# Series 2 SA 250 -> 500 Gig Upgrade AND Transfer Recordings?



## Chip Moody (Nov 3, 2004)

I had the 250 Gig Maxtor in my S2 flake out, (won't boot past "few more minutes...") but am holding out hope that I can recover the recordings on it. Thought if I was going to replace the drive, getting a larger one was a no brainer - so I went with a 500 Gig Seagate, figuring the tools I used in the past to do hard drive upgrades were able to transfer recordings as well.

On the suggestion of some folks in the "Tivo Help" forum, I got the MFSLive cd and tried using the backup|restore commands - but it complains about there not being enough space on the 500 Gig drive for the 200-odd Gigs worth of recordings.

What are my options here? If I want to get my recordings, do I need to copy to the new drive without expanding, then TivoDesktop my recordings off to a PC, THEN re-image the drive to full size and move the recordings BACK? Or is there a better way?

And yeah - this is all assuming I can transfer the recordings off successfully in the first place, I know...

Sorry for the new thread - I looked through two months worth of threads and didn't see this particular topic covered... A few came close, but didn't seem to completely match.

Thanks,
- Chip


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## classicsat (Feb 18, 2004)

You need the beta version of mfslive, and I think winmfs will do what you want also.


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## Chip Moody (Nov 3, 2004)

Thanks Classicsat - I'm registering over at MFSLive right now so I can check out WinMFS.

The MFSLive disc I tried last night was 1.3b. Is there a different version, or was I supposed to use a different set of tools/commands?

- Chip


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## Chip Moody (Nov 3, 2004)

Okay - it gets worse...

I used WinMFS. I was expecting it to report some kind of errors during the process, but it didn't. Said everything was successful. I put the new drive back in my Tivo, and got the same issue - boots to "few more minutes..." and no further - no response to kickstart codes.

I figured at this point that either the motherboard was bad or the OS was somehow hosed, and WinMFS just copied the hosed files.

I eliminated the first issue by running an Instant Cake CD on the new drive. Back in the Tivo, it boots up fine to guided setup.

So is it safe to assume that the OS is somehow hosed on the original drive? If so, do I have options to repair/replace it without disturbing the recordings?

Thanks,
- Chip


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## IminMs (Sep 10, 2006)

You could try running a program like spin rite on the old drive and see if it might find and correct any errors on the drive. 
You also may want to try mfstools to try to copy the old to the new after getting any errors corrected.
It WILL take several hours to do either or both. If you can come to terms that the recordings can be replaced then run instantcake on the new drive (hopefully you have 6.2a) and run the zipper, you can pull the recordings off in the future or move them to other tivos as you see fit.


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## Chip Moody (Nov 3, 2004)

IminMs said:


> You could try running a program like spin rite on the old drive and see if it might find and correct any errors on the drive.
> You also may want to try mfstools to try to copy the old to the new after getting any errors corrected.


 That's the thing - I assumed that if there were problems with the drive I would have gotten errors when running the WinMFS copy - which I didn't. Spike over at MFSLive made the same suggestion though - and a just-released version of WinMFS includes dd_recover, so I'll be trying that later today...



IminMs said:


> It WILL take several hours to do either or both. If you can come to terms that the recordings can be replaced then run instantcake on the new drive (hopefully you have 6.2a) and run the zipper, you can pull the recordings off in the future or move them to other tivos as you see fit.


 I've copied recordings off previously with the Tivo Desktop software, but I'm not familiar with zipper.

Any options that will let me "sync" the recordings on my Tivo with a PC automatically? That would be awesome to have an automatic backup and not have to worry about a nightmare like this in the future.

Thanks!

- Chip


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## classicsat (Feb 18, 2004)

The Zipper is for DirecTV TiVos only, not need for Standalones really.

You can have TiVo Desktop season passes that automatically transfer recordings frorm series. Other applications might have other options.


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## IminMs (Sep 10, 2006)

classicsat said:


> The Zipper is for DirecTV TiVos only, not need for Standalones really


I missed/overlooked that it was a standalone.


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## Chip Moody (Nov 3, 2004)

Still working on this one... dd_rescue copies 245 gigs of data to my new drive and reports ZERO errors, but put back in the Tivo it still only boots to "few minutes more...". 

- Chip


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## HomeUser (Jan 12, 2003)

Chip Moody said:


> Still working on this one... dd_rescue copies 245 gigs of data to my new drive and reports ZERO errors, but put back in the Tivo it still only boots to "few minutes more...".
> 
> - Chip


 You might try one of the kickstart commands

note: these commands are special TiVo internal functions not supposed to be used unless instructed by TiVo support (Use at your own risk)


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## Chip Moody (Nov 3, 2004)

HomeUser said:


> You might try one of the kickstart commands
> 
> note: these commands are special TiVo internal functions not supposed to be used unless instructed by TiVo support (Use at your own risk)


 Thanks HomeUser - tried those without success early on. Here's what I get when I try 'em on either drive (I tried them again on the newly dd_recover'd drive after reading your post):

57: I key this in after both leds turn amber. The left led turns green. A few moments after getting to the "few minutes more..." screen, the Tivo reboots - but boots *back* to "few minutes more..." and stays there.

52: After keying this in, the left led turns green. Tivo boots to "few minutes more..." and stays there. Forever.  Never reboots.

58 gives the same results as 52.

So, there aren't any awesome utilities that attempt to recover media from Tivo drives? I'm really left with the impression that the recordings are there - just the OS is crapped.

Thanks,

- Chip


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