Sky+ Hard Disk Full or Out of Space

Question

My Thomson Sky + box after 3-4 years is running out of capacity and the % capacity shown on the recording screen is down to 3% and occasionally it stops recording and sends me a message that it has run out of disc space. How can I cure this?

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Our Answer

If your Sky+ box reports that it is running out of disk space, then the first, obvious suggestion, is to delete any TV shows that you’ve watched and no longer need to keep. Clear out as many old recordings as you can to free up space.

We’ve heard from some Sky users who’ve been confused by Series link – Also there may only be one entry for “Coronation Street” in the Sky Planner’s list of recordings, the shows are stacked, so there could be 30 episodes, even though only one is shown in the list.

Also, delete any fails or part-recorded shows.

Still showing no space?

If you’ve cleared out your old recordings and the Sky box is still showing that there is no free space, then there could be a problem with the Planner itself. If you’re familiar with computers, you may understand the concept of a “scandisk” and a “defrag” – you can do a similar thing with a Sky+ box, and if you suspect that the hard disk has more space than the Planner is telling you, then this step is worth considering…

How to Rebuild Your Sky+ Planner

The setting to do this is hidden away in the secret installer menu. How you get to this depends on the make of Sky+ box:

• If it’s a new Sky+ HD box (the black one), then you press the ‘Services’ button, type  0 0 1 and then press  ‘Select’. From here, scroll right to “Sky+ Rebuild”
• On older Sky+ boxes, then press Services’ button, type  4 0 1 and then press  ‘Select’. From here, select “Sky+ Planner Rebuild”

Re-building the Sky+ HD Box Recording List

Also worth noting

Not all of the Sky+ box hard drive is available for you to use.About half of the drive is reserved for Sky Anytime. This service records TV shows while your box is asleep, so you have a library of on-demand shows to watch, picked by Sky. It’s possible to disable this service, if you wish. You won’t recover any disk space, but it will stop Sky adding extra content to your box without your say so.

To turn off Sky Anytime, do the following: Press the ‘Services’ button, select ‘Anytime TV Setup’, and set to “no”, then select  ‘Save New Settings’.

Related Questions

• How to use the Sky Planner Keep button