Just upgraded Sky+ to 120 GB

gtg60

Established Member
Joined
Oct 2, 2003
Messages
387
Reaction score
35
Points
91
Location
Ireland
Wow, so easy, I should have done it ages ago :cool:

20 mins from the moment I turned off the Sky+ box to the time I was able to record stuff after reformatting the new drive!

Just in case anyone's interested I used a Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 9 120GB ATA/133 HDD/2MB buffer, got it for less than £60!

Absolutely no problems, although I did sweat for a few seconds after the box turned itself off after 'Housekeeping' and then wouldn't turn on again for a whole minute.

Can't wait to fill it up now
:smashin:

Keith
 
Nice one, where did you get the new drive from? im considering doing it myself
 
Hi, got it from
http://www.blankdiscshop.co.uk
In the hardware section, very reliable and quick and love their 7 day price drop policy (if the price drops within 7 days they'll refund the difference). Not connected, just a happy customer.

Don't forget to get your hands on the security Torx for the 3 'screws' at the back of the Sky+ box, I already had one but you won't open it otherwise.

Keith
 
Congrats gtg60, I weakened & did mine (couldn.t wait for the warranty to expire!) How warm was the old drive / is the new? I couldn't believe the old it was RED hot! My Samsung replacement is well cool though. I can't help feeling I've saved Sky another warranty claim. My drive was dear at £80, but money well spent never-the-less. Is your drive the faster 7200rpm one, ora hard to find 5400rpm? The Samsung's the fater one & has been fine so far.
 
Originally posted by STOWITBELOW
Congrats gtg60, I weakened & did mine (couldn.t wait for the warranty to expire!)
Thanks, my warranty's not out either but I've kept loads of stuff on the old hard drive and it won't go into my PC until the warranty is out on the Sky+ box :rolleyes:

How warm was the old drive / is the new? I couldn't believe the old it was RED hot! Is your drive the faster 7200rpm one, ora hard to find 5400rpm?
I went for a 7,200rpm one and yes my old drive was very hot coming out, quite surprising but then I leave it on all day and I've the 60min rewind allowed so I guess it gets lots of use!

BTW I set it last night to record about a dozen films by the time I get home just to fill it up real quick, oh I'm easily amused :clap:

Keith
 
Ditto, I was saving my old hard drive, but I've weakened with that now. I put in a Pc I'm assembling for very amusing effects when it tried to boot from it ! I've about 6 or so films on 'file' now & a load of other nonsense, & don't need to worry about it being full. The only downside I've found is there isn't enough hours in the day for me to watch my recordings, the wife to watch hers, & to fit in any normal viewing. I try to watch most things from archieve then don't need to watch adverts trailers or 'what happened last week' clips. Now I only need 20 hrs a day to squeeze in a days worth of viewing!
 
Hi,gtg60,just how easy is easy ? ? I have already got one of those drives in my pc,might just be persuaded to use it in my new Sky+ instead.:thumbsup:
 
DTS Rocks ! - bloody easy, if you can do a PC you'll walk Sky upgrade, just need the tools for the security bolts, & check if your drive's compatible. I'm sure if you search here or Digital Spy you'll find the stuff.
 
Like STOWITBELOW says 'bloody easy'

1. Disconnect everything from the Sky+ box
2. Remove 3 security Torx from rear of unit and slide off (based on V2 box)
3. Undo 4 Torx screws that mount the hardrive and then disconnect both cables from it
4. Undo brackets from the drive and put them on the new one 2 x 2 Philips screws
5. Reconnect cables to new drive and remount brackets with screws. Slide on lid and resecure 3x screws, reconnect all leads
6. Turn on Sky+ box, goto 'Services' Press 4, 0, 1 then 'Select', scroll down to 'Full system reset' and select it, 'Housekeeping' will be displayed for a few minutes and that's it!!

N.B! Make sure the new drive is set on 'Cable Select' and be aware that once upgraded the % remaining etc gets messed up but is a small price to pay for up to 3x storage capacity :smashin:

Keith
 
Originally posted by bigb
wait till the 17 minute bug gets you:rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes:

Yeah but the question is....Would you go back to the standard size hard drive?

Plus, I really am hoping that when Sky release their 120GB machine that a software update will sort out all the unofficial machines, here's hoping :rolleyes:

Keith
 
Originally posted by gtg60
Yeah but the question is....Would you go back to the standard size hard drive?
You will when you realise that you won't be able to trust any recording as any or all of them can be afflicted with the 17min bug at any time.
Plus you'll notice your box randomly turning itself off, freezing/locking up, faling to record programs for no reason whatsoever, etc.

It's better to have 40GB of recordings that you can watch rather than 120GB of programs that you can't.
 
Originally posted by Brogan
Plus you'll notice your box randomly turning itself off, freezing/locking up, faling to record programs for no reason whatsoever, etc.

Bloody standard one does that :suicide:

It's better to have 40GB of recordings that you can watch rather than 120GB of programs that you can't. [/B]

Really though, is it that bad?

'Spose I'll find out soon enough :rolleyes:

Keith
 
Originally posted by gtg60
Really though, is it that bad?
Yes.
At a guess, I would say I have lost at least 50% of recordings.
It seems to be slightly better if you keep the free space above 40%-50% of the disk but it's no guarantee and kind of defeats the purpose of putting a larger hard drive in...:rolleyes:
 
Originally posted by Brogan
It seems to be slightly better if you keep the free space above 40%-50% of the disk but it's no guarantee and kind of defeats the purpose of putting a larger hard drive in...:rolleyes:

Hmmm, ok, going to fill it up this weekend and see how I get on but like you say what's the point if it's unreliable....

Of course I could just leave the lid loose and keep a few 40GB'ers handy but then again that's not really 'handy' :mad:

Keith
 
Originally posted by gtg60
Of course I could just leave the lid loose and keep a few 40GB'ers handy but then again that's not really 'handy' :mad:
I'm not sure that would work.
If you remove a disk with recordings on it, you'll lose the recordings when you replace the disk and do a system reset/housekeeping - unless of course you don't have to do a system reset...
 
Originally posted by Brogan
- unless of course you don't have to do a system reset...

I'm guessing (hoping) I won't, I think the reason that you have to do it in the first place is to just format the new hard drive to whatever system the Sky+ box uses.

I'll tell you what, as an experiment I'll put back in the old drive (won't be home until 9am sat) and let you know how I get on, still not really an ideal solution.....

Keith
 
Ok, here's an update, just arrived home to find that out of the 10 Movies I had set to be recorded it only 'got' 9, the one being missed had only 2mins recorded :(
Another anomily was that one of the movie's was tagged 'Part recorded' but it had a 'No signal' tag after the amount of time recorded, very, very heavy rain last night and the fact that it had actually recorded the movie and had only missed stuff after (??) means I'm not going to count that as a failure, so 1 out of 10 or 10% failed isn't really good, I'm going to set it up today to record maybe 15~20 30 min shows just to see fairly quickly what the failure rate is (and to fill up the drive to make it potentially more unreliable as Brogan said)

Right, some good news though.....

Switched back in the old hard drive and absolutely no problem, all the old recordings are there and accesible, strangely enough it had tagged 2 recordins as 'Failed', simply because that hard drive wasn't in the box when the programs were on!!

Finally, noticed the new 120 GB drive was much, much cooler than the 40 GB drive :smashin:

Ok, I'll keep everybody informed as to how I get on, anybody else with hard drive upgrades like to chime in?

Keith
 
For what it's worth, I have had the odd recording faliure. I had that before upgrading. I look at it as: marks for ease of use 90%, marks for how effective it is 100%, marks for how 'sensitive or buggy' (100% being insensitve) - 50%. Those marks would be similar since the upgrade, but the ease of use improving due to the increase capacity, meaning I'm not at all concerned about whats on the hard drive & deleting it. It reminds me of how I feel toward my PC - It's a bloody marvelous thing but could be better. My experience is that upgrading the hard drive has made a good product better. The short comeings of +, IMHO are not related to the upgrade. I had engineers out 3/4 times to my old normal Sky before a box swap solved it. I'm on my 2nd + box, but heartly recommend it never- the - less & feel the increased capacity has not affected - improved or exagerated any of +'s 'buggyness'.
+ is not perfect, neither is the ugrade (% full counter buggered). I would hate having to go back to a video for recording tele, let a loan the problems trying to record Sky. Similarly I would hate to go back to the 40 gig drive. For what it's worth reading postings etc on upgrading, the Samsung HD seems to have caused less problems than Maxtor. Thats why I chose Samsung.
 
Interesting points STOWITBELOW and at present I too find it no more unreliable, 10 movies in one night is something I've never tried on my old hard drive so who knows...

Funny, I had heard Maxtor drives were the ones to go for, either way I won't be switching it out on a permanent basis in the near future.

I'm still hoping that all our problems will be solved once SKY themselves move to bigger hard drives and update the software.

Keith
 
The issue as I see it, is if your vid doesn't record you can usually see why - timer incorrectly set, clock wrong whatever. I missed odd recordings but usually it was clear why. + doesn't deign to offer any explanation. My washer sometimes trips the circuit breaker, wife returns home, resets it - Sky says 'recording failed' Mystery bug prevents recording, - Sky says 'recording failed' if it offered error codes like a PC that would be so much better, at least you'd know what was going on!
Incidentaly you would expect Maxtor to be the best upgrade drive - they are original fit. Having read the posts though some people had problems - none posted probs with the Samsung ? I actually ordered a 5400rpm drive, but was delivered the 7200rpm one & it has been A1. As I stated, a whole lot cooler than my original, & no crashes - yet. It seems to me + shares the mystery behavior with its PC brothers.
 
Would you know the Samsung part number for the 5400rpm drive..?
 
Recorded 14 programmes last night including 2 movies, no problems at all.
Should have the hard drive nearly full in a few days and we'll see how the reliability is then...

Keith
 
Took the plunge this weekend and installed a 250GB 7200rpm ATA-133 Maxtor - so far, so good despite suggestions of a "limit" at around 137GB......

- I've now recorded a dozen or so items containing about 10 hours of material and watched or scanned through most of these with no major problems (one program did claim to be 95 hours long (!) in the info box, but was ok when playing and scanning)

- No sign of 17min problem, but early days......no power down yet

- Usual problem with numeric free space indicator not working

- Graphic free space indicator seems to be working ok and consistent with 130 hours or so of space

Not a hard-core techie so may yet live to regret this adventure but happy with what I've got so far - will let you know if it all goes horribly wrong..!

Big thanks to hummer.co.uk
>>> www.hummer.co.uk/disc-change-v2.htm
complete with step-by-step instructions and colour pictures for each step :smashin:
 
p0kerm0n2004

I think you'll find that when you put more than 137GB of data on the drive, your box will die a horrible death and you'll have to do a housekeeping reset and start again. But I haven't tried it myself.
 

The latest video from AVForums

Is 4K Blu-ray Worth It?
Subscribe to our YouTube channel
Back
Top Bottom