Formatted external hard drive, lost my recorded videos

canalhopper

New Member
I connected my external hard drive for the first time today to my FOXSAT-HDR and thought I was following the instructions to format it. I went to:
Menu
System
HDD Control

There it said Format HDD, so I clicked on that and got the options:
Video/Radio Partition
Music/Photo Partition

So I clicked on Video/Radio Partition

And it did something and then said it was finished.

Now I cannot access the videos I had recorded previously on the set top box. In fact, when I press the media button on the remote, I only get HDD and an empty screen. Pressing any button on the remote has no effect.
I have disconnected the external hard drive and it is still the same. Please can anyone help me? Thank you.
 
OOPS. The commands that you used are to format the internal drive not the external drive. You are correct, this will have erased all your previous recordings etc. I don't think there is a way of recovering them, but someone else will probably be along in a while to confirm this.
 
I may be mistaken, but did I read that the Foxsat does not have the facility to format external drives?
 
I went to:
Menu
System
HDD Control

There it said Format HDD, so I clicked on that and got the options:
Video/Radio Partition
Music/Photo Partition

So I clicked on Video/Radio Partition

And it did something and then said it was finished.


Yes, you re-formatted your internal hard drive, which will have deleted all your recordings. I am surprised there was no warning about this. Unless you have a local guru who can recover files, they are gone forever. Sorry, but there is no easy way to get them back.
 
Thank you for that, Trev.
Please can you tell me:
Should I/can I undo the formatting?
How can I get my Humax box to recognise my external Hard Drive?
I hope you don't mind me asking all these questions and many thank for your help.
P.S. Like your hat........
 
Thank you for that, Trev.
Please can you tell me:
Should I/can I undo the formatting?
How can I get my Humax box to recognise my external Hard Drive?
I hope you don't mind me asking all these questions and many thank for your help.


Your external drive will be recognized if you use a PC to format it as Fat32. The downside is that there is a file size limit on Fat32. This will not affect most SD recordings, but some HD recordings may be too large to copy over to it.

You can also use Linux Ext3, and there is a free tool to format disks with that, but in view of the above I don't advise it. Ext3 doesn't have the restrictions of Fat32. The tool is at

http://www.easeus.com/download/epmf-download.html

The danger is that you might format your PC disk by mistake. :eek:

You can't undo a format operation. Your recordings are gone. :(
 
Thanks for all the really helpful answers. I can live without my recorded videos, except for Monty Don. I had over 70 Gardener's World progs saved for viewing on miserable wintry days......
However, I think the external Hd I was using was faulty, since I have tried it on both of my computers and it doesn't work on either. Currently I have a different 250gb HD connected to the Humax box, and that showed up immediately in the File Manager. However, this HD doesn't have its own power box, and I read that it should, as the power output of the Humax box is too weak? Any thoughts on this one?
Thanks.
 
However, I think the external Hd I was using was faulty, since I have tried it on both of my computers and it doesn't work on either. Currently I have a different 250gb HD connected to the Humax box, and that showed up immediately in the File Manager. However, this HD doesn't have its own power box, and I read that it should, as the power output of the Humax box is too weak? Any thoughts on this one?
Thanks.
Please would you post the models of the 2 HDDs you are referring to.
 
I may be mistaken, but did I read that the Foxsat does not have the facility to format external drives?
You are not mistaken. I formatted my 1TB external drive by connecting it temporarily to the internal sata connections.
I thought you used Partition Manager which I thought could do that?
Graham's comment was in reply to my comment about not being able to format an external drive using the Foxsat.
 
Thanks for all the really helpful answers. I can live without my recorded videos, except for Monty Don. I had over 70 Gardener's World progs saved for viewing on miserable wintry days......
It might have been possible to recover, with a lot of work, if you had immediately quarantined the internal drive and then used a PC to rebuild it, but if you have done anything since you can forget that one.
However, I think the external Hd I was using was faulty, since I have tried it on both of my computers and it doesn't work on either. Currently I have a different 250gb HD connected to the Humax box, and that showed up immediately in the File Manager. However, this HD doesn't have its own power box, and I read that it should, as the power output of the Humax box is too weak? Any thoughts on this one?
Is it USB2 or USB3? Is the drive described as "portable" or "external"/"desktop"? A portable drive should not have any additional power requirement other than what can be drawn from a standard USB port, although USB3 ports are able to supply more than USB2 ports (so a USB3 drive, although compatible with USB2, could draw too much current for a USB2 port).
 
a USB3 drive, although compatible with USB2, could draw too much current for a USB2 port).
Your statement is very confused. You refer to a drive that is USB2 compatable and then state that the same drive could be not comptable. Either it is, or either it is not.

If a 'USB3' HDD drive connected as a USB2 draws too much current for a USB2 port then it is not compatible with USB2. If the 'sell' is that the HDD is compatable with USB2 and it draws too much current then that means that the HDD is not compatible and it has been miss-sold.
 
I am not at all confused. "Compatibility" refers to the ability of a USB3 device/port to downgrade the data transfer protocols to suit a USB2 port/device. This does not include the power aspects. A USB3 device is perfectly capable of communicating with a USB2 port, but that does not mean the USB2 port can supply the power requirement unaided - a typical scenario would be to use a "Y" cable to double up the power from two ports.

This may or may not be the actual problem, I don't think I have yet heard of a USB3 portable drive that does not run from a USB2 port.
 
One of the HD's is a WD Passport portable. I don't know if it's USB 2 or 3 sorry, but it works on my imac OSX.
The other one is an Iomega desktop, but I can't tell you any more about it, because neither my imac nor my old Dell laptop will detect it. When I plug it in to the mains and connect it via the USB port on either computer, the light comes on, it whirrs away, but the icon doesn't appear on the desktop and it is not findable in the device manager.
Once again, thank you all for the help.
 
I don't understand how this:
One of the HD's is a WD Passport portable. I don't know if it's USB 2 or 3 sorry, but it works on my imac OSX.

The other one is an Iomega desktop, but I can't tell you any more about it, because neither my imac nor my old Dell laptop will detect it. When I plug it in to the mains and connect it via the USB port on either computer, the light comes on, it whirrs away, but the icon doesn't appear on the desktop and it is not findable in the device manager.

relates to this:
However, I think the external Hd I was using was faulty, since I have tried it on both of my computers and it doesn't work on either. Currently I have a different 250gb HD connected to the Humax box, and that showed up immediately in the File Manager. However, this HD doesn't have its own power box, and I read that it should, as the power output of the Humax box is too weak? Any thoughts on this one?
 
The reason for the reply was that I was asked to give details of the HD's I was using.
I am most appreciative of all the help I am receiving on this forum, and the pleasant way in which everyone has treated what may be to some members, my rather naive questions.
 
"Compatibility" refers to the ability of a USB3 device/port to downgrade the data transfer protocols to suit a USB2 port/device. This does not include the power aspects.
I did not know that. What do you base your statement on?
 
My USB3 WD 1.5TB that has got 2 x 2.5" drives in it runs happily in all the USB2 sockets that I have laying around on three computers, but runs jolly slow compared with a USB3 socket.
 
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