# 160 gig Hard Drive Question



## dkahs23 (Apr 17, 2005)

How many basic Tivo record hours can you get out of a 160 gig Hard Drive for a DT Tivo?


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## funtoupgrade (Mar 15, 2005)

Up to 192 hours depending on the brand of drive.


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## dkahs23 (Apr 17, 2005)

Seagate? The reason I'm asking because I just upgraded Using MFS Tools and I'm only getting 140 Hours?


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## wscannell (Dec 7, 2003)

You need to use an LBA48 aware boot disk when you upgrade. If not the drive is seen as 137GB. Both Weaknees and PTVupgrade have LBA48 mfstools disk images available.


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## dkahs23 (Apr 17, 2005)

Okay I used the LBA48 and it expanded it to 166 hours but that is all I did the mfsadd function and it said there is no more to expand. I did the clear and delete everything and nothing changed.


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## ForrestB (Apr 8, 2004)

140 hours on a 160GB Seagate hard drive is exactly what I get on my HDVR2. This was setup with the $5 LBA48 Tools CD downloaded from PTV (for use with the Tivo Zipper). This jives with the 106 hours I get with a 120 GB drive installed in my Philips DSR6000.


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## wscannell (Dec 7, 2003)

The problem is that when you initially did the upgrade, you expanded at that time. On a series 2 you can only expand the A drive one time. It was expanded to 137GB with the non-LBA48 boot disk. mfsadd will be unable to expand from there. You will need to repeat your upgrade to get the full 160 GB.


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## dkahs23 (Apr 17, 2005)

So if I do it again I will get the 171 basic record time?


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## wscannell (Dec 7, 2003)

You should get something close to that.


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## dkahs23 (Apr 17, 2005)

Thanks


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## dkahs23 (Apr 17, 2005)

Well did it again and nothing changed. Still shows 166 hours basic record time. But the lba48 software said 174 hours? ?????????????


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## supasta (May 6, 2006)

You have to figure in about 17(so I've read) or so GB for the system software, guide data, etc.


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## wscannell (Dec 7, 2003)

The upgrade software gives an estimate. It will not be exactly what your TiVo will say. If your TiVo says 166 hours, I think you have got it right. You are using the whole drive.


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## BrianEWilliams (Apr 15, 2002)

Should have read this thread before I upgraded. I didn't use a LBA48 aware boot disk, which explains why the 160 GB Seagate drive was only seen as 137 GB on the Linux boot. At least I know how to do it now. A quick look for the LBA48 boot disk on Weaknees didn't reveal anything. On PTV Upgrade, I found somethng that seems to have adware built into, plus too many warnings to be comfortable with. Maybe I won't worry about the missing 23 GB for now.

My real question is this: After the upgrade, I am only getting 62 hours of recording capacity shown on the System Information page. This is what my Series 2 with 60 GB hard drive was showing before I did the upgrade. What is up with that?

BTW, the Seagate drive is much quieter than the WD I replaced, plus it has a five year warranty. Seems a little flimsy, but I don't plan on knocking it around.


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## SJAndrew (Sep 30, 2005)

When you upgrade, you must use the correct syntax to expand the software image from the smaller old drive to the larger new drive. My guess is that you didn't use this correctly.

I've used the free PTVUpgrade software many times and had universally good results. I have expanded my 80GB system to 640 GB - 821 hours  

My guess is that you didn't use the correct syntax when you upgraded. 

Can you post the commands and order you used?


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## BrianEWilliams (Apr 15, 2002)

As I was falling asleep last night, I came to the same conclusion. I must have created an identical image to what I had. I used these instructions:

http://www.newreleasesvideo.com/hinsdale-how-to/index9.html

I wanted to preserve my recordings, so followed the instructions and used this command:

dd if=/dev/hdc of=/dev/hdb bs=1024k

I couldn't get the boot CD to work, so I used this boot floppy:

http://www.newreleasesvideo.com/hinsdale-how-to/Mfstools2floppy.zip

I think when I burned the CD, I need to tell Nero that I am burning a boot CD.

Based on your recommendation, I'll give the PTVupgrade software a try. Reading their disclaimer initially put me off.

Thanks for the tip.

EDIT:
After I wrote the above, I went back and read further down the instructions and found that I forgot to expand the drive with another command.

Doh!

Looks like the new process says I have to do two steps that each take a couple of hours to preserve my recordings, the DD command from above, and then an MFSBACKUP command that also expands the new drive. Seems a little redundant and time wasting, but I'll be a good boy and follow directions.


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## wscannell (Dec 7, 2003)

All you should need is mfsadd -x /dev/hdx where hdx is the place where your hard drive is connected. The only issue is the swap file will still be at the original size, but this may not be an issue with your drive size.


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