# Messed up on mfsbackup/mfsrestore



## jizzon (Mar 9, 2006)

Hello, I'm new to this forum and to this DIY stuff and I can use some help.

So what I'm trying to do is replace the hdd on my DSR708 with a 300gb one, wanting to restore all the recordings to the new hard disk as well. I followed all the instructions on weaknees's interactive instruction page (which, btw, is great!), and everything was fine until I went to the part that told me to type this:

mfsbackup -Tao - /dev/hdc | mfsrestore -s 127 -r 4 -xzpi - /dev/hda

By the way: 
hdc = secondary master (old hdd)
hda = primary master (new hdd)

However, I thought that everything after the "|" was supposed to be typed after the mfsbackup finished. So I only typed "mfsbackup -Tao - /dev/hdc" and pressed enter and I'm missing the whole mfsrestore part. Now my computer is doing something and I don't know what. It's writing 75000mb+ of stuff and it's at 2% right now and it's taking forever. 

Can I still enter the mfsrestore part after it's done or is it too late? Did I mess up whatever was on the old hard drive?


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## HomeUser (Jan 12, 2003)

Unless you have 75Gig of memory  the backup will never end, the output is going to a memory buffer which is now full. Start over and this time include the mfsrestore after the |

Do you have 1.5 Gig of RAM? (2% of 75G)


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## jizzon (Mar 9, 2006)

I only have 1gb so I don't know what's going on.  

I turned on my monitor just now but now the screen is blank and it flashes every few seconds or so but not long enough to see the progress. Thanks for letting me now that it's just writing to the memory. I'll start it over.


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## jizzon (Mar 9, 2006)

Looks like it's working! On my previous attempt all these lines of weird symbols would be scrolling down my screen and I'd have to stare at it for a minute before I can find the progress through all the lines of crap. Now it's going much faster and now the percentage is shown stationary at the bottom. Thanks again!

EDIT: I think I spoke too soon...

Is the screen supposed to go blank while it's restoring? I came back to the other computer right now (the one with the TiVo drives) and the monitor is blank. The lights on the computer are flashing though so it must be doing it... right?


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## windracer (Jan 3, 2003)

Most Linuxes on boot discs will blank the screen (screensaver) after a period of inactivity. 

Try pressing the control key, or toggle caps lock, that should trigger the screen to turn on again so you can check on the progress of your process.


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## jizzon (Mar 9, 2006)

Oh man, I didn't think such a simple looking bootup will include a screensaver. I'm now at 85%. Thanks!


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## windracer (Jan 3, 2003)

:up: 

So by the time you read this, it'll probably be done.

That screen blanker might be built into the Linux kernel ... I'm not sure, but now you know!


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