Humax DRT800 Hard Drive Noise & Replacement

[RhoXS]

We recently replaced our Humax DRT800 with a Tivo HD. The DRT800 is now in our bedroom. At night, when everything is very quiet, it continuously makes a lot of hard drive clicking sounds that are very distracting.

I am assuming the noise is simply the sounds of the head assembly as it dutifully records whatever channel it was last tuned to as it has no way of knowing no one is watching and there will not be any pause or rewind commands. I found that going into the appropriate setup screen, putting the unit into standby, and then immediately turning it back on, will stop the noise. This is not really an acceptable work around so I am looking for other suggestions, if there are any.

Can WinMFS be used to upgrade the drive in the DRT800? If so, I have the following questions:
-What is a quiet replacement drive that has proven successful in this machine?
-I have not yet taken the cover off, Is the drive a SATA or PATA device?

We intend to keep this unit for a long time in the future so I do not mind upgrading the hard drive to something quieter.

[cdeckert219]

I can answer 2 of your 3 questions...

Yes, you can use WinMFS to upgrade.

The drive is a PATA drive.

There are a number of threads which have recommendations for quiet drives. Do a forum search for "quiet" and peruse.

HTH!

[Alessan]

What is the difference from teh DRT400 and 800?
I have instantcake for the 800, and saw a 400 on ebay with a lifetime but I am worried I would have to buy a new copy.

[robomeister]

The DRT800 has a Firewire connection under the front panel, the DRT400 does not.

The DRT400 has a 40 GB drive, the DRT800 had an 80 GB drive.

The Instant Cake for the DRT800 should work on the DRT400. Both machines have a Tivo Serial Number (TSN) that starts with 595, so the images should be compatible.

Hope that helps,
robomeister

[mk678]

downloaded InstantCake (selected the large version for the DRT400/800) last night, configured the drive, and updated my new 300GB WD drive.

Slapped it in the Tivo, (checking cabling, etc) and get the reboot loop. I slapped in the old drive and it still works, so that's good.

My question is, does the version I downloaded support 300Gb drive sizes? I've skimmed the forums and see different handling of >170Gb and <170GB drives, and wanted to verify that the downloaded instantcake does in fact support the larger drives.

Beyond the standard, check you cables troubleshooting device, is there a FAQ somewhere for reboot problems, or some way to get more diagnostic info out of it? I'd rather not spend time trying everything under the sun of there is a smarter way to go about it ;)