Copying from standalone hdd recorder's hdd to pc hdd

[flez]

Ok I have a PB ehr2080, divx+nicam french model, 80gb hdd, +r/+rw.

I also use a rca/thompson/ferguson DTH7000N, 40gb.

I can remove the HD form the thompson and put it in the PC, run a little program called DTH explorer written by a clever chap, and copy my recordings off the HD onto the computers HD as vob files, then burn them.

With me so far? good.

Now with the PB EHR2080 I just have to put a blank dvd +r in and select want I want to copy from its HD to disk, and off it goes, succeeding most of the time......

Why it would be more trouble to have to pull the HD out of it and plug it into the PC, doing it the hard way has advantages, 1, I don't have to wait 45 minutes while it fills a disk, 2, I can edit the stuff to chop all the adverts out nicely, unlike doing it on the machine with its variable 0.5 second accuracy.

so, does anyone know how to mount a hdd from a LSI chipset HDD recorder on an XP box ?

I have had the hdd in my xp box, and from that I have found....

It has thousands of sectors starting @@DDJLJFFDFLLPPP``\\ppt which I am making an educated guess would be mpg frames, typing the above into google gets some interesting downloads.

As can be seen from where I found some at these sectors

1121439
1121623 184
1121839 216
1122035 196
1122267 232

The spacing of the sectors seems to coincide with bit rate patterns, so I'm guessing again it records in variable bit rate.

I found some of my titles on the HDD in plaintext

title 0 1036492
n1 1036504
cam rain 1036516
NORM 1036528
CAM 1036540
title5 1036552

As can be seen again, spaced 12 sectors apart.

Does this sound like another hdd recorder ?
I will post anything else I find out, I just tried an old 4.3gb drive, works fine with 4 hours of recording space..........
(oh and it does not format, must just overwrite, because on putting it back in the PC, I still had the old windows 95 on their...)

[Lerner]

I have nothing to add except I am in the same situation. I also have an 80gb recorder that uses LSI Logic and I am trying to mount the disk on Windows. It's a Chinese model called Kross. The contents of the disk are the same as described above, i.e. mpeg format. I can almost copy the files off by hand except I can't be sure of getting complete shows because of file fragmenting. I would appreciate an answer to this question too.

[flez]

I'm thinking its a standard file system idea, a title in an index pointing to the first sector, then a pointer from that sector to the next in a linked list, very olde' worlde'

It would be quick and simple, but could lead to the drives free space being fragmented, and as its got no menue option to compact the free space, it must keep a sector map somewhere, I presume.

[juststarting]

Will this method work for the DRS7000 (not the N) model? Haven't seen any information on the DRS7000 only the 7000N, supposedly the 7000 is not upgradable, etc. Any info would be appreciated.

[flez]

7000 is a 7000, just different for the different countrys, IE tuner etc, pal/ntsc stuff.

The 7000 is well talked about in the yahoo rca-pvr group, that will be a good place to discuss that one.

[luca.321]

Hi there,

have you solved this Issue?
I'm in the same situation. My old PB EHR2080 is broken and I'm searching to extract data from the 80 gb HD.
Once mounted on external box the PC doesn't recognize it.

Do you know if there is some utility to do it?

Thanks. Luca

[flez]

I never did find a utility to copy them off, i still have 2 of these machines but neither will put a picture on my tv, i think there stuck in some sily mode, one day i may have a play with them again as i could use one to record cctv etc

[luca.321]

I know that this is the real problem.
I'm sad because I've to delete all my files. At the same time I've an 80 gb hd to format and use.


Thank you very much.
Luca