What you'll notice
Recordings do not complete or vanish from the list, the box slows down and freezes, playback stutters, and the decoder restarts on its own.
Why it happens
The internal hard drive is failing. Drives in recording decoders run continuously for years and develop bad sectors well before they die outright, which is why the symptoms are erratic long before the box gives up.
An Explora's hard drive is a mechanical component spinning continuously in a warm plastic box for years on end. It is the part with a finite life, and its decline is gradual rather than sudden.
The progression, roughly in order
- The occasional recording is missing or incomplete, and you assume you did something wrong.
- Playback of older recordings stutters at particular points — those are the bad sectors.
- Menus become slow; the box takes noticeably longer to respond.
- Spontaneous reboots, usually while playing back or recording.
- The drive is no longer recognised, and the box works for live TV only.
What to do at stage one
Get anything you care about off the box. Once a drive starts producing bad sectors, the decline generally accelerates, and recordings on a satellite decoder are not backed up anywhere. If there are recordings you would be upset to lose, treat the first missed recording as the warning it is.
Ventilation is not a trivial detail
Heat is the enemy of hard drives, and a great many Exploras live in a closed cabinet with a decoder-shaped hole in the airflow. Giving the box clear space above and behind it measurably extends drive life, and it is free. When we install we will place it sensibly and say so if the intended spot will cook it.
Not everything is the drive
Freezing and rebooting can also come from a failing power supply or from poor signal causing constant re-acquisition. We check those before condemning a drive, because they are cheaper problems and it would be careless to miss them.
How we fix it
We confirm the drive is the cause rather than a software or signal issue, and advise honestly on the options — drive replacement where that is sensible for the model, or a swap to a current Explora where it is not.
Still not working?
If the checks above haven't restored your decoder (explora / hd), this usually needs a technician. Our Decoder Installation & Setup service covers exactly this fault — from R350, quoted upfront.