[arboristman]

c/p

Reported working good

- SimpleTech SP-U35 series hard drives work very well. The 250GB, 320GB, and 500GB are all very good choices.

-WD Mybook 500GB USB drive, externally powered

-WD Passport 250GB USB powered drive

-Seagate Freeagent 250Gb and 500GB (both are externally powered)

-Maxtor 250G USB External (External power)

[arboristman]

oops.let me leave this sticky thread open.this way you guys can discuss here your future findings with hdds also.
(fellow mods,as always feel free to edit,and add to )

[tomcat01]

excellent i am glad someone started this .

anyways just a small note guys remember there is alot of the extrenal drives that have a sleep mode on them .. so what happens is you are sitting there and watching tv and you show comes on and then you hit recoerd and nothing happens or it says drive not conected your HD has gone in to that sleep mode .. if you read the directions it will tell you how to take it out pf sleep mode or on the WD you can hold the button to shut off and then hold it again to turn back on ..

i just took mine out of sleep mode ..

[Tootsie Roll]

Hi everyone. I know I'm ahead of my external HDD. I have purchased a WD My Book 500GB Essential Edition yesterday from Walmart. Now I want to know the proven correct steps of what to do before I even receive it so that when I get it, setup would just be a breeze. I have read here and there from other members about having it formatted by the PC and others said to have it formatted by the 360Elite itself. Or what software/freeware to download to help it recording or burning DVD's.
So for a WD My Book hard drive, what is the proper way to format it for it to work to record properly with out issues and if I decide later to burn a DVD using my PC. Format it by PC or by 360Elite?
Please advice and thank you in advance.

[SystemDude]

Just thought this might be important for those considering purchasing and setting up the SV 360 series (Premier or Elite) for heavy-duty PVR usage:

I have seen ads from various online suppliers for external USB drives of 1Tb capacity for well under US$200 -- one today for US$169. 1TB is 1000Gb, and that's enough for as many as 400-500 2-hour movies.

500 movies!!

That means you can buy the STB and a HUGE hard drive for under US$350 and have a most amazing setup for PVR. Shazam!

[richehome]

FYI, Verbatim Smartdisk hard drives do not work. The reciever will not recognize the drive.

[smogman]

when i hook up my seagate freeagent 500gb external hard drive to my 360 premier it doesnt recognise it, so when i try to format it whith my windows xp pc it only gives me the option of ntsf format. how can i format it to fat32

[SystemDude]

Originally Posted by smogman

when i hook up my seagate freeagent 500gb external hard drive to my 360 premier it doesnt recognise it, so when i try to format it whith my windows xp pc it only gives me the option of ntsf format. how can i format it to fat32

I am not at all sure why your pc will not allow the choice. On any Win-XP machine that I currently have access to, when I right-click on the drive name in Explorer and choose 'Format...' from the pop-up, I see a window that has a chooser called 'File System'. Inside that chooser you should be able to select from NTFS, FAT32, and sometimes FAT (the version before FAT32).

Only thing I can imagine is that this feature has been somehow disabled on your machine, or the external drive (actually the drive enclosure) is not fully Win-XP compatible (there are lots like that). I would suggest carrying the drive to a friend's place and seeing if you can format it using their machine, since it will only ever need to be done one time.

I am also assuming here that you tried the 'Format Drive' function in the STB, without success. That would also tend to indicate that the drive is not 100% compatible.

In my own personal case, I bought the cheapest 500 Gb drive I could find, plugged it in, and it worked first time. Turned out it was already formatted FAT32 so didn't even have to do that. I have since tried several high-capacity flash drives and they all worked well too.

[admat]

Hi everyone,

I hope this helps those of us who have had problems formatting large external hard drives with Fat 32. Just for reference I am using a 500gb Seagate Free agent external drive.

Windows xp/vista have drive size limits which will prevent most large drives from being formatted. I even tried going into "dos" and using the command line "format [drive letter]: /fs:fat32" command. This didn't work either.

The way that I got around this was to use a third party partition program. You can find the one I used by going to www.cnet.com click on downloads, search for a program called "CompuApps Swiss knife v3" Its a free demo that is small and quick to install, it doesn't have many options, but has enough to get the job done quickly. It also has a quick format option as well, which works very nicely.

Once you are in the program may sure you have the correct drive selected. You will have to delete the NTFS partition first. Then it will give you the option to create a primary partition make it active and format it with the Fat 32 option.

One other thing I noticed was once I plugged my usb external hard drive into my SV-360 Elite it took about 3 minutes before the box could see it. I even got the "no usb drives present", I am not sure why it takes that long, but it does.

I hope this helps!

[SystemDude]

Admat:

Excellent information, well presented. Thank you!

As more drive manufacturers switch over to NTFS as a base format, this problem will multiply and become a thorn for the non-geeks out there.

[thevizard]

What happens if the recording size increases over 4GB. Fat32/windows xp does'nt support file sizes over ~4GB???? So if I record a file of 5GB, i can play it on my SV but not work with it on Windows correct????

[s2byus]

Originally Posted by thevizard

What happens if the recording size increases over 4GB. Fat32/windows xp does'nt support file sizes over ~4GB???? So if I record a file of 5GB, i can play it on my SV but not work with it on Windows correct????

My figures are somewhat different however there are some compatibility issues when it comes to looking for the recordins on the computer:
Win XP can format FAT32 up to 32GB (above that only NTFS option is available).
About viewing the files on Win XP - all disks FAT32 with external power supply connected - one at atime - to the Elite USB with a USB2.0 to SATA/IDE cable interface. My strange findings are:
WD 40GB IDE - files visible - no problem.
Maxtor 40GB IDE and WD 80GB SATA - files not visible at all - the disks show unformated.

[cruncher]

To get around the NTFS/FAT32 issue, i used the third party method, as I already had partition magic, I used the program to easily convert the file type to FAT32. So if you have PM, or know someone who does, it's fast & easy.

The Crunch Man!

[SystemDude]

Originally Posted by cruncher

To get around the NTFS/FAT32 issue, i used the third party method, as I already had partition magic, I used the program to easily convert the file type to FAT32. So if you have PM, or know someone who does, it's fast & easy. The Crunch Man!

Capital idea!! I had not pulled my copy of Partition Magic off of the shelf in a long time, but yes it's an ideal solution if you have it (even a very old or 'sampler' version would be fine).

[s2byus]

Unless for Linux users, is there anything to gain with the EXT2 format?

[SystemDude]

Originally Posted by s2byus

Unless for Linux users, is there anything to gain with the EXT2 format?

None that I am aware of. EXT2 is a considerably newer format and therefore might be considered to be more secure than FAT32, but if you want to transfer files to a Windows machine for any reason, you have no real choice. Others have pointed out the limitations of FAT32 with today's huge drives, but I personally have a 500 Gb drive running it now for over a month, with no problems that I could attribute to the drive or its formatting.

[SystemDude]

There is no need to use a conventional external hard drive for recording and time-shifting. Solid state drives (sticks) are faster, usually more reliable, don't require a power connection, and are much more convenient to unplug to transfer video files to your computer for further processing such as recording to DVD.

If you have been hoping to get a really good deal on a large-capacity USB stick for your PVR functions, your reward has arrived. Just received an email from TigerDirect offering a 32 Gb stick for US$84.99 after mail-in rebate! That's actually cheaper than some hard drives of similar capacity. And it would easily store 10-15 full-length movies.

I have NOT tried this with the SV 360 myself and so cannot guarantee compatibility, but it does have all the right specs.

[Ozz_man]

I have a Maxtor One Touch 750 gig that works like a treat. I have used it first on my Viewsat Pro and then I moved it to my SV-360.

So far am very happy with it!

[andrej33]

I am using the Seagate Freeagent 250Gb. Every time i shut the SV 360 off, either with the remote or the back panel, then restart, I have to unplug, then re-plug the HD for the SV 360 to see it. It also dissapears after it is finished recording and I have to unplug again. The light on the HD does go off and on with the power to the SV 360 but when it comes up, it is just not seen without being unplugged/replugged. Do I have something not set correctly or is this how it goes?
Thanks,
Andre

[s2byus]

Originally Posted by andrej33

I am using the Seagate Freeagent 250Gb. Every time i shut the SV 360 off, either with the remote or the back panel, then restart, I have to unplug, then re-plug the HD for the SV 360 to see it. It also dissapears after it is finished recording and I have to unplug again. The light on the HD does go off and on with the power to the SV 360 but when it comes up, it is just not seen without being unplugged/replugged. Do I have something not set correctly or is this how it goes?
Thanks,
Andre

It appears – most likely – that your Seagate Freeagent is entering a sleep mode after a certain time of inactivity - for energy saving purpose. I am not sure, but may be there is a utility that can disable this feature. If so, this should be done with a PC as the STB does not have such capabilities.