# Single drive upgrade question



## 134421 (Jan 21, 2006)

STATUS: SEEMS TO BE RESOLVED as of 1/26/2006

I have a 230040 Tivo 2 40 hr that I changed several years ago to 1 120G drive using "dd" and mfstools.

Now, I'm trying to upgrade that drive to a single 250G drive.

After much reading, I'm not sure this is possible because of the lba48 issue.

I have tried many things, but I would like to hear if I'm on the right track using this bootcd (free download):
ptvupgrade-com / products / software / lba48 / index.html

I know linux, but the dd using this CD is really, really slow, so I had to stop it and post this question.

Can somebody give me an idea of the right procedure? (I'd like to save all my shows and settings)

Thanks,
rg

PS. My Tivo OS is currently 7.2.1-oth-01-2-130 (is this lba48 ready?)


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## mick66 (Oct 15, 2004)

You will not be able to upgrade again and keep your recordings. On a series 2 you can only upgrade an original image once. That means that your original 40GB HD that was copied and expanded once, is done. You can create a shrunken backup, but that would not include any of your recordings but would include all of your settings and then copy that to a larger HD and expand it.


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## 134421 (Jan 21, 2006)

Thanks for the response.


mick66 said:


> You will not be able to upgrade again and keep your recordings. On a series 2 you can only upgrade an original image once. That means that your original 40GB HD that was copied and expanded once, is done.


However, I did "dd" the previously upgraded samsung 120G to a maxtor 250G, and ran mfsinfo, which said there were "2 upgrades left." (trying to remember the wording). Is mfsinfo reporting wrong information? I ran "mfsadd -x", but it did not report any increase. Then I read that Mfs tools don't support lba48. Is that true? If so, that would explain the broken mfsadd. According to the quote below, I thought it would work. Maybe I wasn't using a good lba48 cd? The mfs links are confusing; can somebody confirm which ISO image I should use?



> --- cut from the MFS Tools Readme file ---
> Q. I have already upgraded with a B drive or a larger A drive. Now I want
> to upgrade my other drive. Do I have to start over?
> 
> ...





mick66 said:


> You can create a shrunken backup, but that would not include any of your recordings but would include all of your settings and then copy that to a larger HD and expand it.


Which CD image is best for this? Could you please provide a link and the mfs commands?

Anyway, I still have the original 40G drive, but the OS is older (is hasn't had the benefits of the upgrades). Should I attach the old drive, and see if Tivo sends an OS upgrade, then upsize that one? How long will I have to wait for an upgrade? (I can't even remember if my stock Tivo HD will support the USB ethernet adapter.)

Any other suggestions? If I have to lose recordings, it might be ok, but I'll have to transfer a lot to DVD... 

Thanks again,
rg


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## blindlemon (May 12, 2002)

What do you see when you run mfsinfo against the 120GB drive? 

If you have used all 3 MFS partitions then you can't upgrade again without dropping the recordings. If you haven't, then the reason mfsadd doesn't do anything is probably because you've copied the 120GB drive's partition map to your 250GB drive and mfsadd thinks you still have a 120GB drive. In that case you need to rebuild the partition table on the 250GB drive under an LBA48-aware boot CD (booted in byteswapped mode) before re-running mfsadd.


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## 134421 (Jan 21, 2006)

blindlemon said:


> What do you see when you run mfsinfo against the 120GB drive?


Ok. I used Knoppix v3.3, downloaded the new gnu coreutils, compiled dd, and used dd to copy the 120G Samsung to a 250G Samsung. BTW, I used hdparm to enable DMA, and the dd took 69 minutes. Using the new dd (coreutils version 5.93), I could also monitor progress by running "# while true; do kill -USR1 `pidof dd`; sleep 2; done"

Then, I shutdown and connected only the 120G to run the mfsinfo test (as you requested):


```
mfsinfo /dev/hdc
MFS volume set for /dev/hdc
The MFS volume set contains 6 partitions
  /dev/hdc10
    MFS Partition Size: 256MiB
  /dev/hdc11
    MFS Partition Size: 16206MiB
  /dev/hdc12
    MFS Partition Size: 256MiB
  /dev/hdc13
    MFS Partition Size: 20991MiB
  /dev/hdc14
    MFS Partition Size: 0MiB
  /dev/hdc15
    MFS Partition Size: 76328MiB
Total MFS volume size: 114038MiB
Estimated hours in a standalone TiVo: 127
This MFS volume may be expanded 3 more times
```
Then, I shutdown the system and attached the 250G and again ran msinfo:

```
mfsinfo /dev/hdc
MFS volume set for /dev/hdc
The MFS volume set contains 6 partitions
  /dev/hdc10
    MFS Partition Size: 256MiB
  /dev/hdc11
    MFS Partition Size: 16206MiB
  /dev/hdc12
    MFS Partition Size: 256MiB
  /dev/hdc13
    MFS Partition Size: 20991MiB
  /dev/hdc14
    MFS Partition Size: 0MiB
  /dev/hdc15
    MFS Partition Size: 76328MiB
Total MFS volume size: 114038MiB
Estimated hours in a standalone TiVo: 127
This MFS volume may be expanded 3 more times
```
As you can see, the msinfo results were the same for both drives:
"This MFS volume may be expanded 3 more times"

Then, I ran mfsadd -x /dev/hdc on the 250G drive:

```
mfsadd -x /dev/hdc
Current estimated standalone size: 127 hours
Nothing to add!
```
FYI, here is the "dmesg | grep hd" output:
hdc: SAMSUNG SP2514N, ATA DISK drive
hdd: SONY DVD RW DRU-510A, ATAPI CD/DVD-ROM drive
hdc: 488397168 sectors (250059 MB) w/8192KiB Cache, CHS=484521/16/63
hdd: ATAPI 32X DVD-ROM DVD-R CD-R/RW drive, 8192kB Cache, UDMA(33)
hdc: [mac] hdc1 hdc2 hdc3 hdc4 hdc5 hdc6 hdc7 hdc8 hdc9 hdc10 hdc11 hdc12 hdc13 hdc14 hdc15 hdc16

There must be something I don't understand about mfsadd. It would seem that if msinfo says the drive can be expanded, then this should work. Is this an error or limitation within the MFS Tools?

Can anybody recommend what I should try next?



blindlemon said:


> If you have used all 3 MFS partitions then you can't upgrade again without dropping the recordings. If you haven't, then the reason mfsadd doesn't do anything is probably because you've copied the 120GB drive's partition map to your 250GB drive and mfsadd thinks you still have a 120GB drive. In that case you need to rebuild the partition table on the 250GB drive under an LBA48-aware boot CD (booted in byteswapped mode) before re-running mfsadd.


What?! Why is this necessary? Ok, well, assume I have to do this - what procedure should I use to "rebuild the partition table"? Why byteswapped mode? (everything to now I've read suggests Tivo Series 2 are not byte-swapped)

Thanks for all the help; I don't want to give up yet.

-rg

BTW, At least the 250G drive works in the Tivo, just not to full capacity. I had to do this because my 120G bearings were getting louder, and I didn't want a failure. The 120G has been running 24x7 since Jan, 2003.


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## blindlemon (May 12, 2002)

Unfortunately you have used all 3 MFS partition pairs on your drive - both your snippets show that very clearly (3 small partititions and 3 big ones on the drive).

As you have reached the 3 partition-pair limit you cannot expand either drive any further regardless of its physical size. The fact that mfsinfo says your _MFS volume _can be expanded 3 more times is misleading, because an MFS volume may span 2 drives. Therefore if you had a second drive you could add another 3 partition pairs on that - but with just one drive you cannot expand any further using MFStools.

You probably have copied the 120GB partition table to the 250GB drive, but as you've used all 3 MFS pairs you can't expand anyway even if you rebuild the partition table.

Unfortunately therefore, your only option (unless you want to try the coalesce adjacent partitions method) is to drop your recordings and restore from a divorced backup.


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## 134421 (Jan 21, 2006)

blindlemon said:


> ... drop your recordings and restore from a divorced backup.


Ok. This has been dragging on too long, so I tried to drop the recordings and restore from a divorced backup.

Goal: REPLACE the 120G with a 250G (don't care about prev. recordings)

Here are my exact steps:
hda Samsung 120G drive (previously upgraded)
hdc Samsung 250G drive

1st attempt.
Boot PTV lba48 cd, run
mfstool backup -so - /dev/hda | mfstool restore -i - /dev/hdc
reboot
mfstool mfsadd /dev/hdc -x
RESULT: reboots after a couple menu clicks;
all menu background graphics are gone

2nd attempt. 
Boot PTV lba48 cd, run
dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/hdc count=1000 #to partially wipe dest. drive
reboot
mfstool backup -so - /dev/hda | mfstool restore -f 2000 -s 127 -i - /dev/hdc
reboot
mfstool mfsadd /dev/hdc -x
RESULT: reboots after a couple menu clicks;
all menu background graphics are gone

3rd attempt. 
Boot PTV lba48 cd, run
dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/hdc count=1000 #to partially wipe dest. drive
reboot
mfstool backup -so - /dev/hda | mfstool restore -s 127 -i - /dev/hdc
reboot
mfstool mfsadd /dev/hdc -x
... install in Tivo (reboots ensue) ...
... quickly navigate to [erase and reset all] 
... Tivo reboots 
... wait an hour for rebuild
... Tivo reboots, asks bunch of setup questions, 
then reboots start again! arg!
RESULT: reboots after a couple menu clicks;
all menu background graphics are gone

4th attempt. 
Boot PTV lba48 cd, run
mfstool backup -f 9999 -6so /mnt/dos/tivo.bak /dev/hda
mfstool restore -s 127 -xzpi /mnt/dos/tivo.bak /dev/hdc
RESULT: System seems to work. 
All menu background graphics are intact.
Previous recordings appear in the list, and clicking them displays "Error with Recording" or something like that, which is resolved by deleting all the programs one at a time. After that, the system seems to be working fine!

Lessons learned: The Hinsdale How-To works best using a backup image, NOT using a pipe from backup to restore.

Thanks all,
rg


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## sg000 (Feb 6, 2006)

Doing the same thing here, except I NEED to keep the recordings. However, I DONT need the extra space. When I complete the "dd" procedure to the new 200Gb drive (5 hours in now) I realize I'll just have a duplicate of my 120Gb drive. It'll have 80Gb of unused, unpartioned space. I'm ok with that. The question is, IS this a stable drive to stick in my Tivo and use? Thanks!

(If your interested, I'm doing this b/c I may have problems with the current 120 Gb drive, and I want to do the zipper updates without risking the current drive.)

--SG


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## Diana Collins (Aug 21, 2002)

rg33 said:


> ...Lessons learned: The Hinsdale How-To works best using a backup image, NOT using a pipe from backup to restore...


That is not true...your problem was that you didn't have a file fsid parameter in the piped commands, but you DID have it in the "backup to file" command (which is why it worked).

The following would have worked fine:

mfsbackup -f 9999 -so - /dev/hda | mfsrestore -s 127 -xzpi - /dev/hdc

The -s parameter shrinks the backup (eliminates recordings and expansion partitions), but also slices off the background videos. In earlier releases, these videos had fsids below 2000 (the default value for -f). In later versions of the software, however, these fsids are higher, and you need the -f 9999 parameter to get them all.


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## 134421 (Jan 21, 2006)

Dan Collins said:


> That is not true...your problem was that you didn't have a file fsid parameter in the piped commands, but you DID have it in the "backup to file" command (which is why it worked).
> 
> The following would have worked fine:
> 
> ...


Hmm. I should have tried that. I guess I lost patience after trying for 3 days to save my recordings with the upgrade. Thanks for your response.


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## 134421 (Jan 21, 2006)

sg000 said:


> Doing the same thing here, except I NEED to keep the recordings. However, I DONT need the extra space. When I complete the "dd" procedure to the new 200Gb drive (5 hours in now) I realize I'll just have a duplicate of my 120Gb drive. It'll have 80Gb of unused, unpartioned space. I'm ok with that. The question is, IS this a stable drive to stick in my Tivo and use? Thanks!
> 
> (If your interested, I'm doing this b/c I may have problems with the current 120 Gb drive, and I want to do the zipper updates without risking the current drive.)
> 
> --SG


My 120 was starting worry me too.  Anyway, from what I know about linux, your dd copy should be fine. I have used normal linux server backups like this before with no problem. I don't think Tivo would (or could) do anything with the extra, unpartitioned space.


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## sg000 (Feb 6, 2006)

Thanks rg33. I'm running the new drive now and everything seems to be running smooth.

Your hdparm command NEEDS to get more attention. Did some research on it, found my optimal settings to be: hdparm -c3 -d1 -u1 YMMV. My drives were already in one of the higher speed modes w/ no effect. Went from a 12 hr backup to 1 hour with that command.

Also your wipe the drive command ( dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/hdc count=1000 #to partially wipe dest. drive) came in handy too after I trashed the first copy in 10 minutes after 12 agonizing hours of waiting. Thanks!

--SG


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