I think my disc is failing

I keep getting "this channel is scrambled or unavailable " messages when watching recorded TV and i think ( but cannot be 100%) that this coincides when the box is recording. I also get disc realloc count warnings everytime i log onto the Webif.
Bearing in mind i have no programming knowledge, would a novice be able to follow the instructions in the wiki for upgrading a HDD to 2tb to replace my failing one? The reason i ask is i see programming files and talk of programming files, sectoring partitions and to be honest it sounds like a recipe for disaster....
 
I keep getting "this channel is scrambled or unavailable " messages when watching recorded TV and i think ( but cannot be 100%) that this coincides when the box is recording. I also get disc realloc count warnings everytime i log onto the Webif.
What is the reallocated sector count at the moment? When our disk was failing we didn't get any "this channel is scrambled" messages; typically what we saw was a stutter in playback and sometimes a jump forward of a few seconds.
Bearing in mind i have no programming knowledge, would a novice be able to follow the instructions in the wiki for upgrading a HDD to 2tb to replace my failing one?
It depends on whether you feel capable of following a set of instructions. It isn't very difficult but not trivial. I think a package could be added to the custom firmware to automate the process if there was enough demand.
 
I will have to check. I do also get a little stuttering but not much. To be honest if it were not for this forum or the Webif warning i would have just assumed it was bad signal during recording ( which does not happen often).
I am competent with a screwdriver but its all the pages of text/ data that i am worried about.....
 
Of course, you could just plug in a 1TB drive. No worries then - just connect it up and format it in the Hummy. If you want more storage, just hang another drive off one of the USB sockets.
 
As fendlander says the 2TB Blog in the Wiki is has been written to get around the problems encountered when trying to fit a hard disk drive bigger than Humax intended, you won't have the same problems fitting a 500GB or 1TB drive, because the Humax does it all for you
 
Disc alloc count is 1372 was 1196. Ok that sounds less hassle if the hummy does it for you when you install like for like. If i chose the option to use an external drive how do i get the hummy to write to this not the corrupt drive. I have already one connected btw that the hummy sees as another folder....
 
But you can copy files to it and delete them from the internal disk. Use it for stuff you want to keep long term or that you don't want to watch for a while. You still need a serviceable disk in the Hummy.
 
Disc alloc count is 1372 was 1196.
What size drive is it? 1372 is certainly in the region where I would suggest replacing it.
Ok that sounds less hassle if the hummy does it for you when you install like for like.
If you go down this route you should try and get a drive that is not Advanced Format ie does not use 4kB sectors. The Humax will not align the partitions correctly which will significantly impact the performance of the drive.
 
Its a 1tb drive. Never been more than half full. I don't know what the sector count relates to. Could anyone suggest the best most suitable replacement HDD ?
 
Yep its doing it again....when a program is recording i get the black screen/ scrambled message occasionally. Sounds like hdd is working hard at that point too. Maybe its when its writing to disc???
 
Its a 1tb drive. Never been more than half full. I don't know what the sector count relates to.
It is the count of the number of sectors that the hard drive has had problems reading from or writing to and that have been replaced by spare sectors.
Could anyone suggest the best most suitable replacement HDD ?
The obvious choice is a Seagate ST1000VM002:
http://www.ebuyer.com/337318-seagate-1tb-pipeline-internal-hard-drive-st1000vm002 These are 4kB Advanced Format drives but they do have 512 byte sector emulation built in. I would try formatting it via the Humax interface and if it works OK then fine otherwise you have to bite the bullet and do the format manually.
 
Are there instructions in the wiki ? What is the easiest way to transfer my recorded stuff? Can i just connect old and new drives to a pc and drag and drop? 500gb surely would take days to move across via the humax
 
I have been 'messing about' recently and decided to transfer SWMBO's recordings to my PC. They are all decrypted. There is/was 550MB worth. It took 14 hours non-stop via FTP. That's via Ethernet, not WiFi.
 
There are a lot of strategies you could use to migrate the content from your old hard disk, several of which involve the custom firmware. The simplest, non-CF method is just to copy all the content from your old hard disk to an external USB disk attached to the Humax. This will indeed be quite slow, especially if all the material is still encrypted, as the SD files will decrypt as they are copied. Then replace the old hard disk and either copy the files back, or just leave them on the USB disk and view them directly from there.

As Wallace says, you can also copy the material to your PC via ftp. This is quicker, but you would normally need to copy everything back to the Humax afterwards.

To do this without involving the CF you will need to format the external disk through the Humax (ext4, I believe). If you have the CF installed it all gets quicker and easier, but much longer to explain as there are several different ways of doing it.
 
Agreed. I was 'playing' and time wasn't an issue. Previously I had removed the HDD and used a caddy (eSATA) and just transferred directly to my PC.
 
I have been 'messing about' recently and decided to transfer SWMBO's recordings to my PC. They are all decrypted. There is/was 550MB worth. It took 14 hours non-stop via FTP. That's via Ethernet, not WiFi.
Blimey, that's really slow, or did you mean 550GB.:D
 
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