PVR formats USB stick so unreadable on Mac

[PhillT]

Our MTV4000 PVR formats a USB stick as Linux, Master Boot Record, according to Disk Utility on a Mac.
It therefor will not mount, so is unreadable, and is also not readable in Windows.
Is there any solution to this other than to run a Linux operating system to edit movies on the USB stick?

Cheers.

[jman98]

I would guess that probably the actual file system is ext3 but it could also be something else. The first thing is to find out exactly what file system it has because Linux supports a rather large number of them. Then you could look for Mac or Windows file system drivers for the file system and possibly do your work on the USB stick that way. The major Linux file systems should have Windows and Mac drivers available. PVRs are notorious for not making things easy so there is some chance that they are using some kind of proprietary file system, but I know nothing about your PVR and I do not live in Australia so I cannot comment directly on what yours does or does not do.

I poked around the internet a little and I can't find anything useful relating to what file system this PVR uses. Hopefully Disk Utility has better info than just "Linux". Maybe it said more but you didn't realize what it was since you're not familiar with Linux.

[Bjs]

There's two options

1: Expansion ... that would format a drive used as expanded storage
2: Transfer

No mention of required format thou a new flash drive shouldnt need to be formatted and just be plug n go where transfer is concerned.

Very similar to the device I bought a few years ago ... if you formatted drives it would end up using linux ext2 and a right pain in the wrong hands.

Projects that might keep you in windows ... hopefully it's one of three.

Ext2 (2) and ext2fsd (3/4)

[PhillT]

Thanks for the replies. The only information I seem able to access is as follows:-

Mount Point : Not mounted Capacity : 4.04 GB (4,039,423,488 Bytes)
Partition Type : Linux Available : -
Owners Enabled : - Used : -
Number of Folders : - Number of Files : -

Disk Description : A-DATA USB Flash Drive Media Total Capacity : 4.04 GB (4,043,309,056 Bytes)
Connection Bus : USB Write Status : Read/Write
Connection Type : External
USB Serial Number : 82c28ce2378129 S.M.A.R.T. Status : Not Supported
Partition Map Scheme : Master Boot Record


If there is some way of accessing more info that may be useful in determining the file system, please let me know and I will try to get the further info.

Cheers.

[jman98]

Go here:
http://www.fs-driver.org/download.html
and install this on a Windows PC. The odds are that it will enable you to read and write to the USB stick.

Crap, those OS X guys really didn't push themselves to be able to identify this, did they?

If you really want a Mac driver, go here:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/fuse-ext2/
The Windows one is probably easier to work with though.

[PhillT]

Thanks for the replies, much appreciated.

For the sake of any other Mac user faced with this problem, I have finally found an easy solution here:-
http://www.thewireframecommunity.com/node/174
It is basically instal Mac Fuse and Fuse Ext2, both free, and links on the link above.
Once installed, you can see the USB stick in Macs Finder, and find the .ts file, which can be played on VLC, or converted using Kigo and probably other software too.