Update on V4 progression

[Maasbommel]

Thanks Bitbot!

This is really helpfull information.
Waiting for your dd wipe action and the results....

[Bigbot3]

Problem Solved!!

Hello All,

Here are the results of the dd wipe and reformat actions on my Samsung HD204UI 2TB disk wich was not properly recognised after upgrading the firmware to V4 Final.

First i did the wiping and then formatting the disk with the mede8er firmware V4Final and the disk was then afterwards recognised correctly as the internal harddrive of the mede8er.

This gave the following results with fdisk :

/ # fdisk -l -u

Disk /dev/sda: 2000.3 GB, 2000398934016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 243201 cylinders, total 3907029168 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes

   Device Boot       Start                  End              Blocks          Id  System
/dev/sda1           16065         3905224784  1952604360    7  HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda2      3905224785  3905546084      160650       82  Linux swap
/dev/sda3      3905546085  3906638504      546210       83  Linux
/ #
/ #
Notice there is an unallocated space in front of the NTFS Partition of about 7.84 MiB,sectors 0 - 16064.

Then i copied some files to the disk on my windows system and tested again on the mede8er, and the disk was still
properly recognised. This copying goes very slowly (22 MB/s)  because the NTFS partition wasn't properly aligned yet on a 4k boundary.
Next  i thought wat if the mede8er firmware is writing some special data in the unallocated space of sectors 0 - 16064 just in front of the NTFS partition. Then if you delete the NTFS partition made by the mede8er with a partition program like GParted  and then recreate a new aligned NTFS partition in the same unallocated space you could overwrite this special data..
So i did the following: I used GParted to delete the NTFS partition,
then i created a new aligned NTFS partition in the same place with a free space in front of it of 10 MB.
so this gives the next results with fdisk:

After a clean format and recreating the NTFS Partition aligned on a 1 mb boundary with 10 mb of unallocated
space in front of it:

/ # fdisk -l -u

Disk /dev/sda: 2000.3 GB, 2000398934016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 243201 cylinders, total 3907029168 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes

   Device Boot    Start       End    Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1           20480  3905224703  1952602112    7  HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda2      3905224785  3905546084      160650   82  Linux swap
/dev/sda3      3905546085  3906638504      546210   83  Linux
/ #

The disc was after this action still correctly recognised as the internal disk of the mede8er, Phoe...
Now for the big test i copied back the whole contents of the disc (1TB) from a backup i made previously.
This copy made transfer speeds of around 50 MB/s thanks to the partition alignment.
Then i put the disc back in the mede8er, and Yes it was stil recognised correctly by the mede8er as its internal HDD drive.
Problem solved!

So obviously since firmware v4Final the mede8er is checking some special hidden data that is lurking in the unallocated space in front of the NTFS partition and if it is not there the disc is not recognised as the internal HDD but as an "foreign" disk with an NTFS and an EXT3 partition on it.

It would be a better solution if the format routine inside the firmware would create all partitions on the disc aligned to 1 mb boundaries like that what windows 7 already is doing, so to support the newer advanced format disks with 4k sectors who are appearing on the market today.

Wel this was a long write (and read) but i didn't want to leave something out of the story.

Best Regards,
Bigbot3

[the-osiris]

Great job Bigbot3 !!
Now I know why there's empty area in the beginning of HDD before NTFS partition, a hidden one.

[Shamus]

Not sure where best to raise this but I am still having problems with subtitles being on for some movies despite the subtitles being set to off in the setup menu.

[Maasbommel]

Hi Bigbot3,

That is great feedback.
I have the impression that my suggestion to wipe the disk with dd and after that run mede8er format from setup would also have solved this.
Do you agree?

regards,
Maasbommel

[Bigbot3]

Hi Bigbot3,

That is great feedback.
I have the impression that my suggestion to wipe the disk with dd and after that run mede8er format from setup would also have solved this.
Do you agree?

regards,
Maasbommel

Hello Maasbommel,

Wiping the disc with dd,  was a very good suggestion from you because
it gave me a good clean starting point for reformatting the internal disc.
It was then that i was starting to think about the unallocated space before the ntfs partition,
and that there could be special data inside that space that mede8er uses to recognise his internal disk.
Also then i realised i could use the telnet connection to look to the partition scheme
"from the inside" as how the mede8er sees it.
Thanks.

Could you suggest to the mede8er development team to adjust the partition scheme of the mede8er firmware
to create all the neccesary partitions aligned to 1mb boundaries. Then there is no need to "fiddle" afterwards with placement of the partitions and everything works "right out of the box" for the older 512 byte sector drives as well for the newer 4k advanced format drives.

Best Regards,

Bigbot3

[Mario67]

Ever since the v4 beta release came I frequently visited this forum to see what's the status. Since there were many people with problems with the beta versions I decided to stick with the v3 firmware. A few days after the release of the official v4 release I took the plunge and upgraded. I didn't encounter any problems, in a few minutes my Mede8er was up and running again.

So far all looks very well, under v3 I had some MKV's that didn't display, under v4 they look good. The interface is a lot better and I still have to discover the video wall but I'm sure I'll love it 

Thanks to the developers and beta testers for the great job and patience during the long beta phase !

[leuk_he]

Problem Solved!!

This copy made transfer speeds of around 50 MB/s thanks to the partition alignment.
Then i put the disc back in the mede8er, and Yes it was stil recognised correctly by the mede8er as its internal HDD drive.
Problem solved!

I have 2 remarks:
-Maybe the point that you need some free space before the ntfs partition may be valid, I never succesdeeded getting the disk to recognise as a internal disk after i reformatted the NTFS part (it showed as usb)
-50Megabyte/sec is impossible over USB in my opinion .

[Bigbot3]

I have 2 remarks:
-Maybe the point that you need some free space before the ntfs partition may be valid, I never succesdeeded getting the disk to recognise as a internal disk after i reformatted the NTFS part (it showed as usb)
-50Megabyte/sec is impossible over USB in my opinion .

Hi leuk_he,

I don't need the extra space, what is 7.84 MiB these days?, but i need an 4k aligned ntfs partitition
to achive the maximum possible transfer speed of my drive.
Because the mede8er is not creating the aligned ntfs partition automatically i had to create it myself
and by doing so i accedently destroyed the gap in front of it. 

Now as a workaround i have created the aligned partition a little smaller and with 10 mb unallocated space
in front to save the old gap and this does the trick.

But the dangerous part is that the mede8er firmware is using a part of the disc that is destinated
as "unpartitioned" as its private storage area and if this space is covered by the ntfs partition strange
things can and will happen, like corruption of the ntfs file system for example.

And that is why everything started in the first place i think, the developers have build in the final V4 firmware
an extra check to see if the data in the unpartitioned part of the disc is still inplace and to only accept a harddrive with this
special "signature" as an internal disc.
And otherwise mount it as an external "foreign" disc to protect the system against destroying the data that lies in the gap.
Older versions (pre v4final) don't have that check so everything seems oke on those systems
but if you then create your own ntfs partition it is bound to get slowly destroyed!

The bottomline is: You have to keep a reserved space at he start of the disc to keep it healty and ok.

And for the transfer speeds: the disc was connected  via sata  to my windows xp system,
and even so the copying took several hours at 50 MB/s  average.
Via Usb the speed is much lower, more in the 20 MB/s if i remember it correctly.

Best Regards,

Bigbot3

[Maasbommel]

Hello Maasbommel,

Wiping the disc with dd,  was a very good suggestion from you because
it gave me a good clean starting point for reformatting the internal disc.
It was then that i was starting to think about the unallocated space before the ntfs partition,
and that there could be special data inside that space that mede8er uses to recognise his internal disk.
Also then i realised i could use the telnet connection to look to the partition scheme
"from the inside" as how the mede8er sees it.
Thanks.

Could you suggest to the mede8er development team to adjust the partition scheme of the mede8er firmware
to create all the neccesary partitions aligned to 1mb boundaries. Then there is no need to "fiddle" afterwards with placement of the partitions and everything works "right out of the box" for the older 512 byte sector drives as well for the newer 4k advanced format drives.

Best Regards,

Bigbot3

Hi Bigbot3,

First of all a big thanks for your thorough investigation.
I have raised this to the attention of Mede8er for further investigation.

regards,
Maasbommel

[leuk_he]

And for the transfer speeds: the disc was connected  via sata  to my windows xp system,
and even so the copying took several hours at 50 MB/s  average.
Via Usb the speed is much lower, more in the 20 MB/s if i remember it correctly.

That SATA  detail was missing... that explains that transfer speed. mede8ter device does never reach such speeds, and there 4k alsignment does not result in a measurable advantage in the mede8ter see http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/wd-4k-sector,2554-5.html   But it does not hurt to align. 

I still think there are more problems with the ntfs driver, (see  the threads in my sig, that is why i use ext3 ). The lack of communication on this part from realtek is saying a lot.   I Also made availble a ntf-3g driver, (see plug on device in mod section) but it still requires the gui("dvdplayer")  to mount the the drive in the first place, or the drive is not visible in the gui.



 

[KendalBeefcake]

Not sure where best to raise this but I am still having problems with subtitles being on for some movies despite the subtitles being set to off in the setup menu.

Hi, I'm getting this too.. Can't find any other mention of it..

[Domino1999]

Hi, I'm getting this too.. Can't find any other mention of it..

video_ts structure has this problem. Been mentioned in other posts already: http://www.mede8erforum.com/index.php/topic,4330.0.html

[anijaz]

updated to V4 from V4B5...so far no problems
would love these features in the next update
1. support for shortcuts file *.ink
2. videowall as default after mede8er startup or at least make the default selectable
great job

[sjweemie]

hi i just installed the new update, but i cant select 1080P as output, i can only select 1080i 60 Hz.
met TV is 1080p,

what is the problem?

grtzzzz