External sata drive on 8300HD in cfl?

[jcarrera]

Info for a friend...

He got a 1.5TB external sata and plugged it into his 8300HD or HDC, I don't know which it is. He sees no evidence of it being recognized by the DVR.

Is it supposed to work? Are there any tricks/procedures/setups necessary for it to work?

[metzmda]

I don't know if the 1.5T will work. I use a 500Gb drive and it works fine. The trick is to have the drive connected and powered on, then reboot the cable box. Before doing that, check the amount of space remaining. If the cable box recognizes the drive after the reboot, the amount used should decrease.

[Jimvee]

I am the friend. I found an old thread last night, and someone mentioned it should be an e-sata II cable. At the time, I grabbed the only cable I could find and today I found out that it's not a version II. I think it's 1.5, but who knows what they print on that packaging.

I'll try that reboot again tomorrow, and if it doesn't work, I'll connect the drive to a (desktop) USB port and see what's on it. Bugger has USB, Firewire and sata interfaces, but only Firewire and USB cables. Great....

[metzmda]

I forgot a few things, when you reboot the cable box with the new drive, it will let you know it sees the drive via message box. Also, the STB will need to format the drive.

I'm curious if a 1.5Tb drive will work, I seem to recall that 750Gb was the max it would recognize, but that may have changed. Let us know how it goes.

[Jimvee]

I forgot a few things, when you reboot the cable box with the new drive, it will let you know it sees the drive via message box. Also, the STB will need to format the drive.

Yeah. That's what I'm looking for. The 8300 HDC just sits there.

Dunno if it was a targeted ad or coincidence, but when I came here just now, I saw an ad for the Apricorn DVR Expander. They come in up to 1.5T, but say this:

****DVR Expander does not work with Scientific Atlanta 8300-HDC models, only HD models are supported

I think I'll assume that the HDC itself doesn't support expanders. (Mine is Western Digital) Probably best to see if BrightHouse will swap me an 8300 HD
Thanks for the help. As Ahnold says, I'll be back.

Jim

[metzmda]

Yeah, I definitely have the 8300HD and it works on that. I haven't tried the 8300HDC.

[Jimvee]

Yeah, I definitely have the 8300HD and it works on that. I haven't tried the 8300HDC.

Have you had the 8300HD very long? Because I found this on the Cisco set-top FAQ this afternoon.

What is the difference between the 8300 or 8300HD and 8300C or 8300HDC?

The 8300C and 8300HDC have a CableCARD interface. The 8300 and 8300HD do not. CableCARD, also known as separate security, is required for set-top boxes newly deployed by Cable Service Providers in the United States after July 1, 2007.

That doesn't sound good. I also found a WD DVD Expander at Best Buy and in the comments, people say that IT doesn't work on the Explorer 8300HDC

Still getting zip from Brighthouse. I'll have to GO there on Monday.

Jim

[metzmda]

I have the original 8300HDs from 2003. I had gone out and got a cheap 500GB SATA drive and found an enclosure and just connected it. I tried the drive on two different boxes for kicks, and it worked fine. Unfortunately, I never tried it on the 8300HDC when I had one of those. From what I heard, it should work fine, but maybe something has changed. I don't know.

The newer Cisco boxes do have the cable card slot, but they also have a larger drive. I haven't tried the external drive on the Cisco box, but it has a port for it.

Brighthouse does not officially support the external hard drive stuff, so YMMV with them for help.

[Jimvee]

I brought the 8300 HDC back and they gave me an 8300 HD. I was surprised they had them. This box does not have that "card", but everything seems to be working like on the HDC box.

I plugged everything in, and the TV screen came up right away. Unplugged the box again and had it reboot. The screen had a "No signal" message for quite a while. I was hoping it was secretly doing it's magic on the external drive. Came back after about 20 minutes and I had video again. No messages, so I don't know if the drive is working.

I went to bed with the DVR recording a mix of programming. I suppose I should have recorded a series of 30 minute HD shows. Anyone have a rule of thumb estimate of the size of a 30 minute SD and HD program? I need to know how much space I'm using.

[metzmda]

Based on your description, it doesn't sound like it is seeing the drive. As soon as the STB finishes booting, there will be a message window telling it is seeing an external drive. If it is a new one, it will want to format it so the box can use it.

Make sure the hard drive is fully powered up before you boot the STB. If you still have issues, it may be that the drive itself is not supported, i.e. 1.5Tb.