Skip to main content

MagicTV Hard Drive Upgrade (MTV3600TD)

First, this will VOID your warranty so proceed at your own risk. I take no responsibility for any smoke or damage to your device!!

Although this is theoretically possible using the method described below, the 500Gb Hitachi hard drive (HCS721050CLA382) in the MagicTV box is a dedicated media drive designed especially for Digital Video Recorders.

Attempts to install a 1TB WD10EADS drive caused intermittent behaviour (frequent GUI lock ups) probably because it draws too much current so choose your replacement drive carefully. It would be best to stay with the Hitachi CinemaStar 7K1000.C drives to ensure compatibility. These are available up to 1TB as at 15th Feb 2011.

Steps to upgrade the hard drive.

  • Download the latest MagicTV firmware here http://www.magictv.com/nz/support.html (this is necessary even if you don't intend upgrading the firmware)
  • Extract the zip file to the root directory of a thumb drive
  • Power down and disconnect your device ** BE SAFE **
  • Install your new SATA HDD (9 case screws and 3 HDD screws)
  • If your confident, reassemble your device or wait until you've proved that it works
  • Insert your USB drive with the firmware on it into one of the rear USB ports
  • Turn on your MagicTV box and while it's booting, keep pushing the pause button on the remote (don't hold it down)
  • After a few seconds, the device will display RESCUE and advise it has found the firmware on the thumb drive. DO NOT PUSH OK at this stage
  • Enter 1, 5, 9, 0, 0 on the remote keypad and it will ask you if you want to format the HDD. Push OK to format the drive

Formatting only takes around 20~30 seconds and when complete you can simply turn the device off, wait 5 seconds and turn it back on again. Alternatively, you can follow the prompts on the device display and upgrade the firmware.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Using ESPEasy with Home Assistant via MQTT

Preface: I've just started playing around with Home Assistant on a Raspberry Pi and exploring the world of MQTT to control devices on the network. Learning curve is a bit steep but worth the effort as MQTT is very fast. The hardware and software tools I'm using are as follows: 2 x Sonoff relay units 2 x NodeMCU Boards ESPEasy firmware (must be version 121 or above as that contains the MQTT 'retain' flag option. Home Assistant software on Raspberry Pi2 MQTT Test Software: PC: MQTT.fx Android: MQTT Dashboard
17 comments
Read more

My Notepad++ tricks when editing YAML files in Home Assistant

To comment out a whole section in one go: Highlight the text you want to comment out and use CTRL + Q. If you do this at the start of a line, it will only comment that line. CTRL + Q is toggle mode (comment on/off). CTRL + K will allow you to add multiple comments one after the other.
2 comments
Read more

How to check what entities are filling up your Home Assistant database

If you use the Home Assistant MariaDB add-on, this tip will show you how to query the database so see what Home Assistant entity states are triggering the most, filling up your database. What were going to do: Install the phMyAdmin add-on for MariaDB. Query the MariaDB database. See what entity state changes have the most action. Paste the code below into the SQL query box:  select entity_id,count( * ) from states group by entity_id order by count ( * ) desc; And if you're using the internal home-assistant_v2.db instead, you can use the SQLite Web add-on to achieve the same thing.
Post a Comment
Read more