MTV 3600 replaced Hdd procedure that worked

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richrdh18

169 posts

Master Geek
+1 received by user: 51

# 175254 23-Jun-2015 08:30

My MTV3600 hdd failed the other night. Fortunately I had a spare 2TB drive laying around. Followed the instructions below and I am up and running again. Can record up to 270hrs in HD.
I love it when instructions actually work. That'll give the old girl a few more years of recording. With the new Hdd i noticed that changing channels etc is now a lot quicker.

(from a previous post)

MTV3600TD Firmware 3.19 beta 5

Firmware Date: 2013-10-24
http://www.magictv.com/nz/downloads/mtv3600_3_19NZb5.zip

Change List:
- Rescue format to support Advanced Format HDD (4k sector with 512 byte emulation)
- Non-proven experimental changes to deal with the issue of MediaWorks channel causing reboot in Sept - Nov 2012
- Recognize uppercase file extensions in camcorder movie function

This firmware is released as a rescue tool ONLY to better cope with formatting Advanced Format HDD (4k sector with 512 byte emulation), i.e. most HDD on the market now.

Users running firmware 3.18 without stability problems on MTV3600TD do NOT need to upgrade to this firmware. Using the rescue tool part of this firmware to format the HDD does not change the firmware installed on the Magic TV (unless you press OK button at the wrong time).

Those who already formatted any Advanced Format HDD using any previous firmware should not format the drive again, unless you want to lose all your recorded programmes.

MTV3600TD Procedure to format the system HDD (up to 2TB)
(This prcoedure will erase any existing data, recorded programmes, and the recording to-do list, if any, on the HDD)

- Unzip all the contents of the rescue firmware zip to the root directory of a FAT32-formatted USB flash drive
- Plug the USB flash drive into the Magic TV.
- Stand really close to the Magic TV.
- Upon turning on the rear power switch, repeatedly press the pause button on the remote at a rate of 3 times per second or faster, until it shows RESCUE on the front panel. If it proceeds to boot up usually, power it off using the rear power switch then try again.
- After RESCUE is shown, wait for up to 1 minute. It should show FOUND FIRMWARE on the front panel.
- Press 15900 on the remote
- The front panel should show FORMAT HD?
- Press OK on the remote
- The front panel shoulld show FORMATTING
- Wait for the format to complete, it should show FORMAT DONE for a very short time, then become FOUND FIRMWARE again
- Power cycle the Magic TV using the rear power switch and remove the USB flash drive

Note: MTV3700TD does not use the above procedure. It has a format system HDD function (experimental support up to 4TB) in the settings menu, so there is no need to go through rescue (which does not require a USB flash drive to be plugged in). For MTV3700TD, it is better for the HDD to be partitioned or formatted in PC first before being formatted by Magic TV.

Wendells

6 posts

Wannabe Geek

# 1374202 25-Aug-2015 20:45

Could you please tell me what hdd you installed? My 3600 hard drive failed yesterday and I'm not sure what drive to buy to replace it. Keen to upgrade to 2TB, too.

bfginger

972 posts

Ultimate Geek
+1 received by user: 45

# 1380070 5-Sep-2015 05:24

Most hard drives aren't suitable for PVRs. If it's too hot it could cause the fanless Magic TV to overheat. Most models will be too noisy. A PVR drive shouldn't have head parking as that will cause delays and might cause a crash. It should have ATA streaming video extensions to prevent stutter and rare data corruption crashes. Many hard drive models aren't available in New Zealand and PVR drives aren't big enough sellers to have much availability here.

The last time someone asked I said the ST2000VM003. But that is no longer available. The Seagate ST2000VX003 may be the same hard drive with different branding. The WD Purple WD20PURX is a similar drive but with lower RPMs.

http://pricespy.co.nz/product.php?p=2902054

http://pricespy.co.nz/product.php?p=2522557

richms

22168 posts

Uber Geek
+1 received by user: 4731

Trusted

Subscriber

# 1380153 5-Sep-2015 10:31

Is it limited to 2TB or is that all that people have tried?

Also, would the WD purple survalance drives be better than the typical red's I buy in a situation like this.

Asking because I might be able to get a 'broken' freeview recorder off a friend. No idea of model/brand at this stage.

Richard rich.ms

bfginger

972 posts

Ultimate Geek
+1 received by user: 45

# 1381336 7-Sep-2015 20:04

The limit was discussed in earlier threads about the 3600 so there is information there

http://www.geekzone.co.nz/forums.asp?topicid=62095&page_no=4#928823

I don't think the Magic TV 3600 can be made to work with larger partitions but you can use a 3TB drive if it's partitioned correctly. As a 3TB drive would have an extra platter that would be more noise and heat for not much benefit. 1.25TB platters have been promised soon for a long time so 2 platter 2.5TB drives should be coming.
1,000 versus 1024 byte base measurements mean the actual limit is slightly over 2.19TB from 1000 bytes so it's 2.19TB in hard drive sale size terminology or 2.147 in 1024 base.

The Red drives won't support ATA video stream commands which turn off normal error correction for video files for stability and performance purposes. But we don't know whether the Magic TV and other old DVRs support those ATA commands. The Reds have error correction limited to 7s by default as Raids throw out drives after 8s of unresponsiveness. So we don't know which is stabler with the Magic TV as we don't have the information on how it works. Big brand DVRs like the Panasonics should support ATA streaming commands.

sofistek

79 posts

Master Geek
+1 received by user: 6

# 1387088 14-Sep-2015 11:20

I've followed the instructions to get to the format disk function from rescue mode but nothing happens when pressing 15900. Tried various firmware without success. The check and repair function from the main menu fails with error 4, soon after starting the check. I'm trying to format the original disk just to see if that fixes an issue where no disk is found (though it does show up on the system info screen) and to check that I can format a disk, before lashing out on another disk.

So my box is now basically a freeview receiver with no recording capability.