Sky+HD Amstrad DRX890 2TB HDD Upgrade with ExPVR?

[Devilfish]

Hi folks,

I was wondering if anyone has used this program to migrate their existing Sky+HD hard disk to a new 2TB disk?

Download ExPVR - The XTV & Sky+ Recording Extractor - pH-Mb

I've got an Amstrad DRX890 with the standard 500GB hdd and updated with the latest Darwin software. Unfortunately you still cannot use Copy+ to image your disk contents onto a new disk but I found this other program when having a browse this afternoon. I've been on the Sky forum and the developers forum and it's apparently possible. I know we have a large tech base on DK so was wondering if anyone's successfully done this.

I've got a new Western Digital Caviar Green WD20EARS 2TB ready to go in but don't want to loose my recordings.

Cheers
Devilfish

[Devilfish]

Think I'm eventually going to try this when the missus and lad goes visiting this afternoon.

ExPVR allows you to:

View Sky+ HD recordings on your PC (non-encrypted recordings only)
Upgrade your Sky+ HD hard drive
Copy recordings from one Sky+ HD box to another
Backup your Sky+ HD hard drive to your PC

New in version 3: Completly redesigned user interface and experimental support for pre-darwin systems.

I found a good guide for disassembling the sky box, can't remember what site I got it from, it was a couple of months ago. Thanks to the original author, it's a great piece of work.

CHANGING-HD-IN-THE-AMSTRAD-DRX890.pdf

[Devilfish]

Well that's another successful job done. Upgraded the original 500GB disk to a WDC 2TB disk.

I used a program called ExPVR, the link is in the first post. The best method is to connect both the original and new disks in your PC at the same time. 2 hours and 44 minutes to format the disk and copy my recordings across. If you don't have the resources to connect both disks at the same time, you can connect the original disk and save an image of it. Then connect the new disk and restore the image.

Sky+HD box went from having roughly 12% of free space to 88% of free space. Happy Days!!!

If you are going to attempt this, be sure to buy an eco or green drive that uses less power because I'm not sure if the STBs can handle normal drives.

[ramjet]

I did mine last week using the help on here, works a treat

[Dazzerm]

Hi
Have just downloaded ExPVR and it is currently formatting my WS20EARX. Now to open up the DRX890. Fingers crossed.....

[Dazzerm]

Upgrading using ExPVR

Well, that was an experience!
Basically it all worked, but a few lessons learned:
1) Do not bother pre-formatting the new WD20EARS drive, even with ExPVR.

When I did this it wouldn't recognise the new drive when I wanted to start the copying process. I removed the partition that had been created via TOOLS\Disk Management and let it format the drive again as part of the copy process.

2) I was using two mains-powered USB 2.0 external cradles. I had an almost full source drive (221Gb of my content, not On Demand) and ExPVR told me it would take 8 hours to copy it all.

This may have been something to do with my computer but make sure you have enough time for the copy. I appreciate that mounting the drives in a PC would have been quicker.

3) I left the copying overnight and saw in the morning it has completed with 5 errors (on the source, not destination). I checked the files/programmes they related to and can play them without a problem (so far).

4) The pictorial guide to opening the Sky box was crucial. Just be careful about leaving marks....I used various things to protect the metal from scratches but not 100% successful....

I now have 89% free compared to the 8% when I started so am very happy. Thanks for the tips and advice!

[ScottyUK]

For anyone currently contemplating this task, the 2TB Western Digital WD20PURX Purple 'Surveillance' grade disk works beautifully. Migrated 240GB in about 1hr 40mins using the full version of ExPVR running on a XW8600 workstation. Now have 88% free and am happy very with the result.

The guide posted by DevilFish is well worth reading, so kudos to whoever originally put that together. Nothing difficult about it, just be careful when putting it back together.

A observation - which may have an innocent explanation - is that Online Armor flagged ExPVR as using a keylogger. That surprised me and I told OA to block it. The copying process ran cleanly with Avast! and OA both active - given the keylogger warning I would be hesitant to use it without any protection, but it didn't seem to interfere anyway. Other than that ExPVR was simple to use and has rescued endless hours of kids TV for the young 'uns to watch. Well worth the ?20 price.