# WinMFS help needed please?



## bnm81002 (Oct 3, 2004)

I accidentally initialized both the Tivo drive and the backup drive on my laptop, how can I un-initialize both drives so that I can use WinMFS to do a copy of the Tivo drive to the backupdrive? thanks


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

bnm81002 said:


> I accidentally initialized both the Tivo drive and the backup drive on my laptop, how can I un-initialize both drives so that I can use WinMFS to do a copy of the Tivo drive to the backupdrive? thanks


Start by providing a more informative definition of initialize.

Do you mean that you let Windows write a Master Boot Record to them?

What do you mean by backup drive?

Is that a FAT32 or NTFS formatted drive on which you keep truncated TiVo images, or an unformatted drive you were going to use to upgrade your TiVo with more space?


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## bnm81002 (Oct 3, 2004)

I right clicked both drives and initialized them through Windows Management, no I didn't Master boot either drive, I want to downgrade from a 1TB Tivo drive to a 400GB drive via MFScopy, the drives are both NTFS


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## lillevig (Dec 7, 2010)

bnm81002 said:


> I right clicked both drives and initialized them through Windows Management, no I didn't Master boot either drive, I want to downgrade from a 1TB Tivo drive to a 400GB drive via MFScopy, the drives are both NTFS


WinMFS will allow you to delete the format of the drive. You may have to exit WinMFS, physically disconnect the drive, reconnect the drive, and restart WinMFS to get it to properly accept it. How do you plan to go to a smaller drive? I don't think you can do that with MFScopy. If you aren't trying to save anything on the drive, then let us know your exact Tivo model and we can probably steer you to a fresh image.


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

bnm81002 said:


> I right clicked both drives and initialized them through Windows Management, no I didn't Master boot either drive, I want to downgrade from a 1TB Tivo drive to a 400GB drive via MFScopy, the drives are both NTFS


Okay, before we make the mistake I inadvertently helped someone else make because I was unaware of a previous mistake of theirs, tell me the model number of the TiVo (it should be on the sticker on the back and start with TCD unless it's not a TiVo-brand TiVo, and even then it should still be on the sticker on the back).

While you're at it, tell me the brand and model number of the 2 hard drives as well.

WinMFS can fix your problem, but let's be sure we don't create another one.


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## bnm81002 (Oct 3, 2004)

unitron said:


> Okay, before we make the mistake I inadvertently helped someone else make because I was unaware of a previous mistake of theirs, tell me the model number of the TiVo (it should be on the sticker on the back and start with TCD unless it's not a TiVo-brand TiVo, and even then it should still be on the sticker on the back).
> 
> While you're at it, tell me the brand and model number of the 2 hard drives as well.
> 
> WinMFS can fix your problem, but let's be sure we don't create another one.


it's the old DTivo model Samsung SIR-4040R, Seagate drives 1TB(SATA) and 400GB(PATA), by the way I'm using my laptop to do the downgrade along with an external enclosure and an IDE to USB adapter as well


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

bnm81002 said:


> it's the old DTivo model Samsung SIR-4040R, Seagate drives 1TB(SATA) and 400GB(PATA), by the way I'm using my laptop to do the downgrade along with an external enclosure and an IDE to USB adapter as well


Okay, as best I can tell, that's a Series 2, non-byte swapped, "optimized" partition layout unit.

So, hook the 1TB drive most recently in the TiVo to the PC, boot into Windows, open no Windows programs, except for WinMFS.

Open WinMFS, select drive (you might have to check show mounted drives), make sure you've chosen the correct drive, see if it reports it as a Series 2 or 3 drive. Apparently it determines that by seeing if the partition starting at block 64 is an MFS Media partition (S2 and up "optimized" layout style) or an image bootstrap partition (original S1 layout).

See if it'll let you click on mfsinfo, if so notice if it says if it boots from partitions 3 and 4 or 6 and 7.

Click on fix boot or fix bootpage, I can never remember the exact name.

It'll give you 2 options.

Option 1 will write a bootpage (the part Windows overwrote with a Master Boot Record) with 3 and 4 set as the boot partitions.

Option 2 will do that, but set 6 and 7 as the boot partitions.

If mfsinfo told you which it was previously set to use, choose the option that uses the same ones.

If if didn't, then start with option 1.

Go ahead and click on fix swap after that.

Exit, power down, test drive in TiVo.

If it doesn't seem right, go back and use the other option and try it in the TiVo again.

If that's even worse, go back and re-run the option first chosen, put it back in the TiVo, and try Kickstart 58.

By the way, exactly which adapter with which brand chipset did you use with that 1TB drive?


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## bnm81002 (Oct 3, 2004)

I think you're getting confused about my situation, I'm trying to downgrade from a 1TB drive to a 400GB drive, I deleted as many recordings to make sure I can fit the remaining recordings onto the 400 drive, I've been using the 1TB as my drive for the DTivo receiver, I tried using MFScopy but for some reason it never finished I left my laptop running with the WINMFS program for well over 24 hours, so I deceide to go into Windows Management to look at the 2 drives but accidentally initialized both drives, so now WINMFS sees both drives as Windows and not the 1TB as a Tivo Series 2 one

PS- are you saying that the 1TB won't work in my DTivo receiver now?


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

bnm81002 said:


> I think you're getting confused about my situation, I'm trying to downgrade from a 1TB drive to a 400GB drive, I deleted as many recordings to make sure I can fit the remaining recordings onto the 400 drive, I've been using the 1TB as my drive for the DTivo receiver, I tried using MFScopy but for some reason it never finished I left my laptop running with the WINMFS program for well over 24 hours, so I deceide to go into Windows Management to look at the 2 drives but accidentally initialized both drives, so now WINMFS sees both drives as Windows and not the 1TB as a Tivo Series 2 one
> 
> PS- are you saying that the 1TB won't work in my DTivo receiver now?


Okay, you had the 1TB drive in the TiVo, correct?

You want to put the 400GB in the TiVo in its place, correct?

The TiVo uses a version of the Apple Partition Map, rather than the Master Boot Record and Master Partition Table used on the first IBM-compatible PCs.

Windows can't read the APM or a TiVo drive.

When you made the mistake of letting Windows "initialize" what it thought were empty drives, it wrote the structure of a Master Boot Record to the front of the drives, where the TiVo's Bootpage is supposed to be, but since you didn't actually create any DOS/Windows partitions (I hope) on those drives, it didn't overwrite the rest of the APM, or any of the actual TiVo-specific partitions, so the one that was in the TiVo is saveable with fix bootpage.

The TiVo stuff is still there, we just have to restore the directions on how to get to it.

So let's get the drive most recently used in the TiVo back to where it can be used in the TiVo, and then we'll go from there.


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## bnm81002 (Oct 3, 2004)

yes I was using the 1TB drive, yes I wanna use the 400GB in place of the 1TB drive, what do I have to do now? thanks for the help


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

bnm81002 said:


> yes I was using the 1TB drive, yes I wanna use the 400GB in place of the 1TB drive, what do I have to do now? thanks for the help


Hook the 1TB drive to the PC, boot into Windows, but do not open any Windows programs. (especially programs that access the drives attached to the computer)

Open WinMFS (which technically isn't a Windows program, it's just a program that runs on Windows, and the only one on your computer that specifically knows not to screw up TiVo drives)

Click Select Drive.

You may have to check the "show mounted drives" checkbox to get the 1TB Seagate to show up.

Make sure the drive you select is the one that was in the TiVo, and not the one permanently mounted in the computer from which you run Windows.

See if WinMFS reports it as a Series 2 or 3 drive. It may not, that's okay, as long as it doesn't specifically say it's a Series 1 drive.

It can call it a watermelon, as long as it doesn't say that it's a Series 1 drive.

See if it'll let you click on mfsinfo, if so, notice if it says if it boots from partitions 3 and 4, or from 6 and 7.

It might tell you it's not a TiVo drive, because it has Windows/DOS style data on the first sector.

As long as it will let you select the drive, and access the menu items along the top, you should be okay.

Click on fix boot or fix bootpage, I can never remember the exact name.

It'll give you 2 options.

Option 1 will write a bootpage (the part Windows overwrote with a Master Boot Record) with 3 and 4 set as the boot partitions and 6 and 7 as the alternates/backups.

Option 2 will do that, except that it will set 6 and 7 as the boot partitions and 3 and 4 as the alternates.

If mfsinfo told you which it was previously set to use, choose the option that uses the same ones.

If if didn't, then start with option 1.

Go ahead and click on fix swap after that.

Exit, power down, test drive in TiVo.

If it doesn't seem right, go back and use the other option and try it in the TiVo again.

If that's even worse, go back and re-run the option first chosen, put it back in the TiVo, and try Kickstart 58.

After we get the drive most recently used in the TiVo back to where it can be used in the TiVo we'll deal with the other stuff.


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## bnm81002 (Oct 3, 2004)

OK I did option 1 and the fix swap, I really don't wanna test out the drive because it's in an external enclosure and I don't wanna un install the drive from it, can I go on to downgrading to the 400GB drive please? thanks

I want to save the recordings too as well



unitron said:


> Option 1 will write a bootpage (the part Windows overwrote with a Master Boot Record) with 3 and 4 set as the boot partitions and 6 and 7 as the alternates/backups.
> 
> Option 2 will do that, except that it will set 6 and 7 as the boot partitions and 3 and 4 as the alternates.
> 
> ...


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

bnm81002 said:


> OK I did option 1 and the fix swap, I really don't wanna test out the drive because it's in an external enclosure and I don't wanna un install the drive from it, can I go on to downgrading to the 400GB drive please? thanks
> 
> I want to save the recordings too as well


Click on mfsinfo and copy and paste the results here.


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## bnm81002 (Oct 3, 2004)

unitron said:


> Click on mfsinfo and copy and paste the results here.





Spoiler



Mfsinfo (Drive 1)

Boot Page
Boot Page: root=/dev/hda4
Active Boot Partition: 3 Active Root Partition: 4
Backup Boot Partition: 6 Backup Root Partition: 7

MFS Super Header
state=0 magic=abbafeed
devlist=/dev/hda10 /dev/hda11 /dev/hda12 /dev/hda13 /dev/hda14 /dev/hda15
zonemap_ptr=1121 total_secs=1951683584

Zone Maps
Z0:	type=0
map_start=1121 map_size=1 backup_map_start=1048574
next_map_start=525410 next_map_size=9 next_backup_map_start=1048565
zone_first=1122 zone_last=525409 zone_size=524288 min(chunk)=524288
free=524288 checksum=2ea2b9e8 logstamp=46263095 num_bitmap=1
Z1:	type=2
map_start=525410 map_size=9 backup_map_start=1048565
next_map_start=525419 next_map_size=34 next_backup_map_start=1048531
zone_first=1048576 zone_last=33189887 zone_size=32141312 min(chunk)=2048
free=2084864 checksum=cb570c4 logstamp=46263141 num_bitmap=15
Z2:	type=1
map_start=525419 map_size=34 backup_map_start=1048531
next_map_start=33190912 next_map_size=1 next_backup_map_start=34239487
zone_first=525453 zone_last=1048524 zone_size=523072 min(chunk)=8
free=312144 checksum=4d909e73 logstamp=46301341 num_bitmap=17
Z3:	type=0
map_start=33190912 map_size=1 backup_map_start=34239487
next_map_start=33715201 next_map_size=18 next_backup_map_start=34239469
zone_first=33190913 zone_last=33715200 zone_size=524288 min(chunk)=524288
free=524288 checksum=795ad211 logstamp=46263095 num_bitmap=1
Z4:	type=2
map_start=33715201 map_size=18 backup_map_start=34239469
next_map_start=33715219 next_map_size=34 next_backup_map_start=34239435
zone_first=34239488 zone_last=77229055 zone_size=42989568 min(chunk)=2048
free=4061184 checksum=7b06bb23 logstamp=46263095 num_bitmap=16
Z5:	type=1
map_start=33715219 map_size=34 backup_map_start=34239435
next_map_start=77230081 next_map_size=9 next_backup_map_start=77231094
zone_first=33715253 zone_last=34239428 zone_size=524176 min(chunk)=8
free=494016 checksum=7f65f174 logstamp=46298022 num_bitmap=17
Z6:	type=2
map_start=77230081 map_size=9 backup_map_start=77231094
next_map_start=77230090 next_map_size=18 next_backup_map_start=77231076
zone_first=77231104 zone_last=487322623 zone_size=410091520 min(chunk)=32768
free=113147904 checksum=a11406cd logstamp=46290111 num_bitmap=15
Z7:	type=2
map_start=77230090 map_size=18 backup_map_start=77231076
next_map_start=77230108 next_map_size=34 next_backup_map_start=77231042
zone_first=487322624 zone_last=975442943 zone_size=488120320 min(chunk)=20480
free=216698880 checksum=7bf6aad7 logstamp=46263095 num_bitmap=16
Z8:	type=2
map_start=77230108 map_size=34 backup_map_start=77231042
next_map_start=0 next_map_size=0 next_backup_map_start=2863311530
zone_first=975442944 zone_last=1951683583 zone_size=976240640 min(chunk)=20480
free=783052800 checksum=8a76c6a8 logstamp=46263095 num_bitmap=17

Partition Maps
#: type name length base ( size )
1 Apple_partition_map Apple [email protected] ( 31.5K)
2 Image Bootstrap 1 [email protected] ( 512.0 )
3 Image Kernel 1 [email protected] ( 4.0M)
4 Ext2 Root 1 [email protected] ( 128.0M)
5 Image Bootstrap 2 [email protected] ( 2.0M)
6 Image Kernel 2 [email protected] ( 2.0M)
7 Ext2 Root 2 [email protected] ( 128.0M)
8 Swap Linux swap [email protected] ( 500.0M)
9 Ext2 /var [email protected] ( 128.0M)
10 MFS MFS application region [email protected] ( 512.0M)
11 MFS MFS media region [email protected] ( 15.3G)
12 MFS MFS application region 2 [email protected] ( 512.0M)
13 MFS MFS media region 2 [email protected]  ( 20.5G)
14 MFS MFS App by Winmfs [email protected] ( 512.0K)
15 MFS MFS Expanded by Winmfs [email protected] ( 893.8G)

Total SA SD Hours: 1040	Total DTV SD Hours: 908 57 % Free
Software: 6.2a-01-2-381	Tivo Model: not set in MFS


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

bnm81002 said:


> Spoiler
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Okay, that looks good.

How big a hard drive do you have in the computer, the one Windows is on?

I'm trying to figure out how we're going to manage to go from a bigger drive to a smaller one (and save the recordings, that's going to be the tricky part) when the WinMFS software is basically designed to do the opposite.


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## bnm81002 (Oct 3, 2004)

unitron said:


> Okay, that looks good.
> 
> How big a hard drive do you have in the computer, the one Windows is on?
> 
> I'm trying to figure out how we're going to manage to go from a bigger drive to a smaller one (and save the recordings, that's going to be the tricky part) when the WinMFS software is basically designed to do the opposite.


are you sure about WinMFS not able to save recordings?
http://www.mfslive.org/winmfs/


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

bnm81002 said:


> are you sure about WinMFS not able to save recordings?
> http://www.mfslive.org/winmfs/


It can save recordings just fine if you're going from a smaller drive to a larger drive, it's doing it the other way around for which I can't find any documentation.

If this were a non-satellite TiVo you could use TiVo Desktop to copy them off to computer one show at a time, and copy them back later, but it doesn't work with DirecTiVos.

I think there is some "hacker" written software that allows "extraction" from sat-TiVos, but that's very complicated, above my head stuff.

Partitions 10 through 15 are the ones which will have to be shrunk, especially #15.

I don't know if WinMFS can search inside those partitions or not to determine what's recordings or other TiVo stuff, and what's empty space, or how much computing power it will use to do it if it can, or how long it will take to do that.

If you've deleted enough shows that what remains is small enough to fit on a 400GB drive, then probably it'll reproduce partitions 2 through 13 exactly as they are and re-write partition 1, which is the partition map that shows which partition is where and how big it is (it's kind of like making the table of contents of a book the first chapter of that book, but that's how the Apple scheme does it--Tivo chose that instead of the DOS/Windows way because they were using the same kind of processor as the early Apples that had hard drives used, so there was familiarity with making the two work together).

Partitions 1 through 13 are the same as what was on the original 40GB drive that Samsung left the factory with.

The way Tivo drives get expanded is usually by adding another MFS application region partition and media region partition instead of making the ones already there larger.

Apparently WinMFS can do some partition size changing that the Linux-based command line interface bootable cd software, MFS Live (successor to the original MFS Tools) isn't designed to do.

That is, apparently it can make partition 15 bigger, if you're expanding an already expanded drive.

(TiVo's have a 16 partition per drive limit--and an overall 12 MFS partition per machine limit--so you can't add another MFS pair, that would make 17 partitions on one drive)

Whether it can do it in reverse I don't know and can't find anything in writing anywhere that says one way or the other.

We may wind up learning something from your experiences.

WinMFS will overwrite whatever's on your target drive, so the DOS/Windows stuff on the 400GB doesn't need to be worried about.

Even when doing "normal" stuff, like going from a smaller drive to a larger one, WinMFS can appear to "freeze" when it actually hasn't and you just have to leave it alone and let it finish what it's doing.

At this point the only thing I can tell you is try it and be prepared to wait a long time for it to try to do it.

If it doesn't give you an error message when you tell it to do mfscopy from the 1TB to the 400GB, then I guess it thinks it can, so all we can do is tell it to and see what happens.

It should make no changes to the source drive, the 1TB, so if it doesn't finish in a day or so, you can stop and not be any worse off and we can see if we can figure out another way to do it while saving your shows.

Just be sure you get it right when you tell WinMFS which is the source drive, and which is the target.


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## bnm81002 (Oct 3, 2004)

I tried it but it never got past 6 bars in the progress screen, I left it running for over 24 hours too, do you think it takes longer then to complete?


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

bnm81002 said:


> I tried it but it never got past 6 bars in the progress screen, I left it running for over 24 hours too, do you think it takes longer then to complete?


I honestly don't know, because I've never heard of anyone trying to do what you're trying to do, and I'm surprised you didn't get a "target drive too small" error message the first time.

(What you're trying to do would be quite easy if you weren't trying to save recordings)

You can go here:

http://mfslive.org/forums/index.php

sign up for an account, and post a question in the WinMFS Support forum and hope spike happens to still be active enough to see it and respond. If anyone could tell you, it would be him, since he wrote it.

At least we got the 1TB back where it will work.

Are you trying to free up that 1TB for other storage duties because the price of a new one is so ridiculous these days?


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## bnm81002 (Oct 3, 2004)

it seems that the author of MFSlive is no where in sight from the looks of the forums, I wanna use that 1TB drive because its a SATA version plus since I have FIOS service, I don't use Directv anymore, so I was hoping to at least downgrade and save the recordings for future viewing, 
I'm surprised why it wouldn't work since the 400GB drive will have enough capacity for all of the stuff in the 1TB drive, since I did reduce the recordings to a lesser amount to fit in the 400GB drive


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

bnm81002 said:


> it seems that the author of MFSlive is no one in sight from the looks of the forums, I wanna use that 1TB drive because its a SATA version plus since I have FIOS service, I don't use Directv anymore, so I was hoping to at least downgrade and save the recordings for future viewing,
> I'm surprised why it wouldn't work since the 400GB drive will have enough capacity for all of the stuff in the 1TB drive, since I did reduce the recordings to a lesser amount to fit in the 400GB drive


If it weren't for the TiVo's proprietary file system about which so much less is known than Microsoft's or Apple's proprietary file systems, perhaps it could be done the way you would with computer drives.

With the TiVo, it's not just how few shows you still have on there, but where on those media partitions they are.

If you have any saved from before the 40GB to 1TB upgrade, they'll be on 11 and/or 13, but the ones recorded after could, for all I know, be partially in more than one of those 3 media partitions (11, 13, 15), and for all I know, WinMFS might be able to re-assemble the parts into a smaller overall space, but would take a week to do the math to figure out how to do it.

You never did say which SATA/IDE adapter you're using on that 1TB drive.


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## bnm81002 (Oct 3, 2004)

what you mean adapter on the 1TB drive? for the DTivo receiver use?


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

bnm81002 said:


> what you mean adapter on the 1TB drive? for the DTivo receiver use?


Doesn't that Samsung use a PATA/IDE hard drive?

Don't you have to use an adapter to use a SATA drive in it?


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## bnm81002 (Oct 3, 2004)

unitron said:


> Doesn't that Samsung use a PATA/IDE hard drive?
> 
> Don't you have to use an adapter to use a SATA drive in it?


oh its the one I got on EBAY, 
http://www.ebay.com/itm/NEW-2-5-3-5-Drive-SATA-ATA-IDE-Converter-Adapter-/130511409440?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item1e63161120#ht_483wt_1174


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## bnm81002 (Oct 3, 2004)

unitron said:


> If it weren't for the TiVo's proprietary file system about which so much less is known that Microsoft's or Apple's proprietary file systems, perhaps it could be done the way you would with computer drives.
> 
> With the TiVo, it's not just how few shows you still have on there, but where on those media partitions they are.
> 
> ...


but how come it reached 6 bars in the progress screen then?


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

bnm81002 said:


> but how come it reached 6 bars in the progress screen then?


That could have been it copying partitions 1-13 (or 14) and then finding itself stumped when there wasn't enough room for #15.

It could be that spike didn't code it to check for the going from bigger to smaller situation because he didn't expect anyone to do that.

Or maybe it got that far copying 1-13 and then bogged down doing the computation to figure out how to get the shows out and put them in a smaller partition.

Not being the guy who wrote it, I just don't know.


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## bnm81002 (Oct 3, 2004)

ok I tried one more time, I started on 1-19-12 and it finally finished today 2-12-12 but now the receiver is stuck on acquiring Satellite information with 0% complete, what could be the problem now? also, I cannot watch any of the recordings either? should the drive be set to the Master setting? thanks


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

bnm81002 said:


> ok I tried one more time, I started on 1-19-12 and it finally finished today 2-12-12 but now the receiver is stuck on acquiring Satellite information with 0% complete, what could be the problem now? also, I cannot watch any of the recordings either? should the drive be set to the Master setting? thanks


Are you saying that WinMFS ran from the 19th of January until the 12th of February, but it actually did finish, and the 400GB drive actually boots in the TiVo?


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## bnm81002 (Oct 3, 2004)

unitron said:


> Are you saying that WinMFS ran from the 19th of January until the 12th of February, but it actually did finish, and the 400GB drive actually boots in the TiVo?


yes but it stays frozen at the acquiring satellite info screen with 0% complete but I can't see any of the saved recordings, I do have the drive set at the Master setting, is it suppose to be that or with the little black thing not in the drive?


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

bnm81002 said:


> yes but it stays frozen at the acquiring satellite info screen with 0% complete but I can't see any of the saved recordings, I do have the drive set at the Master setting, is it suppose to be that or with the little black thing not in the drive?


WOW!

25 days.

WOW!

and it actually successfully finished.

It should either be jumpered as Master or Cable Select.

If it uses a 40 pin 40 conductor cable, it should be jumpered as Master.

If it's a 40 pin 80 conductor cable, then it may be okay jumpered as Master or it may need to be jumpered Cable Select.

Whatever way you have it, if the TiVo actually boots up, then that means it can find the hard drive, and that means it's okay jumpered that way.

I have no experience with Satellite TiVos.

Is that acquiring satellite information screen something that you should see before or after you see any opening TiVo animation clip and the main TiVo menu?

If that's the first screen that shows when you plug in a known good unit, maybe it's not seeing the drive after all.

Have you tried plugging it in without the drive data cable attached?

What do you get then?

If it hasn't acquired that satellite info yet it probably isn't going to do so until something is changed, so you can probably go ahead and pull the plug.

Also, did you carefully examine the power supply capacitors when you had the unit open?

Finally, this has nothing to do with your current situation, but if you got that 1TB drive to work in that unit using the particular SATA/IDE adapter you indicated, it was a miracle, if the pictures on the eBay listing are accurate.

That's the one with the Sunplus chipset, which is famous for not working in TiVos.


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## bnm81002 (Oct 3, 2004)

ok got the acquiring satellite info solved, had the 2 cables connected wrong, but the recordings doesn't show, tried several of them but it all asked if I want to delete it now, strange that all of the recordings are displayed but can't be played


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

bnm81002 said:


> ok got the acquiring satellite info solved, had the 2 cables connected wrong, but the recordings doesn't show, tried several of them but it all asked if I want to delete it now, strange that all of the recordings are displayed but can't be played


Okay, apparently what happened is the database of the recordings was preserved but not the recordings themselves. I've seen that before.

Since that model doesn't do networking you can't re-install the 1TB and use TiVo Desktop to copy the shows to computer, so short of some hacking that's beyond my knowledge and abilities, the only solution I see is to re-install the 1TB and watch up everything.

As for that hacking, I don't know for sure if it's possible on that model or not, but it would be discussed on the site which may not be named on this site.

Could you use the mfsinfo feature on WinMFS and copy paste the results here for both the 1TB drive and the 400?

That way I might be able to get an idea of just what WinMFS did do during those 25 days. Probably won't help solve your problem but the knowledge might come in handy for me some day.


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

bnm81002 said:


> ok got the acquiring satellite info solved, had the 2 cables connected wrong, but the recordings doesn't show, tried several of them but it all asked if I want to delete it now, strange that all of the recordings are displayed but can't be played


And another thing, is that "acquiring satellite info" thing something that comes up first, or only after the TiVo boots up and loads the TiVo operating software into memory?


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## bnm81002 (Oct 3, 2004)

unitron said:


> And another thing, is that "acquiring satellite info" thing something that comes up first, or only after the TiVo boots up and loads the TiVo operating software into memory?


afterwards, it's the last thing before you see any channel at all


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## bnm81002 (Oct 3, 2004)

unitron said:


> Okay, apparently what happened is the database of the recordings was preserved but not the recordings themselves. I've seen that before.
> 
> Since that model doesn't do networking you can't re-install the 1TB and use TiVo Desktop to copy the shows to computer, so short of some hacking that's beyond my knowledge and abilities, the only solution I see is to re-install the 1TB and watch up everything.
> 
> ...


I figured as much, since going from large to smaller drive probably wouldn't preserve any recordings


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

bnm81002 said:


> afterwards, it's the last thing before you see any channel at all


So can you boot up and get to TiVo Central before that completes?


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