This article describes how to replace a broken hard drive on MAXIMUM C-800 PVR. The same procedure most probably applies to the T-800 PVR also.
Maximum C-800 PVR
Introduction
The C-800 PVR is a nice digital television transceiver with recording capability. According to the manufacturer it is only sold in Finland; or was as the Finnish importer went bankrupt. After that the Finnish retailers bought all the remaining pieces from the bankruptcy estate cheap and sold them in very compelling price and offered shortened 6 month retailer warranty.
The device comes with two tuners, so you can record two channels and at the same time view some third. The device also has time shift feature which allows to pause the live program on channel currently being viewed when ever you want and then resume later or rewind back anytime if you for example missed something in the program. Technically the time shift is implemented so that the device is actually constantly recording also the channel you are currently watching. All this being said it’s clear that the hard drive is under constant heavy use.
Now, it was shocking to notice that the hard drive in my box lasted only for a couple of months. Well, no big deal I thought. I probably just had bad luck and I still was entitled to the retailer warranty. Unfortunately it took almost a month to get our box back from repair. I was stunned to notice that the new hard drive broke only after a couple of months, again!
It was pretty obvious that the hard drives used in these boxes were of poor quality. I still could have got the hard drive changed through warranty, but I were not very thrilled of the idea to be without a digital transceiver for another month and still probably having a poor quality hard drive which just would blow up after a couple of months and we would loose all the recorded cartoons and Babylon 5 episodes all over again.
So, I decided to buy a new hard drive and change it myself. I bought a 320GB Western Digital WD AV. You may buy any hard drive as long it’s an IDE model, not SATA. WD AV hard drives are designed for HTPC and such devices, so they should withstand heavy use. And if they don’t you have three year manufacturer warranty so you should get replacements long after the warranty of your C-800 PVR has ended. One thing I at least noticed is that the WD AV is more silent than the original hard drive; in fact I can’t hear it at all, but the original was keeping constant rustling noise.
Instructions
First step is to open the top cover of the box to gain access to the hard drive inside. The cover is fastened with five small black screws. The location of the screws is shown in the picture below.
Cover Screws
A Top Cover Screw
Here’s how the box looks inside:
Internals of the C-800 PVR
The hard drive is in the left upper corner.
Broken Western Digital Hard Drive
Now remove the wires connected to the hard drive. The wire on the left is the IDE cable and wire on the right is the power cable. Just gently pull them out. If they don’t seem to detach easily you may gently wiggle the connectors from side to side.
Wires Connected to the Hard Drive
The hard drive is attached on top of a rack, so you have to detach the rack from the bottom of the box first. The rack is attached with four screws.
Location of the Rack Screws
A Rack Screw
The hard drive is attached with four screws and there’s also shock absorber rings made of rubber.
Hard Drive Screws
Now, you should have the broken hard drive completely separated from all the other parts. Make sure to deliver it to the nearest recycling center.
Take the replacement hard drive.
320GB Western Digital WD AV
Before you attach the hard drive you have to make sure the jumper settings are correct. You should set the jumpers in Master, Single or Cable Select settings depending on your specific hard drive model. Just take a look at the top of your hard drive. There should be some sort of picture or description of the jumper settings.
When jumper settings are in place, attach the new hard drive to the rack (remember the rubber absorbers!!), attach the rack back to the box, attach the cables to the hard drive and close the cover. And you are done.
Booting Up
When you have replaced the hard drive, plug in the power cord and switch the box on. The display should say Boot and then FSCK. It might take a minute, but don’t worry; the recorder is checking and formatting the new drive. After a while the display will display Boot again and the box boots up normally. Now check the Recordings menu and verify that the hard drive was detected correctly.
The amount of free space is significantly smaller than the size of the new hard drive, but that is just because of the EXT3 file system used in the drive wastes some space.
If you have any questions or problems, please, don’t hesitate to use the comment section below.