DMR EH50 and new quieter hard drive

Anybody with experience on other DMR models or this one may be able to offer some help.
I have the Panasonic DMR EH50, it comes with a Samsung 80gig 5400 rpm drive which while being a good unit does make quite a high pitch sound. I also have a Seagate 80gig 7200 rpm drives with is much quiter so I tried to replace the original.
While the original has the cable selecter jumper set, the Seagate would olny be seen if it was set to master. When set to jumper selected an error message "HDD NG" came up, I assume this to mean Hard drive no good.
However, the EM50 never gets past a long "Please wait" or "Self Check" or "Hello" message. It is as if the Seagate is not responding.
I tried fitting the Seagate fully formated with Fat32 and and 4k clusters and also after an FDISK remove partition so that it was completely raw.
Some posibilities are:
It checks for the manufacturer though I think this is unlikely.
There is a command incompatability, unlikely but I have seen it happen before in embedded situations.
It does not like 7200 rpm but how would it know.
It needs the Hard drive to have something specific already on it or the cluster size may not be 4k.
There may be a button press sequence needed to force a format at startup.

Can anybody help.
Regards,
John.

I can't help, but thanks for the info. If you ever do manage to find a combination of hard disk type/ formated type (eg ntfs or FAT32 etc etc) that works, please post it back here!

[Nick_UK]

Might it be worth while putting the HDD from the Panasonic into a PC, to see how it is formatted, and if it is recognised ?

[eddyad]

Maybe the HDD NG message just means the HDD need formatting by the EH50. Can you find something in the manual about resetting/formatting the HDD?

I am reluctant to put the Samsung into a pc incase it is modified in some way. This may be unlikely but could leave me with a drive I can't get going again.
As to the Seagate needing formatting, yes I agree and feel that when I can get the EH50 to do that I will have achieved the goal. If the unit will see the Seagate then I am sure it will do the format.
Some further perhaps subtle insight is required at this point.
Regards,
John.

It has occurred to me that cloning the original drive to the new one may make the new drive immediately accessible. I don't know if clone can be set to duplicate everything down to cluster size etc and which tool would be best suited.
Perhaps someone with some insights here may offer help.
Regards,
John.

Today I connected the Samsung to my PC. My Asus p4c800e deluxe motherboard would not recognize it but a hard disk diagnostic program did but reported it to have 505 bytes per sector rather than the usual 512. I have not been able to find a program that can change this on a standard drive so unless someone can help out this may be the end of the matter. Has Panasonic changed to a proprietary hard disk layout?
Regards,
John.

The idea about cloning the disk sounds like a safe line of attack. If you have a copy of Norton Ghost, this will do exactly what you want, make a exact clone without screwing up your PC or your "hard disk" in the process.

If you don't drop me a PM.


Actually just found this:

http://forum.digitalspy.co.uk/board/...=176236&page=2

Looks like other makes can do this upgrade no sweat....

Yes I think cloning is the way to go but since a pc's bios won't recognize the drive, at least mine wont, perhaps someone else can try, no cloning software will see the drive.
If someone else gets a pc to recognize the Samsung then we are in business.
Regards,
John.

From info gathered elsewhere it is possible that the 504 bytes per sector reported earlier is not correct and the program probably reported this because it did not recognize the drive correctly.
It is entirely possible that the Samsung connect to other pc's may be recognized. I'll have to wait until somebody else tries it.
Regards,
John.

[HAB]

I have had problems in the PC world with Seagate drives - they often only work correctly when they are master AND only device on an IDE channel.

You might do better with a drive from another manufacturer. I have found Maxtor to be very reliable, or you could always try a Samsung 7200rpm device - either should cost about £35 via the web.

[canopy]

I have also tried to install a new HD with the same results. Tried the Samsung drive in a firewire cabinet, but that did not work at all, So i tried to install it on a computer, the name of the drive came up in the bios, but the bios also came with a fault message about the disk. Maybe the drive has other firmware than other normal pc-drives to prevent us from replacing it?But nothing is impossible.

Yes something is stopping us but the drive has the SV0802N model number on it which is clearly a standard drive. It is hard to imagine Pansonic going to a lot of trouble to just change things, it would be a major job to reformat etc every unit. More likely something in the Master Boot Record or similar is changed such that it trows the PC while at the same time is a requirement of the EH50 controller. Someone will figure it out, the unit is just new.
Please, if anyone reads this thread further down the track, add what you know and we will keep looking.
Regards,
John.

In the end I was able to clone the drive using a low level program called ACR data recovery but still the Seagate was not recognized. I am beginning to think that the eh50 can't power up the seagae, it gives the impression of the drive remaining locked?
Probably a non 7200 drive would work.
Regards,
John.

[pickyone]

I bet that Samsung has a firmware designed just for EH50. This firmware allows the controller on HD to communicate with the EH50, not the PC. If someone has a utility that can read the FW on Samsung HD and then program it onto other HD, then you will have a home run.