Bell 9200 PVR

[uberplasma]

Hi everyone
Bell just swapped out my old PVR receivers with 2 new ones and I find myself with 2 500G hard drives that I figure would be great in my raid array, but I can't get my computer to see the drive, read a very brief article about ATA3 security or something, any ideas on how to unlock the drives? they are plain old seagate sata drives, no jumpers. I may have posted this in the wrong area, but maybe not
cheers
Dave

[bbjunkie]

Re: Bell 9200 PVR

Have you re-partitioned them and formatted?

[tom66]

Re: Bell 9200 PVR

They are probably formatted with some special filesystem. I remember reading something about copyright regarding this - but I'm not sure if that was just a bogus response from a PVR company (Humax.)

[PlainBill]

Re: Bell 9200 PVR

Do the drives spin up in your computer? Some drives require a spin-up command.

One thing I harp on constantly is the quality of help we give will depend on the quality of information we receive. "plain old seagate sata drives" is hardly a detailed description.

Also, for what it is worth, I have never seen a SATA drive without a jumper block. I HAVE seen some where no jumper options were listed on the label.

PlainBill

[shovenose]

Re: Bell 9200 PVR

Well, just because they don't show up in My Computer doesn't mean that they aren't being recognized. If it's a strange filesystem, you have to Initialize them then Format them before they are usable. Right click on My Computer ("Computer" in Vista/7"), click Manage, then go to Disk Management on the left side, then see if any disks need to be initialized

hope that helps
-shovenose

[uberplasma]

Re: Bell 9200 PVR

Hi
Sorry, plain old seagate ST3500830SCE, jumper block but no jumpers installed, it does spin up but not seen in any management consoles or anything. I have some really rare movies on them in mpeg2 format i was hoping to salvage before wiping them or partioning.

[Scenic]

Re: Bell 9200 PVR

Also, for what it is worth, I have never seen a SATA drive without a jumper block.

There you go..

Hitachi Deskstar T7K500 series

[PlainBill]

Re: Bell 9200 PVR

There you go..

Hitachi Deskstar T7K500 series

That's a twofer. I'd never seen a SATA drive with a molex power connector, either.

Technically, I still haven't. Many things can be done with Photoshop.

PlainBill

[PlainBill]

Re: Bell 9200 PVR

Hi
Sorry, plain old seagate ST3500830SCE, jumper block but no jumpers installed, it does spin up but not seen in any management consoles or anything. I have some really rare movies on them in mpeg2 format i was hoping to salvage before wiping them or partioning.

If the bios recognizes them, but Windows doesn't, the posts suggesting they have a file system Windows doesn't recognize would be correct. Try a real operating system like Linux.

PlainBill

[Th3_uN1Qu3]

Re: Bell 9200 PVR

That's a twofer. I'd never seen a SATA drive with a molex power connector, either.

All the early ones had it.

[PlainBill]

Re: Bell 9200 PVR

All the early ones had it.

What can I say? I'm in no rush to adopt new technology until I need it.

PlainBill

[PCBONEZ]

Re: Bell 9200 PVR

This was ages ago so I don't remember all the details but I have run into drives that are locked by way of requiring an encrypted code from the BIOS [or system firmware] before they would start.
.
I think all modern drives have the feature/capability it's just rarely used.
Bell may have used it to keep their software from being stolen/hacked.
.
In the case of the drives I had [formerly X-Box drives] there was a hack on the web to turn that feature off.
Once it's off it will work in a normal PC without issues but you'll probably have to [full] wipe it first to get rid of non-standard partition tables and MBR.
.

[retiredcaps]

Re: Bell 9200 PVR

I'm in no rush to adopt new technology until I need it.

Same for most stuff.

I finally got some SATA drives about 5 months ago. Two of them are Hitachi Deskstar HD728040PLA320 SATA 40GB drives made in 2005 with molex power connectors.

I can't complain because I got them for $1 each and they make good external drives for backing important data. I think of them as large USB sticks!

I also got several 512MB DDR2 sticks and 7 other 40GB SATA for $1 each from the same seller.

They all work fine so far and I ran all the drives and memory sticks through various burn in programs.

[Th3_uN1Qu3]

Re: Bell 9200 PVR

Actually, most SATA drives don't actually need the 3.3v line - users of cheap power supplies should know, as there are molex -> SATA power adaptors and there's no orange wire on them, yet the drives work just fine.