PC HDD Driver for Panasonic DVD Recorder HDD

[SG-01]

I'm after a Driver that will allow me to plug a HDD into my computer from a Panasonic DMR-E55 recorder. I do a lot off video work from home, and do not have the knowledge to write one myself.

I do know there is the DMR-E500 with ethernet out there but it's out off my price range at $3000 AUD

I use TMPGEnc DVD Author 3 to make my DVD's, any driver will have to accessible to this program either as a file or DVD menu system.

Any help in this area would be most helpful.

[Krispy Kritter]

It's not really a driver issue. The pc should recognize the HDD as is. The problem is that DVR's typically store the data differently than a pc, so they don't recognize it. What you really need is pc software that can recognize data.

You could always add a capture card/device to you pc. Then playback and capture the data from the DVR.

[ntscuser]

I'm after a Driver that will allow me to plug a HDD into my computer from a Panasonic DMR-E55 recorder.

Last time I looked the DMR-E55 didn't have a HDD. Did you mean a different Panasonic model or do you want to plug a DVD-RAM drive into your PC?

[handyguy]

'I do know there is the DMR-E500 with ethernet'

I have this model, it won't let you download stuff from it to your PC. It just lets your rename things & other small things.

[trhouse]

The model is probably the DMR-EH55. Some hdd recorders use a Linux like operating system with files not compatible with Windows computers. Pioneer hdd recorders say they use CPRM encryption on certain types of material making it even more difficult to read the hdd.

[SG-01]

Hence mt original comment about getting a driver / software that will allow access to the DVD Recorder HDD, by plugging it into the computer. The way I look at it, Fat Fat32 NTFS & Mac OS all use different drivers for access to the information. I routinely use a third party driver to access NTFS in a true DOS mode "NO WINDOWS Startup" . . . So repairs for certain Windows Viruses can be eliminated without destroying the OS.

"You could always add a capture card/device to you pc." This will never happen. I have heard too many horror stories about ppl adding Capture cards, doing work on there computers while capturing, then having to scrap the entire capture because it has dropped frames or AV out off sync. My current HDD -> DVD RAM -> PC HDD is okay, but time consuming when working with
8 to 10 hrs per capture.

So if U know where I can get driver/Software that will allow me to access the DVD HDD from my desktop, I am all ears

[handyguy]

You need to get a dvd recorder that can access your PC & transfer files. There are some, should be mentioned in the dvd recorder forum.

[SG-01]

No offense Handyguy, but where do you think this post is . . .

[Full Throttle]

Don't know if this helps but, I have just had to recover a files from the HDD of a EH50 but it wasn't easy.

From what I learnt, the recorder locks the drive & without the unlock signal the drive will not spin up. The way to do it is with the HDD connected to the recorder, turn the recorder on so that the drive spins up, then remove the data cable & plug in your IDE/USB converter or similar which is connected to your computer. The problem is that it looks like the drive also has some sort of IDE block on it & the drive could not be seen on either Mac or PC. Luckily I have a write blocker & connected that to the drive & I was then able to scan the drive on the Mac & recover the deleted file.

My next problem.

I now have a 630MB .bz2 which I seem unable to do anything with. Nothing will decompress it ( I have a sneaking suspicion that Panasonic use their own form of compression) & the only way I can think of is to get the file back onto the HDD. I cant send it from the computer because the whole point of a write blocker is to stop data being written to the drive, I have tried writing the file to a DVD in hopes that I can copy it from the DVD to the HDD but I am still waiting for the remote in order to try it.

If any one has any other idear's on how I can achieve this, please let me know.

Thanks.

[SG-01]

That is a start Full Throttle, will try it tonight, though it sounds like we still need some type of decoder to make it work.