laffingravy
Technical User
May be a stupid question, but here goes..........can a dvr box unit be used as an external hard drive for a pc? What would such a thing involve?
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dvr unit as a hard drive? 1
- Thread starter laffingravy
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Not sure what you are asking?
Can the dvr box "housing" be used for an IDE hard drive to turn it into an external hard drive? YES!
might look a bit messing if the housing hasn't been supplied with a blanking plate for the draw end.
Martin
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Can the dvr box "housing" be used for an IDE hard drive to turn it into an external hard drive? YES!
might look a bit messing if the housing hasn't been supplied with a blanking plate for the draw end.
Martin
We like members to GIVE and not just TAKE.
Participate and help others.
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Nelviticus
Programmer
You want to keep using your DVR as a DVR, yet be able to access its hard drive from the PC? The answer is "it depends, but probably no".
If the DVR has a network port and is designed to hook up to a PC then you'll probably be able to do some limited reading of the box's hard drive from the PC. For instance, the new Panasonic DMR 500 hard disc DVD recorder lets you do this I belive, but only in a limited way. You run some software on the connected PC that lets you edit track names and playlists and so forth, but you don't actually access them directly.
If you were good at writing low-level software - probably without any help from the hardware vendor - then you might be able to write something that let you access the hard drive directly.
If your DVR doesn't have a network port then not only would you have to write the software but you'd have to design some hardware too. I doubt it would be worth the time and effort in either case.
In all likelihood the hard disc in your DVR doesn't use a file system that your PC can recognise anyway. Even if you took the hard drive out and put it in your PC you wouldn't be able to read it.
Nelviticus
If the DVR has a network port and is designed to hook up to a PC then you'll probably be able to do some limited reading of the box's hard drive from the PC. For instance, the new Panasonic DMR 500 hard disc DVD recorder lets you do this I belive, but only in a limited way. You run some software on the connected PC that lets you edit track names and playlists and so forth, but you don't actually access them directly.
If you were good at writing low-level software - probably without any help from the hardware vendor - then you might be able to write something that let you access the hard drive directly.
If your DVR doesn't have a network port then not only would you have to write the software but you'd have to design some hardware too. I doubt it would be worth the time and effort in either case.
In all likelihood the hard disc in your DVR doesn't use a file system that your PC can recognise anyway. Even if you took the hard drive out and put it in your PC you wouldn't be able to read it.
Nelviticus
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laffingravy
Technical User
Thanks for the advice. I should been more descriptive in my question, but Nelviticus has covered all the bases.(Thanks!)
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