**IMPORTANT** T3-4TB owners and new Image

[Wiz HQ]

Hi All,
There is a glitch in the latest firmware where by the T3 will want to format the 4TB hard drive at start up as the first format at the factory, although totally fine, is not optimal under the new version. We feel it is very important to format your 4TB Hard Drive in the format in the latest version to achieve optimal performance, we will release an updated version of the software hopefully today that will give you the option to skip the format and continue using your T3 as is, this is aimed at giving you some time to watch or export programs that you wish to keep so that you do not lose them when you choose to format.

If you do not wish to wait for the new upgrade and you are yet to upgrade to yesterdays version or if you have upgraded and not yet formatted (you can roll back to the previous version viewtopic.php?f=45&t=8112 ) you can export off the programs that you wish to keep either via USB or FTP if your T3 is networked, happy to assist over the phone today with this if you do not know how to do it.

We are very sorry for any inconvenience caused, we will get back to you later with a new version that will give you some time before formatting, if you have any questions please don’t hesitate to ask.

[nylonnet]

you can export off the programs that you wish to keep either via USB or FTP if your T3 is networked

I've worked out how to access the T3's hard disk over the network and am (slowly - 8,8MB/sec) copying 265GB of recordings. So far so good.

Will the reformatting of the T3 HDD nuke my settings and timers? I'm expecting it would.
If so, can I back them up to my network too?
Where on the HDD are they stored?

Thanks

[Wiz HQ]

you can export off the programs that you wish to keep either via USB or FTP if your T3 is networked

I've worked out how to access the T3's hard disk over the network and am (slowly - 8,8MB/sec) copying 265GB of recordings. So far so good.

Will the reformatting of the T3 HDD nuke my settings and timers? I'm expecting it would.
If so, can I back them up to my network too?
Where on the HDD are they stored?

Thanks

Sorry have been flat out. Yes the HDD format will remove all your settings unfortunately. I will check with the engineers if you can back them up manually and reinstall them later, I have a feeling that there is a plugin that will do this but I will confirm soon.

[nylonnet]

Thanks. I saw in another post that timers and favourites are stored in
/etc/enigma2/

I can copy that directory and restore it after reformatting the T3 HDD.

If there are any other locations worth backing up, please advise.

The less data I have to re-enter manually, the better!

Cheers

[prl]

...
Will the reformatting of the T3 HDD nuke my settings and timers? I'm expecting it would.
...

... Yes the HDD format will remove all your settings unfortunately. I will check with the engineers if you can back them up manually and reinstall them later, I have a feeling that there is a plugin that will do this but I will confirm soon.

It's a bit more complicated than that.

If only a HDD format is done, then the settings and timers are not reset/cleared.

However, if you do the format during an upgrade from USB, all settings and timers are cleared/reset by the upgrade from USB. If the firmware then formats the HDD, this deletes saved backups on the HDD. Then when it reboots after the format, it won't find any saved settings.

Settings can be saved to/restored from another device (or even network share) by using PLUGIN>Software management>Select backup location and saving the settings. Then the saved settings are safe from the HDD format. Once the HDD format and settings/timer reset has been done, go back to PLUGIN>Software management>Select backup location and change the backup location to the copy of the settings stored somewhere not on the HDD, and restore the settings from there.

It's a plugin, but one that's pre-installed on the T3.

Just saving /etc/enigma2 won't save all the settings saved by a normal settings backup.

[nylonnet]

I spent 8 hours yesterday copying recordings from my T3-4000 to my network - just the .ts files, not the support files.

Tonight I backed up my \root\etc\enigma2 (settings) directory and (with a gulp) installed the beyonwiz-4.2-beyonwizt3-20140911 upgrade.
I've started moving the contents of my .ts recordings back to the T3's \media\hdd\movie directory - they seem to play just fine.

I restored the contents of the \root\etc\enigma2 directory (settings) and found that
- stored timed recordings have been deleted (dammit!)
- autotimer recordings are still in place
- front panel upgrade plugin is still in place (20038, upgraded this week)
- network settings are back (after a visit to the mountpoints menu and saying OK again to the old settings)

Damn, I hope we don't need to reformat our hard disks again any time soon.

[prl]

I spent 8 hours yesterday copying recordings from my T3-4000 to my network - just the .ts files, not the support files.

Tonight I backed up my \root\etc\enigma2 (settings) directory and (with a gulp) installed the beyonwiz-4.2-beyonwizt3-20140911 upgrade.
I've started moving the contents of my .ts recordings back to the T3's \media\hdd\movie directory - they seem to play just fine.
...

You won't have metadata like the program synopses, and may not skip as well. But they should play just fine.

Not sure why you didn't copy everything, though. The auxilliary files are tiny compared to the video data (.ts) fies.

[nylonnet]

Not sure why you didn't copy everything, though. The auxilliary files are tiny compared to the video data (.ts) fies.

As you said, the .TS recordings play perfectly without the aux files, and (to be brief) I couldn't be bothered copying them.

[Lostinspace]

I have a T3 with 2TB HDD. If I do the upgrade will this require the HDD to be reformatted as well? Or is it only 4TB?

Cheers
Ken

[prl]

I have a T3 with 2TB HDD. If I do the upgrade will this require the HDD to be reformatted as well? Or is it only 4TB?

Cheers
Ken

As I've said before, the reason that some (not all) 4TB HDDs are being reformatted by the new firmware is not known. As far as I've been able to tell from posts on the forum and discussions with Jai (Wiz HQ), the problem has only happened for BWs with 4TB HDDs, and not for all T3s with 4TB HDDs. I haven't seen any reports of 2TB T3s being forced to reformat.

But since I don't know what the cause is, I can't guarantee whether it will or not.

Are you in a rush to upgrade? There will most likely be a new firmware release next week that at least offer the option to skip the format if it's requested. I'm currently testing that code. It may also have a fix for the apparently unnecessary reformats.

[Lostinspace]

Thanks Peter,
I'm in no rush so I'll wait for the new version.
Cheers
Ken

[Wiz HQ]

I have a T3 with 2TB HDD. If I do the upgrade will this require the HDD to be reformatted as well? Or is it only 4TB?

Cheers
Ken

Hi Ken,
We have not has any reports of this happening on anything bar 4TB models so I would suggest that it is safe to go ahead and upgrade, worse case if it did ask you to format then just turn T3 off and revert to previous version but I am pretty confident that this will not be necessary.

Wiz HQ

[prl]

I have made a version of the T3 startup code that makes the initial format optional available to be transferred into the T3 software repository.

I have not been able to recreate this error by formatting a 4TB HDD in an earlier firmware, and the upgrading to 20140911.

I tried formatting using 20140513, the first publicly available firmware, and using 20140128, the first beta designed to run on the production T3. In both cases, when I upgraded to 20140911, the startup format was skipped.

If there's anyone who had this problem and who has not yet reformatted using 20140911, could you please post what it says for your HDD in the /dev/sda and the /media/hdd lines in MENU>Setup>Information>Devices? Post a screenshot if that's easier than copying it all.

[gregsfun]

I have made a version of the T3 startup code that makes the initial format optional available to be transferred into the T3 software repository.

I have not been able to recreate this error by formatting a 4TB HDD in an earlier firmware, and the upgrading to 20140911.

I tried formatting using 20140513, the first publicly available firmware, and using 20140128, the first beta designed to run on the production T3. In both cases, when I upgraded to 20140911, the startup format was skipped.

If there's anyone who had this problem and who has not yet reformatted using 20140911, could you please post what it says for your HDD in the /dev/sda and the /media/hdd lines in MENU>Setup>Information>Devices? Post a screenshot if that's easier than copying it all.

I haven't formatted my 4TB HDD as yet so here is the info requested:

Menu>Setup>Information>Devices

Thanks for the assistance in uploading and I hope this is all you need.

Greg

[peteru]

@prl,

Told you so.

[peteru]

Those hard disk will certainly need to be reformatted at some stage. They are in Windows NTFS format!

[prl]

@prl,

Told you so.

Never disagreed that it was a possible cause in some cases. Still doesn't explain why it only seems to have been reported for 4TB HDDs.

[IanB]

Still doesn't explain why it only seems to have been reported for 4TB HDDs.

It appears WD shipped these disks pre-formatted NTFS. I think you will also find /dev/sda1 contains some WDmagic to help XP support 4TB disks. WD has a habit of shipping WDmagic tools on disks that cross a historical limit, e.g 512MB, 2GB, ..., 4TB


Also NTFS has always supported hard links and from Win7 supports soft links. Which versions of the Linux NTFS driver supports this, if any, is a good question.

[prl]

Thanks Ian. That looks like it might be it.

[BigbobOz]

Are there any updates on this issue? I'd like to get IceTV working with the T3 but not keen on deleting or copying off all of my recordings off the T3.

Did I miss an update?

[peteru]

WizHQ is due to make an announcement about updated firmware any day now. Although, with the long weekend here in NSW, that may not happen for a few days.

In the meantime, try http://peteru.net/T3/beyonwiz-4.2-beyon ... 03_usb.zip

Regardless of what firmware you end up running, you are advised to move your data elsewhere and reformat the HDD at your earliest convenience. Using file systems that do not support full Linux semantics for the primary hard drive is not advisable. ext4 is the de-facto Linux standard and at this point in time it is the recommended choice. This may change in the future - I'm currently investigating xfs.

[BigbobOz]

Regardless of what firmware you end up running, you are advised to move your data elsewhere and reformat the HDD at your earliest convenience.

Hmmm don't remember whether I formatted the drive when I first installed it. Seems odd that only 4TB drive buyers were the only ones that forgot or did the T3 originally format the 4TBs differently?

[peteru]

I don't know if anyone knows what happened for sure, but so far I think the most likely explanation is that a small proportion of all T3s had the HDDs installed but not formatted by Beyonwiz. Out of all those units, the 4TB models came pre-formatted with NTFS from the HDD manufacturer, while the other models were blank. As a result, user that had blank HDDs had to format their HDDs using the T3, which resulted in the correct formatting. On the other hand, the 4TB users did not have to do anything, because the disk was visible, it just has the wrong file system.

New firmware performs a very specific check on how the HDD is formatted and if the HDD partitioning or file system is different to what it would have been had the T3 done the disk formatting, it will complain.

[prl]

Specifically, the check is that the internal HDD has a single partition/volume and that it is formatted as either ext3 or ext4 (Linux native filesystems).

[BigbobOz]

Specifically, the check is that the internal HDD has a single partition/volume and that it is formatted as either ext3 or ext4 (Linux native filesystems).

I still haven't updated my T3 to the latest firmware as I have a 4TB drive and don't really have space to copy what's there elsewhere plus the massive hassle factor.

Seems from your statement above, splitting the drive into two partitions (at least temporarily) is not an option. Is that correct?

[peteru]

The current beta firmware versions will allow you to "opt-out" of the HDD reformat until you sort it out. With the caveat that you are running a configuration that's known to cause issues - but that's already the case even with the older firmware revisions, it just wasn't advertised.

I wish we could offer you a utility that converts NTFS or FAT32 formatted disks to ext4 in place, but as far as I know, there is nothing available that could do the job reliably on a PVR.

Your two options are losing the contents or shuffling data around drives/network. Or a combination of both - lose some, keep some.

To put it in perspective - it's just TV.

[prl]

... Seems from your statement above, splitting the drive into two partitions (at least temporarily) is not an option. Is that correct?

It's probably possible to do it that way, but it's not completely straightforward.

I've never actually tried this, so it may or may not work. It will only work if you have < 2TB of recordings.

Take the HDD out of the T3, and put it in a SATA USB dock or SATA USB enclosure (or whatever else works for your computer hardware).

In Linux, or booting from a Gparted Live CD on a Windows box:

1. Connect the T3's HDD to your computer.
2. Resize the first (only) partition to 2TB using Gparted.
3. Move the partition to the end of the HDD using Gparted (it may be possible to do those two steps in a single operation).
4. Create a new 2TB partition at the start of the HDD (all the unused space), and format it as ext4 using Gparted (ext3 will also work, but ext4 is recommended, and what the T3 will format the HDD as).
5. Copy all the files from the second partition to the first partition, using whatever tools are available on the Live CD (drag and drop in the file browser GUI, or use cp -a or cp -r in a terminal window). I don't know what tools are available in the Gparted Live CD. You may need to boot from another Linux Live CD, like Ubuntu, to do this step. You may need to install NTFS drivers to do this.
6. Delete the second (NTFS?) partition with the old copy of the files using Gparted.
7. Resize the first partition to use the whole of the HDD using Gparted.

Then eject the HDD or shut the computer down and put the HDD back in the T3.

To do some of the operations, like format and to be able to access the NTFS file system, you'll need to install some Linux packages, probably e2fsprogs, ntfs-3g, ntfsprogs. If you're running a Live CD, they'll install temporarily into the Live CD system, and they'll disappear if you reboot the Live CD. They won't install into the machine's main OS.

Good luck!

[BigbobOz]

Thanks Peter and Peter.

I think it's time to nuke some recordings...