SA 8300HD Passport - How to reformat the Harddrive?

[SneakyJN]

Hey all, i've read the FAQ at the bottom which says the below. I've held down the PAUSE button for close to 2 minutes and the mail light never goes on. Nothing ever changes. Should this work on a 8300HD with Passport?

(Timewarner Cable - New York City)

Thanks!

Last Resort
If for some reason you can't get the STB to do what you want and you've rebooted it by unplugging it, etc. This is a "last resort" item. You can reformat the HDD.

The Explorer 8X00 has a fairly simple procedure to erase the drive (start clean). Note that this process will erase all scheduled programming and will cause the unit to reload all programming data from your cable provider. On the plus side, it will repair any fragmenting problems.

"Press and hold PAUSE until Mail led is lit. Press PAGE down or (-),
and then press LIST three times. Turn box off. When turned-on,
formatting will begin."

[DoubleDAZ]

FWIW, I believe the instructions are for SARA, but I don't know that to be a fact. AFAIK, even with SARA, the Pause button does not work the same way on all the different remotes that cableco's use with the 8300.

The other way to get the Mail light lit though is to press and hold the Select button on the 8300 itself. I don't know if this will work for you or not. TRY AT YOUR OWN RISK.

I am curious as to why you want to do this. What problems are you trying to fix?

[SneakyJN]

Thanks for the info Daz.

So i've had a SA8000HD for about 6 months. It slowly crippled itself until last week it would freeze everyday and the only recourse was to pull the plug. Plus when you pressed channel up on the remote it would "stick" and start scanning hundreds of channels real fast.

So TWC came and gave me a brand new SA8300HD on Friday afternoon. The guy left me with my same remote, telling me they were all the same and we tested all the features before he left. Everything was great.

1 hr after he left, i was channel surfing through the HD channels, and it locked up and rebooted itself. Since it came back on, the remote doesn't work. Not a singel button on the remote works for the DVR. I had previously programmed my remote for my TV and if i choose TV all those controls work. Click the Cable button, nothing does anything. I've replaced the batteries, unplugged a dozen time, nothing helps. The earliest appt i can get for a tech to come back out is 5 days from now.

So i figured since the box is new, and was fine before it locked up the first time, maybe i would try a reformat. I really don't think the remote is broken because even the remote from my other TWC SA box won't work on it, and the TV functions still work. So i think my box is messed up.

(which is absurd becaues it's hours old - well, assuming i actually did get a new one)

[SneakyJN]

(FYI: Holding down the "Select" button on the front of the Time Warner SA8300HD Passport box does not bring the mail light on :sightv: )

[DoubleDAZ]

Well, I wasn't sure. There is a long thread about Passport over on AVS, but I didn't have the time to go through it looking for similar instructions. Plus, the instructions for SARA are not documented that I know of, at least not in any consumer docs.