how to make copy of hard drive from HD recorder?

[Flashdance]

Hi folks. :-! A mate of mine took the drive out of his HD recorder(sits on top of his TV) and plugged it into this computer, but he can't copy the movies from the drive to his computer. I think the HD recorder may also known as a digital setop box recorder. I am going out to his place tomorrow to have a look. Before I do that, I'd thought I'd ask here to see if it is even possible? He's not very computer literate, so he can't tell me if Windows can even see that a new drive is connected to the computer. I don't think the HD recorder uses Windows XP, so therefore his computer wouldn't be able to recognise the drive, right? Thanks in advance! :-!

[Ynot]

Drives in commercial DVRs are usually encrypted to stop people copying off the content. But, as with all copy protection, the device itself needs to be able to decode the content in order to play, so ripping the hard drive is possible if you can get the decryption key Google around, as people often take things like this apart and do a dump of the EPROM to get any encryption keys