"georgewbell" wrote in message
...
On Sunday, June 17, 2012 6:25:25 PM UTC+1, Arfa Daily wrote:
george wrote in message

Hi there

I have had my Sony DVD recorder for over a year and the hard disk which
is
about 3 Gb. I suppose, is full now and I do not want to delete all the
films etc.

How about changing the hard disk for a bigger one? Does anyone know if
it
an ordinary ide connection and standard power lead and if so is there
any
problem with a bigger one, will the software pick up the change if I do
it?

It is out of warrantee now, but before I start, I wondered if anyone
has
done it, or if there is any way to dump the contents of the hard disk
to a
big 1.5 Tb. disk I use for backup for other stuff. There is a USB
connection, but can it be programmed to allow this? I could do it via a
laptop. I have transferred some to dvd, but with an HD documentary, for
instance, I have to reduce the definition to get it all onto one dvd.
It
takes ages as well. I would like to have an external ide/power
connection
outside the machine so I could keep several HDs for various subjects.

Any comments would be welcome, before I tear it apart.

Thanks George.


Can't say with any certainty for that model, but with many manufacturer's
machines that appear to use a perfectly normal IDE drive, they are in
fact
an OEM version, and the machine looks for an identifier block in the
drive's
control software. If it doesn't find what it's looking for, the drive is
not
recognised.

Arfa


Hmmm. That doesn't sound too good. I wonder if there is a way to fool
it? Maybe there is a way to export the contents of the HD instead. Thanks
for the thoughts though. Regards George.



You could probably export using Clonezilla
http://clonezilla.org/

or HDAT2, which gets right into the very heart of the disk drive - hidden
areas, passwords, change apparent size of drive, hardware reset etc.
http://www.hdat2.com/

Both of these are freeware.



(I have rescued a couple of apparently dead hard drives with HDAT2, its a
scarily good program)


Gareth.