# HD dying I think, help please



## slepton (Mar 28, 2007)

So, I think my HD is ready to die on me -- In the last three days I've had my Tivo reboot and get a screen saying a serious error has occured twice. My question is - can I image my Tivo HD, buy a new HD and put that image on it and have it work? There are programs I would like to keep, that's why I'd like to image it. Any advice/help would be appreciated.......

Thanks


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## litzdog911 (Oct 18, 2002)

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/forumdisplay.php?s=&forumid=25

http://www.weaknees.com/index.html

http://tivo.upgrade-instructions.com/

http://www.newreleasesvideo.com/hinsdale-how-to/

http://www.dvrupgrade.com/dvr/stores/1/instantcake.cfm

http://www.9thtee.com/


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## slepton (Mar 28, 2007)

Thank you for absolutely no help at all. I asked a simple yes or no question. I know it's possible to upgrade your tivo with a bigger hd. If you would have actually read my question you would have seen that there are programs I want to save on my current hd. All I want to know is if it's possible image the current drive and save that image to a drive of the same size so I can keep my programs. Is that asking too much? A yes or no will suffice, not a buch of links that don't pertain to my question.


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## supasta (May 6, 2006)

Did you look at any one of the links that were posted? Not only do they answer your question, but they do so in great detail. Not to mention providing step-by-step instruction on how to accomplish exactly what you are wanting to do. The way in which you asked your question goes to show that you did absolutley no research whatsoever before coming here and asking your question. We have all been in your shoes as new to the business of replacing your TiVo HD; however, wanting to do it yourself, as you clearly do, will require that you do a bit of research in order to find your answers. You must understand that this exact question is frequently asked and the information can be found in the very links that were provided to you, along with hundreds of threads in these very forums with the exact information to the questions you have.


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## litzdog911 (Oct 18, 2002)

slepton said:


> ... My question is - can I image my Tivo HD, buy a new HD and put that image on it and have it work?
> 
> Thanks


Yes 

You're welcome


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## classicsat (Feb 18, 2004)

You can't make an image with recordings. To keep recordings, you can only do a drive to drive copy, or back up the recordings over TiVoToGo (or other with a hacked DirecTV TiVo or Series 1).


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## moxie1617 (Jan 5, 2004)

slepton said:


> I asked a simple yes or no question.


You asked for advice or help. Reread your own post!


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## magnus (Nov 12, 2004)

Gosh, that was rude. I guess a 'Yes' and step-by-step directions would have been more to your liking. You're the one asking for help and so it would be more appropriate to ask for better details, if you did not understand than posting this response.



slepton said:


> Thank you for absolutely no help at all. I asked a simple yes or no question. I know it's possible to upgrade your tivo with a bigger hd. If you would have actually read my question you would have seen that there are programs I want to save on my current hd. All I want to know is if it's possible image the current drive and save that image to a drive of the same size so I can keep my programs. Is that asking too much? A yes or no will suffice, not a buch of links that don't pertain to my question.


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## magnus (Nov 12, 2004)

Oh, and I guess 'NO' would really be in order for you. Since I doubt that you are going to read any of the links that were given. I'm pretty sure that one of the links given has exactly what you are looking for. 

Just my opinion... no need to flame me if you don't like it.


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## jasonpalmer (Oct 13, 2004)

Actually the instructions at all of the sites assume a certain working knowledge of both Linux and the mfs tools which most of us do not have. 

A few of the help flies discuss how to use dd_rescue to do an entire drive copy but if the bad sectors are in the O/S partition, Tivo will not start. 

What is needed is a exact word-for-word, step-by-step how to use InstantCake or some other backup/restore utility to replace or rebuild the O/S partitions AND then how to copy the RECORDINGS partitions (hdx11 or hdx13) from the failing drive to the new drive. 

In my case I have spent hours trying to find any documentation on how to mount/copy from hdc11 and hdc13 to my new hdd13 without any success. 

I used InstantCake to get a fresh copy of the O/S on my new drive but cannot figure out how to copy the recordings. 

Help anyone? 

Thanks, 

Jason.


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## ddonohue (Dec 7, 2003)

jasonpalmer said:


> Actually the instructions at all of the sites assume a certain working knowledge of both Linux and the mfs tools which most of us do not have.
> 
> A few of the help flies discuss how to use dd_rescue to do an entire drive copy but if the bad sectors are in the O/S partition, Tivo will not start.
> 
> ...


Yes! This is exactly what I'm looking for too. I have a 200 GB (137 usable) drive which sticks at Powering Up. Spinrite says the drive is fine, but another drive with an old image boots TiVo fine, so it's the drive. I can mount it in a PC, look at partitions, all seem to be fine, so something in the OS seems to be toast. I'm trying to figure out, like Jason, how to prep a new drive but then copy recordings to it. Anyone?


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## magnus (Nov 12, 2004)

jasonpalmer said:


> Actually the instructions at all of the sites assume a certain working knowledge of both Linux and the mfs tools which most of us do not have.


Well, then you should do some research like the rest of us. I'm sure that most of the people here have learned from trial and error. That said, use the interactive guide and it will give you step by step commands.

http://tivo.upgrade-instructions.com/index.php

One of them being this one, it will back up the drive and shows to a new drive. 
mfsbackup -Tao - /dev/hdX (/dev/hdY) | mfsrestore -s 127 -r 4 -xzpi - /dev/hdZ (/dev/hdZZ)


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## jasonpalmer (Oct 13, 2004)

Magnus,

The whole point of my post was that many of us have done the research and came up empty. Why should it be so hard? And, you need not be obnoxious about it.

The command you offer will not work as the O/S partition is corrupt. Only the shows need to be copied.

Someone should modify the InstantCake script to do a new O/S install to the new drive AND a copy of the recordings from the old hard drive.

Thanks for your attempt at an answer,

Jason.


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## magnus (Nov 12, 2004)

I'm pretty sure that I was not being obnoxious but if you say so then I guess I was. 

Anyway, If you need those items then I guess you had better get to work. Why expect someone else to do the work for you. I'm pretty sure that what you are talking about is not possible given that the drive is corrupt.

Why not suggest it to DVRUpgrade then, if you think they should provide such a product.



jasonpalmer said:


> Magnus,
> 
> The whole point of my post was that many of us have done the research and came up empty. Why should it be so hard? And, you need not be obnoxious about it.
> 
> ...


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## ddonohue (Dec 7, 2003)

jasonpalmer said:


> Magnus,
> 
> The whole point of my post was that many of us have done the research and came up empty. Why should it be so hard? And, you need not be obnoxious about it.
> 
> ...


Jason, I have to conclude that Magnus doesn't quite understand the problem, as there's no real need for such rudeness otherwise. I don't get the "suffer like I did" mentality. Why reinvent the wheel? Happily, I've found his type to be in the extreme minority here.

As I mentioned above, I'm in the same boat and it does seem like there should be a solution somewhere. But I've done the research (and considerable trial and error) and come up empty as well. The TiVo in question was a "backup" that I only used to record conflicting programs, but since it has a 200GB drive it was used to offload recordings from our other TiVos through the miracle (curse?) of multi-room viewing. So there are a ton of recordings on it and I'm very motivated to save them. I've been working on this problem for months in fits and starts and haven't had any luck. This time, I'm making a concerted effort and trying every possible solution.

Yes, the drive is "corrupt," but Spinrite tells me the surface is fine, as does the Maxtor utility. I am able to use dd to make a perfect (but non-working) copy of the drive onto a second slightly larger one. Kickstart does not work. Have you tried monitoring the boot process with a serial cable? I'm working on that now. I also came across this in the archive, which I have yet to try but it seems promising. I've also read some threads in the other forum about extracting video from the drive while it's mounted in the PC, but the linux required made my nose bleed. I hope I don't have to get to that point. Yesterday someone suggested a utility called MakeTivoBootable (and no, I never had the drive in an XP or 2000 PC) which seems like a pretty painless thing to try. I'll do that soon.

Keep me posted on your progress and I'll do the same. Good luck!


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## magnus (Nov 12, 2004)

Well, again I do not believe that I was being rude. I'm only being truthful. All that said keep spending days trying to find a solution that is not there if you want. I'm pretty sure that I do understand the problem.



ddonohue said:


> Jason, I have to conclude that Magnus doesn't quite understand the problem, as there's no real need for such rudeness otherwise. I don't get the "suffer like I did" mentality. Why reinvent the wheel? Happily, I've found his type to be in the extreme minority here.
> 
> As I mentioned above, I'm in the same boat and it does seem like there should be a solution somewhere. But I've done the research (and considerable trial and error) and come up empty as well. The TiVo in question was a "backup" that I only used to record conflicting programs, but since it has a 200GB drive it was used to offload recordings from our other TiVos through the miracle (curse?) of multi-room viewing. So there are a ton of recordings on it and I'm very motivated to save them. I've been working on this problem for months in fits and starts and haven't had any luck. This time, I'm making a concerted effort and trying every possible solution.
> 
> ...


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## ddonohue (Dec 7, 2003)

Thanks so much for everyone's input! I've returned my dead S2 to the land of the living (and it took long enough that it's kind of a time capsule!)

I didn't have to go as far as trying to peel off recordings or somehow re-image just the OS. As I mentioned, I was at the point of monitoring the boot process via serial cable. Part of that set up involved modifying the bootpage information, and when I examined the current bootpage info, it was pretty garbled. Hmmm. So I figured something was amiss in the boot sector, and since maketivobootable was supposed to fix that, I gave it a shot. Shazam! It worked!

So apparently there was some corruption (caused by a power outage AFAIK) and it was fixed by the combination of spinriting the disk, dding a copy, and using maketivobootable.

Glad I spent the time trying to find a solution that wasn't there!


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## magnus (Nov 12, 2004)

I think your solution is much different than what you were asking. You had asked about putting your recordings onto a drive that had been re-imaged (which is not possible from what I know). All that said.... I'm glad that you were able to figure out the problem... it's always good to get that sense of accomplishment.



ddonohue said:


> Thanks so much for everyone's input! I've returned my dead S2 to the land of the living (and it took long enough that it's kind of a time capsule!)
> 
> I didn't have to go as far as trying to peel off recordings or somehow re-image just the OS. As I mentioned, I was at the point of monitoring the boot process via serial cable. Part of that set up involved modifying the bootpage information, and when I examined the current bootpage info, it was pretty garbled. Hmmm. So I figured something was amiss in the boot sector, and since maketivobootable was supposed to fix that, I gave it a shot. Shazam! It worked!
> 
> ...


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## ddonohue (Dec 7, 2003)

magnus said:


> I think your solution is much different than what you were asking. You had asked about putting your recordings onto a drive that had been re-imaged (which is not possible from what I know). All that said.... I'm glad that you were able to figure out the problem... it's always good to get that sense of accomplishment.


No worries. I agree that the solution didn't involve re-imaging as discussed, but my goal was to recover the recordings by whatever means possible, so it's all good in the end.

My dig in the post was referring mainly to the earlier statement, "I'm pretty sure that what you are talking about is not possible given that the drive is corrupt," since in the end it seems the corruption was fixable.


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