Sky - Sky HD+ Box

DE_612183

prowla said:

DE_612183 said:

@Neil_Jones - yes tried that - no joy.

@prowla - the issue is that I cannot select anything from the Tv Guide, or by keying in the channel number - whether the card is in or not. 

Did you power off & on (remove the mains cable from the back of the box, count to 10, plug back on)?

My box would hang from time to time.

yes did that - weird thing is now the box is showing live tv - but the planner is screwed!

Neil_Jones

Its plausible the hard drive is beginning to go, as all those boxes are best part of 15 years old now, and 15 years is a very long time in hard drive terms.

The only other thing you can do is a full reset, but that will wipe the hard drive so all the recordings would go.

You could try something else though,the Sky+HD boxes use standard SATA hard drives so you could see if somebody would swap the drive for you in the box, then you can just reset it and see if the problem goes away.

DE_612183

Neil_Jones said:

Its plausible the hard drive is beginning to go, as all those boxes are best part of 15 years old now, and 15 years is a very long time in hard drive terms.

The only other thing you can do is a full reset, but that will wipe the hard drive so all the recordings would go.

You could try something else though,the Sky+HD boxes use standard SATA hard drives so you could see if somebody would swap the drive for you in the box, then you can just reset it and see if the problem goes away.

Thanks Neil, I thought of this although I suspect that when you power on the box the HD will not be recognised by the software - but I may try this as a last resort.

JSmithy45AD

DE_612183 said:

Neil_Jones said:

Its plausible the hard drive is beginning to go, as all those boxes are best part of 15 years old now, and 15 years is a very long time in hard drive terms.

The only other thing you can do is a full reset, but that will wipe the hard drive so all the recordings would go.

You could try something else though,the Sky+HD boxes use standard SATA hard drives so you could see if somebody would swap the drive for you in the box, then you can just reset it and see if the problem goes away.

Thanks Neil, I thought of this although I suspect that when you power on the box the HD will not be recognised by the software - but I may try this as a last resort.

I strongly suspect this will be the case but regardless, you'd lose all recordings.

DE_612183

JSmithy45AD said:

DE_612183 said:

Neil_Jones said:

Its plausible the hard drive is beginning to go, as all those boxes are best part of 15 years old now, and 15 years is a very long time in hard drive terms.

The only other thing you can do is a full reset, but that will wipe the hard drive so all the recordings would go.

You could try something else though,the Sky+HD boxes use standard SATA hard drives so you could see if somebody would swap the drive for you in the box, then you can just reset it and see if the problem goes away.

Thanks Neil, I thought of this although I suspect that when you power on the box the HD will not be recognised by the software - but I may try this as a last resort.

I strongly suspect this will be the case but regardless, you'd lose all recordings.

I think what Neil was suggesting was to put my HD in another box, and therefore keep the recording, but I assume the donor box would not recognise my HD.

JSmithy45AD

DE_612183 said:

JSmithy45AD said:

DE_612183 said:

Neil_Jones said:

Its plausible the hard drive is beginning to go, as all those boxes are best part of 15 years old now, and 15 years is a very long time in hard drive terms.

The only other thing you can do is a full reset, but that will wipe the hard drive so all the recordings would go.

You could try something else though,the Sky+HD boxes use standard SATA hard drives so you could see if somebody would swap the drive for you in the box, then you can just reset it and see if the problem goes away.

Thanks Neil, I thought of this although I suspect that when you power on the box the HD will not be recognised by the software - but I may try this as a last resort.

I strongly suspect this will be the case but regardless, you'd lose all recordings.

I think what Neil was suggesting was to put my HD in another box, and therefore keep the recording, but I assume the donor box would not recognise my HD.

Ahh, transfer the existing Sky HD hard drive to a 2nd hand HD box? Hmm, interesting though. If you can pick one up cheap or better for free then besides the effort needed there's no reason not to try. Ask around if anyone has an old one tucked away.

I've ripped out a few 2TB HD's myself in the past, they haven't made it easy so you may get frustrated trying

Neil_Jones

Sorry perhaps I should clarify.

What I was saying was put a replacement drive in your box, taking the existing one out.  The recordings will be preserverd.  You can just wipe the new drive (if the Sky+ box doesn't do automatically which it probably will otherwise its useless!) and then it'll rebuild all the new caches and adverts and On Demand highlights on the second half of the box.

Although you probably have a 500Gb drive in there, its only 250Gb used for your recordings, the rest is reserved for pushed on demand and local adsmart and other local stuff that is cached.

The point was if the problem you're highlighting fixes it with another drive then that strongly suggests your original drive is on the way out - either that or there's an issue that requires it to be wiped to fix the problem.

You should be able to swap the drive without an issue, its when you swap the box/viewing card you have an extra obstacle to jump through, as the card is tied to the box.

Unfortunately PVRs aren't designed to be long storage devices for recording.

DE_612183

Neil_Jones said:

Sorry perhaps I should clarify.

What I was saying was put a replacement drive in your box, taking the existing one out.  The recordings will be preserverd.  You can just wipe the new drive (if the Sky+ box doesn't do automatically which it probably will otherwise its useless!) and then it'll rebuild all the new caches and adverts and On Demand highlights on the second half of the box.

Although you probably have a 500Gb drive in there, its only 250Gb used for your recordings, the rest is reserved for pushed on demand and local adsmart and other local stuff that is cached.

The point was if the problem you're highlighting fixes it with another drive then that strongly suggests your original drive is on the way out - either that or there's an issue that requires it to be wiped to fix the problem.

You should be able to swap the drive without an issue, its when you swap the box/viewing card you have an extra obstacle to jump through, as the card is tied to the box.

Unfortunately PVRs aren't designed to be long storage devices for recording.

Thanks Neil - that makes sense!