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9300 transfers

Thanks for all these posts and the software to use. I have the software on my PC and now want to connect to my HDD to try it.

I am confused as to what cable I need to buy to connect the Hummy HDD to my PC. Can anybody please help? Astronomy mentions a sata to usb cable. Can somebody give me guidance on this? I see different types on sale and I'm not sure what I need.

Also I assume I only have to connect this cable to the HDD and leave it to be powered by the Humax. Is this right?

Thanks
 
Fletchy said:
Thanks for all these posts and the software to use. I have the software on my PC and now want to connect to my HDD to try it.

I am confused as to what cable I need to buy to connect the Hummy HDD to my PC. Can anybody please help? Astronomy mentions a sata to usb cable. Can somebody give me guidance on this? I see different types on sale and I'm not sure what I need.

Also I assume I only have to connect this cable to the HDD and leave it to be powered by the Humax. Is this right?

Thanks
Click to expand...

Keeping the power is the hassle there. The Humax uses a proprietary cable which is the data and power cables connected together and the power cable having a PC power supply type square end on it (not sure what they are called). But with only the minimum of work a cable mod is easy. I've just put a cable together based on the eSata loop mod: http://foxsatdisk.wikispaces.com/eSATA loop mod

I bought:
(1) 1 off Sata to eSata cable (male end on eSata side)
(2) 1 off eSata to eSata cable (male eSata on both ends)
(3) 1 off eSata to Sata with backplate for inside the desktop PC (female end on the eSata)

The last one (3) had 2 eSata sockets on a backplate which fits inside the PC and sata cables running internal to the motherboard sata ports.

Building:
First I took off one of the 2 eSata sockets from (3) then fitted the backplate with the other eSata connector still attached into the PC.

I then opened the Humax 9300T, disconnected the all-in-one Sata data and power cable and used a small, hand-held rotary drill to separate the power and data side of the cable end (without ruining either!). You can also splice an old Sata power cable onto the one in the Humax if you don't want to cut the plastic all-in-one connector. Or you could even make a whole new power cable as was done in that link. Whichever method you choose, you need the power from the Humax box connected (but not the data cable).

The eSata cable I removed from the backplate above (with the female eSata end) I connected the Sata side of it to the Humax HDD and ran the eSata side of the cable outside the Humax box.

Using cable (1) I connected its Sata side to the Humax motherboard (where the original HDD cable went) and ran the male eSata end outside the Humax box.

At this point, connecting the 2 eSata cable ends that now sit outside the Humax box gives me ordinary Humax functionality.

Finally, I connected cable (2) from the backplate in the PC to the female eSata cable that connects to the Humax HDD.

Once connected, I powered on the Humax box, ran HumaxRW (via my Front-End software) and downloaded from the Humax. I then powered off the Humax, disconnected the cable to the PC and reconnected the 2 eSata cables that both run inside the Humax.

Easier to do than to write about!

The other, often easier in the short term, method is to remove the HDD completely from the Humax, install it in your PC as you would any other HDD then download whatever you need from it (don't let windows format it!). Once finished you need to put it back into the Humax and close up the box.

Cheers
--
Thomas

P.S. Good to see the forum back online.

P.P.S The Sata to USB I mentioned ages ago was removing the HDD from the Humax and fitting it into an external HDD box that had a USB end on it.
 
Thank you so much, Astronomy, for your informative reply. Unfortunately it does all seem to be beyond my capabilities. I had hoped for a solution of just buying a cable and attaching the HDD to my PC.

Removing the HDD does seem to be easier, but I would have to work out what enclosure would be suitable, if any, to allow me to connect to the PC. I'm not confident about opening the PC up and connecting the HDD.

Anyway, many thanks for taking the time to help. It is much appreciated. I will look over your advice again and try to decide what I want to do next.
 
Fletchy said:
I had hoped for a solution of just buying a cable and attaching the HDD to my PC.
Click to expand...
Fletchy said:
Removing the HDD does seem to be easier, but I would have to work out what enclosure would be suitable, if any, to allow me to connect to the PC. I'm not confident about opening the PC up and connecting the HDD.
Click to expand...
You can just buy the necessary cables and driver to connect the HDD to the PC and use humaxrw. A seperate mains adapter powers the HDD, a 'cable' connects the sata connection to a PC's USB port. A mains adapter and 'cable' kit costs less than £10.
The ‘cable’ kits consist of a mains adapter, a data cable, a sata to usb adapter, and sometimes a sata power cable varient that you will not need.

Amazon examples:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/USB-SATA-IDE-CABLE-ADAPTER/dp/B003Q97FIW/ref=pd_cp_ce_4
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Dynamode-USB-SI-C-controller-SATA-300-Hi-Speed/dp/B000LQ4WMU/ref=pd_cp_ce_3

Ebay example:
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/USB-2-0-S...uting_CablesConnectors_RL&hash=item4a985cd9a8
 
Many thanks to Astronomy and Luke for the very helpful replies and taking the time to do this. I'm going to buy the kit suggested by Luke. If I can get this to work that will be great. If not, it won't have cost a lot and taken up much time. Well worth trying out.

Thanks again.
 
Astronomy said:
I then opened the Humax 9300T, disconnected the all-in-one Sata data and power cable and used a small, hand-held rotary drill to separate the power and data side of the cable end (without ruining either!). You can also splice an old Sata power cable onto the one in the Humax if you don't want to cut the plastic all-in-one connector.
Click to expand...
How did you go about using the hand-held rotary drill? Did you make a series of holes and then snap it in half? How risky do you thing trying to do what you did is? Is the plastic hacksawable?

Also what is "splice"? Is that adding a SATA male to female 15pin power extension connector?
 
Luke said:
How did you go about using the hand-held rotary drill? Did you make a series of holes and then snap it in half? How risky do you thing trying to do what you did is? Is the plastic hacksawable?

Also what is "splice"? Is that adding a SATA male to female 15pin power extension connector?
Click to expand...

Risky? In what sense? Lose an eye or break the cable? If I'd destroyed the cable I'd have made a new one, so risk exists of course, but the consequences are fairly small - unless I lose an eye. I used a Dremel type device and it cut straight through the plastic (as would a hacksaw or most other sharp things), after which I then had 2 separate (and functional) cables. One down side is that the cable is less secure when attached to the HDD but that was the method I chose. The Dremel of course has circular cutting disks which I used (not a drill bit) and hence no need to make holes or snap.

Splicing is to cut the cable wires - power cable in this case - and join a new connector onto the existing wires. In the eSata Loop Mod link I posted before, look at the 8th picture down, just above where the text says "The SATA/molex cable had two SATA ends to the cable". You see there are 2 cables joined together with some tape around the wire where the person joined them. That is 2 cables 'spliced' together. Google tells all: http://lmgtfy.com/?q=http://www.wisegeek.com/how-do-i-splice-cable.htm

There are a lot of different ways to achieve the same end and indeed if I had an old PC power supply lying around I'd have kept the original 9300T cable intact and made a whole new sata power cable from the old PC power supply.

Another method may be (I've not tried it) to buy a SATA power splitter cable or extension cable. Then you could possibly plug the original Humax cable sata power side into the splitter cable and use one of the power connectors on the splitter to plug into the HDD. Something like this might work? http://www.amazon.co.uk/Serial-Inte...GU/ref=sr_1_10?ie=UTF8&qid=1326637796&sr=8-10

Ultimately, what you need is to use the power from the Humax motherboard but not the data connector (as you have new cables for the data side, i.e. the Loop Mod) and there is a myriad of ways to achieve the goal depending on what you have lying around/can cheaply get/are comfortable doing.

Cheers.
 
Thanks Astronomy. I’ve wanted to do the mod for a while but have been very occasionally using a SATA/USB adapter instead.

Astronomy said:
Risky? In what sense? Lose an eye or break the cable? If I'd destroyed the cable I'd have made a new one, so risk exists of course, but the consequences are fairly small - unless I lose an eye. I used a Dremel type device and it cut straight through the plastic (as would a hacksaw or most other sharp things), after which I then had 2 separate (and functional) cables. One down side is that the cable is less secure when attached to the HDD but that was the method I chose. The Dremel of course has circular cutting disks which I used (not a drill bit) and hence no need to make holes or snap.
Click to expand...
I meant risky to the existing cable. Being able to go back to the original set-up easily appeals to me so I'd like to avoid that just in case.

Astronomy said:
Another method may be (I've not tried it) to buy a SATA power splitter cable or extension cable. Then you could possibly plug the original Humax cable sata power side into the splitter cable and use one of the power connectors on the splitter to plug into the HDD. Something like this might work? http://www.amazon.co.uk/Serial-Internal-Power-Extension-length/dp/B0021VAAGU/ref=sr_1_10?ie=UTF8&qid=1326637796&sr=8-10
Click to expand...
I hadn’t thought of using a splitter. I like the idea of that as it’s half the length of a standard extension. Less chance of emitting unwanted interference and the second lead can just be snipped off to help keep things tidy.

That is the permanent one for me to try first. Thanks again.
 
Thanks again to Astronomy and Luke. With the purchased kit and the HumaxRW software I have now copied files from my Humax to PC with no problems. Absolutely perfect! Much quicker to copy than I could have imagined.

Many thanks for the great advice.
 
I've been successfully copying files from my 9300 external HDD with the eSATA mod and HumaxRW. It is all so brilliant and simple, thanks to all those sharing their expertise. Is it also possible, using this set-up, to upload de-commercialed files back to the 9300 HDD as .ts files, and will they play?
 
@Astrononmy

re humaxrw gui
As I don't seem to be able to find a way to PM on this board I'll ask this in open forum instead.
As a mod on myhumax.org (some will also recognise me from the old hummy.org too) it would be helpful to add your gui (or a link to it) to our download pages. I am therefore asking your permission to do so. If you wish to discuss this privately please contact via PM on myhumax.org.
 
Hello aldaweb, welcome to the forum.

PM's on this forum are called "conversations" and can be accessed via "inbox" at the top right hand corner of the page, or by clicking on a members name and selecting "start a conversation" from the pop up box.
 
brian said:
Hello aldaweb, welcome to the forum.

PM's on this forum are called "conversations" and can be accessed via "inbox" at the top right hand corner of the page, or by clicking on a members name and selecting "start a conversation" from the pop up box.
Click to expand...
Thanks Brian.

Private post now sent
 
It's always good to revive an old thread, hello subscribers!

I'm wanting to copy some recordings from a 9300, and I follow all the above regarding connecting the HDD power separately and the data port to my PC. But I'm not sure how to stop windows (XP SP3) initialising the disk when I plug in the USB (using SATA to USB cable) or if I connect the drive directly to the motherboard with a SATA cable, how do I stop windows initialising or "upsetting" the drive when I boot the PC? Help would be much appreciated, thank-you.
 
grantr22 said:
I'm wanting to copy some recordings from a 9300, and I follow all the above regarding connecting the HDD power separately and the data port to my PC. But I'm not sure how to stop windows (XP SP3) initialising the disk when I plug in the USB (using SATA to USB cable) or if I connect the drive directly to the motherboard with a SATA cable, how do I stop windows initialising or "upsetting" the drive when I boot the PC? Help would be much appreciated, thank-you.
Click to expand...
You can use USB or a direct connection; use whatever is most convenient. I think the problem is that people try to look at the disk with Windows applications; if you stick to only accessing it via humaxrw you should have no problem
 
Thanks Martin, though on this and other forums there are many references of "don't let the drive initialise" or similar. My problem is I'm at a loss as to how to restrict Windows from doing the initialisation bit as this is an automatic function whenever a new drive is connected. I've experienced initialisation when plugging in a portable USB drive where it cycles through all the files and folders on there, I can press cancel quickly but I'm thinking that once it's started doing this on a Humax drive it's too late and the damage would be done?
 
Windows can't cycle through files on a Humax drive as Windows doesn't understand anything about the file system format. Just stick to my previous advice and just use humaxrw to access the drive and all will be fine.
 
grantr22 said:
Thanks Martin, though on this and other forums there are many references of "don't let the drive initialise" or similar. My problem is I'm at a loss as to how to restrict Windows from doing the initialisation bit as this is an automatic function whenever a new drive is connected. I've experienced initialisation when plugging in a portable USB drive where it cycles through all the files and folders on there, I can press cancel quickly but I'm thinking that once it's started doing this on a Humax drive it's too late and the damage would be done?
Click to expand...

It's a while since I've done this but usually Windows prompts to ask you whether you wish to initialise the disk or not. You just cancel. I've never seen this as something that you have to respond to within a few seconds, it waits until you answer.
In fact I'm sure that it only appears when you go into the disk management screens either via mmc or manage|disk management menu options. If you didn't go in there I don't think you would see it. I have to say as I have about 15 disks in my PC of one variety or another I prefer to go into mmc disk management to check which one it actually is numerically - it shows up in the console display. If you're using humaxrw this can save a fair bit of time rather than randomly trying all the numbers for the disk in sequence.
 
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