New Disk Needed!

mattlittle

New Member
I posted here a while ago about disk errors and you put my mind at rest - at the time the number of errors was low and increasing only slowly so no action needed.

Things have now changed - the number of errors is nearly up at 1000 (1 TB disk) and increasing by ~100 a day. I am also getting 'channel is scrambled or encrypted' errors when watching recordings or occasionally when watching live TV.

I have purchased a Seagate 2TB Pipeline Internal Hard Drive (as recommended on here) and will replace later this week when it arrives.

I've read the articles on setting up a new drive but have a couple of questions:

  • If I want to copy recordings from the old drive to a new one, is the best way to plug in an external HDD and just copy them across?
  • Will the humax box be able to automatically format the 2TB disk? There is conflicting information on the site and it is not clear whether the latest firmware will indeed format big disks.
Note: I am running custom firmware (HDR_FOX_T2_1.03.12_mod_3.00) with auto unprotect running and I'll use Ultimate Boot CD to format the external drive as EXT3 (I don't have an Ubuntu box at home)

Many thanks in advance! :)
 
The best way to transfer content from the old drive is to connect it to the Humax after you have installed the new HDD, using a USB-SATA adapter. These are not expensive, and handy to have in the tool kit. If you really don't want to obtain one of these, then yes - transfer to a USB drive before replacing the HDD, then transfer back (or play from the external drive without transferring).

The detailed instructions for installing a 2TB HDD are obsoleted by the ability of 1.03.xx firmware to format a 2TB HDD directly. All you have to do is fit the drive and then run the format disk option from the Humax menus. If for some reason that doesn't work, use the detailed instructions as a fall-back. The custom firmware will dump you back to the Internet installation web page, or you could use Telnet to copy the /mod folder from the old drive to restore your existing configuration.
 
Thanks for the feedback.

Direct drive-to-drive sounds much easier. Just so that I get this clear, once I've installed and formatted the new HDD, I can use a connector such as this to hook up the old HDD as an external USB drive? How do I copy recorded programmes from the old external drive to the new internal drive?

I can connect to box using telnet already (although I see a 'TELNET MENU' screen rather than the screen shown on the wiki here). How do I then copy the mod folder from the old drive to the new one using telnet?

Thanks for your help!
 
Just so that I get this clear, once I've installed and formatted the new HDD, I can use a connector such as this to hook up the old HDD as an external USB drive?
Perfect.

How do I copy recorded programmes from the old external drive to the new internal drive?
Use the Humax media browser copy functions to transfer whole folders (or just play them from where they are).

I can connect to box using telnet already (although I see a 'TELNET MENU' screen rather than the screen shown on the wiki here). How do I then copy the mod folder from the old drive to the new one using telnet?
You should be seeing what it shows in the wiki HERE (click), you get to the command line by selecting "cli". I'll get back to you on the specific commands for transferring the /mod stuff, but I prefer a clean re-install.
 
One more question- the adapter that I mentioned earlier is a data connection - how do you power the old drive which is now connected via USB?
 
These adapters are usually supplied with a power brick - sorry, I didn't notice that this one isn't (and apparently neither did a number of reviewers!).
 
Ok, wasn't sure whether I needed the power brick version (expensive) or the cheaper, cable only version.

I'll buy the other one. :)
 
If you have a redundant PC PSU knocking about, that would do (but may require a dummy load to start up).
 
Thx - I've ordered a cable with power block and this should arrive tomorrow.

For anyone who reads this in the future, new disk installed fine and took only a few minutes to format.

One thing to note was that although the firmware and scheduled recordings, etc were all there, I had to reinstall the web interface and other packages. This was easy once I saw the web UI which prompted an install but at first this did not appear. Although the machine had been on for a while, it took a while for the web UI install page to come up - I refreshed over a few minutes and it appeared.

New disk seems much quieter than the old one.
 
although the firmware and scheduled recordings, etc were all there, I had to reinstall the web interface and other packages.
Correct.

This was easy once I saw the web UI which prompted an install but at first this did not appear. Although the machine had been on for a while, it took a while for the web UI install page to come up - I refreshed over a few minutes and it appeared.
This may be the same thing as I get sometimes: I link through to my Humax IP address (iOS/Safari) and nothing happens. Try again, nothing happens (but neither does the browser say the server can't be reached). Go and check the Humax is up and running etc, everything fine. Try the WebIF again, and it loads.

The point is that your delay could be due to your installation state, but it could also be "just one of those things". Anecdotally, I don't remember this happening with Mongoose.
 
The delay in getting the Web-If install page back may have been to do with the browser cache: clearing this might help. You access Web-If with the IP address. When the full interface needs loading you are redirected to 'IP address/install'. It sounds like the redirect was not working at first. Manually adding '/install' to the address should also have worked.
 
I have found of late that using WebIf from iOS is virtually impossible. Every tap it just sits there forever waiting for the web page. While it is doing that I can browse around fine from a number of different browsers on a PC or Android.

It used to work, but I'm not sure when it stopped. It could be when the change from Mongoose occured, but equally our iPad has had a minor iOS update around the same time.
 
Are you using authentication? As an experiment, can you see if it's any better without that?
 
My comment was in response to yours saying you sometimes get a long(ish) delay before it will come up in iOS. It has gone rather off topic. I will look into that issue more on my system and open a new thread about it when I have so that this one stays on track.
 
I see what you mean. In which case, yes I suppose there is a possible problem - I don't have authentication turned on.
 
It seems that after power on of the HDR Fox T2, you now have to wait several minutes for webif to start responding. I noticed this some weeks ago. It didn't used to be like this. I assumed it was an intentional change.
 
There is some delay in the Web-If becoming responsive when switching from standby, but I have never had to wait minutes
 
I have noticed this on occasions but I have always put it down to the router not picking up the Humax straight away, I never thought that it might be webif itself.
Interesting, I'll have to take a closer look next time it happens.
 
Just powered mine up from standby and was able to access webif within 5 seconds of TV channel appearing.
 
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