dvd writer hdd cant be read

[zogas]

hi guys

wondered if u could help me we had a dvd writer with a built in 250gb ide hdd anyway long story short the dvd player failed now am stuck with this hdd which we wanna retrieve the recorded stuff from and put it on a usb driver,now the problem is windows picks it up but only in disk management theres not drive letter just unknown partition and the only options it gives is delete partion when i right click on it!so then i tried to use linux(puppy linux and it didnt pick it up)not a pro on linux so dont know if there maybe some comand i can use,anyway that didnt work so then i used google which is every ones best friend and then it said maybe using a recobery program that reads raw data well that didnt work didnt pick up as theres no letters just shows size and healthy unknown partition

hope u can help sorry if there any mistakes this was written at 12:59:wtf:
thanks

 

[koeksGHT]

What kind of DVD device was this? Brand..

Sounds like the HDD uses its own kind of file system, does it say what file system?

 

[GreGorGy]

Hi Zogas

Sorry to hear of your predicament. One of the most important tools I keep in my "all-else-failed" toolbox is my GParted Live CD. Until you tell it to go ahead and destroy everything, it is non-destructive. It will also tell you what partitions you have on an attached drive, provided it can read the scheme. This may be a good starting point because, at the very least, you will know which FS we're dealing with. DL Gparted and make a live CD. Start up your machine from that CD with the dodgy device connected.

You will want to select the device from drop-down (A) then click View - Drive Info (B) to display the device information. We want the Partition Table (C). We also want to see what partitions (D) exist and which FS (E) they are using.

This exercise will not of course fix your drive but it will at least identify what it is you're up against.

 

[zogas]

koeks:it was a lg dvd player dont know model number google says mount it with linux so it must be a familiar file system linux can read??Gregory:doesnt ubuntu have gparted?maybe i must give ubuntu a try see if it will pick it up but ive tried putting this hdd in a xp and win7 machine and it picks up in disk management but not drive letters it actually says the disk is empty but if i put it back in the dvd player all is there

 

[GreGorGy]

Gregory:doesnt ubuntu have gparted?

Not the GUI by default (YMMV) but it can be added.

 

[mercurial]

Being IDE, is it not because the physical white pins/clips on the back of the drive are not in master mode? I remember having to do that with IDE devices and if you don't set it properly (master/slave), the devices are not picked up. You can try that, or, you can get this device. It converts IDE/SATA drives to USB.