So a few days ago my Tablo factory reset on it’s own. Apparently it was a first according to the techs…
The day we noticed it had reset I went through all the setup steps just so we could get live TV again. My wife scheduled a program to record while I was here browsing the forums. Then I was told I should unplug the HDD completely so I did.
Now fast forward to today. The techs tell me there’s no way to get the recordings back into tablo and to use the ripper. But tonight when I try to use the ripper it only shows the show she scheduled to record (with an *) which didn’t actually record because I unplugged the HDD hours before it was on. But none of my other 3TB of recordings still on the disk show up.
Anyone know how I can get the ripper it to see all the other recordings so I can pull them off the drive? Or am I completely screwed?
I really hope someone knows better than I do. But, I’ll start with a question (and guesses).
After you reconnected the hard drive did the Tablo reformat the drive, like it did the first time you plugged it in?
If so, you probably lost your 3TB of recordings.
If not, the data is probably there but getting it off is probably going to be very difficult. The Tablo runs some sort of Linux (I think). I think the hard drive is formatted as EXT4 (a Linux file system). In theory you could probably find the recordings on it if you can mount it on a Linux system but because of the way (I suspect) the Tablo saves the recordings it is going to be very difficult to actually identify the recordings.
No, it didn’t reformat. Tablo still shows the drive as mostly full.
I realized after my post that if the recordings weren’t showing in Tablo they weren’t going to show in the ripper. And I’m running Windows so it sounds like I’m out of luck and I just need to wipe the drive.
The data is “there”, but without any meta information. Just data with an identifier (no show/channel/title/episode info etc.)
With that said, I haven’t actually “done this”, so not exactly sure, but I’m pretty sure. Just say “linux” really loud outside your house, likely several people will come to meet you and help.
After looking in my settings today it appears that Tablo did in fact reformat overnight (eek, I blame you!). I had been unplugging the HDD overnight the past few days but didn’t last night. So, no chance of recovery now even if they weren’t corrupted.
One less problem to solve I guess. Goodbye recordings… You shall be missed.
However, now that I’ve experienced this spontaneous reset, and I’m aware of the ripper, I can take steps to avoid such a catastrophic loss in the future.
