topic Re: Any way to reuse HDD recorder from old Sony tv to new XG9005? in Android TV

Any way to reuse HDD recorder from old Sony tv to new XG9005?

KBLarsen — Fri, 13 Dec 2019 17:38:07 GMT

I have used a USB HDD for recording on my KDL-40EX721 for 8-9 years. I have now purchased the new KD-49XG9005, and was expecting to be able to just switch the HDD on to the new tv and be able to view all previous recordings. That feature was not the only reason I decided on a Sony tv again, but a highly contributory factor.

However, the new tv insists to have to re-format the HDD in order to recognise it as a recording unit!

That is, of course, extremely disappointing, and quite annoying to have to erase a lot of recordings that I would still like to watch.

Any suggestions on what I could do, and still save the recordings?

I tried connecting the HDD to my Windows pc to copy the data but the pc does not detect the HDD as a usable drive. Any suggestions on how to hack that situation?

Thank you.

/Kenneth

Rif.: Any way to reuse HDD recorder from old Sony tv to new XG9005?

rooobb — Fri, 13 Dec 2019 19:09:42 GMT

Keep in mind that asking for an hack in a public forum is not legal.

Anyway, recording are crypted by any single tv using their own motherboard key, you cannot watch them even on a different tv of the same model. Forget even trying with a PC, you can however repartition it in order to use it as an empty HDD

Re: Any way to reuse HDD recorder from old Sony tv to new XG9005?

kinggo01 — Fri, 13 Dec 2019 19:17:25 GMT

don't have experience with so old models but....

Try to plug that drive in linux pc. Even just live distro should work. I know that drives formatted on B,C and later series can be recognized in linux. If it works, copy that content to some other drive and then reformat the one from old TV on new TV. Once done, plug that one to linux pc, copy the old contents back and hope that the system will recognize format and folder structure. If not...... well..... I don't know any way to actually make those recordings usable on anything else. What's even worse, drive formatted on one TV does not work on another one. So even if you have two of the same TVs at home you can't watch the recordings on the second one. Which means that all of the above might not work for that reason also.

Re: Any way to reuse HDD recorder from old Sony tv to new XG9005?

rooobb — Fri, 13 Dec 2019 19:25:56 GMT

As I said they are encrypted. You may find the files but they are not playable.

Re: Any way to reuse HDD recorder from old Sony tv to new XG9005?

royabrown2 — Fri, 13 Dec 2019 22:38:52 GMT

What, you won’t spend 5% of the price of your new TV on a fast modern 1TB hard drive for it?

Re: Any way to reuse HDD recorder from old Sony tv to new XG9005?

kinggo01 — Sat, 14 Dec 2019 08:56:01 GMT

@royabrown2 wrote:
What, you won’t spend 5% of the price of your new TV on a fast modern 1TB hard drive for it?

It's not what this is about. And he has every right to be angry. What's the point of that limitation when everything can be found on internet anyway.

Re: Any way to reuse HDD recorder from old Sony tv to new XG9005?

rooobb — Sat, 14 Dec 2019 09:34:28 GMT

Are you joking? It is illegal and you want a movie company like sony to support it? Any tv works like this (if it support recording)

Re: Any way to reuse HDD recorder from old Sony tv to new XG9005?

kinggo01 — Sat, 14 Dec 2019 11:15:48 GMT

what exactly is illegal? Watching your own recordings on a new TV? But it's not on the old one?

My point is that all this piracy prevention phobia does nothing but makes life harder to those who are not pirating in the first place. Those who do go that way in the first place and have no problem with DRM and other BS.

And people record many other things which are not available on any other source. Movies are not a problem.

And I know that it's like that on all TV's because it's mandatory. But that does not make it less pointless.

STB mostly don't have that limitations and nobody cares, they are not banned or anything. So if anyone wants to pirate all he needs is some 30-40€ and he's good to go. And honest customers, like always, once the money is taken, get middle finger salute.

Rif.: Any way to reuse HDD recorder from old Sony tv to new XG9005?

KBLarsen — Sat, 14 Dec 2019 12:07:00 GMT

Hi! By ‘hack’ I simply meant ‘solution’, no criminal intent implied. 😊

Thanks for the info on the motherboard key thing. I did suspect that something like that was at play...

Re: Any way to reuse HDD recorder from old Sony tv to new XG9005?

KBLarsen — Sat, 14 Dec 2019 12:08:11 GMT

Thank you for this tip. Now I just need to get hold of a Linux pc... 🥺

Re: Any way to reuse HDD recorder from old Sony tv to new XG9005?

kinggo01 — Sat, 14 Dec 2019 12:23:20 GMT

you don't. Just download some live distribution, ubuntu or whatever, boot up from DVD/USB and try.

I never tried doing that so I know that disk is 1 TV only because of encryption but don't know if those files are also since they are not readable anyway. Maybe, just maybe they are not tied to one specific TV.

Re: Any way to reuse HDD recorder from old Sony tv to new XG9005?

royabrown2 — Sat, 14 Dec 2019 12:48:46 GMT

Good rant, @kinggo01 !

And yes, I completely agree with you, all DRM does is provide one more way to screw things up for domestic users, while real pirates can defeat it relatively easily anyway.

But it is what it is.

My experience, with the hard drive from a dead YouView box, is that the SD recordings are recoverable, on a Linux PC or Windows laptop booted with a Linux distro, but the HD recordings are not, as the playing software needs to use a key from the NVR of the YouView box, and to know how to use it to do the decoding, as well.

Sony may well do it differently in detail, but the principle is the same.

@KBLarsen is quite lucky to be told about the formatting issue though; put a foreign HDD from one YouView box into another, and the new box will ‘helpfully’ reformat the HDD without asking.

I still wouldn’t put a nearly ten years old HDD on a new TV to carry on using it, though. Yes it would be nice if I could play my old recordings through the new TV, and I might try experimentally copying my old stuff to an HDD formatted how the new TV wants it formatted, to see if I can at least play my old SD recordings, if not indeed the HD ones.

But on a new drive that might stand a chance of also holding any UHD stuff I might want to put there, both on speed and capacity considerations.

Re: Any way to reuse HDD recorder from old Sony tv to new XG9005?

rooobb — Sat, 14 Dec 2019 13:23:01 GMT

@kinggo01 ha scritto:

[..]

STB mostly don't have that limitations and nobody cares, they are not banned or anything. So if anyone wants to pirate all he needs is some 30-40€ and he's good to go. And honest customers, like always, once the money is taken, get middle finger salute.

Do you know how they workaround the law? They do not sell them with an HDD onboard so it is not capable of recording anything, than if you choose to buy an HDD and put it into the STB it is your own choice and fault. Everything you may want to record is copyrighted, not yours. It may be right or not but, surely is a limitation for users but it is the law . Strictly talking, if I'm right, it is not mandatory in UK for SD material, but almost any first tier brand do apply it for everything. And ranting does not add anything to it

Re: Any way to reuse HDD recorder from old Sony tv to new XG9005?

kinggo01 — Sat, 14 Dec 2019 13:57:23 GMT

@rooobb wrote:
And ranting does not add anything to it

Neither your excuses for everything that, in this case, SONY does. Though, this particular issue applies to everyone.

So, non of the TV in the last 5 years came with something to record on. Why the restriction then?

Why there is no warning that people won't be able to use their recording ever again on anything other than that one TV in the same BIG BOLD LETTERS LIKE THEY ADVERTISE USB RECORDING.

This is something that will never bother me personally since I wasn't recording anything even in the VHS days. But some people do participate in some local community stuff that gets aired on local TV and they want to have that. And the only way to have that is to be so lucky that the TV never breaks. Really great pro consumer solution.

Re: Any way to reuse HDD recorder from old Sony tv to new XG9005?

rooobb — Sat, 14 Dec 2019 14:19:28 GMT

I do not defend sony on eveything. I appreciate kushelmonster work that is extremely accurate and to the point. I do not like ranting for everything and I like to enjoy my own tv rather than complain on anything is missing and I would like to have

Re: Any way to reuse HDD recorder from old Sony tv to new XG9005?

Mooly01 — Sat, 14 Dec 2019 19:53:18 GMT

A Windows PC should be able to reformat the drive even though it doesn't appear in 'File Explorer'.

Have a read at my post here, about the 5th one down:

https://community.sony.co.uk/t5/android-tv/u-s-b-hdd-wont-work-on-p-c-when-taken-from-t-v/td-p/2418216#

Re: Any way to reuse HDD recorder from old Sony tv to new XG9005?

royabrown2 — Sat, 14 Dec 2019 22:39:25 GMT

@Mooly01

That thread does not exactly describe an unqualified success.....

And anyway, the OP doesn’t want the HDD to run on Windows, he wants it to run on his Sony TV.

Re: Any way to reuse HDD recorder from old Sony tv to new XG9005?

Mooly01 — Sun, 15 Dec 2019 11:15:42 GMT

I've had no issues recovering drives used by a Sony TV using Windows but as with many things you really need to have it actually in front of you. I seem to recall the TV might configure the drive with a GPT type partition arrangement which again can be fixed using Windows.

Re: Any way to reuse HDD recorder from old Sony tv to new XG9005?

KBLarsen — Tue, 14 Jan 2020 18:47:54 GMT

Thanks for the input. I tried the entire process with a Linux USB key etc. However, rooobb is right: what has been recorded on one tv can only be viewed on that particular tv...

End of story.

Re: Any way to reuse HDD recorder from old Sony tv to new XG9005?

Mooly01 — Sun, 19 Jan 2020 14:44:50 GMT

I've just added a thread detailing how to recover a USB drive. The forum software is unfriendly and the images are spread over a few posts... I have asked a moderator to merge them and delete the unwanted content.

https://community.sony.co.uk/t5/android-tv/how-to-recover-usb-drive-that-was-used-for-hdd-recording-and-that/td-p/2708180/jump-to/first-unread-message