# Can I copy disk between different DTV versions



## Doomster (Nov 6, 2003)

I have a Series 2 DirecTivo box. I *think* the HD died. When the box was still working, I would watch a show and there would be intermittent "skips" every 5 sec. or so. I first thought it was the satellite reception but I checked my other DTV boxes and they didn't have the problem.

The box finally died.

I want to copy the contents of the disk to another, new HD (I'm assuming that the HD is not completely dead). I've heard of MFSLive. I have a question.

The new HD will be "baked" with InstantCake that installs the DTV SW 6.2 version. The HD that died has v6.4. Will there be any compatibility problems if I copy the contents of the v6.4 disk to the v6.2 disk?


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## BTUx9 (Nov 13, 2003)

If you're copying the existing 6.4 installation, getting a "baked" HD is a waste of money... you just need a regular IDE hard drive of sufficient size.

The act of copying completely rewrites the content of a drive, so if you already have the "baked" one, it should work just as well as any other.


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## Doomster (Nov 6, 2003)

BTUx9 said:


> If you're copying the existing 6.4 installation, getting a "baked" HD is a waste of money... you just need a regular IDE hard drive of sufficient size.
> 
> The act of copying completely rewrites the content of a drive, so if you already have the "baked" one, it should work just as well as any other.


Is there a tool then that lets you copy shows/movies from one Tivo box's HD to another by running a boot CD and having both HDs in a Linux machine?


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## classicsat (Feb 18, 2004)

MFSTools does that.


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## Doomster (Nov 6, 2003)

classicsat said:


> MFSTools does that.


Going by what BTUx9 said, I thought that Mfstools copies the whole drive bit by bit.

What I'm looking for is a tool that copies just the recorded shows over. The reason is because I have a defunct DirecTivo HDVR2 too. The disk is good but the DTV receiver has a bad #1 receiver port. So when it tries to boot up, it can't get signals from #1 receiver and never comes up.

I'd like to copy the contents of that disk to the disk of another DTV and get rid of the HDVR2 with its broken #1 receiver port. Can Mfstools handle just copying over the programs?

I thought I read somewhere on this forum that when you record shows on DTV, the Tivo SW "marries" the show to the particular receiver. There is that hack that allows you to copy shows over a network (Zipper). But will mfstools allow you to copy a show from one receiver's HD to another and then still view it?

Thanx.


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## Doomster (Nov 6, 2003)

I forgot to ask this in my last post.

If I have a Tivo that had 2 HDs (120Gb each) and I wanted to copy the contents to a single 1 HD, would Mfstools facilitate this scenario? I thought I heard that mfstools only allows you to copy from one single disk to another single disk.


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## halfempty (Oct 17, 2008)

Not sure I completely follow, but shows recorded on a DTivo are encrypted by a chip that is unique in each DTivo. They will only play back on the same unit they were recorded on. If you wait a while on the searching for satellite you may be able to press the DirecTV/Tivo button and get to DirecTV Central to watch the shows.

There is a way to combine 2 drives to a single drive, but only if the A drive is the original (unexpanded) drive. If the A drive was expanded, to the best of my knowledge, they cannot be combined.


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## Doomster (Nov 6, 2003)

halfempty said:


> Not sure I completely follow, but shows recorded on a DTivo are encrypted by a chip that is unique in each DTivo. They will only play back on the same unit they were recorded on.


Halfempty,

This encryption function should only be a problem if I copy shows from a HD of one DTV receiver to a HD of another DTV receiver, correct?

That is, if I have a HD that is flaky, then copy its contents using mfstool to a HD that is healthier, the DTV should be able to play back shows on the new disk since both the old and new HDs are using the encryption from the same chip, correct?

The question I have though is about msftools - can I copy the shows from an old disk running v6.4 to the new disk running v6.2? I prefer v6.2 over v6.4.



> If you wait a while on the searching for satellite you may be able to press the DirecTV/Tivo button and get to DirecTV Central to watch the shows.


I prefer to just copy the shows to another disk of another DTV receiver. The old one's failing receiver port is a deal breakder. Looks like I have to hack it using Zipper, correct?



halfempty said:


> There is a way to combine 2 drives to a single drive, but only if the A drive is the original (unexpanded) drive. If the A drive was expanded, to the best of my knowledge, they cannot be combined.


Is there a way to tell if the A drive was expanded or not?

And thanx for the info halfempty


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## halfempty (Oct 17, 2008)

Doomster said:


> This encryption function should only be a problem if I copy shows from a HD of one DTV receiver to a HD of another DTV receiver, correct?
> 
> That is, if I have a HD that is flaky, then copy its contents using mfstool to a HD that is healthier, the DTV should be able to play back shows on the new disk since both the old and new HDs are using the encryption from the same chip, correct?


Yes, and yes.



Doomster said:


> The question I have though is about msftools - can I copy the shows from an old disk running v6.4 to the new disk running v6.2? I prefer v6.2 over v6.4.


No. The mfs database structure changed a little from 6.2 to 6.4. If you copied over the data at a file system level I don't think 6.2 would have much success trying to access it.



Doomster said:


> I prefer to just copy the shows to another disk of another DTV receiver. The old one's failing receiver port is a deal breakder. Looks like I have to hack it using Zipper, correct?


Can't give you a definite answer on Zipper since I've never used it. When I hacked my units I did it manually. You are on the right track though, you have to get the current unit to stream out the shows so it can decrypt them.



Doomster said:


> Is there a way to tell if the A drive was expanded or not?


Check the model of the DTivo and see what size hard drive came with it. A more definitive way is to connect it to a PC and boot with MFSlive or something similar, and look at the partition map.


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