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Telus Sateliite TV - External Hard Drive

19K views 15 replies 10 participants last post by  Pinza 
#1 ·
Greetings.

I apologize if this has been asked already. I've searched the forums and could not find it.

I'm getting Telus Satellite TV installed in mid September with the HD PVR. I had asked them to include the 500 gig external hardrive by Western Digital that they show on their website. The customer service rep informed me when we were setting the install date the they have run out of the hard drives and will not be getting in any new supplies of them.

I've carried on with the order as I know I can add the drive myself later.

All of the requirements they list are fairly easy to determine by looking at the product specs on various drives except for the No Sleep Mode.

Does anyone know if this drive: http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.asp?driveid=353 meets the no sleep mode requirement? It "appears" to be the 1TB version of the same drive telus shows on their site but I don't want to assume that it will work.

The nice thing about this is I can get it at the local Best Buy for about $130.00 where as Telus wanted $149.00 for one half the size.

Any help here would be appreciated as I'm not to familiar with external hard drives and haven't had much luck finding an answer to this question.

Thanks.
 
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#6 ·
To answer my own question...

Yes it does work with Telus.

The install went down on Tuesday and it works great. Having a small issue with Movie Central right now in that Telus has it on my account but the box guide doesn't list it. Will be calling Telus when I get home to get that resolved.
 
#7 ·
The Iomega 1TB drive at FutureShop includes a sleep function. Programmable from 1 - 60 mins.

What Iomega drive have you got? Does it sleep? If it sleeps how did you get around the requirement to not sleep?
 
#9 · (Edited)
hello all, i have searched through this thread and the various other BEll threads regarding EHDs on the HD receiver {telus uses echostar 6131 correct?}...

anyway, for some reason i have a weird issue... plug EHD {with enclosure, unknown brand} and the receiver sees it just fine, format, sure no problem...

now i have pvr functionality! great!, though i schedule a recording... and once i come back {after record has supposedly taken place}... schedule shows listed as DONE! meaning it should be available for viewing! yet, i switch to PVR storage and NOTHING!! completely empty! cannot view anything recorded!! wtf!???

i dont get this at all... anyone have any ideas/? i have another enclosure but no space on HD to try with at this time {2nd enclosure is sata / usb2.0; the one i am currently using is IDE external usb2.0/ firewire}, pain in the arse really..!! help is appreciated!


**EDIT**... the geek in me got the best of me... i decided to reformat the EHD using my laptop, to zero all things to basics and start again... re-plugged EHD to HDreceiver n' went through the whole damn process of formatting the HD once again, PVR functionality back on....

press REC off live.... sure enough it starts right up.... :).. 10 min recording is now available for play back... lol... figures...

now lets hope a scheduled recording actually works... gotta love technology.!
 
#12 ·
Sorry, I posted this in the wrong spot earlier.


So I bought the Verbatim 500GB hard drive at staples last night. Model # 96570. (I only need 500GB as the upstairs TV is not HD). I read the BEV forum on EHD's and this one seemed to cause the least number of issues.



It took me about 2 minutes to set it up, 5 minutes to format the drive and 3 minutes to get the guide back. I tried pausing what I was watching. No Problem. I tried recording and turning the receiver and TV off. No Problem. I tried setting a timer for a program 20 minutes later. No Problem. So far so good. It is very quiet and the only light on it is a green LED, which is fairly bright, but my setup allows me to put it behind all of the components so you don't really even see it.
 
#13 ·
External Drive No Sleep Mode

Just wondering if anyone has found a suitable external drive without a sleep mode function?
I purchased a Seagate 1TB External from Futureshop as that's what they recommend for PVR's a so called "expert" that works there informed me.

Get it home, hook it up, formats no problem. Start archiving stuff, no problem.
Then after no usage for awhile, I notice the green light is pulsing slowly. Well I know what that means..snoozing. Tried to archive another movie. Gives me a error. Unplug the power, plug back in, finds the drive, works just like before.
Needless to say, it's being returned.
What do I buy that's 1TB / 7200 rpm / No sleep / External powered?
 
#14 ·
#15 ·
Thanks Pinza.
Looks like I found a solution last night.
Seagate makes a piece of software, that lets you mange physical drive settings, not just windows settings
Installed it, hooked the external up to my laptop, found a option for it to "never" sleep. Woke up today and the drive was still on/connected.
Don't know how long of a life it will give it being in a constant up state, but it works for now.
I was worried when I hooked the drive back up to my laptop that it wouldn't see it because its been formatted by the PVR already, but the software detected it, didn't try to remove/format it.
Once hooked backed up all the previous archived stuff was still there.

If anyone's interested, the drive is a Seagate 1TB External Desktop Hard Drive (ST310005EXA101-RK) and it was on at Futureshop for $70

The software is on Segates website under: downlaods/external drives/expansion drive/Seagate drive Settings For Windows
 
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