External hard drive question 1 of 3: Backup

[Big Bob]

Is is possible to create a backup of an external hard drive from a 722k? I have a couple of hard drives full shows that I would hate to lose. Has anyone successfully cloned an external hard drive?

Thanks

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

No, there is no way of backing an external drive up that I know of.

 

[Big Bob]

I was wondering about something like image magic or something...

 

[JM42]

There have been reports that using Linux you can backup/copy the drive. Also some have used non-linux based drive imaging software. Search the forums for details.

 

[steve4810]

If you can mount a linux drive most likely you can make a bit by bit copy without too much problem. But keep in mind the EHD data is crypto locked to your account and so to the VIP receiver(s) on the account. A copy is just that. No other device is going to be have access to un-encryped video streams. And you won't either the day after you quit Dish.

But yes, if you know how, you can back it up.

 

[TheKrell]

Yes, you can clone the drive using various utilities, regardless of the file system (which is ext3). But I prefer booting up a Linux LiveCD, plugging in the external drives which auto-mount, and then dragging/dropping the DishArc folder. I've done it using two previously-formatted disks, and it works. I also tried mounting the partitions on Windows using ext2ifs, and that also worked.

N.B. These PC techniques only copy, but cannot play back, programs archived on the EHD.

 

[llokey]

You lost me on this remark. When I upgraded my 1TB drive to a 2 TB drive, I used the Live-CD method. Let the DVR initialize the disk, then copied all of the files using Linux, plugged in the new 2TB drive and it worked fine.

So the answer to the original posters question should be YES.

N.B. These PC techniques only copy, but cannot play back, programs archived on the EHD.

 

[dare2be]

Krell's remark was only that you can't use the PC to play the titles.

 

[malchien]

Yes, you can clone the drive using various utilities, regardless of the file system (which is ext3). But I prefer booting up a Linux LiveCD, plugging in the external drives which auto-mount, and then dragging/dropping the DishArc folder. I've done it using two previously-formatted disks, and it works. I also tried mounting the partitions on Windows using ext2ifs, and that also worked.

N.B. These PC techniques only copy, but cannot play back, programs archived on the EHD.

Thanks for this info, llokey and TheKrell. I successfully copied all recordings from my old 500 GB external USB hard drive to a 1 TB external USB drive using a LiveDVD of Knoppix Linux. I've never used Linux before, and my first try with Ubuntu liveCD Linux wouldn't mount the drives, but Knoppix worked on the first try. The external hard drive file system seems to have changed since this thread was discussed in 2012. There's was not a DishArc folder on my external drive, just two mounted partitiions showing up as sdb1 and sdb3. I formatted the new drive with my receiver, then copied all files from the old drive's sdb1 and sdb3 partitions to the new drive's partitions that were named sdc1 and sdc3. Plugged in the new drive and everything came up and worked fine.

 

[TheKrell]

The external hard drive file system seems to have changed since this thread was discussed in 2012. There's was not a DishArc folder on my external drive, just two mounted partitiions showing up as sdb1 and sdb3.

Interesting. I'll have to pull my drives and look again. My experience was on VIP DVRs; is yours with the Hopper? And whatever happened to sdb2?

 

[BBCInc]

And whatever happened to sdb2?

Extended partition placeholder. Sdb3 is the logical drive within that extended partition.