Laptop HDD

S

Steve A

New Member
First time on this site so any help appreciated. I have a HDR 2000t and the harddrive is failing. I thought (stupidly) that I could just swap out with a 1tb hard drive from an old laptop which I changed for a SSD. Problem is that the Humax doesn't even recognise the HDD! It's as if it wasn't there. Plugged into the laptop now the laptop cannot see/find it!! My question basically is how do I format it so it is useable in the Humax? Via laptop or Humax? It is a WD 1Tb blue. Any help greatly appreciated. Thanks. Steve
 
I'm sure the HDD team will be responding soon but I think they are going to say that if the drive really can't be seen then nothing will format it at all, if the laptop that it used to run in won't see it then there is little hope unless you are using a USB to HDD interface that has a problem with it
 
Ezra Pound said:
I think they are going to say that if the drive really can't be seen then nothing will format it at all
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Agreed.

Steve A said:
I thought (stupidly) that I could just swap out with a 1tb hard drive from an old laptop
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Even if it worked, a laptop drive is not optimised for PVR use. It will be spinning faster than necessary (therefore noisier and more power hungry), and (especially for a laptop) it might park its heads regularly (to protect itself from mechanical shock).

There's nothing which can be done with a HDR-2000T to improve the situation: no custom firmware, so no access to any tools other than the standard menu format option.

If you want to know anything about the drive's health, you will need to connect it to a PC, preferably running Linux. A laptop/notebook isn't the best bet, because of only having one SATA interface, but you could run a live Linux boot DVD with only a test HDD connected by SATA, otherwise you would need a USB-SATA adapter.

Should some miracle happen and the drive starts up and is recognised, just format it and then the 2000T should recognise the HDD and format it to the 2000T's own liking (various Ext3 partitions). But like I said, it's probably not an ideal drive for the purpose.

There is a slim possibility the problem is the configuration jumpers on the drive, but if it used to work in the PC and now doesn't...

If you decide to purchase a suitable drive, the Seagate SkyHawk range (0.5, 1, or 2TB) are the front runners.

Black Hole said:
Choosing a Replacement Drive

The OEM (original equipment manufacture) drive was the Seagate Pipeline. At the time of writing (end of 2020), these are now only available as remnant stock. New old-stock does turn up, but unscrupulous sellers have cottoned onto the idea that the Pipelines are in demand (as like-for-like replacements; they were commonly used in PVRs including Sky boxes) and are hawking second hand units as "new" on the likes of Amazon Marketplace and eBay. They are gambling on the buyer not being sophisticated enough to check the SMART stats (which includes a log of the time a drive has been powered up for - a factory-fresh drive should be close to zero), or (worse) could have wiped the SMART stats before dispatch. That's fraudulent, like "clocking" a car to conceal its true mileage.

Almost any 3½" SATA2 drive will work, but not necessarily be optimal. For example: drives designed for general computing are required to have fast random access and high burst transfer rates. That means they will have high spindle speeds (noisy) and high power consumption. Drives designed for portable applications, where there is a risk of shock or drop, park their heads at every opportunity and might cause glitches in sustained data transfers.

Drives optimised or suitable for PVR use have a relatively slow spindle speed (low noise and power), and do not need a high burst transfer rate, but require a reliable sustained average transfer rate. These are typically characterised as "PVR" or "surveillance" (ie security camera) drives.

Summary: 3½", SATA2, 5900rpm, "PVR", "surveillance", "CE", or "AV".
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Steve A said:
First time on this site so any help appreciated. I have a HDR 2000t and the harddrive is failing. I thought (stupidly) that I could just swap out with a 1tb hard drive from an old laptop which I changed for a SSD. Problem is that the Humax doesn't even recognise the HDD! It's as if it wasn't there.
Click to expand...
What are the symptoms of the failing hard drive please? I think that a laptop drive should work so not sure why it won't. The fact that the laptop doesn't recognise the drive any more it is a clue that something is wrong.
 
MartinLiddle said:
I think that a laptop drive should work so not sure why it won't.
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The fact the drive is not recognised is the clue. I would suggest the drive might not be SATA2, were it not for it not being recognised by the laptop it originated from either.

Like I said above, even if it did work it would not be optimal.
 
I put a WD Blue WD5000LUCT in my 2000T. 2.5 inch 5400rpm. Works perfectly and silent. No fan in this unit but runs very cool and only draws 9 watts. I was going to get a secondhand Fox T2 but this does what I need.
 
Rick88 said:
I put a WD Blue WD5000LUCT in my 2000T. 2.5 inch 5400rpm. Works perfectly and silent. No fan in this unit but runs very cool and only draws 9 watts. I was going to get a secondhand Fox T2 but this does what I need.
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It's also an AV drive, in 2.5 inch form, so it may have some characteristics that make it work well in a DVR. I think the 9W may just be the spin up power as the spec sheets seem to point to less than 2W when writing data.
 
Thanks for all your replies. I agree that it is not the best hdd to use in a pvr but I thought it might simply save me money! I think I will as someone said have to source a Seagate Skyhawk (new) or a Seagate Pipeline (2nd hand) although I know I am risking buying a well-used one which is old and tired! Just to add I managed to get an old windows laptop to format it as NTFS / exFAT although neither option worked. So, back to the drawing board!! Thanks again, and I will keep checking for any further additions to this thread. Steve A
 
Steve A said:
First time on this site so any help appreciated. I have a HDR 2000t and the harddrive is failing. I thought (stupidly) that I could just swap out with a 1tb hard drive from an old laptop which I changed for a SSD. Problem is that the Humax doesn't even recognise the HDD! It's as if it wasn't there. Plugged into the laptop now the laptop cannot see/find it!! My question basically is how do I format it so it is useable in the Humax? Via laptop or Humax? It is a WD 1Tb blue. Any help greatly appreciated. Thanks. Steve
Click to expand...

Steve A said:
Thanks for all your replies. I agree that it is not the best hdd to use in a pvr but I thought it might simply save me money! I think I will as someone said have to source a Seagate Skyhawk (new) or a Seagate Pipeline (2nd hand) although I know I am risking buying a well-used one which is old and tired! Just to add I managed to get an old windows laptop to format it as NTFS / exFAT although neither option worked. So, back to the drawing board!! Thanks again, and I will keep checking for any further additions to this thread. Steve A
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Not sure if I've misunderstood.
Are you saying the 1TB laptop drive you had issues with in the first post is now working, but not when attached to the HDR2000T, regardless of how it's formatted? That is odd. It should see the drive and offer to reformat it (especially if it doesn't recognise the NTFS/exFAT drive format). The fact that you don't see that option suggest there is something wrong. What size drive did the unit originally have - 2.5 or 3.5 inch drive? Do you have another drive you can try? What is the exact model of the WD 1TB drive?
 
Manufacturer’s description:
24x7 reliability - These drives are designed to last in always-on streaming digital audio/video environments such as DVR/PVR, digital video surveillance and other demanding multimedia applications
 
Black Hole said:
Why do you think the WD Blue is an AV drive?
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It's a WD AV 2.5inch drive

WD AV-25

support-en.wd.com support-en.wd.com

It's common to see AV drives in 2.5 and 3.5 form factors. Eg they do Seagate Skyhawks in both sizes. Although AV drives may be more reliable in the long run, I'm sure you can get away with using standard drives for a fair while, eg for testing.
 
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Rick88 said:
Manufacturer’s description:
24x7 reliability - These drives are designed to last in always-on streaming digital audio/video environments such as DVR/PVR, digital video surveillance and other demanding multimedia applications
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Reference?

bottletop said:
It's a WD AV 2.5inch drive

WD AV-25

support-en.wd.com support-en.wd.com

It's common to see AV drives in 2.5 and 3.5 form factors. Eg they do Seagate Skyhawks in both sizes. Although AV drives may be more reliable in the long run, I'm sure you can get away with using standard drives for a fair while, eg for testing.
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Is "AV-25" the same thing? I don't think so. I have only found references to WD Blue as a PC drive, with head parking. The original WD Blue was PATA, WD Caviar Blue is 7200rpm.
 
Black Hole said:
Is "AV-25" the same thing? I don't think so. I have only found references to WD Blue as a PC drive, with head parking. The original WD Blue was PATA, WD Caviar Blue is 7200rpm.
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Erm.
The links I gave are the references / specs.
My memory is not as good as it used to be, but I recall the 'WD Caviar Blue PATA' being something more like Western Digital Caviar when all drives were IDE! They've used the colour designations multiple times and re shuffled them once or twice so it's a bit confusing. Nevertheless I went by the model reference rather than the generic model name.
WD currently refer the WD5000LUCT as a WD-AV not WD Blue. The '25' is just the form factor.
 
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I'm sorry, perhaps I'm being thick or not noticing something obvious, but I can't see anywhere those references refer to "Blue".
Rick88 said:
WD Blue WD5000LUCT
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The reason this is important is because Western Digital designate their drive ranges by colours, and we normally talk about the WD Purple for PVR use. Yes, OK, the 5000 range is written up as "AV", but you said "Blue".
 
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