# Newbie Question - Clone drive with Clonezilla



## dmoss (Sep 22, 2002)

Is there a Tivo specific guide on using Clonezilla to clone a tivo drive of like size (2TB)? Does the destination drive need to be formatted or partitioned a certain way before using the software? TIA.


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## mr.unnatural (Feb 2, 2006)

Most 3rd party cloning programs will not work with Tivo drives. There are specific freeware tools available for performing this task so I suggest you give one of them a try. There are sticky threads in at least one of these sections that provide you with all the information you need to perform a drive upgrade, including making a copy of your existing drive.


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## dmoss (Sep 22, 2002)

Thanks, ended up using dd_rescue which was simple but took about 9 hours to clone 2tb premiere drive.


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## ronsch (Sep 7, 2001)

dmoss said:


> Thanks, ended up using dd_rescue which was simple but took about 9 hours to clone 2tb premiere drive.


Nine hours for a 2TB drive isn't bad at all.....


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## dmoss (Sep 22, 2002)

Just a quick update. I upgraded three premiere units. The 2TB drives I used were newegg item N82E16822152202 Samsung EcoGreen drives because they were cheap. They seem to be working very well and are completely silent, the boxes also are not even warm to the touch? I did not change any setting on them like head park. I used the MFSLive boot disk from MFSlive. I plugged my original 2TB drive that I purchased into sata port 0 (which gave it sda) and the samsung drive right out of the box into sata port 1 (which gave it sdb). Then booted from cd and did the dd_rescue -A -v /dev/sda /dev/sdb (see dd_rescue guide on MFSlive site). It took about 8-9 hour for each drive. I also made a copy on a WD drive (the one identical to the purchased drive) that I had disabled head park (with wdidle3), and it took about 14 hours. I'm not sure why that drive was so much slower. It was the first time I had used dd_rescue and I got worried when the screen went black after the first 45 min or hour. I left it running and read that you can wake the screen back up by hitting the "alt" key. I had never powered the premiere units on and kept all the original drives in case I needed to send in for warranty. I also did not use the original purchased drive. They have not updated to 14.5 but are very responsive and I've had no problems with lockups or delays with the HD menu. The three boxes are networked with netgear MoCa boxes and I have very fast internet (107 mps from suddenlink). Netflix and Tivo desktop so far have worked flawlessly.


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## mellenfan (Oct 22, 2008)

Thanks for the info....please keep us posted if you notice anything odd with the drives.


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## UTA_MAVERICK (Apr 28, 2005)

I have yet to upgrade my TiVo Premeire (series 4) box to larger storage. I have done upgrades on Series One, Series Two boxes, but read that there are major issues with using existing tools on the new boxes.  I'm a bit confused if it is safe to upgrade or should I wait?

From dmoss' comments I am encouraged to try a dd copy or dd restore to the larger drive and see what happens from there. Will I still need to do something else like mfsadd to expand to the full usable space? Was the only real tool needed the MFSlive cd? If so then I don't need to do a dd copy or dd restore unless I want a backup for an emergency? (I'm putting the virgin drive away so I can always go back to it if needed). 

It's been a long time since I did the last Series Two box upgrade, I'm a bit rusty. I have been very lucky with 2+ years on a Seagate Barracuda drive in the Series Two and no problems 24/7, I credit the UPS to part of the reason (no interruptions, surges).

Just want to make sure I have the procedure right before I start the process. 

Thanks for the feedback...


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