Windows doesn't recognize external hard disk clone anymore

[arrowtopy]

Hello, I'm new to the forum. I've been using satellite receivers for over 20 years but only since recently I bought a Dreambox clone and been using linux based receivers. And now I have an issue w/ my clone.
I plugged in a Western Digital 2 TerraByte My Passport external hard drive to my Dreambox DM 800 HD PVR (clone) and initialized/formatted it in my clone's menu and I could use the timer in my Dreambox DM 800 to make recordings. But my Dreambox crashed and I wanted to plug the WD My Passport back in to my Windows 10 PC but when I do that Windows doesn't show the Dreambox in My Computer. It used to recognized it before I initialized/formatted it within the Dreambox though. Why not now?
I guess Dreambox formatted the WD My Passport to a file system that Windows doesn't recognize. Which file system is that? What can I do to have Windows recognize the WD hd again?
I'm running Windows 10 Pro w/ the latest updates and try to connect the WD My Passport via a USB 3.0 cable (but also via USB 2.0 it didn't recognize it).
Since my Dreambox crashed and doesn't work anymore I want to use the WD My Passport hd on my PC again as a backup for my files.
Any suggestions?

 

[Pipedream]

If you have access to a MAC format it on that then try it on windows

 

[Mickha]

Try going to Western Digital and see if they have a FAQ, or troubleshooting, section, as this no doubt is a known problem.
I have found a video, on youtube, that seems to show something similar.

 

[archive10]

I guess Dreambox formatted the WD My Passport to a file system that Windows doesn't recognize. Which file system is that? What can I do to have Windows recognize the WD hd again?

Your HDD has most likely been formatted one of the Linux extfs formats (2,3 or 4).
That's what most (if not all) non-Windows machines use (expect for some really old Pace Sky boxes).
Those formats at not reckognised by Windows, so they won't be mounted when the HDD is inserted.

When you say Windows doesn't reckognise it, is that then in the normal file explorer, or is that under "disk management" in the computer management tool?
If you just look in window explorer (not IE), then plugging in a disk with no windows-reckognisable partitions will result in no drives being mounted.
This may be solved by in Computer Management (My Computer->Manage->Disk manager), by deleting the partitionson the dish, then creating a new TFS partition etc.

If, however, your USB HDD is not even visible in computer management, you will most likely need to download the WD HDD management disk image, and make a CD, DVD or USB disk to boot from, andthen try and repair.

 

[Archive7]

Download DiskInternals Linux Reader for Windows.
It should recognize the HDD if it was formatted as Linux Extfs4 etc in the Dreambox

 

[Tururu]

.......This may be solved by in Computer Management (My Computer->Manage->Disk manager), by deleting the partitionson the dish, then creating a new TFS partition etc.....

Now it is for linux (ext3/ext4), as St1 indicates, if you have nothing important (movies), crush, initializing with new partition for windows.
--------
Ahora esta para linux (ext3/ext4), como indica St1, si no tienes nada importante (peliculas), machaca, inicializando con nueva particion para windows.

 

[davemurgtroyd]

If it is not down to the file system then could it be the USB SATA interface - there is a fairly high failure on them and many people throw away working HDDs because of this.

 

[Channel Hopper]

If you cannot get the disk to be recognised, or the data on it cannot be retrieved using the chkdsk function, throw it away, it's knackered.

Plenty of horror stories out there with the passport drives failing for no reason at all, usually with the content being pemanently unrecoverable. It is the circuitry WD use to encrypt the detail within the case as opposed to the hard drive itself, but from memory this cannot be salvaged either, even after dismantling.

 

[pgh13]

Maybe you could boot your PC from a live Linux CD to see if that will recognise/read the disk

 

[Channel Hopper]

Hello, I'm new to the forum. I've been using satellite receivers for over 20 years but only since recently I bought a Dreambox clone and been using linux based receivers. And now I have an issue w/ my clone.
I plugged in a Western Digital 2 TerraByte My Passport external hard drive to my Dreambox DM 800 HD PVR (clone) and initialized/formatted it in my clone's menu and I could use the timer in my Dreambox DM 800 to make recordings. But my Dreambox crashed and I wanted to plug the WD My Passport back in to my Windows 10 PC but when I do that Windows doesn't show the Dreambox in My Computer. It used to recognized it before I initialized/formatted it within the Dreambox though. Why not now?

Is your drive from the upper, or lower list from this link ?

WD My Book drives and encryption automatically enabled?

 

[arrowtopy]

Yes, the HDD was not recognized in Windows' normal file explorer but it was recognized in My Computer->Manage->Disk manager.

I first downloaded DiskInternals Linux Reader for Windows and w/ that I could see the HDD and my recorded files (movies. It saves them as .ts files and 5 other file formats (which all are small files) for each movie). I copied them to another HDD. But the HDD itself was still not visible in normal file explorer.
Then I went to My Computer->Manage->Disk manager and deleted the partition and created a new NTFS partition. And now the HDD shows up in file explorer.

Thank you all, muchos gracias!

 

[Lazarus]

Excellent!

 

[Archive7]

I am glad you got your HDD back to life.
Another utility that I use is Paragon ExtFS for Windows.
It will mount your HDD if it is formatted in Linux. You can also use it to read and write.
Unfortunately it is not free but will work normally for about a week I think during the evaluation period.

 

[Tururu]

Congratulations.
The files.ts are the movies.
The other files are extra data (if you see the movie, where you go for example) and are not necessary, you can delete them if you do not use another linux receiver.
Recycling is good.
-------------
Los ficheros.ts son las peliculas.
Los demas ficheros son datos extras (si ves la pelicula, por donde vas por ejemplo) y no son necesarios, los puedes borrar si no usas otro receptor linux.
Reciclar es bueno.

PS:

Recycling Borg (Star Trek).

 

[Archive7]

The other files are extra data (if you see the movie, where you go for example) and are not necessary, you can delete them if you do not use another linux receiver.

I think the small files are important as they give a lot of information that was captured from the EPG, they enable cutting and trimming the *.ts files using cutting plugin and other useful metadata.
I usually keep them on a Windows HDD and then upload them back to the PVR HDD if I need to and they look better in the recorded files list.
To prove my point, just delete them from a certain recording and then check what happened to the recorded file in the recorded list.

 

[Tururu]

I think the small files are important as they give a lot of information .........etc.

They are important, but do not forget /Son importantes, pero no olvides....
"you can delete them if you do not use another linux receiver".


PS: If you use them someday on a linux receiver, you can view/reproduce without that extra information.
Si los usas algun dia en un receptor linux, los podras ver/reproducir sin esa informacion extra.

 

[archive10]

I think the small files are important as they give a lot of information that was captured from the EPG, they enable cutting and trimming the *.ts files using cutting plugin and other useful metadata.

You are right.
I have no Dreambox, so I don't know what PVR software the use to write files to the disk.
But I am guessing they are using the chipset reference software and drivers.

In that case, the small files normally contain:
- the meta-data for the recorded event (things like long title, event description, channel name, original start time, length etc)
- transport stream description (SPTS descriptors), eg. what PID is the video track, what audio tracks are available, subtitles
- an index file for locating I-frames when winding (forward or backward)
- possibly also bookmarks and any additional still images associated with the item

Many of them are usually just XML, you can look at them in a text editor.