Help with Hard Drive Swap query at DVinfo.net

Stephen Kettyles · September 17th, 2006, 05:06 PM

I read with interest the various post abouts changing a hard drive. I purchased a FS-4 recently and was puzzeled to see that it had an 80 gig storage but was only labeled as an FS-4 not pro. I bought it off ebay. Anyway i have been having a lot of problems with it recording intermittently. I have tried it on different cameras and with different cables. All with the same result. I decided to investigate and opened it up to find that someone has replaced the hard drive witha a Western Digital 80 gig WD800UE. While the hard drive matches all the specs of the travel star drive, talked about here on these postings, it only has a buffer size of 2mb. Could this be causing my problems? I will purchase the travelstar drive if i thought I could have a reliable unit because at the minute every wedding I have filmed at It always manages to drop the most important clip. i.e the service. The clip might be 1hr long and when i upload to pc the first eight or nine minutes are fine and then all i see is what can be described as a screen full of coloured squares. It is like a patchwork quilt of the videoed images. It seems to strike completely at radom and can happen over and over with every clip or sometimes not at all. Any advice would be greatley appreciated.

Stephen

Matt McEwen · September 18th, 2006, 02:31 PM

Hi Stephen,

Sorry to hear about your trouble. I cannot pin point that the replaced drive is causing your issue, but this is the reason we do not recommend swapping the drives on FS-4 or opening the unit itself up.

Matt

Stephen Kettyles · September 19th, 2006, 09:46 AM

Thanks for that Matt.

Do you know if there is anything I can do as regarding service for the unit. I live in Ireland and we are a bit out of the way.

Stefan Raupp · October 11th, 2006, 12:31 AM

Hi Stephen,

The FS4 is not able to record clips longer than ~9 minutes.
This is cause the File System of the FS4 - it is a fat system not NTFS.
After 9 Minutes, the FS4 starts a new Clip.
So when you record one hour you have to have 7 clips in your folder.

Stefan

Stephen Kettyles · October 11th, 2006, 03:09 AM

thanks Stefan,

This is correct but the problem is that the new 9 minute clip is not recorded properly. And indeed the first 9 minute clip may not be usuable as the picture breaks up after a few minutes. As I said some 9 minute clips are fine others are completely unusuable and some may be ok for half the time. Very puzzling!

Stephen

Matt McEwen · October 13th, 2006, 10:40 AM

Hi,

Our distributor in the UK and Ireland is Holdan http://www.holdan.co.uk/ and our European support department is located in Keil in Northern Germany ( http://www.como.com/index.php?id=kontakt-support ). But I hate to say that if the drive is a Western Digital, this unit has had the drive swapped and the warranty is void. We have never used WD drives on our portable FS products and the symptoms you are seeing is exactly why we do not recommend it - not all drives are the same. You may like to contact the person who you purchased this form on eBay.

Sorry.

Matt

September 17th, 2006, 05:06 PM	#1
Stephen Kettyles Regular Crew Join Date: Mar 2004 Location: Enniskillen N.Ireland Posts: 31	Help with Hard Drive Swap query I read with interest the various post abouts changing a hard drive. I purchased a FS-4 recently and was puzzeled to see that it had an 80 gig storage but was only labeled as an FS-4 not pro. I bought it off ebay. Anyway i have been having a lot of problems with it recording intermittently. I have tried it on different cameras and with different cables. All with the same result. I decided to investigate and opened it up to find that someone has replaced the hard drive witha a Western Digital 80 gig WD800UE. While the hard drive matches all the specs of the travel star drive, talked about here on these postings, it only has a buffer size of 2mb. Could this be causing my problems? I will purchase the travelstar drive if i thought I could have a reliable unit because at the minute every wedding I have filmed at It always manages to drop the most important clip. i.e the service. The clip might be 1hr long and when i upload to pc the first eight or nine minutes are fine and then all i see is what can be described as a screen full of coloured squares. It is like a patchwork quilt of the videoed images. It seems to strike completely at radom and can happen over and over with every clip or sometimes not at all. Any advice would be greatley appreciated. Stephen

September 18th, 2006, 02:31 PM	#2
Matt McEwen Focus Enhancements Join Date: Oct 2003 Location: Campbell, CA. Posts: 508	Hi Stephen, Sorry to hear about your trouble. I cannot pin point that the replaced drive is causing your issue, but this is the reason we do not recommend swapping the drives on FS-4 or opening the unit itself up. Matt

September 19th, 2006, 09:46 AM	#3
Stephen Kettyles Regular Crew Join Date: Mar 2004 Location: Enniskillen N.Ireland Posts: 31	Thanks for that Matt. Do you know if there is anything I can do as regarding service for the unit. I live in Ireland and we are a bit out of the way.

October 11th, 2006, 12:31 AM	#4
Stefan Raupp New Boot Join Date: Sep 2005 Location: Rhein Main - Germany Posts: 7	Hi Stephen, The FS4 is not able to record clips longer than ~9 minutes. This is cause the File System of the FS4 - it is a fat system not NTFS. After 9 Minutes, the FS4 starts a new Clip. So when you record one hour you have to have 7 clips in your folder. Stefan

October 11th, 2006, 03:09 AM	#5
Stephen Kettyles Regular Crew Join Date: Mar 2004 Location: Enniskillen N.Ireland Posts: 31	thanks Stefan, This is correct but the problem is that the new 9 minute clip is not recorded properly. And indeed the first 9 minute clip may not be usuable as the picture breaks up after a few minutes. As I said some 9 minute clips are fine others are completely unusuable and some may be ok for half the time. Very puzzling! Stephen

October 13th, 2006, 10:40 AM	#6
Matt McEwen Focus Enhancements Join Date: Oct 2003 Location: Campbell, CA. Posts: 508	Hi, Our distributor in the UK and Ireland is Holdan http://www.holdan.co.uk/ and our European support department is located in Keil in Northern Germany ( http://www.como.com/index.php?id=kontakt-support ). But I hate to say that if the drive is a Western Digital, this unit has had the drive swapped and the warranty is void. We have never used WD drives on our portable FS products and the symptoms you are seeing is exactly why we do not recommend it - not all drives are the same. You may like to contact the person who you purchased this form on eBay. Sorry. Matt