# 400GB drives not suitable for upgrade?



## funtoupgrade (Mar 15, 2005)

I have two brand new Seagate 400GB hard drives (8MB cache) that pass the Seagate drive test and yet will not work in any TiVo I have tried them in. Your first inclination will be that I don't know what I am doing, but please be asssured I have upgraded over 200 TiVo's with drives up to 300GB with no such problems. I am using the latest PTVUpgrade free software and have tried swap files of both 127 and 200 (with tpip) to no avail. The problem is GSOD looping to powering on. I have tried these in a DT, Humax T800, and 540040 to no avail. I have tried several methods of restore: first making a backup to my FAT32 hard drive and secondly skipping this backup and restoring directly from old working drive to the 400. MFStools reports no errors, and drive jumpers are set correctly when installed in TiVo. Any ideas on what I might doing wrong or how to remedy the situation before I take these back to Fry's?


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## JamieP (Aug 3, 2004)

funtoupgrade said:


> Any ideas on what I might doing wrong or how to remedy the situation before I take these back to Fry's?


Post the serial console output and/or the kernel log. If you are getting as far as a GSOD, the PROM is definitely seeing the drive and starting the initial boot.

It sounds like the image wasn't fully written to the disk. Did you shut down linux on the PC cleanly before removing the drive? A hard unclean shutdown can leave data buffered in memory (or in the disk's cache) that wasn't written to disk.

Just to rule out the obvious: you do know to use -r 4 when creating partitions > 274GB, right?


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## funtoupgrade (Mar 15, 2005)

Drives unmounted when necessary and I always shutdown after a control-alt-del when screen goes blank.

Now regarding the -r 4. This may be the problem. I have seen this listed in various threads but never used it. As I indicated in original post. Before these 400's the biggest drives I ever used were 300GB, and I never had to use -r 4 on any of those. My Hinsdale instructions say nothing about this, and I can find no reference to it when just typing mfsrestore and getting a look at all the switches possible.

If using mfsrestore from a backup would it be *mfsrestore -s 200 -r 4 -xzpi /mnt/dos/tivo.bak /dev/hd?*


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## JamieP (Aug 3, 2004)

funtoupgrade said:


> Now regarding the -r 4. This may be the problem. I have seen this listed in various threads but never used it. As I indicated in original post. Before these 400's the biggest drives I ever used were 300GB, and I never had to use -r 4 on any of those. My Hinsdale instructions say nothing about this, and I can find no reference to it when just typing mfsrestore and getting a look at all the switches possible.
> 
> If using mfsrestore from a backup would it be *mfsrestore -s 200 -r 4 -xzpi /mnt/dos/tivo.bak /dev/hd?*


Hinsdale is out of date (last update in Feb 2005) and hasn't been updated to reflect the commands needed when imaging large drives (drives with partitions > 274GB). The weaknees guide is up to date.

Here's  a link with the original info on the -r 4 workaround to the >274GB partition problem. It was conjecture then, but it's been proven to work many times, and is standard practice now when expanding on large disks.


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## funtoupgrade (Mar 15, 2005)

Bingo! My first restore using -r 4 got me to the TiVo menu on my Humax T800. Looks like this was it! Thanks a million for taking the time to help on this. You guys on the forum are the greatest.

My only question is why do the 300GB drives work without this if the limit you mention is accurate?


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## JamieP (Aug 3, 2004)

funtoupgrade said:


> Bingo! My first restore using -r 4 got me to the TiVo menu on my Humax T800. Looks like this was it! Thanks a million for taking the time to help on this. You guys on the forum are the greatest.
> 
> My only question is why do the 300GB drives work without this if the limit you mention is accurate?


It's the largest partition size that matters. If you start with an image for a 40GB drive and expand it onto a 300GB drive, your largest partition with be ~260GB, below the 274GB problem size. You typically start to see this issue when you get to drives 320GB and above.


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## tivoupgrade (Sep 27, 2000)

fyi - we've used the "-r 4" parameter with 400GB drives and no problems.

on some series1 images, i've seen a problem using it with 500GB+ drives; i have not gone back to revisit that scenario.

on series2 images, "-r 4" has worked fine in all of our testing of single and dual 750GB drives.


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## mackie (Jan 11, 2004)

I just want to say that this is an example of an absolutely perfect post and it came right on time. I tried copying a Series 2 7.2 TiVO kernel powered Series 2 drive's contents to a brand spanking new Seagate 400GB drive following the Hinsdale instructions and everything was going great right up intil the infamous Green Screen Of death. I sighed to myself and groaned a bit but then I decided to use the net.

This e-mail describes exactly what my situation was and now I can go do my business. ;->

I haven't yet tried out the -r 4 option but based on this thread, I have every confidence that it will work. I will send a confirmation once I'm done. The initial expansion takes probably 4 to 6 hrs so it will be a day or so before I'll have an answer.

Guess it's time to start using Weaknees for up-to-date instructions!


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## mumpower (Jul 24, 2003)

As fate would have it, I had two of this very hard drive arrive from UPS this morning. I was poised to start the upgrade when I pulled up this message board and happened to notice this thread. This has given me pause. A quick answer would be appreciated before I get started. Last week, a couple of informative posters showed me that the command to pipe a 300 GB hard drive copy with accurate information is:

mfsbackup -Tao - /dev/hda | mfsrestore -s 150 -xzpi - /dev/hdc

(given my drives configuration, of course)

In order to add the -r 4 command to this particular Seagate 400 GB hard drive, would the update now be:

mfsbackup -Tao - /dev/hda | mfsrestore -s 200 -r 4 -xzpi - /dev/hdc

If not, could someone tell me the correct command line? I suspect a lot of folks will be having this issue over the next several days since Fry's had that phenomenal deal last week.


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## Shawn95GT (Oct 7, 2005)

I used that Fry's drive and -r4 without issue.

I used the exact syntax give by tivo.upgrade-instructions.com:

mfsbackup -Tao - /dev/hdX | mfsrestore -s 127 -r 4 -xzpi - /dev/hdZ

X being a in your case and Z being c. The only difference is the larger swap specified in your command.

I did 2 of them. My 140 went to 460 hours. The 40 went to 456 hours.


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## mackie (Jan 11, 2004)

mfsbackup -Tao - /dev/hdX | mfsrestore -s 127 -r 4 -xzpi - /dev/hdZ is what I used as well and the restoration went as sweet as apple pie! The command took about 15hrs to run but if you do this overnight and let it run while you're at work or something, that's not really a real issue. Oh, it took so long because I was trying to preserve all my previous drive's recordings. If you don't care about that stuff, the process was much, much quicker.

Like I said before, this was the most perfect post that I've ever seen and with new 750GB Seagate drives arriving to market now, one wonders about ever having to stuff 2 drives into a Series 2 model ever again!

Query: What does bigger swap space buy us in the context of the TiVO kernel?


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## JamieP (Aug 3, 2004)

mackie said:


> Query: What does bigger swap space buy us in the context of the TiVO kernel?


There are two schools of thought on that.


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## Pula (May 5, 2006)

Hello All

Im actually a Semi-amateur (at best) when it comes to these types of dealings.. I.e. Hard drives, IDE, software manipulation and so on...

In any case I just managed to upgrade a 40gb HD(Tivos original Seagate HD) to a 400GB Seagate (T3400832A-RK)..I assume this is the same one this post was initiated on...

And may I say all went well...better than well..AND Not a single hiccup..

Well actually..It took me sometime to gather all the info together..Weakness..Upgrade DL to CD...Computer that worked with the HD size I was upgrading to and most importantly several sites with step by step varying individual directions...

Let me say despite the enormous amounts of help on this site especially, it was still challenging to figure the exact phrasing for the upgrade line
(i.e. mfsbackup -Tao - /dev/hda | mfsrestore -s 127 -r 4 -xzpi - /dev/hdb)...

Thats the line I used...to copy the Old HD to the New HD flawlessly...didnt have to change a thing...Weakness really is the most up to date

The Primary master = (OLD HD 40GB) and the primary slave = (NEW HD 400GB)..

Went smooth like Uhhh...something smooth...

In any case..After all my troubles I would ask only one favor from all the real tech geniuses on this site...

Someone really needs to Post a thread with the various mfsbackup and mfsrestore lines for the most popular tivo upgrades...i.e. 2 drive to 1 drive, 1 drive to bigger drive and so on

This sounds tedious, but I know there are others out there looking right now for this exact "line play"...and it really feels like every site only gives so much then they return to the technical babble that people like myself...get lost in....I got lost a this line on the weakness sitebecause it doesnt specify what size drive this supports and so onbut at least now I knowor maybe I got lucky

Perhaps this Psoting already exist, so excuse me if it does...If thats the case someone should create a NEW POST with the appropriate title, and all the appropriate links....

This has been a fulfilling experience on all accounts...

If anyone needs my mediocre (at best) help in what I did..Please feel free to contact meAnd I will gladly give you what I had and any help I can offer...or at least steer you in my working path to avoid the bumps

Thanks...
No EXPERT


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## JamieP (Aug 3, 2004)

Pula said:


> Thats the line I used...to copy the Old HD to the New HD flawlessly...didnt have to change a thing...*Weakness really is the most up to date*
> 
> ...
> 
> ...


The Weaknees guide is a sticky with an appropriate title and is the most up to date. Didn't it contain the information you are asking for?

The biggest problem now is that Hinsdale is out of date and a lot of people still use it. It would be nice if the author either put in a big disclaimer ("not for large drive upgrades") or updated it with current info.


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