In a previous article I blogged about adding an external hard drive to a Bell Expressvu 6141 receiver. In several emails I have been asked about adding an external hard drive to a Bell Expressvu 9242 HD PVR Plus Receiver. Several readers have written:
Is it possible to add an external hard drive to a Bell Expressvu 9242 HD PVR Plus Receiver using the same method you have described for the Bell Expressvu 6142 receiver.
The answer is Yes.
Even though the Bell Expressvu 9241 / 9242 HD PVR Plus Receivers already have an internal hard disk drive, you can expand your recording capacity in three easy steps since Bell has activated the USB port on the back of these receivers:
- Purchase an external hard disk drive for your Bell Expressvu 9241 / 9242 HD PVR Plus Receiver
- Plug the external hard disk drive into the USB port on the back of your HD PVR
- Transfer your PVR recordings to the external hard drive
Once you connect the external hard drive to your Expressvu 9241 / 9242 HD PVR Plus Receiver and power it on, you will be prompted to format the drive. This will erase all information that may be contained on the drive. Once formatted, the storage capacity of the external hard drive becomes available to the 9241 / 9242 receivers.
You can connect an external hard drive to your Expressvu 9241 / 9242 HD PVR Plus Receiver if it has the following specifications:
- 7200 RPM rotation speed
- 40 GB – 750 GB capacity
- Single hard drive enclosure, enclosures with 2 or more drives are not supported
- AC power source, drives supplied power by the USB port are not supported
- No sleep mode on the enclosure (drive cannot power down when idle)
While Expressvu states it will support only drives that are between 40 GB and 750 GB, I have successfully tested drives with 1.0 TB of storage. I have also successfully tested many different drive types, including Western Digital, Seagate and Maxtor in a variety of enclosures that I already owned.
If you are thinking of building an external drive for your Expressvu receiver because it is cheaper, shop around for an enclosure that is already built. Walmart in my area was carrying 1 TB external hard disk drives for $94! The drive was a no-name drive, but when I cracked it open to look, it had a western digital drive inside. I could not find anywhere online to even purchase the drive alone for that price. These cheap Walmart drives worked great. My only complaint was the flashing blue light on the drive but I fixed that with a piece of black tape.
It really is that simple to add an external hard drive to an Expressvu 9241 / 9242 HD PVR Plus receiver.
I purchased a Western Digital 750 MB drive from Memory Express and hooked it up to my 9242 HD PVR
It is not totally proplem free. Sometimes on play back the picture freezes in the middle of a movie.The only way to fix it is to rebbot the 9242 HD PVR by holding down the button on the fron panel.I then start the movie again and fast forward to the part of the movie that it froze at and then I can continue to watch the show. I hooked up a Western digital 500 MB to a 6143 HD receiver and it works 100% on play back, just cant record and watch a different show at the same time
Which Western Digital Drive? Is this the MyBook series? These tend to have sleep on idle enabled by default and I have not found a way to turn it off just yet. Buying a western digital drive that is in a 3rd party case seems to work well though. It could also be the USB version of these devices. Maybe not USB 2.0 compliant.
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Once you have recorded to a seperate hard drive…can you view/play the contents on a computer? or burn a dvd/bluray?
thx in advance
Cliff
Clifford, you cannot watch on a computer. I have not been able to crack that just yet!
Hi Barry,
Is it possible to insert a USB key into the USB port on the back of the PVR, instead of an additional hard drive? I don’t like the idea of having to lug around another hard drive. In this way I can also more quickly transfer the recorded program to a variety of desktop or laptop computers in order to then convert to my Creative Zen for watching at a later date while in transit to/from work. Thanks.
No, you cannot use a USB key. You need a device that is powered. This is the same requirement for hard drives – they must have an external power supply as the receiver is not able to power the devices.
Hello ; Why does bell advise you cannot hookup a external drive to the 9242? I asked then yesterday and that is the answer I received, I am going to take your advise and purchase a external Drive.
I am sorry but did you say the “My book Hard drives” will not work. If you can provide me with a reply it would be greatly appreciated
thanks
tony
I’m not sure why Bell would tell you not to hook up an external drive. As for the drives you mention, there are known compatibility issues with the receivers.
Where can I get a pdf format manual for a bell 9241?
Better still why as a subscriber must I pay so much for a device that is on sale at all the big box stores all the time?
You will find the manual here.
http://www.bell.ca/support/PrsCSrvTv_DTHHelp_9241Guides.page#1
As for why is it on sale at the big box stores all the time – not sure, but it’s currently on sale at Bell as well. $299 for existing customers.You will find the manual here.
http://www.bell.ca/support/PrsCSrvTv_DTHHelp_9241Guides.page#1
As for why is it on sale at the big box stores all the time – not sure, but it’s currently on sale at Bell as well. $299 for existing customers.
Thanks for the great info. I was looking at purchasing the Bell 9242, but I read somewhere the 9241 is better if I can find it because it allows output to two separate TVs, where the 9242 only allows output to one. Is this true? And if so, any idea where could I get a 9241, since both the Source and Bell seem to only offer the 9242?
Sorry, I mixed up my model numbers above. It’s the 9241 that’s being offered by Bell and the Source, but the 9242 that is supposed to be the better unit allowing dual output.
I purchased a 1TB hard drive and connected it to my bell receiver. It worked fine. My plan was to then to use my PC to create DVD’s. When I plugged the drive into my PC, my PC can no longer see it. Since my plan will not work, how can a re-format the drive for use with my PC again?
Once it’s plugged into the receiver, the drive will be formatted with an EXT3 file system. That’s LINUX based. You can plug it into and read the files from a Linux based system no problem. However, burning them on a DVD is useless, the files are encrypted. If you want to use the drive back on your PC, use Disk Management to repartition and reformat the drive.
Thanks for the info transferring from 9242 to external hard drive. Will save me many hours of recording all the South Park episodes my son as has PVRd to DVD.
FYI, I have Sony DVR hooked up to 9242. I am able to record from PVR to DVR and the DVDs do play on my tv and my computer.
I’m not a techie. Why can the external HD not go into sleep mode? All I really want to do is transfer and save shows to the ext. HD. Will I always need to keep it hooked up to 9242? If I remove it and then hook it up again, will 9242 try to format it and I end up losing all data? Most of the ext. HDs I’m seeing on walmart site have the energy saving sleep feature (really, how much energy does one save?). Can this feature be turned off? Thanks!
M. Wheeler,
You have stated earlier that the external disk is formated with the EXT3 filesystem. that make that disk readable in a linux system. Do you know what codecs the pvr uses to encode the video? I guess it is using something standard.
Is there a unit I can buy to hook up to my 9242 to watch HD expressvu programming on my 3rd, 4th and 5th TV without having to install another dish with a double LMB?
Any suggestions on what external hard drive is the best one to purchase out there right now? I need to get a hard drive asap as my bell internal one is not recording all programs correctly. Thanks again
Do you know if there is a way to upgrade the internal HD (i own my 9241) to a 1TB I hate having to archive all the time.
Hello,
I am currently a subscriber to Bell Expressvu with H.D. PVR receiver at home. I would like to add another H.D. receiver (PVR not need) out at the cottage. I have a standard Bell receiver.
Any recommendations?
I don’t know much about the whole Dish thing.
Also I have heard that Bell will allow up to 5 receivers on one account, as I know several people who are utilizing this option, however when I called Bell they said no such option is available. Any advice?
I have a 9242 and a 1.0 TB Simpletech EHD. I successfully transferred approx 14 moives (some SD some HD) to the drive. I can watch the movies from the drive no problem, but when I try to transfer more shows/movies to the EHD, I get an “unexpected error 855″ after which I can’t access the EHD as its “being used by the other tv (error 914).” Not sure why it worked fine for a while and now won’t. Help?
I have a Maxtor OneTouch III external harddrive with firewire and USB. It has a Diamondmax 10, 300gb Serial ATA/150 interface hardrive at 7200rom.
It is not recognized by the Bell PVR port. Is this because it is ATA 150 instead of 300 (sata II) or do these external drives need to have a IDE interface ?
My PVR is a 3 yr old model 9200 with an activated USB port (it wants to work with my latop if it formats the HD)
I currently have the bell 9200 I would like to upgrade to the 9241 or upgrade the memory but apparently the USB on the 9200′s hasn’t been activated my problem is I have valuable programming (famiy on TV, world cup finals in HD etc.) recorded on that PVR that I do not want to lose!!, how can I activate the USB so I can upload my programming to an external hard drive and move it to the newer 9241
I recently had to buy a 9241 to replace my 9200. I took the hard drive out of the 9200, bought a chassis and installed it. Plugged the USB in and the 9241 wants to reformat the hard drive….I want to xfer my files (or just see them) off the 9200 disk. Any way to do it???? Why aren’t the two file systems compatible?
Those of you that want to move from the 9200 to the 9241…..there are features that are taken away with the 9241. The most frustrating is the SWAP & PIP. Even though there are 2 tuners, you can ONLY use the 2nd tuner for record, no more flipping between tuners.
I have a 9242. Hooked up a 750 GB HD that I bought from Bell (LaCie Drive)
I had recorded, then later transferred over programming from the PVR to the Exrernal USB HD.
I transferred files that have filled the External HD to the max (I assume it is full as the last movie I transferred was 2.0 hours and the External HD had room for 2.5 hours)
Now I am not able to access the external HD. When I try to, the 9242
re-boots…….
Any solutions to this.
Thank you
BNP
I am suspecting that the drive is full, and this is a known issue with some of the Bell receivers. You may have to plug the drive into a PC and format it. This means that you will lose your files that you transferred to it. Another option if you’re a Linux person, is to access the external – it should be in EXT3 format – and then remove some of the programming.
Have you contacted Bell support?
I am considering buying a 9241, my question to you has to do with dvd’s. Can I hook up my dvd recorder to the pvr to make a dvd of something I’ve recorded. Bell’s tech support told me earlier this week that, this is not possible because of copyright infringement laws. Pvr is great but what about being able to make a hard copy of something for my archives.
Thank you
Greg
I have a 9242. When I try to access the PVR, I get Error message 024 “Unable to access this feature at this time. Data not available”. Can this problem be solved? If not, I will buy an external hard drive, assuming it will restore the original PVR functions.
Yes you can record the PVR programs on a DVD. Very easy!
Can I use a Seagate 1tb external hard drive with my
bell 9242?
Hi there… if the external drive is full is there any way to use a PC to copy the entire contents of the 1 TB external drive to say a larger 1.5 TB drive and thus not have to re-format the drive and lose any archived content? Reformatting the drive is not something i want to do.
I have the 9241 as Bell has indicated that the 9242 is not available. Does anyone know where to get one as I understand I can record to PVR or external disk and access from second TV.
how about using sharing one hard drive with two PVRs 9241 or 9242? is it possible to view shows recorded from one PVR on the other one, and vice versa?
Thanks
Cj
just purchased the bell pvr 9241, and was wondering if i can put my vacation videos on a usb stick, and watch it through the pvr to my tv? any ideas?
I can’t any answers on how you hook up the second tv to the receiver.
Yo.. man is there are question.. lets chat with the man that knows and make it short and easy.. ME
Adding a external HD…. Read Bells specs plain English
You can not read or use that HD on a computer again unless it is formatted… (all shows will be wiped)
You can not use the HD between different receiver models *
Buying a HD is hit and miss, even if you read Bells specs, so make sure you can take it back.. (walmart)
Yes you can get a free upgrade in receivers..
Call bell 1888 673 4544 EX 9241 and bitch… (but you better be a good standing customer to bitch)
How many extra hours will a 500gb HD give me? Trying to figure out what size I should get. Pretty sweet deals out there at the moment…
External Hard drive freeze/Hard drive Full/9241/9242 Receivers
I experienced the EHD freeze problem and went through the angst of what happened? Bad drive etc. The problem, of course was that the drive was full. Thank Bell for not informing anyone of the potential problem we ALL will experince. All things considered, Bell’s response to this is a disgrace. After much digging I found the solution at Digital Home Web Site (http://www.digitalhome.ca/) in their discussion forums. I pasted it all together and dumped it into a word doc. Its pretty well laid out if you follow the thread. I’ll paste it here and hope that their is enough room. If someone wants to Word doc, let me know. Good luck.
Discussion Forum
BellTV 9242: Firmware V183 Discussion (EHD fixes)
http://www.digitalhome.ca/forum/showthread.php?t=94704&page=13
192
Thanks for this informative post GIANT. I tried to replicate within windows. First, I tried Ext2 IFS for Windows “It provides Windows NT4.0/2000/XP/2003/Vista/2008 with full access to Linux Ext2 volumes (read access and write access).” http://www.fs-driver.org/index.html This driver would not mount the 3 drives. I ran the mountdiag.exe utility found in the Trouble Shooting section and it returned a message like – your journal is screwed, probably from a system crash, and you need to run the e2fsck tool. (Linux does it automatically.) The Ext2 file system driver of the Ext2 IFS software will refuse mounting an Ext3 file system which contains data in its journal. – I think this is why it didn’t work for me.
I then found – Ext2Fsd: an open source Linux ext2/ext3 file system driver for Windows systems (NT/2K/XP/VISTA, X86/AMD64). http://sourceforge.net/projects/ext2fsd/ I was able to mount the 3 drives and delete a few folders from the biggest drive. The 2 big drives were ~ 437Gb and 500Gb. I reduced the 500Gb partition to about 470Gb by deleting several folders. I could read the ‘cat’ file to determine what program was to be deleted using notepad.
I hooked the drive back up to the receiver and it crashed the PVR upon trying to access it. I think the ‘journals’ are corrupt from a bad shutdown. As I don’t have a Linux machine, it would be great to find a way to rectify this within windows. Any ideas?
Mike
193
Zippy, download the Ubuntu Linux Live CD and just boot your PC with it. After it comes up, plug in your drive and have a look around. The Ubuntu live CD will not change a thing on your PC. When you are done, just shutdown your PC and take the CD out. Much easier than trying to install a bunch of drivers on your Windows machine.
194
Thanks! I was on the Ubuntu site and didn’t see a Linux boot disk. If my PC boots into a true Linux environment, that sounds like it would get me well on my way to a fix! I’ll post my results.
195 EHD Full -PVR reboot Problem
________________________________________
I too was plagued with this problem early this week. Afraid I would loose lots of great concerts and the IMAX specials, I have to thank ‘the giant’ for saving my contents. Just refer to his post #96 on this thread, print out the page and follow the instructions exactly. I did find the Ubuntu Desktop on their site after a little digging. You have to burn the bootable disk, and it works as they claim. NO changes to your system, except to change your bios boot device order (CD first), then change it back when all done. Ubuntu even reminds you to remove the CD when you shut it down.
One thing that didn’t work for me was viewing the ‘cat’ file with the text editor. I did at least 20 Gigs of blind deletes using the ‘terminal’ program, and tried the drive to only find the same reboot problems. Out of desperation, I hooked the EHD back up to Ubuntu, and discovered that the Open Office word processor could read the ‘cat’ files. I painstakingly went through every ‘cat’ file in every folder and found numerous ones with gibberish in them (no real info)! I deleted all these folders. I should have stopped there, but I deleted a few other identified programs that I didn’t want. In all I deleted about 40 Gigs of stuff. **EHD works now, and everything I didn’t delete is still there and works as before**. Even after deleting close to 40 Gigs of stuff, I still had only 3 hours of HD space left! HD consumes vast quantities of space!
So, I don’t really know what the real solution was. The folders with the gibberish ‘cat’ files, or the deleting of more content. I’m just happy that it works! I cannot believe that BellTV will NOT address these issues! This should NEVER happen!
Note: In the PVR screen, the EHD is now called USB Storage for some reason, but that might revert back after a PVR reboot.
Thanks again for everyone’s input on this Forum!
Frank
96 THE SOLUTION
Hi jb1,
I had the same problem your experiencing, my external drive was full and when I tried to access it the 9242 would hang and reboot. I am pleased to report I have been able to fix the problem. I warn you that the solution is not pretty but it works and does not require you to format the external HD and lose all your recordings.
The receiver formats the external HD using a Linux ext3 file system. The drive can be mounted by any recent Linux distribution – Ubuntu 8.10 Desktop (http://www.ubuntu.com/GetUbuntu/download ) is what I used. Once the drive is mounted in Linux it shows up as three separate partitions: disk – one small 1GB partition (seems to be a swap and/or control partition), disk-1 and disk-2 two larger partitions where the video files are stored. Inside the disk-1 and disk-2 mounts you will find a folder called DishArc. This is the folder where the video archive folders can be found. On my drive they were named both alphanumerically and just numerically. Inside each video archive folder you will find four files bm, cat, tsp, wtt. If you open the cat file with a text editor you can see the name of the video recording this file holds along with the description that shows up in the PVR info window. If your not concerned about what video your are deleting you can just inspect each folder to see how large it is and choose one for deletion. I choose a large archive of about 7GB to delete and I also chose to delete the archive from the partition that was most full.
Up to this point everything I have described was done using the Ubuntu Desktop GUI. To make the deletions, however, I used the terminal. In terminal change directories down (cd ..) until you are in the user directory and change to the directory called media (cd media). Then call a list (ls). Then change directory to disk-1 or disk-2 (cd disk-1) – choose the directory where the folder you want to delete is. Then (cd DishArc) – remember Linux is case sensitive. Then list screen (ls). Now you will see the list of folders. Now to delete the folder you want to remove do the following: sudo rm xxxxxxxx/* (enter password when prompted) and when this has finished do this: sudo rmdir xxxxxxxx – remember that xxxxxxxx is to be replaced with the name of the directory to be removed.
Presto the video archive has been deleted. Try deleting just one directory and reconnecting to the 9242. If all is well it will be able to connect – if not remove another one and be sure to delete them from the partition that is most full.
Now if you have a way to mount Linux partitions from within your own operating system (Windows, Mac) then this could all be much easier. I choose to use Linux for this and it worked well – your mileage may vary with Linux or any other OS – I make no warranties. The one question that remains, however, is how the software for the 9242 could be written to allow a drive to fill up in the first place. A simple script could keep this from happening by stopping the archiving process and telling the user the drive is full.
Cheers,
thegiant
197
Also, if you don’t want to lose any recordings, you can copy the directories to another drive that was previously formatted on the same 9242. Test the destination drive to make sure your shows work and then proceed to delete them from your full drive. Just copy the whole (numbered name ) directories to the other drive
Jb1
Call Bell, complain and demand compensation!! (Free TV)
Having bought a Bell 9200 PVR found that the hard drive capacity of 30 hours of HD programmes was limited. Bought an Iomega 34579 External Hard Drive with a capacity of 1TB from Tiger Direct for just under $100. Plugged in the USB2 terminal on the PVR & within moments the PVR recognised the hard drive & asked if I wanted to format the drive. Having formated the drive, the external drive has a capacity of 133 hours of HD programmes or 2000 hours of regular programmes. Have used it many times & it works well.
Bernard Jones, Mississauga
Confirming what Bernard Jones left —”Iomega 34579 External Hard Drive with a capacity of 1TB from Tiger Direct for just under $100″ , YES CONFIRMED IT WORKS BEAUTIFULLY. I also bought 2 Iomegas at TigerDirect Etobicoke (behind Red Lobster on south side Queensway across Sherway Gardens Mall) for 98$ tax included, great deal.
Hello Barry have you found how to convert the saved movies on a external drive to DVD yet? Am I to understand that Bell saves their files under LINUX? Please send me a e-mail I would like to talk about this with you in great detail
Tony
Barry. Can you confirm that this is with the 9200???? not 9242 or one of the others…
As a 9200 owner this is the first I have heard that someone was successful with this! It would be great if it worked.
Hello:
I have a 9200PVR and a 9241PVR and I just purchased a 1.5TB Western Digital from Tigerdirect.ca and hooked it up the 9200PVR. The receiver did NOT recognise the device on USB#1(front) and USB#2(at the rear). So I hooked it up to the 9241PVR and it at once reformatted it and now I have 200HD hrs and 1500SD hrs on my 9241PVR.
Can you please confirm that the Iomega 34579 External Hard 1TB will work with the 9200PVR before I go and purchase it…
thanx
Sd … you mention that you were successful with the 1.5TB WD drive on your 9241 PVR. Which model did you pick up? Bell rep told me last week that drive could be as large as 1.5TB, but haven’t seen many feeds to support this until yours. Thanks for the info!
with an external drive formated by the pvr9241, is it possible to use the external drive on a computer to take the movies on the road to the camp or to burn them on dvd.
thank you
jp
Sort of. The hard drive is formatted in Linux format (EXT3 filesystem). The drive can be read quite easily. However, the files produced are encrypted and to date, I (and others) have not found a way to play the files on a computer system.
I am currently having Bell send me a refurbished 9241 as mine decided to have some audio issue where the sound was rising and lowering at will. Bell did not have an answer for the problem, hence sending another unit to me. Now the question … I want to load the recordings I have from my existing PVR to a 1TB WD hard drive and then to the new unit. Will the new 9241 recognize the drive? Any comments. Thanks
Quite often what I have seen happen is the receiver will ask to reformat the hard drive again. Bell had inidicated they were working on the issue, but not sure if it has ever been resolved.
I have the Bell 9242 with lots of programing on the harddrive. It is no longer working properly, and bell is sending a new reciever. Is there a way i can retrieve my recordings from the broken 9242. it will only power on for a few min, then shut off on its own.
Thank you
Hello Michael:
I picked up the WD Mybook Essential 1.5TB from Tigerdirect (on sale for $139) and then I hooked it up to my Laptop first to “to have sleep on idle set to NEVER” thru the SETTINGS TAB. Apparently, these come enabled by default for 15 seconds, which I believe, may cause problems on playback. I then hooked it up to my 9241. It has been working like a charm…
Barry… this is how I turned OFF the Idle settings….
thanx
Great information! Thank you so much for sharing!
Is it possible to connect a Bell 9241 PVR to “My Book” external drive 2TB in size? We hook it up and it trys to reformat and then says reformatting failed…
Thanks
Hello Barry,
I want to know if you can move an external HD from one PVR to another. I have programming saved on my Bell 9242 PVR (rented), and I’m looking at purchasing a new one. I’m looking at hooking up an external HD to the old PVR, copying the programming, and then hooking it up to the new PVR. Will the HD be re-formatted when attached to new PVR?
Thanks.
I had some problems with phone line coming into my 9241 and Bell tech said it was problem with modem. They’ve sent me another 9241 to swap out and then return the original, which is loaded with PVR recordings that I haven’t got around to watching yet. Can someone explain in simple terms if I can retrieve these recordings to an external drive and then transfer them to the new 9241. If the answer is ‘yes’, I may require some further advice of what kind of drive to purchase and what procedure would be.
Hi you all…………..
I have just purchased a 9241 PVR ,The unit is a bit to noisy so Bell sent me a refurbished unit as a replacement. To save the programs I have on the PVR I used a Seegate 5ooGig external HD, I used the front USB port and it worked well. So I am confused with what I am reading on this site. according to one of the posts it is the rear USB
port which is to be used. I do have one question; When I connect the HD to my laptop, the windows explorer can not see it. Therefore the HD can no longer be used for anything else ?
Hi I’d like to know if is there a way that I can download a movie registered on my expressvu 9242 PVR hard drive to an USB key
9242 pvr has crapped out. i have installed an external hard drive, but cannot get it to work. so, does pvr have to be working on the receiver, or can external hard drive replace hard drive in receiver? thanks