942 with External Hard Drive?

[Scott Greczkowski]

I just found this and found it interesting.

http://www.digitalhomecanada.com/forum/showthread.php?t=31995

I wonder how its done since the new sdrive had no software on it. Sounds very promising though!

 

[Van]

Sounds like the sata configure on the receiver kicked in and made the receiver see the external drive as the primary and no longer recognizes the internal one by way of a bypass of some sorts?

 

[goaliebob99]

Humm thats intresting scott... I wonder if theres a way to somehow hook up the 942 to your home pc.. using usb connections some time.. what would be more shocking if you could Telnet into it from there .... It makes some playing time... ( I learned in school today how to tell net into Cisco routers and how to fix them somewhat)

 

[Altaman]

Actually while I can't take the credit for the info, the information on what drives are in the firmware was originally supplied by the dishmod group on yahoo and I stumbed onto the info in the avsforum's.

It is like pulling teeth finding the exact WD model # drive, however the Maxtor 7Y250M0 can be found and so far seems to work fairly well. I have a bunch of programs set to record though the night to see what happens.

I really got interested in this after my 9200 got a 0551 error and had to be replaced. BTW it seems that the 9200's are having more of a problem in getting the 0551 error than its 942 big brother. There has been speculation that the firmware may be at issue here in that the 942's had this problem back in June/July, but nothing to the extent of the 9200. However the 942 has had a few firmware updates where as the 9200 had one update and I believe that was in early August, meaning older code BEV is using compared to the 9200.

At any rate there seems to be some promise in the ability to swap drives, however you have to watch the model #'s expecially the WD drives.

Alt

 

[Pepper]

I wonder how its done since the new drive had no software on it.

Same as the 522 drive swap, there's no software on that one either, just the file system which is automagically created when the box is booted with an empty or corrupt drive. All the software is in the firmware, not on the drive.

This is by the way unlike the 721 and 921 which actually have a linux operating system on the hard drive.

This is a good thing by the way, not only makes things better for those of us who like to experiment, it is easier on Dish Support to not have to RMA a box every time the file system dies, instead it will just reformat itself. All they have to answer is questions on "why did my recordings disappear" but none of that pesky "we'll have to replace your machine because the OS is gone"

 

[larrystotler]

This is by the way unlike the 721 and 921 which actually have a linux operating system on the hard drive.

Actually, if you install a new drive into the 721, it is automatically configured and installed. My guess is that the DishLinux stuff must be kept in a small firmaware partition in NVRAM. Unsure about the 921.

 

[HDTVFanAtic]

I had been told by reliable sources that the encrypted programming on the 942 drives is married to that STB. If the STB fails, so does the stuff on the encrypted hard drives.

In #5 he states he intends to move the drives between his 2 STBs, but do not see where he posted he actually did that yet. I don't want to register for yet another forum, so if anyone has access there, you might want to ask him about that mobility between units.

 

[Altaman]

I had been told by reliable sources that the encrypted programming on the 942 drives is married to that STB. If the STB fails, so does the stuff on the encrypted hard drives.

In #5 he states he intends to move the drives between his 2 STBs, but do not see where he posted he actually did that yet.

Well according to homestand it seems he has moved drives between two machines. You can read it here, it is post #31.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=6157361&&#post6157361

I personally have not tried it and won't until the proper cables/connectors get to me.

Alt