# Help!!!!!



## hp4atc (Dec 4, 2003)

I am a NooB as far as opening my TIVO. I have a Weaknees upgraded 240040A with 2 160 GB Samsung HD's. Lifetime sub BTW. It died. After using spinrite on level 2, HD-A was fine HD-B gave the fatal warning. I did get all the way through level 2 though and put them back into TIVO. Stuck on powering up mode overnight. So back into spinrite level 4 (which spinrite warned may kill the drive), still going on that. 

My question is if I still have no success after level 4, what are my options for saving the recordings? My husband is a stock market guy and has tons of 30 second to 2 minute snippets he archived to TIVO from business shows, ticker tape, etc. He is going nuts thinking these are lost forever!!!! Is it at least possible to save the recordings on the healthy drive? From what I've read it is not, but that is not logical to me. 

I do not have any knowledge/experience w/LINUX. When I read posts about MSFLive and ddcopy, etc. they are too vague for me to follow. I need step by step. Can this be found anywhere? I've been reading posts for about 30 hours now. 

Any help is much appreciated!!!!!


----------



## HomeUser (Jan 12, 2003)

*Abort running SpinRite at level4 now! *do not run at Level 4 on the drive until you have the data backed-up.

You will need a new drive 160G or larger make a copy of the recovered 'B' using dd_rescue.


----------



## HomeUser (Jan 12, 2003)

The TiVo 'B' Drive is bad and most likely is going to get worse the more it is used. In order to save the recordings you will need a new 160G or larger EIDE drives.

Search this forum for instructions on a Linux program called dd_rescue, dd_rescue can be found on the free version of PTV LBA48 Upgrade CD

What dd_rescue will do is one drive at a time ('A' or 'B') make a binary copy to the new drive if a bad area is found dd_rescue will attempt to re-read the area several times if the data can not be read then it will write the best guess and continue on. The data on the 'B' drive will be programs so a bad sector will corrupt one or more programs depending where it is you might not even notice.

Because you completed SpinRite at level2 (data recovery) the drive is in the best state for the copy.

Running SpinRite at level 4 is a really good idea for stress testing new drives and for re-cycling old drives however because SpinRite re-writes ever bit of data several times if the drive is failing it increases the chances of more failed bits of data.

Check the jumpers on the drives are set the way you removed them from the TiVo the 'A' drive should be set "Master with Slave" and the 'B' drive should be jumpered as "Slave".

Because both drives are the same age consider replacing both drives with new drives before the 'A' drive fails.

Depending on how valuable the data is you might consider contacting WeaKnees or PTV UPgrade and see if they have data recovery services.


----------



## hp4atc (Dec 4, 2003)

Thanks, just got home from work. Spinrite had completed the task on level 4. :^( 
I'm about to try one more time to boot in the TIVO. I'll keep you posted!


----------



## HomeUser (Jan 12, 2003)

That is very good news that SpinRite was able to run to completion.

Good Luck, you really should replace that drive with a new drive in any event. 160G drives are available under $60 check the Sunday adds.


----------



## hp4atc (Dec 4, 2003)

I have a Seagate 200 GB Ultra ATA/100 7200 RPM 8MB cache drive sitting around that I have never even opened. That should work right? I just went to take the drive out of the comp. and ripped the very last tiny black wire on the cable. Bummer!!!!!! Is there a secret to getting those things out? 

Anyway, I tried to use the cable that came with the Seagate drive but cant get it to reach from master to slave the way the drives sit on the twin rack in the TIVO. Any suggestions?

Would the old cable work anyway with one tiny bit severed?


----------



## HomeUser (Jan 12, 2003)

The Seagate 200G is a good choice. 

The only cable I know that has a black wire is the 4 pin 3 connector Y adapter Power cable. The other cable is the EIDE cable. Mine is gray with a red stripe on one wire. The cable that came with the drive should reach if you put the blue connector in the 'B' drive. 

Disconnecting the "Ribbon" can be tricky some cables have a mylar tag or nylon loop that you can pull on others you just have to pull gently and evenly across the ribbon cable. A good EIDE cable is very important with modern drives.


----------



## hp4atc (Dec 4, 2003)

Yes it is the EIDE ribbon cable. 40 pin. It is grey with the black stripe instead of the red. Just the very end w/the strip ripped. Patience not being my virtue, I tried the ripped cable anyway, figuring maybe one strand would not matter, and now I'm on "Powering up" for about 3 hours now. How long before I give up. I'm assuming I still have a prob w/ the HD and not the EIDE cable. I did not know you could switch the blue for the grey. THNAKS for the tip! 

I can't tell you how much I appreciate your help. I don't feel so alone. 

So you say the seageate should work. Do you think I can just dd-rescue the B drive to that and use it with the "original" a drive to get my husbands recordings off through TTG onto the PC? From what I've read the drives are married? Right now I'm interested in recovery and then I'll worry about the rest. I'm willing to buy an upgradded HD form WK but by the time this is said and done maybe I can do it myself. 

WK want a too much $ for data recovery with no refund if unsuccessful. Not something I'm willing to do yet. But thanks for the suggestion.


----------



## hp4atc (Dec 4, 2003)

Yes it is the EIDE ribbon cable. 40 pin. It is grey with the black stripe instead of the red. Just the very end w/the strip ripped. Patience not being my virtue, I tried the ripped cable anyway, figuring maybe one strand would not matter, and now I'm on "Powering up" for about 3 hours now. How long before I give up. I'm assuming I still have a prob w/ the HD and not the EIDE cable. I did not know you could switch the blue for the grey. THNAKS for the tip! 

I can't tell you how much I appreciate your help. I don't feel so alone. 

So you say the seageate should work. Do you think I can just dd-rescue the B drive to that and use it with the "original" a drive to get my husbands recordings off through TTG onto the PC? From what I've read the drives are married? Right now I'm interested in recovery and then I'll worry about the rest. I'm willing to buy an upgradded HD form WK but by the time this is said and done maybe I can do it myself. 

WK want a too much $ for data recovery with no refund if unsuccessful. Not something I'm willing to do yet. But thanks for the suggestion


----------



## HomeUser (Jan 12, 2003)

You should pull the plug if the TiVo is still on powering up. What I would do is the dd_rescue of the 'B' drive using good cable(s) a broken cable will not work and will make drive errors worse.

Some notes for copying

Linux is case sensitive.

Label the drives so I don't get them confused, you can use a magic marker on the drive label if you do not have stick on label maker. All is lost if you get the drive names reversed in the dd_rescue command.

Disconnect the PC's disk drive(s).

Verify the drives are actually where you think they are use the Linux command for the command prompt key in cat /proc/partitions the old drive (source) will be the one with several partitions the brand new drive will not have any.
the output will look something like this. 
major minor #blocks name
3 0 156012150 hda
3 1 25000 hda1
3 2 12800 hda2

You are interested in is the blocks and name hda is the entire drive hda1 is the first partition hda2 the second on the drive etc.

Re-read the instructions write down what you are going to do maybee post them and how the drives are connected at least walk-away for at least 10 minutes then review the instructions again before actually running them.

Keep the drive cool if you can have a fan blow cool air over the circuit board.

If you computer has 2 IDE ports (cables) put the source and destination drive on different cables this speeds up the copy quite a bit.


----------



## hp4atc (Dec 4, 2003)

I went to PTV LBA48 Upgrade CD and burned an ISO image. I think I did that correctly but from what I can tell it doesn't have dd_rescue on it. I have the bad tivo drive in the PC with that boot CD and it is asking me if I have the Instantcake CD ready. 

I get PTVupgrade /# with a flashing cursor. Is that the Linux command mode? I've never worked w/ linux. I know I sound like an idiot, but I'm not -- just unfamiliar. I knew basic at one time -- even programmmed in it -- AGES AGO!!!! On a mainframe that you had to acces w/ the old modems you stuck the phone handset into. ANYHOOO... 

I don't have the new drive in the PC yet. Is that why I dont see dd_rescue? Do I have to change the new drive to FAT32 before I start? I'm not 100% sure how to do that. The PC I'm using has the OS HD taken out. 

Thanks again!


----------



## hp4atc (Dec 4, 2003)

I went to PTV LBA48 Upgrade CD and burned an ISO image. I think I did that correctly but from what I can tell it doesn't have dd_rescue on it. I have the bad tivo drive in the PC with that boot CD and it is asking me if I have the Instantcake CD ready. 

I get PTVupgrade /# with a flashing cursor. Is that the Linux command prompt? I've never worked w/ linux. I know I sound like an idiot, but I'm not -- just unfamiliar. I knew basic at one time -- even programmmed in it -- AGES AGO!!!! On a mainframe that you had to acces w/ the old modems you stuck the phone handset into. ANYHOOO... 

I don't have the new drive in the PC yet. Is that why I dont see dd_rescue? Do I have to change the new drive to FAT32 before I start? I'm not 100% sure how to do that. The PC I'm using has the OS HD taken out. 

Thanks again!


----------



## HomeUser (Jan 12, 2003)

Did you download the free PTVLBA48 CD or purchase Instant Cake. The free CD has/had dd_rescue on it and I don't recall it asking about the Instantcake CD. As I recall the prompt was a '#'. 

The FAT32 partition is to save a small backup of both drives without recordings If you have a drive with a FAT32 partition then making the small backup recommended you could create a FAT32 partition on the new drive make the backup to it then copy it to CD ore another drive. 

The new drive does not need to be formatted the dd_rescue will overwrite anything on the drive anyway. 

I am downloading the PTVLBA48 CD now Ill boot and see what is on it when it is finished.


----------



## HomeUser (Jan 12, 2003)

I Have the CD burned and booted to the PTVupgrade /# prompt dd_rescue is there in the /bin directory form anywhere you can type in dd_rescue --help


----------



## hp4atc (Dec 4, 2003)

Thanks -- you've been a life saver. I actually did find dd_rescue eventually. It was 1AM and I was exhausted and now I'm going to try again. Let's see if I can remember anything I read last night!

I'll let you know how it goes.


----------



## hp4atc (Dec 4, 2003)

One more question. You said to put the 2 drives on seperate cables. Can I put the new drive on the same cable as the CD?


----------



## HomeUser (Jan 12, 2003)

Either drive can be on the same cable as the CD Set the drive jumpers occordingly.

Remember to move the jumpers back when you put the drives in the TiVo it is very easy to forget about the drive jumpers.


----------



## hp4atc (Dec 4, 2003)

OK, so if I understand correctly, I just put the new drive in with no prep at all? 

This is probably a stupid question, but how do I do the jumpers? I'm assuming the tivo drive should be master and the new drive the slave?

I've never done anything like this before. However I am really reading and learning alot!


----------



## hp4atc (Dec 4, 2003)

OK, I'm ready to get started. I took the new seagate out of the packaging and removed the jumper to set to slave. I belive the bad Tivo B drive was also set to slave. Is that OK? Or do I have to change the tivo drive to master? They will be on 2 different cables.

On further inspection the Tivo (old) drive is already set to master. 

Should I just go ahead and run dd_rescue? On lots of threads I see references to doing a backup with mfstools.. More to learn?


----------



## hp4atc (Dec 4, 2003)

Booted up now. Screen says:

First channel device 0..ATAPI CDROM
First channel device 1..IDE Hard Disk
Second channel device 0..IDE Hard Disk
Pri Master: BLah,blah DVDRW
Ultra DMA Mode-2
Pri Slave: ST320826A 3.03
Ultra DMA Mode-2 SMART cap amd status OK
Sec Master: SAMSUNG SP1604N TM100-24
Ultra DMA Mode-5 SMART cap amd status BAD
SAMSUNG SP1604N Hard disk failure is iminent
Please back up your hard disk and have it replaced!
Press F1 for setup F2 to Continue

I'm scared! Should I continue? Is it set up correctly?


----------



## hp4atc (Dec 4, 2003)

I entered cat /prod/partitions as you sugg

I get:
major minor #blocks name

8 0 1048575 sda
56 64 195360984 hdj
57 0 156290904 hdk
57 1 31 hdk1
57 2 0 hdk2
57 3 4096 hdk3
57 4 131072 hdk4
" 5 2048 hdk5
" 6 2048 hdk6
" 7 131072 hdk7
" 8 130048 hdk8
" 9 131072 hdk9
" 10 262144 hdk10
" 11 16595456 hdk11
" 12 262144 hdk12
" 13 21495296 hdk13
" 14 512 hdk14
" 15 95068160 hdk15
" 16 2527 hdk16


So I assume that hdj is the new 200GB Seagate and the old Tivo drive is hdk.
Waht do I do next?


----------



## hp4atc (Dec 4, 2003)

I entered cat /prod/partitions as you sugg

I get:
major minor #blocks name

8 0 1048575 sda
56 64 195360984 hdj
57 0 156290904 hdk
57 1 31 hdk1
57 2 0 hdk2
57 3 4096 hdk3
57 4 131072 hdk4
" 5 2048 hdk5
" 6 2048 hdk6
" 7 131072 hdk7
" 8 130048 hdk8
" 9 131072 hdk9
" 10 262144 hdk10
" 11 16595456 hdk11
" 12 262144 hdk12
" 13 21495296 hdk13
" 14 512 hdk14
" 15 95068160 hdk15
" 16 2527 hdk16


So I assume that hdj is the new 200GB Seagate and the old Tivo drive is hdk.
Waht do I do next?


----------

