# Green Screen-increase swap questions...



## rz1224 (Jun 5, 2003)

Hi Guys--looking for a little guidance. My upgraded series 2 (2 160 GB Drives) apparently has some bad data & wasn't loading updates (s03 error) so I tried the kickstart 57 thing w/o doing much research and now I'm caught in the greenscreen boot loop.. I think I need to increase the swap as indicated in this link 
http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?postid=628370#post628370

It's just been so long since I upgraded that I'm not sure exactly what I should be doing..

Do I just take one drive out of my tivo (which one?) 
How exactly do I get my computer to boot up the tivo drive? Do I need to configure to boot from cd (how?)
Which cd--mfstools 2.0?

I think I understand the instructions once I'm able to boot up the tivo drive but I'm just hesitant to get started as I'm unclear on how to begin... Any help?


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## HomeUser (Jan 12, 2003)

You cannot boot the TiVo drives in the PC the hardware is different. You do put both the TiVo drives in the PC and boot a CD with a special version of Linux containing MFSTools.

Download either the free LBA48 CD from WeaKnees, PTVUpgrade or the new MFSLive.

Before modifying the swap or anything on the drives you should first
-Make a couple of backups without recordings use different compression levels.
-Run the manufactures diagnostics on each drive (see there web site for the diagnostic tools).
-Look for clues for the booting problem in the TiVo's Log files.
mkdir /mnt/tivo
mount /dev/hd? /mnt/tivo
ls -lsrt /mnt/tivo/log
cat /mnt/tivo/log/filename.typ​


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## rz1224 (Jun 5, 2003)

Thanks for the links Home--that's what I needed...

So do i completely unhook all the drives harddrives from my pc (only tivo drive hooked up) before booting from the cd?

Also, the link I referenced previously seems to indicate that I only need the 'A' drive from the tivo--is this where the swap files are located? Do I really need to hook up both drives?


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## HomeUser (Jan 12, 2003)

The reason for disconnecting the PC's drives is to prevent any chance of accidentally booting Windows possibly corrupting the TiVo drives.

Yes the swap is on the 'A' drive the Linux utilities will have no problem with only the one drive in the system. I strongly suggest that you verify the problem is the swap by looking at the log files first before messing with the partition structure. At the least check the swap partition size from the Linux prompt use cat /proc/partitions or very carefully pdisk


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## rz1224 (Jun 5, 2003)

Thanks again--I'll probably give it a try this evening...


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## rz1224 (Jun 5, 2003)

Hey! Forgot an engagement this evening so I haven't done anything yet but I had another question if you've got any patience left..

I know the 'a' drive has to be mounted as primary master in my pc. Can I assume that the jumpers as they are set on the HD in the tivo now are set correctly or is it different between pc and tivo box?


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## HomeUser (Jan 12, 2003)

I don't think the drive location is fixed just for simplicity set them up per instructions.

Unless the drives are Cable Select the TiVo A drive should already be set master and the B drive slave.


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## rz1224 (Jun 5, 2003)

Mmmm.. so I'm most of the way thru those instructions and I think I've identified the inactive partition & when I go to type pdisk /dev/hda the response I get is 'sh: pdisk: command not found'.

Any ideas? I booted up using the mfs 2.0 tools from weaknees....


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## rz1224 (Jun 5, 2003)

OK--so I tried booting up with MFSlive instead and picked up where I left off & it let me do it. I'm gonna put the drive back in the tivo and see if it can repair itself. If it does, can you clarify my next step? From the directions I have:
****************************************************************
D. Renumber the partitions.

pdisk /dev/hda

On TiVoMad, pdisk is /mad/pdiska.

If your inactive root partition is 4, type:

r 8 4
r 5 9

If your inactive root partition is 7, type:

r 8 7

w (write partition table)
y (confirm, returns you to command prompt)

E. Restore drive to TiVo

Let the TiVo run, it may take a long time, and may reboot occasionally, but it should eventually boot up properly. Remember, you must complete this sequence, your TiVo is not safe when it recovers from the green screen.

F. Restore the original partition numbers

Repeat step D above.

You can now safely replace the drive in the TiVo.
****************************************************************

When it says to 'repeat step D above' I assume I type in the commands that I did NOT enter the first time correct? Thanks for your help HOME---


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## HomeUser (Jan 12, 2003)

Your are in really *dangerous* territory now double check everything.

If you did not renumber "-r 8 ?" the partitions then the TiVo is still going to use the original swap partition 8 instead of new swap partition that you created out of the unused root partition 4 or 7.

The post stresses the you renumber the partitions back to the original configuration so that the unused root partition will be available for future updates by repeating the -r 8 ? command in step D. I probably would re-name the partition back to the original EXT2 also. Did you do the optional copy of the spare partition first?


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## rz1224 (Jun 5, 2003)

Thanks for the reply Home---appears I got everything correct according to your post. Tivo booted up but was still unable to get past the green screen loop. I ended up putting my 'original' a drive (pre upgrade from years ago!) into the tivo & connecting to the tivo service. Figure I'll let it update to the lastest software & then buy a 300GB drive and do another upgrade. Will lose some shows, but my main concern is keeping the machine alive as it's a lifetime sub box.

Thanks for your help...I think it could probably be saved if I was more comfortable with linux/mfstools etc (or if you were doing it!) but I'll be happy as long as I can save the box. Thanks again!


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