# frozen tivo after 2.5.5a download



## kezzy1966 (Nov 8, 2002)

Hi, I think I may have made a big **** up and I would appreciate any help.

I modified my uk tivo years ago to 2 disks (i think 160gb each?) and it has been working great.

A couple of weeks ago I got hold of a sony tv but it would not sync into the tivo on rf or scart. I presume this is the well documented problem started with the philips tv and the screwed up teletext signal. So I thought I would get 2.5.5a.

Anyway finally got Tivo support to download the 2.5.5.a software but it is not coming back after the restart. Just says something like "tivo installing new software .. be a few minutes". 

Is it screwed up as I have a modded tivo? Can I recover easily by taking out the 2nd hard disk? PANIC!!!!!!!!!!!!!


----------



## kitschcamp (May 18, 2001)

AFAIK, you are now going to need to get hold of a 2.5.5a image and reinstall the discs. The TiVo initiated upgrade procedure doesn't deal with non-standard disc sizes.


----------



## SilkMan (Feb 13, 2007)

If you can't get hold of the 2.5.5a image, and you still have your original disks, you could put them back in to allow the update to complete. Then re-do the upgrade to the bigger disks. 

The differences between 2.5.5 and 2.5.5a are very small - just one file IIRC. I had the same issue and simply did the updates manually, because I couldn't transfer the lifetime sub to my name (bought off ebay) and couldn't get Tivo to do the update for me. Just as well, by the sound of it, or I'd have been scuppered too


----------



## kezzy1966 (Nov 8, 2002)

Thanks for the info. 

What a pain in the A**e. You would have thought tivo support would warn you before scheduling the upgrade that if your set is modified it will screw up - Aaaaaggh!

I still have an image of the original. So if I copy that back to a harddisk then let the software upgrade finish the basic tivo will be up again. 

I presume I have to let Tivo finish writing its new firmware onto something. I presume the damage has now been done.

Is there any way to keep my precious recordings? Have I lost them for good? 

Is there any step by step guide to getting myself out of this? (i'm fairly new to linux but have was able to do the initial disk upgrade so not a complete newbie). 

Alternatively is there any one in SE London/North Kent borders I could give this to to sort out?

Thanks again, Kieran.


----------



## mikerr (Jun 2, 2005)

I assume the tivo download uses the "old" kernel that doesn't support drives over 127GB

Running copykern from the lba48 cd to update it to the lba48 kernel would be worth a try,
then the 2.5.5a install might complete if it hasn't hosed the drive already.


----------



## kezzy1966 (Nov 8, 2002)

Well I managed to get an old 40 gb drive, copied my orginal backup onto it, put it back into tivo. It dialled in downloaded 2.5.5a and loaded onto the disk. Tivo now working. 

Turns out my harddisks were 2 x 120 gb and not 160gb. Any ideas how to recover the films from the 120gb drives? Is there any way of just getting them on to a pc so my missus can watch them?


----------



## blindlemon (May 12, 2002)

There should not be an issue with an OTA upgrade to 2.5.5a with 120gb drives unless the 'spare' partition (7) is missing or invalid on the A drive.

Try running maketivobootable against the 120gb A drive to set the active root partition back to 4. If that works then you may be able to salvage your recordings and/or get a useable backup of your current system settings.


----------



## kezzy1966 (Nov 8, 2002)

but will 'maketivobootable' work with 2 x 120gb disks or just the single?


----------



## kezzy1966 (Nov 8, 2002)

Blindlemon, my tivo is a series 1. In the 'maketivobootable' downloaded instructions it talks about series 2 model.

Also, could you tell me what happens if I attach one of these 120gb tivo drives to a suse linux pc. Should I be able to access or see the files? as it is saying it empty!


----------



## blindlemon (May 12, 2002)

MTB works with UK Series 1 TiVos just the same as with S2 machines as the partition layout is basically the same.

You need to use it on the A drive only.

I don't know suse linux but if you enable byteswapping you should be able to mount partition 4. If you boot from the Silicondust NIC CD it enables byeswapping on every IDE port apart from hda by default.


----------



## kezzy1966 (Nov 8, 2002)

if using silcon dust, could you confirm what command to use. it does not reconise the 'maketivobootble'. Thanks, Kieran.


----------



## blindlemon (May 12, 2002)

You need to run 

MakeTiVoBootable

- paying attention to case. Linux is case sensitive


----------



## kezzy1966 (Nov 8, 2002)

At the '/#' , I enter MakeTivoBootable

and it responds:
sh: MakeTivoBootable: command not found


I am running the nic_cd_20050218.iso. When I type dir it shows
mfstools-1.1
mad31
mad32
lost+found

plus other linux like directories

Any ideas?


----------



## kezzy1966 (Nov 8, 2002)

Ther appears to be various silcon dust iso's on 
http://www.silicondust.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=990
I have a series 1 tivo, standard, now on 2.5.5a software.

Any ideas which one I should use?

CD image if you have a stand-alone-TiVo or previously tivoflashed DTiVo:
http://download.silicondust.com/tivo/nic_cd_20050218.iso

CD image if you have a DTivo that has not been tivoflashed before:
http://download.silicondust.com/tivo/nic_cd_tivoflash_20050218.iso

CD image if you have installed an LBA48 kernel on your TiVo:
http://download.silicondust.com/tivo/nic_cd_lba48_20050218.iso

Driver only pc install:
http://download.silicondust.com/tivo/nic_install_pc_20050218.zip

Driver only native install:
http://download.silicondust.com/tivo/nic_install_tivo_20050218.zip

md5sum:
http://download.silicondust.com/tivo/md5sum_20050218.txt

- Kieran.


----------



## blindlemon (May 12, 2002)

The reason you can't run MakeTiVoBootable is because it's not on the SiliconDust CD 

You need to download it from the link I gave above and then extract the executable onto a floppy disc, boot from the silicondust CD (you *are* using the right one BTW) and then mount the floppy drive and run MakeTiVoBootable from that - eg. 

mount /dev/fd0 -t vfat /mnt
cd /mnt
MakeTiVoBootable ..... etc. etc


----------

