Successful UTV Hard drive Upgrade

[Karl Foster]

I completed a hard drive upgrade in my wife's Ultimatetv unit last night. I upgraded it from the stock 45GB hard drive to a WD800BB 80GB hard drive. This boosts the capacity to 70 hours. I found the instructions over at www.avsforum.com

I have now upgraded both of my units, one to a 120GB hard drive and now this one. It is a very easy process. The actual hard drive replacement takes about ten minutes, then about 90 minutes for the software to download from MSNTV via modem.

It was a good thing I did it, as the fan inside the unit was unplugged from the motherboard. It probably would have fried at some point, but worked perfect for 18 months. It now seems to run much cooler.

There are some very good deals on EBay for hard drives. I paid $120 for the 120GB and $84 for the 80GB hard drive. I have now paid $284 total for both units and both new hard drives. Not a bad deal IMHO. I wish they still had those units for free for new subs and $39 for existing subs. I just don't know why more folks don't have PVR's!

[raj2001]

This is good news. Which brand of drive did you use?

[mnassour]

It's that good ol' Western Digital 80 gig (as per the model number).

It's simple....use WD and the upgrade works. Anything else and generally, you're out of luck.

[Karl Foster]

Don't use any Western Digital drive that has a J in the model number. Example, use a WD800BB, NOT a WD800JB. The "J" models don't work for reasons beyond my scope of understanding. Use a WD800BB, WD1000AB, WD1000BB, WD1200AB, or WD1200BB. They are 80GB (70 hours), 100GB (90 hours), and 120GB (105 hours) respectively. The speed - 5400 vs 7200 does not matter.

The Seagate Barracuda 80GB drives work as well.