Posted by Archimedes' Lever on 08/12/07 01:11

On Sat, 11 Aug 2007 09:45:16 -0400, Stan Brown
<the_stan_brown@fastmail.fm> wrote:

>Fri, 10 Aug 2007 20:20:24 -0400 from (PeteCresswell) <x@y.Invalid>:
>> Question: How interchangeable/swappable are the drives in these
>> things? If I buy one with a 160-gig drive and terabyte drives
>> get cheap next year, is it going to be as simple as swapping out
>> the drive for one with a similar interface?
>
>I think it may be a bit harder than that. Look over in avsforum.com
>and I think you'll find answers.
>
>> The brass ring, of course, would be one with a USB2 or FireWire
>> port and the option to record and/or copy to an outside drive.
>
>I don't know of any yet, but look in the same place.


It all depends on the file format the drive has been formatted with.

Also, even if one matches said formatting, the drive may contain volume
structures and or machine code in files that are required by the hardware
in order to "boot" the machine and make it operational.

So, it has NOTHING to do with the size of the drive, and EVERTHING to do
with the drive's interface methodology, and partitioning/file system
formatting, and any "system files" that are stored on the drive for
operation.

One thing that one could do is to place the drive on a PC, and boot
knoppix on it, and use the file partitioning tool utilized by Mandriva,
which has over 100 file systems under it's belt, all the back to the CP/M
days.

Still, the file system used could even be 100% proprietary to the
hardware maker as well, and only be recoverable by someone that can
examine the drive at the hardware level of the drive's inherent control
circuitry level.

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