# Successful S3 750GB Upgrade w/ MFSTOOLS



## generaltso (Nov 4, 2003)

I just successfully upgraded my S3 to a 750GB Seagate drive. I used the regular MFSTOOLS with a SATA to IDE adapter. Everything worked like a charm. The new capacity is 927 hrs at basic quality and 98 hours of HD.


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## Anametrix (Nov 20, 2005)

How is the noise on the Seagate drive?


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## generaltso (Nov 4, 2003)

The seeks on the Seagate 750GB drive are the noisiest I've ever heard. My S3 is going in an AV cabinet a good distance from the couch, so it's not a big deal for me. I used the IDE version of the drive in an S2 in my bedroom, however, and it was so loud that I had to switch back to a 500GB drive.


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## cowboys2002 (Jun 15, 2001)

generaltso said:


> The seeks on the Seagate 750GB drive are the noisiest I've ever heard. My S3 is going in an AV cabinet a good distance from the couch, so it's not a big deal for me. I used the IDE version of the drive in an S2 in my bedroom, however, and it was so loud that I had to switch back to a 500GB drive.


Okay, the question is "If the S2 upgrade with a seagate drive proved to be noisy, why would you buy another Seagate Drive?


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## Anametrix (Nov 20, 2005)

There is no other 750GB SATA option at this time...


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## generaltso (Nov 4, 2003)

Exactly. Your options are to get the noisy drive or settle for something smaller. Hopefully, the DB35 version of the drive will be released soon.


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## bigDvette (Dec 31, 2003)

general

I too upgraded to a 750gb seagate. I can't get it to expand the virgin image and then setup the tivo. Did you activate teh tivo and then upgrade? Or did you yank the drive before setup and do you upgrade on the virgin image?

Thanks.


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## generaltso (Nov 4, 2003)

I went through guided setup and then did the upgrade. I tend to do that so that I don't have to repeate guided setup if I ever use that image again.


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## Freightdog (Aug 24, 2005)

Anametrix said:


> How is the noise on the Seagate drive?


FWIW, I upgraded an HR10-250 with a PATA Seagate 750gb and I can't hear the thing at all, even up close.

Very quiet.


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## generaltso (Nov 4, 2003)

It's only when it's doing random seeks that it's very loud.


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## RichB (Apr 2, 2003)

generaltso said:


> It's only when it's doing random seeks that it's very loud.


Is that often or is this something that is likely to get worse as it gets filled up?

- Rich


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## generaltso (Nov 4, 2003)

Because of the nature of the way TiVo uses the drive, it does seek often. I don't think it will seek noticeably more or less as the drive fills up.


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## ThreeSoFar (May 24, 2002)

To do S3 upgrades, should I buy a $15 or so PCI SATA adapter for my upgrade PC (which has only IDE now)? And which one? Newegg has these: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...ption=sata+pci+adapter&Submit=ENE&N=0&Ntk=all

Or is the IDE to SATA adapter/converter thing the way to go?


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## generaltso (Nov 4, 2003)

I've never tried a PCI SATA controller, so I can't really comment on that. But I can say that the IDE to SATA adapter that I used worked flawlessly. I actually bought another one so I could do a dd copy from my barracuda drive to my new DB35.


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## TydalForce (Feb 9, 2006)

The IDE to SATA adapters don't require any kind of drivers
Getting a SATA controller card may not work

When I upgraded my Humax, I thought I needed to use a controller card to support the large drives (I thought my junker PC's BIOS was too old) and the MFSTools CD I downloaded didn't recognize it. 

Fortunately, I was wrong about needing it, and the built-in controllers on the motherboard worked just fine for me.

So given the choice between one or two cheapo IDE/SATA adapters that will probably work, and a SATA card that probably won't (and I wouldn't use again), I'd take the adapter

Anyone with experience for or against will undoubtedly chime in ;-)


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## kkluba (Oct 18, 2002)

generaltso said:


> Exactly. Your options are to get the noisy drive or settle for something smaller. Hopefully, the DB35 version of the drive will be released soon.


I've got two DB35 750's in an HDTivo and can't discern any audible difference. What is different is the video blips (dropped frames) I used to get with the stock 250 are gone. During the upgrade I ran across several bad sectors on the old drive that I guess were causing this. In all the pair 750's has been an excellent addition and are without any issues.

Question - Will adding Tivoweb and other networking features make the hr10-250 unstable or less stable? Right now it's rock solid and I hate to jeopardize this.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

Tivoweb didn't affect my units. They are still rock solid. Only now I can schedule my HR10-250s remotely and from my home Network.


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## kkluba (Oct 18, 2002)

Thanks Aaron. I'll do the networking after we get the 6.3b upgrade and then I won't have to do it twice.

My old SVR2000 S1 Tivo didn't like the networking. Yeah it worked but if I did too much in Tivoweb it crashed.


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## WetBhndEars (Mar 30, 2005)

generaltso said:


> I just successfully upgraded my S3 to a 750GB Seagate drive. I used the regular MFSTOOLS with a SATA to IDE adapter. Everything worked like a charm. The new capacity is 927 hrs at basic quality and 98 hours of HD.


Can you post the instructions to use MFSTOOLS to upgrade the HD? I keep hearing about it but have yet to see instructions.

Thanks

Javier


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## generaltso (Nov 4, 2003)

If you're using a SATA to IDE adapter, you can just use the Series2 instructions.


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## WetBhndEars (Mar 30, 2005)

Help Please, I downloaded the latest version of MFSTools and burned the CD. I booted my pc and created the directory for the dos partition. When I tried to mount the partition I got the following response: " You must specify the filesystem type". The dos partition is Fat32 and not NTFS. Is that my problem?


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## generaltso (Nov 4, 2003)

What are the exact commands you typed after booting to the MFSTools CD?


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## ThreeSoFar (May 24, 2002)

dmesg is your friend. This command will point you to the right partition (the number after /dev/hdX) to mount:

```
dmesg | grep hd
```
Then this is your mount command:

```
mount /dev/hdXN /mnt/dos
```
 assuming "/mnt/dos" is the partition you make.


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## WetBhndEars (Mar 30, 2005)

The commands I used were: 
mkdir /mnt/dos 
mount /dev/hda /mnt/dos 

At this point I received the error message that states I need to specify the file system type. 

Javier


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## generaltso (Nov 4, 2003)

You're missing the partition number. Try "mount /dev/hda1 /mnt/dos". Note the number 1 that was missing from your command.


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## WetBhndEars (Mar 30, 2005)

For booting up, I did what the documentation said to do, at least what I understood to do. I just pressed the enter key.

Javier


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## generaltso (Nov 4, 2003)

Did you try the mount command again with the 1 in it?


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## WetBhndEars (Mar 30, 2005)

OK, here is what I have done. I have a box running RedHat 9.0. I removed the drive from my tivo and mounted id as Primary slave. I then started the Linux box and ran the command dmesg grepping for any hd's found. Here is the output from that command:

ide0: BM-DMA at 0xffa0-0xffa7, BIOS settings: hdaMA, hdbMA 
ide1: BM-DMA at 0xffa8-0xffaf, BIOS settings: hdcio, hddio 
hda: Maxtor 6Y060L0, ATA DISK drive 
hdb: IC35L060AVER07-0, ATA DISK drive 
hdc: LTN301, ATAPI CD/DVD-ROM drive 
hda: host protected area => 1 
hda: 120103200 sectors (61493 MB) w/2048KiB Cache, CHS=7476/255/63, UDMA(33) 
hdb: host protected area => 1 
hdb: 120103200 sectors (61493 MB) w/1916KiB Cache, CHS=7476/255/63, UDMA(33) 
hda: hda1 hda2 hda3 hda4 < hda5 > 
hdb: unknown partition table 
hdc: ATAPI 32X CD-ROM drive, 120kB Cache, UDMA(33) 
hdb1: bad access: block=0, count=1 
end_request: I/O error, dev 03:41 (hdb), sector 0

As you can see hdb is my Tivo drive. It does see the fact that it is 65Gb in size. however it cannot see any partitions on it. In fact it gets a "bad access" on hdb1. Does this mean that the drive is now dead? BTW I did download MFSTools tar file from SourceForge.net and installed them on my Linux box. I also tried to mount hda1 onto the Linux box with the same results. 
( mkdir /mnt/otivo, mount /dev/hda1 /mnt/otivo )

Thanks

Javier


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## generaltso (Nov 4, 2003)

I would recommend following the instructions at http://tivo.upgrade-instructions.com and booting from their live MFS Tools CD rather than using Red Hat.


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## WetBhndEars (Mar 30, 2005)

Can I ask what the difference is? I am still using MFSTools which if is a Linux based utility.


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## generaltso (Nov 4, 2003)

I couldn't tell you what the difference is. I can only tell you that the other way works.


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## WetBhndEars (Mar 30, 2005)

Thanks for all your help, however since I was having so many problems working with MFSTools, I broke down and called Tivo to ask for a replacement. It will cost me but they will transfer the 'Life time' subscription to the new unit. 

Javier


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## generaltso (Nov 4, 2003)

Oh, you weren't trying to put a larger drive in a Series3?


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## 1283 (Sep 8, 2000)

generaltso said:


> Oh, you weren't trying to put a larger drive in a Series3?


No, he was talking about a 60GB drive.


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## generaltso (Nov 4, 2003)

Yeah, I see that now. I guess I just made an assumption based on the title of this thread.


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## WetBhndEars (Mar 30, 2005)

I guess there was a mis-understanding of what I needed to do. I was trying to backup a drive that might have been defective so that I could replace it with a new drive. If I was able to backup the existing drive, I would have replaced it with a larger drive. But since I could not even mount the drive either on a Linux box or a Window box . . . . 

Thanks again for all your help 

Javier


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## comp4pod (Dec 31, 2004)

generaltso, do you find the db35 seagates quieter than the other seagates you tried? How does the db35 compare to the 320gb WD, which I find to be a very quiet drive. Thanks!


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## generaltso (Nov 4, 2003)

Yes, the DB35 is definitely the quietest Seagate drive I have every heard. I would say that it's on par with the WD 320gb set to its quietest acoustic setting.


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## ThreeSoFar (May 24, 2002)

ThreeSoFar said:


> To do S3 upgrades, should I buy a $15 or so PCI SATA adapter for my upgrade PC (which has only IDE now)? And which one? Newegg has these: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...ption=sata+pci+adapter&Submit=ENE&N=0&Ntk=all
> 
> Or is the IDE to SATA adapter/converter thing the way to go?


Quick update, quoting my own post.

I bought this Rosewill RC-201 PCI SATA (RAID) adapter from newegg for under $20:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16816132007

The WD drive I bought (WD5000YS, coupon elsewhere in the forum may still be good) has the older style four prong power adapter, but of course I needed a SATA cable to connect it to the PCI adapter.

Booting the PC (an old Pentium 3 with Win98 on the C: drive, a vfat D: data drive, and now this new adapter in it), using Weaknees' SATA iso, I see the new WD drive under "dmesg | grep sd". Note that's "sd", as it's showing up as scsi.

I expect the upgrade should work fine, will report in a bit. Planning on a "-Tao" upgrade, leaving swap at 127.


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## ThreeSoFar (May 24, 2002)

Follow up to above: found mfslive.org via google, tried their tools and they failed. "mfsinfo /dev/sdb" failed to recognize the valid TiVo drive. Tried their "backup -Tao ... | restore....." method and that failed also. Seemed like backup refused to proceed.

Now trying Weaknees' sata boot CD and seems to be working.


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## spike2k5 (Feb 21, 2006)

ThreeSoFar said:


> Follow up to above: found mfslive.org via google, tried their tools and they failed. "mfsinfo /dev/sdb" failed to recognize the valid TiVo drive. Tried their "backup -Tao ... | restore....." method and that failed also. Seemed like backup refused to proceed.
> 
> Now trying Weaknees' sata boot CD and seems to be working.


My guess is that driver for the siI 3512 chipset on your pci card is not compiled in the linux kernel.
Did you find out from dmesg where your Tivo drive is?

sda, sdb, sdc, sdd


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## ThreeSoFar (May 24, 2002)

spike2k5 said:


> My guess is that driver for the siI 3512 chipset on your pci card is not compiled in the linux kernel.
> Did you find out from dmesg where your Tivo drive is?
> 
> sda, sdb, sdc, sdd


Yes, dmesg showed it fine. Their bootable iso may not have it right, is all.

The WK one let me mount the sda drive, write a vfat partition to it, and is now happily doing the -Tao backup|restore. (still--taking a long time)

It even let me do a mfsbackup -f9999, but my hard drive ran out of space for the 1.3G+ backup image it wanted to write.


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## spike2k5 (Feb 21, 2006)

ThreeSoFar said:


> Yes, dmesg showed it fine. Their bootable iso may not have it right, is all.
> 
> The WK one let me mount the sda drive, write a vfat partition to it, and is now happily doing the -Tao backup|restore. (still--taking a long time)
> 
> It even let me do a mfsbackup -f9999, but my hard drive ran out of space for the 1.3G+ backup image it wanted to write.


I just check the kernel config and siI chipset support is in the kernel so I'm not sure why it's failing to recognize. I guess I need to get one of those card and test it out.
WK uses 2.6 kernel so it will have better hardware support.
Mine uses 2.4 so less hardware support.
mfsbackup -Tao will take a while since you are doing the full copy.
mfsbackup -f 9999 shoun't take that long. It takes me about 2mintues and if you compress it, it shouldn't be that big. It should be around 200MB.

full command for wk is

mfsbackup -f 9999 -6so you_backup_file.bak /dev/sda


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## ThreeSoFar (May 24, 2002)

spike2k5 said:


> I just check the kernel config and siI chipset support is in the kernel so I'm not sure why it's failing to recognize. I guess I need to get one of those card and test it out.
> WK uses 2.6 kernel so it will have better hardware support.
> Mine uses 2.4 so less hardware support.
> mfsbackup -Tao will take a while since you are doing the full copy.
> ...


Had to bail on the .bak backup--my vfat drive didn't have that much space.


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## 1283 (Sep 8, 2000)

spike2k5 said:


> It should be around 200MB.


200MB? I don't think so. Mine is about 2GB.


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## ThreeSoFar (May 24, 2002)

ThreeSoFar said:


> Follow up to above: found mfslive.org via google, tried their tools and they failed. "mfsinfo /dev/sdb" failed to recognize the valid TiVo drive. Tried their "backup -Tao ... | restore....." method and that failed also. Seemed like backup refused to proceed.
> 
> Now trying Weaknees' sata boot CD and seems to be working.


As expected, the -Tao upgrade to my new 500GB WD SATA drive worked fine. Now have 65HD or 610 SD hours. The -Tao upgrade took close to seven hours.

The drive is not noticably louder.

So what does a 250G SATA drive sell for second hand these days?


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## spike2k5 (Feb 21, 2006)

c3 said:


> 200MB? I don't think so. Mine is about 2GB.


I forgot we are talking about S3.
You are right 2GB it is.


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## JamieP (Aug 3, 2004)

spike2k5 said:


> I forgot we are talking about S3.
> You are right 2GB it is.


You are probably picking up the "TiVo Video Tour" clips in the backup. You could use -l instead for a different way to specific what streams to skip (by size). Something like 40MB should be large enough to pick up all the backgrounds but small enough to skip over the TiVo Video Tour clips.

mfs-utils has an -s option in mfs_info that can scan your MFS and report back the largest size and fsid used in /Resource. Add one to these to use them as -l or -f options to the mfstools backup command. This will result in the smallest backup. I haven't tried it on an S3, but I assume it is still try that all the background tystreams are reference from somewhere under /Resource.


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