Satellite Box HDD

Old Perry

If i were to take a hardrive out of a satellite reciever box and find a casing for it would it be usable as an external? Any software mods needed? not looking to retrieve anything off it so wiping it clean and starting from blank would be all good.

Have tried finding specs on the hard drives used but couldnt find much else except capacties and suitable ones for DIY upgrade, which seem to be your standard 3.5" internal HDD.

Note:Wouldv put this in the Satellite forum but guessed you fine people may be more tech savey

hearny

Yes.
The connection should look like this:
http://t3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcStas0gfxHOLmE2wI9SUBNLsMnyrj3MwDiUdX2t2NYF5v-g5Gq_IX08nvRN

If it does its a SATA hard drive if its 3.5 Inch you need something like this:
http://www.elara.ie/productdetail.aspx?productcode=MMEV931043
although you could get a USB2.0 for cheaper.

You will need to format it once you connect it to a pc.

I will give you instructions if you need it once you get the caddy.

Old Perry

Thanks for that, sata is the type of hdd ,not the make right?

The case you linked included circuit board/usb/software? etc correct?... ive a few old maxtor externals lying around, on which the hdisks are broke or faulty, could the circuit board from these be used in the above situation?

hearny

Sata is the connection type yeah.

If you have a few cases lying around then you should definitely try them, usually very straight forward to switch them.

Yeah the one I linked to would have a case with logic board, ac adapter, usb and usually include some software.

Old Perry

Cool will post back here with updates in a couple of days.

bonzodog2

I have a 160GB IDE drive out of an NTL box working fine in an enclosure. No experience of drives from Sky boxes.The drives in the old X-boxes (before the 360s) were apparently tied to the motherboard using some little-used part of the IDE specs, they were 10GB IIRC. Give it a try, nothing to lose !

Khannie

There are cheapo hard drive enclosures on dealextreme. If it's a small drive (2.5") they have some of those for as little as a fiver delivered!