# New Software installed, hacks gone.



## kweller (Mar 10, 2002)

My ongoing battle with our TiVo continues...

Following the problem with our replacement HDD Mike supplied me with a new one and everything was great for a few hours until the TiVo software was upgraded to 2.5.5a whereupon all the hacks stopped working.

I've done some reading and would like to check what I think has happened. Forgive my use of Windows terms but I know nothing about Linux.

Here goes then...I *think* TiVo maintain two partitions, lets' call them A and B. A was the active boot partition and contains all the hacks Mike pre-installed. When the TiVo software was upgraded to the 'new' release it upgraded B then made that the boot partition so the hacks are still there but not on the active partition. Is that correct?

If it is, presumably, all I have to do is get the disk into a PC, boot using the Steve Jenkins ISO, then figure out how to copy var/hack, rc.sysinit and rc.sysinit.author from A to B. Is that also correct?

Thanks.

Kevin


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

kweller said:


> If it is, presumably, all I have to do is get the disk into a PC, boot using the Steve Jenkins ISO, then figure out how to copy var/hack, rc.sysinit and rc.sysinit.author from A to B. Is that also correct?
> 
> Thanks.
> 
> Kevin


Mike has some script or other on hiis drives you can run to restore the hacks in this situation. So I would telephone Mike about it using the number listed on his website at www.tivocentral.co.uk

Having said that if the Tivo has changed partitions on a brand new drive it looks like a faulty drive to me and should probably be returned to Milke for replacement.


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## kweller (Mar 10, 2002)

Oh has he? I don't to disturb him on a Sunday so I'll give him a call in the week. That'll be very helpful  Thanks for letting me know. Mind you, I can't get to the TiVo via serial or network now so I'm fairly sure I'll have to get the TiVo disk into a PC.

Unless I'm misremembering/misreading, when TiVo installs new software that's how it works - it swaps partitions. Mike would have sent me 2.5.5. The TiVo database remembers that donkey's years ago we had a TV which had a problem with 2.5.5 and we need 2.5.5a so it downloaded and installed it. It certainly has a better memory than me as I'd forgotten all about that and the TV is long gone.

Kevin


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## BrianHughes (Jan 21, 2001)

Kweller, your understanding is correct. The main thing to worry about is the fact that the version of the software you're now running won't handle any disk larger than 128gb. Everything will appear fine until it tries to use that space and then it'll start overwriting, probably important, bits of your disk space. 

Personally I'd return the drive to Mike and ask nicely for the disk to be re-imaged with 2.5.5a. I think it'll cause you a lot less grief in the long run even if you have to pay for the carriage and his time.


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## TCM2007 (Dec 25, 2006)

I think if you tell Mike you need 2.5.5.a he'll install it for you.

Your recollection about the boot partitions is correct, more or less - the hacks are still there, its the rc.sysint.author file which activates them which is now missing. Pete - nothing to do with a faulty drive; when TiVo upgrades the OS it installs it into an alternate partition, then changes the settings so on the next reboot the new partition is used.


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## kweller (Mar 10, 2002)

BrianHughes said:


> Kweller, your understanding is correct. The main thing to worry about is the fact that the version of the software you're now running won't handle any disk larger than 128gb. Everything will appear fine until it tries to use that space and then it'll start overwriting, probably important, bits of your disk space.


Oh! I had a replacement disk from Mike as one he sent me earlier 'died' after a few weeks of use. I thought it was a faulty drive and Mike replaced it, I bet what you describe is what happened and the disk itself is fine.



BrianHughes said:


> Personally I'd return the drive to Mike and ask nicely for the disk to be re-imaged with 2.5.5a. I think it'll cause you a lot less grief in the long run even if you have to pay for the carriage and his time.


That sounds like a good idea to me and it would be perfectly reasonable for me to pay for Mike's time. I'll give him a call tomorrow. Sounds like I owe him the carriage for the 'faulty drive' he replaced as well.

Thank you (and TCM2007).

Kevin


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

BrianHughes said:


> Personally I'd return the drive to Mike and ask nicely for the disk to be re-imaged with 2.5.5a. I think it'll cause you a lot less grief in the long run even if you have to pay for the carriage and his time.


I would agree with this suggestion. If you use First or Second Class Recorded the postage cost is probably only about £2 to £3 each way and in all probability Mike may well not even charge you for the postage cost of sending the drive back to you.

You obviously didn't pay Mike for a pre-prepared drive only to have to then end up opening the Tivo and connecting to an old PC etc yourself. Alternatively I think Mike does have a script on his drives that restores his hacks in the event that this partition flipping happens (unless I am misremembering and that was Steve/blindlemon/Tivoheaven). I think it can possibly even be activated through a certain series of keystrokes on the Tivo remote and may not even require you to have network card bash prompt access to the Tivo. Having said that I suppose it may not overcome the problem of Tivo having downgraded you to a software version that now cannot handle large drive drives.

I wouldn't worry too much about calling Mike at the weekend as this is very much a business he runs from home. I would only advise not calling outside the hours of say 9am to 6pm.

Make sure though that you call Mke on 01744 608986 as still listed on his site on the www.tivocentral.co.uk/buy-tivo.php page as this will be part of your inclusive free weekend minutes and don't make the mistake of calling him on 0844 504 9700 at a cost of 5p per minute at all times as now listed on the www.tivocentral.co.uk home page.:down:


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## mikerr (Jun 2, 2005)

Just found this thread - but its mostly all been covered now

If you install a 255 drive and your TiVo is registered as 255a then TiVo will load
and "update" to 255a on its first daily call.

Unfortunately this update doesn't support LBA48 (large drives over 137GB),
so what happens is that the drive slowly corrupts - it takes a few days to become unbootable...

Customers generally state 255a when ordering if they have that - though its quite a rare version
The website does actually mention 255a at checkout - though obviously _not prominently enough _...

I've emailed Kevin, so he should have a new drive with 255a on Tuesday.


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## kweller (Mar 10, 2002)

I dropped Mike an email earlier today. He has responded telling me he'll send a 2.5.5a disk out FOC and just asked me to return the others.

Apparently there's a question about 2.5.5a at the check-out and I completely missed it so I'm rather embarrassed now.

The service from Tivo Central goes well beyond anything I could have expected or asked for. Thanks very much Mike.

Thanks again for all the responses here.

Edit: I see Mike replied as I was typing this.

Kevin


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

kweller said:


> I dropped Mike an email earlier today. He has responded telling me he'll send a 2.5.5a disk out FOC and just asked me to return the others.


I knew Mike worked on Tivocentral stuff on Sundays and it looks like you won't even need to call him (especially on the 0844 number) now as its all been resolved online or by email.

As you say it does sound like excellent customer service on Mike's part to send out another drive tomorrow without any postage charge and to trust you to return the other drive to him in the next few days/:up:


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## TCM2007 (Dec 25, 2006)

Give it a rest on the 0844 number already, it's almost like you're unhealthily obsessed or something.


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

TCM2007 said:


> Give it a rest on the 0844 number already, it's almost like you're unhealthily obsessed or something.


It seems that business persons like yourselves don't like this ever growing consumer scam being exposed. What a great wheeze you business persons no doubt think it is by selling customers unlimited call plans and then making most numbers people actually need to call not included in these plans.

09 numbers are fair enough. People know they cost extra and can decide to call them accordingly (although even then there should be a PIN number only known to the bill payer turned on by default unless the bill payer deactivates it) but 0844 numbers trade off people wrongly thinking they are local rate and part of their call plan when they never are and always cost extra.

If I am alone in my concern then I doubt there would be a whole website (www.saynoto0870.com) given over to the matter or that it would have been the subject of an investigation and lobbying by Which. The cost of these calls is not minor but can easily mean many home users paying as much again as the combined cost of their whole line rental and supposedly "Anytime" call plan during each billing quarter. I was therefore disappointed to see Mike also boarding this particular telecoms ripoff gravy train.:down:


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## steveroe (Oct 29, 2002)

And off topic we go...


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## TCM2007 (Dec 25, 2006)

Like I said, unhealthily obsessed.



> The cost of these calls is not minor but can easily mean many home users paying as much again as the combined cost of their whole line rental and supposedly "Anytime" call plan during each billing quarter.


BTW, checked my 0845/0870 usage in the last quarter - £0.00.


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

steveroe said:


> And off topic we go...


Well the original post related to a specific problem we have hopefully solved for the poster and this discussion does actually directly relate to a contact phone number choice made by the supplier of this item.

To be honest I think some people just patrol the forums because they rather enjoy complaining about things being Off Topic.

If I started posting in this thread about the weather tomorrow or the price of bananas then you would of course have every right to consider that an unnecessary digression as that would have no relevance to the matter at hand.


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

TCM2007 said:


> Like I said, unhealthily obsessed.


The words pot and kettle come to mind in the context of someone who no longer owns a Tivo but still spends a great deal of his spare time making posts here.


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## TCM2007 (Dec 25, 2006)

I come back for the (mostly) pleasant company.


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

TCM2007 said:


> I come back for the (mostly) pleasant company.


If you don't enjoy our little discussions in this forum then why do they happen so frequently and why have you never added me to your Ignore list.


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## mikerr (Jun 2, 2005)

Pete77 said:


> I was therefore disappointed to see Mike also boarding this particular telecoms gravy train.:down:


Lol - it's only a phone number, Pete !

Both numbers are listed on the websites contact page.

The 0844 number can and is diverted between 2-3 different locations depending on where I am. 
It's not _always_ pointing at the 01744 number.

You're welcome to use either


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

mikerr said:


> The 0844 number can and is diverted between 2-3 different locations depending on where I am.
> 
> It's not _always_ pointing at the 01744 number.


So does it give you free forwarding to your mobile number? If so then I suppose you can argue that 5p per minute is only about the same or less as the cost of calling a mobile from a landline. Having said that I get free calls of up to 60 minutes to a UK mobile all weekend long with Post Office Homephone.

I couldn't actually see the 01744 number any more on the Home page on your site which perhaps had me confused. May be you should say something like "call me first on my landline number but if its urgent then try my 0844 number" I expect you are no doubt aware that 03 numbers can do the same things as an 0844 but that you the call recipient pay for those extra features like call forwarding to a mobile and not the caller, which is why 03 numbers still by regulatory dictat come out of any bundled free minutes on landline or mobile packages that are available for normal 01/02 geographic numbers.

In any event I see that somebody has thoughtfully listed your 01744 landline number as an alternative to the 0844 number at www.saynoto0870.com so that the budget conscious need not inadvertently pay extra for calling you.


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## kweller (Mar 10, 2002)

Disc arrived yesterday (thanks again Mike), TiVo up and running, all hacks reinstalled (I think), happy bunny .

Now to search the forum for the best way to make a back-up of var/hack and anything else I should be backing up. I did this a very long time ago but I can't remember how.

Edit: After reading several threads I decided the easiest way to back everything up was to FTP the content of var plus rc.sysinit.author to a folder on the network. That way I don't have to remember anything 'clever' to restore things.

Kevin


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

kweller said:


> Edit: After reading several threads I decided the easiest way to back everything up was to FTP the content of var plus rc.sysinit.author to a folder on the network. That way I don't have to remember anything 'clever' to restore things.


I find that just FTP'ng the whole of the hack directory and its subdirectories with the existing directory structure over to my PC hard drive with Filezilla works perfectly ok and that when I get a var/hack wipeout (never had one at all for the first 3 years but had 4 or so in the last two years, which may be down to drive age) I simply FTP the whole lot back across to the Tivo.

All that business with making tarballs and re-exploding them and so on seemed far too complicated and also appeared to be quite unnecessary.

I also keep copies of rc.sysinit.author and rc.sysinit.author.edit on my PC hard drive in case the whole Tivo hard drive fails.

In theory I then back up my PC hard drive to a local network drive and on to DVD from time to time. Although I don't seem to do this as often as I should given that my notebook hard drive is now 3 years old.

Its good to hear that you are now back up and running again and that Mike offers such excellent customer service clearly up the levels of that of the myopic citrus before his untimely retirement from the Tivo upgrading scene.


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## spitfires (Dec 19, 2006)

I kept forgetting to do the FTP thing so I created a shell script which runs via cron job on the Tivo once every 7 days. 'Course I still have to FTP the resulting tarball across every once in a while - which I usually forget - but at least a tarball is better than nothing! 

Oh and don't forget your rc.net file - useful for seeing what the gateway ip address should be set to!


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