Upgrading your sky+ hard drive

[reddwarfcrew]

Update - 29/03/09

Reports suggest that you no-longer need to use Sky Copy Plus to format the larger HDDs, although there hasn't been any proper confirmed reports.

If anyone tries it and is successful, then please add details to this thread

Update - 03/03/09

New links for tutorials for other sky boxes:

Pace 3100 (Sky+): Pace 3100 Sky+ Walkthrough
Amstrad (Sky+ HD): Amstrad HD Box - Walkthrough on how to change the Hard Drive
Thomson (Sky+HD): Thomson Sky+HD Walkthrough
Samsung (Sky+HD): Samsung HD Box - Walkthrough on how to change the Hard Drive
Pace (Sky+HD): Pace HD Box - Walkthrough on how to change the Hard Drive

Update - 26/09/08

A new tutorial on how to upgrade your Sky+ box can be found at How to upgrade your Sky+ Hard Disk Drive

Further tutorials for the Sky+HD box will follow.

Update - 23/08/08

We have today added Sky Copy Plus as a SkyUser Partner, and therefore it seems logical to add the following information, to the original post here.

You've probably heard of people who upgrade their Sky box with a new, bigger, hard drive, and thought about upgrading yourself. But you always have too many cherished or unwatched recordings in your planner that you don't want to lose?

And what happens to all those recordings if your hard disk was to one day just die on you?

The solution is simple. Copy+ is a free piece of software that lets you do just this - copy existing programmes to a new hard drive or back them up to your PC.

In fact, if you want to upgrade your drive and DON'T want to keep your recording then you may still need to use Copy! Why? Well, if you're planning on putting in a 750 GB or bigger drive then, due a bug in the Sky software, it won't recognise the full amount of space - only using Copy+ will make the full drive space available!

Sadly whichever you want to do, it involves removing the hard drive from your Sky box (those USB ports are, unfortunately, non functional).

Here's what you do...

1. Remove your hard drive from your Sky box (beware - this WILL invalidate your warranty!). There are a couple of great sites which will guide you through this process, as well as which hard drive to choose if you're upgrading - for example, Morlocks or Bevstar
2. Connect this to your PC - you'll need to connect this up internally or via an external drive caddy. It's recommended to use external caddies for problem free operation.
3. Now download and install Copy+ from their website
4. If you're simply backing up your hard drive them Copy+ should recognise your Sky drive and let you save it onto your PC for restoration later, if necessary
5. If you're copying to a new hard drive then you can either connect up your new drive to your PC at the same time (and copy between the two drives) or copy the existing drive onto your PC (using Copy+, naturally) and then connect your new drive and then restore the backup onto it.
6. Stick the hard drive back into the Sky box... voila!

Now, if you're copying to a new hard drive, you're probably wondering why you need Copy+ and can't use something such as Norton Ghost. The reason is simple - Norton Ghost does not understand the special disk format used by Sky and therefore cannot correctly resize partitions when copying to a different size drive.

You might have noticed that I've not gone into a great amount of detail, particularly with regard to Copy+. This is simply because there's a lot more help and assistance on the Copy+ site, where you can find the most up to date details. The Copy+ site has it's own forum if you get stuck and full instructions, hints and tips.

David.

Original thread below and thanks to reddwarfcrew for letting us add this information to his original post:

these links may be of interest to those wanting to upgrade their hard drive (and also copy across the programs recorded on the old drive, which I've only just noticed can now be done.):

FAQ on how to upgrade drive: Digital Spy - Sky+ Upgrade FAQ - 28th November 2006 - Digital Spy Forums

Software to copy across recorded programs: Copy+ : The Ultimate Sky+/XTV hard drive copier

Thread on how to upgrade to drive larger than 270Gb (which wasn't previously possible):
Pace V2 - 400 GB Hard Drive Upgrade Success ! - Digital Spy Forums

[jonathanen]

Originally Posted by reddwarfcrew

these links may be of interest to those wanting to upgrade their hard drive (and also copy across the programs recorded on the old drive, which I've only just noticed can now be done.):

FAQ on how to upgrade drive: Digital Spy - Sky+ Upgrade FAQ - 28th November 2006 - Digital Spy Forums

Software to copy across recorded programs: Copy+ : The Ultimate Sky+/XTV hard drive copier

Thread on how to upgrade to drive larger than 270Gb (which wasn't previously possible):
Pace V2 - 400 GB Hard Drive Upgrade Success ! - Digital Spy Forums

Hi Everybody!! I have some excellent news!! Finally, I have finished upgrading and copying using Copy+ : The Ultimate Sky+/XTV hard drive copier from Seagate ST3160212ACE - Sky+ Standard 160GB hard drive to my new and biggest Seagate ST3750640A - 750GB IDE / ATA Hard drive purchased from Ebay for £107 including p&p.

It took me a day and a half to complete the task, after going through my hard way experience of my Sky+ Pace TDS470N PVR3 HDD Upgrade, but its worth it in the end, laughing my head off, full of excitment and joys.

Soon, I'll add my most up-to-date information of how to upgrade Sky+ Pace TDS470N Hard drive upgrade and add it to my web site for everybody to see what I have been through the hard way. I think that I'm the first person to have very successful 750GB hard drive upgrade for Pace TDS470N model.

[jarr]

What do oyu gain from doing this?

[reddwarfcrew]

What, by putting a bigger hard drive in???

The bigger the drive, the more programs you can record and save.

[jonathanen]

Originally Posted by reddwarfcrew

What, by putting a bigger hard drive in???

The bigger the drive, the more programs you can record and save.

Yup!!

Exactly!! The bigger the drive, the better!! However its only 750GB HDD is all I can find on ebay, which I wanted to get 1TB (1000GB) HDD originally, but its all available in new SATA versions only, not the ATA / IDE version, which I need for the Sky+ Pace box. So I stick with it and get used to new 750GB HDD instead.

Sky+ Pace TDS470N PVR3 with 750GB HDD. Sky Remote Record enabled. Sky Anytime TV enabled.

[jonathanen]

Lovely and Sky+ with 750GB Hard Drive....

[Undecided Adrian]

The Copy+ website has now moved to:

Copy+ : The Sky & XTV Disk Copier

[jonathanen]

Finally, I have finished writing up on "MY HARD WAY EXPERIENCE OF SKY+ PACE TDS470N PVR3 HDD UPGRADE" and its on my web site now by clicking on this link.

[keith100]

Hi there,
I followed the previous posters link, and it nearly put me off doing the upgrade, however, I did do it, but it only took me 1 hour and 8 Min's to complete. Sorry, but how did it take you 17 hours, ? Unless you have a slow laptop.
I have exactly the same SKY Plus box as this poster.
Don't be put off by others saying it takes so long. My SKY + Drive was FULL, and I did a complete transfer of the drive, including the "Sky Anytime" programmes, with the source on a USB cable, and the target drive was on a spare IDE cable inside my tower. Target drive is a Samsung 500GB drive.7200 rpm.
For comparison, My PC is only a 3GB P4 Socket 478, with 1GB Ram, running XP Pro.SP3. Not the fastest by todays standards.

My SKY + is running faultlessly, and if anything, is a bit more responsive than before. No data loss or corruption.

Do follow the posters suggestions about disabling Anti Virus software etc, and the disconnection order of the cables as a precaution, and you wont go wrong. But you do NOT have to turn off the Live Pause or the SKY Anytime. It only takes about an extra 8 minutes to copy this stuff across.

Also, follow the instructions within the COPY + Proggy to the letter and you won't go wrong.

And to cap it all, the wife didn't even winge about it, as she didn't miss her "Cash in funny orifices" of " Homes under the Sledgehammer" trash proggys.
Total time from turning off to turning back on was 1 hr and 30 Min's.

The benefits, as previous poster said, Massive more recording time.

I'm not criticizing this poster, just reassuring others that it won't necessarily take you that long. In fact it should take you a fraction of the time.

Good luck.

[AWW]

wow, im getting my sky+ box on monday i cant wait....i would love to do a HDD upgrade but not to sure if i would be upto the task lol. coz if it goes wrong my dad will kill me :P