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Magnavox ZV427MG9 vcr/dvd recorder ...is file recovery possible?

Hello,

I have a Magnavox ZV427MG9 VCR/DVD recorder. I recorded a very important video to dvd a few years ago. Since then I have lost the dvd, and the video was discarded after I burned the dvd. Is there any way of recovering this file from the dvd recorder?

Thank you for your help!
 

KrisBlueNZ

Sadly passed away in 2015
If the recorder uses a standard file system on its hard drive (most don't, I believe), and you haven't recorded anything on to that hard drive since you deleted the recording, possibly. But not otherwise. Sorry :-(
 
That device does not appear to have an internal harddrive or other storage medium. Any memory that would have been used to burn the DVD would most likely be a small amount of memory for buffering purposes only and is most likely volatile (All data is gone on power-loss). If this is the case, then there is no way to recover the video file from the VHS/DVD recorder combo-unit.

If I was wrong and the device does indeed have an internal harddrive, it should be shut down and pulled immediately. From there you can run it through various data recovery / undelete programs but if needs to be absolutely clear before-hand that ANY write to the harddrive could corrupt the file you want to recover. Even if the file is found, it may not be recoverable.

Typically, the harddrive has two key sections for storing files... the data, and a map (The terms used are not the technical terms). The actual 'data' of the file may be in one or more physical locations on the harddrive. The map will store this information so your files can be found. When a file is deleted, the map gets changed. The map may say nothing is there, but you can still go read the 'data' for your file. This is an easy method of recovery, as all that is needed is to scan the entire harddrive and re-build the map from scratch. However, any time something needs to be saved, it consults the map and looks for some 'empty space'. At this point it could save over top of a piece of your file because this space should be 'free'. This will lead to unrecoverable data, or complications recovering the whole file. It must also be mentioned that this is true for ANYTHING that get saved... even momentarily. For example, windows systems will automatically write a file on a USB drive to test if it can be used with ready-boost. This file only exists for a moment, but this test could damage any files you wish to recover.
It is always a gamble to recover you data, and it should always be expected that very close to 0% is recoverable. At this point anything you do manage to get is gold.

I accidentally reformatted my harddrive during a windows installation... it was a 500GB disk full of programs, pictures, music, text files... everything. This was where I put my personal files... Windows existed on a different harddrive. I used a few different recovery tools and lost a lot of my data... I think overall, I was able to recover close to 90% of my data... or so I thought. I am still finding bits and pieces of files that don't work, or don't completely load and my experience occurred over 4 years ago. I found a very good song just yesterday that played for about 25 seconds, squeaked, and stopped. So even if you can recover the file, there is no way to know if the whole file is actually intact...
 

KrisBlueNZ

Sadly passed away in 2015
Gryd3, are you suggesting that he could remove the hard drive (assuming there is one) and put it into a PC or an external USB box? Do you know what file systems are used on hard drives in digital media recorders?

I had an early Panasonic DVD recorder with a 300 GB hard drive which died and wouldn't boot. I wanted to try to get the files (which weren't deleted) off the hard drive, but the file system wasn't anything that file recovery software could recognise.
 
Gryd3, are you suggesting that he could remove the hard drive (assuming there is one) and put it into a PC or an external USB box? Do you know what file systems are used on hard drives in digital media recorders?

I had an early Panasonic DVD recorder with a 300 GB hard drive which died and wouldn't boot. I wanted to try to get the files (which weren't deleted) off the hard drive, but the file system wasn't anything that file recovery software could recognise.
There are far too many formats to say for certain. I have not been in enough to say for certain, but I would assume FAT32, exFAT, and ext formats would be common.
I am absolutely saying that if there is a harddrive inside, that removing it and using a PC would be a viable recovery option. (The OS or recovery program may not recognise the format, so alternatives may be required)
First step would be to use a machine with MAC, or Linux operating system, or booting the computer with a utility like CloneZilla to make an exact copy of the harddrive first. This will ensure that if you do accidentally write to the harddrive, you still have a copy as it was to work from. This is typically done with the 'dd' command line tool : https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/disk_cloning This method will clone harddrives regardless of format allowing you to experiment with the copy (that may be placed on another harddrive, or a virtual disk image similar to an ISO). This will not work if the harddrive is locked... the original Xbox consoles would lock the harddrive on shutdown to prevent unauthorized access, and I would not be surprised if PVR systems did this as well. It's much easier to lock a harddrive or use an uncommon format then to develop a custom file system.
After you have a copy (optional, but highly recommended) you need to determine the file system, then you can move on from there. FAT and NTFS can be recovered pretty easily, and one such program to help here is recuva or restoration.
https://www.piriform.com/recuva
http://download.cnet.com/Restoration/3000-2094_4-10322950.html
*Read carefully when you download or install from CNET to avoid accidentally installing browser toolbars or other crap... You do NOT have to install a toolbar or anything from a 3rd party to use restoration, so make sure you don't check the 'I agree to install Y' if you only want X.

Additional software can be found here : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_data_recovery_software
 
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