Dremel cut off /grinder works well too! Also, with Direct TV boxes, the HDD needed to be reprogrammed to power up properly (PUIS). Just in case any of them fall of a truck on to your bench...
I find the PCB’s are good for the odd surface mount cap, and chokes etc. Plus the large chips are good to practice on with the hot air gun. So I have a bin of scrap PCB’s just for the odd salvage part.
Awesome Dave - I just got done ordering a full lamp kit for my Sony, and my Toshiba Camileo camcorder gave up the ghost a few months ago. So, I think later today I am picking up a Sony HDR-CX405 1080p 60 fps. It all doesn't sound like anything equisite, but I am excited about both more than you might think! Now your uploads are like the icing on the cake. Rock and roll!
@@BavarianM It's my stuff i throw around not clients. Clients equipment is handled with care. The old crap of mine most is heading for the bin 5 minutes after the camera is turned off.
What people don't realize is 90% of the stuff i work on is mine or has been donated. Very few devices are customers. I get much stuff donated and i will attempt to repair it and if successful I sell or give away. When i do have a client's device great care is taken to ensure it leaves in the same condition that it arrives.
Good job! These units or equivalent generally use interesting HD. The fact is you can generally reuse them as back up or external usb unit once inserted in a USB enclosure. Here you also have a SATA disk type, wich eventually can also be reused as secondary in any desktop unit. However, a SMART check is always a good idea to check of global health, bad sectors and hours counter. Some old PATA type are generally less interesting, slower, and with low capacity compared to the 1To standard, but, what do you expect for a donated or 2$ unit? Those interested in data retrieval can eventually test the same using a LINUX based PC, as you can generally read and access other classic formats used in these boxes like ext3 or ext4. However, there's no way to say if you can retrieve any data on these if the system uses any form of encryption, wich is now current (you can encrypt your HD with W10 pro!)...
I've had that problem with them screws I just got a normal flat blade and filed a small notch in the middle, just watching you now from the UK it's 0130 am here but enjoy your vids
The Xfinity X1 boxes, at least the newer Arris models that do 4k are literally held together by torx screws, opened one up the other day to get my data off of it, before I sent it in to be refurbished as I was ending my service with them, and yes, I wiped the drive clean. Have to admit the fact you can only view the drive on linux is amazing. I may hate RDK -v and rdk - k (Reference Design kit for video (reference Design kit for broadband)) but it's still a neat OS
While I am not aware of anything with a swappable bay anymore; if you are looking for a repairable laptop with a good keyboard I am in love with the Dell Latitude 5490. You can repair the whole thing with a single #0 Philips head screwdriver. The 5490s are starting to go out of warranty en masse and are popping up on ebay for insanely cheap for the specs. A new 68wh battery is ~$55 and will give you 6 hours of run time easy.
I think the rumor of cable box HDs being unusable comes from what people experienced with the original Xbox game console. The Xbox would lock it's hard disks using the ATA password security features. The reality is only the contents on cable box HDs are encrypted, so you can't directly copy TV recordings off of it. I have to laugh that these boxes commonly show up at thrift stores and ebay. Somebody out there got stuck with an equipment non-return fee!
You can salvage all hard disk drives from all kinds of tv cable boxes as the electronics are the same as pc hard disk drives, I've done it myself its just the different tv media vendors use totally different unrecognised file systems to record the tv media on to. So windows just sees the whole drive as unallocated.
Nice one Dave- I'm surprised and saddened by so many Beavis n Butthead comments about the do's and dont's. Youve just reminded me I have a RAW drive I must do that to and i too have a W7 laptop that works perfectly well.
@@12voltvids This I agree on. I was surprised when clients started to bring computers with Win 10 on them for service. The surprise was I did not know how awful 10 actually was at the time. Nowadays it is not nuch better. Quite reliable but a mess. You need to take a vacation to find an entry in the Control Panel... On older computers you wait a lifetime to install updates, which often make things worse. Instead of fixing things, things get often broken some more.
@@12voltvids I've never had any trouble with Win 10. I do agree though, Win7 was better. Once I have everything set up, I'd like to start using BSD again.
@@channelsixtysix066 win10 is a joke. My old work computer win7 never had any issues. I could work all day and never had to reboot. I was forced to change to win10 because no more support fur win7. I now have to reboot usually 6 or 7 times a day. Either the internal LTE aircard vanishes or the VPN won't connect, or it goes blue screen. It guy changed LTE card, same problem. All of us are having the same problems. Then there is my unlock pin. On win7, I entered it every time i unlocked my computer with my smartcard. That would unlock all of my corporate access to all my work sites. Now I have to enter my pin number for every page I open, and now i have to not only use my pin, but many sites require 2fa using finger print scanner on my phone. When phone battery dies I am locked out of my work apps and have to sit around with my thumb up my ass while the phone charges enough to start up so I can use my laptop.
I have Dell Latitude D620 on the side of my bed with screen mounted to wall. Its embedded screen itself is busted from drama long long ago hahaha. It's nice for what I use it for - watching 1080p. The thing is, in browsers, the acceleration is a no go because of Intel drivers (just the way it is, nothing can be done about it.) So, I have a plugin in Firefox that sends videos to MPC-BE. That is my recommended player for ANY class machine. For BEST quality possible, use MadVR as video renderer. Just install MadVR, customize settings if so inclined (easy), and set the player to use it in settings. Easy as can be.
@@12voltvids - The computer won't see the drive in "File Explorer", since it's not formatted in a known file systems. They don't realise that they have to use Disk Utilities.
@@12voltvids I can't think of any situation with any half-modern Linux distribution where this would be an issue. All the GUIs I know of (GParted is the main one) for formatting partitions include a partitioning tool. Anyone using CLI tools should know better.
I did same with my old LG recorder (DVB-T unit, can't be used anymore), HDD recycled as backup drive (model just too slow for anything else, they make them to be quiet and long lasting and not for speed), PSU already give some organs to save other PSU lives.
Sir I have one funai VCR.I have not adjust the mechanism.pls help me . When I wants to play at first it s head drum run but few seconds later it return the back.no VCR sign show in display.model no funai VCR HQ v,_2s.
How long have you had that watch you wear, if you don't mind me asking. If I had to guess it looks like an eighties model, either way I think it's cool.
Cool video. I personally use GPT when initializing hard drives. It is much more robust than the original MBR standard from the 1983. So the likelihood you get partition corruption is quite low. In MBR, the disk layout info is stored only at the beginning of the disk, so if an accident happens and it gets deleted, you'll lose all your data. In GPT (developed sometime around 2004), there are multiple copies of the layout info across the entire disk. The only downside is you cannot use GPT in Windows XP but nowadays if you use Windows Vista and younger (7, 8.1, 10), you have much more reliability with GPT than with MBR.
All you would lose is the location of your partitions. If you recreate the partition table your data will be easily accessible. There are tools to help with this if needed. On my old computer I actually wrote down all the partition offsets and sizes on paper so I could easily restore. Sure GPT has its benefits but it doesn't really matter. For a data drive under 2TB I'll just use conventional MBR partitioning because I'm more familiar with how it works. Side note, while conventional partitioning only allows four primary partitions you can have unlimited logical partitions. GPT allows for 128 primary partitions but no logical ones. I can't imagine any reason you'd need 128 partitions but it's interesting trivia.
@@eDoc2020 I agree. But to me, the advantages and benefits of GPT are superior. It uses exclusively the LBA adressing, which makes it work the same on every computer. Old CHS addressing could be interpreted differently by different BIOSes. This was a very big problem in old Windows (95, 98, Me), those versions read the disk size from BIOS. It was a pain to work with large drives. Remember the old BIOSes having problems with drives larger than 128 GB? And later with drives larger than 2 TB? All my drives now exceed the 2 TB boundary, so if I don't want to use multiple partitions, GPT is the only way to go.
@@speed_rider362 The 128 gigabyte limit had nothing to do with the BIOS interfaces but rather needing to use the newer LBA48 on the drive end. Similarly there is no 2TB limit with the BIOS interface (although many _implementations_ likely have such a limit). BIOS calls went right from the 8GB logical CHS limit to 64-bit LBA which we are far from meeting. I think the idea of BIOS being limited to 2TB is likely a misunderstanding of the 2TB MBR partitioning limit. Since Windows only understands MBR partitions when booting in BIOS mode people think it's a BIOS limit. Linux systems can boot in BIOS mode from GPT disks and I imagine this would work fine beyond 2TB (although I haven't tested). The CHS bit is a good point, I didn't think of that. However that doesn't really matter anymore because for 20 years or so only the LBA fields have been used. I think the biggest issues with CHS addressing were between the 504MB barrier and the 8GB barrier. I'm realizing most of my comment isn't relevant to the MBR vs GPT discussion. For modern systems under 2TB the only benefit of GPT is that you don't need an extended partition in order to hold more than 4 volumes, so partitioning is more flexible. If there's a chance I will later migrate to a larger drive I will choose GPT and if there's a chance I will use it with older systems I'll choose MBR. Since most of my technology is on the older side MBR will be my usual choice for random drives. However for a bootable drive on UEFI systems, I'll definitely choose GPT 99% of the time. I might even have converted the drive in my new laptop from MBR to GPT.
On the laptop did you ever consider cloning the boot drive on to a solid state hard drive I did that with an all-in-one HP the machine work great the machines is also 10 years old. Did you ever use Macintosh computers I just bought one with an M1 chip I'm very impressed with it
I do the same thing when i'm given unwanted dvd hdd combo units, the hdd always works fine although they can be a slow drive, but i don't care :-D The dvd recorder is always buggered. The psu is a keeper for free parts.
The Pace cable boxes commonly used throughout the world have 3.5" SATA drives in them. I am currently tearing a whole pile of them apart, but unfortunately they all have been WD5000AVCS which is a 500GB Green (probably 5400rpm) drives made around 2016. The power supply is full of good bits - excellent Chemicon Low ESR long life caps and 3A and 4A Schottky diodes that can be harvested.
@Taco - I don't like them at all. I've lost so much data (music and movies) to failed WD Greens in my NAS and servers etc that I don't really trust them. I realise (now) that I should have mirrored the drives for backup but I didn't... then spent months recovering the data that I could and then re-ripping the rest that I had lost.... GRRRR.
To answer the question at 2:35 of where it came from, out in your neck of the woods it's almost certainly gonna be Shaw. I just so happen to have the exact same model out in Manitoba that's still going strong to this day, but I notice that they're hitting it over the head in two Calgary neighborhoods specifically, so I imagine its days will be numbered sooner rather than later. It's a shame that there isn't any legislation up here like the US has that forces cable companies to let subscribers self-install their own CableCARDs/M-CARDs into whatever equipment they wanted that supported it (like an XP Media Center Edition system back in the day), since all Shaw did/does is shrug at the question of PCTV setups and go "officially we don't support it but we won't stop you from trying". Real PITA but apparently some people have made it work.
Eastlink is the competitor out here, shaw in the next town over, but I don't know where this one came from because the guy that gave it to me was from out of town.
The FCC just recently dropped the CableCARD requirements that providers were required to follow. Even though its been around for years, 3rd party CableCARD accepting hardware is scarce. Also providers were pretty good at hiding the card rental option and equally clueless when it came to activating and supporting CableCARDs.
@@NJRoadfan Really? That's bad news for users of HD TiVos (I think the most common third-party device). I wonder how many providers will still offer it? Btw analog cable was great because it just worked. No equipment rental or DRM needed.
We got stacks of these at my (telecom) CO. Linux can see whats on these but only as files, IIRC they cannot be viewed. Wipe 'em! No drive is safe when you got a Linux rig.
These screws look like the 'Game Bit' screws Nintendo used on their old game cartridges. I would expect a hex driver of a certain size to work, or maybe a 'U' bit. But since you were just scrapping the case what you did makes sense. Why waste time preserving something that's going right in the trash?
Huh, that shows me that I pay zero attention to TV equipment. I think my parents have a dead one I should Frankenstein now, thanks for the tip! I'm sure you have stories about various operating systems, DOS, MAC, Unix, and unix compatable systems linux, mind telling them?
Brutal man, Brutal - as in opening that PCMCIA card. Agree with the comments about BGA, basically making everything unrepairable. And - who is the twit who said you cannot use old set top box HDD's, just a pity you cannot rip video from them. I hang onto a few of those cases as they allow you to build projects that look right next to a TV/HiFi/entertainment system.
@@maicod that way they can sell the shows back you you if you want to watch again. That's what happens here. You can buy the older seasons of tv shows for 35.00
@@maicod That's part of why having your own recorder is great. My TiVo Series two still has an old recording or two from over 10 years ago. The recordings survived ownership transfer (we bought the DVR used), the switch from analog to digital cable, and even provider changes without any fuss. Cloud 'DVRs' are just rental services, you don't get to keep anything.
Dremel cut off /grinder works well too! Also, with Direct TV boxes, the HDD needed to be reprogrammed to power up properly (PUIS). Just in case any of them fall of a truck on to your bench...
Not too many have directv here as that is a US service.
I find the PCB’s are good for the odd surface mount cap, and chokes etc. Plus the large chips are good to practice on with the hot air gun. So I have a bin of scrap PCB’s just for the odd salvage part.
NEVER knew or thought about reusing the HD I thought you were going for the power transformer or fan! Nice work!
Awesome Dave - I just got done ordering a full lamp kit for my Sony, and my Toshiba Camileo camcorder gave up the ghost a few months ago. So, I think later today I am picking up a Sony HDR-CX405 1080p 60 fps. It all doesn't sound like anything equisite, but I am excited about both more than you might think! Now your uploads are like the icing on the cake. Rock and roll!
- wants the hard drive
- slams device on bench first
😐
He dropped it from about as far when it fell out of his truck.
It's about how careless he is with his clients stuff
@@BavarianM
It's my stuff i throw around not clients.
Clients equipment is handled with care. The old crap of mine most is heading for the bin 5 minutes after the camera is turned off.
Was about to say the same thing lol
What people don't realize is 90% of the stuff i work on is mine or has been donated. Very few devices are customers. I get much stuff donated and i will attempt to repair it and if successful I sell or give away. When i do have a client's device great care is taken to ensure it leaves in the same condition that it arrives.
I like that hard drive adapter that plugs into the cd/dvd drive slot. I didn't even know they made those!
Good job! These units or equivalent generally use interesting HD. The fact is you can generally reuse them as back up or external usb unit once inserted in a USB enclosure. Here you also have a SATA disk type, wich eventually can also be reused as secondary in any desktop unit. However, a SMART check is always a good idea to check of global health, bad sectors and hours counter. Some old PATA type are generally less interesting, slower, and with low capacity compared to the 1To standard, but, what do you expect for a donated or 2$ unit? Those interested in data retrieval can eventually test the same using a LINUX based PC, as you can generally read and access other classic formats used in these boxes like ext3 or ext4. However, there's no way to say if you can retrieve any data on these if the system uses any form of encryption, wich is now current (you can encrypt your HD with W10 pro!)...
I've had that problem with them screws I just got a normal flat blade and filed a small notch in the middle, just watching you now from the UK it's 0130 am here but enjoy your vids
I've also taken hardrives out of them had about six now
The Xfinity X1 boxes, at least the newer Arris models that do 4k are literally held together by torx screws, opened one up the other day to get my data off of it, before I sent it in to be refurbished as I was ending my service with them, and yes, I wiped the drive clean. Have to admit the fact you can only view the drive on linux is amazing. I may hate RDK -v and rdk - k (Reference Design kit for video (reference Design kit for broadband)) but it's still a neat OS
You're one of the tribe ... respect! I hate waste!
You're fun to watch, and I always learn something. Thanks.
APPROVED - Love all of it.
I like it better when you fix things
Also works in Windows 10. I recommend you to get Crystal Disk Info. You can see the SMART state of the drive using this.
0:21 LMFAOOOO
People love to exploit my liking for electronics to give me their old shit that’s broken
While I am not aware of anything with a swappable bay anymore; if you are looking for a repairable laptop with a good keyboard I am in love with the Dell Latitude 5490. You can repair the whole thing with a single #0 Philips head screwdriver. The 5490s are starting to go out of warranty en masse and are popping up on ebay for insanely cheap for the specs. A new 68wh battery is ~$55 and will give you 6 hours of run time easy.
I think the rumor of cable box HDs being unusable comes from what people experienced with the original Xbox game console. The Xbox would lock it's hard disks using the ATA password security features. The reality is only the contents on cable box HDs are encrypted, so you can't directly copy TV recordings off of it. I have to laugh that these boxes commonly show up at thrift stores and ebay. Somebody out there got stuck with an equipment non-return fee!
Yup, and those suckers are expensive. 400.00
You can salvage all hard disk drives from all kinds of tv cable boxes as the electronics are the same as pc hard disk drives, I've done it myself its just the different tv media vendors use totally different unrecognised file systems to record the tv media on to. So windows just sees the whole drive as unallocated.
Nice one Dave- I'm surprised and saddened by so many Beavis n Butthead comments about the do's and dont's. Youve just reminded me I have a RAW drive I must do that to and i too have a W7 laptop that works perfectly well.
Im really like your 🎥 keeping up all of the work
You can even use Windows 10 for HD recovery because of backwards compatibility. I do this with every rescued HD I come across.
I have an old ASUS U36S laptop with an i7 chip. It's 10 years old and works fine with Win 10 on it.
I got a 2005 Dell XPS gen 4 and it runs windows 10 a little bit slow but you can use it for light stuff.
Win 10 blows. And by that I mean it sucks.
@@12voltvids This I agree on. I was surprised when clients started to bring computers with Win 10 on them for service. The surprise was I did not know how awful 10 actually was at the time. Nowadays it is not nuch better. Quite reliable but a mess. You need to take a vacation to find an entry in the Control Panel... On older computers you wait a lifetime to install updates, which often make things worse. Instead of fixing things, things get often broken some more.
@@12voltvids I've never had any trouble with Win 10. I do agree though, Win7 was better. Once I have everything set up, I'd like to start using BSD again.
@@channelsixtysix066 win10 is a joke. My old work computer win7 never had any issues. I could work all day and never had to reboot. I was forced to change to win10 because no more support fur win7. I now have to reboot usually 6 or 7 times a day. Either the internal LTE aircard vanishes or the VPN won't connect, or it goes blue screen. It guy changed LTE card, same problem. All of us are having the same problems. Then there is my unlock pin. On win7, I entered it every time i unlocked my computer with my smartcard. That would unlock all of my corporate access to all my work sites. Now I have to enter my pin number for every page I open, and now i have to not only use my pin, but many sites require 2fa using finger print scanner on my phone. When phone battery dies I am locked out of my work apps and have to sit around with my thumb up my ass while the phone charges enough to start up so I can use my laptop.
I have Dell Latitude D620 on the side of my bed with screen mounted to wall. Its embedded screen itself is busted from drama long long ago hahaha. It's nice for what I use it for - watching 1080p. The thing is, in browsers, the acceleration is a no go because of Intel drivers (just the way it is, nothing can be done about it.) So, I have a plugin in Firefox that sends videos to MPC-BE. That is my recommended player for ANY class machine. For BEST quality possible, use MadVR as video renderer. Just install MadVR, customize settings if so inclined (easy), and set the player to use it in settings. Easy as can be.
I have had HDs out of 3 set top boxes and they could al be formatted on my computer.
And yet i still get people making comments that they can't format them as their computer won't see the drive. Must be mac or Linux users lol.
@@12voltvids Not really, I use a Mac G4 and it formats all drives. And I can also choose to format them for either Mac or PC.
@@12voltvids - The computer won't see the drive in "File Explorer", since it's not formatted in a known file systems.
They don't realise that they have to use Disk Utilities.
@@12voltvids I can't think of any situation with any half-modern Linux distribution where this would be an issue. All the GUIs I know of (GParted is the main one) for formatting partitions include a partitioning tool. Anyone using CLI tools should know better.
I did same with my old LG recorder (DVB-T unit, can't be used anymore), HDD recycled as backup drive (model just too slow for anything else, they make them to be quiet and long lasting and not for speed), PSU already give some organs to save other PSU lives.
Sir I have one funai VCR.I have not adjust the mechanism.pls help me . When I wants to play at first it s head drum run but few seconds later it return the back.no VCR sign show in display.model no funai VCR HQ v,_2s.
How long have you had that watch you wear, if you don't mind me asking. If I had to guess it looks like an eighties model, either way I think it's cool.
It's an early 2000s model. Quite rare. Solar powered and downloads the time from radio station wwvb nightly.
Cool video. I personally use GPT when initializing hard drives. It is much more robust than the original MBR standard from the 1983. So the likelihood you get partition corruption is quite low. In MBR, the disk layout info is stored only at the beginning of the disk, so if an accident happens and it gets deleted, you'll lose all your data. In GPT (developed sometime around 2004), there are multiple copies of the layout info across the entire disk. The only downside is you cannot use GPT in Windows XP but nowadays if you use Windows Vista and younger (7, 8.1, 10), you have much more reliability with GPT than with MBR.
All you would lose is the location of your partitions. If you recreate the partition table your data will be easily accessible. There are tools to help with this if needed. On my old computer I actually wrote down all the partition offsets and sizes on paper so I could easily restore. Sure GPT has its benefits but it doesn't really matter. For a data drive under 2TB I'll just use conventional MBR partitioning because I'm more familiar with how it works.
Side note, while conventional partitioning only allows four primary partitions you can have unlimited logical partitions. GPT allows for 128 primary partitions but no logical ones. I can't imagine any reason you'd need 128 partitions but it's interesting trivia.
@@eDoc2020 I agree. But to me, the advantages and benefits of GPT are superior. It uses exclusively the LBA adressing, which makes it work the same on every computer. Old CHS addressing could be interpreted differently by different BIOSes. This was a very big problem in old Windows (95, 98, Me), those versions read the disk size from BIOS. It was a pain to work with large drives. Remember the old BIOSes having problems with drives larger than 128 GB? And later with drives larger than 2 TB? All my drives now exceed the 2 TB boundary, so if I don't want to use multiple partitions, GPT is the only way to go.
@@speed_rider362 The 128 gigabyte limit had nothing to do with the BIOS interfaces but rather needing to use the newer LBA48 on the drive end. Similarly there is no 2TB limit with the BIOS interface (although many _implementations_ likely have such a limit). BIOS calls went right from the 8GB logical CHS limit to 64-bit LBA which we are far from meeting. I think the idea of BIOS being limited to 2TB is likely a misunderstanding of the 2TB MBR partitioning limit. Since Windows only understands MBR partitions when booting in BIOS mode people think it's a BIOS limit. Linux systems can boot in BIOS mode from GPT disks and I imagine this would work fine beyond 2TB (although I haven't tested).
The CHS bit is a good point, I didn't think of that. However that doesn't really matter anymore because for 20 years or so only the LBA fields have been used. I think the biggest issues with CHS addressing were between the 504MB barrier and the 8GB barrier.
I'm realizing most of my comment isn't relevant to the MBR vs GPT discussion. For modern systems under 2TB the only benefit of GPT is that you don't need an extended partition in order to hold more than 4 volumes, so partitioning is more flexible. If there's a chance I will later migrate to a larger drive I will choose GPT and if there's a chance I will use it with older systems I'll choose MBR. Since most of my technology is on the older side MBR will be my usual choice for random drives. However for a bootable drive on UEFI systems, I'll definitely choose GPT 99% of the time. I might even have converted the drive in my new laptop from MBR to GPT.
this cable box is huge , we have cable box but is size like phone
On the laptop did you ever consider cloning the boot drive on to a solid state hard drive I did that with an all-in-one HP the machine work great the machines is also 10 years old. Did you ever use Macintosh computers I just bought one with an M1 chip I'm very impressed with it
No, boot drive runs just fine as it is. My desktop has 128g SSD for boot and os.
I do the same thing when i'm given unwanted dvd hdd combo units, the hdd always works fine although they can be a slow drive, but i don't care :-D
The dvd recorder is always buggered.
The psu is a keeper for free parts.
Done the same over here they are usually 2.5 inch drives.
The Pace cable boxes commonly used throughout the world have 3.5" SATA drives in them. I am currently tearing a whole pile of them apart, but unfortunately they all have been WD5000AVCS which is a 500GB Green (probably 5400rpm) drives made around 2016.
The power supply is full of good bits - excellent Chemicon Low ESR long life caps and 3A and 4A Schottky diodes that can be harvested.
Our newer boxes use 2.5" drives too
@Taco - I don't like them at all. I've lost so much data (music and movies) to failed WD Greens in my NAS and servers etc that I don't really trust them.
I realise (now) that I should have mirrored the drives for backup but I didn't... then spent months recovering the data that I could and then re-ripping the rest that I had lost.... GRRRR.
Whats the model of that drop in hdd tray, I like that its clear and would like to find one
I reviewed it here:
th-cam.com/video/siPpNuOXtoQ/w-d-xo.html
To answer the question at 2:35 of where it came from, out in your neck of the woods it's almost certainly gonna be Shaw. I just so happen to have the exact same model out in Manitoba that's still going strong to this day, but I notice that they're hitting it over the head in two Calgary neighborhoods specifically, so I imagine its days will be numbered sooner rather than later.
It's a shame that there isn't any legislation up here like the US has that forces cable companies to let subscribers self-install their own CableCARDs/M-CARDs into whatever equipment they wanted that supported it (like an XP Media Center Edition system back in the day), since all Shaw did/does is shrug at the question of PCTV setups and go "officially we don't support it but we won't stop you from trying". Real PITA but apparently some people have made it work.
Eastlink is the competitor out here, shaw in the next town over, but I don't know where this one came from because the guy that gave it to me was from out of town.
The FCC just recently dropped the CableCARD requirements that providers were required to follow. Even though its been around for years, 3rd party CableCARD accepting hardware is scarce. Also providers were pretty good at hiding the card rental option and equally clueless when it came to activating and supporting CableCARDs.
@@NJRoadfan Really? That's bad news for users of HD TiVos (I think the most common third-party device). I wonder how many providers will still offer it?
Btw analog cable was great because it just worked. No equipment rental or DRM needed.
Nice video
We got stacks of these at my (telecom) CO. Linux can see whats on these but only as files, IIRC they cannot be viewed. Wipe 'em! No drive is safe when you got a Linux rig.
I thought I was the only guy using Windows 7 in 2021! ( It works great on my Briggs & Stratton HHD. )
The fan might have been salvaged too. On that cable box....
Ohhh somebody can't read.
@@12voltvids I keep salvaging fans too, one day the mound is going to come crashing down and entomb me.
All the time I've watched your videos I didn't think that you owned any side cutters. 😁
The snips are usually what i reach for. I had some really nice side cutters but they broke :(
I use a flat blade screwdriver and just break the centre pin in the screw.
Not on this you wouldn't. Not a security torx. I have bits for that. This is a totally smooth round bolt with notches for a security socket drive.
@@12voltvids 9 inch angle grinder.
These screws look like the 'Game Bit' screws Nintendo used on their old game cartridges. I would expect a hex driver of a certain size to work, or maybe a 'U' bit. But since you were just scrapping the case what you did makes sense. Why waste time preserving something that's going right in the trash?
pcmcia didn't come around until the mid 90s
My old 486sx laptop has 2 pcmcia slots and it is very old. Runs dos and windows 3.1
Huh, that shows me that I pay zero attention to TV equipment. I think my parents have a dead one I should Frankenstein now, thanks for the tip! I'm sure you have stories about various operating systems, DOS, MAC, Unix, and unix compatable systems linux, mind telling them?
Brutal man, Brutal - as in opening that PCMCIA card.
Agree with the comments about BGA, basically making everything unrepairable.
And - who is the twit who said you cannot use old set top box HDD's, just a pity you cannot rip video from them.
I hang onto a few of those cases as they allow you to build projects that look right next to a TV/HiFi/entertainment system.
Yup video is encrypted.
Need to record the programming using the component video output first.
@@12voltvids That's what I assume, they just like being a pain in the but
my latest TV box got 'upgraded' to cloud recording :(
That's coming here too.
@@12voltvids I found out the annoying part is THEY decide my recordings are deleted after one year
@@maicod that way they can sell the shows back you you if you want to watch again. That's what happens here. You can buy the older seasons of tv shows for 35.00
@@12voltvids :(
@@maicod That's part of why having your own recorder is great. My TiVo Series two still has an old recording or two from over 10 years ago. The recordings survived ownership transfer (we bought the DVR used), the switch from analog to digital cable, and even provider changes without any fuss. Cloud 'DVRs' are just rental services, you don't get to keep anything.
Should run crystal disk info as well to make sure the drive is healthy
1:15 why not using angel grinder 😈😈😈😈😈
Don't have one for starters.
DID have a good hard disk until you threw it on the table lol
Hard drive is fine. I have had external drives fall off the tower and into the floor while they are running and have suffered no problems.
@@12voltvids Eyup m8 you doing ok?
that Seagate drive is not a good one.
I have a bunch and none have given me any trouble. Very reliable