catastrophic failure (CCTV Drive)

[Jay Vaughan]

> For mounting you need a file system Linux recognizes. There is none so
> it won't mount. But, you can just copy the raw binary data from the
> disk to make a backup. When you connect the drive it should come up
> as /dev/hdaX probably. Use dd.
>
> This is the first thing you should do, regardless.
>

it should be noted that:

a) using dd is *highly* dangerous and could be ultra-catastrophic if  
you don't know with 100% certainty what is going on .. and
b) you can operate on a dd image just as if it were the drive itself,  
which includes screwing up the image, mounting it when there's a real  
filesystem, etc.

> Then what about placing another drive in the CCTV box, formatting or
> resetting it on the box (or whatever the procedure is to add a new
> drive). Taking the drive out, and copying the raw binary data on that
> drive from your image, except for the first 1024 bytes? That might  
> work.


that is a good bit of advice, but unfortunately i think there needs  
to be a bit of enlightenment, first.

a bad mistake was made: PEBKAC.


;
--
Jay Vaughan