Upgrade the Hard Drive in your 921?

[Faw]

I recall kyo's experiments with PVR721 ( at DBSTalk.com ) - as he discovered there is no way to change binary componenets - DishLinux doing sanity checks based on MH5 signatures or so.

Well, I would like to check anyway, curiosity, you know. I checked the dbstalk forums and all it said was that copied files, or adding files didn't worked. The thing is that we don't know what the secure loader does. What if the receiver signs the executables before installing them from the Downloads.tar archive? That is what I'm going to test today. Take the Downloads.tar file, add a script and let the 721 recreate everything to see if it boots.

[David_Levin]

Faw:

Ok, I'm humbled. You're WAY over my head. I appreciate the heck out of what you're trying to do.

[mike123abc]

Dish would probably gain a ton of happy customers if they were to support add on external drives. They could encrypt them as much as they felt like, I do not want the info off the drive (except of course to see it on TV). I just would like to add 600 more hours of recording time!

[Faw]

Dish would probably gain a ton of happy customers if they were to support add on external drives. They could encrypt them as much as they felt like, I do not want the info off the drive (except of course to see it on TV). I just would like to add 600 more hours of recording time!

Funny thing is that I'm not really interested much in increasing storage size, 120GB in my 721 seems enough for me. Installing a program to do named based recording myself, now that would be cool.

[David_Levin]

mike123:
I with you. Was gonna re-express my rant but bit my tongue. Dish only listens to our wallets.

Maxtor is already shipping external boxes for Scientific Atlanta. No expandable storage for Motorola, but I've herd it mentioned.

DirectTV's upcoming media center has an option for 500 gigs (haven't herd anything about external storage).

Currently, I prefer the programming at Dish. But, I'm almost happy whenever I hear about a customer leaving. I think the loss of customers is the only thing Charlie will respond to.

[Don Landis]

David- I'm sure you know this but for any who are on the fence- The HDTIVO supports both dual 300G drives as well as swapping out duals and singles. It's a slam dunk. For me there is nothing now keeping me with DishNetwork except for the sick feeling I have about the 921 that cost me one kilo buck a year ago and already E* is saying it is being replaced because they really can't fix all the problems. While I am not as disappointed as some here are about the software restrictions to 250G drives, the fact that it is possible now to use swappable 250's seems to me that I will have a tougher time dumping my account with E*. E* should thank the people here as it just may save at least my money flow into their pockets a bit longer. That and the problems with Voom and their DVR. However, I can assure you and E* that as soon as the VOOM DVR is available for rent, I'm gone from Dish even if it means sitting the 921 on the shelf in storage!
Again I would like to thank all who have pioneered this bit of know-how.

[Faw]

I recall kyo's experiments with PVR721 ( at DBSTalk.com ) - as he discovered there is no way to change binary componenets - DishLinux doing sanity checks based on MH5 signatures or so.

I'm still looking around in my 721. The files in the Download.tar are PGP signed with a detached signature. I also think that the "hht" file (which is also signed) has a list of all the files that trigger a reinstall.

[dfergie]

What about Max blast the maxtor copy utility or the Seagate version?

Won't work, neither will the Seagate utilily... And the 921 will not format a "blank drive" on its own... I did hook the new drive to the other Ide slot and the 921 booted up, but would not recognize and it murdered the new drive....(wont spin up on pc's acts like no power)

[bytre]

Adding a little info to the thread from my own experience..

You cannot move a hard drive from one 921 to another. Well, you can, but any recorded programs will be unwatchable.

[Smith, P.]

That's well known fact - those BCM chip in 721/921 doing encryption/decryption of all recordings and a key is unique for each receiver.