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The Official AVS Dish DTVPal DVR Topic! - Page 470

post #14071 of 16909
2/28/12 at 3:15pm
I lucked out.

I bought a broken DTVPal DVR on Ebay for $88. The sellers described what sounded to me like it had a bad hard drive. Opened it up, vacuumed the dust bunnies, tested the fan, and stuck in a used 500Gb HDD. HDD replacement took all of about 40 deliberate minutes using the instructions posted in this thread.
Thanks!
Attached antenna cable and HDMI to HDTV and fired it up. After detecting all the channels, downloading the guide and setting up other items, it works as if brand new except of course it has double the capacity of a new unit.

Now I have three of these up and running in the house and my sony HDD500 almost never gets any use anymore.
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post #14072 of 16909
2/28/12 at 4:22pm
Cool
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post #14073 of 16909
2/29/12 at 5:20am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Jack Morris View Post

I lucked out.

I bought a broken DTVPal DVR on Ebay for $88. The sellers described what sounded to me like it had a bad hard drive. Opened it up, vacuumed the dust bunnies, tested the fan, and stuck in a used 500Gb HDD. HDD replacement took all of about 40 deliberate minutes using the instructions posted in this thread.
Thanks!
Attached antenna cable and HDMI to HDTV and fired it up. After detecting all the channels, downloading the guide and setting up other items, it works as if brand new except of course it has double the capacity of a new unit.

Now I have three of these up and running in the house and my sony HDD500 almost never gets any use anymore.

You might get doubly lucky when and if you check the hard drive and find that it works fine in a PC.
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post #14074 of 16909
2/29/12 at 5:26am
Quote:
Originally Posted by LenL View Post

You might get doubly lucky when and if you check the hard drive and find that it works fine in a PC.

Need to find a SATA to USB cable and I'll check that out. Thanks for the idea before the old HDD ended up in the trash.
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post #14075 of 16909
2/29/12 at 7:56am
Quote:
Originally Posted by LenL View Post

You might get doubly lucky when and if you check the hard drive and find that it works fine in a PC.

I wouldn't get it to PC so quick, it would have bad sectors or other issues.

Checking by MHDD (using bootable CD) or Victoria under Windows, getting SMART data, run Scan with ReMap=on will give you health of the drive to make right informed decision.
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post #14076 of 16909
2/29/12 at 8:14am
Quote:
Originally Posted by P Smith View Post

I wouldn't get it to PC so quick, it would have bad sectors or other issues.

Checking by MHDD (using bootable CD) or Victoria under Windows, getting SMART data, run Scan with ReMap=on will give you health of the drive to make right informed decision.

There is nothing wrong with plopping it in a PC right away. Certainly you would not want to load anything on it until you formatted it and tested it. There are lots of free tools available to test a hard drive. When I took the 250 GB hard drive out of my PalDVR I did have to use cd run version of Linux though to turn off the "power up in standby" so it could be used in WIndows. I believe there are a few ways to do this and it can be found on this forum and elsewhere. I could only get the Linux method to work for me.
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post #14077 of 16909
2/29/12 at 9:07am
That's right - the drive should have the flag from manufacturer [WDC] as it an OEM drive, hence is "-57" designator (echostar/dish). Sometime the set is slipped, so ppl cold try it without disabling the mode.
I want to note - I don't know better then MHDD tests. And it's not required Linux knowledge, what 99.9% of the DVR users are missing.
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post #14078 of 16909
2/29/12 at 10:55am
I don't have any PCs to stick it in anyway, only 3 laptops in the house now. That's why I'd use a SATA to USB external box for the drive. I'd probably just format the drive in Win7 and then run the HDD tests. Is the "power up in standby" a HDD firmware setting or will doing an low level format and partition as one disc eliminate that function?

With other bad HDDs I used Ubuntu to boot and mount the disc to access the files for moving to a good HDD. Maybe I could do the same if needed this time too?
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post #14079 of 16909
2/29/12 at 12:35pm
It's HDD's FW setting.
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post #14080 of 16909
3/1/12 at 2:54pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by P Smith View Post

It's HDD's FW setting.

You know I was thinking. How does this sound?

P Smiths - DTVPAL Service Center
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post #14081 of 16909
3/1/12 at 5:02pm
Only if they will provide schematics first.
Then source code and IDE for rebuild it after fix bugs and adding new features like getting time using NTP protocol, reacquire TVGOS each day, etc.
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post #14082 of 16909
3/2/12 at 8:24am
Quote:
Originally Posted by keyboard21 View Post

You know I was thinking. How does this sound?

P Smiths - DTVPAL Service Center

The Link to the Service Center doesn't work?


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post #14083 of 16909
3/2/12 at 11:47am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Jack Morris View Post

The Link to the Service Center doesn't work?



It is a paid subscription service. You first have to pay P Smith and then you can make direct contact with him for the work you want done. I think its like $500 to have him even agree to let you contact him.
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post #14084 of 16909
3/2/12 at 12:07pm
Don't make me looks bad ...
:backtotop:
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post #14085 of 16909
3/3/12 at 11:06am
Quote:
Originally Posted by P Smith View Post

Don't make me looks bad ...
:backtotop:

Tongue and cheek comment. Seeing as you have NO specs to work with, I would not blame you or anyone for charging lots of money to repair a PALDVR. I don't think there is anyone who would do it.

The fact is it is cheaper to replace most electronics these days then to send them off for repair... what with the postage, labor and parts charges.
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post #14086 of 16909
3/3/12 at 11:23am
Quote:
Originally Posted by LenL View Post

Tongue and cheek comment. Seeing as you have NO specs to work with, I would not blame you or anyone for charging lots of money to repair a PALDVR. I don't think there is anyone who would do it.

The fact is it is cheaper to replace most electronics these days then to send them off for repair... what with the postage, labor and parts charges.

Too bad no one can hack them (reverse engineer) without getting in trouble.
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post #14087 of 16909
3/3/12 at 2:41pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by phildaant View Post

Too bad no one can hack them (reverse engineer) without getting in trouble.

Actually if whoever coded the firmware wanted, they could freelance and make lots of money selling firmware updates for a price that all of us PALDVR owners would be willing to pay. Even for a buck an update they could make some money adding some new features or functionality. I'm sure all of us could come up with a nice punchlist of changes or enhancements that might be fixed with firmware updates. Then again maybe its a bad idea.
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post #14088 of 16909
3/3/12 at 2:43pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by LenL View Post

Actually if whoever coded the firmware wanted, they could freelance and make lots of money selling firmware updates for a price that all of us PALDVR owners would be willing to pay. Even for a buck an update they could make some money adding some new features or functionality. I'm sure all of us could come up with a nice punchlist of changes or enhancements that might be fixed with firmware updates. Then again maybe its a bad idea.

But Echostar lawyers would sue the coder.
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post #14089 of 16909
3/3/12 at 3:15pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by LenL View Post

Actually if whoever coded the firmware wanted, they could freelance and make lots of money selling firmware updates for a price that all of us PALDVR owners would be willing to pay. Even for a buck an update they could make some money adding some new features or functionality. I'm sure all of us could come up with a nice punchlist of changes or enhancements that might be fixed with firmware updates. Then again maybe its a bad idea.

I've seen lots of customized (hacked) firmware over the last decade,
and used it in my DVD drives as well as a couple of stand alone recorders.
I have NEVER seen anyone charge money for that firmware.
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post #14090 of 16909
3/3/12 at 11:06pm
If they will it would be major point to open a case ... Money rules !
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post #14091 of 16909
3/4/12 at 7:03am
Quote:
Originally Posted by phildaant View Post

But Echostar lawyers would sue the coder.

They will find a lawyer to sue but I'm not sure on what grounds. They no longer sell, support, or service the product. If someone offers to support or service the product for as fee would they sue that person? I could see if they still serviced or supported the product but they have pretty much walked away from their customers. If anything Echostar should be sued by all of us who purchased their product for which can not get serviced, repaired or updated!

It would be rather ironic that they would sue anyone who would take them off the hook for providing a service which they failed misrably at or never provided. There are probably plenty of lawyers who would love to defend the case.
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post #14092 of 16909
3/4/12 at 7:07am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Chuck44 View Post

I've seen lots of customized (hacked) firmware over the last decade,
and used it in my DVD drives as well as a couple of stand alone recorders.
I have NEVER seen anyone charge money for that firmware.

I think many of us would be willing to pay a reasonable price for firmware upgrades that fix issues or enabled more features that we wanted with the PALDVR.

Surely if it was Echostar/DIsh we would be insulted to pay but since they no longer support the product I think for someone to invest their own time to work on it I would be willing to send a small fee to encourage continued support.
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post #14093 of 16909
3/4/12 at 7:43am
I will tell you with confidence - modding FW of such boxes it's not a hack in DVD for remove region restriction, the DVR has a lot of code signed in each corner plus a couple chips from other companies who are usually require official NDA before provide documentation and not willing to cooperate with small companies at all ...
It's dead end of support of FW if originator stop it.
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post #14094 of 16909
3/4/12 at 8:52pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Jack Morris View Post

I lucked out.

I bought a broken DTVPal DVR on Ebay for $88. The sellers described what sounded to me like it had a bad hard drive. Opened it up, vacuumed the dust bunnies, tested the fan, and stuck in a used 500Gb HDD. HDD replacement took all of about 40 deliberate minutes using the instructions posted in this thread.
Thanks!
Attached antenna cable and HDMI to HDTV and fired it up. After detecting all the channels, downloading the guide and setting up other items, it works as if brand new except of course it has double the capacity of a new unit.

Now I have three of these up and running in the house and my sony HDD500 almost never gets any use anymore.

Just out of curiosity, did you buy from a private seller, or an EBay store
called ANew Parts or ANew As-Is ? The only working units I've seen on EBay were commanding top dollar, the non-working units were being sold by this
company, which hardly ever gives accurate descriptions of the items being sold.

I own two perfectly working DTVPal DVR's for two years now, but in my
closet is one non-working unit I bought on EBay from a seller who said it
was a hard drive problem. No matter what hard drive I installed, it never
got past the boot up screen. Due to that experience, I wasn't tempted
to buy another cheaply priced unit on EBay, so although it was very cool you got one for $88, I think you were extremely lucky.....
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post #14095 of 16909
3/5/12 at 5:35am
Quote:
Originally Posted by joecass View Post

Just out of curiosity, did you buy from a private seller, or an EBay store
called ANew Parts or ANew As-Is ? The only working units I've seen on EBay were commanding top dollar, the non-working units were being sold by this
company, which hardly ever gives accurate descriptions of the items being sold.

I own two perfectly working DTVPal DVR's for two years now, but in my
closet is one non-working unit I bought on EBay from a seller who said it
was a hard drive problem. No matter what hard drive I installed, it never
got past the boot up screen. Due to that experience, I wasn't tempted
to buy another cheaply priced unit on EBay, so although it was very cool you got one for $88, I think you were extremely lucky.....

Here is the unit I bought:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/250990044554...#ht_500wt_1156

Other than the ad description and my question which is posted in the ad, the seller and I had numerous other email conversations concerning the unit and he actually did some troubleshooting for me with the unit before I ended up bidding to win the auction.

Based on what he found, and what others told me in this thread based on what the seller reported, I had a pretty good idea that the problem was the HDD. Still, it was a risk which luckily paid off for me. This unit makes it 3 DTVPal DVRs in the house and one Sony DHG DVR which i am now probably gonna sell to pay some bills.
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post #14096 of 16909
3/5/12 at 6:49am
Someone that actually saves the box. Amazing!
He makes up around 10% of eBay sellers. For whatever lame and outright stupid reason, all the others throw boxes out, even for small items as this.

Didn't Dave TV sell all the rights to their old DVR to CM?
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post #14097 of 16909
3/5/12 at 11:49am
Quote:
Originally Posted by videobruce View Post

Someone that actually saves the box. Amazing!
He makes up around 10% of eBay sellers. For whatever lame and outright stupid reason, all the others throw boxes out, even for small items as this.

Didn't Dave TV sell all the rights to their old DVR to CM?

I must be OCD... I keep all my boxes. Probably my oldest boxes(20+ years) are from my Mirage M3-si speakers - GIANT boxes for items I probably will never sell or need the boxes ever again.
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post #14098 of 16909
3/5/12 at 1:10pm
I lost my thumb drive with DTVPAL FW208 on it. Where can I go to get it now???
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post #14099 of 16909
3/5/12 at 1:11pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Jack Morris View Post

I must be OCD... I keep all my boxes. Probably my oldest boxes(20+ years) are from my Mirage M3-si speakers - GIANT boxes for items I probably will never sell or need the boxes ever again.

I keep my boxes as long as I still find use in them and/or still have the working products. Example: DTVPal DVR, MacBook Pro, my computer stuff, etc.
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post #14100 of 16909
3/5/12 at 2:22pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Hunter56 View Post

I lost my thumb drive with DTVPAL FW208 on it. Where can I go to get it now???

Go To Post#1.
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