Access a LG DVR hard drive to copy files from it

michalrz

Supreme [H]ardness
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Jun 4, 2012
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Guys,

What if I told you I have a LG DVR with a 400GB Seagate IDE drive in it and would like to copy files from it?

I have it physically connected to an older mobo with an IDE port.

Windows sees it as a 750GB drive with some unallocated space and two 'unknown' partitions.

(Older) Debian sees the two partitions as well but does not know which filesystem to mount it as.

I know I could use a grabber device to just dub it to some useful format in hardware whilst playing back.

But I was wondering if there was a way to dump the files from a PC. I'm fine with having to transcode it later on, but so far I haven't figured out a way to actually see the files.

I realize encryption may be involved or LG having set a bogus filesystem ID in the partition table.

Actually, Debian thinks there's no partition table there at all. Anyone have any experience on the matter?

TIA and have a spectacular weekend.
 

Just an awesome catch!

Glad that it can be done. I am looking foward to when I have a uhd-bluray and can copy them to my own server. "NOT TO UPLOAD TO SOMEWHERE". Just so automation can be acheived. As with all copy right issues, sometimes they affect the normal consumer who just wants to have a bit of flexibility in watching bought vid's. Every other entertainment technology of recent times had a automatic function. DVD's had 5, even with VHS you could just make a "mixtape". UHD blu's, cant be automated. I want to place 5 UHD's in a machine and decide which one I want to see. Like load a trilogy and have them play one after the other. Today - that means copy to a server and playlist them. Cant do it. Single play only. Reverse tech, unless you are "totally" satisified with the lessened resolution of a internet stream.
 

Just an awesome catch!

Glad that it can be done. I am looking foward to when I have a uhd-bluray and can copy them to my own server. "NOT TO UPLOAD TO SOMEWHERE". Just so automation can be acheived. As with all copy right issues, sometimes they affect the normal consumer who just wants to have a bit of flexibility in watching bought vid's. Every other entertainment technology of recent times had a automatic function. DVD's had 5, even with VHS you could just make a "mixtape". UHD blu's, cant be automated. I want to place 5 UHD's in a machine and decide which one I want to see. Like load a trilogy and have them play one after the other. Today - that means copy to a server and playlist them. Cant do it. Single play only. Reverse tech, unless you are "totally" satisified with the lessened resolution of a internet stream.

Option 1 does not list the files; I'll be trying Slax today and if that fails, I'll try to scan the surface with testdisk/photorec to see if it can pick up any file headers.
Option 2 requires buying the product in order to save the recovered files.
Thanks though!
 
FWIW, Testdisk wasn't able to find a sane partition structure.

Running Photorec now, it seems to be finding the mpg files (yay!) and I see thumbnails, but we'll see if they will be complete and not corrupted.
 
Took around 40 hours. It recovered a lot of previously deleted shows, so the client will have to sift through them to figure out which ones are keepers.

When Photorec asked about the filesystem, there were two options: 1. ext2, ext3... 2. other - ntfs, jfs... I went with option 2. So, it's a small victory. The client will probably settle for this much.

I'll try a HW frame grabber next time.
 
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