# Tivo HD 2TB with WinMFS?



## TivoRocks193 (Aug 10, 2005)

I've seen conflicting posts so I'll ask here.. does upgrading to a 2TB for a Tivo HD work with WinMFS or does it require "special" tools?

I know in the past it was not particularly easy to upgrade past 1TB, which is why a lot of people bought drives of eBay, but has this changed? Is upgrading a TiVo HD with 2TB the same as 1TB using WinMFS?


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## ThAbtO (Apr 6, 2000)

With the Tivo software at 11.0h or higher, it can support up to the full 2TB drive capacity using WinMFS, or MFStools. Prior to 11.0h, the max was about 1.2TB. 

My preference is WinMFS since there is little to no typing.


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

TivoRocks193 said:


> I've seen conflicting posts so I'll ask here.. does upgrading to a 2TB for a Tivo HD work with WinMFS or does it require "special" tools?
> 
> I know in the past it was not particularly easy to upgrade past 1TB, which is why a lot of people bought drives of eBay, but has this changed? Is upgrading a TiVo HD with 2TB the same as 1TB using WinMFS?


As indicated, first you make sure the current drive is up to version 11.0h or newer (most recent is 11.0m), or you make sure the truncated backup file (which will need to be a .tbk file to indicate that it was made by WinMFS and not some other program) was made from a drive that was at least updated as far as 11h.

Then you take that brand new drive and run the drive manufacturer's own diagnostic software long test before putting that drive into service.

While that's running you can take the lid off of your TiVo and eyeball the power supply capacitors closely for any signs of bulging or leakage, Series 2 and 3 platform TiVos are prone to that problem because long explanation.

When you copy a smaller drive to a larger one, or restore a backup image to a drive larger than the drive with which that model TiVo came equipped from the factory, WinMFS will eventually finish and point out that you have extra space and ask if you want to expand.

Tell it no, because sometimes doing it as part of that process fails and screws things up.

Make sure the drive that has been the target for the copy or restore is the one selected, then run

mfsinfo

and make sure everything looks okay.

You'll notice a partition on the end of the drive called an Apple Free partition.

Close out mfsinfo, and test the drive if you want to and come back later to expand or do it now.

Make sure it's the one selected and run

mfsadd

to expand into the space currently occupied by the Apple Free partition (which is really only the label that gets slapped onto unpartitioned space in an Apple Partition Map).

If it says something about creating a partition larger than 1TB or larger than 1.2TB, make sure it knows that you *do* want to do that.

You can use

mfsinfo

again to make sure it created a 3rd MFS pair, if you like.

Be sure you're running Windows XP SP3 or newer. Older versions might automatically put a DOS-type Master Boot Record on the new drive when they detect it, and you don't want Windows itself messing with the drive at all.

It's okay if it detects it, but don't go using any Windows programs to try to look at it (except WinMFS.exe, of course).


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## TivoRocks193 (Aug 10, 2005)

So 1.2TB used to be the limit, 2TB is OK with latest TiVo software.. What about 3Tb? Can TiVo HD or Series 3 use 3TB or is the limit 2?


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## sharper73 (Jun 20, 2008)

Don't you also need to make sure the swap Partition is at least 512mb for a 2tb HDD? Or is the default 128mb OK?


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## ThAbtO (Apr 6, 2000)

TivoRocks193 said:


> So 1.2TB used to be the limit, 2TB is OK with latest TiVo software.. What about 3Tb? Can TiVo HD or Series 3 use 3TB or is the limit 2?


AFAIK, 2TB is the limit.


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

TivoRocks193 said:


> So 1.2TB used to be the limit, 2TB is OK with latest TiVo software.. What about 3Tb? Can TiVo HD or Series 3 use 3TB or is the limit 2?


1.2TB (depending on whether we're talking digital or binary counting you might have seen it as 1TB elsewhere) was the partition size limit before 11.0h, and copying a 160GB or 250GB drive to a 2TB drive set you up to exceed that limit, but it's not a problem since "h".

Others have tried 2.5TB and 3TB drives in S3 platform models and even if you keep the space actually used below 2TB they just won't boot, so probably motherboard limit of some kind.


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

sharper73 said:


> Don't you also need to make sure the swap Partition is at least 512mb for a 2tb HDD? Or is the default 128mb OK?


The rule of thumb back in the Series 1 days was a MB of swap partition for every 2GB of hard drive.

The reasons for doing that were probably long superseded by the time the S3 platform came along, and a lot of people have upgraded to 2TB drives and left the swap the same size as whatever was on the stock drive and had no problems, but I like to use a 1000MB swap partition size on a 2TB drive because that's only room enough for about 15 minutes of best quality analog cable and I figure it's cheap insurance just in case anything ever comes up where the TiVo would need it.

We haven't been forced to digital cable and SDV Tuning Adapters yet, but the stories about them causing Garbage Collection problems lead me to believe that a bigger swap partition might come in handy in that situation, and again, as I said, cheap insurance.


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## TivoRocks193 (Aug 10, 2005)

Thanks again Unitron, your instructions were extremely helpful. Given the amount of things that have changed in recent years, I wasn't sure what info was reliable, and yours definitely worked! Upgraded TiVo HD (originally 160GB) from 1TB to 2TB using a WD20EURX and winmfs.

The only thing that caught me off guard was the 1.2TB warning after running mfsadd. If you answer "yes" it actually limits the drive to 1.2TB. I had to do it twice, answering "no" the second time to get 2TB. More my bad reading the prompt than anything else, I'm just surprised the approval answer was not "yes" as that's the way most prompts are written.


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## jmbach (Jan 1, 2009)

TivoRocks193 said:


> So 1.2TB used to be the limit, 2TB is OK with latest TiVo software.. What about 3Tb? Can TiVo HD or Series 3 use 3TB or is the limit 2?


2TB is the limit for S3 units unless there is a major software update. I have tried 3TB and it fails. Now you can copy a 2TB drive to a 3TB and it will work but as far as expanding up to 3TB, it is a no go.


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

jmbach said:


> 2TB is the limit for S3 units unless there is a major software update. I have tried 3TB and it fails. Now you can copy a 2TB drive to a 3TB and it will work but as far as expanding up to 3TB, it is a no go.


Tell me exactly how you copied a 2TB to a 3TB.

And whether you looked at the 3 afterwards with pdisk or mfsinfo.

I'm wondering whether the extra TB was noted in the partition map as an Apple Free partition or not.

Others around here have said that it won't boot with a 2.5 or 3TB drive, regardless of how much of it is used.

But if it'll boot with a 3, maybe whatever the new partition size limit since "h" is is the problem, in which case if there were a way to start off with bigger first and second MFS pairs before adding the 3rd pair...

And were you doing this on an original S3 (648) or an HD/HD XL? (652/658)?


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## jmbach (Jan 1, 2009)

First it was done with a 648. 648 has a 32bit MFS and cannot inherently go higher than 2TB but the booting OS does not have issues with it. I used dd to do the copy. The 648 booted and ran just fine. 

The second was actually a test to see if an HD could go to 3TB since it had a 64bit MFS. This was done two different ways. One was using JMFS to expand and the other was simply adding an extender drive to a 2TB image. Both failed.


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

jmbach said:


> First it was done with a 648. 648 has a 32bit MFS and cannot inherently go higher than 2TB but the booting OS does not have issues with it. I used dd to do the copy. The 648 booted and ran just fine.
> 
> The second was actually a test to see if an HD could go to 3TB since it had a 64bit MFS. This was done two different ways. One was using JMFS to expand and the other was simply adding an extender drive to a 2TB image. Both failed.


Thanks for the data points.

Since the 648s can use eSATA extenders not limited to the short list everything newer has to obey, has anyone established how big an external drive the 648 can use, and whether it's limited to only using it with the original internal?


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## jmbach (Jan 1, 2009)

The MFS in the 648s is 32bit. So total MFS space is limited to 2TB both external and internal.


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