Anyone tried changing HDD in a Thomson DTH 7000?

[ktd]

Subject says it all...

[mikemeaney]

I'm trying at the moment. I have successfully duplicated the 40GB
onto a 160GB and installed it. Works fine, problem is machine still
thinks it has a 40GB installed in it!!

The hack for upgrading this machine mentioned here:
https://www.videohelp.com/dvdhacks.php?dvdplayer=dth7000e

is bogus. I've tried contacting the author, no reply.

Will let you know if I can get it to recognise HDD as 160GB.
I suspect the 40GB value is hard-coded into the ROM of the
device and you'd have to rechip the machine to get it to
recognise bigger disks,

All the best,
Mike

[ktd]

I tried install a 10GB in it yesterday but I coulnt get it to work. I instlled it and format it but then I got disk error...
Will try more later.
Let me know if you find out anything.

By the way...
Have you manage to get vcd´s working on yours? I have a few old vcd´s on cd-r that works I have all Futurama on vcd and none of the discs works. Get Diskproblem... when insterting them.

[mikemeaney]

How did you format the HDD???

I don't have any VCD's to try on it unfortunately.

[ktd]

When the player is in MENU, press STOP, PLAY and AV. After a few sec you will see FORMAT in the display...

[mikemeaney]

I had been pressing AV and STOP on the remote to do the
format, I only just now figured out that I should have been
pressing these buttons on the front of the machine!!!

The FORMAT message came up but, like your 10GB disk,
the message "Disc problem" was displayed too!

Question: why do you want to swap the 40GB for a smaller
one?

[ktd]

I dindnt had any bigger disk spare at home. Just wanted to see if it was possible to change disk...

I wounder why this aint working...

[mikemeaney]

Yeah, as I said, I was able to get the 160GB working if I just
used a disk duplication program to copy exactly what was on
the 40GB onto the 160GB. Strange that the FORMAT method
doesn't work. I wonder if it is hardwired to only accept formatting
of 40GB hard disks, to prevent people upgrading to other sizes??

[ktd]

Sounds stupid tho. Why should they care if people upgrade the disk?
But as always... Big companys like Thomson dosent care for us cosutmers that much. They are more like "If you dont like it, dont buy it..."

[mikemeaney]

Maybe they want to make profit by selling bigger versions
of the DTH7000E. If they made it easy for people to do it
then they will lose out on profit margins. They may be
waiting to see if the DTH7000E will sell well and if it does
they will bring out bigger versions, just like TiVo have done.

[ktd]

Yes, but lets work together together to beat this evil corporation!!! Moha haha...

[mikemeaney]

In case you are interested, here's a Hex and Ascii dump of
the formatted 160GB disk. As you'll see there's very little
information written onto the disk when it's formatted. (it's
blank from byte 1408 onwards).

I suspect the 4 bytes starting at offset 580 are related to
the number of sectors on the disk and the 3 bytes at
648 also have something to do with size. I have tried
changing these bytes on the working disk but have failed
to get it to recognise the 160GB as having more space than
a 40GB. I am about to give up!

Hex dump (first column is offset from start of disk
in decimal):
0000000 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
*
0000512 98 00 54 68 6f 6d 73 6f 6e 20 4d 75 6c 74 69 6d
0000528 65 64 69 61 20 52 26 44 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
0000544 00 00 00 00 39 30 34 30 39 31 38 39 36 31 37 31
0000560 30 30 00 00 39 30 34 30 39 31 38 39 36 31 37 31
0000576 30 30 00 00 f3 e8 ff 0f 01 00 00 00 01 00 00 00
0000592 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
0000608 00 14 00 00 02 00 00 00 00 02 00 00 02 14 00 00
0000624 04 01 00 00 02 16 00 00 05 16 00 00 06 16 00 00
0000640 00 28 00 08 00 01 00 00 d0 ff 0f 00 08 17 00 00
0000656 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
*
0001280 2f 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
0001296 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
*
0001360 00 08 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
0001376 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
0001392 01 00 80 98 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 01 00 80 98
0001408 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00

Ascii dump (first column is offset from start of disk
in decimal):
0000000 nul nul nul nul nul nul nul nul nul nul nul nul nul nul nul nul
*
0000512 can nul T h o m s o n sp M u l t i m
0000528 e d i a sp R & D nul nul nul nul nul nul nul nul
0000544 nul nul nul nul 9 0 4 0 9 1 8 9 6 1 7 1
0000560 0 0 nul nul 9 0 4 0 9 1 8 9 6 1 7 1
0000576 0 0 nul nul s h del si soh nul nul nul soh nul nul nul
0000592 nul nul nul nul nul nul nul nul nul nul nul nul nul nul nul nul
0000608 nul dc4 nul nul stx nul nul nul nul stx nul nul stx dc4 nul nul
0000624 eot soh nul nul stx syn nul nul enq syn nul nul ack syn nul nul
0000640 nul ( nul bs nul soh nul nul P del si nul bs etb nul nul
0000656 nul nul nul nul nul nul nul nul nul nul nul nul nul nul nul nul
*
0001280 / nul nul nul nul nul nul nul nul nul nul nul nul nul nul nul
0001296 nul nul nul nul nul nul nul nul nul nul nul nul nul nul nul nul
*
0001360 nul bs nul nul nul nul nul nul nul nul nul nul nul nul nul nul
0001376 nul nul nul nul nul nul nul nul nul nul nul nul nul nul nul nul
0001392 soh nul nul can nul nul nul nul nul nul nul nul soh nul nul can
0001408 nul nul nul nul nul nul nul nul nul nul nul nul nul nul nul nul

[ktd]

Heres from the service menu. Im about to get a cabel for it also...

HDD-FILE MANAGER SUB-MENU HELP
===============================================
m Mount the Harddisc
f Format the Harddisc
r Read the parameters of the Harddisc
P Read Mp3/Jpeg list file
1 - Mp3File.list
2 - Mp3Dir.list
3 - JpegFile.list
4 - JpegDir.list
q - Quit the File Manager sub-menu

[mikemeaney]

How do you get into the service menu? Is the cable you mention
a serial cable for connecting a terminal to the Thomson??

Note that Mp3File.list , Mp3Dir.list , JpegFile.list , JpegDir.list
seem to be directories that exist on the original 40GB disk but
I was surprised that they weren't created by default when
the Thomson formatted the 160GB disk.

[ktd]

Maybe the format is just like a del *.* type of thing...

If you look on the left side under your DTH 7000 you will se 4 pins. There is where you connect the cabel...

[mikemeaney]

I don't think the format is a del *.*, I've got a feeling it's more
of a write over the disk with default info type of thing. It
seems to mark the disk at offset 512 with header info and
at 1280 the root directory (/) appears.

So, the service menu appears on a terminal if you connect
the proper cable to the device is it? Are the 4 pins a non-standard
connector, machine is at home at the moment.

Hopefully the service menu might solve our problems ???

[ktd]

Check your PM...

[verchad]

This is the same problem that we owners of the panasonic dmr-hs2 have. You can put a bigger drive in, but it's only recognized as 40 gb. People have tried the duplicate hd method and still only shows 40gb. As stated, they don't want to make it easy to upgrade, so you have to buy a new unit, panasonic has new ones coming out with larger capacities. There is an owners group where this is discussed for panasonic owners, here is the link if you want to see what they have tried http://www.thewholewideweb.com/forum/forum.asp?FORUM_ID=27 . I know, 40 gb is great, but I would love to add a 80, 120, or larger hd.

[mrbream]

does anybody kwnw,is it possable to take the hard-drive out of the dth 7000 and plug it into a pc and then take the video file off of the hard disk.
if so what software do i need and what format will the video file be in.any info would be great

[ktd]

Yes it is. Take a look at http://forum.digitalspy.co.uk/board/showthread.php?s=&postid=1774622#post1774622