Help re copying recordings from Sky+ box to PC

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Help re copying recordings from Sky+ box to PC

Postby Nosmas » Wed Dec 21, 2011 4:57 pm

Hope this is the correct forum and that someone can please help.

My Sky+ box has suddenly started to mis-behave and will not allow access to the hard drive either to play recordings already made or to make a new recording. The box went into standby and I was unable to switch on by pressing the Sky button on the remote. When I phoned Sky they talked me through an update of the software but when that was finished I still couldn’t get out of standby. In a further call to Sky they offered me a new Sky+ HD box for free but with self set-up, which I have accepted. Next morning I was able to switch on the box but still no access to the hard drive.

As the existing box contains a number of recorded programs that I do not wish to lose, I am considering downloading Copy+ in order to copy those recordings to my PC and then to copy them to the new Sky+ HD box. Could someone please answer the following queries: -

1. The existing box is about 80% full so how much space would I need on my PC’s HDD to accept the copied recordings?
2. I have an external caddy into which I can put the hard drives from the Sky boxes for copying the recordings.
3. Is there anything I need to do with the new Sky+ HD box BEFORE copying the recordings from my PC to the new box hard drive – e.g. do I need to perform part or all of the ‘set-up’ procedure?
4. I have read that once the card is inserted into the new box it will not be possible to replay recordings on the old box. This does not appear to be a problem as I am unable to do this at present anyway.
5. I realise that opening the new box to remove the hard drive will invalidate the guarantee, but have read that if a problem occurs, the Sky engineer will not check if the box has been opened. Are there \any visible signs that the box has been opened?

All suggestions will be gratefully received.
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Re: Help re copying recordings from Sky+ box to PC

Postby micman2001uk » Thu Dec 22, 2011 12:00 am

Good Luck.
Last edited by micman2001uk on Thu Dec 22, 2011 12:07 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Help re copying recordings from Sky+ box to PC

Postby micman2001uk » Thu Dec 22, 2011 12:02 am

Hi,

Firstly I'm no expert on Copy+ but these are my experiences and suggestions.

1. The existing box is about 80% full so how much space would I need on my PC’s HDD to accept the copied recordings?
My Sky+ box had a 160GB drive, therefore 80% full would be ( 160 x 0.8 ) 128GB approx for a disc image.

2. I have an external caddy into which I can put the hard drives from the Sky boxes for copying the recordings.
Copy+ suggests using two hard drives at the same time, rather than swapping if possible.
Try using +Extract first to ensure the drive and contents can still be read OK, mine worked fine in the SKY+ box but due to corruption on the drive it would not work with Copy+ or +Extract. This was due to the Sky+ box crashing on occasions during recording.

3. Is there anything I need to do with the new Sky+ HD box BEFORE copying the recordings from my PC to the new box hard drive – e.g. do I need to perform part or all of the ‘set-up’ procedure?
I would always suggest setting up the new box first to ensure everything works as it should and Sky turn on your HD properly.

4. I have read that once the card is inserted into the new box it will not be possible to replay recordings on the old box. This does not appear to be a problem as I am unable to do this at present anyway.
Probably true as the card gets initialised to the new box so most of the functions of the old box wont work. if your Hard Drive is OK and it's the Sky+ box thats faulty then hopefully +Extract will work for you......it didn't for me sadly.

5. I realise that opening the new box to remove the hard drive will invalidate the guarantee, but have read that if a problem occurs, the Sky engineer will not check if the box has been opened. Are there \any visible signs that the box has been opened?
If you've taken a box apart before a few times and have the right tools then yes it can be done without any visible signs of being opened, however my experience is that the first attempt is a bit of a learning curve and it's easy to pull or tug a wrong bit and mark the box!

My advice is fit the new box as normal then strip the old box down and try and extract the programmes to your PC and burn onto a DVD for archiving so you keep your HD stuff seperate from non HD.

Good Luck.
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