Linux boot CD for attempted EHD repairs

[Pepper]

Not really sure if this belongs in the Dish Technical forum (related to EHD) or the computers forum (Linux).

One of the seven EHDs that I use with my ViP622 has decided that it needs to be formatted in order to be used. Obviously, I don't want to lose the ~700GB of stuff that I've got archived on it. I'm guessing there is some sort of file system corruption going on here.

Wondering what is the quickest way to boot up a computer with some version of Linux so I can run fsck on the drive. Maybe a live/boot CD of some sort?

Presuming fsck doesn't fix whatever the issue is, I would also want to be able to copy the stuff off of this drive onto another.

I just don't want to go to the trouble of building a Linux computer right now, so something whereby I can just connect my drives either with USB or direct to onboard SATA ports, then boot something with the appropriate tools on it would be what I'm looking for. I figure somebody here has probably done this already?

 

[RandallA]

You can boot from the Ubuntu CD on your Windows computer.

 

[Pepper]

I know there are a lot of bootable Linuxes out there, Ubuntu is one of them, I'm looking at Puppy right now. Just mainly looking for some feedback, if somebody's done this before, which one works good for you?

 

[RandallA]

I like Ubuntu and haven't used others lately. I used it while copying recordings from one USB drive to another and I know it works.

http://www.satelliteguys.us/dish-ne...-how-transfer-recordings-one-ehd-another.html

 

[Pepper]

That's a great writeup, somehow I missed seeing that.

I'm taking Puppy and Ubuntu ISOs home with me today, will report back what I accomplish.

 

[Pepper]

Good news: using Ubuntu boot CD I was able to fsck the drive and explore the folders.

Bad news: the folders were empty.

Oh well. Now I've got an empty 750GB to store stuff to. I don't even remember what was on that one at this point.

This did inspire another project, I built a spreadsheet listing all the content of my other six drives so that I can know what is where at a glance, sort it, eliminate duplicates, etc. At least next time one goes dead I'll know what's gone.

 

[KKlare]

Duplicate elimination is easy if you haven't changed names. They can be grouped into folders and just scan the list for the folder icon. Of course, that doesn't help across drives but the spreadsheet can. Or you can list them in IMDb for each drive or for all drives--but they are named there by their original names and not the Dish names. Including your recording date in the SS helps as you can also sort the EHD by date you recorded it. Include the film's year to be able to differentiate among them on IMDb. You may want the playing length and the channel and the size (MB), too. Stars for both IMDb and Dish, if interested. I add a column for MB/hr to check for old MPEG-2 and excessive ads--now aiming for 800MB/hr SD and 2000MB/hr HD, sorry OTA HD runs 6400MB/hr.
-Ken

 

[radtech]

I like Ubuntu and haven't used others lately. I used it while copying recordings from one USB drive to another and I know it works.

http://www.satelliteguys.us/dish-net...d-another.html]

Thanks for the heads up on this. I run a dual boot Ubuntu/Windows 2K machine so this would be an easy process for me. BTW, I run the Unbuntu (Linux) all the time now and only use Windows for a couple legacy programs.

Regards,

Ed

 

[KKlare]

Is there any help for us Mac-heads? I do have a core 2 duo, so it may run some version of Linux--actually MacOS is based on a Unix version--there is a command line, just not all the utilities.
-Ken

 

[Pepper]

Sorry to resurrect such an ancient thread, but I need these directions again and the link to thread 128984 is going nowhere. I'm guessing that all the thread links changed about the same time as the address bar started containing /xen/ ...

Anybody got a working link?

 

[donebu]

http://www.satelliteguys.us/xen/threads/how-to-transfer-recordings-from-one-ehd-to-another.128984/

Is this the right thread?

 

[darrengs]

Back in my TiVo days I would use spinrite to fix my drive errors. Worked like a charm.

 

[Foxbat]

Theoretically, SpinRite is OS-agnostic, so it should be able to find and (hopefully) repair physical media issues on ViP drives. I've only ever run it with the drive mounted in the PC running SpinRite, so some disassembly may be required.

The last time I fiddled with the external HDD was moving from my 722k to a Hopper 3. I bought a brand new 2 TB EHD and wanted to consolidate the recordings I had on a couple of 722k EHDs. I was then able to free up some 1 TB EHDs, one which I sent to Patrick Smith (which I never got paid for, but that's the Internet for you...) to help him migrate over to the Hopper 3. I was able to extract the HDDs from their enclosures and put them in my Mac Pro running Ubuntu 14.04 LTS to perform the copies. Much faster at SATA speeds than USB!

 

[Pepper]

http://www.satelliteguys.us/xen/threads/how-to-transfer-recordings-from-one-ehd-to-another.128984/

Is this the right thread?

That's it, thanks!