I subsequently installed a UPS, but of course it was too late to help with this problem, except to minimize exposure to future hard boots owing to power loss.

I worked with tech support at Apricorn for over a week, trying everything they could think of, including deleting the Xpander drive partition on a PC, then forcing another format via the 8300. In the end, it still worked, albeit crippled, but I started getting random, spontaneous hard 8300 reboots 1-3 times a day that made it unmanageable. I unplugged the Xpander a week ago, and the 8300 has not had any unexpected interruptions since then.

The unit is in a UPS truck now, heading West, back to Apricorn, and I'm eagerly looking forward to better success with its replacement, which is at least 1 1/2 weeks away from now.

I can't be absolutely sure that the brief power outage really caused all this grief, since I hadn't previously tried a hard reboot on the 8300, except for the initial one, which did work according to instructions. Long prior to any of this, I had installed power surge protection at the main panel, and a heavy duty surge protector for the 8300 and related hardware, and nothing else was affected, so I doubt that the power loss actually damaged any logic on either the 8300 or the Xpander. I believe, based on this experience, that the 8300/external drive combination is probably just quite vulnerable to power interruptions

I'm in Southern Pines, NC using an 8300HD (Passport 2.06.002) on TWC, via Fayetteville.

I recommend that anyone using the SA8300HD with an external SATA drive consider installing a small UPS system for protection from power interruptions. I recently installed a 500GB Apricorn Xpander drive, which worked perfectly for a couple of days. I then watched as a whole house, or beyond, very benign power loss, which lasted for less that a couple of seconds, and didn't even reset any of my digital clocks, forced the 8300 into a hard reboot. The unit wasn't recording anything when the outage occured.

The reboot showed ER51, ERLA very briefly, then it went into a very long, long countdown cycle, and extended reboot, ending up with an error message that the external drive was not functioning properly.

Since that moment, I was never again able to successfully hard boot the 8300 if the Xpander was already in a running state, and I could only force the 8300 to accept and use the drive by keeping it powered off until after the 8300 had completed its boot. That made for a great deal of inconvenience and uncertaintly. I subsequently installed a UPS, but of course it was too late to help with this problem, except to minimize exposure to future hard boots owing to power loss.

I worked with tech support at Apricorn for over a week, trying everything they could think of, including deleting the Xpander drive partition on a PC, then forcing another format via the 8300. In the end, it still worked, albeit crippled, but I started getting random, spontaneous hard 8300 reboots 1-3 times a day that made it unmanageable. I unplugged the Xpander a week ago, and the 8300 has not had any unexpected interruptions since then.

The unit is in a UPS truck now, heading West, back to Apricorn, and I'm eagerly looking forward to better success with its replacement, which is at least 1 1/2 weeks away from now.

I can't be absolutely sure that the brief power outage really caused all this grief, since I hadn't previously tried a hard reboot on the 8300, except for the initial one, which did work according to instructions. Long prior to any of this, I had installed power surge protection at the main panel, and a heavy duty surge protector for the 8300 and related hardware, and nothing else was affected, so I doubt that the power loss actually damaged any logic on either the 8300 or the Xpander. I believe, based on this experience, that the 8300/external drive combination is probably just quite vulnerable to power interruptions

I've had an external drive now for better than 2 years and have had several power interruptions to the 8300/ext drive power. I've even done some experimenting with temporarily cutting the power (via my breaker box) to explore potential issues with this. I've never had a problem as the result of a temp power failure. Perhaps your problem really is related to the Apricorn, or perhaps to Passport (we have SARA here, and most of the early adopters of the external drive are also on SARA).

I've had an external drive now for better than 2 years and have had several power interruptions to the 8300/ext drive power. I've even done some experimenting with temporarily cutting the power (via my breaker box) to explore potential issues with this. I've never had a problem as the result of a temp power failure. Perhaps your problem really is related to the Apricorn, or perhaps to Passport (we have SARA here, and most of the early adopters of the external drive are also on SARA).

That's encouraging. Of course I'm dealing with a limited observation of one incident, and I hope it was really just some anomoly on the external drive that caused the problem.

I think the UPS use is just good, inexpensive insurance, in any case. I recognize that it's very hard connecting cause and effect here, since we can't get any detailed diagnostic data, and we are dealing with shadows, at best.

I'll keep my fingers crossed that the next drive won't show the same problem, and hope that it's not the 8300, or perhaps some difference in the local configuration of Passport.

Any Passport users want to chime in on long term (greater than 6 mos) use of the Apricon case and a 500gb sata drive?

Curious to here if any passport users are having long term luck.

Also....great advice on the UPS. I run a Monster 5100 power conditioner with plenty of open sockets..I'll heed your advice and use that for sure for my apricon when it arrives this week.

Westy77

I heard from a friend of a friend who works at TWC in Raleigh, NC that they will be disabling the eSATA port when they roll out Navigator in a few weeks across all SA boxes. Can anyone cofirm or deny this? I have already started looking for a deal on a Tivo S3. 20 hours of HD is not enough to get me through the week. With the 60 hours I have now with my eSATA drive, it is barely enough.

Thanks,
Ted

I heard from a friend of a friend who works at TWC in Raleigh, NC that they will be disabling the eSATA port when they roll out Navigator in a few weeks across all SA boxes. Can anyone cofirm or deny this? I have already started looking for a deal on a Tivo S3. 20 hours of HD is not enough to get me through the week. With the 60 hours I have now with my eSATA drive, it is barely enough.

Thanks,
Ted

Can your friend comment on what the possible business drivers are for disabling the eSATA port in conjunction with the navigator rollout?

Is it a technical requirement for navigator to run properly?

Without additional information I highly doubt your claim. This forum reaches many, many users (many of which are in the industry) surely we'd have heard about this more in advance than a, "few weeks before the rollout" as you claim.

Fingers crossed that you are very wrong.

Westy

Can your friend comment on what the possible business drivers are for disabling the eSATA port in conjunction with the navigator rollout?

Is it a technical requirement for navigator to run properly?

Without additional information I highly doubt your claim. This forum reaches many, many users (many of which are in the industry) surely we'd have heard about this more in advance than a, "few weeks before the rollout" as you claim.

Fingers crossed that you are very wrong.

Westy

Well, he was not sure exactly why. He thought it might not work properly with it enabled. He is not a tech, but he has been using Navigator as a beta tester.

I did some searches here, but could not find anyone who said it worked with eSATA. Given that TWC does not officially support eSATA on Passport in Raleigh, they would have no reason to inform users of the decision to disable the port. I claim to be neither right or wrong, just looking for information.

Ted

While TW's suicidal tendencies should not be underestimated, nothing that I've read yet about Navigator suggests that it is even close to being ready for a broad rollout in "a few weeks." If TW actually does what this poster's friend of a friend predicts, I think that it will take more than bollards to protect this place:

http://www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com/bigmap/manhattan/midtown/columbuscircle/timewarner/timewarner.jpg

A moat might work.

While TW's suicidal tendencies should not be underestimated, nothing that I've read yet about Navigator suggests that it is even close to being ready for a broad rollout in "a few weeks." If TW actually does what this poster's friend of a friend predicts, I think that it will take more than bollards to protect this place:

http://www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com/bigmap/manhattan/midtown/columbuscircle/timewarner/timewarner.jpg

A moat might work.

I have a very bad feeling that corporate TWC wants to roll out Navigator by July. I hope that I am wrong.

(read this: http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DOC-257519A1.pdf now DaveH has stated that he doesn't think Navigator has anything to do with the July deadline, but I disagree - I think that it does have to do with '...
downloadable security solution that will allow common reliance by cable operators and consumer electronics manufacturers on an identical software security function without the additional costs of physical separation inherent in the CableCard solution.')

I really wish someone with Navigator would try hooking up a drive and tell us what happens! So far we have had two reports - one person saying it works, and one saying it didn't. However neither stuck around to answer questions...

xnappo

.....I really wish someone with Navigator would try hooking up a drive and tell us what happens! So far we have had two reports - one person saying it works, and one saying it didn't. However neither stuck around to answer questions...

xnappo

Yes, indeed. That would really help to lower the anxiety over a possible impending Navigator push from TWC. I'm still waiting on a replacement external drive from Apricorn, and I hope there is time to complete a successful installation before Navigator hits.

If the sata interface will, in fact, be disabled on Navigator by TWC, I guess I will have to start looking at satellite alternatives, and the possibililty of using external sata with any of their DVR's. I've been holding off on that because neither Dish or Directtv currently provide local high definition channels to my area, but that may change in the next few months.

VicW

If the sata interface will, in fact, be disabled on Navigator by TWC, I guess I will have to start looking at satellite alternatives, and the possibililty of using external sata with any of their DVR's. I've been holding off on that because neither Dish or Directtv currently provide local high definition channels to my area, but that may change in the next few months.

VicW

So DirectTVs HR20 has an eSATA port that is active, however it completely replaces the internal drive instead of adding on space to it.

The DISH ViP 622 is not expandable as far as I know.

Keep in mind that DISH locals will be MPEG4 - so shows will take up a lot less space (not sure how much less - 1/3 - 1/2 would be my guess).

xnappo

So DirectTVs HR20 has an eSATA port that is active, however it completely replaces the internal drive instead of adding on space to it. .......
xnappo

Thanks for that info. It saved me some time trying to search for it elsewhere.

I was also able to find that the HR20 has a 300 GB internal drive, so using the external 500 GB drive would only provide a nominal increase. May not be worth it, considering it doesn't add the extra drive's capacity to the mix. I think I'll wait and see how this TWC 8300 Navigator thing pans out before I get too deeply into it. Overall, I've been pretty happy with the SA8300 functionality.

Thanks for that info. It saved me some time trying to search for it elsewhere.



No problem. There are also rumblings of the ability to offload shows (encrypted of course) via the USB port on upcoming versions of the ViP622 software.

I too will see how things pan out. The WAF of losing our recordings will not be pretty if eSATA doesn't work with Navigator!

xnappo

I have a very bad feeling that corporate TWC wants to roll out Navigator by July. I hope that I am wrong.

(read this: http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DOC-257519A1.pdf now DaveH has stated that he doesn't think Navigator has anything to do with the July deadline, but I disagree - I think that it does have to do with '...
downloadable security solution that will allow common reliance by cable operators and consumer electronics manufacturers on an identical software security function without the additional costs of physical separation inherent in the CableCard solution.')

xnappo, Actually, I never said that "he doesn't think Navigator has anything to do with the July deadline", I've said that the FCC has not mandated any particular solution, and TW's implying that they had to go to Navigator because of the FCC mandate is basically a big lie. The point is that there are several potential solutions - developing software with integrated security is JUST one of them - not THE only solution.

But, you are right as to the longer term goals. But seeing the mess that they have in Lincoln, it is doubtful if you will see much more deployment till next year. And yes, they will use the 8300C and 8300HDC boxes 9with CableCards) for new deployments until more fully developed software embedding DCAS (Downloadable Conditional Access Security) is available.

For those interested the Navigator Thread (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=10478168&&#post10478168) has a more complete "debate" on this.

I'm in Southern Pines, NC using an 8300HD (Passport 2.06.002) on TWC, via Fayetteville.

I recommend that anyone using the SA8300HD with an external SATA drive consider installing a small UPS system for protection from power interruptions. I recently installed a 500GB Apricorn Xpander drive, which worked perfectly for a couple of days. I then watched as a whole house, or beyond, very benign power loss, which lasted for less that a couple of seconds, and didn't even reset any of my digital clocks, forced the 8300 into a hard reboot. The unit wasn't recording anything when the outage occured.

I can't be absolutely sure that the brief power outage really caused all this grief, since I hadn't previously tried a hard reboot on the 8300, except for the initial one, which did work according to instructions. Long prior to any of this, I had installed power surge protection at the main panel, and a heavy duty surge protector for the 8300 and related hardware, and nothing else was affected, so I doubt that the power loss actually damaged any logic on either the 8300 or the Xpander. I believe, based on this experience, that the 8300/external drive combination is probably just quite vulnerable to power interruptions
I'll take another whack at this and stay on the subject of surges. I'm not sure how many of us go to the effort of surge protecting our coaxial cable. We can use whole house electrical surge protectors and high quality local suppression at our electronics, but the cable signal coming into the house, with usually nothing more than a lightning arrestor at point of entry, is usually driven by amps powered by local AC. Power outages and the attendant power surge upon restoration of power *could* send a surge down the cable line to sensitive electronics.

Even if vicw was fully protected, I'll leave this post up as a reminder to others that to be fully surge protected, one must include the coaxial cable.

xnappo, Actually, I never said that "he doesn't think Navigator has anything to do with the July deadline", I've said that the FCC has not mandated any particular solution, and TW's implying that they had to go to Navigator because of the FCC mandate is basically a big lie. The point is that there are several potential solutions - developing software with integrated security is JUST one of them - not THE only solution.


Dave, excuse the misquote :) I hope you are right regarding TWC delaying further rollouts and not really tying the release to the FCC deadline(as an excuse for the change). I guess we will find out in six weeks or so.

xnappo

...Even if vicw was fully protected, I'll leave this post up as a reminder to others that to be fully surge protected, one must include the coaxial cable.

Yes, in fact, I did have the coax protected. Your advice is well taken. I have no argument against the wisdom of protection from voltage problems, and I have taken reasonable measures to deal with that.

The specific incident I told about was apparently not related to any coax transient. Had it been, I would have expected that the logic nearest to, and most sensitive to, that kind of impulse would have been affected, that being the coax receivers in the 8300, TVs, internet modem, phone modem, etc., and no damage occured.

Beyond the potential of damage from transient power problems, my primary concern in that specific case was that the 8300 and external drive may have been interrupted during some critical operation, that resulted in a flaw in the drive, and may have caused the subsequent problems that I described in detail on my first post.

My suggestion for the use of UPS for the 8300 and external drives is in the interest of maintaining continuous operations through completion when a power loss occurs. Granted that I lack the resources to thoroughly analyze the results of the specific problem I encountered, I think it's reasonable that use of a UPS offers some level of insurance against that kind of vulnerability.

Yes, in fact, I did have the coax protected. Your advice is well taken. I have no argument against the wisdom of protection from voltage problems, and I have taken reasonable measures to deal with that.

The specific incident I told about was apparently not related to any coax transient. Had it been, I would have expected that the logic nearest to, and most sensitive to, that kind of impulse would have been affected, that being the coax receivers in the 8300, TVs, internet modem, phone modem, etc., and no damage occured.
I thought you probably had which is why I caveated my post. :) There, however, is no logic when it comes to what a spike will damage when it plays merry hobb with electronics.

The Apricorn DVR Xpander is a EZ Bus DTS E with a modified fan. The fan has been replace with a quieter fan. Also it does not have the software or usb cable.

Do you know what drive they use in it?

one more failure with Seagate 7200.10 500GB added to the database, SD seems to be fine but HD has glitches :-( should've read this thread first, might try WD5000AAKS, is it guaranteed? don't wanna stuck with 1TB disk space ;-)

also sometimes the PVR stuck with "----" displayed on panel (every Monday last two weeks in a row), had to hard reboot

one more failure with Seagate 7200.10 500GB added to the database, SD seems to be fine but HD has glitches :-( should've read this thread first, might try WD5000AAKS, is it guaranteed? don't wanna stuck with 1TB disk space ;-)

also sometimes the PVR stuck with "----" displayed on panel (every Monday last two weeks in a row), had to hard reboot

I wouldn't say guaranteed - but certainly much better chance than 7200.10! Sorry you didn't find us earlier...

xnappo

one more failure with Seagate 7200.10 500GB added to the database, SD seems to be fine but HD has glitches :-( should've read this thread first, might try WD5000AAKS, is it guaranteed? don't wanna stuck with 1TB disk space ;-)It's absolutely guaranteed! If that drive doesn't work for you, you'll get your AVSForum registration charges returned to you in full!*


*I.e., there are no guarantees--your mileage may vary. Offer void in some states and US territories. Subject to additional terms and conditions. May cause drowsiness; do not operate heavy machinery after taking AVSForum advice.

Has anybody tried the Western Digital 500GB "My Book Premium ES Edition" (model WDG1SU50000N (http://www.westerndigital.com/en/products/Products.asp?DriveID=276)) yet? I just got a buy.com ad, and that was the first I'd heard of this drive.

I'm not familiar with these external storage solutions from WD. Looks like there's a hodgepodge of interface combos (USB, eSATA, and/or Firewire 400/800), all with different product names and prices. None of the models have eSATA exclusively; they're USB + eSATA, it looks like.

I have an Exp 8300HD running Passport and a seagate 500G Esata. Has been working well for months. Recently, I have been getting a clicking sound from the Esata every few minutes when i am not watching TV and when i am watching I get a quick freeze and glitch every few minutes. This happens when i am watching live or recorded.
The only guess I have is ESATA failure OR that the drive is very full. I guess I could try and delete the saved shows but I have not viewed them yet and deleting them and not solving the problem would be a drag. Any help would be appreciated. ( I have rebooted afew times, no help) Thanks,

Bruce in Belle Harbor

I have an Exp 8300HD running Passport and a seagate 500G Esata. Has been working well for months. Recently, I have been getting a clicking sound from the Esata every few minutes when i am not watching TV and when i am watching I get a quick freeze and glitch every few minutes. This happens when i am watching live or recorded.
The only guess I have is ESATA failure OR that the drive is very full. I guess I could try and delete the saved shows but I have not viewed them yet and deleting them and not solving the problem would be a drag. Any help would be appreciated. ( I have rebooted afew times, no help)
Generally speaking, clicking noise from a hard drive is NOT a good thing. Does your enclosure have a fan and could a wire/cable have shifted and come into contact with the fan? If not, then there's a good chance you have the beginning of a hard drive failure.

Installed the seagate right out of the box so it came with its own enclosure. Don't really know about af an or not, but the the intermittent click sounds like it is trying to re-boot or turn off and on.

Bruce

Installed the seagate right out of the box so it came with its own enclosure. Don't really know about af an or not, but the the intermittent click sounds like it is trying to re-boot or turn off and on.

Bruce

It is usually the head resetting after an error. As Pepar said - this is usually a very bad sign. I would watch anything you really want to ASAP and get the drive RMRed.

xnappo

Installed the seagate right out of the box so it came with its own enclosure. Don't really know about af an or not, but the the intermittent click sounds like it is trying to re-boot or turn off and on.
FWIW, none of my external drives click and both have been in operation for a year. My 8300HD's have been operating for about two years; neither of their drives click either.

Thanks for all the info... but sorry, what is RMRed?

If I have to get a new external esata drive, I have a couple of questions:

I am not too hardware savvy, so i would like to buy another external drive and hook up out of the box. What drive would you recommend for the SA8300HD (Passport)and what size?

Also, should the rumors of Navigator coming soon and disabling the esata port preclude me from investing in the drive?

I am using TWC in NYC

Thanks,

Bruce

Thanks for all the info... but sorry, what is RMRed?
Return merchandise authorization, or something thereabouts. Return it to where you bought it for credit or exchange because it is defective.

If I have to get a new external esata drive, I have a couple of questions:

I am not too hardware savvy, so i would like to buy another external drive and hook up out of the box. What drive would you recommend for the SA8300HD (Passport)and what size?

Also, should the rumors of Navigator coming soon and disabling the esata port preclude me from investing in the drive?

I am using TWC in NYC
Go to a post by xnappo (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=10518790&&#post10518790) and click on the Passport database link in his sig too see what others have been using. If you get an off-the-shelf solution with both eSATA and USB interfaces, you would be able to use it with a computer should a cablebox future without eSATA drives materialize.

Return merchandise authorization, or something thereabouts. Return it to where you bought it for credit or exchange because it is defective.

My guess is it is still under warranty and Seagate will replace it.

xnappo

Here's a 500GB eSATA + USB 2.0 drive for around $134 shipped 3-day. This is the best deal I could find, and the reviews are good. I'll let everyone know if there are problems with it.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822101030

Here's a 500GB eSATA + USB 2.0 drive for around $134 shipped 3-day. This is the best deal I could find, and the reviews are good. I'll let everyone know if there are problems with it.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822101030

See this post:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=10395650&&#post10395650

The WD drive that is inside has had good success in the database. One of the disadvantages of buying an all-in-one solution of course is there is no guarantee the manufacturer will stick with the same drive.

xnappo

Here's a 500GB eSATA + USB 2.0 drive for around $134 shipped 3-day. This is the best deal I could find, and the reviews are good. I'll let everyone know if there are problems with it.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822101030
FWIW, the reviews are all from customers using it with their computers. And the "Pre-Formatted" feature is irrelevant for DVR usage.

FWIW, the reviews are all from customers using it with their computers. And the "Pre-Formatted" feature is irrelevant for DVR usage.

Yeah, I don't care that it's pre-formatted. If I were to use it with my computer, I would format it as NTFS anyway.

I'm hoping I get a WD drive, instead of Hitachi. Hopefully either will work with the 8300.

Yeah, I don't care that it's pre-formatted. If I were to use it with my computer, I would format it as NTFS anyway.

I'm hoping I get a WD drive, instead of Hitachi. Hopefully either will work with the 8300.
well make sure you rip it apart and post your info in xnappo's database. :D

Go to a post by xnappo (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=10518790&&#post10518790) and click on the Passport database link in his sig too see what others have been using. If you get an off-the-shelf solution with both eSATA and USB interfaces, you would be able to use it with a computer should a cablebox future without eSATA drives materialize.In case xnappo goes on vacation one of these days, don't forget the links are also in the first post. ;)

I wonder just how many of us SA8300 DVR users have hooked up expansion drives? I know there's been no formal count and any guess would be just that, but I'm curious to know what everybody thinks? I thought about creating a new thread to ask this question, and if the replys to this question in this thread are anemic, I may still do it, but thought I'd start here.

Reason I'm asking, is we all know that Navigator will eventually be forced upon us whether we like it or not. I'm hoping it will support the eSATA ports like Passport and SARA do (even if it's not "official"), but if it doesn't, are our numbers sufficient to force TWC to include it in Navigator's feature set?

My WAG? 3,000. Yours...?

I wonder just how many of us SA8300 DVR users have hooked up expansion drives? ...?

From this forum, I know there are at least three of us in North Carolina. I can't imagine how we could ever get an accurate count, but I'm guessing there are less than 1,000 - too low a number to be of any real consequence to TWC.

I would really love to know there is at least one AVS member in Nebraska who could tell us if the SATA port is enabled on Navigator, or better yet, that it actually works. If there isn't one in Nebraska, maybe one of our members has a relative there who would allow him/her to visit and check the diagnostic, and perhaps plug in an external drive to check it out.

How would you extrapolate any count you got here out to the larger 8300HD user population? What number would be sufficient to "force" TWC to include any feature in Navigator?

Taking a census might be fun, since it'd give an idea how many folks here have successfully hooked up external drives (and we could then hound them to make entries in xnappo's databases, if they haven't already!).

But I seriously doubt it's going to do anything to help influence Navigator's design.

But I seriously doubt it's going to do anything to help influence Navigator's design.

A point I have made before is that people on forums like this are the types that other people talk to to get advice about tech stuff. So even if there are only 500 of us, if each of us drives decisions of 5 other people, and they in turn are more 'connected' than most then it DOES create a significant impact to their business.

Maybe I am just making that up, but it rings true to me.

Of course if no one from TWC read AVSForum anymore, I guess it won't help.

What we really need is for someone to volunteer to loan a drive to someone in Lincoln to try out :)

xnappo

What we really need is for someone to volunteer to loan a drive to someone in Lincoln to try out :)

xnappo

I'm not sure that would even matter (but I'd still like to know). One presumes that the Navigator experience in Lincoln will cause them to modify it significantly before they roll it out nationwide. If they wanted, they could make sure SATA support (and firewire too, for that matter) was included. I'm just not sure it's on their radar, and that worries me.

I'd say that's very true about most technology, but I'm not so sure about something like SATA expansion, which IMHO is not "marketed" by anyone that I can see. Until the BBs and CCs out there start hyping this stuff as the "next best thing" I'm afraid it'll never reach critical mass or have much, if any, influence on TWC or anyone else. Cableco's/satco's have little incentive to push this stuff or be concerned. 99% of their world comes from VCRs that were used to timeshift, not archive, stuff. As such, that group will be more than content with whatever thier DVRs offer natively.

That said, my guess and hope is that will all change with OCAP/DCAS. Unfortunately, even then the numbers will remain pretty low. How many people own computers? How many expand them? Given a choice between a 160G unit and a 500G unit, I can see a number opting for the latter, but adding a 350G to their existing 160G unit is not something I see happening to any great degree. I'm hopeful the capacity will be "designed in" like it is with PCs while leaving the option to externally expand for those who want/need it.

I'm not sure that would even matter (but I'd still like to know). One presumes that the Navigator experience in Lincoln will cause them to modify it significantly before they roll it out nationwide. If they wanted, they could make sure SATA support (and firewire too, for that matter) was included. I'm just not sure it's on their radar, and that worries me.

I think we are all concerned about what will come with Navigator with respect to SATA. At this point, we are all flying blind, speculating about it, and about what TWC's future plans are for Sata. Knowing whether the Sata interface is enabled would help a great deal, and knowing that it is active, and better yet that it actually works on Navigator would be huge.

I'd say that's very true about most technology, but I'm not so sure about something like SATA expansion, which IMHO is not "marketed" by anyone that I can see.

I wasn't necessarily saying SATA expansion itself - but if it irritates enough of us that we become DISH/DirecTV evangelists, it doesn't really matter if the people who look to use for advice have any interest in the expansion aspect.

xnappo

Hi All,

When I first set up my external drive (Configuration in my signature). It seemed to work pretty decently with video and audio glitches about every 20 minutes or so. Now that I've been running this setup for about 3 months the glitches got worse about every 5 - 10 minutes or so. Now recently I find shows stop recording prematurly and the cutoff portion is indicated in red on the status bar. Now most recently the status bar shows all green and the recorded time fits with the program but still cuts off early.

I finally disconnected the external drive took it apart and cleaned every connection point in the case and on the drive. Then cleaned the external cable connectors from the dvr to the external drive then reconnected everything and rebooted. Everything works perfectly now and I have not had a single audio or video glitch now in a full week of very heavy recording of some 40 HD shows.

What I did was take the external cable and dip it in Alcohol and kept connecting and disconnecting each connection point both on the dvr and drive. Then did the same to the inside connections of the external drive. I waited an hour to make sure all connection points were dry before reconnecting everything.

I just want to share my success with all of you in the hopes that this may solve some of your glitching problems.

I am having trouble adding a Cavalry CAXM37500 500Mb drive to my 8300HD. The Cavalry has the Western Digital drive in it.

When I first installed it I powered down the DVR, power up the drive and connect it to DVR, power up DVR. It came up and asked to format the drive etc everything seemed fine. I DVR locked up and I power cycled the DVR. It starts a count down in hex and then boots and the passport screens come up. Once the DVR is up I get the error "the external drive is not functioning properly. Please make sure tht the power and data cables are properly connected" If I disconnect the drive at this point the DVR gives me an error to reconnect and reboot the DVR. I have tried powering off the DVR power on DVR over and over each time getting the same results (drive not functioning properly).

I attached the drive to my pc via USB and formatted it as NTFS. Then I attached it to the DVR when the DVR was on. It found the drive and formated it. Everything seemed fine but now I cant rewind or fast forward unless I am recording. I rebooted the DVR and get the same error "drive not functioning properly".

At this point I think I can use the PC to format the drive and get it connected again by formatting the drive with a pc and connecting it hot to the DVR but I lose FF and rewind plus if the DVR looses power I will lose the esata drive connection and have to do the format/attach method. Lossing all recordings, not really a good work-around.

HELP.


bpostma

I am having trouble adding a Cavalry CAXM37500 500Mb drive to my 8300HD. The Cavalry has the Western Digital drive in it.

When I first installed it I powered down the DVR, power up the drive and connect it to DVR, power up DVR. It came up and asked to format the drive etc everything seemed fine. I DVR locked up and I power cycled the DVR. It starts a count down in hex and then boots and the passport screens come up. Once the DVR is up I get the error "the external drive is not functioning properly. Please make sure tht the power and data cables are properly connected" If I disconnect the drive at this point the DVR gives me an error to reconnect and reboot the DVR. I have tried powering off the DVR power on DVR over and over each time getting the same results (drive not functioning properly).

I attached the drive to my pc via USB and formatted it as NTFS. Then I attached it to the DVR when the DVR was on. It found the drive and formated it. Everything seemed fine but now I cant rewind or fast forward unless I am recording. I rebooted the DVR and get the same error "drive not functioning properly".

At this point I think I can use the PC to format the drive and get it connected again by formatting the drive with a pc and connecting it hot to the DVR but I lose FF and rewind plus if the DVR looses power I will lose the esata drive connection and have to do the format/attach method. Lossing all recordings, not really a good work-around.

HELP.


bpostma

I recently went through the same scenario with an Apricorn 500GB Xpander sata drive, which I documented in some detail in prevous submissions in this thread. Apricorn support was not able to come up with a solution that would assure a tranparent recovery from a hard reboot on the 8300, and overall stability, so I'm currently waiting on a replacement drive. I'm hopeful, but not entirely optomistic that the new drive will solve my problems long term.

I wonder about your creation of a full drive NTFS partitiion on a PC. I suspect that will leave no real available space for the 8300 to format. You could confirm that by checking the 8300 diag screen to see how much capacity it really sees with the external drive running. As an alternative approach, Apricorn had me create, and then remove the NTFS partiton, which was successful in getting the 8300 to subsequently do a format and see all of the available space for the internal/external drive combination.

I wonder about your creation of a full drive NTFS partitiion on a PC. I suspect that will leave no real available space for the 8300 to format. You could confirm that by checking the 8300 diag screen to see how much capacity it really sees with the external drive running. As an alternative approach, Apricorn had me create, and then remove the NTFS partiton, which was successful in getting the 8300 to subsequently do a format and see all of the available space for the internal/external drive combination.
The 8300HD will only see the NTFS-formatted drive as unformatted and should offer to format the drive for its usage overwriting the NTFS formatting.

When I first set up my external drive (Configuration in my signature). It seemed to work pretty decently with video and audio glitches about every 20 minutes or so. Now that I've been running this setup for about 3 months the glitches got worse about every 5 - 10 minutes or so.
<snip>
I finally disconnected the external drive took it apart and cleaned every connection point in the case and on the drive. Then cleaned the external cable connectors from the dvr to the external drive then reconnected everything and rebooted. Everything works perfectly now and I have not had a single audio or video glitch now in a full week of very heavy recording of some 40 HD shows.
<snip>
I just want to share my success with all of you in the hopes that this may solve some of your glitching problems.Thanks for the suggestion.

Note that it's also possible that the reboot alone solved your problem. If you notice troublesome behavior growing over time again, you might try simply rebooting before scrubbing the hardware connections. Check this post (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=4682052#post4682052), and scroll down to the various reboot methods. Many folks have solved a variety of minor (and sometimes major) ills by rebooting.

Some folks even do hard reboots weekly as a form of preventive maintenance.

Hi all...

I have the SA8300HD with Time Warner in Charlotte, NC. I got the 500gb Western Digital (WD5000AAKS) drive with the Vantec Nexstar3 360SU enclosure (as listed in xnappo's database) and hooked it up last night and it worked fine. But now when I hit replay during live tv, it cuts back to the beginning of where the dvr started recording as if I had just changed to that channel and wipes out any live tv recordings during that duration. I've hard rebooted the box and power cycled the drive (which asked me to reboot the box and I did again).

What's really weird is that when I hit play to display the recording bar, it doesn't show a green bar for recorded tv. It just shows the current point in time along the time bar.

I did a search but didn't find anything that resembled my issue. If anyone has any suggestions, I would greatly appreciate it!

TIA!

Hi all...

I have the SA8300HD with Time Warner in Charlotte, NC. I got the 500gb Western Digital (WD5000AAKS) drive with the Vantec Nexstar3 360SU enclosure (as listed in xnappo's database) and hooked it up last night and it worked fine. But now when I hit replay during live tv, it cuts back to the beginning of where the dvr started recording as if I had just changed to that channel and wipes out any live tv recordings during that duration. I've hard rebooted the box and power cycled the drive (which asked me to reboot the box and I did again).

What's really weird is that when I hit play to display the recording bar, it doesn't show a green bar for recorded tv. It just shows the current point in time along the time bar.

I did a search but didn't find anything that resembled my issue. If anyone has any suggestions, I would greatly appreciate it!

TIA!

Um, this has been discussed ad nauseum here; I'm very surprised your search yielded nothing. One more time (because you're a Charlottean) - maybe we should just put this at the top of every page - the software does not create buffers on the new drive, so no trick play from live content on that drive. When the percentage of free space on the internal drive exceeds that on the external drive, then live content once again gets buffered, and live trick play functions return. Right now, I'm ping-ponging back and forth with available trick play as the percentage of use is very similar on both drives.

To solve this "problem", simply start a recording for live content you're watching if you think you're going to want trick play for that program. Then you will have all the usual functionality for that recording.

Um, this has been discussed ad nauseum here; I'm very surprised your search yielded nothing. One more time (because you're a Charlottean) - maybe we should just put this at the top of every page - the software does not create buffers on the new drive, so no trick play from live content on that drive. When the percentage of free space on the internal drive exceeds that on the external drive, then live content once again gets buffered, and live trick play functions return. Right now, I'm ping-ponging back and forth with available trick play as the percentage of use is very similar on both drives.

To solve this "problem", simply start a recording for live content you're watching if you think you're going to want trick play for that program. Then you will have all the usual functionality for that recording.

You forgot to say on Passport only :)

xnappo

.....maybe we should just put this at the top of every page.....If someone wants to put together and post a set of Tips, FAQs, whatever, we can get a link added to the first post for future reference. If someone does this, it should include a commitment to maintain it. If not, then maybe I'll just get a link to your post added under the title "Trick Play FAQ".

If someone wants to put together and post a set of Tips, FAQs, whatever, we can get a link added to the first post for future reference. If someone does this, it should include a commitment to maintain it. If not, then maybe I'll just get a link to your post added under the title "Trick Play FAQ".

I won't have time for a couple of weeks (unless I get really bored this weekend) - but the database site I use for eSATA compatibility is well suited to FAQs - it would be nice because user entries could be made rather than needing a single maintainer.

Worthwhile?

xnappo

Um, this has been discussed ad nauseum here; I'm very surprised your search yielded nothing. One more time (because you're a Charlottean) - maybe we should just put this at the top of every page - the software does not create buffers on the new drive, so no trick play from live content on that drive. When the percentage of free space on the internal drive exceeds that on the external drive, then live content once again gets buffered, and live trick play functions return. Right now, I'm ping-ponging back and forth with available trick play as the percentage of use is very similar on both drives.

To solve this "problem", simply start a recording for live content you're watching if you think you're going to want trick play for that program. Then you will have all the usual functionality for that recording.

Ahhhh, okay. Thanks for the info! I think my problem was that I was looking for the wrong thing.

It looks like the 8300HD uses the external drive first to record things once it's connected. Is there a way to have it use the internal drive first and use the external once the internal fills up?

Thanks again!

Ahhhh, okay. Thanks for the info! I think my problem was that I was looking for the wrong thing.

It looks like the 8300HD uses the external drive first to record things once it's connected. Is there a way to have it use the internal drive first and use the external once the internal fills up?

Thanks again!

NO - Not on either SARA or Passport (probably based on lowest level SW in unit). With either the program is always automatically recorded to the drive with the greatest amount of space (on a % basis). SARA software does not have this issue (it is capable of playing back buffer from external drive).

Though you can get into heated debates over this, but SARA tends to have more fully functional hardware than Passport, but Passport has a better user interface. Unfortunately, the user doesn't have a choice.

NO - Not on either SARA or Passport (probably based on lowest level SW in unit). With either the program is always automatically recorded to the drive with the greatest amount of space (on a % basis). SARA software does not have this issue (it is capable of playing back buffer from external drive).

Though you can get into heated debates over this, but SARA tends to have more fully functional hardware than Passport, but Passport has a better user interface. Unfortunately, the user doesn't have a choice.

That's pretty weak :( Thanks!

That's pretty weak :( Thanks!

No fooling! In a general sense, I am appalled at what average folks consider acceptable software, especially when we are typically paying 1-200 bucks a month for such services from the cable/satellite guys.

Must say I am slightly heatened by what's going on in Nebraska when TW foisted some clearly alpha/development software into production; at least it got the politico's who essentially allow the cable monopoly to hear from the electorate. Then again, TW SHOULD have immediately pulled it, restored the previous functioning software. They SHOULD have been threatened with denial of their license unless they actually fixed the issue. Instead all I've read about is an admittance that maybe they shouldn't have deployed it so quickly.

No fooling! In a general sense, I am appalled at what average folks consider acceptable software, especially when we are typically paying 1-200 bucks a month for such services from the cable/satellite guys....

Considering that, as far as I know, TWC has no contractural commitment with us to even make available, let alone support the eSATA interface and external drive, I think we are just hoping that we can get a functional drive setup, and count our blessings.

Even us average folks would dearly love that it be robust, fully supported, and user friendly, but I don't think we have any leverage to make any demands of that sort.

Our alternative is to go to satellite service, which doesn't look too attractive with respect to the use of external drives either, at least from my initial look.

Worthwhile?I think so, at least for the instructions unique to each software and the "trick play" stuff. I think someone still needs to at least check it every so often just to make sure whatever is added it correct and current. Other than that, great idea! I had already looked at the database and thought it might be a useful tool, but didn't want to suggest it and put anyone on the spot. I kind of forgot it's based on user input.

I'm sure the reason a search doesn't get anything is because who, besides those here, knows that's how we refer to it?

I think so, at least for the instructions unique to each software and the "trick play" stuff. I think someone still needs to at least check it every so often just to make sure whatever is added it correct and current. Other than that, great idea! I had already looked at the database and thought it might be a useful tool, but didn't want to suggest it and put anyone on the spot. I kind of forgot it's based on user input.

I'm sure the reason a search doesn't get anything is because who, besides those here, knows that's how we refer to it?

Sure, I will give the usual suspects the login to delete junk and pretty it up, and chip in myself as well of course.

xnappo

Here's a 500GB eSATA + USB 2.0 drive for around $134 shipped 3-day. This is the best deal I could find, and the reviews are good. I'll let everyone know if there are problems with it.



That's the drive I recently ordered to expand the storage in my TIVO Series 3. I've had mixed results with it, but others have had perfect success stories. It's unclear yet whether the issues are only related to TIVO, however. Over in the TIVO forums there's a lot of discussion about this now because the TIVO Series 3 eSATA ports can now be activated.

I used a NeTegriti External Drive (250GB) that I got from Discount Technology for over a year with my SA8300HD, and it worked perfectly. In fact, since I now have the TIVO Series 3 and my new Cavalry drive, I am selling my old NeTegriti drive on eBay for any of you who may be interested.

Considering that, as far as I know, TWC has no contractural commitment with us to even make available, let alone support the eSATA interface and external drive, I think we are just hoping that we can get a functional drive setup, and count our blessings.

It's been my experience with TWC that they enable/add features but don't advertise them at all. It's like they give the users the features but don't tell the users because they don't want us to take advantage of them. But they enable the features so they can say the features are there. I would say probably 95% of their customers won't even think about these added features and they probably like keeping us in the dark.

In my opinion, the cable companies don't "support" the external drive because they need to avoid service issues with these drives (is it the cable signal strength, 8300 or the customer owned drive that is the problem?). A customer with a "bad" external drive can chew up a lot of truck rolls for something that the cable company has no ownership of. From their standpoint, it is best to discourage their customers from using it (now if they rented the external drive for another $10/month?????????).

In my opinion, the cable companies don't "support" the external drive because they need to avoid service issues with these drives (is it the cable signal strength, 8300 or the customer owned drive that is the problem?). A customer with a "bad" external drive can chew up a lot of truck rolls for something that the cable company has no ownership of. From their standpoint, it is best to discourage their customers from using it (now if they rented the external drive for another $10/month?????????).

I agree with that. When I first got cable 3 years ago, a guy from TWC said the plan was to rent the external drives for $6/mo., and use the firewire connection. Didn't quite work out the way he described. ;)

At any rate, it's not unreasonable for them to not officially "support" expansion drives if it's not their hardware and they probably don't see a financial upside for renting them themselves. I don't care, as long as the software supports it. That's all I want from Navigator. Well, that and software support for the firewire ports, as well.

Ordered the Apricorn eSATA case and WD5000AAKS after reading the thread. Works fine on my SARA 8300HD. I asked earlier about the USB connection on the eSATA case. Mine also included it. Didn't mention anything on the packaging, but it was there. Only problem now is the wife complains because deleting an HD show only frees up 1% space unlike the 4% it used to. :)

In my opinion, the cable companies don't "support" the external drive because they need to avoid service issues with these drives (is it the cable signal strength, 8300 or the customer owned drive that is the problem?). A customer with a "bad" external drive can chew up a lot of truck rolls for something that the cable company has no ownership of. From their standpoint, it is best to discourage their customers from using it (now if they rented the external drive for another $10/month?????????).

Well stated! I totally agree.

I agree with that. When I first got cable 3 years ago, a guy from TWC said the plan was to rent the external drives for $6/mo., and use the firewire connection. Didn't quite work out the way he described. ;)

At any rate, it's not unreasonable for them to not officially "support" expansion drives if it's not their hardware and they probably don't see a financial upside for renting them themselves. I don't care, as long as the software supports it. That's all I want from Navigator. Well, that and software support for the firewire ports, as well.

Except the truth is that they very much HAVE included support for external drives. As flaky and dev/alpha quality it is, there is a port on the box (and there doesn't HAVE to be) and there is software they DO include that at least, at some sloppy level, does support it. By doing these steps they 100% DO have an obligation to do it correctly.

Additionally, their box DOES hook up to your TV, which they don't own. So the argument on supporting equipment they don't supply is kind of a bogus claim.

Except the truth is that they very much HAVE included support for external drives. As flaky and dev/alpha quality it is, there is a port on the box (and there doesn't HAVE to be) and there is software they DO include that at least, at some sloppy level, does support it. By doing these steps they 100% DO have an obligation to do it correctly....


I had no idea that they are legally or contracturally required to do that, but then of course I have no legal expertise. I encourage you to go after TWC

...By doing these steps they 100% DO have an obligation to do it correctly.You can say that over and over again (and you have), but it doesn't make it so. If they had some sort of "obligation", there would be consequences to them not "doing it correctly".

There are no consequences, therefore they can do it. Q.E.D. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Q.E.D.)

Except the truth is that they very much HAVE included support for external drives. As flaky and dev/alpha quality it is, there is a port on the box (and there doesn't HAVE to be) and there is software they DO include that at least, at some sloppy level, does support it. By doing these steps they 100% DO have an obligation to do it correctly.

Additionally, their box DOES hook up to your TV, which they don't own. So the argument on supporting equipment they don't supply is kind of a bogus claim.

And they don't give you the users manual, and if you go download the user manual, it mentions eSATA drives.

xnappo

And the fact that SA includes basic support via a port and software doesn't obligate the cableco to support all features, only the ones they advertise, etc. An analogy is Windows (or any computer for that matter) Windows has many built-in capabilities that most computer makers don't take advantage of or support. That is why the 3rd party industry is so large. Add 3rd party hardware/software and see just how much support you get from Microsoft or the computer maker. I suppose cableco's should provide support for the Tivo S3 simply because it uses cablecards. It's a faulty argument that just because something is possible someone has a responsibility to support it.

Gave my Seagate 500gb esata a rest by disconnecting from my SA8300HD Passport. ( I was having what could be HD failure problems). After a week the titles( only the titles because the shows were on the Seagate) of the shows that were on the disconnected HD started to delete from the 8300 and now they are all gone. here's the problem; when i connect the external the titles of the shows do not appear... so if I want to watch the shows from the Ext. or even delete them.. how do I do it?? I am confused.

Thanks,

Bruce in Belle Harbor

Have you tried rebooting to see if it will rebuild the index?