# Series 2 with 1000GB - Success!



## Robdalec (Feb 3, 2006)

First off, let me thank everyone on here who helped me get this accomplished. Even though I had every set of instructions I could download they still did not cover my scenario, so I would have been in deep trouble without you. 

Here is what I purchased to do the upgrade:

Weaknees twinbreeze complete, with power trip
Two Hitachi 500GB PATA hard drives ($379.95 each at CompUSA)

First I downloaded both the Weaknees and PTV ISO images and burned bootable CDs. I then attached the two Hitachi drives to the Weaknees bracket and attached them to my PC on the secondary IDE port. The original drive was then removed from the Tivo and attached to my PC on the primary IDE port as the master. I attempted to boot the system with the Weaknees CD in my SCSI CD drive, and it was recognized as a bootable CD but would not boot. I then did the same thing with the PTV CD and it booted just fine. I then keyed in the command from the Weaknees instructions to perform the upgrade:

Mfsbackup Tao - /dev/hda | mfsrestore s 127 xzpi - /dev/hdc /dev/hdd

Everything started right up and ran for nine hours. The system is an AMD Athlon XP3200+ with 512mb memory.

I then detached my new drives from the PC and installed them in the Tivo. I must say the Weaknees hardware and their instructions for installing it were excellent. 

Powered up the Tivo and up came the startup screen for a few minutes, then the just a few more minutes screen, and then the green screen of death for a few seconds. The Tivo then powered off and started the whole process again. This continued until I removed the power. I checked all of my connections and the jumpers and finding nothing wrong, posted my dilemma on the Tivo Forums. In no time at all I had the information that I needed. To support the large drives I needed to add the r 4 parameter. I did a little more reading in the forums and found that people were creating swapfiles larger than 127 mb and using TPIP to format them correctly. I posted a question about this and the unanimous response was that I needed to create the extra swap space. 

So I then had to go through the whole process again. However, since I had problems booting from the SCSI CD drive I decided to cable my old Tivo drive as the slave on the primary IDE port and my IDE DVD drive as the master. This allowed me to boot the Weaknees CD, which I decided I would use this time. 

Got everything attached to the PC, booted it, and attempted to run the command with the new options. mfsrestore failed giving me a list of valid options. I initially thought that it was something to do with the s 500 parameter for the swap file size but after running it with smaller sizes realized that was not the problem. Did still more reading and realized that I had the r 4 parameter where it didnt belong and that was the issue. (Hey, I work with Microsoft Windows and IBM OS/400 every day, but this Linux stiff is all Greek to me. ) 

Anyway, here is the command that worked:

Mfsbackup Tao - /dev/hdb | mfsrestore r 4 s 500 xzpi - /dev/hdc /dev/hdd

I keyed this in and then went to bed for 9 hours while it ran. When it was done it indicated that everything had run correctly including the creation of a 500mb swap file. All I had to do now is run TPIP.

I keyed in the TPIP -version command to see which version was on the Weaknees CD so I knew what parameters to use, and it turned out there was NO version of TPIP on the CD. So I powered down the PC, and booted it with the PTV CD where I found TPIP version 1.1 installed. Here is the command I used.

TPIP -swapped s /dev/hdc

This only took a few seconds and indicated that I now had a correctly formatted swap file of 500mb.

Installed the new drives in the Tivo and powered it up. Got the starting up screen, the just a few more minutes screen and NO GSOD! It worked!

Everything was there including the episode of Rollergirls I had watched half of.

I went into system information and it showed recording time variable, up to 1150 hours

I also immediately noticed that everything was running faster. Even switching between channels has speeded up somewhat. I assume this is because of the large block size on the disks, but could be wrong. Perhaps the Hitachi drives are just faster than the original Maxtor they replaced.

So now I have a Tivo with 1000GB of storage. (Sorry  I wont use the term terabyte because it isnt a terabyte unless theres 1024GB.)

Hopefully by posting this it will help someone else that is trying to do this just like everyone helped me. 

Now some of these cheap TCD540040's on eBay are looking even better.....

Thanks again eveyone!


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## 2njl (Jan 23, 2006)

I thought I was being excessive upgrading my new TCD540040 to 300GB. Do you really expect to fill up 1000GB?


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## Robdalec (Feb 3, 2006)

I expect not to - that's the reason that I did it.


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## AV_Novice (Jan 19, 2006)

My wife was just laughing at me for putting two 320GB Western Digital Drives in our TCD540040. We now have 733 hours of variable recording time.

My costs were a little better. ($119 each from Newegg.com) and the twinbreeze bracket and fan kit from Weaknees.

You can store a lot of Best recorded Wiggles episodes with this kind of storage. It makes my 15 month old daughter VERY happy.


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## 2njl (Jan 23, 2006)

AV_Novice said:


> My wife was just laughing at me for putting two 320GB Western Digital Drives in our TCD540040. We now have 733 hours of variable recording time.
> 
> My costs were a little better. ($119 each from Newegg.com) and the twinbreeze bracket and fan kit from Weaknees.
> 
> You can store a lot of Best recorded Wiggles episodes with this kind of storage. It makes my 15 month old daughter VERY happy.


I've been recording everything at high (haven't even tried best yet). I seriously doubt your 15 month old will notice the difference. Our 4yo has been perfectly happy with his recordings.

BTW, if you ran the Tivo much before upgrading, do you notice much more noise with the 2 drives and additional fan? What's your internal temperature reporting? With our house at about 75F, the Tivo is reporting 38C (100.4F). That's with a single Seagate Baracuda 300GB drive.

I barely turned mine on before doing the upgrade and don't know what the internal temp was like with the original 40GB drive.


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## Robdalec (Feb 3, 2006)

I never noticed that the Tivo reported the temperature until after I did the upgrade. With the two Hitachi drives it is now running at 38C. So far I haven't noticed any increase in noise from the Tivo since upgrading it.


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## mjitkop (Oct 3, 2002)

Congratulations, Robdalec! 

I was so proud when I upgraded from 35 hours to 107 hours but now I feel small. 

Thank you for posting the steps you followed to make it work. I'm sure this will help a lot of people who will want to do the same.

More than 1000 hour of recordings! Wow!


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## 2njl (Jan 23, 2006)

I'm kind of curious why it took 9 hours. Was this a brand new (or refurb) 40 hour unit full of recordings? Copying my new 40hr with the tutorial videos only took a few minutes IIRC. Figuring out the undocumented proper use of tpip and moving the drive back and forth several times is where I blew many hours.


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## ThreeSoFar (May 24, 2002)

I much prefer the solution of multiple TiVos each with one large drive in it. Worth the extra lifetime fee to resolve conflicts.


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## Arcady (Oct 14, 2004)

I prefer my 7 TiVo's with a combined 950GB (with 12 active tuners) to a single box with 1000GB (with 1 tuner)... and I pay $4.99 a month service fee.


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## Robdalec (Feb 3, 2006)

2njl said:


> I'm kind of curious why it took 9 hours. Was this a brand new (or refurb) 40 hour unit full of recordings? Copying my new 40hr with the tutorial videos only took a few minutes IIRC. Figuring out the undocumented proper use of tpip and moving the drive back and forth several times is where I blew many hours.


The Tivo had been used for a few months and the original 40Gb drive was almost full of recordings. My work schedule is such that I can go for weeks without being able to spend time watching what I have recorded, hence wanting to upgrade to a large system.

I figured that having the original drive on one IDE port and the new drives on another would have helped with the copy time, but who knows. I had originally intended to put the new drives on a promise 133 controller that is installed in a pci slot in the system, but all of the boot CD's just showed "unknown controller" for it.


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## Thaed (Nov 25, 2003)

Dude! That is so cool!









I have twin 200 gigs in one TiVo and twin 160s in the other. I would prefer having 1000 gig in both!

You do fill them up though. I have probably 1.5 TBs of stuff I've pulled off the TiVos with TiVo to Go. Plus, if you leave on the auto record function, the TiVo will fill itself with stuff it thinks you like.

I'm definitely saving this thread for the day that one of my Tivos buys the farm, so I can use the command line you came up with to throw in bigger disks.


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## Robertjm (Jan 6, 2006)

That's too funny. Just yesterday I was contemplating if anyone had ever did a 1 Terrabyte Tivo!!!

BTW: Not sure what you record, but yesterday I recorded a hockey game at Best. Usually I've been doing Medium. However, after I upgraded to a 300Gb I was itching to try it, especially with the Olympics coming and hockey being played during the middle of the workday.

AMAZING differenc in quality between the two. I then tried a game at High. A little bit of difference but probably something I might not have noticed if I wasn't looking for it.

Later,

Robert


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## Cazg (Apr 13, 2003)

I cant get my mfstools to recognise more than 137gb of my 320 Western digital Caviar drive. Is there a trick?

Caz


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## ThreeSoFar (May 24, 2002)

It's not MFStools, it's the kernel itself. Boot with the LBA48 CD.

Type

```
dmesg | grep hd
```
to see what the OS thinks your IDE devices are--you'll see sizes.


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## Robertjm (Jan 6, 2006)

What is your command line?
Do you have the disc that has lba48 support?


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## Lannister80 (Oct 6, 2005)

2njl said:


> BTW, if you ran the Tivo much before upgrading, do you notice much more noise with the 2 drives and additional fan? What's your internal temperature reporting? With our house at about 75F, the Tivo is reporting 38C (100.4F). That's with a single Seagate Baracuda 300GB drive.
> 
> I barely turned mine on before doing the upgrade and don't know what the internal temp was like with the original 40GB drive.


My experience is that Seagate drives are HOT HOT HOT. I've got 2 of those WD3200JB (320GB) drives in my Series 2 (540080) and with our apartment at 70F pretty much all the time, TiVo reports a temp of 32C all the time. I was doing a little stress testing the the drives when I got them (read/write for an hour using the Toshiba tool), and they were barely warm to the touch when done. Seagate drives, OTOH, feel like you could cook an egg on them. Not saying they're not reliable, they're just HOT.

Also, these (quazi) new WD3200JB's have some ferro-fluid liquid bearings instead of the normal mechanical (wel, non-fluid anyway) bearings, maybe that's what makes the difference (and I have them set on the quietest acoustic setting).

Ken


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## Robdalec (Feb 3, 2006)

What is a "normal temperature" for a unit? Mine is running either 36C or 37C all the time.


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## classicsat (Feb 18, 2004)

36-37 is fine. I'd begin monitoring above 45 maybe.


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## ThreeSoFar (May 24, 2002)

The TiVo software calls up to 45 or so "normal".


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## Robdalec (Feb 3, 2006)

Great. Looks like the two Hitachi drives aren't going to be a heat issue then.


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## kal20 (Feb 1, 2006)

Thanks Robdalec 
After reading your post on the good news on your upgrade. I now also have 1000GB. 
After working on mine for a week I was about to give up on a 2nd 500gb drive and go 
buy a smaller one. 

Thanks again


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## Pascal (Feb 15, 2006)

Just wanted to thank you for your post. I purchased the same bracket and drives several months ago for my DirecTivo R10, but never quite got it all to work. My last stumbling block was the swap partition. "Mkswap -v0" limited me to 128MB, and everything I read said the Tivo kernel did not support a v1 partition. Not sure what tpip does to make it work, but work it does. I even mounted the drives back in my PC afterwards and pulled up the kernel log just to make sure. Thanks again!

-Pascal


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## chomme (Apr 5, 2002)

I am surprised...nobody else besides me wonders...Rollergirls? Come on...there's got to be better TV than that!!! ha ha ha...I know...low blow...but I could not resist!


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## Robdalec (Feb 3, 2006)

Wouldn't you know it. After I upgrade my Tivo to 1000GB the drives now have a $100 rebate at Compusa where I got mine. Oh well. 

These drives so far are working very well and run very cool. I highly recommend them.


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## Robdalec (Feb 3, 2006)

chomme said:


> I am surprised...nobody else besides me wonders...Rollergirls? Come on...there's got to be better TV than that!!! ha ha ha...I know...low blow...but I could not resist!


Sorry, but I just LOVE that show. Actually wished I lived in Texas so I could go see these girls live and in person.


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## Robertjm (Jan 6, 2006)

They used to have a $30 day low price guarrantee so if its been less than 30 days you might want to go back and hit them up for a refund of the difference.

Robert
----------------


Robdalec said:


> Wouldn't you know it. After I upgrade my Tivo to 1000GB the drives now have a $100 rebate at Compusa where I got mine. Oh well.
> 
> These drives so far are working very well and run very cool. I highly recommend them.


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## Robdalec (Feb 3, 2006)

Never thought of that - so I checked it out and they have a 21 day price guarantee - but it EXCLUDES any limited quantity items, and this sale is listed as "limited quantity item". Thanks for reminding me about it - it was worth checking out.


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## Uncle Briggs (Sep 11, 2004)

ThreeSoFar said:


> I much prefer the solution of multiple TiVos each with one large drive in it. Worth the extra lifetime fee to resolve conflicts.


I agree. I have 3 SA units with 320 gb drives in each of them, for a total of over 1090 hrs. I wouldn't be able to see everything I wanted without 3 tuners.


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## psyco2 (Feb 2, 2006)

ThreeSoFar said:


> The TiVo software calls up to 45 or so "normal".


I purchased the Seagate 200 GB that was $29.99 after rebate at CompUSA during their President's Day Sale and the TV constantly reports the temperature at an astounding 50C , but it still states NORMAL.

The temperature never changes whether the unit is on/off, recording or not. I guess I better look for a better fan for my DVR40.


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## SteveH66 (Aug 23, 2005)

I'm planning to upgrade my stock 40GB series 2 TiVo (540xxx model) with dual WD 200GB drives this weekend. I wasn't planning to change the swapfile size -- is there a drive size at which a change to the swap space is recommended? I have the Weaknees twinbreeze complete, Weaknees CD, and their instructions. I upgraded my series 1 TiVo many years ago, so I'm familiar with the process.


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## HomeUser (Jan 12, 2003)

the general rule for the series 2 is allow 1 meg of swap for every 2G of HD space, your 200GB should have 100M swap partition. for 2 200G will need 200Meg swap partition. For swap partitions larger then 127 tpip is needed to correct a problem with MFSTools


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## ZeoTiVo (Jan 2, 2004)

Very cool - I am thinking of upgrading my 240 and using it as the parking area for lots of shows.

the 540 I will not upgrade and will instead wait for my first two tuner TiVo to put lots of storage on it :up:


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## atlynch (Jan 7, 2005)

Arcady said:


> I prefer my 7 TiVo's with a combined 950GB (with 12 active tuners) to a single box with 1000GB (with 1 tuner)... and I pay $4.99 a month service fee.


That's not completely true, is it? You do have to pay $5 each for mirroring....



-Drew


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