Partitioning hd question.

[pamelax]

Hi,

i dont know if it's the right place to ask?

i've a 250gb external hd but the receiver ask to format the whole disk for himself,is it possible to shrink his part to half size and the rest that i may use for my pc??

i try with some partition tool but none identify.

thanks.

[Miqueldecielo]

Hello,
the receiver uses its own file system. Afaik, you cannot divide the drive space in two parts with this receiver. So a separate/dedicated harddrive is used by st least by me.

best wishes

[Raffke]

I started some tries in the past - but there's no real usable solution so far.
It would require the receiver partition to be the first on the disk and not to format the drive in the receiver again (I used my own partitioning tool for LaFAT).

Finally I decided not to spend more time on this, as there are too many limitations and too less advantages...

[pamelax]

ok thanks for the explanation

everything look more simple now.

so i'm afraid that nobody hacked firmware to insert some new features like ntfs instead lafat or more hack?

[polar]

@Raffke,
I was under the impression this was already implemented in PC2BoxNG.

I would like to speak in favour of the cause as well. Currently I am using an external hard disk and a switch between my PC and Blu-ray Player. It would be far more convenient to plug in a (possible) DVB receiver than using a second hard drive and switch. Also, when visiting a friend with a LaSat receiver I would have to carry 2 hard disks.

@pamelax,
please note that this forum is run by the manufacturer itself. I consider talking about "hacks", i. e. manipulating their developed software, highly inappropiate. Besides, an NTFS licence costs (too much) money, as already discussed here in German language.

[Raffke]

@polar:
You're right. It's already built in the command line options...
So try on your own:

Code: Alles auswählen

pc2boxng.exe format <disk-number> <size_in_gb>

If you're satisfied with the output replace "format" with "secret-format" to really write the changes to the disk - but without any liability!

[pamelax]

Hello,

ok no offense,hack was not the right word better to say enhancements but if it's an official manufacturer then,well oops not the place,you're right.

0208a history report :Wechsel von FAT32- und LaFAT-formatierten USB-Speichermedien
but firmware 0209a only have lafat fs that's why i thought that this forum were a custom firmware reversing place.

well i've nothing angainst lafat the only glitch is like i said,the custom filesystem that disallow to shrink a partition.

ok i know almost everything on this now,thanks to developper to keep clone support alive

[fabian]

OK as far as I remember you can use tools like pc2BoxNG to partition a Hard disk using LaFAT and FAT partitions.

The receiver then respects the partition entry in the drive's partition table in the MBR and writes its recordings to the LaFAT partition, leaving the other FAT partition untouched but with one big problem:

While making a recording, the receiver isn't aware of the partition's size so when the LaFAT partition is full, it will continue writing over the partition's boundary thus destroying the partition after it (because it overwrites the start of this partition, containing boot sectors and File allocation tables, everything on this partition will be lost).

So I would say, partitioned disks are NOT really supported by LaSAT.

Please note that this information is from the last year or so - if they have fixed this in the meantime, please correct me

The other problem is that if for any reason you should have to reformat the disk at the receiver itself, all partitions will be deleted because the receiver always writes its own MBR which only contains one partiton entry, spanning over the whole disk.

0208a history report :Wechsel von FAT32- und LaFAT-formatierten USB-Speichermedien
but firmware 0209a only have lafat fs that's why i thought that this forum were a custom firmware reversing place.

I think you just misinterpreted the German text. It dosn't mean "You can change from LaFAT to FAT32 file system for Recordings".

It rather says "Changing between LaFAT formatted USB media (for recording) and FAT32 formatted USB media (for MP3 playback etc.) improved".

FAT32 USB media is currently only supported for playback of .MP3 or .MP2 audio files, for updating the firmware (by selecting a DECODER.APP file on the FAT32 disk) or for saving the current Channel List to USB (ChannelList.lis) or for importing a new one back from USB.

I hope this could answer the last questions you might have had with your LaSAT device and I hope you enjoy it, despite its limitations...

Best regards,
Fabian

[pamelax]

Yes it help!!

i've played with the pc2box format option and secret-format and guess what everything seem nice!!

well ok,my hd is 250gb,shrinked my (formatted receiver lasat usb option) partition to 200gb and then used a free tool like gparted to format the rest as ntfs.

Maybe..i just say maybe,an option to format as fat/32 the rest of hd could be an interesting option but for now yes i'm happy with the support software for this one.

greets and thanks to the developpers.

[fabian]

You can use any formatting tool to reformat the remaining partition to FAT32, absolutely no problem and no reason that it has to be FAT32, I think.