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Data recovery and disk repair questions and discussions related to old-fashioned SATA, SAS, SCSI, IDE, MFM hard drives - any type of storage device that has moving parts
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Bell 9241 PVR HD failing FZABKAR please read

May 10th, 2026, 23:15

I have an issue with a HD inside Bell's 9241 PVR.
It is failing and I'd like to recover the recordings.
Before anything I need to make a clone of this drive.
In Linux it doesn't show all the partitions however in Windows Drill Disk shows all of them.
I have tried cloning it with DMDE software but after 50GB it started showing I/O errors.
What is the best approach , software that would clone this drive as accurate as possible ? Should I ignore those bad sectors or how to deal with them ?
Can it be done in Linux how ? Can it be done in Windows ?
Also I have asked user Fzabkar on this forum to read this post as I think he could help me.
Franc please send me a private message as I could not do it for some reason.
Thanks in advance for any help !
Thanks , Chris

Re: Bell 9241 PVR HD failing FZABKAR please read

May 11th, 2026, 11:16

This is a professional data recovery forum. I'm only an amateur. If you intend to pursue DIY recovery, your safest approach would be to clone your drive with HDDSuperClone / OpenSuperClone. This tool understands how to work with a failing drive.

https://www.reddit.com/r/datarecoverysoftware/wiki/hddsuperclone_guide/

Re: Bell 9241 PVR HD failing FZABKAR please read

May 11th, 2026, 16:39

Franc, thanks for your reply !
On reddit you were discussing with user "BiggieCheese1500" recovery of his recordings from a Bell 9241 PVR.
I have some questions about that.
Please contact me via PM or email.
Thanks

Re: Bell 9241 PVR HD failing FZABKAR please read

May 12th, 2026, 11:56

Sorry, I'm dealing with a major personal issue at the moment. I won't be able to help you for some time.

Re: Bell 9241 PVR HD failing FZABKAR please read

May 12th, 2026, 23:31

Not meaning to step on toes, @capri; files on the DVR will be encrypted, fzabkar is correct, make a copy of the drive using HDDSuperClone / OpenSuperClone.

Re: Bell 9241 PVR HD failing FZABKAR please read

May 13th, 2026, 16:57

fzabkar wrote:Sorry, I'm dealing with a major personal issue at the moment. I won't be able to help you for some time.

Franc, sorry to hear that ! Hope things will get better for you....

Re: Bell 9241 PVR HD failing FZABKAR please read

May 13th, 2026, 17:03

WebClaw wrote:Not meaning to step on toes, @capri; files on the DVR will be encrypted, fzabkar is correct, make a copy of the drive using HDDSuperClone / OpenSuperClone.

Yes you are right ...however some were not encrypted and the user on Redddit that fzabkar worked with was able to retrieve them.
Problem is he did it in July last year and so far I am unsuccessful trying to contact that person.
Was hoping that fzabkar has more info, maybe contact info for that user BiggieCheese1500 on Reddit.

Re: Bell 9241 PVR HD failing FZABKAR please read

May 15th, 2026, 0:07

While I don't know your specifics, if you clone the HDD from a 64XX series Motorola DVR (provider is SHAW here in Canada) to another HDD and install it back into the DVR it will playback the files - including those which are encrypted.

Set the HPA on the destination drive to match the source.

I think fzabkar meant to imply that. The same may work for your ViP612.

Re: Bell 9241 PVR HD failing FZABKAR please read

May 17th, 2026, 20:07

You could probably find TV shows wanted on another site
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