Adding new HD, want to move existing recordings.

[snowmanaxp]

I am installing a new HD for recordings only.
I want to be able to transfer my existing recordings to this new drive. What is the best way to do this?

I have read that I can use the Video Archive plugin. But can I do this without using any plugins?

Any help would be appreciated.

[Ted the Penguin]

it should be pretty simple, copy your recordings to the new drive, and then change the recordings directory to the new drive as well... I think it should pick up all of the old recordings. but I definitely suggest backing up your recordings (in the config utility) before you try anything...

it could be even easier if you have them on a separate partition already. just format the new one, move the recordings, then change the drive letter. on that vein you could also just mount the drive to your current recordings folder after moving the files. you might have to delete the folder before you do that... not sure.

[gEd]

you can export your recordings using config.exe
edit the recordings dump.xml file in notepad
use find & replace to substitute the old location for the new location.
move recordings
start gbvr - it will detect that the recordings are "missing" and delete them
go into config.exe and import recordings and
viola!

(hopefully...)

[edit] I more than happy to be proven wrong but I'm fairly sure that Ted's suggestion won't work (humble pie on standby)

[Ted the Penguin]

[edit] I more than happy to be proven wrong but I'm fairly sure that Ted's suggestion won't work (humble pie on standby)

first one I am not sure about... but the other ones should be transparent to GB-PVR. provided that it isnt running when you decide to go and delete the recordings/change drive letters.

[gEd]

[edit]
agreed: reassigning a drive letter (or pointing the mount point to the old folder) will be transparent and should work.

I guess I was assuming that the OP has his recordings in a folder under c:

sorry I skim read a little and didn;t fully digest your 2/3 suggestions.

[Ted the Penguin]

agreed: reassigning a drive letter will be transparent and will work. I have always had my recordings on a separate partition for this reason.

I guess I was assuming that the OP has his recordings in a folder under c: but this is definitely the best way of doing it when recordings are in a separate partition.

it doesnt matter if they are on a separate partition really, you can mount a drive to an NTFS folder in windows... its not done often, but it is possible.

[pastro]

Sub pointed out in a different post that on each auto EPG update the recordings are automatically exported. However, the file paths would be for the old drive and not for the new although it might just be a simple edit of the XML file to change the path and then import.

There is also a utility called mpegimport on the wiki that works very well and can import whatever dir or file you want. If you copied all of your recordings over to the new drive and then used Mpegimport it should work fine.

EDIT: The autofile is recording-dump.xml in your gbpvr dir.

[snowmanaxp]

Thanks for all of the info. I'm going to try editing the XML file. I only have a few recordings, for now

What is the best formatting for my new recordings only drive? To put it another way, what parameters should I format the drive with?


Thanks again!!!!

[Ted the Penguin]

Thanks for all of the info. I'm going to try editing the XML file. I only have a few recordings, for now

What is the best formatting for my new recordings only drive? To put it another way, what parameters should I format the drive with?


Thanks again!!!!

so a full NTFS format (I.E., not "quick") it will write '0's to the entire drive, and check for any errors. But other than that it doesnt really matter, the only other thing you can really change is cluster (allocation unit) size, and you can max that out, since you will be creatig large files on the disk, and it will reduce the number of disk operations (kinda, the sector size will always be 512 bytes)

[snowmanaxp]

Thanks for the help. I got the recordings moved to my new drive and everything is working fine.