# 211k dvr with 1.5T drive



## uncle.A (Nov 28, 2009)

Hi Guys, 
I have done some extensive research on the drives and found a post where someone said that 1.5T drives work for DVR. Today I received and hooked my (WD Caviar Green) 1.5T drive to 211k and the only message I have been presented with was the one saying that only drives between 50GB and 1T are supported. Then receiver went back to TV. Is there any work around it? Should I activate it with smaller drive and then switch to this? I would settle for the receiver formatting it to 1T as well.
Any ideas? I don't want to buy another drive again...

Andy


----------



## karrank% (Sep 20, 2009)

Don't know the details but I think if it has more than one spindle the system won't recognize it. my 640gb my book has no issues. 

Something about LUN can only be one. search the forums, it's in here somewhere.

Good luck.


----------



## uncle.A (Nov 28, 2009)

karrank%,
It does recognize it. It recognizes it as greater than 1T hence that message...

Thanks anyway.


----------



## karrank% (Sep 20, 2009)

uncle.A said:


> karrank%,
> It does recognize it. It recognizes it as greater than 1T hence that message...
> 
> Thanks anyway.


Sorry, misread there. Perhaps I misread the other posts around here as well? :\

So it's recognized but not supported as in authorized?

Maybe a call in to dish tech? I used chat to auth. mine worked quick & easy, maybe it could work for you?

Apolgize for the fumble, but good luck anyway.


----------



## uncle.A (Nov 28, 2009)

Not a problem and thanks.
Maybe this helps someone:
I tested activating-with-smaller-drive option. It works. I activated DVR feature on my account, but then when I connected 1.5T to it, I got the same message. I guess the drive is going back to Amazon. I ordered 1T instead.


----------



## samsmith (Oct 31, 2009)

Dish will only let you access anything between 50GB to 1TB.


----------



## wolfjc (Oct 4, 2006)

"Today I received and hooked my (WD Caviar Green) 1.5T drive to 211k and the only message I have been presented with was the one saying that only drives between 50GB and 1T are supported."

I really don't know what all the confusion is all about the message is VERY clear that any drive over 1T is NOT supported. What in the world is so hard to understand about this? 
If you don't understand this message you should NEVER go into computer support. IBM messages can be very confusing and impossible to understand..


----------



## P Smith (Jul 25, 2002)

If you has 622 or 722, then the 1.5 TB could be used as EHD there.


----------



## uncle.A (Nov 28, 2009)

wolfjc said:


> I really don't know what all the confusion is all about the message is VERY clear that any drive over 1T is NOT supported. What in the world is so hard to understand about this?
> If you don't understand this message you should NEVER go into computer support. IBM messages can be very confusing and impossible to understand..


Who said I do not understand the message? I asked if anyone knows a work around... 
And please do not tell people where they should or should not go... 
If you don't understand written words you shouldn't be even thinking about using any forum.


----------



## P Smith (Jul 25, 2002)

If you're desperate to keep the disk, then wait for new FW - Dish slowly raising the bar.


----------



## wolfjc (Oct 4, 2006)

uncle.A said:


> Who said I do not understand the message? I asked if anyone knows a work around...
> And please do not tell people where they should or should not go...
> If you don't understand written words you shouldn't be even thinking about using any forum.


[redacted] How exactly can there be a workaround when the message clearly says that ANY thing over 1T is NOT supported. 
The only workaround is to rewrite the code which you can not do.


----------



## JeffN9 (Apr 14, 2007)

Be nice I don't blame him at all for asking if there was a way to get a 1.5tb to work. There are very few clearly stated or even accurate messages that appear on the screen and every six csr's that you speak with will give you six different answers. 

I remember when they said that only up to a 750gb EHD was supported and many people here were reportedly using 1tb drives.

A teacher once told me that the only dumb question was the one you didn't ask.


----------



## uncle.A (Nov 28, 2009)

wolfjc said:


> [redacted] How exactly can there be a workaround when the message clearly says that ANY thing over 1T is NOT supported.
> The only workaround is to rewrite the code which you can not do.


If you have no idea how to help others you should shut up. You are just wasting everyone's time writing posts that introduce ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to the discussion. [redacted]


----------



## RickDee (May 23, 2006)

uncle.A said:


> If you have no idea how to help others you should shut up. You are just wasting everyone's time writing posts that introduce ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to the discussion. [redacted]


And you should understand that Dish writes the software and set the limits, so how would you expect anyone other than Dish to come up with a "work around" for the situation?

What is it about "only drives between 50GB and 1T are supported" that you can't comprehend?


----------



## uncle.A (Nov 28, 2009)

There have been MANY, MANY posts all over the internet claiming that 1.5T disks do work. Just google it. Some was claiming 2T was working as well...
And according to many here and DN itself only drives up to 0.75T are supported... 
I never ask anyone to come up with work around, I was asking if anyone knows of any...
Simple 'no' or no reply would mean there is no such thing. 
These forums are never really a good idea to ask questions, as I initially suspected...
Just wasting time...


----------



## Jim5506 (Jun 7, 2004)

I would trust P Smith's interpretation.


----------



## James Long (Apr 17, 2003)

uncle.A said:


> There have been MANY, MANY posts all over the internet claiming that 1.5T disks do work. Just google it. Some was claiming 2T was working as well...


You need to take it up with those claiming that 1.5T or higher than 1T actually works. It is their claim that something over 1T can work, not ours.

Per DISH Network the limit is 1T.


----------



## RickDee (May 23, 2006)

uncle.A said:


> There have been MANY, MANY posts all over the internet claiming that 1.5T disks do work. Just google it. Some was claiming 2T was working as well...
> And according to many here and DN itself only drives up to 0.75T are supported...
> I never ask anyone to come up with work around, I was asking if anyone knows of any...
> Simple 'no' or no reply would mean there is no such thing.
> ...


If you don't want a discussion, you can't accept criticism, and you don't cope with sarcastic replies, then perhaps you should reconsider your choice to make the post.


----------



## Jim5506 (Jun 7, 2004)

The 1.5T and 2.0T drives will work with the 612/622/722/722k as an EHD, but you will not be able to use the entire drive as dish has limits on partition size which, while it does not preclude the use of these very large drives, it makes them less desirable because of wasted space and $$$.

The OS on the 211/211k/411 will not format these large drives, so they are useless with them.


----------



## P Smith (Jul 25, 2002)

[strike][Jim, 211 actually formatting those big disks, but after reboot don't want to use them - see my old posts with partitioning info][/strike]

I should take this statement back - today I did try use Seagate 1.5 TB disk [ST31500541AS] on ViP211 again, got error message and disk content was 'sterile' - nothing changed on the factory clean drive.


----------



## Spudz76 (Jan 19, 2010)

Most extra-large hard drives have a hidden option to "clip" the size to any arbitrary amount you want. It is based on LBA blocks, and any standard size query at initialization will return the newly "clipped" size instead of the entire size, so it should work to trick these into seeing 1TB even if you happen to have a larger drive (and don't mind not being able to use the extra). This is a software setting, not to be confused with the hardware jumper on some drives which set clipping to 32GB or etc - that won't work and is only for fooling old BIOS which still does initial detections in C/H/S mode (it doesn't change the response to the "LBA Max Address" query).

Some manufacturer utilities can set this, for instance to use a drive with an old BIOS that doesn't like huge drives where you need it to lie and say some size other than the hardware jumper would set, but a universal tool called MHDD can also do it, which is available on the Universal Boot CD (google it). You won't be able to set it with MHDD without taking the drive out of the USB box and hooking it up to your native IDE/SATA connector on your motherboard, as it runs in DOS and therefore doesn't know about USB. But once you do the jumping through hoops hooking it up to your motherboard directly, booting up MHDD or other utility, and setting the maximum LBA size (using the "HPA" command in MHDD for example) to something under the 1TB limit and put it back in the USB enclosure, I would bet the STB would then detect it as 1TB and use it as 1TB even though it's really larger. The only "gotcha" is that Linux inherently knows how to "stroke" the drive and find the real maximum even if this soft limit is set, and since these all apparently run Linux of some type inside, it may still see beyond the lie. But, it's worth a shot in case they didn't configure the Linux kernel they used to use the stroke mode - in which case it will run along quite happily with the lied about size.

Hard drives have not been addressed using the old Cylinders/Heads/Sectors standard for a long time, so previous comments about physical number of platters make no sense at all, as that would relate only to the "H" part of C/H/S addressing and would be completely abstracted with LBA addressing. The largest 1TB number would take some experimentation to find the exact maximum, but if anyone tries this post the magic maximum number here for the benefit of everyone. I'd do the magic but I don't have an EHD to spare, and I don't have the DVR feature activated anyway if I did (I've got a 211k box).

Reference:
hxxp://hddguru.com/content/en/software/2005.10.02-MHDD/mhdd_manual.en.html#hpa


----------



## P Smith (Jul 25, 2002)

While it could be done, Fry's selling Seagate 1 TB cheap - do not need butchering 1.5 TB disks. 
Perhaps you could wait for new FW what will accept 1.5 TB disks as 622/722 taking it now, and soon 2 TB .


----------



## bnborg (Jun 3, 2005)

P Smith said:


> While it could be done, Fry's selling Seagate 1 TB cheap - do not need butchering 1.5 TB disks.
> Perhaps you could wait for new FW what will accept 1.5 TB disks as 622/722 taking it now, and soon 2 TB .


How cheap are they? The lowest prich I have seen is about $70.

I am now waiting for a $90 1.5 TB disk I ordered from Fry's last Friday.

I agree that it would be a waste of drive space. But if that is the disk you have, and you don't have any other use for that drive, it is a solution.


----------

