# Series 3 Drive Replacement size issue



## Franco (Feb 24, 2002)

The original drive in my Series 3 TCD648250 died on me (lots of nasty clicking). Since I couldn't copy that drive, I had to find a 648 image WinMFS image. I restored the image to a 1.5TB drive. During the WinMFS (Beta 9 3F) restore from the image file, I was asked about using the additional space and did select Yes.

When I put the 1.5TB drive in the TiVo and ran setup, it only reported that 35 HD hours were available for recording.

Is it possible to extend the partition used for recording without having to re-image and start all over? If so, what tools do I use for that?

This was my first restore, so please be gentle with me


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## ThAbtO (Apr 6, 2000)

TCD648250B image here

Restore, say NO to the expand addition space. then do MFSAdd and finally SuperSize.


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## Franco (Feb 24, 2002)

Thanks for the reply. It sounds like I'll have to start over, but it will be worth it to get the increased storage.


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## Franco (Feb 24, 2002)

Quick question on Mfsadd...I'm being asked if I want to limit the partition to 1TB or not. The message is:



> You are about to create a partition larger than 1TB. It's too large for a stock TiVo to support. DO you want to limit it to 1TB?


How should I answer this?


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

Franco said:


> Quick question on Mfsadd...I'm being asked if I want to limit the partition to 1TB or not. The message is:
> 
> How should I answer this?


If the TiVo operating system on that drive is v11.0h or newer (which it should be by now, it was at k when I made my 648 images and is up to m as of last year), then it can handle individual partitions over 1TB (or 1.2TB, depending on whether you're counting in binary or decimal), and can use a drive up to 2TB (but apparently won't even boot with a 2.5 or 3).

But back out of that and run

mfsinfo

and see if you have a big Apple Free partition (as the 14th partition) on the end of the drive.

If so, then go ahead and use

mfsadd

and enjoy.

It'll replace that partition with a 3rd MFS pair, a small 14th partition and a big MFS Media 15th partition, which is the one that's going to exceed 1TB.

When using either WinMFS or the older MFS Live cd, it's best to not try to do the expansion as part of the copying or image restoring, but afterwards, as a separate process, with

mfsadd

Apparently there's an inconsistent bug and sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't, and often when it doesn't, it screws the image on the drive up and you have to do the copy or restore all over again.

You were fortunate that it failed "safe", leaving the drive still able to boot in the TiVo.

And to actually answer your question, yes,

mfsadd

can do the expansion by itself, without having to start over the copy or image restore process, and further, if you decide to replace that 1.5TB drive with a 2TB drive, you can, at least with WinMFS, use

mfscopy

to copy from the smaller to the larger, then change the "Select" focus from the smaller to the larger, check it with

mfsinfo

to make sure everything looks okay, including the addition of about 500
GB of Apple Free 16th partition, and then

mfsadd

will expand that 15th MFS Media partition into that space.

I'm not sure if you can "upgrade an upgrade" that way with the MFS Live cd version of MFS Tools or not, but WinMFS will do it.


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## Franco (Feb 24, 2002)

Thanks for the detailed information. I have to replace the fan in that TiVo, so whenever I get that from Weaknees I will take a look at the existing drive's configuration via MSinfo and see if I can use mfsadd to increase the space.

I don't know if I saw an answer on my specific question I get with Mfsadd. When I was asking it, I grabbed another 1.5TB drive I had just to go through the steps and got to that question. I did some research on that particular question, and according to this post I need to select YES when prompted to limit the partition to 1TB. That post is from 2009, so let me know if that's outdated and I should answer NO instead.

And then the last step is to turn MfsSupersize on, right?


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## ThAbtO (Apr 6, 2000)

Franco said:


> Thanks for the detailed information. I have to replace the fan in that TiVo, so whenever I get that from Weaknees I will take a look at the existing drive's configuration via MSinfo and see if I can use mfsadd to increase the space.
> 
> I don't know if I saw an answer on my specific question I get with Mfsadd. When I was asking it, I grabbed another 1.5TB drive I had just to go through the steps and got to that question. I did some research on that particular question, and according to this post I need to select YES when prompted to limit the partition to 1TB. That post is from 2009, so let me know if that's outdated and I should answer NO instead.
> 
> And then the last step is to turn MfsSupersize on, right?


Answer NO to limit to 1TB.


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

Franco said:


> Thanks for the detailed information. I have to replace the fan in that TiVo, so whenever I get that from Weaknees I will take a look at the existing drive's configuration via MSinfo and see if I can use mfsadd to increase the space.
> 
> I don't know if I saw an answer on my specific question I get with Mfsadd. When I was asking it, I grabbed another 1.5TB drive I had just to go through the steps and got to that question. I did some research on that particular question, and according to this post I need to select YES when prompted to limit the partition to 1TB. That post is from 2009, so let me know if that's outdated and I should answer NO instead.
> 
> And then the last step is to turn MfsSupersize on, right?


Yes, that post is outdated.

And the question WinMFS asks is curiously phrased.

If it wants to limit the size, tell it no.


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