My ultraplus 900hd pvr done something to my external HDD?

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twinchamber

27 posts

Geek

#88711 21-Aug-2011 23:21

Havnt found anything on this so i may be wrong or the first to come up with this result?

well i recently got a verbatim 500GB Hard Drive and i loaded all my media on to as im moving overseas and leaving my grandmothers laptop behind.
my problem is when i inserted my hard drive into the pvr to watch a movie it worked great! Then I tried to plug my hard drive back into my computer. It's come up saying my harddrive is not formatted please reformat. it cant be opend. it comes up on my PC as G: and thats it. could the pvr possibly removed the driver software? or even self installed some kind of infringement software to prevent me using it in a pc again? i dont really care i just want it to work in pc again as it has tonnes of precious photos and Docs

Note: when i reinsert my harddrive to the pvr it can still read it perfectly so obviously it has something to do with it? I've also tried multiple computers, xbox, dvd player, ps3 and no luck. just my pvr :(

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727 posts

Ultimate Geek

#509746 22-Aug-2011 00:20

What does your retailer or Ultrapower say?

How was the drive formatted most recently?

Do you have any disc inspection/recovery software?

I'm wondering if the Ultraplus unit has stealthily changed the volume format to something else, if such an in-place change is even possible.

I had the misfortune of owning a 980HD for a time and one of its ridiculous quirks was to use JFS as its disc file system (I think - it's not documented anywhere that I could find). I formatted a drive with it and made some recordings, but when I eventually sent the unit back as an under-engineered joke, of course I could not recover my files as nothing I have access to can mount a JFS volume! Typically, I thought, the use of JFS didn't stop it splitting files into 4GB chunks even though JFS has no such limitation.

But I digress.

twinchamber

27 posts

Geek

#509750 22-Aug-2011 00:37

hey bro and thanks for the quick reply It is formatted as FAT32

ive run a dskchk for G: (my hdd) and it seems the pvr has erased my partitions also!

Ive tried aid file recovery but no luck and im a bit worried about using some recovery software as ive read it could complicate things?

I havnt talked to Jb Hi fi yet and my grandmother picked up the pvr from some tv guy

im taking my harddrive into work tomorrow as Need a Nerd are coming anyway. ive read that linux could still read/pick up all the files? is this true? might have to get a new OS

thanks for u help so far

xarqi

727 posts

Ultimate Geek

#509753 22-Aug-2011 00:47

I'm not Windows-savvy (nor Linux especially), but if dskchk is the standard tool for such work then yes, it's looking like the Ultraplus quietly hijacked your drive.

Where does JB Hi Fi fit in if the PVR came from "some TV guy", and can STG offer any support? (Guessing not).

If the unit has reformatted the drive to some linux flavour, and that is still not certain, then it's quite plausible that another linux system could read it. There's no guarantee though. The Vu+ Duo I have is a Linux box and it couldn't read the 980HD formatted drive either. It supports ext2 and ext3 (and fat32 - not sure about ntfs), but not jfs.

If it you can find a Linux box that reads it, just shell out ~$100 for another drive, formatted as you want it, and copy the data off.

What puzzles me though is that it seems to have reformatted the drive while retaining the files, and that seems a bit like magic.

twinchamber

27 posts

Geek

#509754 22-Aug-2011 00:59

sorry i bought the harddrive from jb hi fi.

Ill have to ring this tv guy my grandmother hired to sort out our tv
he just left the 900hd here for us to test and hasnt come to pick it up in 3 weeks!

so if they can still be read on the pvr there is still a chance i can retrieve these files?

is there any legal system i can go thru lol im so peeeved off about this

xarqi

727 posts

Ultimate Geek

#509757 22-Aug-2011 01:11

Your best bet may be to call Ultrapower NZ - they, I guess "own" is the verb I want, the Ultraplus brand.

Yes, if the PVR can read the files, it's possible something else can too.

Legal system - there's the Consumer Guarantees Act. The problem here is going to be that I'll bet there is nothing anywhere in writing that says that the unit will not render existing files inaccessible once it's mounted a drive. You are then forced to prove that a reasonable person would expect them to remain intact (which seems sensible to me, especially if no warning was given). You may be able to get your money back on the unit, but I'm not sure how far you'd get trying to claim for indirect costs, such as data recovery. Someone else here may know - there are a few members who are much better informed about the CGA than I.

twinchamber

27 posts

Geek

#509760 22-Aug-2011 01:25

I have quite the feeling Ultrapower aren't gonna be any use at all because they probably just dont give a Toss and try blame it all on me since im of a younger age (18) it seems to happen alot.

Nothing seems to be the manufactures fault anymore.

Once again i really appreciate u helping me at this time of the hour

xarqi

727 posts

Ultimate Geek

#509761 22-Aug-2011 01:32

I'd still suggest that you call or email Ultrapower; you have nothing to lose and they may be able to give you some help. It's in their best interests to do so since that way you can report back here about how great they were - how they sent you a courier bag so you could send them the drive, and returned it within a week reformatted to FAT32 with your files still there.

Or not.

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twinchamber

27 posts

Geek

#509762 22-Aug-2011 01:58

Not quite sure if this was the best way to go about it but i emailed them this.
<Quote>Hi there we have one of your 900HD pvr product and i recently mounted my Virbatim 500GB HDD it worked fine but when i went to reinsert in into my pc it says "this disk is unformatted please format before use" or something along those lines. i have suspicions that your Product has done something to the file system or even it might have deleted the partitions on my device because it (HDD) only works on your pvr nothing else. i have tried it on multiple sources such as other computers, ps3,xbox and dvd player. Is there a way of resolving this? if not maybe a replacement/refund and a refund of the payed content which is also on there?

sorry if i seem harsh but this is unacceptable. i especially got this harddrive for the reason to watch movies on YOUR PVR...3days ago i bought it and now its corrupt because it has either been reformatted without losing its data miracubly or i dont know i am stumped and not very impressed</Quote>

Another option i came across was getting forensics to look at it but this is quite costly. Lets just say i have a few "shared" files on there could this possibly get me into trouble or could that breach the privacy act 0f 1993? (my readings on the act are not so clear to me im not a politition hence my spelling/grammar etc

grolschie

911 posts

Ultimate Geek

#509803 22-Aug-2011 09:32

These are Linux based PVRs and can format HDDs with a journaled filesystem under certain circumstances - I am guessing EXT3 filesystem, which Windows doesn't recognize without drivers. If you look in "Storage Manager" on the PVR, what does it say File System is? If it does say EXT3, you can download Windows drivers are the bottom of this page:
http://www.ultrapower.co.nz/download_hyundai.html

twinchamber

27 posts

Geek

#509809 22-Aug-2011 09:49

grolschie: These are Linux based PVRs and can format HDDs with a journaled filesystem under certain circumstances - I am guessing EXT3 filesystem, which Windows doesn't recognize without drivers. If you look in "Storage Manager" on the PVR, what does it say File System is? If it does say EXT3, you can download Windows drivers are the bottom of this page:
http://www.ultrapower.co.nz/download_hyundai.html

hey there Grolshie thanks for your reply.

If you mean the file system of my HDD it says FAT32 on the PVR. when i plug it in my pc and look up disk manager it says its in RAW format. please dont say its in RAW :(

grolschie

911 posts

Ultimate Geek

#509815 22-Aug-2011 09:59

D'oh! If you have access to a Linux pc, or a Linux live CD, you could plug it in to check it out?

twinchamber

27 posts

Geek

#509823 22-Aug-2011 10:15

grolschie: D'oh! If you have access to a Linux pc, or a Linux live CD, you could plug it in to check it out?

Unfortunatly not.

Need a Nerd Tauranga are coming in to my work today so hopefully they have one.

Lets say i download these Drivers its installing on my pc right? so that means i will have to do this on every pc i put it on?

grolschie

911 posts

Ultimate Geek

#509825 22-Aug-2011 10:21

The drivers are only needed to allow your PC to read EXT3 filesystem. So they would be need to be installed on every PC you want to read that HDD on - if the HDD were formatted in EXT3 filesystem. However, these drivers are not going to be needed since your filesystem is FAT32.

You can download a Linux live CD e.g. Knoppix, Ubuntu, openSUSE, etc, for free. You would need CD burning software that can create CDs from .iso files.

twinchamber

27 posts

Geek

#509837 22-Aug-2011 10:32

So really there is no solution to put it back to how it was? almost like a previous version or something?

grolschie

911 posts

Ultimate Geek

#509844 22-Aug-2011 10:42

It's difficult to know whats going on without seeing the drive. Did the drive have multiple partitions? You should be able to see how many partitions it has in Windows "Disk Management" (i.e. Start -> Run-> diskmgmt.msc). You will want to be careful in there though, and not change anything unless you know what you are doing because all your PCs drives will be listed there.

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