Hello to you all,
while at present I have no more LDs at home, in the past I had a quite large collection (mainly PAL and some NTSC titles). Now, with the fresh purchase of a VPR I am trying to restart again this hobby.

I was lucky enough to find a Crystalio II VPS-3800 for a very good price, I went in person to pick up the unit to avoid any damage from shipping.
The processor came in its original box complete with plastic foam, main remote, and no manual.

When I opened the unit I discovered it was lacking everything about the HDD: no disk, no metal frame, no EIDE cable, no Molex cable. Also the MediaPlayer remote was absent. When I asked the seller about those missing parts it tolds me it was purchased in this configuration (I am the third owner of this unit) and he never knew it was possible to store media files inside the Crystalio. I believe he was honest in this since he had a limited knowledge about this kind of equipment.

However my wish was to restore also the Media Player functionality and this lead to me to a long jurney not yet concluded.

After a bit of research on the web and on the old Pixel Magic site I discovered that for a full functionality I had to purchase a specific remote, the same used for the MediaBox, it is needed for file operations like cut, copy & Paste among other things specific for media playback. On eBay I found a new remote from a US seller and so far so good.

The real troubles came when I tried to connect a real HDD to the internal EIDE port of Crystalio... While I can read the content (but only if saved before plugging the HDD inside) it is nowhere possible to write to the unit from an external source, either USB or via Ethernet. Every tries to copy a file frome outside to inside fails: the progress bar started but after a bit everything freeze and nothing was written.

I spent countless hours around the web trying to collect as many infos as possible about the procedure to made an HDD recognized and usable by the Crystalio but what I found was of no or little help.

I have tried all the following actions:

- Format the HDD in EXT2 filesystem (and also tried in EXT3 and FAT32)
- Feeding the HDD from an external PSU and not the internal one in case it was going to fail.
- Connect the HDD to the Crystalio IDE plug with a brand new 40 pin flat cable.

The front LCD panel report "Hard Disk not ready" but the Media Player can be opened and this is the fun part: without an HDD connected internally the Media Player does not come up: plugging an USB HDD is not enough to use the software, selecting "Media Player" as input has no effect and the screen remains black.

Even if the internal HDD is not usable, having it connected is mandatory also for using external USB (or ethernet) media storage.

To format the HDD in EXT2 I used either the Paragon FileSystem software or DiskGenius v6 in Windows 11, I have at present no access to a true Linux machine but if it can solve the issue I am willing to try.

So far I have experimented with:

1 Tb Seagate EIDE HDD
160 Gb Maxtor SATA HDD with EIDE/SATA bridge
150 Gb Seagate SATA HDD with EIDE/SATA bridge
2 Gb Trascend Compact Flash with CF/EIDE adaptor
4 Gb Trascend Disk-on-Module 40 pin

All of the above exhibits the same issue "Hard Disk not ready" on LCD screen (System/Information submenu) but visible in the MediaPlayer list including the content and every tries to copy something from external storage to internal HDD lead to a freeze and no data is moved.

It happens either feeding the voltage from the Crystalio internal molex plug or using and external PSU dedicated to the HDD.

At present I think, looking at all the experiments and permutations I have done, there are only two possible explanation for this:

1) The EIDE circuitry of the Crystalio is not working correctly (hardware malfunction)
2) There are some stupid permission to set on the HDD to allow the embedded Linux on Crystalio to allow a proper complete access

Has anyone of you folks succesfully replaced the original Crystalio internal HDD?

I so, please, PLEASE, give me and advice because I have no more ideas on what to do to solve this issue.

The other functions of the VPS-3800 seems to work very well. At some point I also suspected the board was swapped with a VPS-3300 but firewire and ethernet ports are there, also the HD-SDI inputs do accept the full HD signals (I have tested it with a broadcast video switcher) so it is a genuine VPS-3800 since the beginning.

Many thanks in advance for any hints or help you will kindly share with me...

From what I remember the original internal HDD is a 200 GB one.
I also do remember some shops offered a larger HDD replacement.
So it must be possible to change, but of course big question is how to format.
Unfortunately I do not know this... should check if my HDD still works, have not
used the media player in a long time. Will watch this thread out of personal interest.

Thank you very much for your reply.
Looking at the behaviour of the file transfers, it seems the Crystalio use the HDD not only for storage but also for some swap/cache operations either for file copy or playback.
I have done some comparison with the Media Box from the same manufacturer (I don't have one, only infos collected on the web) but it behaves differently: the Media Box has an USB Type B port that can be plugged directly to a PC and used as an external HDD, all media files are transferred this way and the player does not need any special attention about format or partitioning its HDD.
One thing I have observed during my tests is that when mechanical HDDs are used, during the boot process the platters are spinning until the Crystalio is ready to operate but then they spin down and do not start anymore, like the HDD enter in a sleep mode and does not come up again. Also when I try to copy files from USB to internal it remains quiet, this either feeding the voltage thru Crystalio molex or external PSU. It is like "OK, I see the HDD but I don't know what to do with it".
From what I have read the proof of a working installation is what the Crystalio LCD front screen reports when entering in "System/Information" sub menu, it can be:

- Harddisk Not Found
- Harddisk Not Ready
- (Hard disk unused space)

The first is of course when no HDD is installed, the second is when it is installed but not usable (my case), the third is the normal and correct operation showing the used/unused space.
No matter what I have done, the unit remains in the second status.

An ideal scenario would be pulling out the HDD from a working unit, connect it to a PC, examine the structure it with a program like DiskGenius, format/partition a new HDD with the same structure and see what happens when reinserted in the Crystalio. If the new one still reports "HDD not ready" status, then is an hardware issue for sure.

Okay, seems my previous assumptions were wrong, so I can confirm:

- The VPS-3800 works perfectly
- The HDD does not need special permissions or extra partitions

What I really needed was the right tool to format the HDD and the only software that worked just fine is:

- MiniTool Partition Wizard (Free Edition is OK, we don't need the other features)

After installing the software I have connected the HDD destined to Crystalio wiped all partitions and formatting the new one in MBR/PrimaryEXT2, remember that:

- THE FILESYSTEM MUST BE EXT2 and everything will work fine

No label needed, the field can be left blank

CompactFlash cards are not suitable, it must be either a true HDD or a Disk-on-Module from trusted brands, I have not verified with SSDs and now, after long struggle, this is what I finally see on the front panel LCD



I have already tried in copy/move/create and delete folders and files on the new HDD (the Disk-on-Module in photo) and everything is now smooth and perfect. In the next days I will try to attach larger HDDs moving much larger files like ISO images and see what happens.

I hope this post will help more Crystalio II users like me in restoring their unit in full shape

Recently I have tried to connect a 2Tb HDD to the Crystalio and it went very well, the only drawback was the time required to be formatted in EXT2, this task took an insane 6 hours (yes, you read it correctly: SIX HOURS)! It reminded me the good old times when I was low level formatting my SCSI HDDs
The HDD itself is a 2.5" Seagate SATA bridged to PATA thanks to an ACARD ARS-2133 (but I think any SATA-PATA bridge would be fine), as you can see in photo it was lying on the PSU but only temporarly for test purposes.
Copying huge ISO files from external USB HDD to the internal one, althought slowly, went absolutely fine, the ethernet connection is yet to be tested but I don't expect issues.
The VPS-3800, as I told in the first post, was sold to me without the metal HDD bracket so if I decide to keep it inside I would definitely need some bricolage work to fit securely in place. I am not sure about that, because most of the media playback can be happily done via the external USB ports, only some files with high bitrate plays smoother from internal HDD. I have done some test with Handbrake in converting to MPEG4 a video sample (the famous Big Buck Bunny short movie) using different bitrates but only in a specific scene the file exhibits some stutters on USB (the very long rolling end credits at the end) while plays smoothly via internal EIDE port. For now I think I will go back to the compact 4Gb Disk-On-Module that does not require a mechanical fixture.
The presence of an EIDE device connect to the internal port is needed to trigger the MediaPlayer on the Crystalio, otherwise only the external digital/analog inputs are selectable.
In the meantime the Crystalio is now back in its storage box along the remotes and manual, using it as a bare mediaplayer it is not worth it, there are better and more compatible (H265) solutions around but I hope to match it soon with an LD player, I am actively looking for a good one, we'll see!