Friends, I have a WD 1600BB that I cannabalized out of a Moviebeam DVR. I have done this before and gotten good HDs out of old DVRs. I have always been able to run FDISK on them and get them to work in a computer. But this one..... Fdisk recognizes it and says there is no partitions on it, but it can't set anything up. I ran the WD diagnostics on it and it can't fix it. The low-level format program on here won't work either. CMOS regognizes the drive fine. Wondering how I can set this drive up so it'll work!!

Any help would be appreciated.

Password protected is my guess based on your information. Does it work ok within the DVR unit?

Download something like AFF Repair Station and run diagnosis.

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Data Recovery Ireland

Don't know if it worked with the DVR. I bought it at a garage sale and pulled the HD out without trying the DVR since I am not a subscriber. I've done this twice before with other DVRs and was able to use the HD. But this DVR is very different from the others, hence my question.

probably either password protected or motherboard-locked for security purposes. As i previously suggested, download AFF Repair station and let it diagnose the drive, it will tell you if it's locked.

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Data Recovery Ireland

... or a cheaper/more user friendly alternative - http://hddunlock.com/
(based on the same core)

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Dmitry

Well, I DLed AFF and ran it and it says the drive is not locked. Partition Magic can't access it.. Gives an error msg. Easeus Partition Manager Pro can see the drive, but it shows as unallocated. I try to set up a partition but it hangs. Likewise in WinXP, Administration/Computer Management/Storage. Can see it as unallocated, but can't change it.


Update: Hddunlock also says the drive is not locked. It's either a bad drive or it's full of
stuff in a format that nothing can recognize. I tried low-level formatting it with no luck.
Nice WD 160 GB drive. Just wish it worked!

Unless you need the data from it, which I guess you don't, you should forget about it and move on.

You'll need professional tools like PC3000 to diagnose the drive fully.

Moral of the story....don't buy stuff from a garage sale!

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Data Recovery Ireland

Well, that moral does not compute! I have bought 2 other DVRs at garage sales, usually for under 10 dollars and got 1 80G and 1 120G HD out of them. The price is right!!
1 out of 3 ain't bad!

Have you tried just doing an erase or fasterase in MHDD?

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You don't have to backup all of your files, just the ones you want to keep.

I have a similar problem to Tocapet - I took a Seagate 160Gb Hdd from a Pioneer DVR and fitted it inside an external Hdd enclosure. However, neither Windows Vista or XP (on my desktop and laptop respectively) will recognise it, either as an internal second drive or as an external. PartitionMagic also can't see it, although I did manage to get PartitionMagic to format a single partition of 32Gb after shifting the jumper to the appropriate position. That 32Gb works perfectly, reading and writing data smoothly. Everything else I've tried to format and access the whole 160Gb hasn't worked. I'm going to try a low level format if I can but does anyone have any other ideas?

use mhdd... it will tell you if there is an HPA or not, and you can use it to zerofill.

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You don't have to backup all of your files, just the ones you want to keep.