# mfs command by accident



## themitch (Dec 9, 2004)

Hi guys

I have a series 1 tivo and was just about to copy from one 120gb hard disk to another, cause the first one has become corrupt.

Unfortunately, i read the instructions wrong and typed in mfsadd /dev/hdc /dev/hdd by accident and now i think i have added the two hard disks together.

Is this what I have done? and if it is, can i undo it?

Thanks


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## Robert S (Jul 8, 2002)

Yes, you married them

Probably the best way forward would be to get another 120 and copy the A drive on to that.


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## themitch (Dec 9, 2004)

is there really no way of divorcing them??? Surely there must be? I can't buy _another_ hard disk ... i'll be broke at this rate!

Thanks


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## Robert S (Jul 8, 2002)

Presumably you want to save your recordings?

120Gb drives aren't that expensive these days.


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## chales (Apr 26, 2006)

Robert S said:


> Presumably you want to save your recordings?
> 
> 120Gb drives aren't that expensive these days.


I'm posting in another thread "the NOOB" and have done this exact thing *gives self slap upside the head!*

If you don't care at all about the recordings on the original drive, is there a way to get this to work?


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## HomeUser (Jan 12, 2003)

themitch said:


> is there really no way of divorcing them??? Surely there must be? I can't buy _another_ hard disk ... i'll be broke at this rate!
> 
> Thanks


Because you have not recorded anything on the new partition you can restore to a third drive with the -s (shrink) option in the backup.


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## wscannell (Dec 7, 2003)

Or you could use mfsbackup with the -s option to create a backup of the two married drives. Then use mfsrestore to restore to the new 120 gb drive. The risk here is that if you make a backup that does not work for some reason, you will then not be able to repeat the backup.


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## blindlemon (May 12, 2002)

chales said:


> I'm posting in another thread "the NOOB" and have done this exact thing *gives self slap upside the head!*
> 
> If you don't care at all about the recordings on the original drive, is there a way to get this to work?


It might even be possible to preserve some/most/all of your recordings if you have a spare 2gb FAT drive you can use for an intermediate minimal backup.

Assuming you haven't used the new drive-set and added any recordings, then the "B" drive will still be empty and, of course, the recordings that were on the "A" drive won't have moved. Therefore, if you make a minimal backup of the 2 drive set, specifying the -s option to discard empty partitions, then the backup should only contain partitions from the "A" drive. If you then unplug the "B" drive and restore that backup to the "A" drive, specifying the same size swapfile and the same blocksize (eg -r4) that you used when you created the original "A" drive, the system stuff should go back in the same place and the recordings should be untouched. However, as the backup won't contain the partition from the "B" drive, your "A" drive should be useable on its own :up:

I've tested this on a couple of old drives and it seems to work. If you specify the wrong blocksize, then recordings in the 2nd MFS partition (if your "A" drive had 2) will be inaccessible. However, recordings from the 1st partition should all be intact. And, of course, all your settings, SPs, wishlists and thumb ratings will be preserved too.

The commands I used for my UK (S1) test TiVo (assuming "A" drive on hdc, temp FAT drive on /mnt/dos and "B" drive on hdd) were:-

*mfsbackup -l32 -so /mnt/dos/temp.bak /dev/hdc /dev/hdd*

(For US series 1 omit the -l32 and for US series 2 replace -l32 with -f 9999)

*mfsrestore -s NNN -rX -xpi /mnt/dos/temp.bak /dev/hdc*

(Set the swapsize NNN to whatever is on your existing "A" drive. If it is a stock drive then omit the swapsize parameter. If you didn't set a blocksize when expanding your "A" drive then omit the -rX. If it was a stock drive then use -r0, otherwise replace X with 1,2,3 or 4 depending on what you used. If you didn't use the p parameter when creating the original drive then leave it out now.)

_Disclaimer: Although this worked on my UK test system, I've not tested it on a US Series 1 or 2 TiVo, and other factors may affect the result anyway, so you are taking a risk by trying this._

However, even it it fails, the intermediate backup you take should be useable to transfer your settings and SPs etc. to a new drive, so the worst that could happen is you lose all your recordings.


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## chales (Apr 26, 2006)

blindlemon said:


> It might even be possible to preserve some/most/all of your recordings if you have a spare 2gb FAT drive you can use for an intermediate minimal backup.
> 
> Assuming you haven't used the new drive-set and added any recordings, then the "B" drive will still be empty and, of course, the recordings that were on the "A" drive won't have moved. Therefore, if you make a minimal backup of the 2 drive set, specifying the -s option to discard empty partitions, then the backup should only contain partitions from the "A" drive. If you then unplug the "B" drive and restore that backup to the "A" drive, specifying the same size swapfile and the same blocksize (eg -r4) that you used when you created the original "A" drive, the system stuff should go back in the same place and the recordings should be untouched. However, as the backup won't contain the partition from the "B" drive, your "A" drive should be useable on its own :up:
> 
> ...


Thanks for all the help guys.

Yesterday, I cheated and used InstantCake, which worked like a champ. But now I still have the the original 40GB drive that thinks it's married to the 250. I'll have to run these commands when I get some free time and see if it works!

Once I do get to it, I'll post the success/failures here for anyone else interested.


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## blindlemon (May 12, 2002)

You won't be able to do that now as you needed the "married" 250gb drive to make the backup even though there was nothing on it!

However, now that your 250gb drive has run off with InstantCake, your 40gb drive is left high and dry


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## chales (Apr 26, 2006)

blindlemon said:


> You won't be able to do that now as you needed the "married" 250gb drive to make the backup even though there was nothing on it!
> 
> However, now that your 250gb drive has run off with InstantCake, your 40gb drive is left high and dry


Oh I see your point. Then I guess I'll just do InstantCake on the 40 too? I bought the TiVo used and the recordings on there are nothing I'd want to retain thankfully.


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