[Guest]

Well, the time has come. After 2 years of having DP's I've decided to upgrade the hard drive in one of them. I just bought a new 40GB 7200RPM hard drive for my computer and will use the old 30GB 5400RPM to install into the Dishplayer.

I've always wanted to attempt this but was waiting for the warranty to expire. With all the bugs already in the DP I figured it couldn't hurt.

One question though, do I need to completely wipe the hard drive before I put it in the DP? The DP doesn't read a Fat32 file system anyway so it shouldn't matter right?

Wish me luck.

BTW: Best Buy is having a sale right now on 40GB 7200RPM hard drives for $99 plus a $30 rebate in the form of a Best Buy gift card. The sale and the rebate is only good for this week.

 

[Guest]

From what I have seen the hard drive will be formated when its installed no matter what was on it before.

I have updated one of my drives before and put the origional back in just because of the diffrence in noise between the old and new drive. (The new drive was MUCH noiser then the stock drive included!)

Its not a hard upgrade to do at all, the worst part is waiting for the Dishplayer to download the software update via the telephone. And then after its done doing that (if I remember correctly) It downloads the newer software from the satellite.

I never get close to filling the hard drive on my 7200. (You can put a lot of those 1 minute botched recordings on a 7200)

Scott

 

[Guest]

Finished the upgrade and it went very well. You are right Scott, it was very easy (of course I'm a technician so I figured it would be). The instructions I used from Ben's site ( ben.reser.org/dishplayer/...howto.html ) were very clear and easy to understand.

My wife and two kids pretty much share that Dishplayer so it needed a bigger hard drive since it was only a 7100 with 8 Gigs.

After putting in the new drive, it downloaded the Web TV software, downloaded the 48 hour guide and was good to go. Last night it received the 7-day guide and the 5709 software update. This morning after the update, I had to unplug it for a few seconds because for some reason it wouldn't change channels. After I plugged it back in, it worked great!

The hard drive I put in was a Western Digital 30 Gig. It's a little quieter than the old drive. I did notice that when I pulled out the old drive, it had a sound muffler foam wrapped around it. I didn't pull it off because that drive might go back in just in case I sell the DP. I was also concerned about the new drive getting too hot with that covering.

In any case, so far so good. My wife is happy because now it doesn't wake her up at night. (the DP is in our bedroom). I told them this morning that they could record to their hearts content so quite using the 7200. I fill that one up just with my stuff.

Thanks for the help Scott.

 

[Guest]

An update:

The DP with the new drive has been virtually bug free (so far). No problems at all. There is over 15 hours of recorded material on the drive with no loss of recordings or timers. I know that Dish doesn't support changing the hard drive but it does work and it's very easy to do.

 

[Guest]

Your best off to buy HDs with 3 year warranties. My Western digital died right after the warranty expired.

 

[Guest]

So far, I haven't had one die on me. Not too worried about it anyway. I keep things backed up fairly well.

BTW: Bob, you are now a "DBS Godfather". The only one of your kind. How does it feel?

 

[Guest]

Congratulations Bob! The first one!

 

[Guest]

Update:

Last week I picked up a cheap Western Digital 30GB 7200 RPM hard drive on EBAY. I went ahead a slapped that baby into my other Dishplayer 7200. As with my 7100, the upgrade went very smoothly.

There is one thing that I have noticed. When I upgraded the hard drive in both of my DP's, the whole unit seems to run much faster. Navigating through the menus is more zippy with very small wait times. Also, the new hard drives are much quieter. The 7200 had a 17GB Maxtor drive which had a very high pitched whiney sound that got pretty annoying after a while. The new Western Digital is very quiet with almost no sound and very little access clicking.

Overall I'm pretty happy. As much as I've wanted to switch to DirecTivo, this will due for now. Now if the software can get "debugged" all would be good in the world.