[Cockney John]

Hello,

I'm obviously doing something wrong and I'm therefore hoping that someone out there has had a similar experience and can help. Having had an excellent response to my previous problem from this forum, I'm hoping that someone can spot and point out my (probably very obvious) mistake.

For quite a while now, I've been archiving programmes from my Humax HDR to my PC by using a USB stick (formatted to FAT32 standards) as the means of transfer. This hasn't been a trouble free experience (see Humax Foxsat HDR - USB problems) but it hasn’t really been that much of a hassle either. However, so that I can now start transferring files that are larger than 4Gb, I decided to format a 16Gb USB stick to the Ext3 format; but I'm having intractable problems with this as follows.

I formatted the stick to Ext3 on my Windows PC (using Acronis Disk Director Suite). Once the format was complete, my PC could see the stick and I could manipulate (i.e. read, write, rename, delete, etc.) any files on it without any difficulty (by using the 'Ext2 Installable File System for Windows' - see Ext2 IFS For Windows). I could remove and then re-insert the stick as many times as I wanted (and even shut down and restart the PC between the remove and the re-insert) and still see the stick and manipulate its files, thus proving that it wasn't a transient problem on the PC.

I then took the stick to the HDR; it could also see it and I could play programmes from it (previously archived ones that I'd copied onto the stick from my PC) and I could also manipulate files on it (play, copy, move, rename, etc.), including files greater than 4Gb in size - all no problem. However, as soon as I took the stick back to my PC (hoping to transfer a file off it), my PC could no longer see it, saying, "You need to format the disk in drive F: before you can use it. Do you want to format it?" Taking the stick back to the HDR after this though, it could still see it perfectly.

I therefore reformatted the stick and tried the absolute minimum of interaction with the HDR by just inserting the freshly formatted stick, waiting until the HDR recognised it (i.e. the blue banner "USB Device has been connected" was displayed), and then removing it again; and with even this minimal exposure, the stick becomes no longer readable on the PC.

So, to summarise: a freshly formatted stick works on the PC and continues to do so provided the stick is not introduced to the HDR; a freshly formatted stick works on the HDR and continues to do so even if it has been manipulated on the PC first; however, merely introducing the stick to the HDR renders it unreadable by the PC, from which I can only conclude that, as part of the introduction process, the HDR changes something on the stick that renders it unreadable by the PC. I've now repeated this process several times (although trying different files and in slightly different sequences) with exactly the same outcome just to be sure that it was not a transient problem.


Does anybody have any suggestions or perhaps useful questions that might prompt me into a fresh line of thought about this? I should be most grateful if you have.

Best regards

Cockney John

[Bully9]

I think the problem is that the HDR does not 'unmount' the drive. The only way i have found reliably to get around this is to boot my PC into SLAX and insert the USB. Then SLAX will mount the drive (it takes forever and the slider stays at zero) and eventually you can'safely remove' it. I then find it works robustly in windows under EXT2FSD.

There may be more elegant solutions out there, but my experiments with VM linux ultimately failed - probably due to my incompetence. If you find a better method, do let me know, but i think the fundamental problems are a. that the HDR does not recognise NTFS and b. it does not unmount EXT3 so that EXT2FSD (or similar type app) can recognise it under windows.

[Cockney John]

Hi there Bully9, Thanks for your thoughts on this. By telling me that you've had the same problem, you've at least confirmed that this is a more general problem and allayed my fears that it was something peculiar to my particular machine. Your answer is also very interesting from another point of view; I'm now convinced that the root cause of both this and the only other problem that I've had with this machine (see Humax Foxsat HDR - USB problems) is to do with it not having a 'dismount' or 'safely remove hardware' feature - a very surprising omission. [Let's hope that Humax can cure this problem at some stage in the future.]

In terms of the workaround that you give, thanks for that also; I'll work on it. Presumably you have to go through the process of doing this (i.e. booting up SLAX and waiting for the 'mount' to complete) each and every time that you use your HDR copy to an Ext3 drive that you subsequently want to read in Windows?

Finally, I agree with you that it was a startling omission to have a file transfer mechanism that omits the NTFS file format - roughly equivalent to having an Indian Restaurant that doesn't do curry. OK, you might not like Microsoft (and most, including me, don't), but (unfortunately) they totally dominate the personal computing market and therefore set the 'de facto' standards - yes, a startling omission and out of touch with reality.

Best

Cockney John

[Bully9]

Yes, i boot up slax on CD every time i want to read a drive from the Humax, just to make it readable. Probably best to keep a smaller FAT drive for use with files <4 gig. Having said that, i don't think there's any way of knowing for sure how big the file is; it's very unusual however for an SD recording to top this size.

Maybe the lack of NTFS is a question of 'royalties' to microsoft or something like that. I think it's more likely to be part of a policy of making it as difficult as possible to archive HD recordings That would explain the need to record in non-freesat (ie no scheduling), no ntfs and above all no proper dismount. I can see no other explanation for this last omission. I'm sure someone more knowledgable will put us straight on this in due course.

[Spannishboy]

Compered to you guys I am a complete novice in this field. I have a Foxsat-HDR and have the same problems with large file transfer. You suggest reformatting the memory stick, is this easy to do and once finished can you reformat back?

With ordinary length files, what software do you use to convert it from ts to one that can be placed on a DV for normal playing on a DVD player?

Any he would be greatfully received as my Granddaughter wishes to watch Sheun the Sheep.

Thanks

[grahamlthompson]

Originally Posted by Spannishboy

Compered to you guys I am a complete novice in this field. I have a Foxsat-HDR and have the same problems with large file transfer. You suggest reformatting the memory stick, is this easy to do and once finished can you reformat back?

With ordinary length files, what software do you use to convert it from ts to one that can be placed on a DV for normal playing on a DVD player?

Any he would be greatfully received as my Granddaughter wishes to watch Sheun the Sheep.

Thanks

The best but not free software is VideoREdo TV suite. Windows can read EXT3 volumes using a 3rd party driver EXT2FSD and to the other posters the latest version is reputed to work with an EXT3 drive without having to unmount the drive using Linux.

NTFS is a proprierty Microsoft FS and unlike Linux it's details are not open source so documentation is not available. Linux though can read NTFS so you can transfer large files to a ntfs partition from an EXT3 one by booting a PC from a Linux boot disc

[Cockney John]

Hello Spannishboy,

I agree with Graham - I now use VideoReDo TVSuite for all my Video editing and then burning to DVD. It isn’t cheap, but it is very easy and intuitive to use as well as being reliable and robust. Moreover, it definitely does exactly what you want (i.e. it has the ability to import a .ts file and then burn that to a DVD).

In terms of formatting a memory stick (and then reformatting it back again) I use Acronis Disk Director Suite. Exactly as with VideoReDo TVSuite, this software isn’t cheap, but it is very easy and intuitive to use as well as being reliable and robust. For me though, this is of limited use because of the mount/unmount issue (as explained earlier in this thread), as I’ve not yet discovered any Windows software that is able to recognise a memory stick formatted to Ext2/3 standards after it has been inserted into the Humax Foxsat HDR; the only solution I have found (and as advised by Bully9) is to go through the intermediate step of first loading a Linux based operating system just to unmount the Ext2/3 formatted stick so that it can then be seen by Windows (a really tedious task). I’m therefore very VERY interested in what Graham says about this.

Graham, I should be eternally grateful if you can point me at any information whatsoever about reading an Ext2/3 drive in Windows that hasn’t first been unmounted using Linux (e.g. reading an Ext2/3 stick in Windows where it has come directly from a Humax Foxsat HDR). It would be truly wonderful if someone has discovered a solution to this issue.

Best regards to all

Cockney John

[grahamlthompson]

See this thread but note the comment about FS corruption. Imagine it would be fine to just read the files though

Ext2File System Driver Update Released - Hummy.org.uk Forums

[Bully9]

Cockney John - i tried reading a USB drive straight from the humax in Ext2FSD under windows XP some months ago and had big problems, so i gave up and went back to mounting under linux. However, i decided to give it another go today. It may well be that my earlier attempts were abortive because i had not realised what an age the drive takes to mount. NTFS formatted drives had mounted and unmounted pretty much instantaneously in windows and i probably expected the same from the humax USB drive.

Today, i launched Ext2FSD, stuck in the USB drive, and then hoovered the bedroom. By the time i got back, the drive had mounted and i was able to copy the file and then unmount the drive using the windows 'safely remove hardware' routine. I then plugged it back into the humax, deleted the file in file manager and copied another. In other words, it seems to work fine without the intermediate boot into SLAX.

[grahamlthompson]

Originally Posted by Bully9

Cockney John - i tried reading a USB drive straight from the humax in Ext2FSD under windows XP some months ago and had big problems, so i gave up and went back to mounting under linux. However, i decided to give it another go today. It may well be that my earlier attempts were abortive because i had not realised what an age the drive takes to mount. NTFS formatted drives had mounted and unmounted pretty much instantaneously in windows and i probably expected the same from the humax USB drive.

Today, i launched Ext2FSD, stuck in the USB drive, and then hoovered the bedroom. By the time i got back, the drive had mounted and i was able to copy the file and then unmount the drive using the windows 'safely remove hardware' routine. I then plugged it back into the humax, deleted the file in file manager and copied another. In other words, it seems to work fine without the intermediate boot into SLAX.

How big was the drive ?. If you have a 1TB drive on a hdr thats about 60% full it takes a significant time to display the media list. Small ones display instantly so it may just be the sheer number of files and folders that affect the mount time

[Bully9]

It's a 14gb usb stick and it had one file on it - three if you count the auxillary .nts and .hmt files - totalling 2.51 GB.

Once Ext2FSD had finally mounted it and i had copied the files and 'safely' removed it again, i was able to mount it again very quickly under Ext2FSD in windows. It seems clear that the lack of a proper unmounting from the humax does (or doesn't do) something to the drive that necessitates the lengthy mount proceedure either in Slax or Ext2FSD under windows.

In any event, it's much more convenient to use the latter method and avoid the booting into linux.

[grahamlthompson]

Thanks for that the info will be really useful to others using a hdr with Hd source material

[Bully9]

I've had a lot of help from you and others on this forum over the years, so it feels really good to reciprocate when i can :-)

[Cockney John]

Hello grahamlthompson,

Thank you for that pointer. I’ve spent quite some time (hence the tardy reply) and pulled out loads more hair whilst following this up but, nonetheless, thank you for an interesting (though, unfortunately at the moment, fruitless) diversion. Any other similar pointers for investigation that you (or anyone else) can give me would be very much appreciated though: some pointer from someone will eventually end in a good result - I’m convinced of it. I’m determined to crack this problem even if it kills me (or my equipment - and it may well do both).

I also noted your remark about “Imagine it would be fine to just read the files though”. That would be good assumption but, unfortunately, won’t work because I shall always at some stage need to copy the archives back onto the Humax (so that I can re-watch the archived programmes - the reason I’m archiving them rather than just deleting them); although I suppose that I could always watch them via another device rather than from the Humax.

In fact, I had tried the particular piece of software that you recommend (EX2FSD version 0.48) before and could not get it to work at all for me, so I eventually settled on the alternative (EX2IFS version 1.11a) which sort of half worked (see earlier in this thread). Furthermore, note that Bully9 had also tried EX2FSD with limited success (see his postings above). However, because Windows Vista had undergone a number updates since I last tried EX2FSD, I took your note as a timely reminder and I decided that there would be no harm in trying it again as it may well now work. To cut a long story short (but read the long version below if you are interested), it now also kind of half works, but I would advise any other reader of this forum to try it only with extreme caution (and start by backing everything up) if you want to check whether it works with a Humax for you. So, on with the long story.

As with EX2IFS, provided you restrict yourself to using your Ext3 formatted USB stick with your PC, EX2FSD seems to work perfectly - it is only when you introduce the stick to the highly idiosyncratic Humax that everything goes pear shaped.

With a USB stick freshly formatted to the Ext3 standard (using Acronis Disk Director Suite) and then ensuring that EX2FSD is made active, I was able to see and manipulate files on the stick perfectly and easily with my PC just by using standard Windows Explorer; so far, so good. Moreover, if I then took that stick to the Humax (with or without files on it - it didn’t matter), the Humax could see it perfectly and (if available) play programmes from the stick which the Humax had itself previously recorded (but which had been copied on there from the PC); even better. Finally, I was able to copy files to the stick from the Humax (including files larger than 4Gb) and this appeared to go well - so I’m on a roll. Finally, I take the stick back to the PC and I could copy off the files onto my PC without a problem (even though there was one ‘odd’ thing which appeared to be peculiar - see later) - job done (or so I thought).

The problem occurs, however, when I then reintroduce the stick to the Humax. It sees it as being a disk of zero size (and thus empty, despite it being the last thing which wrote to the stick) and even though I have used the ‘safely remove hardware’ feature to remove the stick from my PC! I’ve since confirmed that this is a Humax rather than a PC problem by repeating the process but omitting to take the stick to the PC. In other words, I take a freshly formatted stick to the Humax, copy some programmes on to it, remove the stick and then immediately reintroduce it to the Humax without talking it to the PC in between. The result is the same, the Humax sees it as an empty, zero-size disk even though all I’ve done is unplugged it and plugged it back in again. In effect therefore, you can only use a freshly formatted stick once to transfer files to a PC!

I therefore decided to reformat my stick on my PC once the copy of files from the Humax was completed (it seemed the best way around being able to use it for a second and subsequent time) but I’ve since discovered that you cannot format a drive whilst EX2FSD is active - it results in a BSOD (Blue Screen Of Death for the uninitiated) - i.e. a very serious PC crash - and the stick is then not recognised by anything anymore (as if it has been ‘burnt out’). It took me two sticks to find this out - so I’m currently just over £40 and two 16Gb sticks worse off as well now. So, for anyone else trying EX2FSD with Windows Vista let me therefore issue a strong warning - don’t format anything whilst EX2FSD is running - you’ll lose at least the disk you’re formatting, and possibly more. Make sure that you have completely deactivated EX2FSD before you attempt a format anything.

Anyway, I’m now waiting for another just over £20’s worth of 16Gb stick to arrive in the post and I’ll see if I can trash that one as well. [If anyone knows of any way that I can reinvigorate my two duff USB sticks, I should be grateful to hear from you.]

You’ll note that I said earlier that there was one ‘odd’ thing about the stick once it was moved from the Humax back to the PC. It was that the stick’s “properties” declared it as being ‘empty’, yet its directory clearly showed the files that had been copied from the Humax (which, in turn, could then also be copied to the PC). In other words, the PC was obviously ‘confused’ by the state in which the Humax had left the stick, having two different views of it depending on from which angle you looked at it. Moreover, I had deliberately to force the PC to examine the stick once it had been in the Humax. In other words, unlike before being in the Humax (when everything worked perfectly), once it had been in the Humax, there was no ‘autoplay’ on the stick and inserting it didn’t automatically start explorer. Furthermore, once explorer was started manually, the ‘folders panel’ of explorer didn’t show the folders on the stick until one actually examined the stick at the file level (when the folders then became visible in the folders panel).

It’s all very confusing - does anybody have any clues as to what is happening?

Best regards

Cockney John

PS I’ve just come to ‘post’ this response and found Bully9’s subsequent message - thanks for that. A-ha, this could explain everything - if I were to wait for a while once I’ve put the stick back into the PC (I probably won’t do any vacuuming though) instead of being impatient and ‘forcing’ the PC to examine the stick, maybe the PC will eventually sort it out, and pick up my stick correctly, completely of its own accord. When I get my new stick through the post in the next couple of days, I’ll definitely try that. Thanks for your assistance guys - much appreciated.

By the way, I eventually gave up on EX2IFS having found the relevant information at Ext2 IFS For Windows: FAQ which explained why it could never work with any disk written on the Humax (see the quote “The Ext2 file system driver of the Ext2IFS software will refuse mounting an Ext3 file system which contains data in its journal, just like older Linux kernels which have no Ext3 support. In this way data loss and damaging the file system is avoided when the journal is subsequently replayed. So you can access only those Ext3 volumes with the Ext2IFS software which have been cleanly dismounted beforehand (my bold).”) However, since the Humax doesn’t cleanly dismount (in fact, it doesn’t dismount at all, let alone cleanly - as we’ve said before, what a startling omission) this explains why Ext2IFS doesn’t work with the Humax. On the other hand, maybe EX2FSD does use the journal correctly and then this other quote from the same source would probably apply “If you mount an Ext3 file system as an Ext2 file system and the file system is not cleanly dismounted, (e.g. due to a system crash), you have to run the e2fsck tool. (Linux does it automatically.) Running e2fsck can take several hours on large volumes (my bold)” and maybe EX2FSD (like Linux) has an equivalent of the e2fsck tool built into it - and maybe that’s why it takes so long to mount the volume on Bully9’s PC.

I must say that, despite my early enthusiasm, I’m now not best pleased with Humax; they’ve worn me down and I probably won’t buy from them ever again. [I certainly will never ever now recommend them - it would be just too embarrassing.] Whilst most things on the Humax are good, its ability to interface with anything else is obviously very flaky indeed. What also irritates me beyond words though is that the company haven’t even got the courtesy to respond to e-mails. I’ve sent several to their supposed support line at tech-info@humax-digital.co.uk about my problems and I might as well have thrown them into a black hole - not a dickie-bird in response (not even the usual automated response to recognise receipt). Well, I’ll persevere for the moment, but never again.

Best

CJ

[grahamlthompson]

To be fair to Humax the above poster is expecting the box to do something it was never advertised as being capable of. Archiving BBC-HD to an attached Usb EXT3 drive works perfectly (I have a 1TB drive permanently attached to the rear port). For the odd SD programmes that I want on a PC I normally use a 320GB USB powered FAT32 drive. On the rare occasion I need to access the big EXT3 drive I simply unslot it from the rear drop in cradle drop it in the esata drop in cradle on my desktop and boot it into Linux. It's then dead easy to transfer any big files to a ntfs volume.

To replay home produced HD camcorder footage I have a 500GB USB powered drive formatted EXT3 to which I copy footage converted by AV2HDR again using Linux. Not having a bluray burner I can use this drive to hold lots of HD content and it will play back from the drive, no need to upload it to the internal HDD.

[Cockney John]

I'm not sure that the above opinion about what the box is "advertised as being capable of" is quite right. My Humax User Manual on page GB9 states "USB Port - Connect a USB Pen drive or external USB HDD (for archiving recordings, or transfer of MP3 or JPEG files)." All I'm trying to do (but the box can't) is attach a USB pen drive to archive recordings; that seems to fit in with the above - or have I misunderstood something?

Cockney John

[grahamlthompson]

Originally Posted by Cockney John

I'm not sure that the above opinion about what the box is "advertised as being capable of" is quite right. My Humax User Manual on page GB9 states "USB Port - Connect a USB Pen drive or external USB HDD (for archiving recordings, or transfer of MP3 or JPEG files)." All I'm trying to do (but the box can't) is attach a USB pen drive to archive recordings; that seems to fit in with the above - or have I misunderstood something?

Cockney John

The freesat spec allows the broadcaster to withold the capability of archiving programmming material for copyright reasons that's nothing to do with Humax who have to provide a freesat compliant design. ITV1-HD do just this, BBC-HD allow archiving the file just once. EXT3 is required purely to allow files larger than 4GB. The hdr will do just this you can archive as much SD material and BBC-HD to USB as you have space for and replay it from there so how is that not providing archiving? Transfering the content to a PC and using it elsewhere is a bonus that you won't find on many if any other Freesat+ boxes and the fact that you can also copy HD material without encryption albeit somewhat inconveniently is afaik unique in Freesat+ pvrs.

[Cockney John]

Hi Graham, I'm sorry, I don't understand what your answer has to do with my problem - maybe I'm being thick or something. I have no queries at all regarding HD and/or encoding - I fully understand the copyright issues (well, at least, I think so). All I want to do is archive some SD programmes(which sometimes goes over 4Gb) for my own personal use and the Humax can't do it. Unless I've totally misunderstood something, this is a technical problem with the Humax, not a problem with copyright law. Yours bewildered.

Cockney John

[grahamlthompson]

Originally Posted by Cockney John

Hi Graham, I'm sorry, I don't understand what your answer has to do with my problem - maybe I'm being thick or something. I have no queries at all regarding HD and/or encoding - I fully understand the copyright issues (well, at least, I think so). All I want to do is archive some SD programmes(which sometimes goes over 4Gb) for my own personal use and the Humax can't do it. Unless I've totally misunderstood something, this is a technical problem with the Humax, not a problem with copyright law. Yours bewildered.

Cockney John

I have about 600GB of archived (mostly BBC-HD) sitting on a 1TB Sata drive connected to the rear port that I can watch whenever I want plus a lot more on a 320GB drive that I can swap in in minutes. I can read the backup drive on the very odd occasion I need to get one of the SD archive onto a PC that's bigger than 4GB simply by booting my PC into Linux, drop in the drive with the recording on it into the esata docking cradle (can even be the internal drive) and copy the .TS to a ntfs file. Once there I can do anything I want with it.

Never had any problem working with the drive under Linux only if trying to read.write using windoze. Are you saying you can't read the drive even using Linux ?

[Bully9]

Cockney John - i had some catastrophic usb failures when i first tried Ext2FSD. I managed to recover the drive eventually using the low level format tool here and then the HP USB format tool here. If the first of these works, you may be able to use acronis for the second stage; the windows disk format tool would not do it for me, only the HP program. No guarantees, but worth a try if you haven't already - and be prepared for a bit of hoovering!

If i copy a file to usb in the humax, remove the stick and then put it back in, i find it will read the file again... eventually. Again, it seems to take forever to read it back in, but it does do so in the end. I'm using a sandisk cruzer btw. I have also had the problem of the humax accepting the stick but reporting it empty when i knew it wasn't. Can't remember the circumstances exactly. I do find that Ext2FSD does sometimes report odd disk usage data, but i have it set so that the drive opens automatically in explorer once the stick is read.

I usually compress the files i archive to an x264/mkv and then play them back on a HD media player, via usb stick or usb HDD. These only cost 50 quid odd, these days if you shop around, and offer a lot of benefits, including not having to reload the files into the humax! (Having said that, BBC HD is at such a low bitrate these days -typically 4500kbps- you can't really compress too much. ITV HD seems to transmit at twice this bitrate).

[grahamlthompson]

BBC-Hd are trying out vbr these days likely with a view to stat-muxing with BBC1-Hd. As a result the average or a spot figure won't tell you very much.

[Cockney John]

First of all, let me apologise for the staccato pace of this thread; unfortunately, other (certainly more pressing, but actually probably less important) matters (such as work for instance) got in the way of me coming back to you immediately. Anyway, despite that, I'm really glad to report that my new USB stick arrived in the post and (with many thanks owing to Bully9) I now have a working system.

Bully9, your advice that one should (I paraphrase) "just be patient, do some vacuuming, and it'll all come right" paid off completely. As you correctly suggested, both EXT2FSD and the Humax eventually recovered/rebuilt the duff file system that remains as a result of the Humax not dismounting the drive, and both my Humax and my PC were therefore eventually able to 'see' the USB stick. Moreover, I've discovered that the time taken to do this rebuild is directly proportional to the amount of new data written to the USB stick by the Humax. With my particular set-up, which (same as for Bully9) is a Sandisk Cruzer USB stick, it works at about 4.92Mb per second (but this will no doubt be different for each unique USB stick/port combination). Thus with about 13Gb of programmes on my stick (three programmes, each just slightly over the 4Gb limit for transferring using FAT32) it takes almost exactly three quarters of an hour to 'mount' the drive. In other words, when it can take up to ¾ hour from inserting the stick before the machine deigns to recognise it (and even with only a single programme on the stick, it takes about ¼ hour), having 'drummed' ones fingers on the tabletop for a while, there is every reason to assume (unless you have previously been told otherwise) that it isn't working. Furthermore, because this massive time lag is hardware dependent and totally independent of the operating regime in place, it's therefore the same no matter whether you're putting the stick back into the Humax or inserting it into a PC under either Windows or Linux. So in answer to your question grahamlthompson (viz. "Are you saying you can't read the drive even using Linux?"), until I received Bully9's advice, the answer was "Yes". Once the file system has been fixed/rebuilt though, the stick mounts in seconds (again, independent of operating environment).

In terms of grahamlthompson's answer under #19, that now also becomes understandable. I suspect that he is using reasonably high speed drives (certainly when compared to the snail like pace of under 5Mb/sec write speed for a typical USB stick), so any similar 'rebuild' for him must go very quickly and is maybe therefore not noticeable unless one actually deliberately looks for it. [Graham, it would be really great if you were prepared to indulge me and copy, say, 13Gb of data from your Humax to your swappable Ext3 drive and then (without switching the Humax off and on again - and thus forcing a rebuild) move the drive to your PC to see how long it takes to 'mount'. Even if your drives are, say, 50 times faster than a USB stick, it should still take up to about a minute until the drive appears on your explorer (or equivalent) and that should be noticeable.]

Bully9, I also have to thank you a second time for pointing out the utilities for reformatting trashed USB drives - they also worked. I now have a couple of working spare USB sticks - so thank you again.

Overall, a satisfactory result all round.

Having said that though, given the probably thousands of Humax boxes out there, I find it very hard to believe that Bully9 and I are the only ones to have encountered this particular issue. It would be really great if Humax could respond to support e-mails regarding issues such as this (by the way, has anybody found any channel through which one can get support from Humax - I should be very interested to hear). Perhaps it would be even better still if Humax could respond through the auspices of an excellent website such as this one; they could then be serving their customers even better by giving users other than those asking the question the chance to fix problems before they occur. [Ultimately though - even this could have been avoided if Humax had provided a proper 'dismount'/'safely remove hardware' function for any attached drive.]

Best regards and thanks again to everyone until the next time (I'm sure that there will be one)

Cockney John

[Bully9]

Glad you managed to recover your drives.

Being as this is a work-in-progress i thought i'd relate my latest experiences. I was getting two problems: the humax was sometimes cutting off before copying the whole of a recording to USB and/or the humax was taking a very long time to accept the USB stick, even after proper unmounting in windows.

I decided to reformat the stick, this time in acronis (it seems to take about three minutes, regardless of the amount of data on the stick) and the humax was happy to accept it. Moreover, once i had copied the file, windows/ext2fsd reconised the stick in a few seconds - no need to hoover :-) However, when i unmounted the stick, returned to the humax and deleted the file, and then tried to copy another file, it stopped copying half way through.

So i now reformat the usb in acronis after every transfer and then 'safely remove' in windows. So far this has worked flawlessly and (comparatively) quickly because both the humax and windows/ext2fsd recognise the drive in seconds. Mind you, i've only done it twice.....

[Cockney John]

Hi again Bully9,

Thanks for the update.

Because, like you, I had so many unexplained failures (including the one that you report - i.e. a failure to copy correctly after performing some other action - e.g. deleting files), I started by doing exactly the same as you (i.e. reformatting the stick using Acronis after each file transfer), but I've found that I now no longer need to do that. As I explained in an earlier thread and earlier in this thread, when this whole saga started I wasn't sure whether the problem was with my PC or the Humax, so I did the minimum of file manipulation on my PC until I was sure one way or the other. However, now that I (with your guidance - thanks again) have definitively isolated the problem to the Humax, I've completely reversed that mode of operation and do the minimum of file manipulation on the problem machine (i.e. the Humax). In consequence, I now only do two things (the minimum possible) on the Humax when using an Ext3 formatted stick: (a) copy files to the stick that I wish to transfer to my PC, (b) play files that have been copied back to the stick from my PC. All other functions (but especially deleting files from the stick) I now perform on the PC because (unlike on the Humax) I know that it definitely works properly (even if slowly) there. Moreover, provided that I always 'Safely Remove the Hardware' from my PC (which, of course, I do), the Humax always recognises the stick quickly because the PC has by then untangled the inevitable mess left by the Humax. In consequence, I now no longer need to format the stick.

Obviously, I also use a stick that has been formatted to FAT32 standards whenever possible (most of the time) as there are now no problems with that. [I rarely bother to record HD programmes because of potential copyright issues, so I find that I only need to use the Ext3 format for BBC1/2 programmes over about 85 minutes in length (longer on other stations) - e.g. the occasional film.]

The other thing that I've done is set EXT2FSD so that the service only starts 'on demand' rather than automatically. [Just in case you've not come across this particular feature, you can start the 'EXT2 Volume Manager' program (independently of the EXT2FSD Service) and then press F7 which starts the 'Service Management' module. From there, you are presented with a dialog box that enables you to select when the EXT2FSD Service starts and it also allows you to start it manually if (as I have) you have selected to start it only on demand ('Service Startup Mode' = "SERVICE_DEMAND_START").] I've done that because, in my set-up with EXT2FSD write mode set on, formatting using Acronis results in a BSOD stop (and the stick being corrupted) at the point when Acronis tries to hand control of the stick back to the operating system. By doing this, I've minimised the possibility of human (as opposed to Humax) error cocking things up but (because EXT2FSD write mode is enabled) also maximised the file manipulations that I can perform on the PC.

This leaves the one interesting question of why you don't get a BSOD stop when formatting using Acronis - is it perhaps because you have not turned EXT2FSD write mode on (which may also explain why you were deleting files from the stick on the Humax rather than your on PC)?

Best regards

Cockney John

[Bully9]

Hello Cockney John - i must admit, i don't really understand ext2fsd. I simply start 'ext2 volume manager' before i attempt to transfer the USB files to my PC (in SERVICE_SYSTEM_START mode). This seems to work OK, and after your earlier comments, i make sure i exit ext2fsd before i open acronis to reformat. It was some time ago when i tried to delete the files under ext2fsd, and that caused the complete failure of the usb drive. And I'm sure i had writing support enabled.

In retrospect, this may have been because i did not then realise how long these functions could take. But the method i use now seems foolproof and is very quick. The reformatting only takes 3 minutes, and the mounting - both on the PC and the humax - takes a matter of seconds. From what you say, your method takes some time to delete the files under ext2fsd. >3minutes? And when you mount the USB under ext2fsd to upload to the PC does it take a long time - i gathered from your ealier post that it did? I've no idea why a reformat in acronis, prior to the transfer operation, enables a quick mounting on the PC, but it seems to. Even before, when i used command line instuctions in SLAX rather than acronis to format the USB, mounting it in ext2fsd took a long time. "Go figure" as they say.

[Cockney John]

Hello Bully9,

I'll try to help as much as I can with an explanation of Ext2fsd but, like you, I'm working my way through things and gaining extra knowledge as I do so. This is, however, what I've managed to glean so far. As such, if anyone else reading this can shed any extra light on the subject, I'm sure that both Bully9 and I would both be happy to hear from you.

From what I can see, Ext2fsd consists of two separate parts (as intimated, but not explicitly stated, in my immediately previous post): (a) the Ext2fsd Service, and (b) the 'Ext2 Volume Manager' program.

The 'Ext2fsd Service' is the piece of code that sits deep within the Windows Kernel and allows file manipulation calls to be made by standard application programmes to access (open/read/write/etc.) Ext2/3 formatted files. When a program (like Microsoft Word or any other program) wants some data from a file, it just issues a call to the operating system which in effect says "get me the next (or a particular) piece of data" and the operating system then returns that data to it (or an error code should some exception/fault occur). The program calling for the data doesn't know (nor usually cares) whether that data is kept in a file that is on a device that is formatted to FAT, NTFS or (if the Ext2fsd service is running) Ext2/3 standards - it leaves that level of detail to the operating system, because that's why the operating system is there.

The second part (the 'Ext2 Volume Manager') is a program that (amongst various other things, such as displaying the status of all disks and volumes connected to the machine) maintains a set of parameters that tell the first part (the 'Ext2fsd Service') how to behave. These parameters/configuration settings reside in the System Registry and dictate such things as, when the Ext2fsd Service starts, whether it works in 'read only' or 'read/write' mode, etc. (see the 'Service Management' module dialog box - press F7 whilst running the 'Ext2 Volume Manager' - for more details). By setting these parameters/configuration settings once therefore, the 'Ext2fsd Service' will always run in the same way each time that it runs unless and until you change those parameters.

I hope what I have said above is clear and (on the other hand) does not insult your intelligence or is 'teaching my grandmother to suck eggs' - neither of which I intend to do but if I have, please forgive me (it is always very difficult to judge someone else's level of knowledge/expertise in a forum such as this). Anyway, whilst assuming that I am not insulting your intelligence, the implications of this are as follows.

If you have the 'Service Startup Mode' set to "SERVICE_SYSTEM_START", then it will do exactly that (i.e. the Service will start each time you start your system). You therefore should never need to invoke the 'Ext2 Volume Manager' program unless you want to change the parameter/configuration settings; so, when you plug in your stick, it should be recognised by the machine regardless of whether you have started the 'Ext2 Volume Manager' program or not. [When you do start 'Ext2 Volume Manager' though (and press F7), under the heading 'Service Status' it should say "Ext2Fsd is already started" and the 'Start' button will be 'Greyed out' because the service will have started as the system started.] Moreover, when you exit the 'Ext2 Volume Manager' program, this will not stop the service - they are completely independent of each other and the Service continues to run. In consequence, you must always have had the Ext2fsd Service running as you ran Acronis (the only way you could avoid that would be to set 'Service Startup Mode' to "SERVICE_DEMAND_START" or "SERVICE_DISABLED" and then reboot - and then the Service would not start as your system starts). I therefore suspect that the reason that I get a BSOD and you don't has to do with the fact that we are running different versions of Windows (I note that earlier you said that you were using XP whereas I'm using Vista).

Again, I hope that I'm not insulting your intelligence with all the above; if I am, please forgive me.

By the way, you are absolutely correct about it taking quite a bit of time to delete the files from the stick, but (and I admit this is only a personal preference) I prefer to use more ordinary measures (rather than extraordinary measures, such as reformatting) to do something if I can. However, don't let my personal preferences affect you; if you have found a way of doing things with which you are comfortable, I'd keep doing it if I were you.

Best regards

Cockney John