Motorola and Arris PVR hard drive cloning

[EasyMoney]

I remember finding some info about the Motorola and Arris PVR hard disks using an obscure IBM disk format. Nothing that can be read on a typical PC. If connected to a PC they will appear unformatted.

I am going to upgrade one of my Arris PVR's from 500 GB to a 4 TB hard drive. I understand that the HDD Raw Copy Tool should be able to duplicate the existing 500 GB onto my 4 TB drive but I don't want to end up with a 500 GB partition on a 4 TB drive.

My question is will the HDD Raw Copy Tool be able to extend the partition to 4 TB?

thanks

[fzabkar]

A "logical" cloning tool can only extend a partition if it understands the file system.

An additional problem may a 2TiB limit.

[fzabkar]

This design uses FAT16 and FAT32 partitions. The firmware appears to have a 1TB limitation.

https://www.samkear.com/hardware/depth-analysis-motorola-vip2250-dvr-receiver

[EasyMoney]

That older Motorola may be only 1 TB. The newer Arris Gateway MG5225G is rated at (4TB+). Not FAT. I did have the name of the obscure IBM HD format at one time, over 15 years ago. I checked and IBM wanted somewhere between $1500 and $3000 for the formatting software then.

[fzabkar]

Could we see the contents of sector 0 and the next few sectors? You could use a disc editor such as DMDE or HxD.

[EasyMoney]

OK but it will have to wait until the 4 TB arrives via the eBay shipping program as we are using the Arris now.