530 Hard Disk Drive

[TAPALMER]

Hi all

We have a Strand 530 which is in pretty good order. As a safe guard we thought we would clone the hard drive so that we have a swop out if the existing one dies. We took the existing disc out of the 530 and connected it to a laptop with an IDE to USB adaptor. Unfortunately the disc could not be seen. Is there some sort of formatting on the disc which prevents tampering? Has anyone tried this and been successful? and if so how?

Thanks

[gareth]

Odd ... it'll be a standard FAT16 drive, so XP should be able to read it. When you connect it via the USB-IDE adapter, go to Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Computer Management ... then select Disk Management on the left ... does the drive show up in the bottom-right section of the window?

[scottmcleod]

From what I know, strand works some magic wizardry on the drives to make them hidden. Same thing with their new Light Palette consoles (which are SUPER sexy by the way... the new software is AMAZING. Trust me.)

 

It's a way of making it protected in case the ShowNET somehow gets accessible and protects against viruses (virii). Also to protect their software and keep it away from prying eyes... *grin*

 

Try Partition Magic. It can read every disk format available at the moment if I remember correctly, and should be able to allow you to clone your drive.

[mjriley]

Also it may be there in xp but not have a drive letter assigned so it would not be visable in My Computer. if it appears in administrative tools right click it and click assign\change drive letter.

 

Hope this helps.

[robertpaines]

What software are you using for the cloning?

Try using Norton Ghost. It boots direct from 2 floppies, so it probably has a higher chance of being able to read the contents of the disk than windows. It also makes a proper image of the disk, which is better than just copying the files as the entire contents of the disk can be replicated perfectly.

[JMC]

From what I know, strand works some magic wizardry on the drives to make them hidden. Same thing with their new Light Palette consoles (which are SUPER sexy by the way... the new software is AMAZING. Trust me.)

 

It's a way of making it protected in case the ShowNET somehow gets accessible and protects against viruses (virii). Also to protect their software and keep it away from prying eyes... *grin*

 

Try Partition Magic. It can read every disk format available at the moment if I remember correctly, and should be able to allow you to clone your drive.

 

Uhm... nope... no magic wizardry, just a FAT16 DOS-Formatted partition as gareth says... The LP consoles are something different entirely.

 

And I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to shoot your next statement down in flames. Even if Strand were using some "magic wizardry" to hide the contents of a drive while not in the console, how on earth would this afford any security?

 

First of all (and it's a moot point) there are no known viruses (virii being incorrect) "in the wild" for StrandOS, and very very very few for DOS, in fact even then I don't think there's a single one capable of being spread via TCP connection, and even if there were they would rely on specific services running, with known vulnerabilities, in order to have something to exploit and infect. (StrandOS not being one of them). In short, what you're stating is the technological equivalent of an old wives tale..

 

As for the software and prying eyes... This would be the same software you can download from Strand's website, and happily look through to your hearts content (and even run!) on a PC?

 

As for the actual problem we're discussing; I'll back up gareth's suggestion. If Disk Management can't see a logical volume/drive, then there is a problem with the way you are connecting the drive to your system.

 

How are you planning on making the cloned image of the drive? Sorry if I'm teaching you to suck eggs here, but you know you must use specialist drive imaging software (of which there are several free options available), and not just a simple copy & paste in windows? While this will copy the data over, the resulting drive will be unbootable, and completely useless in your console.

[gareth]

From what I know, strand works some magic wizardry on the drives to make them hidden.

To put it another way ... "Watchoo talkin' 'bout, Willis?!" ;)

 

You're quite wrong, I'm afraid - the hard drive in a GeniusPro desk is a bog-standard, no-frills FAT16 partition.

[JMC]

To put it another way ... "Watchoo talkin' 'bout, Willis?!" ;)

 

hah! Precisely :huh:

[gareth]

specialist drive imaging software (of which there are several free options available)

Just as a related point of interest - what would you suggest as being a particularly good piece of freeware/open-source drive imaging software? It's a subject that's of particular interest to me at the moment.

[themadhippy]

couple of things spring to mind,is the master slave jumper in the correct position? is the usb-ide adapter compatable with all speeds of drive ? is the ide cable the correct way round,normaly red stripe towards the power connector,but like all things theres the occasional exeption

 

a particularly good piece of freeware/open-source drive imaging software?

sudo su

cd /

tar cvpjf backup.tar.bz2 --exclude=/proc --exclude=/lost+found --exclude=/backup.tar.bz2 --exclude=/mnt --exclude=/sys /

 

works for me ;)

[JMC]

Truly the simplest solution out there is to use a Mac!

 

Disk Utility lets you create images of any partition/drive/cd/anything else with much ease, and restore is equally simple. Completely format independent too.

 

If you insist on using windows, Self Image (http://selfimage.excelcia.org/) is pretty good, although still in development. For the more adventurous, there's also the windows version of dd; the unix tool for the job! http://www.chrysocome.net/dd

 

Depending on what the purpose of your image is (such as mass-deployment of an image to multiple PC's), there are other options specifically suited. Have a look at http://www.thefreecountry.com/utilities/backupandimage.shtml

 

EDIT: madhippy; yes, but what about the boot sector/MBR -- dd is what you want! - dd if=/dev/drive of=/path/to/destination/image.img - or similar ;)

[TAPALMER]

Odd ... it'll be a standard FAT16 drive, so XP should be able to read it. When you connect it via the USB-IDE adapter, go to Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Computer Management ... then select Disk Management on the left ... does the drive show up in the bottom-right section of the window?

Thanks Gareth and everyone else who's commented

When we did as you suggested the drive showed up but with a 'no entry' symbol on it. We suspected that the IDE - USB adapter was the cause of this so fitted the disk into another machine as a slave - we were then able to see the drive properly. But we have not managed to copy yet - still trying.

[JMC]

TAPALMER, how are you attempting to copy it? I would recommend using Self Image - http://selfimage.excelcia.org/ - As mentioned above..

[TAPALMER]

TAPALMER, how are you attempting to copy it? I would recommend using Self Image - http://selfimage.excelcia.org/ - As mentioned above..

Hi Guys

Success!! We have managed to make a cloned hard drive using Norton Ghost. We were lucky enough to find a DOS version. We put the drive to be cloned(D:) into the 530 as a slave and using Ghost made an image file of the C: drive (we were too nervous to do a straight clone as the drive numbers being shown were a little confusing and we were afraid of wiping the wrong disc). We then removed the C:drive and installed the D: drive as the master and rebooted to DOS from a floppy. We were then able to restore the image file on D: to itself. The desk was then booted and worked perfectly. We reinstalled the original drive and this still worked too.

We are very pleased with this as we have no intention of changing our 530 until we are forced to and a crashing hard disc was the one thing we though might force the issue.

Thanks to all who helped.

[JMC]

To be honest, even if the drive *did* go AWOL, you would still be able to perform a software install on a brand new drive, starting from scratch. However, having cloned the drive, you've now gained the ability to recover in record time (probably even in the space of an interval!).

 

Glad it all worked out for you! :)