Replacement 2TB hdd Sky+ HD

jeallen01

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An interesting development. I dug an old Sky+ receiver out of the depths of the garage and connected it up in the expectation the missus could watch the free channels. I stuck our Sky subs card from the broken box into it & after 24 hours its fully operational despite not pairing the card with it. Al the bottom tier channels are available & its recording. I call that a result. The hdd is a little noisy & its only 1TB, but it will do for the time being.
If the box is actually recording then the card must have paired with it, so I am confused when you say that it's not paired :confused ,
 
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Analoguesat

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Not paired - if I go to a premium channel (eg BT Sport) it says card needs to be paired rather than the upgrade subscription message I normally get. I havent done anything with the box, just shoved our card into it - the box just works.......
 

jeallen01

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Not paired - if I go to a premium channel (eg BT Sport) it says card needs to be paired rather than the upgrade subscription message I normally get. I havent done anything with the box, just shoved our card into it - the box just works.......
ISTR that there were (are??) cards you could buy from SKY (can't remember what they were/are called) that could do that on the free channels - seems like your's is working like that when it's in a box with which it cannot be paired.
 

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It was always the case that premium channels only were paired - so sports and movies packages needed a paired card whereas others didn't care.

With a Sky HD box, it's extremely easy to do - it pops up with an option to do it online there and then. With Sky+ you can (could) do it on t'interweb.


Though probably not worth doing if it mostly works and the original HD box will be back in service soon.
 

jeallen01

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Though probably not worth doing if it mostly works and the original HD box will be back in service soon.
Personally, I suggest @Analoguesat do it fairly soon as he may not be able to get around to fixing the HD box until Xmas!
 

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It might get done this weekend. Id forgotten its St Andys bank holiday on Monday so Ive got a long weekend with plenty of time :) .
 

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Slight update - the recording works on the fta channels. Any attempt to record on pay channels gives the "recording failed" message.

Thats one way of stopping her filling up the hard drive with thousands of hours of crap!
 

jeallen01

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..Thats one way of stopping her filling up the hard drive with thousands of hours of crap!
Sympathy! - I have similar issues with what my wife records, and then doesn't watch! Periodically, I delete a lot of that crap without telling her, and she rarely, if ever, notices!
 

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What a royal pita taking apart the box is - the hdd is underneath one of the main boards and as a bonus you have to carefully unclip all the front panel circuit boards gubbins to get to the soddin hard drive securing screws out! These are definitely not designed for easy home disassembly / upgrade.......

Missus is using the card in the second box atm so full testing will have to wait until tomorrow.
 

jeallen01

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@Analoguesat
Those boxes are VERY DEFINITELY a "royal pita" to take apart and then reassemble - hope your's works when done!
 

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This is how far you have to dismantle a SkyHD+ box to get at the hard drive. Upper board removed and put to one side. You have to be careful with that bank of vertical pins centre right. The white board is the front panel.


Capture.JPG
 

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The older larger boxes are slightly easier, with the newer smaller ones they pack the parts in.
 

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Early days but the repaired box seems to be working as expected at the moment :)
 

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Did you copy the old recordings across or starting from scratch?
 

jeallen01

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Early days but the repaired box seems to be working as expected at the moment :)
In my experience of fitting new larger disks to DRX890 boxes, it took about 2-3 months to find out whether they worked reliably OR began to throw "wobblies", and the latter happened twice - that's why I finally had to buy a DRX895! :-wow
 
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statalite

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My experience is with the older Samsung and Pace boxes. It maybe to do with EPG software version regards longevity. Mine have been fine. On the other hand mine are not connected for on demand services so that may also have.an affect on hard drive use. Hard to say.
 

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Did you copy the old recordings across or starting from scratch?
Just started from scratch. I shall put the old drive into a caddy and see if its even detected, I have my doubts as the performance of it at the end was weird. At the end of the day if the box fails again I can just swap the 1TB box out for the 2TB one and pair the card. No real loss.
 

Captain Jack

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I can't recall how the detection goes in Windows. I think it's detected as a device but nothing that allows you to copy files. Copy+ will give you more detail though.
 

statalite

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@Analoguesat did you ever pair your recording card? I'm not advocating it, just intrigued.
 

Analoguesat

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Nearly 6 months down the line since the drive started failing & fingers crossed everything is working absolutely great on the box. Its not missed a beat since I replaced the hdd.

The missus is filling it up rapidly again with all the dross she likes to record. :-doh
 
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