PVR Death?

So my cable company’s PVR – Rogers 8300HD Scientific Atlanta – seems to have had a hard drive crash. Can’t access recorded programs, and can’t pause/rewind live TV.

One of the things that really bothers me about cable services is the fact that they cable company keeps shoving unnecessary hardware updates through the PVR, some of which screw things up (but they’re usually addressed in short order). After the latest, the HD seems inaccessible, which is probably a coincidence (since the PVR is almost 5 years old and gets a lot of use) but it still causes me to resent Rogers for constantly torturing it (and me) with firmware updates .

I presume it’s impractical to manually replace the HD? I’m not sure if that would even work, since it would presumably have to have installed a bunch of the cable company’s proprietary crap (there’s no TV card stuff in Canada). I can’t even figure out how to open the case - it seems basically stapled together rather than conventionally screwed, presumably to prevent this very type of tampering.

Time for a new $600 PVR? Jesus, the prices seem absurd.

Your cable company won’t replace a defective unit? My Uverse DVR crapped out due to hard drive failure a month or two ago and they ended up just shipping me a new one.

I’ve had a couple of DVR’s die from bad hardware or bad firmware updates. Comcast replaces them for free though.

God, I hate that machine. It’s so damn flaky.

Have you tried rebooting it? Not just turning it off and on, but actually pulling the plug, letting it sit for a couple of minutes, and then plugging it in again. It will then go through a lengthy boot sequence (the display will read “boot,” and then show a progress indicator) that will take several minutes. Don’t futz with it. When the clock appears on the display again, it’s okay to power it back on.

This tends to solve a lot of flaking-out issues the machine, in my experience.

They will if you rent it from them, but not if you buy it (although they give you a 2 year warranty). I swear they push these firmware updates solely to get rid of fhese out of warranty machines. Renting it for 2 years basically costs the same price as buying it, so I guess the fact that I got 5 years out of it is a good thing, but it still seems like it shouldn’t have died.

Oh yes, my friend. That’s been a regular necessity for the SA 8300 - basically every time they push a firmware update. Doing that cold boot and allowing it to go through its reinitializing process has always resolved any software problems in the past - like I said, it something I’ve probably done monthly, at least, although lately it might have been more often, which probably was a sign of HD stress/failure.

But no luck this time - I just get the weird swiggly reboot sign (pre “boot” wording) and an error message (er.52 or er-52). I can’t find any reference online to that error code, so I’m just presuming it’s a hard drive issue. When I left it on long enough, it seemed to have restored functionality for TV viewing, but no HD access – so I can watch TV, but not use the PVR functionality.

This the reason I rent mine - I’ve gone through three of them in five years, not including the one I upgraded to HD.

If you check the forums at DigitalHome.ca I think there’s instructions on how to remove the HD if you’re interested. It actually doesn’t sound too hard, and I know there are people (on the web anyway) who claim that they’ve installed larger hard-drives into the units for more storage.

There’s also a way of rebooting it right from the unit itself without unplugging it - some combination of power off + pressing volume buttons, or something. It’s on those forums, too, and it might be worth a shot.

I had a few dvr’s die (Directv). Fortunately, they support eSata so it’s easy to fix.

Add new eSata HD
Turn power on.
System recognizes and installs software on it.

From a quick google it looks like your model supports the same fix.

Thanks guys. Yeah, I was surfing through digitalhome.ca last night and posted a similar message. It seems like the best solution is just to get a new one, but I’ll keep the old one (since I don’t have an HD box for my second TV) and perhaps try to install my own HD.

To be honest, one of the biggest problems will be opening the damn thing – it’s weird how the “screws” seem to basically be more like pins, so I’m not sure it’s doable without inflicting some carnage on the unit.

Maybe I’ll opt for renting instead of buying - at least that way I can swap out an upgrade, or have worry-free use. It just bugs me having to overpay for the units though. Geez I hate cable companies.

eSata is EXTERNAL.

If your model supports eSata and has the ports,

buy Antec MX1 enclosure (quiet) $40
Cable $5
Put 2 TB drive in there