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-- UltimateTV
Hard Drive Upgrade --
Printable Format
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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.
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**All files required for this procedure are
available from our Members
Area
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
- Unplug UTV and remove the hard drive from your UTV #1.
- Insert hard drive into UTV #2 and connect IDE cables and
power connectors
- Power up UTV #2, allowing the red, green and orange lights to
flash for 1-2 minutes.
- 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.
- Wait for 40 -45 minutes until you can no longer hear the UTV
trying to write to the drive.
- Unplug power and remove drive from UTV and install in
computer.
- 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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Printable Format
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08/04/2008 11:20 AM
In order to give the website a better focus, we are phasing out the less popular areas of the site, including the high definition and digital video recorder areas and forums. This will leave the site focused on digital satellite television and satellite radio.
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