Mounting an ide drive

[glenc175]

I have a DVD/hdd recorder which has failed. The HDD drive has numerous video files on it that I'd like to retrieve if possible. I've been told that the DVR (LG RH7900H) runs (or ran!) on a Linux OS.
I have loaded Zandros V3 on a spare PC. Is it possible to connect the DVR's drive to the machine and get access to the files? I've seen other threads which deal with adding a new second drive, but this involves formatting/adding FS etc which is obviously not what I want. Any help would be appreciated.

 

[stefanwagner]

I don't have a DVD/hdd-recorder, but if the hardware is connectable, I don't see much of a problem.

Formatting or adding a FS isn't needed, because we expect a FS to be on the drive.

If you add it to the second controller as first drive its name will be /dev/hdc - as second drive on the first controller /dev/hdb, etc.

Then you'll try to find out, how many partitions of what kind the drive contains, i.e.:

fdisk -l /dev/hdc

Assuming there is just one partition of type Linux, you create a mount-point on your normal system (one per partition), which is a directory, i.e.:

mkdir /mnt/hdc1

and try to mount it semi-automatically

mount /dev/hdc1 -t auto /mnt/hdc1

A second partition would be /dev/hdc2 and so on.
A linux swap / Solaris - partition if any is probably of no interest.

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[geirendre]

Yes, if its a standard IDE-drive.
Connect it to a spare IDE plugg in your PC.
You have to choices,
1 If you have Linux on the PC, boot it.
2 if not, boot with a Live Linuc-cd.

Then you should be able to mount the drive, if it's not automounted.
Depending on which IDE-cabel/plug you connect the drive too, it will be given a devicename of /dev/hda b c or d.
Issue the command mount , it will list all mounted devices.
If you know the size of the drive, it should be easy to recognise it.
You would probably need root-privileges to mount and access the device.
cd into your files and cp them where you want

 

[glenc175]

Thanks, I've tried the commands and get the output below. I think the partition I'm interested in is hdb1. any idea's or is this irretrievable?

Glen:~# fdisk -l /dev/hdb

Disk /dev/hdb: 250.0 GB, 250059350016 bytes
66 heads, 7 sectors/track, 1057136 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 462 * 512 = 236544 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/hdb1 ? 1 1055182 243746816 d4 Unknown
/dev/hdb2 ? 1 887 204800 90 Unknown
Partition 2 does not end on cylinder boundary.
Glen:~# mkdir /mnt/hdb1
Glen:~# mount /dev/hdb1 -t auto /mnt/hdb1
mount: special device /dev/hdb1 does not exist
Glen:~#

 

[geirendre]

Two strange things about your disk.
1 - Both partitions start at sylinder 1.
2 - None are recognised (system = Unknown).

Could be the disk if formatet with a proprietary filesystem that fdisk doesn't recognise.

what you could do:
Get another disk the same size.
Copy byte-by-byte old disk to new disk with:

dd if=/dev/hdc of=/dev/hdd

if the new disk is on the 4th ide-channel.

Disconnect the old disk and hack away on the new disk to get to the files.
This way your files are safe, and you can experiment with your new disk and not be afraid of wiping out your files
Should you destroy the files, just make a new copy and start over again