DCT6412 Hard Drive Upgrade? - Page 2

Has anyone ever been able to upgrade or addon another harddrive in this unit yet (In a "rented" unit from comcast)...

Not possible, Comcast does not currently enable the eSATA port, the headend would have to activate the eSata port and enable external HDD options in the firmware.

So I guess, just "temporarily" removing the existing HDD and cloning it onto a bigger size drive wouldnt work either then?

I am with Shaw cable and have a DCT6412 III which I purchased on eBay. I upgraded the 120GB Seagate with a 160GB Seagate. That is an increase of 33%. I would liked to have installed a larger drive, but from all my research I found that the existing firmware will not recognize anything larger than 160GB. I have heard of people installing larger drives, they work but still only show 160GB.

Also, I could not clone the old drive as they use some non-standard operating system/partitioning? So I left the unit open and would swap the drives back and forth until I had finished watching my old recordings while I put new recordings on the new drive.

So if you were to return the unit to shaw.. you'd basically just replace the original HDD unit and they would have no idea the unit was opened/modified?

IE: if i did this with my comcast unit, would they have anyway (or care) of knowing a change was made?

Also.. with purchased units off ebay, would comcast allow me to use the new box (if i returned the old one).. and would they still charge me the rented fee of 9.95 per month?


Finally, what is the process for putting in the new drive.. do you just take a brand new (formatted) drive and put it in and it magically will then work, or are there other steps involved. And does this unit take SATA drives internally or are the IDE, as I do have a 400gb SATA drive lying around that I could swap if it would work.


Thanks

The new Phase 3 64xx & all of the 34xx series have a device inside that keeps track of the number of times the lid has been removed. There is also a Sticker on both sides of the Frame, it has to be cut to open the cover, and if the cable company finds this cut, they will charge your credit card the full price of the unit.

Also in the US, you must rent them from the MSO, as the STB are not available to the end user for purchase. Comcast WILL NOT add a Moto DVR STB to there system that was not rented from them.

As far as the HDD, the system will format it once it is installed.

The files will only be usable on that STB, as it is encoded with the STB and HDD seriel numbers. You will not be able to take the HDD and play it in another STB or on any PC.

They are working on the DRM code to allow external HDD to be added, but once again. the same rules will apply.

Just one question--is it possible to open up the dct-6400 (no internal hard disk) and add one? Does it have the necessary interface components?

Can anyone tell me how the hard drive jumper should be set on a phase 1 6412 with an IDE drive (Master or Cable Select?). It works now, set to cable select but the box doesn't seem that stable.

Different brands of HDD have different jumper settings for single HDD useage.

Some want no jumpers, some want CS, some want it set to master.

What does it say on your HDD or in the instructions for your new HDD?

A long shot that you will spot this reply but I will try anyway since you are the first Linux person I have found who is 'mucking about' with this device trying to increase recording capacity and you obviously know what you are doing when it comes to Linux.

I have the latest generation Motorola 6416 as well as the new UI. This is for my Verizon FIOS TV that I switfched to from Directv 2 months ag
I opened the case on the 6416 and have placed the 160 Gbyte Sata disk that is from my 6416 as well as a blank 320 Gbyte SATA disk into a PC running Linux kernel 2.6. I am using the Debian distro.

The 160 Gbyte disk is 85% full of recordings and has LOTS of season passes.

I have tried all the Linux partioning tools (gparted,fdisk,fips,partimage,etc.) and they all complain about invalid partition table,whcih makes perfect sense from what your posts have said.

My first question to you is: What tools are you using that lets you see the level of detail on the disk that you have posted, such as the signature bytes?


For the sake of the following discussion, assume the naming convention of the 160 Gbyte disk from the Moto 6416 as /dev/sdb and the 320 Gbyte blank disk as /dev/sdc

I am able to do "fdisk /dev/sdb1" and "fdisk /dev/sdb2" with success.

Those are the only 2 partitions that fdisk sees.
fdisk tells me that /dev/sdb1 is ~3 Gbytes and /dev/sdb2 is ~145 Gbytes.


I did a "dd" of both partitions to files which proved interesting.

In dumping the file of /dev/sdb1 with the -c option, I can spot the text which shows the names of the shows that are recorded as well as the description of the shows that one sees on the TV.

I am making the totally unfounded assumption that the non ascii values that I see are pointers to the actual files recorded on the disk.

The dump of /dev/sdb2 has no obvious patter's in the data.Given the size of that parition and the fact that this is the second of the 2 partitions, I can make the assumption that /dev/sdb2 is where the actualy recordings are.


I have done several experiments with cloning these disks.
My first one was merely to see if I could clone to a physcially larger disk and get the 6146 to work.

First, I put /dev/sdc into the Moto 6416 and rebooted it so that it created the identical 2 empty partitions described above. The 6416 worked properly with that 320 Gbyte disk setup as a 160 Gbyte disk.
I doubled checked /dev/sdc1 and 2 back on the Linux PC.

Then using the dd command twice , I copied the two partitions from /dev/sdb to /dev/sdc.

I put the cloned 320 Gbyte disk (/dev/sdc) back into the 6416 and rebooted.
Right away I knew that the clone was successful when I hit the "DVR" button.
All my recordings were there and the season pass and other stuff were all there. Obviously, it was still a 160 Gbyte disk.

I even sat down to do a verification test (and celebrate) and of course had to have a beer while I watched a one hour recording from the DVR menu Flawless playback,etc.

So one can clone the disc in the 6416 and the clone works perfectly.
May not seem like a big desal to others but with such attention to detail when it comes to DRM by Motorola, I figured that the recordings would be tied to the disk's serial number or sometjng like that.

I do not have a second 6416b to try the clone in.

My next set of experiments were to see if I could build a partition table on /dev/sdc that the 6416 would be happy with and if so, see if I could make partition 2 BIGGER

All of these ended up with the same result: After reboot, the 6416 rebuilt the partition table to that wierd one and my 320 GB disk is built as a 160
This is where I have hit a brick wall .

Yesterday, I confgured and ordered a Vista Media Center PC from HP with dual ATI Cable Card tuner's. That will be connected to my 5 TB SAN.
Until it shows up, I will continue to mess with this 6416 but I am out of ideas so that is why I was pleased to stumble upon alexburke and his posts.

Thanks for reading my novel

Ideas and answers to my question above will be most appreciated.

Joe

***BUMP***

I was just wondering if anyone has successfully added a second drive to double capacity?? So--theoretically--two 160GB drives would give a total of 320GB or more than 2.5 times the original 120GB drive space. Not to mention going to 7200 RPM drives vs. the quoted original speed of 5400 RPM.

I saw no second connector on the motherboard.

Wouldn't it be a double connection cable? (For IDE that is)

I haven't looked at it closely whether a second drive could physically fit in there or not, but I have read elsewhere that it was possible.

I now have a Vista Cable Card PC with a 1.5 TB Raid to use as my DVR so I turned in the QIP6416.

I did this about a month and a half ago so here is what I remember:

The SATA cable only had one connector on it and it was obvious from it's connection to the motherboard that there was only provision for one cable.

Since the cable was very short and removing the disk was going to be difficult due to not really having the correct tool, I merely placed a 250 Gbyte disk on top of the installed one.

To prevent any chance of something falling onto the Motherboad and the VERY exposed Power supply,I would then put the cover back on (without the screws)
So, there would be room for a stacked arrangement but as I said, there is no provision for a second SATA cable inside.

I am totally convinced that the ONLY way to expand this DVR is via an external Disk drive.
Supporting an external disk drive will require a firmware upgrade and I believe that this will never happen.

Being removable means that this dsk can be connected to any PC and I believe that they are afraid this will open the door to 'breaking' the copy protection that I have described.
Obviously, Motorola does not want to get themselves caught in the middle of a lawsuit.

This is pure conjecture on my part but I believe that the only way we are going to get more recording capacity from Motorola is when they come out with a new model with a larger internal disk drive.

Of course, you have other options like TIVO or a Cable Card PC.
Personally, I do not like large recurring costs so I went the PC route.

Obviously this becomes a whole new thread...I'd be interesed in how you got a Cable Card in a PC. Did you have to start with an OEM built one?

Yes, you do.

Here is the thread on this HP PC:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=886513

and here are two really good ones about CableCard PC's in general:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=771387

http://msmvps.com/blogs/chrisl/archi...11/956401.aspx

Heres a great link, it might be helpful. And if it is available to you in you're area check out the hdpvr by Pace. It has an active sata port that connects to an external hard drive. I guess i have to make 3 posts before i can give you a link.

Number 2

Number 3

http://replayguide.sourceforge.net/dct6412/index.html This is the link that will explain how to use the fire wire connection to remove the recorded content of the STB. Also, the STB have a fully functional Docsis modem inside that will provide high speed internet service. It is virtually the same modem that is provided for Shaw's internet service. It isn't used for reliability issues, meaning if the box breaks down, they don't want you to lose both you're internet and you're tv so it remains disabled.

there is a way to upgrade the internal hard drive to a 1TB (have one myself). I bought it from hdtvsales.ca for $100.00 but can confirm it does work, Im not sure how the guy formats the drives for them to work but I just installed mine and it works fine.

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Special update April 29, 2012: If you're reading page 2 of this thread, my guess is that you're looking for a way to increase the recording capacity of your Motorola DVR. A working method has been discovered and is described in thread post #201. This post that you're currently reading (thread post #52) is my earliest posting on the subject, so I though it would be nice to edit it and try to save you from reading 5 more pages of postings before getting to the important stuff (though do feel free to read every post, as it is a riveting story filled with unexpected twists and turns and even an unsolved murder!)
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I'm 99.44% sure that the person who sold that 1 TB drive to you duplicated that drive from one that was originally connected to the eSATA port of a Motorola cable box.

In other words, they didn't do anything fancy to format it; They let the DCT-6412 or 6416 or DCH-3412 or 3416 handle formatting the 1 TB drive as an external drive.

*Note: Unlike the internal SATA connection, which will only ever format a hard drive to a maximum of 160 GB, the eSATA port on the back of the cable box is able to format a drive up to a maximum of 1 TB. Unfortunately, almost none of use live in an area where the cable company allows the eSATA port to operate.

Once formatted as an external drive, that drive can be used as either the internal or external hard drive. Now, most of us live in an area where the cable company doesn't allow for external drives. And in that case our only choice is to use it as the internal drive.

For people who live in an area where eSATA external drives can be used, you can actually have up to 2 TB of storage! (a 1TB internal drive and a 1 TB external drive) Also, if you live in an area that allows eSATA external drives, you can save some cash instead of buying a preformatted drive...just spend $60 on a 1 TB drive and have your cable box format it as an external drive (and then open your cable box and use it as the internal drive).

I am not aware of anywhere in the US where a cable company allows the use of eSATA external drives. I do know that Shaw cable in Canada allows the use of external drives with Motorola cable boxes.


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*******UPDATE: DCTneo, dan74 and myself figured out a way to use a 1 TB hard drive. If you are looking to upgrade your DVR hard drive to 1 TB, see this post! *******
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ahh that would explain it. So the question is, is there a way I can clone this drive to another 1TB drive to use in another STB?

Yes. Any drive imaging program that can perform a sector-by-sector copy of that hard drive to another (identical) hard drive. Sometimes this is called a Raw Copy or Raw Image of the drive.

Theoretically the other drive does not need to actually be identical, but it would be a lot safer if you used the same model of hard drive. Keep in mind that 1 TB is the maximum drive size that the Motorola cable boxes can support.

I've been playing around with these drives quite a bit these past couple of days (I do not have a 1 TB drive, I've been putting drives into my DCH3416 and having it format them to 160 GB...just for messing around with the IBM GPFS file system).

You can run the Linux dd command to duplicate the disk. I'm sure that there are quite a few other ways to do it, but I don't want to steer you wrong. I'll do some more playing around and reply again later today with a step-by-step method.

great! thanks for the response, Ill try to clone it to another 1TB drive and report back how/if it works. I appreciate the guidance.

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*****DISCLAIMER: The following post is only about copying your DVR hard drive to another hard drive. It will not increase the amount of available recording space!
*****If you are looking to upgrade your DVR hard drive to 1 TB of recording space, see this post!
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I'll outline how you can use a free Linux boot CD to clone the hard drive for a Motorola cable box DVR. If any shows are on the cloned drive they will only be playable on the unit that recorded it, as the shows are locked to the DVR that recorded them due to DRM. You can simply delete any unplayable shows once you put the new drive in your other DVR.

Here are the steps:

1. Download and burn the Linux "Trinity Rescue Kit" CD ISO file from:
http://linux.softpedia.com/progDownl...load-8142.html
(it's just under 150 MB and easily fits on a CD)

2. Shut down your PC and connect both the Motorola-formatted 1 TB DVR hard drive and your new blank 1 TB hard drive.
Note: You want to connect both drives using SATA; DO NOT use an external USB enclosure or it could take *FOREVER* to copy. SATA will be much much faster.

3. Insert the Trinity Rescue Kit CD and boot your computer from it.

4. At the first prompt take the default, "Run Trinity Rescue Kit 3.4 (default mode, with text menu)



5. You'll see Linux boot up.


6. At the "Trinity Rescue Kit easy menu", choose "Go to a shell" (the fifth choice from the bottom).


7. Type the following: sfdisk -l
(Note: That's an L, not an I...it stands for List)

You'll see some information listed about the disks in your system and any partitions that may be on them.
****This next part is really important**** You should see an error message from sfdisk telling you that one of your disks has an unrecognized partition table type.
For me, the error message says "sfdisk: ERROR: sector 0 does not have an msdos signature
/dev/sdb: unrecognized partition table type
No partitions found"


Be sure to write down the name of that drive! For me it is "/dev/sdb", but for you it might be "/dev/sda" or something else. Whatever the name, this is your Motorola-formatted drive. sfdisk says that it has an unrecognized partition table type because Motorola uses a very esoteric file system, IBM's GPFS (General Parallel File System). This file system is not a standard Linux file system and can't be read without purchasing a license from IBM and jumping through a bunch of hoops.

If you want to be super-careful, first boot your computer with only the Motorola-formatted 1 TB drive and use sfdisk -l to see what drive name it is assigned.
Then boot with both drives and double-check until you are comfortable that you know which is which.


Anyways, it's critical to get the name correct so that you don't accidentally overwrite the Motorola-formatted drive with the blank one (that'd be a real facepalm moment).

8. The final step is to type in the correct command to perform a sector-by-sector drive copy.
We'll use the Linux dd command...it stands for "data definition", though is often referred to as "data destroyer" b/c people too frequently screw up step 7 and overwrite their data drive with the blank drive

So here's how my command looked:
dd if=/dev/sdb of=/dev/sda

*Be sure that the /if switch is followed by the Motorola-formatted drive and the /of switch is followed by the blank drive.

And that's it. Now you wait for quite a few hours. I don't know how long a 1 TB drive will take to copy, but my 160 GB drive takes a few hours.
The computer I'm using is not particularly new (I built it in 2005), so yours may copy the drive faster.
It's important to note that the Trinity Rescue Kit uses power saving, so your monitor will go blank after extended inactivity. Just wiggle your mouse or tap a shift key to wake up the screen.



Unfortunately there is no progress indicator. You'll only see a blinking cursor in the lower-left corner of the screen on the line below where you typed the dd command. But eventually, once the copy has completed, you'll see a few lines of output that mention how many sectors were copied.
(And if you listen closely, you'll probably be able to hear that it's copying and your HDD LED on your computer will be going. I assure you it's not hung, you'll just need to give it time. I wouldn't be surprised if you needed to leave it running overnight.
I'm sure that there are other methods that would also work, but this one is totally free and I've tested it several times over.


You can see that, once it finishes, it mentions the number of records read and written and the amount of time the copy took. So it looks like this 160 GB clone took just under 4 hours to complete.

thanks! Before I saw this though I used DiskCopy 2.3 and booted from CD with both drives hooked up via sata, chose source drive then destination, did sector by sector. Took about 3 hours but worked like a charm!

It didnt give me any errors and had a progress bar with time remaining, amount copied, etc. A nice little free app too. I really appreciate you taking the time to post those instructions and screen shots, although I did not see them Im sure it will help someone in the future.

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*********************DISCLAIMER: The following post is outdated. If you are looking to upgrade your DVR hard drive to 1 TB, see this post!*********************
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That's good to know. So we now know the free Easeus Disk Copy 2.3 works well for copying a Motorola DVR hard drive.

For the benefit of others, here's Easeus' instructions on using the tool:
How to use Easeus Disk Copy
And here's the download link for Easeus Disk Copy:
Download_Easeus_Disk_Copy
The download is a zip file that contains an .iso. Simply burn the iso to CD and use it to boot your computer.



It's important to understand that the "error" described in my instructions was intentional and merely used to figure out which hard drive was the Motorola-formatted drive. Otherwise there is a serious risk that someone could get confused and accidentally overwrite the Motorola-formatted drive with the blank one, which would be a disaster.

That same risk exists with using Easeus Disk Copy, and is perhaps greater. The biggest risk is when both hard drives are the exact same model...it can be very difficult to figure out which is the blank one and which is the Motorola-formatted one (Since there are no disk copy programs that will recognize the GPFS file system, the Motorola-formatted drive will appear to also be blank). It's a lot less confusing if the two hard drives are from different companies because most disk copy software will show you the drive manufacturer name and model number.



No problem. I've gotten so much good info from this site and feel the need to give a little back.

Yes, and one thing to add... to be safe before you copy your hard drive always write down the number from the hard drive sticker to a piece of paper (example on SeaGates: ST31000526AS) as thats how you will choose which drive to use as source and which for destination also that way you always know the DVR one from the new one you are formatting. Always better safe then sorry!

True, but a lot of people will buy the exact same model of hard drive, so it becomes a lot more difficult to discern which one is the source and which one is the new drive (they would both show up as ST31000526AS).