# Preserving Recordings



## jeff125va (Mar 15, 2001)

I'm planning on replacing my two 160GB drives in my SAT-T60 with one larger drive. To preserve my recordings, do I need to replace my drive(s) with as much hard drive capacity as I currently have, or just as much as my recordings take up? I was hoping just to go with a 250 or 300 GB drive, since I'm not keeping it nearly as full as I was back in the pre-HD days. I'm sure my recordings would fit on a smaller drive, but I'm just not sure how the copying process works.


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## classicsat (Feb 18, 2004)

You can't go to one drive and keep recordings, as your partition table is full.

Going from two drives to one would take copying the partitions on the B drive to the A drive, whixh is impossible, because all the partition entries are used.


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## jeff125va (Mar 15, 2001)

classicsat said:


> You can't go to one drive and keep recordings, as your partition table is full.
> 
> Going from two drives to one would take copying the partitions on the B drive to the A drive, whixh is impossible, because all the partition entries are used.


Ok, thanks. Sucks for me but good to know anyway. I just hope these last long enough to let me watch all of my existing recordings. It rebooted today and got the GSOD the first time, finally rebooted all the way through a little while later though. I've had the drives for a few years though, definitely lasted longer than any others I've had.


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## Barryrod (Mar 17, 2006)

classicsat said:


> You can't go to one drive and keep recordings, as your partition table is full.
> 
> Going from two drives to one would take copying the partitions on the B drive to the A drive, whixh is impossible, because all the partition entries are used.


I beg to differ...I did it just recently. I replaced my stock 40gig A drive and my added 160gig B drive with a single 250gig. I could not expand it to it's full 250 gig capacity, but I still have my recordings and it is still 157 hours.

I did this due to a failed A drive and the desire to drop back to 1 drive due to heat. My Tivo runs an average of 10 deg C cooler than with 2 drives.

If I ever get all my recording watched/burned I will wipe it clean with Instantcake and expand it to it's full capacity.

Edit.....

See Hinsdale Upgrade Configuration #6 "From Any Dual Drive TiVo To New Single Large A Drive. As I said before...If you added the B drive yourself, you can not reap the rewards of the additional space of a larger drive, but it can be done preserving your recordings

Jeff...You will need at least 320 gig drive, but since diff drive manufacturers have diff accual drive space, it is a crap shoot. I would go even bigger it you really need to do it.


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## jeff125va (Mar 15, 2001)

I'll have to think about it. I was hoping to save a little money going with a smaller drive, since as I mentioned I don't really need the high capacity as much for SD recordings. If it shows more signs of failing, I may have to bite the bullet and get a bigger drive, but I'd much rather not. I'm planning on moving this one to our bedroom anyway and not using it as one of our main recording units, so I'll just be burning off the existing recordings. So a 400GB drive would be a waste of space after that. If it lasts me until I finish with the existing recordings, I'll probably just go with something like 120GB. The one in our bedroom now just has the drive it came with, 40GB I think, maybe 80 tops, and it's plenty for what we use that for.


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## Barryrod (Mar 17, 2006)

jeff125va said:


> I'll have to think about it. I was hoping to save a little money going with a smaller drive, since as I mentioned I don't really need the high capacity as much for SD recordings. If it shows more signs of failing, I may have to bite the bullet and get a bigger drive, but I'd much rather not. I'm planning on moving this one to our bedroom anyway and not using it as one of our main recording units, so I'll just be burning off the existing recordings. So a 400GB drive would be a waste of space after that. If it lasts me until I finish with the existing recordings, I'll probably just go with something like 120GB. The one in our bedroom now just has the drive it came with, 40GB I think, maybe 80 tops, and it's plenty for what we use that for.


In that case....burn off the recordings and reimage a smaller single drive. I suggest Instantcake image form PTV. I got one for my unit and setup the new drive to verify that my TiVo was ok and just to have onhand :up:


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## jeff125va (Mar 15, 2001)

Barryrod said:


> In that case....burn off the recordings and reimage a smaller single drive. I suggest Instantcake image form PTV. I got one for my unit and setup the new drive to verify that my TiVo was ok and just to have onhand :up:


Hmmm, that's something I hadn't thought of. I do have a backup image for this unit but I made it with the two 160GB drives I have in there now. Even if I do finish all the recordings, will I be able to use that image to replace these drives with just one? I'm thinking something around 120GB will be plenty for what I plan to use this one for. Actually, if I run some diagnostics and at least one of these drives is ok, I'd probably just use one of these.


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## classicsat (Feb 18, 2004)

Barryrod said:


> I beg to differ...I did it just recently. I replaced my stock 40gig A drive and my added 160gig B drive with a single 250gig. I could not expand it to it's full 250 gig capacity, but I still have my recordings and it is still 157 hours.


That is because your A drive was unexpanded (has enough partition entries to expand). Your situation worked because the partition set from the B drive went to the empty partition allocation on the new A drive.
The OP cannot do that, because jeff125va's A drive partition table is full up, due to it being expanded.


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## Barryrod (Mar 17, 2006)

classicsat said:


> That is because your A drive was unexpanded (has enough partition entries to expand). Your situation worked because the partition set from the B drive went to the empty partition allocation on the new A drive.
> The OP cannot do that, because jeff125va's A drive partition table is full up, due to it being expanded.


Adding the B drive is considered "expanding" and requires using partitions on the A drive for the added drive. The B drive does not have the same partitions as A. My units original 35hrs was "Expanded" to 157hrs. Since it has been expanded already, when I went to the single larger drive, I could not expand the image and save my recordings, so I have a single larger drive with 157hrs, and not what a single 250gig drive is able to do (~190hrs or so I think).

If I ever get my recordings off, I will wipe it clean and start from scratch with Instantcake and get my full capacity.


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## classicsat (Feb 18, 2004)

Barryrod said:


> Adding the B drive is considered "expanding" and requires using partitions on the A drive for the added drive.


No it doesn't. The B drive has its own partition table. The partitions on it are tied into the database, which itself doesn't use any more partition sets on the A drive than a stock A drive alone.


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## jeff125va (Mar 15, 2001)

Hopefully my drives will continue to be OK which they have since the other day, and I won't have to worry about copying my recordings (and figuring out which one of you guys is correct  ). But I will definitely want to replace these with one drive, possibly smaller than what I currently have (320GB total I think? whatever gives me 230 hours in a SAT-T60). 

I really need to know if I'll be able to use the backup image I saved when I upgraded this unit. Unfortunately, I don't recall whether I made the backup image I have for this unit from the current drives or the previous drive(s), or what size the previous drives were. I seem to remember having the same size drives in there before and those failing, but I'm not sure. In other words, my backup image could be from the original 40GB single drive, or from the current configuration which I think is two 160GB drives. Does it matter?


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## bupkes (Apr 19, 2006)

Goal: Preserve recordings and settings of dtivo while installing networking and other modifications to the OS. I do not (currently) need more disk space.

Setup: I have an RCA 704 with factory A drive (40GB) and a Add-on (Weaknees) B drive (80GB). The box is running 6.2 which came down via the normal satellite update process. The phone line has been disconnected since that update.

After reading this thread and Hinsdale, I think I can do the following .. Comments please..

1) combine my A and B drives onto a single drive. I need at least a 120GB drive .. the Tivo software will *not* see any capacity larger than that. 

Do I need a bigger drive to facilitate the copying? I couldn't follow the partition discussion in the thread.

2) upgrade my new single A drive with networking via ptvupgrade cd or manually via other how-tos


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## classicsat (Feb 18, 2004)

You'd need a drive at least the sum of the two drives you have. If you do your research, you might be able find a useable 120 GB drive.


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