# HD crashed...how can I preserve my shows?



## jangelj (Oct 23, 2002)

I kept getting the Welcome Powering up screen, then the Almost there...then the GSOD would show up for about 1 minute before it would reboot and start all over again. I tried kickstart 52, 56 and 58. At one point it even said that it was installing an update, then GSOD for 1 minute, then reboot. 

I pulled the HD and tried to just copy to a new HD, but it crapped out fairly quickly with all sorts of bad sector errors (can't remember the exact syntax). So now I am trying a dd_rescue to see what I can get. It has been running for about 18 hours and has about 20,000 errors so far. I'll check tonight when I get home from work on the progress, but I am not optimistic.

Is there any other way to save the shows? Even if there are some glitches in them, it's better than nothing. I have a 3 year old who loves her Dora the Explorer! 

I'm afraid I am walking a fine line here. I don't want to extract and burn the shows or anything like that, I just want to be able to get them off the bad drive and back onto the new drive. Mods, if this is a violation, please delete it. 

Are the video files on a certain partition on the HD? Maybe I can just try to set up a fresh image, then copy only the partition where the actual shows are stored?

TIA,
John


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## classicsat (Feb 18, 2004)

You could try Spinrite on the drive.

Otherwise record Dora again, or get Dora DVDs, if that is the important thing.


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## ciper (Nov 4, 2004)

dd_rhelp is your best bet.


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## jangelj (Oct 23, 2002)

ciper said:


> dd_rhelp is your best bet.


Yeah, I am currently googling dd_rhelp and trying to figure out how to use it. I'm not a linux guy, but I'm trying to learn as I go.

DD_rescue finally died after about 30,000 errors. I think the HD is rapidly becoming toast.

thanks,
john


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## jangelj (Oct 23, 2002)

jangelj said:


> Yeah, I am currently googling dd_rhelp and trying to figure out how to use it. I'm not a linux guy, but I'm trying to learn as I go.
> 
> DD_rescue finally died after about 30,000 errors. I think the HD is rapidly becoming toast.
> 
> ...


Well, the dd_rescue finished after about 60 hours and about 60,000 errors. I put the recovered disk in the tivo and it won't boot up. It just gets to the "almost there.." screen and reboots.

Is there a way to just put a new tivo OS (from a good backup or instantcake) onto the new drive, but leave the shows in place? I'm sure there will be some blank spots in some shows, but that's better than nothing.

Is this possible?
John


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## merrickw (Jul 29, 2002)

I'm having this same issue. After trying to upgrade my Series2 SA 300GB to a new 500GB, my original 300GB won't start up. I get to Welcome! Powering up... and that's it.

I was running a dd copy to save all the recordings to the new drive, but the command never completed. I let it run all weekend, and both drives got very hot.

So now my original 300GB is not starting up in TiVo. Is there a good method to fix the boot-up without damaging the recordings?

(As a side note, some part of the copy did work on the 500GB, since I was able to start TiVo with it; The Now Playing list appears, but none of the shows are playable).


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## classicsat (Feb 18, 2004)

You could extract the system and boot partitions from the backup image, but easier would be to install the image to a spare drive, and dd copy the system partitions from it to the other drive.


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## merrickw (Jul 29, 2002)

classicsat said:


> You could extract the system and boot partitions from the backup image, but easier would be to install the image to a spare drive, and dd copy the system partitions from it to the other drive.


Thanks for the response. Can you point me to the dd statement that would only copy the system/boot partitions?


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## classicsat (Feb 18, 2004)

Just dd hdX 2 throug 7. (/dev/hda2 for example). Make sure the proper version goes on the proper partition.


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## merrickw (Jul 29, 2002)

classicsat said:


> Just dd hdX 2 throug 7. (/dev/hda2 for example). Make sure the proper version goes on the proper partition.


Thanks again. As a last test I re-seated the IDE connector, and the drive boots fine.


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