Hard drive in Sky box?

Guest2

Guest2

Guest2

Soldato
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What hard drive is in my Sky plus box?

I found an IDE usb enclosure at home and wondered if I could connect it to my pc and get all the recorded stuff off it. What file format would it be saved in?

Presumably a sky box is just something like a wdhdtv and hard drive in a bigger box that works with TV
 
i opened a 500gb sky plus box.
the 500gb samsung SATA drive is now in my pc, i use it as a temporary drive for utorrent.
they're 3.5" drives but a few CM thinner than normal.
 
Guest2 said:
What hard drive is in my Sky plus box?

I found an IDE usb enclosure at home and wondered if I could connect it to my pc and get all the recorded stuff off it. What file format would it be saved in?

Presumably a sky box is just something like a wdhdtv and hard drive in a bigger box that works with TV
Click to expand...
As above you can reuse the drive but you can't get the programs off it. All the content is stored in it's encrypted form so it needs to be played back through the original box with an active card in place.
 
rpstewart said:
As above you can reuse the drive but you can't get the programs off it. All the content is stored in it's encrypted form so it needs to be played back through the original box with an active card in place.
Click to expand...

This.

You really didn't think it would be that easy did you? :p
 
If anything has been recorded from freesat channels then it can be saved out afaik! There are programs that can get at the data but as for converting it into a format that is usable is another matter.
 
in my experience i was the same as a hard disk from a broken xbox 360, which i now use in an external enclosure.

the hard disk shows up in windows with either a fat32 or ntfs partition which is empty.
a deeper look with a hex editor shows unequivical evidence of actual data on the disk but getting to it nigh on impossible without using (or writing) a programme specific for the task.

if you plan on extracting the data, by all means waste the time but in the case of the Sky Plus content, this can all be downloaded in half the time (and possibly twice the quality) using your favourite bit torrent client.

if you wish to recycle the hard disks from the poor dead devices, as i have done, a hard wipe of the disk and the creation of a new partition in your favourite file system is more than recommended.

be aware though that some disks have firmware installed forbidding this, which was the case with a Micro Drive (with a compact flash interface) which i pulled from a Creative Zen MP3 player in 2008, windows - even acronis, would not lick it.

For the record, the 500gb samsung came from a white 2009 model SKY+ HD box, it's model number i do not know, but it is my understanding that the 80GB model inside the Black SKY+ (non HD) box also uses a SATA interface, since SATA was rapidly becoming widespread since 2006 and the Black SKY+ 80GB box is a 2007/2008 model.
 
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