# Looks like I lost all my recordings.. or did I?



## tomatomic (Apr 17, 2020)

Howdy all, this is a bit more technical, so I thought I would try posting in this directory, if i should repost elsewhere, just let me know.

I decided to try upgrading the internal HD on my bolt streamer from 500G, to a 5TB seagate.
At first I thought I would test the new drive, and it booted fine, set itself up. So then the next step would be to get everything off the old drive and put it on the new one - which i figured id do with tivo desktop.. but when I put the 500GB in, it seemed to set it up like a new drive, and now its shows no recordings, and none of my settings.

*Is there any way in hell to get all that back?*
I feel so stupid for not backing up the drive first, but really, I tried this before 3 years ago when i had an unsuccessful attempt at an upgrade, and everything was fine when i put the original drive back in, so I did not expect a problem.

Also, if its okay to have 2 questions in one thread, the new drive is showing a recording capacity of 92 hours, and that seems way too low. is there any other way to see if its using the full 5TB I installed??

Thanks much


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## kpeters59 (Jun 19, 2007)

Backing the drive up wasn't the issue.

The issue is that, the Bolt's keep the 'database' file in Flash Memory off the Hard Drive.

So, when you put in a new drive, the database and drive don't match, so TiVo 'says': gotta start over. Which yours did.

Then you put the original back in, which already didn't matter anyway, and it started over again.

Ever heard of 'Bittorrent'?

-KP


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## tomatomic (Apr 17, 2020)

well, that would make sense except for the fact that I had removed the drive before and reinstalled it, and it was NOT reset that time.
so.. again, the question is, still, is there a way to get my data back? like with winMFS or something? i'd be surprised if they had some sort of scan and recover in that app

and bittorrent? wtf does that have to do with anything?


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## HerronScott (Jan 1, 2002)

tomatomic said:


> well, that would make sense except for the fact that I had removed the drive before and reinstalled it, and it was NOT reset that time.
> so.. again, the question is, still, is there a way to get my data back? like with winMFS or something? i'd be surprised if they had some sort of scan and recover in that app
> 
> and bittorrent? wtf does that have to do with anything?


No there isn't anyway to recover the shows that I'm aware of. It's possible Bolts didn't do this initially but it started with one of the early updates (would have to go searching back in the posts).

I think he's suggesting that as an alternative method to getting your shows.



tomatomic said:


> Also, if its okay to have 2 questions in one thread, the new drive is showing a recording capacity of 92 hours, and that seems way too low. is there any other way to see if its using the full 5TB I installed??


How did you upgrade to the 5TB drive? It sounds like you didn't use MFS tools (or it didn't get expanded during the process)?

Scott


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## ggieseke (May 30, 2008)

There isn't any way to recover your recordings. The recordings are still there on the drive in the form of thousands of file fragments scattered all over the place, but when your Bolt formatted the new drive it wiped the database on the motherboard that knew how to turn them back into recordings.

On drives over 3TB the factory auto-format fails, and leaves you with only a fraction of the actual space. Use MFS Reformatter on the 5TB drive to format it properly.
MFS Reformatter (mfsr)


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## tomatomic (Apr 17, 2020)

HerronScott said:


> No there isn't anyway to recover the shows that I'm aware of. It's possible Bolts didn't do this initially but it started with one of the early updates (would have to go searching back in the posts).
> 
> I think he's suggesting that as an alternative method to getting your shows.
> 
> ...


that was it! I didnt come across any mention that would be necessary, this is why I asked here :-D

strange the guy is recommending bit torrent .. i have a tivo because i PAY for the channels.. unless iim ignorant about it being popular to upload pirated content to the tivo.. but i would use other hardware for that were I interested. hrm.



ggieseke said:


> There isn't any way to recover your recordings. The recordings are still there on the drive in the form of thousands of file fragments scattered all over the place, but when your Bolt formatted the new drive it wiped the database on the motherboard that knew how to turn them back into recordings.
> 
> On drives over 3TB the factory auto-format fails, and leaves you with only a fraction of the actual space. Use MFS Reformatter on the 5TB drive to format it properly.
> MFS Reformatter (mfsr)


dude, thanks for the link. that **** is gold. im gonna donate.

the reason i was saying that is that its not uncommon for hard drive utilities to have a feature that can scan and recover files, but since this is TiVo's weird linux format of which i know nothing, i have no idea if there are tools with that functionality for that format of a drive.

progress!! it says 800 HD hours now. looks about right.

now i do remember there was a tivo HD utility a few years back....


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