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-- UltimateTV Hard Drive Upgrade --


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The following guide will allow you to upgrade your UltimateTV with a new, larger hard drive. This will significantly increase your recording time. Please note that the UTV kernel will only allow a 137GB drive max, so you will likely want to choose a 120GB or 140GB drive as your new drive.

This guide was written for the RCA UltimateTV unit, however it is identical for the Sony, other than a few differences in the locations of the components.


**All files required for this procedure are available from our Members Area


Step 1 - Initial Considerations

Upgrading your UltimateTV hard drive for more capacity is a rewarding project, however there are a number of considerations worth mentioning. First of all, it will void your factory warranty. If you are upgrading a new UltimateTV, you should wait until the warranty has expired to rule out any obvious factory defects. Second is risk of damage. Any modification of your UltimateTV receiver comes with a possible risk of damage to your unit and there are no guarantees of success. Third is loss of recordings. Unfortunately, the UltimateTV upgrade does not currently allow backup of recording or settings, so any recordings you have on your unit that you wish to keep will have to be transferred to another format, such as VHS. The upside to this, is that it makes upgrading a lot faster and easier, with the average upgrade taking 10-20 minutes. Forth is re-downloading of software. The UltimateTV upgrade requires you to re-download the UltimateTV software once the new hard drive is installed and working. Most often this smoothly and is just a matter of the 90 minute wait for the download to finish over your telephone line. Once in a while however a technical glitch will occur at Microsoft that may delay the download or you may be forced to wait a day or so to complete it.


Step 2 - New Hard Drive Selection

Some hard drives on the market will work fine for UltimateTV. Others will not however. The hard drive you choose MUST support the ATA-3 security feature. As a rule, the best choices are Western Digital Caviar drives (WD800BB 80GB, WD1000BB 100GB or WD1200BB 120GB) Note that lower end Western Digital drives will not work as they do not support ATA-3 security from the factory. Most IBM hard drives will also work well. Drive speed is not critical and both 5400RPM and 7200 RPM drives will work equally as well. If your local computer store does not carry these brands or models, you should buy them online instead. Other brands of hard drives are hit or miss and can cause you many hours of aggravation and extra expense if you choose a drive that is not compatible. Keep in mind that the UltimateTV is only compatible with single hard drives and they have a 137GB barrier, so more than likely you will not be able to use a hard drive larger than 120GB

The preferred method is to use a brand new hard drive that has never been used , partitioned or installed in a computer. However it is possible to use a used hard drive as well, assuming that it meets the same criteria(as above). If you have a suitable large hard drive that supports ATA-3 security and you wish to use it instead of purchasing a new one, you will need to format it with NTFS just before removing it from your computer. If you are a Member, You can use one of the programs on our Download Area or a program such as partition magic for this task. Not all hard drives will work if they have been previously partitioned and formatted, however Western Digital Caviar and IBM drives have been reported to work after a NTFS format. Ensure that you are properly grounded before beginning the upgrade to prevent any static electricity from damaging your UltimateTV. Standing on a wood floor, or touching a metal object other than your unit are good ways to ensure that you do not have a static electric buildup.



Step 3 - Remove your Access Card

The first thing you will want to do is unplug the unit and remove your Access Card to prevent damage to it during the upgrade. This is the small credit card sized card located behind the access door. This is usually located at the front of the unit, but may be on the rear of the unit for some models.



Step 4 - Disassemble the Unit

Make sure the unit is unplugged, remove all cables and connections and remove the screws holding the cover on the UltimateTV. Lift the cover off, usually from the rear forward. After lifting off the cover, you will notice a small ribbon cable connecting the motherboard to another small circuit board on the cover. Make a note on the direction that this cable is seated prior to disconnection. You may want to use a marker to mark one edge. Gently disconnect the cable from the cover circuit board and set the over aside.



Step 5 - Hard Drive Removal

The hard drive will now be visable, usually located at the front of the unit, behind a metal shielding. disconnect the IDE cable from the hard drive as well as the power connector by gently rocking the connectors until they come free. You may need to use a pair of needle nose pliers to remove the IDE cable if you are having difficulty. The hard drive will be secured to the unit by a number of screws. Remove them and slide the hard drive out of the UltimateTV and set them aside. Use caution not to touch the power supply as it can still contain a electrical buildup even if unplugged.



Step 6 - Configure Jumper Setting on New Hard Drive

You will now want to configure the jumper setting on your new hard drive. Review the hard drive manufacturers instructions to determine the jumper settings. The setting you want is SINGLE or MASTER If you are using a Western Digital drive, ensure you use the SINGLE and not the DUAL setting.



Step 7 - Re-install New Hard Drive

Re-install the new hard drive in reverse order as removing the old one. Slide it into the drive bay and re-connect the IDE cable and power connector and secure it to the UltimateTV with the hard drive screws. Replace the cover on the unit, re-connecting the small ribbon cable to the cover in the same direction as it was originally. Slide the cover back on and resecure it using the screws you removed earlier. Re-connect all cables you removed earlier and re-install the access card.



Step 8 - Download UltimateTV Software

Once you have powered on the unit, assuming you re-connected all the components correctly and securely, you will see a black screen on your unit and a message that it is connecting to MSN to check for updates. After it dials out and makes a connection, it will report the following message;

MSN: Update Needed.
We have developed a free upgrade for your satellite receiver. To continue using UltimateTV, you must upgrade to the latest version. This should take less than 74 minutes.

You will be prompted to go ahead and begin the upgrade. After pressing go ahead, the screen will change to confirm that the download has begun. You will be given a graphical bar to represent how much time is remaining in the download.

Once the download is complete, the screen will change to a screen saver logo. Pressing a button on the remote will confirm that the download was completed. The unit will now prompt you to connect to MSN and will then power down. Allow a few minutes for the downloaded software to be activated and then power the unit back on.



Step 9 - Setting the Unit Up

The system will now walk you through the initial setup procedure to configure the type of satellites and LNB's and other options. After that is complete, the unit will now need to download the program guide and update the local channel information. The local channels may take a few hours to come on, so don't panic if you do not see them immediately. If you do not see them in 4 hours, you may have to call your satellite provider and ask them to send your activation signal again. Assuming all went well, you are finished. If you encounter any problems, you should visit our PVR Upgrade Forums

Depending on your UltimateTV software version, your UltimateTV may or may not show the extended recording capacity. Even if it still shows that you only have 35 hours, you will be able to record many more, depending on the size of your new hard drive.




  Method 1: - Reusing the old UTV drive in a PC

It is possible to re-use your old UltimateTV hard drive in a new computer. Microsoft and UltimateTV security features have protected the contents of the drive so that they cannot be recognized by the BIOS of PC's or have their partitions easily removed or re-formatted. The drive can be reclaimed via the following method;

1. Download MHD3.exe from the Members Download Area.

2. Copy the program onto a blank floppy disk.

3. Insert a second floppy, click on my computer, and right click on the a:Drive and select Format. From the options, choose Create MS-DOS Boot Disk

4. Power down your PC, open it and install the old UltimateTV drive in your computer. Be sure to set the drive jumper onto "Slave" and connect it to the Primary IDE cable, slave position (As a rule in the middle of the Primary IDE cable). As an alternative, you can keep the drive at "Master" and connect it to the secondary IDE cable, master position (As a rule, on the end of the Secondary IDE cable)

5. Re-boot your machine and hit F2 to enter the setup screen as the computer is restarting. If it is not already done, locate your first and (new) second drive and set the detection to Auto.

6. Save the setup changes, insert your new MS-DOS boot disk and reboot your computer.

7. After the computer has booted into DOS, at the a: prompt, insert the MHD3 disk and type MHD3 and hit enter.

8. The program will ask you to choose a drive to unlock. Choose your old UTV drive, (Should be primary slave or secondary master depending on your jumper setting in step 4)

9. The unlocking procedure will take some time, depending on the speed of your computer, it can take up to an hour or more.

10. Once complete, the program will report that the drive is blank. You will now need to format the drive and partition it for use in your PC. If you wish, you can format it right there in DOS, by typing using FDisk or you can reboot to windows and use one of the utilities on the Download Area or a program such as Partition Magic.



  Method 2: - Reusing the old UTV drive in a PC

This is a second method of reclaiming your old UltimateTV drive for reuse in your PC. For this method, you will need 2 UTV units, although it is possible to use only one. This is how the UTV formatting process works. When a drive is inserted into a UTV, it will first check for 2 things, one that if security is turned on and if it is, it will try its user password. It will then either boot if the UltimateTV Operating System is on the disk, or will prompt you to download it via your telephone line. If security is turned off, it will set the master password, set the user password and then set the security level to maximum. If it is unable to perform these commands, IE using a Maxtor Hard Drive, it will tell you to call UTV. Both RCA and Sony use the same master password. If security is turned on and the user password does not match, then the receiver send a command to prepare the drive to be erased followed by the erase command followed by the master password. It will then turn off the security features, erase the user password and write all 0's to the disk and before it shuts off, it will reset the master password, generate a new user password and turn the security features back on. In the following method, you will be tricking the UTV into unlocking the drive, where you will be unplugging the IDE cable before it can relock it, enabling you to reuse it.


  1. Unplug UTV and remove the hard drive from your UTV #1.
  2. Insert hard drive into UTV #2 and connect IDE cables and power connectors
  3. Power up UTV #2, allowing the red, green and orange lights to flash for 1-2 minutes.
  4. While the lights are still flashing and the unit is still powered up, remove the IDE cable from the drive, leaving the power connector in.
  5. Wait for 40 -45 minutes until you can no longer hear the UTV trying to write to the drive.
  6. Unplug power and remove drive from UTV and install in computer.
  7. Format the new drive using FDisk or another formatting and partitioned program such as Partition Magic or one from our Download Area.



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