My SVR-HDT500 Hard Disk Recorder has worked well when using its own hard disk. I recently connected it to a Buffalo External Hard Drive (HD-LBU2). Copying files over has always been rather slow - typically a 380MB file might take as long as 10 mins - but that's absolutely fine. However, recently a problem has developed. Whilst a file is copying, with the progress bar showing on the TV screen, suddenly the whole screen will go black. If the PVR is recording something, the recording will be disrupted (so I have stopped copying files at times when the PVR is recording). After a few seconds the progress bar returns on the screen but after this copying is much much slower, or stalls completely. I have left a film copying for hours whilst we are out and little or no progress has been made when we return home.
This wasn't a problem when I first purchased the SVR-HDT500 and the external hard drive. I have updated the software and I do just wonder whether this a problem with the most recent software.
I have looked through various posts on the Internet and it would appear that this problem is related to a software fault that was discussed a good deal about a year ago; at that time some people encountered a problem similar to mine even when using the machine's own internal hard drive (not something that has happened to me). The temporary fix for this was to do a 'Disk repair' every time the machine starts up and various users reported that this fixes the problem. This is ancient history now - there has been a software update which appears to have fixed that difficulty.
Although my problem is different, in that it only occurs with the external hard drive, I thought that it would be worth trying a disk repair on the external hard disk. I don't know what a 'disk repair' actually does but this manoeuvre does indeed fix the problem temporarily - but only until the machine is turned off (or to standby). The next time the machine is turned on the problem recurs until another disk repair is done.
Has anyone else encountered this? Is there a more elegant fix than doing a disk repair on the external hard drive every time I turn the machine on?
