some problem with DVR560H-s HDD replacement

[supanit]

Sorry, retract.

pls, see below of message

[Krispy Kritter]

You likely can't resolve it. Many players only support the drive size that they shipped with...they don't recognize nor support larger drives.

[orsetto]

Pioneers have historically been able to accept larger drives than they shipped with, especially in recent years where the only diffrenece between Pioneer models was the size of the hard drive. As long as you have the service disc and remote, it should work. That said, the current Pioneer 460/560 shipped with 160GB and the 660 shipped with 250GB. They have only been on the market for a year, and are still new enough that not many users have reported trying to upgrade the drive size yet. Also, 160GB is plenty for most people so they haven't been motivated to do it.

There are other possibilities. Since you are in Thailand, you probably do not have a Thailand-specific model, most mfrs like Pioneer instead sell generic "global" versions of their recorders for use in smaller countries grouped by region. In Pioneers case, there are several versions of this generic model, all confusingly named "560". It is possible some of these are hardwired to only use the original drive capacity. But I think this unlikely, Pioneers have always been upgradeable and the 560 is really the same as a 550 which was upgradeable the year before. The issue here is probably because you installed a terabyte drive, which is way WAY beyond the ability of most recorder navigation systems. If it even worked, the recorder would slow to a crawl: they cannot realistically use that much capacity, they don't have file systems that can efficiently manage thousands of files. The upper limit for Pioneer recorders has always been a total of 999 files on the hard drive. A "file" does not simply mean a recording, a file is any data entered on the hard drive: a chapter point, a thumbnail, an edit point. You can easily burn up the 999 file limit on a 160GB drive, never mind a terabyte drive. So the Pio firmware may be pre-programmed to detect huge drives and limit their capacity to something the recorder thinks it can manage. To my direct knowledge, up to 500GB has been successfully installed and used to full capacity in a Canadian 460 model. It may be that the upper limit is 500GB or 700GB before the automatic cutoff restricts capacity to that originally shipped with the recorder.

If anyone has heard from users about this, its Hkan. He collects as much data as possible on all Pioneer models, from all parts of the world. Wait and see if he responds here with advice or confirmations about capacity limits in the 560. Meantime, put the original 160GB drive back in your 560: why waste it if it can't be used completely? You might even damage it if the recorder formats it oddly.

[supanit]

Sorry, retract.

pls, see below of message

[Hkan]

I think I have only had 2 questions about the replacment of HD in the DVR-x60H. No one has reported any problems back to me!

I dont think that they have locked it in the firmware as DVR-560 and DVR-LX61 uses the same firmware!
Maybe it is locked in EEPROM!
DVR- LX61 and DVR-560 are changeable via service mode.
This means that you can make a DVR-560H to be a DVR-LX61.
Maybe by doing this you will get at least a 250GB HD in!
You change this in the service menu under Model Setting!
You need the service manual

Could you please install a HD with a smaller size, I mean a 100GB HD or something and check the result of this, thank you!

[supanit]

Sorry, retract.

pls, see below of message

[orsetto]

It appears then that when Pioneer changed from EIDE hard drives in the x40 series to SATA drives in the x50 and x60 models, they also changed some of them to use the complicated drive capacity limits found in the Sony x80 and x90 versions. The link you provided gives many tips on how to get around that limit if a particular Pioneer has it. For many owners, its probably academic: 160GB is enough space, and as long as the unit will *accept* any size larger drive and just assume it is 160GB, we're content to at least maintain the original specs if the original drive fails. Still, if you're ambitious, its nice to know how to get around the capacity limit of the affected models.

Many thanks to supanit for bringing this potential issue to everyones attention, and for finding answers!

[supanit]

Sorry, retract.

pls, see below of message

[supanit]

Sorry, retract.

pls, see below of message

[supanit]

Sorry, retract.

pls, see below of message

[supanit]

Sorry, retract.

pls, see below of message

[supanit]

Sorry, retract.

pls, see below of message

[supanit]

Sorry, retract.

pls, see below of message

[Seeker47]

Pioneers have historically been able to accept larger drives than they shipped with, especially in recent years where the only diffrenece between Pioneer models was the size of the hard drive. As long as you have the service disc and remote, it should work. That said, the current Pioneer 460/560 shipped with 160GB and the 660 shipped with 250GB. They have only been on the market for a year, and are still new enough that not many users have reported trying to upgrade the drive size yet. Also, 160GB is plenty for most people so they haven't been motivated to do it.

There are other possibilities. Since you are in Thailand, you probably do not have a Thailand-specific model, most mfrs like Pioneer instead sell generic "global" versions of their recorders for use in smaller countries grouped by region. In Pioneers case, there are several versions of this generic model, all confusingly named "560". It is possible some of these are hardwired to only use the original drive capacity. But I think this unlikely, Pioneers have always been upgradeable and the 560 is really the same as a 550 which was upgradeable the year before.

Once, by accident, I stumbled across a site that had some European firmware releases for some models of Pioneer DVDRs. I just mention that to raise the possibility that there might be more specific firmwares out there than we are normally aware of. That said, I would expect Hkan to have a pretty good handle on what various model firmwares exist.

Another thing that occurred to me concerns those ridiculously overpriced international / modded Pioneers you can probably still find being sold on Ebay. I believe some of those have had HDD capacities of up to 500G ? (Or maybe I'm wrong, and it was never more than 250G ?) * But my point is that someone modded these units, and one would assume -- or at least suppose -- that they had developed some successful procedure for doing so. Probably just along the lines of what has been discussed on HKan's site and in threads here, but I wouldn't totally rule out the possibility of some custom firmware. (As with the replacement chip that went into the all-region | MV-defeated DVD player I bought several years ago.)

The issue here is probably because you installed a terabyte drive, which is way WAY beyond the ability of most recorder navigation systems. If it even worked, the recorder would slow to a crawl: they cannot realistically use that much capacity, they don't have file systems that can efficiently manage thousands of files. The upper limit for Pioneer recorders has always been a total of 999 files on the hard drive. A "file" does not simply mean a recording, a file is any data entered on the hard drive: a chapter point, a thumbnail, an edit point. You can easily burn up the 999 file limit on a 160GB drive, never mind a terabyte drive. So the Pio firmware may be pre-programmed to detect huge drives and limit their capacity to something the recorder thinks it can manage. To my direct knowledge, up to 500GB has been successfully installed and used to full capacity in a Canadian 460 model. It may be that the upper limit is 500GB or 700GB before the automatic cutoff restricts capacity to that originally shipped with the recorder.

It sure would have been great if they had thought to include some sort of warning indicator in the unit's f/w, to let you know when you were approaching the point of hitting that 999 items limit -- which as you noted can be far, far less than the number of programs you've recorded, even onto a non-full 160G HDD. (Is there any informal rule-of-thumb for this ? Multiply your # of recorded programs by 5, say ? In that case, I'd be somewhere up around 600 "items", even though I tend to leave at least 12 hours of MN-26-worth free-space headroom on the 160G drive. I know I need to transfer way more stuff off of that drive, but there is always a big lag and a backlog, for getting around to this.) You can find this level of thoughtful detail and anticipation of customer needs in some of the Japanese cars, but very seldom in lesser consumer products of any kind.

[*EDIT: Looks like my recall on this was correct.
http://cgi.ebay.com/NEW-PIONEER-500GB-DVD-Recorder-Region-Free-Multi-System_W0QQitemZ2...3286.m20.l1116
I'm not sure exactly what model this was, but they seemed to have crammed a 500G HDD in there, and had it work. But -- absent whatever they were able to hack with their mod -- I think Orsetto put this issue to rest in another thread, informing us that the later hybrid Sony - Pio models have a firmware that locks you into using a 160G capacity HDD, or that even if you did get a larger HDD successfully transplanted, it would still not be recognized as being larger than 160G, or 250G in the case of the 650 / 660.]

[supanit]

Sorry, retract.

pls, see below of message

[supanit]

Sorry, recantation

[bithead9]

what in the world does "recantation" have do do with any of this ?

[Ai Haibara]

It means that supanit has retracted what he said, since it's difficult to delete your own posts.

[supanit]

dear sir

i'm remove all msg in this topic and replace in word "Sorry, recantation ". because in this time . i order to dvr560h for test replacement hdd to 1tb already.

All process befor this message may be made miss-understood to newbie.
when i try out to success. i will be post to right step again.

best regard
supanit

[orsetto]

-- I think Orsetto put this issue to rest in another thread, informing us that the later hybrid Sony - Pio models have a firmware that locks you into using a 160G capacity HDD, or that even if you did get a larger HDD successfully transplanted, it would still not be recognized as being larger than 160G, or 250G in the case of the 650 / 660.]

During the time frame that supanit was posting of his problems, I have not had a spare larger-than-160GB HDD on hand that I could test-install in one of my own x60 Pioneers. I wish I did, so I could verify upgradability at least as far as the Canadian models, but I don't feel like spending the $$ on a HDD I don't really need right now just to test for this. I know I have seen one Pio 460 with a 500GB drive in it, I repaired it for a guy in Chicago about six months ago. I don't recall the actual capacity shown in the nav screen, but the actual drive was labeled 500GB.

All I can say with any certainty is that before Pioneer tanked, it had a supremely annoying habit of marketing the same basic recorder around the world in nearly a dozen variations, many near-indistinguishable from each other. As Hkan pointed out, in some cases firmware is interchangeable and model numbers/features can be activated/deactivated using the model setting system in the service screens (I do not recommend this: in my experience it leads to an unstable recorder if you choose the wrong model). It is possible supanit had one of these more peculiar international "non-country-specific" variants, and it gave him some trouble with HDD size recognition. The mega-capacity hacked Pioneers sold on eBay are primarily sourced from Hong Kong and are the most blandly "generic" of the possible global-market variations. I doubt seriously the importers would go to the trouble of "hacking" the recorder firmware to force a larger HDD recognition: thats too risky and troublesome. Either these Hong Kong units were mfr'd with 500GB, or they accept easy upgrades like earlier Pioneers (but unlike supanits peculiar unit and a few others I've heard of from others not on VH). Much as I love Pioneer recorders, I have to say their model/marketing schemes were utterly insane: there is no earthly reason for them to have made and sold a DOZEN different generic multi-region models. If Panasonic could manage with two, whose sole differentiation was hard drive size, what the hell was tiny Pioneer thinking of with this demented strategy? They made more generic "limbo" models than actual country-specific models! Ugh.

As soon as I actually need to buy a new HDD for a PC or recorder repair, I'll test-install it in my own x50 and x60 Canadian models and report back here with my findings. In any case, I find it re-assuring that even the goofier model variations can at least still accept and use any replacement drive at original-spec capacity: my primary concern is keeping these units operational. Capacity upgrades are nice, but I've said many times the execution falls short of the fantasy. These recorders were engineered as good basic recorders first, with jukebox functionality a distant afterthought: you really would not want to try and navigate a terabyte with one of these things. If your goal is to wave a wireless mouse wand at your 50" screen and have a menu come up letting you instantly choose from hundreds of recordings, get a dedicated home-theater PC.

[supanit]

update info

when we key-in cprm to HDD. Hdd it's quick format and stored cprm code in 1st track/sector.
there for in data disk or in operating sysytem of DVR(386/bsd) may be specific hdd size(in flash rom).

compare with dos command

FORMAT drive: [/V[:label]] [/Q] [/Fize] [/B | /S] [/C]

/V[:label] Specifies the volume label.
/Q Performs a quick format.
/Fize Specifies the size of the floppy disk to format (such as 160, 180, 320, 360, 720, 1.2, 1.44, 2.88)
/B Allocates space on the formatted disk for system files.
/S Copies system files to the formatted disk.
/C Tests clusters that are currently marked "bad."

because when we replace hdd 160 gb in dvr-560 (orginal-160gb) with HDD 250gb/500gb/1000gb DVR system can be found 160 gb only.

but when i replace hdd any size in dvr-650 (orginal-250gb) with any hdd size capacity. DVR system can be found 160 gb only. (cann't see full capacity). Excepting when install original HDD it's can be see HDD 250GB

Then, It's kept format command+add cprm in dvr flash rom. because if format command+add cprm kept in data disk, when replace HDD in DVR brand sony. it's no need to call data disk. but it's lock same DVR pioneer brand.(sony and pioneer is made in one manufacture together)

Therefore i belive it's posible to lock 2 case
1. lock by hid format command+add cprm in firmware.
2. lock by Operationg System in Rom or cpu by verify model of HDD.

In case of dvr-650 (orginal-250gb)
if verify right can be use HDD 250 GB. but if verify wrong can be use HDD 160 GB default.
and when i deep chk hdd runing of my dvr 340h(500GB) and new DVR560H. It's some attribute of DVR560 have to limitation in capability. (have a photograph to compair HDD in 2 model)

next time i will be try to use 3 choice before fine deep in software in rom or in cpu
1.use SATA hdd to IDE interface and key in cprm in dvr 340 with data disk type 2. and after that install HDD in dvr-560 for test
2.install freebsd in computer and fine program for format and key in cprm
3.load OS freebsd to DVR for crack it

any choice have a risk and useage longtime to test

[supanit]

ok. for disk limited space solution.

It's limits by "Disk Quotas" in FreeBSD.

How to resolve this problem?
reCompile Kernel again by config reconfig in kernel config file at path /usr/src/sys/i386/conf

remove this line
#echo 'enable_quotas="YES"' >> /etc/rc.conf
#echo 'check_quotas="YES"' >> /etc/rc.conf

after that
#pico /etc/fstab

fine line
/dev/ad0s1f /usr ifs rw,userquota,groupquota 2 2

replace to
/dev/ad0s1f /usr ifs rw 2 2

and save

edit in file "rc.local" remove lines

#touch /etc/rc.local
#echo 'quotacheck -a' >> /etc/rc.local
#echo 'quotaon -a' >> /etc/rc.local

remark* reCompile Kernel and rc.local edit it GGV disk. It's may be risk. pls careful in work.