Review: Expressvu External Hard Drive 9242 HD PVR (Part 3)
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In part 2, I described most of the troubles I had so far with the Expressvu External Hard Drive 9242 HD PVR. Since my EHD(LaCie 750GB) was full of recordings(test only), I was not able to access the EHD. It would always reboot when I wanted to access the EHD.
BellTV has released v183 of the firmware since yesterday.
In my case, I had to:
- connect my EHD to my computer
- remove the 3 partitions(1.01GB, 500.01GB, 197.62GB)
- make a quick reformat
- then reconnect the drive to the 9242 HD PVR
- let it reformat again by the 9242 HD PVR
If you are lucky, you will only have the make the last 2 steps.
So far, I only archived 4 recordings for a total of 5 hours. I did not have any problem. Even the playback worked from the EHD when I was fast forwarding at 300x. In the previous version, I had the "drive disconnected" bug.
Since I don't completely trust the new v183, I'm only archiving already seen HD shows/movies until it's full again. I suggest you do the same. But If your drive is smaller, full and you don't have problems, please leave a comment for the others.
But l hope it work and does not give me problems when it's full too. 
F.A.Q.:
You can't just connect the drive to a Windows PC and copy the movies from the EHD. Hollywood would not allow that in the first place. If you do connect the drive to you PC and later connect it to the 9242 HD PVR, you will be force to reformat the EHD.
I did not test using the EHD and connect it to another 9242 HD PVR without losing anything with the new version.
If you want to transfer movies to your PC, it won't be in HD. You could record the movie using a standalone DVD recorder and then copy the movie to your PC. That's the easiest way.
I don't know of any software that will read directly from the EHD to copy the HD movie to the PC.
P.S. It's BellTV now.
Edit 2008-11-08: After filling the 750GB, I still have the same rebooting problem when accessing the EHD. I had more than 100 hours in HD recorded. v183 is more stable but still bugging when full.
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Allan Holman said:
Steve,
In regards to the segment that refers to the PC copying. You actually can copy programs quite easily with a PC. The trick is to use LINUX as opposed to windows. I had two hard drives, one full, one near empty. The full one would keep resetting my reciever. It took me awhile because I’m not a computer geek by any means, but I was able to copy some shows from the full hard drive to the empty one. By doing that I gained access to my shows once again. I believe I copied about five shows to the empty one, and both worked again. You can’t view the programs on your computer or burn them to DVD (at least I don’t know how) but it did allow me to salvage the shows on my hard drive for my own personal use. I used UBUNTU, and everything has seemed to work just fine since.
November 9th, 2008 at 10:56 am -
Steve McGrath said:
Allan,
I knew of this method but choose not to mentioned it since it was with Linux and the vast majority use Windows. Plus, the main solution most searchers are looking for is a way to play the recording.
Your solution is a nice method if someone have a recording they did not want to loose. And since you confirmed that it solved the rebooting bug, it’s another way to live with the full EHD bug for now. New slogan: “Don’t fill the EHD”.
If I understand, you just copied to the 2nd EHD and deleted from the first EHD to gain access to ALL recordings again on both EHD?
November 9th, 2008 at 11:09 am -
greg said:
I have a 1TB MyBook hooked up and I have the same issue when full. I have hooked it up to my PC and deleted the smallest partition. I lost some movies but the other 2 partitions remained and the movies are OK. Not the best option but you get to keep some of your archive and loose some disk space.
Filling the hard drive is one issue, the other on the old version of software was the pausing and sometimes rebooting of the PVR.
Thanks this has helped, but reporting issues is not easy with BellTV. Level 1 doesn”t help. Is there an easier option you have found to report issues?
November 28th, 2008 at 12:52 pm -
Steve McGrath said:
It’s a nice trick if someone want to get access to some recording. In my case, it was only a very big test.
I would expect more than 110-120 hours when full(750GB). I may try to filled it with 90 hours of HD until it’s fixed to be on the safe side.
You could try to speak to a Level 2 to report the problem. By now, it should be a known issue but people should report it all the same. If they get many more reports, they might be forced to make it a priority. It would be a nice Christmas gift to get a new firmware
November 28th, 2008 at 1:40 pm -
K Libby said:
I don’t have LINUX but I do have a full 1TB MyBook of recordings from my 9242. Now I have the “full” drive rebooting problem as the 9242 keeps rebooting when trying to access the external harddrive. Any suggestions on how to recover? I’d hate to lose the 70 movies it contains.
January 18th, 2009 at 5:52 pm -
Steve McGrath said:
K Libby: You played with fire using 1TB.
You should do like Greg did and deleted the smallest partition. You will loose a lot but the drive will be accessible again.
You should do this below at your own risk.
In Vista:
- I have the Computer icon on my desktop
- Right-click Manage
Computer Management will appear
- Storage – Disk Management
Find a disk with 698.64GB(LaCie 750GB) and 3 primary partition(1.01GB, 500.01GB, 197.62GB) or something like that
Right-Click the 1.01GB partition(smallest)
Delete Volume
Turn off the EHDI then connected back the EHD. It was detected by the 9242 and ask if I would like to view/manage it(something like that but not format). I was able to play(skip 30 sec by me) one of the movie from my EHD.
What did I loose? A lot. I had only 190hours left of recordings on my EHD thus lost 80+hours. It’s my test EHD so it’s not a big deal. The EHD show that I only have 13 hours free. So, deleting the partition is a gamble since you don’t know what movies will be saved.
Since I deleted the small partition, I would not do anything(delete, archive) more until they fix that bug. I redid the above step to see if the small partition was recreated. It was not.
But you should call them about this issue first anyway and even ask for a level 2 tech(Mon-Friday). If more people call, then it might make them move more rapidly on that.
If they fix it(next software update), I would then restore each movie to the 9242 and archive back on another EHD. That’s if you really want to keep some movies.
January 18th, 2009 at 6:39 pm -
Steven said:
I too had this problem with a little 80 gig drive that I had. With the suggestion above with accessing the drive with Linux, then purchasing a new 300 gig drive formatting it with the bell receiver then hooking it up to the computer I was able to transfer the files from the old drive to the new. After that was done I was able to access all the shows that I recorded. Thanks all for the suggestions
January 23rd, 2009 at 10:43 pm -
Steve McGrath said:
First, sorry to reply late. I’m working on a special new software project that take most of my time this days.
Steven, did you fill up the drive since then? If yes, did you have the same problem with the new 300Gig? I think that if you leave some free hours you should be okay but some reported problems before it was even half filled.
February 1st, 2009 at 10:24 am
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