External Expander Hard Drive for Arris Gateway

[roadrunner191]

I knocked over my external hard drive connected to the Arris Gateway and got a disconnection error on the TV. Unfortunately, the Gateway no longer recognized the drive as connected.

Can I format this in Windows and re-install as a new formatted drive or will it fail to recognize as I understand the Gateway uses a unique file system that is different to formatting under Windows.  The drive is still good and I would like to find a way to reuse it with the Gateway.

Thanks in adva

[mdk]

@roadrunner191 -- the Gateway no longer recognized the drive as connected

Power-off the Gateway, by disconnecting the power-cord. Connect the Expander, and power it on. Reconnect the power to the Gateway. Is the Expander now connected?

Or, do you have a computer with an "eSATA" interface? If so, power-off that computer, and connect the Expander to the computer. Power-on the computer, to see Windows will recognize the Expander as an additional disk-drive.  If it does, even though the file-system on the disk-drive is not compatible with Windows, the physical device has survived the "drop".  Download the free version of the SPECCY software, install, and run it. Select "Storage", and select the Expander's volume. Expand the "S.M.A.R.T." report, to show the "health" of the disk-drive.

Also,

1. Open "File Explorer"
2. Right-mouse-button click on "Computer" (or something similar) and choose "Manage", to open "Computer Management".
3. Select "Storage". It should list the disk-drive volumes.
4. Select the volume for the Expander.
5. Delete all existing partitions on the volume -- *NOT* *YOUR* "C:" *DRIVE*
6. Create a new partition.
7. Format the partition, to create the "NTFS" file-system, which is compatible with Windows.
8. At this point, either "stop" and use it as a Windows-compatible disk-drive, or continue with the following steps.
9. Shutdown Windows.
10. Disconnect the power from the Gateway.
11. Connect the Expander to the Gateway, and power-on the Gateway.
12. The Gateway should recognize it as a "new volume", and it will re-initialize it, and create a file-system that is compatible with the Gateway.

[roadrunner191]

Thanks for the post.  This did initially work and then got a message from the Gateway that the drive has been disconnected.  Tried reformatting again, but wasn't getting any success. Replaced with new drive, and all good now.

[mdk]

@roadrunner191 -- Tried reformatting again, but wasn't getting any success.

Yup. Been there, done that. The output from SPECCY for the "SMART" report for the disk-drive indicated many bad sectors, and many activation of "spare" sectors, to logically replace the bad sectors.

Disassemble the old disk-drive, if you want to get one or two VERY-STRONG magnets for you (but not young children with delicate fingers) to play with. The disk-drive's platters can be hung inside, as shiny, reflective, Xmas-tree decorations, or outside, to scare birds away from your vegetable garden. 🙂

If you are careful with the disassembly of the external device's case, you may be able to swap-in a different disk-drive, to "refresh" the device, and use it as a "backup-drive" for your computer.

However, note that any replacement disk-drive may not be able to successfully handle multi-channel concurrent recording/playback, if you connect the "refreshed-Expander" to your PVR.

[Roger_G]

My previous experience with one of the first Motorola Shaw PVR's is that the hard drive was formatted with an obscure IBM operating system. IBM wanted over a $1000 (could have been 2K to 4K) for the formatting software. These drives appear as defective or unformatted when put in a regular PC. I had saved the old PVR for some time because it was capable of formatting a new drive with the IBM operating system. But I finally took it to recycling.

Does anyone know what format the new Gateways use?