# Using a hard drive that was in my PC



## JoeBarbs (Dec 1, 2003)

Is it ok to use a hard drive that you once used with your PC? Would I have to reformat the drive first? or could I just run the mfs commands?


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## Dkerr24 (Oct 29, 2004)

mfsrestore will wipe out the old data on the PC drive. No need to reformat.


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## yukit (Jul 23, 2005)

Dkerr24 said:


> mfsrestore will wipe out the old data on the PC drive. No need to reformat.


Searched, but I could not find the answer I was looking for.

How about if I want to reuse a drive from a PC for the Tivo drive B?
Assuming my Tivo drive A & B are connected as hda & hdb, can I just do:
mfsadd -x /dev/hda /dev/hdb

TIA


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## captain_video (Mar 1, 2002)

If you had Win NT, Win 2K, or Win XP on your PC then the drive won't work in your Tivo without running a utility program on the drive first called maketivobootable. You'll find it posted here:

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?threadid=117404&perpage=20&pagenumber=1


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## wscannell (Dec 7, 2003)

captain_video said:


> If you had Win NT, Win 2K, or Win XP on your PC then the drive won't work in your Tivo without running a utility program on the drive first called maketivobootable. You'll find it posted here:
> 
> http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?threadid=117404&perpage=20&pagenumber=1


Not true. A previously used PC drive can be used with mfsadd. It will format the drive. makeTiVoBootable will fix a TiVo drive that has been attached to a PC and the PC booted into NT, 2000, or XP. If the drive has not yet been formatted for use in the TiVo, makeTiVoBootable is not necessary.


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## yukit (Jul 23, 2005)

wscannell said:


> Not true. A previously used PC drive can be used with mfsadd.


This did indeed work.
Thanks.


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## mr.unnatural (Feb 2, 2006)

That is correct. I should have specified that you cannot place a _Tivo_ drive in your PC and allowed to boot with the aforementioned operating systems.


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## chris_h (Dec 17, 2003)

I have a similar question. I think I know the answer, but would hate to blow it.

I have an HR10-250 with a hardware issue on the card reader. It has the oriiginal 250GB drive plus a 400GB I added. My plan when the replacement unit gets here is to run it for a week to make sure it works, then pull my 400GB drive from the bad HR10-250 and add it to the new unit using mfsadd, similar to what I did when I first added it two months ago.

Based on what I read above, this should work, and I do not have to reformat the 400GB drive, even though it contains recordings from the now dead HR10. It sounds like mfsadd does the reformatting for me. I know I will lose those old recordings. Can one of you experts please confirm this will work. Thanks in advance.


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## classicsat (Feb 18, 2004)

mfsadd doesn't "format", it just partitions the drive and adds them to the media database.


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## chris_h (Dec 17, 2003)

classicsat said:


> mfsadd doesn't "format", it just partitions the drive and adds them to the media database.


Please forgive my ignorance, but I still don't know if that will be sufficient or not. The drive was working in another HR10 already, so it is formatted. I am not familiar with IDE/MFS file systems. I do know that the drive contains recordings from the previous tivo. Are you saying this method will work or not? Are you saying that the previous recordings will be taking up space maybe? Or are you saying it will just act as though the old data on the drive is not even there?

Thanks in advance.


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## classicsat (Feb 18, 2004)

For all intents an purposes, the drive is considered blank in that situation. 

Any recordings on it are deallocated (or more accurately, likley lost with the original A drive).


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