cloning hard drive - unknown operating system / format type

Grant

Grant

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I need to upgrade the hard drive capacity on an LG HDD DVD recorder.

Installing a higher capacity drive is no issue as the machine will format & prepare the drive for use.
However, I wish to keep the existing content as is in terms of files and directories.
Some content can be backed up to a dvd disc but some cannot be copied over - so that option is out - nor is there an option to back up the entire drive.

So essentially, the existing drive needs to be removed & it's content cloned to a higher capacity drive.
The tech people at LG have never done this, they have only replaced drives.
They are also unable to shed light on the operating system used by these machines or how the drives are formatted / format type.

So I am looking for some program that can make an identical copy of the existing drive, unfortunately, software I have come across, at some point needs input as to how the drive needs to be formatted - fat / fat32 etc etc.

Any ideas ?
 
You can use dd (be careful) but it will replicate the partitions & FS so you will have to resize them on the the destination drive. You would have to check which FS is used in order to figure out how to resize it.
 
Try this (at your own risk) - haven't personally used it, but some say it works really well - for getting your content off the LG HDD to your PC, then you can install the new drive.

Re cloning, unsure what program you can use - maybe try a sector cloning software or something similar - should work irrespective of the format used...
 
ah not exactly my area of expertise...but I can give you a solid pointer in the right direction.

The linux dd command is suitable for creating "raw" 1:1 copies no matter wtf it is. Easily done via a live disk.

I know its the right answer, I just don't know enough regarding specifics to safely advise.

MyWorld will be able to give suitable guidance. I've PM'd him already.

EDIT: Eish - misread it. Glad I summoned myworld anyway...chance are its a *nix compatible FS.

Revised advice. Create a 1:1 image...mount it on a PC (I forgot the tool suitable)...and then run recovery software against the image to work out what it is. Its going to be FAT/FAT32/EXT1/2/3. FAT32 being most likely.
 
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As ponder said, dd is the way to go, just be careful.

To find out the partition and filesystem information you can use any partition software like cfdisk or gparted, which is standard with almost all LiveCDs. This is critical since you need to resize the partition afterwards, so if gparted cannot read the filesystem information then I would not venture further, but I doubt it, gparted can read almost any filesystem.

Clone the drive:
Code: 
dd if=/old/drive of=/new/drive bs=64k conv=notrunc,noerror

Example:
dd if=/dev/sda of=/dev/sdb bs=64k conv=notrunc,noerror

I know some people will set bs=1M or higher even, but knowing nothing of the drives it is better to err on side of caution.
To read more on dd:
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Disk_Cloning

Now use gparted and resize the new partition to fit the entire new drive, and you are done.

You can also use Clonezilla, but I find all the options confusing and time consuming. By the time you figured out all the options I'm halfway done with dd.
http://clonezilla.org/show-live-doc-content.php?topic=clonezilla-live/doc/03_Disk_to_disk_clone

Now, depending on the OS used by the DVD recorder you should be set. I bet it uses Linux, so if you get a fail boot use the LiveCD to update your partition information in the bootloader, whatever they use.
 
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howardb said:
Try this (at your own risk) - haven't personally used it, but some say it works really well - for getting your content off the LG HDD to your PC, then you can install the new drive.

Re cloning, unsure what program you can use - maybe try a sector cloning software or something similar - should work irrespective of the format used...
Click to expand...

thanx
i have seen that program mentioned before
will give it a go to back up the content of the drive before trying anything else
 
I just now saw this isn't in the Linux section, came here via PM... :o

If you have any other problems or questions and it turns out the drive runs Linux, give us a shout there, more knowledgeable people can give their input then.
 
MyWorld said:
I just now saw this isn't in the Linux section, came here via PM... :o

If you have any other problems or questions and it turns out the drive runs Linux, give us a shout there, more knowledgeable people can give their input then.
Click to expand...

thanks
will do
 
MyWorld said:
I just now saw this isn't in the Linux section, came here via PM... :o

If you have any other problems or questions and it turns out the drive runs Linux, give us a shout there, more knowledgeable people can give their input then.
Click to expand...
Yeah was my call. Sorry if it caused confusion. I saw "identical copy" and figured dd *nix.

In retrospect..1:1 identical copy was a bad call seeing how OP needs expanded capacity.

OP is asking for 2 things conflicting things here though - you can't have expanded capacity without knowing FS...and you can't have a blind 1:1 copy whilst maintaining the ability to expand. Best solution going forward is for OP to figure out filesystem.

To be clear - MyWorld is blameless if there was any misunderstanding.
 
grantza said:
Some content can be backed up to a dvd disc but some cannot be copied over - so that option is out
Click to expand...
^ This. A reason why you can not use it on PC. Try this program as suggested.

Re cloning to bigger hard drive: possibly you can do full imaging, but you will not be able to resize partition, unless your program understands proprietrary format of this partition, which I doubt. So in the best scenario you will end up with the same user space.
 
it would appear this may be the file system:

"" The operating system of the RH7X00 is VxWorks which has a doslike filesystem called vxext fs. Linux has a driver for it.""
 
grantza said:
it would appear this may be the file system:

"" The operating system of the RH7X00 is VxWorks which has a doslike filesystem called vxext fs. Linux has a driver for it.""
Click to expand...

I have no idea what that is or even how it works, so I'll have to bow out of this...
 
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