# Premiere HD Died, New Roamio Won't Recognize eSATA



## MyM3 (Jan 31, 2002)

My Premiere's un-modded HDD died early this morning. It was stuck on the'Welcome! Starting up...' screen. No sweat, I wanted to get a new Roamio anyway. I ran up to Best Buy and picked up a 75 hour model for $176 (they price matched Amazon) and I added a 4 year warranty for $35.

I got the Roamio activated, CableCARD working, it rebooted to install an update and all was going fine except it says that my Western Digital My Book AV DVR Expander 1TB eSATA (part number WDBABT0010HBK-00 0611B) is an Unsupported device. I called TiVo and they wanted to know what my Drive ID was. I don't know and their advice was to buy a new Western Digital My Book AV DVR Expander 1TB from them for $130. They would not give me a part number. 

Why won't my WD DVR Expander work with Roamio? I have found a similar WD eSATA (part number WDBABT0010HBK-NESN) at another online store for $88. Will this work with Roamio? Thanks!


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## ThAbtO (Apr 6, 2000)

Most likely, that external expander drive dies, or the enclosure itself. When you have an external drive attached, you have a greater chance of losing recordings should either drive fail. Tivo spreads its recording across both drives similar to networked drives in RAID 0 mode.

You can check if the expander failed since you removed it and you can try booting up the Premiere on its own.
With the Roamio, if you want more recording space, its much easier and cheaper to get a 2 TB GP-AV drive and just switching it with the original. No computer required.


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## Azlen (Nov 25, 2002)

My new Roamio didn't recognize my old expander right away but left it plugged in and eventually it did.


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

MyM3 said:


> My Premiere's un-modded HDD died early this morning. It was stuck on the'Welcome! Starting up...' screen. No sweat, I wanted to get a new Roamio anyway. I ran up to Best Buy and picked up a 75 hour model for $176 (they price matched Amazon) and I added a 4 year warranty for $35.
> 
> I got the Roamio activated, CableCARD working, it rebooted to install an update and all was going fine except it says that my Western Digital My Book AV DVR Expander 1TB eSATA (part number WDBABT0010HBK-00 0611B) is an Unsupported device. I called TiVo and they wanted to know what my Drive ID was. I don't know and their advice was to buy a new Western Digital My Book AV DVR Expander 1TB from them for $130. They would not give me a part number.
> 
> Why won't my WD DVR Expander work with Roamio? I have found a similar WD eSATA (part number WDBABT0010HBK-NESN) at another online store for $88. Will this work with Roamio? Thanks!


If at least the retail box, if not the enclosure itself, does not have the TiVo logo on it, it's not the right model which the TiVo will accept.

The TiVo itself has a very short list of model numbers of the drive itself (not the enclosure, but the drive inside the enclosure) which it will accept, and if the drive itself is not on that list, no dice.


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## MyM3 (Jan 31, 2002)

ThAbtO said:


> You can check if the expander failed since you removed it and you can try booting up the Premiere on its own.


The Premiere will not boot up on it's own.



ThAbtO said:


> With the Roamio, if you want more recording space, its much easier and cheaper to get a 2 TB GP-AV drive and just switching it with the original. No computer required.


That is good advice and I thank you but I rarely use more than 30% of recording capacity. I'm hoping that the Roamio will eventually 'see' the WD DVR Expander.

Now I'm thinking about that 2 TB internal drive option but it's almost double the cost of an eSATA and I would've essentially 'wasted' my Best Buy extended warranty. Are there any statistics that show a higher failure rate with external drives vs internal? I mean, eventually ALL hard drives will fail.


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## ThAbtO (Apr 6, 2000)

I had a 500 GB expander on my Series 3 for almost 3 yrs til it failed and now I am using an internal 1TB only.

Roamio can use up to a 3TB just by swapping out the original. I have not swapped out my 500 gb original yet. I have been transferring/copying recordings instead. Although I only can use wireless, it connected by N and can get 10Gb/hr but the S3 only 3GB/hr on G.


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## JWhites (May 15, 2013)

I gotta say I've been using the original WD DVR expander 1TB model (orange circles) ever since it first came on the scene in 2009 and I haven't had a hiccup. Still runs silent and cool after all these years. I've since purchased several of the MyBook AV DVR expander 1TB models for my other Premieres and just as I expected they also run silent and cool. I do agree that with a RAID 0 setup you do risk losing your recordings, but then again a DVR isn't exactly meant to be used for long term archive storage and as long as you treat it with respect you shouldn't have a problem. If you do, there's always the manufacturers warranty. 

I've given things some thought and I was thinking that MyM3 might need to check on the eSATA cable to see if it's working properly, if he still cannot get the expander working.


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## MyM3 (Jan 31, 2002)

MyM3 said:


> I got the Roamio activated, CableCARD working, it rebooted to install an update and all was going fine except it says that my Western Digital My Book AV DVR Expander 1TB eSATA (part number WDBABT0010HBK-00 0611B) is an Unsupported device. I called TiVo and they wanted to know what my Drive ID was. I don't know and their advice was to buy a new Western Digital My Book AV DVR Expander 1TB from them for $130. They would not give me a part number.


Fyi, I emailed WD Support to ask about the 'Drive ID' number and this is their reply:

Unfortunately, we really do not know what the Drive ID TiVo Support is asking for, but the number WDBABT0010HBK indicates the model number of your My Book AV DVR Expander:

http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.aspx?id=360

According to the link you sent, this is the same drive and it support All TiVo Roamios.

From our side, My Book AV has been designed and tested to be used with specific devices. It may also work with additional devices not listed here (e.g Tivo Roamio), please check the following link about My Book AV Compatibility Information:

http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.aspx?id=360

My new Roamio has recognized the old My Book AV DVR Expander. Funny how the TiVo tech agent did not associate the 'Drive ID' number with WD's part number: WDBABT0010HBK. He was, however, more than happy to sell me a new My Book AV DVR Expander.


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## lpwcomp (May 6, 2002)

MyM3 said:


> That is good advice and I thank you but I rarely use more than 30% of recording capacity. I'm hoping that the Roamio will eventually 'see' the WD DVR Expander.


Then why do you need the expander? The advice to use a larger internal HD rather than an external was not intended to give you more capacity per se, it was intended to give you the same capacity w/o adding several single points of failure which having an external does.


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## MyM3 (Jan 31, 2002)

You make a good point. I guess that I've always been a bit paranoid about upgrading to a larger internal HD. Plus, with my 'Basic' Roamio only giving me 65 hours having a bit more capacity available is nice. Also, the external WD expander did not fail and I am using it with the Roamio, although it needed reformatting.

Given more time, I would have examined my options more carefully but since the Premiere was my only source of TV I just wanted to get up and running quickly.

How does using an external drive add 'several single points of failure'? I think that I can follow the logic but I don't see 'several'.


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## jrtroo (Feb 4, 2008)

The drive, the enclosure, each connection, the cord, and power supply.


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## Kyoootee (Dec 4, 2002)

my question is, can I move my WD My book AV External Hard drive from a Premiere to my new Roamio without any problems? I am sure I will loose my previous recordings.


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## ThAbtO (Apr 6, 2000)

Kyoootee said:


> my question is, can I move my WD My book AV External Hard drive from a Premiere to my new Roamio without any problems? I am sure I will loose my previous recordings.


Yes, you will *lose* most of your recordings. You also will have more point for failure if either drive, cable, enclosure, etc. fails.

Short of voiding warranty, you can easily just swap out the Roamio drive for a bigger (up to 3TB) drive.


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