Lost movies on restore

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sgbroimp

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Lost movies on restore

#1

Post by sgbroimp » Thu Nov 26, 2020 3:20 pm

Win7 on SSD got corrupted, one HDD (RAID1) had also failed, so did an image re-install of the SSD using new, larger drive, installed new HDD and ghosted over from good HDD. All went ok except some movies not playable showing message "can only be played on original computer" or words to that effect. Was that inevitable or did I do something wrong?

Space

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#2

Post by Space » Thu Nov 26, 2020 10:59 pm

An image restore should allow you to play back all your old DRM recordings, but only the ones that were recorded prior to the time you made the image.

However there is a file you can save from the old image that can be copied to the restored image and then ALL your recordings should be playable again. If you did not save that file (c:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Playready\MSPR.HDS) from the old corrupt image, then you are out of luck. Note that if you do have that file and plan to restore it, any DRM protected programs that have been recorded since you restored the image will not be playable after restoring the mspr.hds file (the license for each DRM program is saved in the mspr.hds file as it is recorded).

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sgbroimp

Posts: 185
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#3

Post by sgbroimp » Fri Nov 27, 2020 3:27 pm

Most helpful. Had heard of "play ready" but knew nothing about what it does. Much obliged for your help here. Useful for the future at least. Will bounce off my tech as he did the work. I don't think he knew about it either as he is not WMC/Recorded video files experienced.

sgbroimp

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#4

Post by sgbroimp » Wed Dec 02, 2020 3:55 pm

Space wrote: Thu Nov 26, 2020 10:59 pm An image restore should allow you to play back all your old DRM recordings, but only the ones that were recorded prior to the time you made the image.

However there is a file you can save from the old image that can be copied to the restored image and then ALL your recordings should be playable again. If you did not save that file (c:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Playready\MSPR.HDS) from the old corrupt image, then you are out of luck. Note that if you do have that file and plan to restore it, any DRM protected programs that have been recorded since you restored the image will not be playable after restoring the mspr.hds file (the license for each DRM program is saved in the mspr.hds file as it is recorded).

viewtopic.php?t=12249
I probably am out of luck, but wonder what I could have done in this case: The image was of the "C" drive (SSD) which has the OS only and it got corrupted. There was no image of the D drive which is a RAID1 configuration and one of the two drives HDD failed, apparently predating the C drive failure. The good HDD's files were ghosted over to the new replacement HDD. What exactly should we have done and what should I do going forward?

Space

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#5

Post by Space » Wed Dec 02, 2020 6:50 pm

I'm not sure about your setup, but in general, you can make an image or clone of your system drive (C:) on a periodic basis so that if it ever starts to go bad or just crashes all together, you can restore that image to a new drive. Note that only DRM recordings that were made prior to the last image will be playable.

Another way of doing this is to make a periodic clone of your system drive (C:) but not necessarily as often as in the first method. In this one, you just make periodic copies of the c:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Playready\MSPR.HDS file to another drive. So in the event of a complete hard drive crash, you can install the new drive, put the image on that drive (even if the image is months/years old) and then copy over the latest saved MSPR.HDS file. In this situation you would be able to play back all DRM recordings that were made prior to the last MSPR.HDS backup.

The third way of doing it (and this is a bit more risky), is to only make an image of the system drive (I like to do it after making any major changes to it, such as installing new software), but don't make any backups of the MSPR.HDS file.
In this situation, if you had a total failure of your system drive you would be out of luck as far as being able to play back any recordings made after you made the drive image. However, in my personal experience, drives often die more slowly. Meaning that you can tell when a drive is about to go bad. So when you start detecting that the drive is about you go bad, you can then start makiing periodic copies of the MSPR.HDS file and then when you get a new drive, image the new drive and then copy the MSPR.HDS file on to it.

I would not recommend that last one, although I admit it is the one I am using currently only because I hve been too lazy to set up something to copy the MSPR.HDS file on a regular basis.

I know you said your system drive was corrupted, but if you can still access it and retrieve an uncorrupted MSPR.HDS file, you may be able to use that file on the new drive (after imaging it with your old image) and be back in business, all DRM recordings being able to be played back.

sgbroimp

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#6

Post by sgbroimp » Thu Dec 03, 2020 8:33 pm

Interesting and potentially helpful. When I saw those movies were not playable I deleted them so out of luck there, but you do provide some other ideas going forward and I much appreciate. Clearly I need to make back ups more often. They say that RAID is not a substitute for backing up and this would seem to illustrate that.

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