Hard-Drive with DVD Recorder

The drive format is proprietary and so are the file formats on the drive. It can be done but you will need the proper software to do so. I do not have a lead for your make of DVR.

Copy protection built into the programming will also make this a little difficult.

It may work straight away or could format over your drive upon initialization. Some DVR's are designed to format upon booting with a foreign volume.

Thanks for the info Cuba Pete. I may have to get it repaird now as I really want the programs that are on the H-drive.

It might be cheaper to buy a new identical recorder. I'm making the assumption that each drive is not somehow code linked to each recorder.

Good luck.

Most of them are. It works with the copy protection.

Why have copy protection? Can anyone give me a single reason that makes sense?????

You could try hooking it up in a PC booting Linux. You may not be able to open the files, but you very likely will be able to read them to copy them to another drive. The only problem might be that the drive is encrypted, but you may be able to "dd" the whole thing anyway.

I have had this happen to several neighbors and I have spent in an inordinate amount of time researching this. It is as close to impossible as you can get due to the drive encryption and format. Now in <general theory> if the magnetic card is used on the older models as the key to the encryption then the another identical model DVR with the hard drive and card should read the drive. The other way is the rom for the mac address of the NIC is the start of the encryption key and if you can locate that chip and transfer (unsolder and re-solder) it over from old to new again the new system should read the hard drive. I have had success with the card for an older Dish system and the Ethernet mac address for a DirecTV HR-20.

Assuming you know the type of drive interface, buy a USB Hard Drive with an internal interface of the same type (most modern ones are SATA) on ebay, install the drive and see if you can read the data........even if you cannot, you only need to reformat the drive and you have a new external hard drive with a USB interface. Many Sat Receivers have a USB connection and can write data onto such disks......

You may even find that the "coding" is the same on another sat receiver and that you can then watch all the programs.....SAT receivers are also often using Linux....

I have never tried it myself (though I have a drive from a DVD drive right here waiting for a USB interface myself!), but I cannot believe that they make such a complicated format to stop anyone reading the data...Why would they involve themselves in such complicated work?

It may be a format that Linux will read better as I am given to understand that these DVD recorders are often having a mini Linux OS.....

If I get around to it, I will see what I find out with my old DVD Recorder Hard Disk.....and post here of course as maybe they do "code" the data.....I still cannot imagine why though.....

I would rather believe that when the recoder "died", it made a big power "SPLAT" and physically damaged the data on the disk......

Best of luck....

Andy...I spent a lot of time on this with the Motorola boxes. The manufacturers do make it nearly impossible. They spent a lot of time on this to prevent copyright infringement.

Picture this...you could stream in from your cable/satellite provider and stream right back out an rebroadcast/record/reproduce live television (including pay-per-view). That could turn out to be quite offensive to a company that expects payment for each individual purchaser.

Both DVI and HDMI (and the older S-VHS and regular video formats) have copyright protections built in to prevent direct recording of the playback destined for the display and audio devices. It's all rather ingenious, but can be gotten around with a lot of work.

I simply don't believe it.

I have a Sony DVD recorder with hard disk (nothing special), I can copy anything on the hard disk to DVD. Its fairly new, so I am not taking out the HD to play with!). Why would Sony code the data?????Your answer makes NO sense whatsoever.....

This DVD is unprotected and is then is copyable on ANY PC (assuming video software), also it runs on any DVD player/recorder that can read self made/burnt DVDs (not all older machines can do this).

It simply does not make sense what you and several others talk about, no sense whatsoever......

Do please remember that we are only talking about programs recorded on the Hard Disk.......not about copying protected DVDs.....(which is easy to do as well!!)

Easy there big fella! It makes perfect sense.

It's not copy protection...it Copyright, as in the producer and distributor of copyrighted material does not want people copying pay-per-view, non-syndicated television, regular movies (HBO, Showtime, Cinemax, etc.) etc., and distributing them willy-nilly or...gasp...selling copyrighted material without payment to the people who actually own the content.

If you have a (DVR) box that allows you to do this...then good for you!

I can copy CDs and DVDs and such also. But that doesn't mean it's legal, and therefore most manufacturers try to prevent the users from doing it easily.

It still does not make sense, so let me put it very simply for all concerned.

1) We are not talking about the copy protection used on films when sold on DVD and probably BluRay, though I don't have BluRay to test.

2) We are talking mostly about "time shifting" where someone makes a perfectly legal copy of a TV program (still not allowed to sell it though) on a so called "DVD recorder player with a hard disk" as well. Usually for viewing at a later time, once or many. If it was so difficult to do, then YouTube might only be "home" video and have none of the program material that it does have.....

This copy of a TV program is "unprotected" as the makers of such machines have no interest in protecting the rights of the TV program maker......and the program makers have not got the money to insist!

3) In a way, its not dissimilar as to when we only had VHS or similar video recorders, the bought video films had Macrovision coding to stop them being copied, though it was easy to get round for anyone with a modicum of knowledge. But if you recorded a TV program, and you had two recorders, you could make copies (which being analog, were of a lower quality at each recording!), even if the legality was questionable it was physically possible as VHS machines could not PUT Macrovison on the tapes as the license fee would have been huge for such machines.....

But if you copied a film video bought from the shop and you had any VHS video machine to copy from and to, the result was a badly distorted picture and the stereo sound was also useless, though I believe the mono sound was OK. (too long ago to be certain!). As in every VHS recorder, almost from day 1 of VHS, there was a chip that when it saw a Macrovison signal, it distorted everything when recording. Some older TVs could also get problems with the syncing.

It all hangs together as to whether the video was self made or bought, even some very small companies made their videos without Macrovision because it was too expensive for them.....they could be copied easily....

That is simply why I cannot see a reason for anyone to waste time and money, protecting the video on the hard disk. Next week I will take a look at that ex Video Recorder hard disk I mentioned and see if it has been protected or just corrupted....

In all the years I was in the computer business, I have seen many HDs that were corrupted by a voltage spike, data totally useless, but usually a full re-format brought them back into usage, but without the data of course. It all depended on what was happening at the time the spike came. Some HDs were destroyed, but that was seldom....

I hope that this makes the subject clearer as to what we are trying to do, its got nothing to do with copying protected videos on DVD disks for example.......which by the way, I cannot copy onto my Video DVD recorder hard disk as the DVD Video protection scheme works perfectly. (But my computer software can!! Bought before it was illegal to buy/use such software in Germany, but still illegal to use today...)