[moondog830]

I wanted to take some shows off of my DVR so that I could give them to my grandkids to play at home. When I plugged it in (after taking anything I wanted to keep, off of it) to the DVR, the prompt said I would need to reformat the drive. I clicked on OK and then attempted the transfer 3 times and nothing transferred. 

 

I decided to look at a youtube video on how to get this done and it says to reformat ... when I went to search for the drive in 'This PC' section it is now no longer listed as a external hard drive. It is now listed as a DVD Drive. it shows it only has 48.5mb now.

 

Is there any way to get this reformatted back to 1TB? Or did I just lose a perfectly good drive?

 

moon

 

P.S. thanks for any help you might offer

 

md

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This really isn't a hardware issue, so it might be easier to get an answer in a different category. It might help if you specify what make and model of the DVR is.

 

Most likely it just changed the partition table to something that the DVR wants, which is different than the computer. You need to delete the current partition and create a new one. The problem is that I use Linux, which I could tell you how to do it using a LiveCD such as Knoppix, but I don't use Windoze enough to tell you how to do it. I suspect it could be done, most likely using the device manager, but I would have to look to see exactly how to do it. Perhaps someone else can come along to tell you.

[Kemasa]

This really isn't a hardware issue, so it might be easier to get an answer in a different category. It might help if you specify what make and model of the DVR is.

 

Most likely it just changed the partition table to something that the DVR wants, which is different than the computer. You need to delete the current partition and create a new one. The problem is that I use Linux, which I could tell you how to do it using a LiveCD such as Knoppix, but I don't use Windoze enough to tell you how to do it. I suspect it could be done, most likely using the device manager, but I would have to look to see exactly how to do it. Perhaps someone else can come along to tell you.

[moondog830]

The DVR in question is for Dish ... would someone need a model number as well?

 Also ... when it comes to partitions etc ... I'm basically an idiot

[Kemasa]

DISH is the company, but I would assume that there is a make and model for the actual device.

 

Am I correct in that you are also connecting this to your computer? What OS are you running on it?

 

To look at the partition table for Windoze 10, attach the drive to your computer, open the control panel and then in the search field, enter partition and press return. This will bring up Administrative Tools, click on Create and format hard drives (be careful in what you do in this since the system drive will also be there and doing the wrong thing could cause problems. This will bring up Disk Management.

 

It should show you all the disks on your system. One will be the system drive, any CD/DVD drives will also show. The 1TB drive should also be shown. Each partition on the drive should be shown.

 

What does it show for the partitions for the 1TB drive? Right clicking allows you to change things, but please don't do that just yet.

[moondog830]

running Windows 10 64bit ... I connected the SSD to the device and tried to follow 'Dish' directions, then plugged into my computer to see what actually transferred if anything and that's when I noticed the SSD was now 100MB in size and NOT the 1TB it was.

 

I have a screen shot of the Disk Management, but it won't let me post it saying the image extension can't be used in this community ... do they mean the actual image extension or the hosting site I'm using?

Edited by moondog830, 07 February 2021 - 04:42 PM.

[Kemasa]

You should be able to post the image directly, which there can be limits, such as a .jpg and some other image types might not be acceptable. Posting a link to a hosting site might be a problem.

 

Until you can post the image, what the disk management show as far as how it is partitioned?

[moondog830]

it shows 

 

Volume                        Layout        Type       File System      Status                                             Capacity      Free Space     %Free

(Disk 1 partition 1)       Simple        Basic                              Healthy (EFI System Partition)         100 MB        100 MB           100% 

(Disk 1 partition 4)       Simple        Basic                              Healthy (Recovery Partition)             498 MB        498 MB           100%

(Disk 2 partition 1)       Simple        Basic                              Healthy (GPT Protective Partition     477 MB        477 MB           100%

(Disk 2 partition 2)       Simple        Basic                              Healthy (GPT Protective Partition     954.41 GB   953.31 GB       100%

[Kemasa]

Do you know which one is your system disk? Disk2 appears to be a 1TB drive, but the smaller partition is 477MB. Disk1 has a 100MB partition, but the second partition is 498MB.

 

If you are sure of which is that drive, you should be able to delete it and create a new partition and filesystem. Most likely it is Disk2 as that is listed as a GPT Protective Partition, which the DVR might have created to prevent changes to it. You can delete it and restore it back to a normal disk, but you need to make sure that you are working with the correct disk since you could accidentally delete all data on the disk.

 

If you search for "gpt protective partition", you will find examples on how to delete the partitions, as well as free tools to change it. I am not familiar with such tools, so you might want to do more research on that.

 

The example given to delete the partitions is to first see which disk it is, which in your post above it shows as disk2.

 

Type cmd in the search box and then run as admin.

 

Type diskpart in the command prompt and hit enter.

 

Type the following commands and press enter after each one.

 

list disk

select disk N (where N is the disk marked as GPT)

clean

convert mbr

exit

 

You then should be able to make changes in the disk management.

[moondog830]

just letting you know that I'm working on it ... I also have to babysit at least 1 grandkid every day ... but normally more than one

[peterm]

Hi Kemasa

Do you guys need a hand with this?

Cheers

Peterm

[moondog830]

thanks, I'm trying to get to this, but other things keep getting in my way ... 

[peterm]

No probs

I'll keep watch and if you guys need a hand say so.

What kemsa has posted is all good.