# Weaknees drive image software



## rcompart (Sep 28, 2006)

Does anyone know how to setup a brand new drive the same way weaknees does so that you just pop it in with your other drive and it marries the two together. I have a laptop and USB to PATA adapter and I want to image the drive that way so I don't have to mess around with connecting both drives to the computer. I'm not worried about saving the original drive or making a backup. I just want to take the 500GB drive I just bought and pop t in my tivo with no headaches. I already have the series 2 DT tivo with 80GB and I want to add the 500GB drive to it. Does anyone have the weaknees cd or whatever so that I just image the 500GB?

Thanks.

[EDIT] Sorry it posted twice.


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## Leon WIlkinson (Feb 13, 2000)

This is a lnk forInstant cake  which is $20 CD that will will allow you to get your 500 GB HD ready to install. If you have TiVo Desktop you can just transfer your current shows to a computer, then move them back to the new hard drive .

The top thread will guide you step by step, if would like to upgraded it yourself.

*You can not just take a second drive ,"Even if it was TiVo ready." Then add it to a pre-existing TiVo drive!!!*

I would have to search and see if you could even get a USB to PATA to do the Upgrade, my bet is no-way that would work.


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## mick66 (Oct 15, 2004)

rcompart said:


> [EDIT] Sorry it posted twice.


Not by itself it didn't - 46 minutes apart.

And No, the usb to pata adapter will not work. You'll have to open your desktop pc.


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## jrock (Aug 27, 2002)

Will this TiVo Series 3 upgrade technique work for the HR10-250?

http://www.bumwine.com/tivo.html

It uses DD to copy the drive from a 250 gig to a 500 gig programs and all then mfstools to expand the drive.

I was able to use this for my new series 3 and it works great. I have an HR10-250 and I purchased the $199 Weaknees upgrade a while back but wanted to wait for the 6.3 upgrade before I add it in case there are any issues.

Now I am wondering if I can upgrade the 250 gb drive with a 500gb replacement using that dd/mfstools method then add the 300 gb weaknees add on to that and have basically the same as the weaknees dual 400 gb setup (103 HD, 693 SD Hours).

Then I would be able to save tons of recordings and be able to get rid of my old HDVR2.

-Joe


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## wscannell (Dec 7, 2003)

That method will work, but it comes with the inability to increase the swap space. You may find that the amount of swap originally provided will not be adequate. The best method is a piped mfsbackup to mfsrestore that allows increasing the swap space. Check out these instructions: http://tivo.upgrade-instructions.com/index.php


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## jrock (Aug 27, 2002)

Hmm, I have seen a debate on the forum of people saying you need to change the swap and others saying you don't. What differences will it make?

The other method seems way more complicated lol. Is there a simple command or tool you can use to just change the swap size after doing the bumwine dd method?

-Joe


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## wscannell (Dec 7, 2003)

No. The swap space is actually a partition on the hard drive. Once it is created, it would be a lot of work to move things around to increase the size of the partition. The easiest method is the piped mfsbackup to mfsrestore.

Most of the discussion about swap involves whether you should go larger than 127 or not. If you go larger, you need to run tpip to initialize the swap. You need larger than the standard swap. 127 is a pretty good number. Swap is used during normal operation and more swap is needed to recover from a green screen of death where the TiVo is trying to fix something on the hard drive.


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## classicsat (Feb 18, 2004)

Standard TiVo upgrade techniques and rules work for the HR10-250, as it uses a PATA drive. The S3 is diffrerent, as it uses SATA, which adds complications.

For adding a 500 GB drive to and 80 GB drive, don't, just replace it. The risk isn't worth it.


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## jrock (Aug 27, 2002)

I got the 400 GB drive and started the Weaknees process about 5 hours ago and it's only at 10% now so this looks like it's going to take about 2 days to do this backup from the 250 GB to 400 GB drive. Is this normal?

*Update* It's now been about 19 hours and at 45% looks like I'm going to miss some recordings tonight  

-Joe


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## wscannell (Dec 7, 2003)

You probably need to turn on DMA on each of the drives: (e.g. hdparm -d1 /dev/hdX)

In addition, the two drives should be on separate IDE channels.

However, the process is so far along, you may not want to stop it. You may not gain any time by restarting with DMA on.


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## jrock (Aug 27, 2002)

wscannell said:


> You probably need to turn on DMA on each of the drives: (e.g. hdparm -d1 /dev/hdX)
> 
> In addition, the two drives should be on separate IDE channels.
> 
> However, the process is so far along, you may not want to stop it. You may not gain any time by restarting with DMA on.


It finally finished this morning. I put it all back together to test it and there is 49 hours now.

So I decided to add the weaknees upgrade 300 GB drive I have to it. I have done them before and they have always worked wonderful. I added the drive and it doesn't see the second one now.

Do I have to do something to the weaknees drive since I upgraded the original drive from 250GB to 400GB?

-Joe


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## wscannell (Dec 7, 2003)

The add-on drive is "married" to the original drive that you had in the TiVo. This happens when you install it for the first time in the TiVo. You will need to reload the drive using mfsadd. Put the two drives in your PC(you need to put each drive on a separate IDE controller), boot your mfstools CD. Then use

mfsadd -x -r 4 /dev/hdX /dev/hdY

Substitute the correct letters for X and Y. This procedure will erase whatever is on the B drive.


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## jrock (Aug 27, 2002)

I never added the second drive though until now, I just took it out of the box. Why would it marry itself to the 250 GB drive and not the 400 GB drive on it's very first use? Is this an automatic process that occurs or is it set to only work with a 250 GB drive?


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## wscannell (Dec 7, 2003)

OK - If you have never put the drive in a TiVo, it will marry itself to the drive when you first install it. I had thought that you had already had it in the TiVo.


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## jrock (Aug 27, 2002)

That's what I thought but it didn't work. Maybe it's because I upgraded from the 250GB A drive to a 400GB drive and ended up adding extra partitions to the A drive. I just took the 2 drives out, put them in the PC and ran the command you posted and now it's all working correctly.

89 HD / 593 SD hours

Thanks for the help.

-Joe


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