# TivoHD Upgrade questions



## JeffKusnitz (Apr 9, 2008)

I've got a couple of questions related to upgrading the internal disk in a TivoHD:

1. What disk.. Frys currently has three different 1TB drives for sale, a Samsubg HD103UJ, a Seagate ST1000340AS, and a Western Digital WD10000CSRTL. I read mixed results about all of these, but I think the WD was reported to fail. Does anyone have experience with any of them?

2. WinMFS says it can only make a truncated backup. I guess I'm ok with that. But the text goes on to say that the backup will contain cablecard info. But text also says that I should perform a Clear and Delete Everything (C&DE), after which I'll need to reset my cablecard settings - what needs to be done to do that? 

And of course, what happens to the list of shows to record, season passes, etc. Do those get wiped out? I was hoping for a non-destructive upgrade, attach the old and new Tivo disks to my computer (via USB), run a magic program and when it's done, plug the new disk in and everything is great. It doesn't seem like WinMFS is that program though?

Thanks,
Jeff


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## dwit (May 5, 2004)

1. The WD above is about perfect for the Tivo HD. Any issues you read of were/are with the original Series 3 model.

2. It may/will take several careful rereads of the winmfs guide to really understand the task of upgrading. The truncated backup essentially backs up whatever data is on the original drive, except the the actual recordings of the shows of the Now Playing list. *Everything else*, cable card settings, Seasons Passes, etc, are all saved and will be restored to the new hard drive.

With the mfscopy function of winmfs, the entire contents of the original drive, recorded shows and all, can be copied to the new drive, if desired. Please note that this is a separate, distinct step from the tuncated backup. The truncated back up image should always be copied and saved on your pc hard drive regardless whether you intend to restore the truncated image to the new drive or you intend to copy the entire drive with mfs copy.

There is also a summary of the winmfs guide in a sticky thread in the Series 3 forum, "The official esata drive exapnsion thread..." The tread actually covers internal and/or external expansion in the first post. Careful reading of that post, along with the winmfs guide, should prepare you for the upgrade. It really is a magic and simple program for those prepared, especially the truncated back up/restore. Full drive copy is also easy, but may take a little time, especially using usb.


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## JeffKusnitz (Apr 9, 2008)

Thanks. I had read the sticky and thought "wow, this is cake," but then I read the guide at http://www.mfslive.org/winmfs/index.html under "Concept Change" and started to wonder - even after rereading it, I think that cablecard settings will be gone. But I'll give mfscopy a try and see what happens.

I do have one other question 

How do I "shut off" the Tivo - can I just pull the plug, or should I use the menus to go into Standby or...

Thanks,
Jeff


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## dwit (May 5, 2004)

JeffKusnitz said:


> Thanks. I had read the sticky and thought "wow, this is cake," but then I read the guide at http://www.mfslive.org/winmfs/index.html under "Concept Change" and started to wonder - even after rereading it, I think that cablecard settings will be gone. But I'll give mfscopy a try and see what happens.
> 
> I do have one other question
> 
> ...


It really doesn't matter how you shut down, but when I can, and I remember to, I usually put it in standby.

The only way cable card settings are lost (or any other settings) is by doing a clear and delete(cde). I don't know your entire situation, but cde is rarely required. I, along with thousands of other have done the procedures repeatedly. I have used winmfs on all 4 of the units in my signature.

Again, it's probably best to not undertake the task until you understand what needs to be done and how to go about doing it. I admit, none of the guides are written by professional writers/instructors, so it may take a little extra to pick up on exactly what they are trying to get accross.

There is also a forum there at mfslive.org, so there along with posting in the previously referenced thread, you should be able to get all the help you need...when/if you are prepared.


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## unclemoosh (Sep 11, 2004)

JeffKusnitz said:


> I do have one other question
> 
> How do I "shut off" the Tivo - can I just pull the plug, or should I use the menus to go into Standby or...


I would recommend doing a restart and pull the plug while the screen is blank. That way you know there is no disk activity taking place. Even in standby, the disk is active.


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## JeffKusnitz (Apr 9, 2008)

I started my upgrade a little while ago. So far, it's boring, but that's good, right? The backup of the original disk with winmfs worked fine. The only issue I ran into was with the instructions (here). Between the backup and the copy, I had to click on Tools and then MFSCopy to get a dialog that let me select the destination drive - the instructions don't mention that.

I opted to backup my recordings, so it's taking a while. I was looking at the task manager, and there's very little I/O - in or out. Winmfs shows 721 I/O Reads and 566 I/O Writes (or 144,306,504 I/O Read Bytes and 144,187,392 Write Bytes). The only one of these numbers that seems to be changing is the I/O Reads (from 696 to 702 in the last 30 mins or so).

Is this "normal". I know the instructions said it was slow, but I expected to see some changes in the numbers. I didn't have too many recordings - maybe 30 SD shows - I even deleted everything from the Recently Deleted folder.

If I give up on the complete backup, can I just kill the MFSCopy/WinMFS, reboot my computer, and then go the Backup/Restore route?

Thanks,
Jeff

PS I should add - I'm doing this backup/copy on a notebook using a pair of KingWin USB-SATA adapters.


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## dwit (May 5, 2004)

I guess it may very well depend on the hardware and set up you are using. If you are using usb ports, it could possiby take much longer to copy than the direct serial port connections would. I have no experience using the usb ports with the process.

I only did the truncated backup/restore for my Tivo HD. On one of my S2 units, using direct ide connections, it took a little over 2 hours to copy 300GB of shows, using a celeron d 3.4ghz system. The read/write i/o bytes moved considerably faster than what you described, although not as fast as one would think. Even still, I let it run over night because I had no idea how long it would take.

I think the key is as long as the i/o bytes are ticking, it should be working. I would let the program run overnight, recording the i/o values from one period to the next to see if you can get an idea of the process. Maybe in the morning the progress status bar will give you enough indication of progress.

Yes, at any time you can abort the process and just do a simple image restore with the image you have backed up on the computer hard drive.


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## JeffKusnitz (Apr 9, 2008)

The numbers hadn't changed significantly overnight, so I gave up on the copy idea and just restored the original image on the new drive, mfsadded it, then mfssupersized it, and it's looking good (144 hours of HD, etc).

The thing that surprised me when I plugged the new drive in was that it listed all of the shows that I had before. None played (all said something about "maybe you don't have that channel?"). Recordings don't get backed up, but I guess the file(s) that describe the recordings do - makes sense..

Thanks for the help/support..

Jeff


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## dwit (May 5, 2004)

JeffKusnitz said:


> The numbers hadn't changed significantly overnight, so I gave up on the copy idea and just restored the original image on the new drive, mfsadded it, then mfssupersized it, and it's looking good (144 hours of HD, etc).
> 
> The thing that surprised me when I plugged the new drive in was that it listed all of the shows that I had before. None played (all said something about "maybe you don't have that channel?"). Recordings don't get backed up, but I guess the file(s) that describe the recordings do - makes sense..
> 
> ...


Yes, the now playing list is copied over, but as I originally stated, the actual recordings are not.

Congrats anyhow. :up:


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