If Foxsat can't find any satellites, it won't let you play existing recordings.

MartinLiddle said:
I have been assuming since the BIOS was mentioned that they were directly connected via a SATA connector; perhaps Dave W can clarify.
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TBH I never thought of that, there are so many ways of connecting external drives to computers I just assumed that usb was the obvious way. I have several ways of connecting external drives including a cable only system that supports IDE and SATA and a USB slot in cradle for any size of sata drive that also has an esata port (used with a blu-ray external burner drive). Not used a desktop system for a long time, only laptops. I have one elderly laptop with a slot that can be used for firewire which I keep purely for video capture from DV camcorders. For a while I actually ran my Foxsat-HDR with the internal SATA port brought out to a external esata cradle with a home made usb powered mains switch to turn on the power to the cradle. You could then swap the internal recording drive to in effect create unlimited storage. The CF made this arrangement somewhat redundant.

Can anyone remember the spec of the original drive fitted to the Foxsat-HDR, mine was swapped for a WD 1TB sata II drive late 2008, it continues to work reliably in my Foxsat-HDR those these days it does not have a much of a recording schedule ? It is used largely to keep track of freesat changes thanks to so many others that have developed the CF to such an extent it can send an e-mail every day detailing what has changed during overnight housekeeping. I tend not to use the box to view recordings directly, the picture quality is visibly superior by simply using my HDR100oS to stream recordings directly from it's hard disk.

Thanks to Raydon, who managed to solve the issue of HD recordings selecting the AD audio track on G2 and other units.
 
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Perhaps I should have mentioned that my PC has IDE drives, and I use a SATA converter plugged into an IDE socket to read SATA drives. As the PC only knows about IDE, perhaps that's why it doesn't recognise the Foxsat HDD which is a different make to the Goodmans HDD. Also the PC is on XP - I saw a blog from someone who had successfully installed the HDD on a Windows 7 PC.

Anyway, I had a stroke of luck. I noticed that the HDD while in the Foxsat didn't appear on the network until I had dismissed the box saying No Satellites, and sent it off searching. So I sent it off doing a Manual search while I copied a file to my laptop via the network. I was amazed to find that this time it found 11 satellite channels, including 6 BBC Red Button channels, one of them HD. All channels showed zero strength and quality, but I left it tuned to the HD one. After a short while, the strength and quality indicators suddenly showed about 80% and 60% respectively, and about 1 second of Wimbledon vision and sound, then went to zero again. So it seems the fault is intermittent, and had allowed signal through while this particular transponder was being searched.

Now that the Humax thinks it has channels, it allows me to access the menu and continue viewing old recordings as before, or copy them to a USB stick (but hardly faster than via the network). I guess I'll be visiting eBay soon.
 
Dave W said:
Perhaps I should have mentioned that my PC has IDE drives, and I use a SATA converter plugged into an IDE socket to read SATA drives.
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You don't appear to understand the need to provide detail to people trying to help you. You haven't said what make and model the converter is. I think with your configuration then I am not surprised if the BIOS only recognises some SATA drives.

Anyway, I had a stroke of luck. I noticed that the HDD while in the Foxsat didn't appear on the network until I had dismissed the box saying No Satellites, and sent it off searching. So I sent it off doing a Manual search while I copied a file to my laptop via the network. I was amazed to find that this time it found 11 satellite channels, including 6 BBC Red Button channels, one of them HD.
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Again lack of detail. Saying precisely which channels were found might throw some light on the problem.
 
MartinLiddle said:
You don't appear to understand the need to provide detail to people trying to help you. You haven't said what make and model the converter is. I think with your configuration then I am not surprised if the BIOS only recognises some SATA drives.


Again lack of detail. Saying precisely which channels were found might throw some light on the problem.
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The converter came from Maplin. They no longer sell this exact type RXB-639B, but there is an old Amazon listing online. You haven't said why you are not surprised that my BIOS only recognises some drives.

The channels found (non-Freesat mode) were:
5001 6800
5002 BBC RB 2
5003 BBC RB 3
5004 BBC RB 4
5005 BBC RB 5
5006 BBC RB 6
5007 6807
5008 BBC RB HD
5009 6818
5010 (Unknown)
5011 (Unknown)
I saw snatches of music channels on the Unknown ones. This extra detail may help you better than my vague mention of "6 BBC Red Button channels", but now I can access my recordings again there's not much incentive to try and find the fault.
 
If your BIOS is for a PC motherboard that only has IDE (not SATA), it will not be up to date enough to understand the interface requirements for the latest drives. A SATA to IDE converter only translates the electrical interface, not the protocols as well.

Ultimately it's this kind of thing that makes an old PC unsustainable, despite the hardware still working. You can stick with the old software only as long as you don't need to interface it to new hardware.
 
Dave W said:
They no longer sell this exact type RXB-639B, but there is an old Amazon listing online. You haven't said why you are not surprised that my BIOS only recognises some drives.
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I have played with these sort of adapters to get SATA drives working in a Humax PVR-9200T. The ones I used were SATA I only and as the only information I can find on your adapter doesn't say anything other than SATA, I would assume the converter is for SATA I only. The Seagate drive from the Humax will be SATA II; you might get it recognised by forcing the drive into SATA I mode (either a jumper or a software utility).
 
Black Hole said:
A SATA to IDE converter only translates the electrical interface, not the protocols as well.
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I think you will find that it does attempt to translate the protocols. Certainly you can use a SATA drive in a Humax 9200T with an IDE to SATA converter with absolutely no software change.
 
Black Hole said:
There's no change in the protocols, just a parallel-serial-parallel converter.
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Perhaps I don't understand what you mean by "protocol". There must certainly be more going on in an IDE to SATA converter than just parallel to serial conversion because the 40 pin IDE connector has 16 pins for signalling besides the 16 data pins and 7 grounds plus an unsused pin for plug orientation. The converter must be taking the signalling and packaging it as SATA commands for there to be any functionality.
 
I understood the original SATA is just PATA converted to serial signalling. There's no reason the word length can't accommodate as many control signals as necessary. However, I haven't looked up the details so I am open to correction.
 
Black Hole said:
I understood the original SATA is just PATA converted to serial signalling. There's no reason the word length can't accommodate as many control signals as necessary. However, I haven't looked up the details so I am open to correction.
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Sigh; so what is the "protocol" problem you have referred to?
 
The inability of an old-school PATA (IDE) interface, which is capable of driving an old-school SATA drive when suitably converted, but can't cope with the modern generation of drive. Okay?
 
Black Hole said:
If your BIOS is for a PC motherboard that only has IDE (not SATA), it will not be up to date enough to understand the interface requirements for the latest drives. A SATA to IDE converter only translates the electrical interface, not the protocols as well.

Ultimately it's this kind of thing that makes an old PC unsustainable, despite the hardware still working. You can stick with the old software only as long as you don't need to interface it to new hardware.
Click to expand...
Thanks. You've hit a couple of nails on the head!
 
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