Formatting Storage on DW Blackjack Servers (Ubuntu/Linux)

Formatting Storage on DW Blackjack® Servers (Ubuntu/Linux)

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Affected Roles:  Administrator, Owner

Related Digital Watchdog VMS Apps:  DW Spectrum® IPVMS

Complexity:  Medium to High

Last Edit:  October 26, 2020

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Formatting Storage

From time to time, you may desire to clear storage space on your DW Blackjack® Server.  While the DW Blackjack® Server will overwrite full storage in coordination with DW Spectrum® IPVMS, some users may opt to completely format the DW Media drive partition.  Example situations include if the system owner is leaving the location and is leaving the DW Blackjack® Server behind for another user, footage corruption has occurred, or if they just want to erase all video records for personal reasons.

This article will outline how to format a DW Blackjack® Server utilizing an Ubuntu/Linux operating system.  If you are installing a replacement hard drive and are creating a new partition, please use Mounting A New Drive (Ubuntu/Linux) instead.

**Note:  There is no way to delete specific sections of video footage from the DW Spectrum® system.  To format/clear system storage is to completely delete all video records.  Digital Watchdog is not liable if you choose to do this, so please do so at your own discretion.

Supported/Affected Devices:

• DW Blackjack® Server Series (Ubuntu/Linux)

Performing the Format Process

To perform the format process, you must be directly at the DW Spectrum® Server itself.  If so, perform the following:

Stop the DW Media Service

To stop the DW Mediaserver:

1. Open the Terminal application (CTRL+ALT+T).
2. Enter the command “sudo su”, then press the Enter key to gain root access as the System Administrator.
3. When prompted, enter the default password of “admin”, then press the Enter key.  Note that when entering the password, text will not display.

4. After gaining System Administrator access, type “service digitalwatchdog-mediaserver stop” into the Terminal program, then press the Enter key.

Clear the Storage

To clear DW Media storage on a drive that is also hosting the operating system (OS) and recovery partitions:

1. After stopping the DW Media Service, click on the Unity launcher.  On DW Blackjack® Servers, by default, this icon is located in the panel to the left of the desktop.

Using the Unity search program, search for “Disks”, then launch the Disks tool.

2. Select the partition where the video recordings are stored.  This will likely be the partition with the largest partition size.

The partition will become highlighted once selected.

3. Click on the gear icon, then select “Format Partition”.

4. Upon being prompted, enter the System Administrator password for the OS (default:  admin).

Allow the system to completely format the partition.

5. For remaining storage drives that are only hosting extensions of the DW Media storage, they will only have a single partition.

Repeat Step 2 through Step 4 to format the remaining storage.

Restart the DW Media Service

To start the DW Mediaserver:

1. Open the Terminal application (CTRL+ALT+T).
2. Enter the command “sudo su”, then press the Enter key to gain root access as the System Administrator.
3. When prompted, enter the default password of “admin”, then press the Enter key.  Note that when entering the password, text will not display.

4. After gaining System Administrator access, type “service digitalwatchdog-mediaserver start” into the Terminal program, then press the Enter key.

This completes the formatting process of a DW Blackjack® Server.