# Any way to plug tivo drive into PC via USB and backup recordings to restore after reformat?



## gor88 (Jan 3, 2008)

Is there a way to hookup a tivo drive to the pc using USB and backup the recordings off the drive. Something corrupted when the 20.7.2 upgrade occurred, apparently. 

I had 1.3TB of programs and am hoping that somehow I can back them to the NAS drive via the PC, reformat my 4TB drive, get the TiVo software back on it and then restore the recordings right back to that drive and put back in the same tivo bolt?

Please advise.


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## kpeters59 (Jun 19, 2007)

No...


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## SNJpage1 (May 25, 2006)

I don't think the PC would recognize the file format of the hard drive.


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## justen_m (Jan 15, 2004)

I don't know how, or if it's possible.

e.g. I've got an adapter that lets me hook up SATA drives to a USB port, so that part is doable. Then I'm stuck. I could clone the entire drive, but that would include the corrupted OS. The proprietary file format used by TiVo means I can't separate the recordings from the OS.

How does mfsr tools do this? Doesn't it allow you to copy the system image to another drive and give the option to transfer it with or without keeping recordings? (I've never used it)


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## V7Goose (May 28, 2005)

Well, you are using a junk Seagate drive, against all the wise advice from experienced folks on these forums - you already know that is your problem. But the one hope you may have is that from what I have read, folks have found the crap Seagate drives that go bad in the TiVo boxes still test OK in a PC. You might try cloning the drive to some better brand (using either one of the TiVo specific software packages or an external hardware solution). If you hold your breath and screw your face up just right, you MIGHT get lucky and find the clone copy boots up OK.


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## gor88 (Jan 3, 2008)

It turned out that the problem was not the Seagate drive, but, rather, the use of eSata cabling for the external hard drive. I ran full diagnostics on the drive and 100% PASS on everything, including the Full Generic test of all sectors. My configuration WAS a sata to esata cable connected to the motherboard, then a 3 ft eSata to eSata cable connnected to a Rosewill Armer enclosure with the Seagate installed inside. Per primaryforce's suggestion, I disconnected the data port on the HDD from the enclosure and connected a regular sata cable to it with the other end plugged directly into the motherboard. The Armer enclosure still powers the hard drive.

Well, it came up normally, showed a splash screen for the update for about a minute and then showed the home page. After running the Clear Program Information and To Do List, all 31 1passes came back and reindexed normally. All 192 manually deleted shows also appeared after the clear operation dating from 2/21/2017 to the day of update and are available for restoration. 

However, TiVo support says that if the files did not end up in Recently Deleted Recordings, they are not recoverable. They said there are numerous customers who have reported the same loss of My Shows directly caused by this update.


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