[sslund]

I know it's a long shot, and I'm happy to accept the "cheater, cheater, pumpkin eater" label from anyone who can answer my question, but does anyone have a source of RTV-compatible (50xx) replacement drives they can share?


After exhibiting some bizzaro behavior for a couple of days, the hard drive in our main (we have -- or had -- 5 still in service) RVT went belly up tonight. That particular hard drive (our first RTV) was upgraded back in 2007 thanks to Mikeyboy, who was my go to source for hard drives & power supplies. When I last needed to replace a RTV hard drive a couple of years ago, I was crushed that Mikeyboy was no longer an option, and I waded through learning more about hard drive compatibility for RTVs than I ever hoped to know -- all of which I've now forgotten -- and then weeks & weeks of searching for an appropriate drive.


To further pull on any sympathetic person's heartstrings, it's my tech-phobic & change aversive dh who is still completely hooked on the RTVs & it's baseball season! I mostly transitioned to an HD DVR solution a few years ago, but not him -- he's still hooked to the RTVs. I've tried several times over the past few years to sell him on "our" HD DVR setup, but he's just not interested in an old dog learning any new tech tricks. And, I really try to accommodate him because he's a keeper, but the last round of finding a replacement RTV hard drive was agony for me, and given that I just last week had to replace a failed hard drive in his older computer (no new computer for him -- he's change aversive), and given that I've already done a quick search for a new RTV drive & come up empty, and given that it's baseball season, I'm desperately looking for HELP & I'm shameless about asking.


Can anyone throw me a bone?


TIA,

Saundra

 

[Reden]

Kennymccormick has just updated a thread that is looking for ideas on using modern drives. ( he has no answers yet). That can give hope.


Interesting you can't get DH to move... Baseball really looks better in HD. We're the opposite, we've moved to HD for sports, but most everything else is still SD.


Worst case scenario (short term fix), you can purchase a used 5k to just get the disk. On the plus side, you'll have a spare power supply too.


Robert

 

[srfrdan]



Quote:
Originally Posted by sslund  /t/1526675/50xx-compatible-hard-drive-replacement-source#post_24590803


I know it's a long shot, and I'm happy to accept the "cheater, cheater, pumpkin eater" label from anyone who can answer my question, but does anyone have a source of RTV-compatible (50xx) replacement drives they can share?


TIA,

Saundra

ebay has mountains of used seagates and wds ----some new as well----d

 

[wtkflhn]

Weaknees has them for a price. The come with the software loaded and ready to go. I think the number 1-800-weaknee. Changing them out is easy, they will include instructions and tools you may need. Anyone can do it. All you need is the model number.



Don H..

 

[dstoffa]



Quote:
Originally Posted by sslund  /t/1526675/50xx-compatible-hard-drive-replacement-source#post_24590803



Can anyone throw me a bone?


TIA,

Saundra

newegg is selling refurbished 160 gb seagate db35 drives for $19.99 each, free shipping.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148785


Some good eggs and some bad eggs. You may find other searches by using the MODEL number of the HD. "ST3160215ACE"


Personally I dumpster dived for compatible drives back when my company was going from PATA HDs to SATA HDs, and I also bought some NOS 250 GB versions of the Seagate DB35's.


Good luck.


And I cannot believe I've been using these things for 11 years now....


Cheers!

-Doug

 

[mlloyd]



Quote:
Originally Posted by dstoffa  /t/1526675/50xx-compatible-hard-drive-replacement-source#post_24595339


newegg is selling refurbished 160 gb seagate db35 drives for $19.99 each, free shipping.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148785



Cheers!

-Doug

I bought 7 of these drives for my 5xxx Replays, installing them when necessary. So far I have installed these drives in 4 5xxx Replays (starting about a year ago). There haven't been any mechanical problems.

 

[krkaufman]



Quote:
Originally Posted by dstoffa  /t/1526675/50xx-compatible-hard-drive-replacement-source#post_24595339


newegg is selling refurbished 160 gb seagate db35 drives for $19.99 each, free shipping.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148785

Good tip. May have to get a few of these, just as backups.

 

[sslund]

Thanks, everyone, for the suggestions -- I really appreciate them.


I started out reluctant to go with refurbished drives from eBay (and wasn't having luck finding the new ones I know will work) because I tend to be an unlucky kind of person, so I was getting ready to go with weaKnees (I'm beyond thrilled to know that's an option) when I saw the Newegg refurbs with free shipping, and the price was OK to take a chance. In the meantime, I heard back from an Amazon Marketplace seller confirming that the 320 GB drives offered are, in fact, new. If anyone is interested, here's the link:
http://www.amazon.com/Seagate-320G-PATA-Internal-DB35-3/dp/B007MFDNSC/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1397279365&sr=8-1&keywords=ST3320820ACE


Since I'm replacing a failed 500 GB drive, and since my dh tends to pile things up, that's the size he was interested in, so I ordered it. We'll see if it is really a new drive, and the correct drive. And, to save myself angst when the next drive fails, I ordered a couple from Newegg -- we've got two RTVs that are still on their original drives, and given the way things have been going in my technology life, they'll likely be needed sooner rather than later.


My hubby is a lost cause with getting him to transition, and I've decided that's not a bad thing for me because I never have to share any of the 6 Moxi tuners with him

I was pretty slow to jump into the whole HD thing (in part because I was a RTV addict), but once I made the leap, I've never looked back. He swears he really doesn't see "much" difference between SD & HD, which I have a difficult time believing because even I see a marked difference, so I think it's probably just another manifestation of his aversion to change. I asked him again today, and he also apparently thinks the RTV Quick Skip does a better job of being in sync with his sports. I reminded him it's a simple thing to change the skip time increments on the Moxi, and he's just not interested in "fooling around" with doing something different when what he does works. Well, OK then.


Thanks again for all the suggestions, and I really hope the thread Kennymccormick resurrected makes some progress since the older drives have become much more difficult to source. I've had to replace the power source in one of our 5, and then hard drives in 3, but otherwise these things seem to keep right on keeping on, for the most part.

 

[krkaufman]

Hey, Saundra, I felt the need to cross-post my reply from over on PlanetReplay , in case you don't get notifs from that forum -- and because the Newegg refurb price almost demands a 2-drive installation.

To wit... given the current $17 per drive price on Newegg for refurbished DB35s , it would pay to review this how-to for setting up a 2-drive ReplayTV 5xxx configuration:

replaytvupgrade.com: ReplayTV 5XXX 2 drive upgrade info and pictures


And here's what you'd need to make it happen, aside from the 2 compatible drives:

• drive rails ( example )
• drive mounting screws
• velcro strips
• single bracket mounting screw
• standard dual-connector IDE cable ( example )
• molex power cable Y splitter ( example )

Though... I hope the larger drive you ordered works out, making this 2-drive setup unnecessary.

 

[Reden]

Remember two drive systems are less reliable. If you lose one disk (or get an error on boot), you lose shows on both.

 

[krkaufman]



Quote:
Originally Posted by Reden  /t/1526675/50xx-compatible-hard-drive-replacement-source#post_24615355


Remember two drive systems are less reliable. If you lose one disk (or get an error on boot), you lose shows on both.

Yes, of course; thank you, I managed to leave that warning out, above, when reposting the suggestion here, from PlanetReplay...

Quote:
"1) Understanding that you increase your risk relative to drive failure, you could opt for a 2-drive Replay configuration"

The failure works the same as for single drive systems, it's just that you increase your drive failure odds by increasing the number of disks.


Any other disadvantages to a 2-drive configuration? (The main/only advantage being that it allows you greater storage space than you could otherwise achieve with a single drive -- increasingly important as drive supplies dry up.)

 

[sslund]



Quote:
Originally Posted by sslund  /t/1526675/50xx-compatible-hard-drive-replacement-source#post_24598502


I heard back from an Amazon Marketplace seller confirming that the 320 GB drives offered are, in fact, new. If anyone is interested, here's the link:
http://www.amazon.com/Seagate-320G-PATA-Internal-DB35-3/dp/B007MFDNSC/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1397279365&sr=8-1&keywords=ST3320820ACE

WARNING: the drive was delivered today and it is NOT the model number advertised and is thus not appropriate for use in RTVs. If anyone else was considering it, save yourself the hassle, and if anyone relied on what I was told, please accept my sincere apologies.

Quote:
weaKnees (I'm beyond thrilled to know that's an option)

Another head's up: the 160 GB "brand-new drives" sold in the ReplayTV upgrade kits for the 50xx series for $159 by weaKnees are not, in fact, brand new. My dh decided to order one "just in case," and it was delivered today -- the label on the drive identifies it as a "Certified Repaired HDD" . . . at least it's actually a DB35 drive. He's perfectly content because I got that RTV up & running for him; had it been my money, I would not be happy at all to have paid that price. We'll see how happy he is to have a hard drive less than a third the size of the bad drive I pulled out -- I'd better not hear a single complaint or he can learn to do this stuff himself.


This was not a good day for me.

Quote:
I ordered a couple from Newegg -- we've got two RTVs that are still on their original drives, and given the way things have been going in my technology life, they'll likely be needed sooner rather than later.

Those haven't been delivered yet, and I think I probably need to order a couple more, given my luck. My daddy always told me that if I didn't have bad luck, I'd have no luck at all, and it's certainly seeming that way today.

 

[Reden]



Quote:
Originally Posted by krkaufman  /t/1526675/50xx-compatible-hard-drive-replacement-source#post_24615411


Any other disadvantages to a 2-drive configuration? (The main/only advantage being that it allows you greater storage space than you could otherwise achieve with a single drive -- increasingly important as drive supplies dry up.)

It's been a while since I thought about this, but the risk of losing data is much more than twice a single drive.


If you lose an entire disk or certain sectors, yes the chance of problems is just doubled with the two drive system.


But if a single drive is slow to spin up or hangs, you just reboot and all your shows are there. If the second drive is slow to spin up or hangs on boot the Replay treats it as corruption and you lose all your shows.


I seem to remember a lot of problems when then 2-drive models came out with folks losing shows. Of course it's been a very long time and maybe the later models are more tolerant of it.


Robert

 

[dstoffa]



Quote:
Originally Posted by Reden  /t/1526675/50xx-compatible-hard-drive-replacement-source#post_24619251


It's been a while since I thought about this, but the risk of losing data is much more than twice a single drive.


If you lose an entire disk or certain sectors, yes the chance of problems is just doubled with the two drive system.


But if a single drive is slow to spin up or hangs, you just reboot and all your shows are there. If the second drive is slow to spin up or hangs on boot the Replay treats it as corruption and you lose all your shows.


I seem to remember a lot of problems when then 2-drive models came out with folks losing shows. Of course it's been a very long time and maybe the later models are more tolerant of it.


Robert

Honestly, with the free tools available for RTV owners (DVArchive, WiRNS), there really is no reason to let shows pile up on your RTV....


Just saying...



Cheers!

-Doug

 

[Reden]



Quote:
Originally Posted by dstoffa  /t/1526675/50xx-compatible-hard-drive-replacement-source#post_24620581


Honestly, with the free tools available for RTV owners (DVArchive, WiRNS), there really is no reason to let shows pile up on your RTV....


Just saying...

I think you were Just saying that everyone doesn't have a network attached unit.

(2k, 3k)

 

[dstoffa]



Quote:
Originally Posted by Reden  /t/1526675/50xx-compatible-hard-drive-replacement-source#post_24629143


I think you were Just saying that everyone doesn't have a network attached unit.

(2k, 3k)

Yeah, but if you had a unit that was not networkable, you'd be running up against other limitations (132 GB limit, for example), so the most that they could even hope for would be 250 hours at Standard Quality over two drives...


And this thread is about 50xx series RTV's....



Cheers!

-Doug

 

[ZR1Dude]

Saundra -

If you are still looking for replacement HDD for ReplayTV units, I have 2 working units with 200Gb WD drives. I'm in the process of moving out of state and will no longer have a use for them. Would prefer to see an avid ReplayTV user get some benefit from the units. I'm in the Pacific NW and hesitated to list these any place but locally on Craigslist because of shipping costs. Both units are working and were uninstalled in April. Please email me off line if interested. [email protected]

Any interested parties, best offer plus shipping;


Two ReplayTV units, one model 5060 and one model 5504.

Each unit comes with manual, remote control, IR cable and Lifetime subscription. Each unit has been upgraded with a 200Gb Western Digital disk drive.

(1) ReplayTV Model 5060 Serial No.13TR0174275 has commercial skip and is fully operational.

(1) ReplayTV Model 5504 Serial No.H3MA0233995 is fully operational.

Both units were installed on a home network allowing recordings from the 5504 to be viewed through the 5060 utilizing commercial skip.

(1) Backup Power supply purchased from Mikeyboy.

(1) extra remote control (total of 3)