About Recording TV to the HP Personal Media Drive

The HP Digital Entertainment Center was set up to record TV shows to your local hard disk drive when using Media Center. It is possible to change the recording pathway to an HP Personal Media Drive, but several errors can occur if the drive is unexpectedly or improperly removed.

It is best to record TV shows to your local hard disk drive and then copy the files over to your HP Personal Media Drive.

If you decide to change your recording path to the HP Personal Media Drive, consider the following:

■The TV recording path does not default back to your local hard disk drive after the HP Personal Media drive is disconnected. This means scheduled recordings may not be recorded. The recording error Low Disk Space may occur, and then your program will not be recorded. See “Changing Disk Allocation” on page 185 for more information about fixing this error.

■When the drive is disconnected, the disk allocation for Recorded TV shows reverts to 10%, and your recorded programs can be lost if you have selected the “Keep until space is needed” setting in My TV. See “Changing Disk Allocation” on page 185 for more information about changing the allocation.

■If you disconnect the drive while Live TV is active, a video error can occur.

■Recorded TV shows are not updated in Media Center when the drive is removed.

■The drive may be assigned a different drive letter which prevents Media Center from recognizing the recording path or the stored Recorded TV files.

When you set the TV recording pathway to your HP Personal Media Drive, Media Center stores the recording buffer data for pausing live TV on your drive. This means that if live TV is playing, you won’t be able to remove the drive safely.

To avoid this scenario, change the recording pathway back to your local hard disk drive, and then restart the HP Digital Entertainment Center before disconnecting the HP Personal Media Drive.

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■HP recommends that you record TV programs directly to your local hard disk drive and then transfer the programs to the HP Personal Media Drive.

■If you have problems recording after you have changed the recording pathway, close Media Center and then open it, and then restart the HP Digital Entertainment Center.

182Microsoft Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 Software Guide