Digitstar to External hard drive connection problem

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TonyE

4 posts

Wannabe Geek

#76669 4-Feb-2011 15:02

I've been reading all the historical info about Digitstar PVRs and have bought one through TradeMe which works well. I record happily to a flashstick and have just bought a Seagate 500 GB external drive which the PVR fails to recognise. Do I need to format this beast or something before using it.
TonyE

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Master Geek

#435374 4-Feb-2011 15:29

Hi Tony,

It has been a while since I went through this (my Digistar has been going well for years now), however there are two things you should check:
1 - the disk has to formatted as fat 32
2 - There is a limit on the size the Digistar can see. I have a 250 gig disk, and I set it up with 2 125 gig partitions. I think there was a suspicion that the maximum size for the Digistar was 128 gig.

xpd

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#435385 4-Feb-2011 15:46

Yup, ensure its FAT32 formatted. Largest drive Ive used on mine is a 160GB, plenty of storage for me.

Gavin / xpd / FastRaccoon / Geek of Coastguard New Zealand

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TonyE

4 posts

Wannabe Geek

#435428 4-Feb-2011 17:57

Thanks for the quick response. I see in the manual that the hard drive needs to do 5,400rpm but I can't find anywhere that gives the rpm on the Seagate unit. Excuse the dumb questions but how do you set it up with partitions (probably four by the sound of it) Not quite computer illiterate but learning.
Tony

xpd

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#435523 4-Feb-2011 21:46

Unless the drive is 20 years old, it should be 5400 or better :)

If you have nothing on the drive to keep, setting up partitions is fairly straight forward.

You havent mentioned which OS you run, but if its XP/Vista/Win7, finding a tutorial is easy enough - such as this - http://www.d-silence.com/feature.php?id=246

Just remember to ensure youre working with the correct drive or else you do run the risk of losing data.

Gavin / xpd / FastRaccoon / Geek of Coastguard New Zealand

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TonyE

4 posts

Wannabe Geek

#435530 4-Feb-2011 22:06

My OS is windows 7 but I have to admit to being dumber than I realised." When all else fails read the instructions." I did and discovered that I need a unit with a speed of 5,400rpm and the Seagate unit does 7,200. Now I need to negotiate an exchange with the retailer.
Tony

xpd

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#435580 5-Feb-2011 08:08

Try it with the 7200, you may find itll work anyway after being formatted etc - I havent tried a 7200 unit on mine............

Gavin / xpd / FastRaccoon / Geek of Coastguard New Zealand

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TonyE

4 posts

Wannabe Geek

#435656 5-Feb-2011 13:49

My OS only offers exFAT and NTFS. When I look into FAT32 I see that it can only format up to 32GB.
1. How do I get FAT32 on my computer?
2. How do I get it to format up to 125GB?
The TM trader assures me that 7,200rpm is ok so thanks for that.

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xpd

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#435680 5-Feb-2011 15:49

TonyE: My OS only offers exFAT and NTFS. When I look into FAT32 I see that it can only format up to 32GB.
1. How do I get FAT32 on my computer?
2. How do I get it to format up to 125GB?
The TM trader assures me that 7,200rpm is ok so thanks for that.

http://www.online-tech-tips.com/computer-tips/formatting-external-hard-drive-to-fat-32/

:)

I used a program called SwissKnife (i think) but appears its now commercial and no longer offer a free version :(

Gavin / xpd / FastRaccoon / Geek of Coastguard New Zealand

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tkr001

416 posts

Ultimate Geek

#435774 5-Feb-2011 23:20

http://www.ridgecrop.demon.co.uk/index.htm?fat32format.htm