# XP Activation ?



## eskay (Jul 23, 2002)

My computer has two hard drives; one PATA and one SATA. In order to use WinMFS, I purchased and installed XP Home on the SATA drive. Unfortunately, I only have two SATA ports and now I can't connect my two SATA drives for the TiVo.

Can I reinstall XP on the PATA drive? This is my first experience with MS Activation, so I'm not sure if I can do this.


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## Sherminator (Nov 24, 2004)

In 120 days time, yes.

You might be able to talk Microsoft into giving you a new activation code calling the helpline should Activation fail over the internet.


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## HomeUser (Jan 12, 2003)

Instead of using WINMFS use the boot-able MFSLive CD. Disconnect the Existing SATA drive freeing the SATA connection allowing you to plug-in both the new and original TiVo drive at the same time. The Interactive Command Generator will generate the command that you need to type. be sure to print it out before disassembling the PC.


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## eskay (Jul 23, 2002)

HomeUser,
I've upgraded two S2 units back in the day with the Hinsdale instructions and it was no sweat, so using MFSLive was my first choice. But when I tried to use the ICG, it was a little confusing to me. Maybe you can help me out here. I'm replacing the stock 250gb in my S3 with a 1tb and I want to save my recordings.

When the ICG shows "A" and "B" drive, it means TiVo "A" and "B", right? So I'll only have "A" drives.

Then it asks for the connection type, it means PC connection, right? Since I only have two SATA ports, is one Primary Master and the other Secondary Master?

The ICG says: backup -qTao - /dev/hda | restore -s 128 -xzpi - /dev/hdc

Where I got lost was after reading your message here:
http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?p=6393318&highlight=icg#post6393318

A swap of 500 was recommended for the same drive sizes.

Huh?


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## HomeUser (Jan 12, 2003)

Yes, The drive selections for _*"B" Drive Info:*_ is the second drive when you have a dual drive TiVo. You do not have a 'B' drive unless you added a DVR Expander or equivalent.

SATA does not have a _Primary_ or _Secondary_ There is only one drive per channel. The the SATA drive connections will be *sd*? not hd?. select "SATA or USB?" for the drives in the drop down boxes.

backup -qTao - /dev/sda | restore -s 500 -xzpi - /dev/sdb

As for the swap partition the 500 Meg is optional. It is from an old rule made for the Series1 TiVos that it should be "1/2 of the hard drive size and use MB" (instead of GB). 500MB is the value you get if the custom swap box is set in the ICG. The minimum 128MB may be all that is needed, because it is difficult to increase it later I recommend you go with the larger size. The only time the extra swap might get used is if there is some sort of data corruption (Green Screen Of Death) then the TiVo may need the extra space in order to re-index all the hundreds of extra recordings that you now have on your 1TB+ drive.

If you are thinking about the problem that MFSTools2 had with swap values greater then 127 that problem and several others are fixed with the MFSLive CD.


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## HomeUser (Jan 12, 2003)

Depending on how the SATA ports are labeled on the mother board. If the first connection is labeled SATA0 that will become sda. SATA1 sdb ...

If you have a mother board like mine the SATA drives start with sde. one way to tell what the drive assignment is from the MFSLive command prompt key cat /proc/partitions from the output you should be able to figure out what device each drive got assigned to.


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## mr.unnatural (Feb 2, 2006)

You could simply use an SATA to IDE adapter to connect your SATA drive to an unused IDE connector. You could also get an external enclosure or other adapter to connect your drive to the USB bus. There are also inexpensive SATA controller cards that you can install to expand the number of SATA ports in your PC. You just have to make sure your BIOS and whatever boot disk you use will recognize the drive. Look closely at the screen when the PC boots up to see how the drive is labeled so you can use the proper designation when running your MFS utility program. If using WinMFS then it should be simple to determine the correct drive designation.


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## eskay (Jul 23, 2002)

Thanks for the help.

I got the drives installed and MFSLive was working. And then the errors started. Separate thread started here:

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?p=6561483#post6561483


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