+Extract not seeing any recordings on Sky+ drive

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+Extract not seeing any recordings on Sky+ drive

Postby cwt » Mon Apr 05, 2010 3:18 pm

I've been using +Extract 0.3.0.7 for a few months without any problems.

Over the weekend I connected the Sky+ drive up to my PC as normal... +Extract found the drive but did not list any recorded programmes.

At this point I'm going to apologise for the long post :)

I started looking through the contents of the drive by hand using My Computer - there were lots of folders containing the usual mix of files. I found that I could access all that I tried to with the exception of the .STR files - any of them. Any attempt to copy a .STR file to another drive resulted in an access error popping up. All of this was done while running as a user with admin rights in XP.

I thought it a bit odd that I could open any file except the .STR files - although I've never done any poking around before now so I don't know if this is odd or just normal behaviour. I assumed that +Extract was showing no programmes because it was also not able to access the .STR files.

I rebooted the PC (a simple thing to try) and also disconnecting and reconnecting the Sky+ drive - no difference. Putting the drive back onto the Sky+ box didn't show any problems - everything seemed to be working fine.

I tried connecting the drive to a Linux PC - thinking that somehow my rights as an administrator under Win XP might have been messed up or Win XP was interpreting the file ownership/permissions in some funny way. No difference.

I tried changing ownership of the .STR files - that was not permitted even as root on the Linux PC.

It was about this time that I obviously did something naff and managed to truncate all the .STR files to 0 length. I still don't know what it was that did this as the files were not deleted... just truncated to zero length... and no other files were affected. I reviewed my command line history and cannot see what might have caused this - but ce la vie.

I reconnected the drive to the Sky+ box which claimed to be able to see all the recorded programmes - but not unexpectedly they did not play.. or those that did were incomplete. Having made my apologies to the family I deleted everything off the list of recorded programmes so that we could start afresh.

I am now in the process of doing some tests (recording programmes, playing back etc) to make sure that I have not inadvertantly broken anything else - so far everything seems to be working as expected.

Reconnecting the drive to the PC and +Extract is still unable to see any recorded programme.

So - any thoughts on what is preventing +Extract from seeing anything? I've attached a screen dump of the log and +Extract itself.

I count myself lucky that all I've done is lose the recorded programmes... is there any way to recover from a more significant problem in the future? If the drive fails completely is it possible to just pop in a replacement? Will the Sky+ box cope with a blank, formatted drive?

Thanks, Chris

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Re: +Extract not seeing any recordings on Sky+ drive

Postby pcbbc » Mon Apr 05, 2010 3:32 pm

STR files are stored completely differently from "normal" FAT32 files in XTVFS. This is the reason we need Copy+ and +Extract in the first place to read them.
All of the other files and folders conform to the FAT32 standard, so this is why you can read them with Windows.
But NOT so with the STR files because they are completely "broken", and outside of the FAT32 standard, as far as Windows and Linux FAT32 file system drivers are concerned. They know nothing of XTVFS.

Most likely situation is that a check disk application has run and seen these differences, which it assumes are discrepancies, and tried to correct them.
At this point what you have done would have been completely recoverable, but for one thing - you returned the disk the the Sky box.
Now the Sky box sees the "corrections" made by Windows/Linux and thinks "These recording (STR) files are not correct! It looks like these recordings are corrupt/incomplete/failed". It then usually deletes all other traces of them from the disk and planner databases, or makes other changes which are almost certainly totally unrecoverable (to much has been deleted to be able to be restored successfully).

As for why +Extract can not see your recordings, I will leave Neil to investigate that as he is the +Extract author/guru.
He has tools he can send you to ask for a disk image, so he can debug at his end. I expect that is what he will be asking you to do if you have this problem in future.
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Re: +Extract not seeing any recordings on Sky+ drive

Postby neildo » Mon Apr 05, 2010 3:39 pm

Hi Chris,

Welcome to the forum and thanks for using +Extract.

There were a number of bugs prior to 0.4.0.0 that prevents the disk being parsed properly in certain situations and I'm sorry to say that the last free version was 0.3.0.7.

You could try installing version 0.4.0.5, start it and then move the license dialogue to the side to see if the drive parses ok (it will try to parse the drive). You don't need to purchase a license, but you obviously won't be able to extract anything until you acquire a license.
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Re: +Extract not seeing any recordings on Sky+ drive

Postby cwt » Mon Apr 05, 2010 4:03 pm

Hi - thanks for the prompt response... makes sense.

I've now downloaded Copy+ - which does correctly see the programme file - and have created a backup of the Sky+ drive as it now stands - it reports an error at the end of the process - "FAT corruption or cluster cross-linking detected. As a result this recording may be unplayable in whole or part. Attempt recovery of this recordings lost clusters to destination?...".

I select "Yes" to fix and it completes the image creation but doesn't give any confirmation of whether or not it managed to fix the problem it found - I'm assuming it did... or at least didn't find any other problems.

So question - I don't have a replacement drive to pop into the Sky+ box... but want to try and repair the filesystem on the original drive... before we start filling it up again and potentially running into problems in days or weeks time.

Would it be sensible at this stage to just restore the drive from the Copy+ image file which has been created and possibly fixed?

Appreciate that this is all at my own risk.

Thanks, Chris
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Re: +Extract not seeing any recordings on Sky+ drive

Postby cwt » Mon Apr 05, 2010 4:08 pm

Neil - thanks for your prompt reply too!

I downloaded +Extract 0.4.0.5 and it doesn't show the programme on the drive.

I've also downloaded XTVFS - which sounds like it might be a good insurance for the future! I'll try the latest version of +Extract again after I've installed that.

Thanks, Chris
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Re: +Extract not seeing any recordings on Sky+ drive

Postby cwt » Mon Apr 05, 2010 4:22 pm

No difference after installing XTVFS and rebooting... but then I believe all it does is mount the filesystem read-only? So no surprise.

Chris
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Re: +Extract not seeing any recordings on Sky+ drive

Postby pcbbc » Mon Apr 05, 2010 4:28 pm

cwt wrote:I've also downloaded XTVFS - which sounds like it might be a good insurance for the future! I'll try the latest version of +Extract again after I've installed that.
This should prevent most things in Windows writing to the drive. It won't help with Linux.

cwt wrote:I select "Yes" to fix and it completes the image creation but doesn't give any confirmation of whether or not it managed to fix the problem it found - I'm assuming it did... or at least didn't find any other problems.
It will have fixed the problem and the destination disk will no longer have any lost clusters.
What it can not say for certain is if the recording was damaged. Usually lost clusters means the possibility that parts of the recording can have been overwritten by subsequent recordings, and so the effected recordings may have been partially corrupted and hence unplayable.

Would it be sensible at this stage to just restore the drive from the Copy+ image file which has been created and possibly fixed?
The ideal solution here is to restore to a different drive.
However, as you do not have one to hand, restoring to your existing drive is your next best option.
Of course keeping the original just in case the there was some fault with the backup would always be the best option. I've no reason to suspect that there might be something wrong but, as I am sure you would agree, it is best to always err on the side of caution were other peoples recordings are concerned!

No difference after installing XTVFS and rebooting... but then I believe all it does is mount the filesystem read-only? So no surprise.
Correct - XTVFS drivers are just there to set the read only attribute on the volume.
Actually Copy+ also contains code to do this when it copies a disk (both source and destination). But the drivers are always present and loaded, right from boot, so will "get in there" before any application - so are preferable if you wish to avoid accidents.
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Re: +Extract not seeing any recordings on Sky+ drive

Postby cwt » Wed Apr 07, 2010 8:53 pm

Latest update - I do in fact have a spare Sky+ box which I originally used to test the +Extract process and the attachment of the drive outside the Sky+ box in a removable caddie... so I don't have to open the box up every time.

The spare 160GB drive was being used by my diy-NAS - I'm a great believer in keeping electronics busy - it tends to die if left switched off on a shelf :)

So I migrated all the data off the "spare" drive and deleted the partition. Took a backup of the "dodgy" drive and allowed Copy+ to fix the filesystem errors it found. Then copied it to the spare drive. This is now working happily in my Sky+ box.

Before I put it in the Sky+ box I tried to extract the programmes off it using +Extract and got the same problem - i.e. nothing showing to be extracted from it. What I noticed this time however was the error that was being displayed - I moved the licensing dialog box to a different part of the screen this time so it wasn't masking it - doh!

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Not sure what a JOPA entry table is - does that give any clues as to the problem?

Chris
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Re: +Extract not seeing any recordings on Sky+ drive

Postby neildo » Thu Apr 08, 2010 7:42 am

cwt wrote:Not sure what a JOPA entry table is - does that give any clues as to the problem?

Chris


The JOPA is a file on the disk that describes all the recordings in your planner. It contains the recording name, date, time, duration and synopsis. Currently +Extract cannot process the disk if the JOPA is knackered.

I was considering implementing extraction without the JOPA being present. Unfortunately its so tightly integrated into the disk parsing that it will be difficult to implement and probably won't appear as a feature for some time.
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Re: +Extract not seeing any recordings on Sky+ drive

Postby cwt » Thu Apr 08, 2010 8:38 am

Neil - do you know how I reconstruct the JOPA so I can continue to use +Extract?

The other thought I had this morning while driving into work was to use the spare disk I now have to "start afresh".

If I delete all the partitions/filesystems off it and install it into the Sky+ box then I'm assuming it will do a fresh install/configuration of the disk and the JOPA will then be correct? I recall seeing some information on other Sky+ related forums on how to go about this - installing a new drive that is.

Might give this a go tonight when I get home.

Thanks.
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Re: +Extract not seeing any recordings on Sky+ drive

Postby pcbbc » Thu Apr 08, 2010 11:11 am

Is this disk not working or NOT in a Sky+ box?
What does Copy+ make of the disk?
It may be possible to fix the JOPA, as it is usually only corrupt in part. I have done this in the past for people.

If you want to start again from scratch, you can do a Full System Reset in the Sky box.
This will delete everything and recreate the files correctly. You will of course lose all your existing recordings.
Please note that for disks over 500GB use of Copy+ may be required to obtain full capacity after a FSR.
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Re: +Extract not seeing any recordings on Sky+ drive

Postby cwt » Thu Apr 08, 2010 12:23 pm

Neil - just to clarify...

I currently have two original 160GB Sky+ hard drives - lets call them production and standby.

I managed to mess up the production drive - as described in the earlier posts.

I took an image from the production drive with Copy+ which fixed the filesystem corruption. The image was then written to the standby drive.

The standby drive is now working fine in the Sky+ box.

Before I put the standby drive back into the Sky+ box I tested it with +Extract - which still could not see any programmes to copy and reported the corrupted JOPA.

So I have a spare drive hanging around - the original production drive - which I can play with in order to try and help fix the JOPA problem.

One thought for doing this was to do the Full System Reset you referenced using the spare drive. If this works and creates a working JOPA then I would continue to use it so that I can use +Extract.

Because of the earlier problems I have very little in the way of recorded programmes on the drive currently sitting in the Sky+ box so not a big loss.

Hope that helps.

Chris
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Re: +Extract not seeing any recordings on Sky+ drive

Postby neildo » Thu Apr 08, 2010 8:37 pm

Chris,

Well, I now have a working +Extract that doesn't rely on the JOPA. I still have a number of things to tidy up in the code but it can extract and convert :)

I'll refer you to a beta version real soon.

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