# Which hard drive replacement should I get?



## RightHere (Dec 17, 2002)

I have an HR10-250 that's showing all signs of having a hard drive dying. I want to get it replaced ASAP.

I have looked at a bunch of online guides. They provide great detail, and if I wasn't in a real hurry I might give one a shot  But all of my drives are formatted w/ NTFS, so I don't have anyplace to copy the backup to. Also, I've read the warnings about booting into Windows with one of these drives attached. So I'd have to figure out how to set up a new OS (Linux or Win9x), and instead of hassling with that I'd rather pay a reasonable fee for someone to do this for me.

I have searched these forums for my available options, but I still have questions.

1) Will any of these places perform a backup of my current shows if I just send them the HD, or do I have to ship my entire Tivo to them? (In addition to it being a bigger hassle and being more expensive to ship, I'd be worried about the system getting damaged in transit).

2) Will any of these places let me purchase a HD and send it to them to use for the backup/replacement? As mentioned, I don't mind paying a reasonable fee for this service, but I think it's a little excessive if they charge me $300 for a 300GB HD and then another $100 or so to do the backup.

3) For those of you that have paid for this service, which vendor did you use?

4) Were you happy with the service you received from this vendor?

Thanks for your help!!


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## captain_video (Mar 1, 2002)

1) None that I'm aware of.

2) No

3) Never paid for this service as I've always done hard drive upgrades myself, and you should too just for the experience if nothing else. It ain't rocket science and far cheaper than what those guys charge. Most of them tack on $100 over and above the retail price of a drive for something that takes about 5-10 minutes to accomplish. You can also get new drives for a fraction of what they charge. They offer a service to the totally oblivious and apparently make them quite happy in the process. If they actually charged a reasonable price I wouldn't bash them so much but what I'm seeing is downright criminal, IMHO.  

4) 100% pleased with the service I rendered myself


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## RightHere (Dec 17, 2002)

5-10 minutes?? I've already spent over an hour looking through the different sets of instructions!!

I've read varying reports of how long it takes to do the backup. And I still can't find clear info on how this works on a machine that only has NTFS partitions.

After more searching, I found that the guy that did the Hinsdale instructions WILL accept a HD you purchase. $95 for this service

But let me see if I have this correct:

Primary Master = OS HD w/ NTFS partitions
Primary Slave = empty
Secondary Master = DVD Burner
Secondary Slave = empty

I assume I put the old Tivo HD in one of the empty slots, and the new one in the other empty slot. Then I format the empty one FAT32 (BEFORE booting into Windows). Then I boot off the software CD and create the backup of the old HD onto the new HD. Then I remove the old Tivo drive, boot into Windows, and copy the backup from the FAT32 drive to the OS HD. Then I reboot off the software CD. I run through the options to clean install the Tivo software to the new drive.

So the problem here is that there's no way to get the backup copied onto my new HD...unless it will do the backup and copy the Tivo software all in one operation. From what I've read, it's a multi-step process.

So...do I have this right, or did I spend too much time reading directions?


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## wscannell (Dec 7, 2003)

The way you descibe will do everything, including having a backup copy of the TiVo software. Some people just skip the backup step and copy the old TiVo drive to the new drive in a single step:

mfsbackup -Tao - /dev/hdb | mfsrestore -s 127 -xpi - /dev/hdd
(put the old drive on primary slave and new drive on secondary slave)
This will copy the entire drive including programs and also assuming that it gets past any errors that may be on the drive. It will take quite some time to complete - maybe 24 hours or more depending on the speed of the computer.


The way the software gets onto the new drive is what you describe as a clean install. The install uses mfsrestore to copy the backup file that is now on your NTFS drive to the new TiVo drive.


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## RightHere (Dec 17, 2002)

I was assuming that I had to copy the files off, then the tools would let me create a brand new Tivo image on the drive, and then I'd restore those files.

I think I finally get it now though. I make a backup of the Tivo drive first, in case the restore doesn't go to well and needs to be redone. Otherwise, I can just run the mfsbackup command you listed above to do that copy.

Heck, that's a lot easier than I expected  Now to find a good deal on a 500GB drive somewhere...

Edit: Does it really copy the backup from my NTFS partition? It looks to me like that's just a backup copy. The mfsbackup command you used will only copy from the old Tivo HD to the new Tivo HD if I'm reading the string correctly.


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## wscannell (Dec 7, 2003)

The command above does not make a backup. You can follow the more complicated procedure that you mentioned to make a backup copy. 

Note that you must add a -r 4 to the mfsrestore command if you are using a drive larger than 250GB.


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## RightHere (Dec 17, 2002)

Yes, I know the command you gave me doesn't really make a backup. It just copies the software to the new drive.

But you said:
"The install uses mfsrestore to copy the backup file that is now on your NTFS drive to the new TiVo drive."

That's why I was confused. The file on the NTFS partition doesn't get used in any of these restore options, right?


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## wscannell (Dec 7, 2003)

RightHere said:


> But you said:
> "The install uses mfsrestore to copy the backup file that is now on your NTFS drive to the new TiVo drive."


Sorry to be unclear. The last paragraph addressed your other question about how the backup gets restored to your drive rather than the backup example that I provided.


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## mr.unnatural (Feb 2, 2006)

You need a FAT32 drive as primary master to be able to copy the backup image to and restore it from. NEVER allow the PC to boot into WinNT, Win2K, or WinXP with a Tivo drive attached. It will write a signature to the boot partition of the drive and render it useless in a Tivo.

Hinsdale's is very straightforward and easy to use for making backup images and restoring them to a new drive. You just have to wade through all of the various options to find the one that fits your situation. Here's a brief synopsis of the process:

1. Install the Tivo drive and new drive in your PC.
2. Boot from a Linux CD with LBA48 support (the PTVUpgrade CD is recommended)
3. Create a new partition and mount the FAT32 drive in it
4. Create a backup image from the original Tivo drive
5. Restore the backup image to the new drive (use the -r 4 option outlined in another post)
6. Unmount all partitions and shut down the PC
7. Install the new drive in your Tivo and fire it up.

Note that steps 4 and 5 can be done in a single step but I prefer to create the backup image so I'll have it for later use. The entire process should only take about 20-30 minutes. The one-step method doesn't save a backup image on the FAT32 drive. You should always create a backup image in case you ever have a hard drive failure and need to restore it to another drive.


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## danny7481 (Dec 6, 2005)

do i yourself...its easy
i did it for the first time the other day...just use the weekness or hindsdale guide
i dont recommend a western digital caviar drive, there noisy! :down:


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## mr.unnatural (Feb 2, 2006)

> i dont recommend a western digital caviar drive, there noisy!


They're also highly prone to failures. I've had more WD drives crap out in a Tivo environment than any other brand. If you do buy one then pay the extra $15 and get the 3-year warranty because you'll probably need it.


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## RightHere (Dec 17, 2002)

Ok, mr.unnatural confused me.

Here's my HD setup today:
Primary Master = XP HD w/ NTFS partitions (no FAT/FAT32)
Primary Slave = empty
Secondary Master = DVD Burner
Secondary Slave = empty

Here are the steps he suggested, along with added steps (in bold)

1. Install the Tivo drive and new drive in your PC.
2. Boot from a Linux CD with LBA48 support (the PTVUpgrade CD is recommended)
3. Create a new partition and mount the FAT32 drive in it
4. Create a backup image from the original Tivo drive
*4a) Shut down PC* 
*4b) Disconnect old Tivo drive* 
*4c) Boot into XP* 
*4d) Copy Tivo backup to XP drive* 
*4e) Shut down PC* 
*4f) Reconnect old Tivo drive* 
5. Restore the backup image to the new drive (use the -r 4 option outlined in another post) *Another change I'll make is that I'll combine the backup/restore stuff into one line this time*
6. Unmount all partitions and shut down the PC
7. Install the new drive in your Tivo and fire it up.
--------
Is this going to work, or is it a requirement that the OS partition is FAT32?


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## 1283 (Sep 8, 2000)

danny7481 said:


> i dont recommend a western digital caviar drive, there noisy! :down:


If you're talking about the older silver-top generation, yes, they get noisy after 1 year or so. The current black-top drives should not have that problem. Because of low noise and 3-year warranty, WD is currently my top choice for TiVo. BTW, the S2DT units have WD drives.


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## bob61 (Apr 23, 2002)

Regarding #2: 
Auctionnook.com lists an option to create a config of a single drive you ship to them for $39 including shipping:
Custom Drive Configuration


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## stujac (Jan 26, 2002)

I'm sorry I may be hijacking your thread but my 4 year old replacement drive (thanks Hinsdale) is about dead and I need a new hard drive. I have the image on CD from the original drive for my Sony SVR2000, Series 1. I don't have a computer to image the new drive. Does anyone here do that? For a reasonable fee? i.e., I buy and ship to you the new hard drive and the cd and you image it...

PM is fine and I realize this is a compensable task.

Thanks,

Stu


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## mr.unnatural (Feb 2, 2006)

> Ok, mr.unnatural confused me.
> 
> Here's my HD setup today:
> Primary Master = XP HD w/ NTFS partitions (no FAT/FAT32)
> ...


I'd say you are definitely confused. I don't know where you decided steps 4a through 4f were valid but they're not. At no point do you ever want to involve an "XP" drive in the mix. I'm assuming you're referring to Windows XP which uses the NTFS filesystem that is unrecognizable by Linux. You need a FAT32 drive as your C: drive so you can copy the backup image to it from the original Tivo drive using the mfsbackup command. You then restore the image from the FAT32 drive to the new Tivo drive using the mfsrestore command. You should be able to do both process consecutively without having to shut down the PC, assuming you have installed both drives in the PC.


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## danny7481 (Dec 6, 2005)

c3 said:


> If you're talking about the older silver-top generation, yes, they get noisy after 1 year or so. The current black-top drives should not have that problem. Because of low noise and 3-year warranty, WD is currently my top choice for TiVo. BTW, the S2DT units have WD drives.


yeah my samsung had a WD and its noisy! my philips has a maxtor and its quiet as a mouse


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## RightHere (Dec 17, 2002)

mr.unnatural said:


> I'd say you are definitely confused.


At least one point we can definitely agree on 



> I don't know where you decided steps 4a through 4f were valid but they're not. At no point do you ever want to involve an "XP" drive in the mix.


It seems perfectly valid to me. I create a backup of the Tivo drive. This is my "spare" backup. I don't *need* it, but measure twice and cut once, eh? 



> You need a FAT32 drive as your C: drive so you can copy the backup image to it from the original Tivo drive using the mfsbackup command. You then restore the image from the FAT32 drive to the new Tivo drive using the mfsrestore command. You should be able to do both process consecutively without having to shut down the PC, assuming you have installed both drives in the PC.


Reading the other comments in this thread, including this one from you:"Note that steps 4 and 5 can be done in a single step ", I don't see why I NEED to have a C: drive that is formatted FAT32. If these can be done in a single step, then it copies from the old Tivo drive to the new Tivo drive. So I don't see where it ever reads from/writes to the C: drive, meaning it shouldn't make any difference how it's formatted.

So...can someone please explain what I'm missing here? Does the mfsrestore process require the C: drive for some steps in this backup/restore process?


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## mr.unnatural (Feb 2, 2006)

The reason to do it in two steps is so you can create a backup image for archiving purposes. You should always save a copy of the backup image in case you ever need to restore it at a later date. If you do a straight copy from the old drive to the new one then you still don't have a backup image saved anywhere. 

The mfsbackup command is designed to create a backup image of the Tivo drive and place it on a FAT32 partition that you designate. The mfsrestore command is used to restore the backup image from the FAT32 drive to a new, blank drive. You could also have the backup image archived to a CD-R and restore it from there as long as you mount the CD-ROM drive in Linux.

If you want to copy the image to your "XP" drive (actually it's NTFS) then you can do that at your leisure. It's definitely not part of the normal backup/restore process but just something you like to do.


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