AZBox Hard Drive Not Recognized?

[Lone Gunman]

Got a used 320GB hard drive from another member today. Deleted the partition then repartitioned it and formatted it in FAT32. Copied about 200GB of data to it, checked it and it was all there then installed it in my AZBox Ultra only to not have it show up when I go looking for "movies"? I can see it when I FTP to it and it shows up in the "Settings/Storage" menu but I can't navigate to it via the "Movie" menu??

Anyone have a cure for this?

Thanks

 

[mr3p]

Have you tried formatting the drive from Azbox menu and then transferring the video content? I thought the Azbox uses ext2 to format drives, not fat32.

 

[AcWxRadar]

Got a used 320GB hard drive from another member today. Deleted the partition then repartitioned it and formatted it in FAT32. Copied about 200GB of data to it, checked it and it was all there then installed it in my AZBox Ultra only to not have it show up when I go looking for "movies"? I can see it when I FTP to it and it shows up in the "Settings/Storage" menu but I can't navigate to it via the "Movie" menu??

Anyone have a cure for this?

Thanks

Lone Gunman,

This is really going to be confusing to explain.

First of all, you should be able to use the HDD in either FAT32 or LINUX (EXT2 / EXT3) formatted style. Although, letting the AZBox format the HDD in LINUX style seems to work better, both format styles should be OK in MOST cases.

The first thing you need to test is if the AZBox recognizes that the HDD is installed by accessing the SETTINGS : STORAGE menu selection or option. If it senses that the HDD is there and gives a fairly reasonable depiction of the total memory space and what space is used/free, then the format used and the actual make and model of the HDD is compatible.

The problem may just be that the AZBox does not recognize the format of the data you put on the HDD. I got the impression from your description that you loaded the data onto the HDD using your PC, prior to installing the HDD in the AZBox's internal bay. This is what I think may be the error. The AZBox's LINUX system may be ignoring the data because it was installed on the HDD by a Windows operating system.

Try sending one of the files from your PC or try sending a DVD, any store-bought DVD, to the HDD in your AZBox through the DATA/MOVIE folder path via FTP and then try playing that DVD back by accessing the MOVIES menu with the remote for the AZBox. Hopefully you won't have trouble with copyright protection on the DVD. I have software that allows my system to ignore that.

I would like to have all my HDDs in FAT32 format so that those HDDs could be easily identified by both my LINUX based AZBox and by my Windows based PC, but that creates some conflicts for me in regards to speed and file size. Therefore, I have been letting the AZBox format the HDD in the LINUX format (ext2 or ext3 - whichever it is). In doing this, when I connect that LINUX formatted HDD to my PC, it is NOT recognized properly - or at all. From this, do you see what I am inferring? i.e. We have a conflict in the data type and format depending upon which device actually "wrote" the data to the HDD.

Please understand why I stated that it would be confusing to explain. It is because I am not entirely certain of this and although I can witness these discrepancies, I cannot explain their causes with authority. I can merely take a SWAG (Scientific Wild Ass Guess) at it. It is the most plausible line of BS that I can come up with at this time, so I hope you understand.

RADAR

 

[Keith Brannen]

Got a used 320GB hard drive from another member today. Deleted the partition then repartitioned it and formatted it in FAT32. Copied about 200GB of data to it, checked it and it was all there then installed it in my AZBox Ultra only to not have it show up when I go looking for "movies"? I can see it when I FTP to it and it shows up in the "Settings/Storage" menu but I can't navigate to it via the "Movie" menu??

Anyone have a cure for this?

Thanks

Did you create a "movie" folder where you put all your files? When the AZBox formats the HDD it creates the following folders: download, lost+found, movie, music, picture, pvrfile, recordfile, recording, and upnp.

 

[Lone Gunman]

I'm running Ubuntu Linux 10.10 on 3 computers here so I got some idea of how that OS works but I'm finding that I don't like what I'm seeing, ie, last week I had a Ubuntu comptuer get to where it wouldn't boot. Tried for two days to get some IMPORTANT data off that hard drive to no avail. I even connected it to a different computer with Ubuntu and I could see those files but could NOT do ANYTHING with them. The only way I recovered that data was to install Ubuntu on ANOTHER drive using the same username and password and after that I could access that drive with no problems. Just a bunch of hoops to jump through that shouldn't be needed.

Now it seems that the AZs Linux OS is the exact same way as I formatted that drive in the AZBox last night and started to copy those files off the storage drive in my Windows computer via FTP only to find that it was going to take a couple of hours to do that across the network. So I stopped it last night and this morning I pulled that drive back out of the AZ and connected it to this Ubuntu computer to do a direct copy of those files and from what I'm seeing right now I can't do anything with that drive? I can't copy files to it nor can I delete anything in it. It's locked down so the only thing I can see to do is just repartition and format it in FAT32 again use it as an external drive plugged into an external USB port. At least that way I can swap it back and forth between my Windowz/Ubuntu computers and also my AZBox Elite. I wasn't overly crazy about mounting an internal drive in that thing anyway with the power supply problems that were prevalent in the past so this deal just made that decision for me.

And on a final note, this type stuff is what I hate about Linux computer operating systems, period. Something as simple as sharing a storage drive across a home network requires an act of congress and days to accomplish and then most of the time has to be done from command line in the terminal. If it wasn't for the Ubuntu help forums I won't be able to get anything done! The real bad part is I can point and click a Windowz share on my home network within 15 seconds then move on to what I was doing that got me there. Of course that Windowz operating system can cost upwards of $100 for XP Home and probably twice that for Windowz 7 but most all the Linux OSs are free. I guess you get what you pay for though, hey! Ok, enough bitching and whining for now. ;-)

Thanks for the info guys.

 

[hd fan]

I hear you Lonegunman but Linux is acctually a rather powerfull OS and IMO like Unix way better than Windows. As a matter of fact I am typing this using a "LIVE CD" install of Kubuntu 10.10 (Ubuntu + KDE) on a Lenovo computer that has no hardrive now with only 512 Mb of RAM becasue its Vista/HDD failed. I am just trying this Kubuntu "on the fly" on 382 Mb of RAM from the Installation CD and it works way faster than the Vista/IE enviorement. the problem is all your machines on the network are Windows based but if they were Linux based the process would have been flawless and you could even have only keyboards and displays throught out the home connected to only 1 PC running in full multi user enviorement somethind that windows does not do yet , not to my knowledge.

Keep in mind than on Unix , Linux and probably Mac based systems you have to set read write and execute permissions for every file and folder on the harddrive , therefore it could happen that when you copied the files under linux they are not set with at least read rights for all users . by default depending which user you use and group policies when you create a file it is set a set of permissions but you can edit those later. I do not know if the Azbox will execute all comands from the menus as root or if it creates a special user for it or a system user or something. but in any case it is normal that files created by one user can not be executed or even read by other users. I think the command is ls -l (equivalent to dir in MSDOS) and it will list all attributes for all files in the folder , first set of 3 columns are root attributes, second i think is group attributes and thirds one is all users i think. so if on the last one it does not have at leas texecute rights , another user will see them (if it has read rights) but wont execute them. the syntanxis is like

Owner Group all users filename
r w e r w e r w e whatever

so in this example

x x x x x - x - - mymovie.mpg

only the superuser (also named root on unix, linux and MAC) and Owner (user who created the file) can watch, edit or execute the movie. users who are also members of the owner's group can read and write but any other user can only read the file . only root can change attributes for everything and a user can only edit attributes for its own files (the ones he owns or created.

I might be mistaken in the orther of the set of attributes or whether is gropu and all users but in general that is the way it works so it should give you an idea why it behaves like it does.

why do i have the feeling that i can even revive the more than 15 years old toshiba laptop (only 32 Mb of RA>M and only 4 G of hard drive i think) and use it even with this big kubuntu 10 eh? . try that windows!!! he who wants me to by new hardware every 5 years!!!!.

As per the explanation it seems I am an expert, lol, but in reality I am having a hard time with this failed hard drive. it had Vista business so I assume it had either the new exFAT or NTFS file systems but not even from this Live CD Kubuntu I can see anything with commands like fdisk . Does anyone know if when using this Live CD versions , it actually si supposed to mount all hardrives on the computer . Am I actually supposed to be able to at least check the partitions and the drive health using commands like fdisk without fully installing Kubuntu? fstab does not list any of those files systems and /proc/partitions is an empty file. I only have an IDE drive on my XP and this computer I am trying to fix for a friend only has SATA.

 

[Lone Gunman]

Linux does NOT automatically mount an extra drive. That is one of my pet pieves that got fixed today via Ubuntu support forums. It was all done via command line stuff in terminal..........AGAIN! Whatever happened to point and click?? :-(

I pulled data off an 8 month old non bootable Dell laptop drive for a friend last week that was not recognized by Ubuntu and did not give me any opportunity to mount it?? I used a program called Nucleus Kernel NFTS Partition Recovery v4.03 which is an old version that was released back in 05. Ran that from Windows SP2 and got all 26GB of his data back, which was the entire contents of that drive. I copied it onto an external drive for him to work with. Had that been a LInux system on that laptop he would be out of luck and would have lost all his stuff!

That drive had no boot sector nor did it have a partition table so it showed up as an unformatted drive when I connected it to anything. Nucleus Kernel saved the day again and has more than paid for itself the few times I've used it.

Oh, and that drive did NOT have a problem other than file corruption as it checked fine when connected to this computer, which has S. M. A. R. T. enabled in BIOS. Dell replaced the drive free of charge but it cost him a buck or two to recover his work data.

 

[vc2]

Got a used 320GB hard drive from another member today. Deleted the partition then repartitioned it and formatted it in FAT32. Copied about 200GB of data to it, checked it and it was all there then installed it in my AZBox Ultra only to not have it show up when I go looking for "movies"? I can see it when I FTP to it and it shows up in the "Settings/Storage" menu but I can't navigate to it via the "Movie" menu??

Anyone have a cure for this?

Thanks

My WD 1TB Caviar Black drive is not recognized on power up, however, if I select reboot from the remote power button menu, the drive is recognized after rebooting. Apparently, the drive is not ready when it is polled on initial power up, but is ready after rebooting without powering down.

I've reported the problem to Opensat, but the problem has not been fixed. This is just a workaround that might work with your drive.

 

[jwwbrennan]

I'm late to this but my WD 1TB drive wasn't recognized at one point so I turned off 'Hardware Acceleration'. It has worked fine ever since. I am uncertain of the advantages of the function as I am a basic user - watch, record, playback - so it may have adverse effects on some of the bits I don't use.

 

[Beano_face]

in my experience... hardware accelleration "on" does nothing but mess up/ lock up the AZ...

some have reported the only benefit is it will record some hi bitrate feeds better

 

[vc2]

I'm late to this but my WD 1TB drive wasn't recognized at one point so I turned off 'Hardware Acceleration'. It has worked fine ever since. I am uncertain of the advantages of the function as I am a basic user - watch, record, playback - so it may have adverse effects on some of the bits I don't use.

Where are the Hardware Acceleration settings that you are referencing?

 

[vc2]

I'm late to this but my WD 1TB drive wasn't recognized at one point so I turned off 'Hardware Acceleration'. It has worked fine ever since. I am uncertain of the advantages of the function as I am a basic user - watch, record, playback - so it may have adverse effects on some of the bits I don't use.

Where are the Hardware Acceleration settings that you are referencing?

 

[Keith Brannen]

Where are the Hardware Acceleration settings that you are referencing?

Settings menu, System Information. Hardware Acceleration either off (default) or on (not recommended!).

 

[vc2]

Settings menu, System Information. Hardware Acceleration either off (default) or on (not recommended!).

My hardware acceleration was turned off. I think that this is a hardware graphics acceleration setting. It shouldn't have anything to do with HD recognition.

I'm planning on buying one of the new receiver models when they become available. The new processors are much faster and have native SATA support. The old processors use a PATA interface with an external SATA to PATA conversion chip. This is probably the cause of most of the drive compatibility problems. I just hope that they do a better job with the receiver software than they've done with the present generation of receivers.

 

[AcWxRadar]

The hardware acceleration feature causes the buss clock to run at a much higher speed (called overclocking). This can possibly damage your processor within the AZBox. It might fail immediately or it might fail over time due to excessive heat build up right within the IC itself. Highly recommended to NOT use this feature.

RADAR