Can hard drive in 508 be changed by user?

[swcoloradodish]

I'm now on my third DVR508 because of hard drive failures.

If I'm willing to give up the remaining warranty I have, it is possible for a hard drive in a 508 to be swapped out by a user? I know my way around the inside of PC's and I've changed scores of hard drives over the past 15 years.

If the answer is yes, where can I find instructions on resetting whatever needs to be reset when a new hard drive is installed. If necessary, I can reformat a hard drive prior to use using Windows, Unix or Mac (unlikely). Again, are there instructions available for doing this?

Thanks for the help.

 

[RandallA]

Go to the Yahoo groups Dishmod and DishRip and you should be able to find the information you need.

 

[Anole]

voice of experience:

It's neither a trivial exercise (knowing the secret handshake won't get it done).
Nor is it for the "end user".
And to do just that, just once, is a big learning experience.

Something akin to rebuilding an engine when all you want to do is change the oil.

 

[Smith P.]

You forgot to say thanks to Dishnetwork for this !

 

[Anole]

thanks, Dishnetwork

Yea, well a user-friendly approach, would be to bring up a pop-up box if the system thought it detected a blank or corrupt drive.
Then, let you choose to initialize it, after a couple of "are you sure?" messages.

Or better yet, a hidden service menu, to keep the unwashed out of it.

The other annoying and short-sighted thing, is that only drives that are in the BIOS are supported.
Who uses drives and doesn't know in two years, the drive you picked today, will be replaced by a:
1) bigger
2) cheaper
3) more reliable
device???

If the unit interrogated the drive to see how big it was, and then used that info (remember 100 years ago when DOS managed that?), the world would be a better place.

[/flame]

 

[Van]

I'd be interested in what is causing these hard drives to fail. The case is well ventilated so unless your covering the receiver then heat wont be an issue. On service calls where there has been repeat hard drive failure Ive found that most where caused by electrical circuit issues such as a faulty outlette, repeated power grid failures in the area leading to black outs and brown outs, over worked electrical service in the home, backfeed from a failing motor on a fridge, a bad surge protector allowing spikes to hit the receiver. I believe that the drives in all the dvr/pvr models are still maxtor drives and Ive been a maxtor user for 7 years now and will swear by them for reliability.

 

[Anole]

Well, the PVR may be writing the current channel to the HD, 24/7.
That's a lot of wear on it.

The drive is probably overheated...and I really mean that!
That could lessen its life.
The fan-run routine in the firmware, isn't any good.
I've seen mods to make it run full power, full time, but that gets a little noisy.
Other mods let it run half power when commanded off.
The suggestions above to jack up the PVR to allow more air under it are probably good.
A buddy has a dedicated 6" fan, cooling his.
Leaving the lid off helps , as dicussed.

You'd think the switching power supply would absorb crap on the power line, but I haven't checked the filters to see how much dirt they let through.
So, you may have a point.

I have never had a problem with Maxtor drives, and I've used them for a long time, too.

 

[Purogamer]

I really don't think there is such a thing as a WELL ventilated E* box...You could suspend them from the ceiling with wires and it would still get hotter than it should be to perform like it's expected...

 

[David_Levin]

Yes, something is very strange that you've gone through 3 hard drives.

That said, swapping a new hard drive in the 508 can be easy, but can also be VERY difficult.

If you a swapping in the EXACT same drive model you just need to copy a few sectors from the original hard drive to the new one and plug it in (of course you'll need to have backed up those sectors while the drive was still working). The 50x drives are OEM specific and you'll have to do some online searches to find it.

Swapping in a different drive requires reflashing the 50x through the JTAG port with specific software that knows how to mate the drive to the box. It is a complicated process and it's is VERY easy to destroy you're 50x if you make a mistake.

Even doing this, the 50x has an internal list of supported drives and only those specific models will work.

You'll need to spend a few HOURS reading up on the Dishmod group to get it figured out. There used to be a user in the Dishmod group that (for a fee), would take a bunch of information from you, perform the flash on his own box, then provide the drive sector load information to mate the drive (so you wouldn't need to flash yourself).

P.S. The latest boxs (522, 625, 942 - that Linux boot from flash), will autonomously configure a new hard drive (if it's on the approved list) when installed.

The 721 & 921 Linux boot from the hard drive so you must use a PC to copy the OS before installing the drive (but these boxs to not use an internal list of approved drives).