What's new
By:
Filters

Zgemma H2s External harddrive

Trying to initializ hard drive on zgemma h2s but no storage devices found it saying. I have a external powered hard drivein back usb port. any ideas???
 
Probably not a very clever setup, but I've got a reasonably old Imation drive. I reckon it's 2010 era. It's a BUS powered one, 750GB. However, it suffers from the 'click-of-death' which occurs when there's simply not enough power. Usually, this won't result in data loss, as adding the necessary power via a Y cable supplied with it will mean it begins to function again. I've plugged the power side of the Y cable into an old HTC phone charger, which seems to have it running nicely.

I'm still deciding whether to stick or twist with this setup though. It feels a waste to use what is a good portable drive via a Y cable, especially when I can get an old laptop drive from work and be sure it'll run via my 2.5HDD adapter.

---------- Post Merged at 04:43 PM ----------

Alfadaz said:
I used to use an older type HDD on my TV box that i used to get power issues with.

I ended up using one of these and plugged the 2nd end into my TV (on mine the 'extra power' end was longer).

View attachment 17473

Daz
Click to expand...
Just an observation, this might be a risky idea. If you're having power issues, this might cause data corruption. The TV would probably cut it's power after being shut off for more than a few minutes. Check it using a USB lamp or something.

---------- Post Merged at 04:43 PM ----------

TeamZebra1 said:
Hi

My hard drive stays on even when the box is in standby. Is there a setting or something to change to turn it off when the box is off? I thought i cahanged a setting to this, but it didnt work.
Click to expand...
How do you know it's staying on? Can you hear it whirring? Or is there a light? A power light doesn't indicate activity.
 
TeamZebra1;572560
Hi
My hard drive stays on even when the box is in standby. Is there a setting or something to change to turn it off when the box is off? I thought i cahanged a setting to this, but it didnt work.
Click to expand...

stoke said:
How do you know it's staying on? Can you hear it whirring? Or is there a light? A power light doesn't indicate activity.
Click to expand...

yes i see my hard drive LED light flicker when my box is turned off, it does not make any noises
 
biff2005 said:
stoke said:
How do you know it's staying on? Can you hear it whirring? Or is there a light? A power light doesn't indicate activity.
Click to expand...

yes i see my hard drive LED light flicker when my box is turned off, it does not make any noises
Click to expand...
But my point is, do you know if that indicates activity? Or is it simply a power light? My imation drive has an LED that irritatingly acts as an all-in-one indicator light. So, if you plug in power, it comes on. It then flickers when it indicates activity is going on. When the drive goes into a low powered state, it blinks every few minutes. One thing the light never does, is go fully off and I wouldn't expect it to either.
 
wooshman said:
A quick update with the video of the box being turned on from the off state.

You can hear my drive kick in, for some reason it powers up, goes off and powers up again, but that could be my drive? Never tried another one.

[video]https://drive.google.com/open?id=0Bwt-fajTjTRkZ3NCQVhOSGJoazA[/video]

770mA is the largest draw of power then instantly below the 0.50 as before.
At 1m:05s you hear the TV program start up which means timeshift has started too.
A further 13 seconds shows no power draw over 0.40.

Now bear in mind I don't use my box like a normal person so it is on, off, drive unplugged, drive plugged in (sometimes hot swapped) and it has has this abuse for 5 months solid, normally day in and day out. I will continue to use my USB powered hard drive as I do now and report back should there be any issues.

As richsimpson has said, the warranty is good for 12 months from date of purchase and nowhere do zgemma state that a USB powered drive is not to be used, so any failure is covered.


In closing:

Different drives may give different results and with that said I plugged in a branded 1TB Seagate Backup Plus portable drive which is USB 3.0. From a power off state the instant power draw was on 0.66, fluctuated between 0.30 - 0.55 before settling at 0.31. Watching it for a period of time the peak hit only 0.52 with timeshift on. So does this mean that even newer HDDs use less power than previous USB drives?

My findings are on two drives only but they are the results. It is possible that the warning of using a USB powered USB HDD is now outdated due to modern technology using less power as laptops and the battery life are key.

I will continue to use my older USB 2.5 HDD caddy of no brand with an old 320gb HDD in it which the videos show in use. If I need more space I know I can plugin my 1TB and reduce power draw even more. Win Win!
Click to expand...
Hello Wooshman / Everybody. Just been reading all the above from years ago but please can anybody advise on which USB 2.5 inch external HDD's are good to use with the zGemma h2s - and if there's a maximum hard drive size you would suggest not to go beyond? Only asking as I have seen some (old and recent) comments regarding mains powered HDD's Vs USB powered but just checking as it's now years later and I'm thinking of buying a 4 or 5GB box. Note I have been used a couple of 2TB Toshiba Canvio Basics external USB powered drives for years and they've been fine but a 4TB version of the same HDD crashed a few days ago after 1 year. Thanks
 
wooshman said:
The drive being on all the time with timeshift draws approx 450mA. It is boot that seems to pull the extra mA and voltage on initial switch on of the box.

Personally don't have an issue with using my USB powered 320gb HDD, it has been running now for 5 months and plugging it in was the first thing I did.

If I can find it I will plug in my USB power meter and make a video of the voltage and mA used at switch on and general use.
Click to expand...
Hello Wooshman / Everybody. I am reposting this in case you didn't see it before. Sorry I only just noticed you / nobody replied yet. Please let me know what you think on this issue. Thank you...
Just been reading all the above from years ago but please can anybody advise on which USB 2.5 inch external HDD's are good to use with the zGemma h2s - and if there's a maximum hard drive size you would suggest not to go beyond? Only asking as I have seen some (old and recent) comments regarding mains powered HDD's Vs USB powered but just checking as it's now years later and I'm thinking of buying a 4 or 5GB box. Note I have been used a couple of 2TB Toshiba Canvio Basics external USB powered drives for years and they've been fine but a 4TB version of the same HDD crashed a few days ago after 1 year. Thanks
 
Paul A said:
Hello Wooshman / Everybody. I am reposting this in case you didn't see it before. Sorry I only just noticed you / nobody replied yet. Please let me know what you think on this issue. Thank you...
Just been reading all the above from years ago but please can anybody advise on which USB 2.5 inch external HDD's are good to use with the zGemma h2s - and if there's a maximum hard drive size you would suggest not to go beyond? Only asking as I have seen some (old and recent) comments regarding mains powered HDD's Vs USB powered but just checking as it's now years later and I'm thinking of buying a 4 or 5GB box. Note I have been used a couple of 2TB Toshiba Canvio Basics external USB powered drives for years and they've been fine but a 4TB version of the same HDD crashed a few days ago after 1 year. Thanks
Click to expand...

Personally I use a SanDisk cruzer blade 128gb,no need for large hard drives as plenty can be stored and if it does gets full you can always transfer files from box to computer for storage,I've got over a 100 hours of recorded/downloader files and still got 50% left on the usb.
 
I use 500gb hard drive for media storage and 32gb sd card for epg e.t.c on zgemma h9 combo, would never consider using really large hard drive smaller drve easier to transfer file for backup and if largwr drive goes down more stuff to lose. On h2s I just used the sd card.
 
Hello Bigwig and Urie,
Thanks for the info.
I think I'll probably just get another 2TB HDD as they've always been ok for me up until now. The thing is - you both mentioned you simply transfer over TV programs to your computers but as the file format of the drives converts to EXT4 (Linux file format) and I'm using a Windows 10 laptop (I'm not familiar with Linux) - although I know it's the .TS files that are the ones with the TV shows on them, they also download to the HDD with various other file types.

Do you have an easy way to transfer your TV show files (.TS files) from the HDD to a Windows laptop / PC?

Thanks,

Paul
 
Paul A said:
Do you have an easy way to transfer your TV show files (.TS files) from the HDD to a Windows laptop / PC?
Click to expand...

One way is to use 'Filzilla' over your network, albeit a tad slow.

Another and faster way is to plug the HD into your PC and use something like 'Linux Reader' to transfer.
 
I use Windows 10 on the laptop and connect to zgemma box over the Network,all my files are mp4 downloaded from the e2iplayer,movies and series etc.
 
Paul A said:
Hello Bigwig and Urie,
Thanks for the info.
I think I'll probably just get another 2TB HDD as they've always been ok for me up until now. The thing is - you both mentioned you simply transfer over TV programs to your computers but as the file format of the drives converts to EXT4 (Linux file format) and I'm using a Windows 10 laptop (I'm not familiar with Linux) - although I know it's the .TS files that are the ones with the TV shows on them, they also download to the HDD with various other file types.

Do you have an easy way to transfer your TV show files (.TS files) from the HDD to a Windows laptop / PC?

Thanks,

Paul
Click to expand...
use windows file explorer example just type \\192.168.1.5 (your ip address of you stb)
Capture.JPG

first time when trying to connect windows will as for password if on open atv 6.3 it is root if openatv 6.4 user root password root
 
Last edited:
bigwig21 said:
I use Windows 10 on the laptop and connect to zgemma box over the Network,all my files are mp4 downloaded from the e2iplayer,movies and series etc.
Click to expand...
Hi Bigwig. So you're saying none of your files are recordings that you have taken from 'normal' TV channels, only things that are on the e2iplayer plugin? For me, I am only wanting to transfer files (only the .TS files) that are written to the HDD when recording from any TV channels.
 
urie said:
use windows file explorer example just type \\192.168.1.5 (your ip address of you stb)
View attachment 54928

first time when trying to connect windows will as for password if on open atv 6.6 it is root if openatv 6.2 user root password root
Click to expand...

Hi Urie. Thanks for the info. This is the way I have always accessed / watched my recordings on my laptop (if the missus is too busy using the TV!) - I go to Windows File Explorer, then to my mapped drive (the HDD connected to the box) and play the relevant .TS file using any of a few media players. So I guess I'll just need to copy all of the .TS files that I want to keep.

I have two zGemma h2s boxes and can only currently do this for the one that's in my bedroom (running an old Wooshbuild image on OpenATV).

I think you saw / commented on my other post recently where Willow suggested I update my old iPab image to use Grogbuild instead. I did this (after first overwriting iPab with a very recent bare OpenATV image - I think it was the one dated 24th September) and the IP address of this box (in my living room) is still the same as before - but I can no longer access anything on my network / Windows 10 laptop, so this means I am a bit stuck with this box!

In Windows Explorer, the mapped drive now just shows up with a status of 'Disconnected'. I have tried entering root / password / my newly saved password - but nothing is accepted when I try to connect (have been trying to map a new network drive to \\192.XXX.X.XX\Harddisk\movie) which is the same format I have used to access my box running Wooshbuild in my bedroom. So it appears to be some password related problem. I am also unable to set up any network mounts from one box to the other - I get a message saying the mount has been a success but when I try to access any content using the bookmarks button, some error message always pops up.

FYI, I just asked Grog if he could take a look at the posting I put up on Tuesday but feel free to let me know any thoughts you have on this issue too. Here is the link to it:

Installng / using a HDD on ZGEMMA H2S

Thanks,

Paul
 
@Paul A if you are using openatv 6.4 you need to set password a for user name and password first before you can access. so you need to go to menu\setup\system\network\password setup you can just use root for both to test. I think someone had already mentioned this if you have set up password then you login with username or whatever you set and then password so it is twice unlike openatv6.3 where you would just use root
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top