I've been using +Extract 0.3.0.7 for a few months without any problems.
Over the weekend I connected the Sky+ drive up to my PC as normal... +Extract found the drive but did not list any recorded programmes.
At this point I'm going to apologise for the long post
I started looking through the contents of the drive by hand using My Computer - there were lots of folders containing the usual mix of files. I found that I could access all that I tried to with the exception of the .STR files - any of them. Any attempt to copy a .STR file to another drive resulted in an access error popping up. All of this was done while running as a user with admin rights in XP.
I thought it a bit odd that I could open any file except the .STR files - although I've never done any poking around before now so I don't know if this is odd or just normal behaviour. I assumed that +Extract was showing no programmes because it was also not able to access the .STR files.
I rebooted the PC (a simple thing to try) and also disconnecting and reconnecting the Sky+ drive - no difference. Putting the drive back onto the Sky+ box didn't show any problems - everything seemed to be working fine.
I tried connecting the drive to a Linux PC - thinking that somehow my rights as an administrator under Win XP might have been messed up or Win XP was interpreting the file ownership/permissions in some funny way. No difference.
I tried changing ownership of the .STR files - that was not permitted even as root on the Linux PC.
It was about this time that I obviously did something naff and managed to truncate all the .STR files to 0 length. I still don't know what it was that did this as the files were not deleted... just truncated to zero length... and no other files were affected. I reviewed my command line history and cannot see what might have caused this - but ce la vie.
I reconnected the drive to the Sky+ box which claimed to be able to see all the recorded programmes - but not unexpectedly they did not play.. or those that did were incomplete. Having made my apologies to the family I deleted everything off the list of recorded programmes so that we could start afresh.
I am now in the process of doing some tests (recording programmes, playing back etc) to make sure that I have not inadvertantly broken anything else - so far everything seems to be working as expected.
Reconnecting the drive to the PC and +Extract is still unable to see any recorded programme.
So - any thoughts on what is preventing +Extract from seeing anything? I've attached a screen dump of the log and +Extract itself.
I count myself lucky that all I've done is lose the recorded programmes... is there any way to recover from a more significant problem in the future? If the drive fails completely is it possible to just pop in a replacement? Will the Sky+ box cope with a blank, formatted drive?
Thanks, Chris