# THR22-100 internal disk upgrades



## leres (Jun 1, 2001)

The stock 500GB Seagate Pipeline HD drive found in the THR22-100 is probably running custom firmware; when connected to a PC, it give errors or hangs the bios depending on the motherboard. This probably isn't due to SATA locking as unlocking sofware reports the drive as unlocked with unknown problems; copying the original drive does not appear possible at all.

Meanwhile, the THR22 behaves like DirecTV DVRs in that it will format a blank internal drive and then start using it. And the resulting disk has a partition layout that the mfslayout.sh script on the JMFS iso can read.

So what is probably is possible is to install a blank consumer drive and then later either make an image copy to a new drive of the same size or using the JMFS iso to copy/expand to a larger drive. Of course JMFS has a size limitation of 2TB so it might be best to just start with a 2TB drive. That way a simple image copy could be used to replace a failing drive or even make periodic backups.


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## JosephB (Nov 19, 2010)

why worry about getting a new drive formatted and then backing up? I'd only bother with backing up once you start putting recordings on it, but there's no need to get an image of a drive in order to do other upgrades later on (or on other boxes)


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## leres (Jun 1, 2001)

JosephB said:


> why worry about getting a new drive formatted and then backing up? I'd only bother with backing up once you start putting recordings on it, but there's no need to get an image of a drive in order to do other upgrades later on (or on other boxes)


Sure, there's no point in backing up until you have recordings on the drive. But I think what's more valuable is the thumbs database. In the past I used two drives of the same size; I did image copies and then swapped them every 3 to 6 months. So even if a drive completely fried, I wouldn't have to start over.


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## HiDefGator (Oct 12, 2004)

leres said:


> Sure, there's no point in backing up until you have recordings on the drive. But I think what's more valuable is the thumbs database. In the past I used two drives of the same size; I did image copies and then swapped them every 3 to 6 months. So even if a drive completely fried, I wouldn't have to start over.


I would worry that pulling the drive every 3 months and attaching it to a PC for copy purposes is more likely to cause drive failure than anything else. Your backup plan is the your biggest need for a backup plan.


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## leres (Jun 1, 2001)

HiDefGator said:


> I would worry that pulling the drive every 3 months and attaching it to a PC for copy purposes is more likely to cause drive failure than anything else. Your backup plan is the your biggest need for a backup plan.


That's hilarious!

In my experience, hard drives are not fragile (e.g. they are not sugar cookies). And it's not absolutely necessary to pull the hard drive to back it up, you can just remove the connectors.

Thanks for brightening my Sunday morning.


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## HiDefGator (Oct 12, 2004)

leres said:


> That's hilarious!
> 
> In my experience, hard drives are not fragile (e.g. they are not sugar cookies). And it's not absolutely necessary to pull the hard drive to back it up, you can just remove the connectors.
> 
> Thanks for brightening my Sunday morning.


Oh I agree they aren't fragile. But they were not made to be installed and uninstalled dozens of times either. Static charges, connector wear, broken wires. It's asking for trouble. But you won't care because you'll have a backup.


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## leres (Jun 1, 2001)

HiDefGator said:


> But they were not made to be installed and uninstalled dozens of times either. Static charges, connector wear, broken wires. It's asking for trouble. But you won't care because you'll have a backup.


If that's true I guess I'll have to accept the risk that my HDs will fail due to nominal handling if I keep this THR22 for 10 years.

Too funny.


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## Jerry_K (Feb 7, 2002)

Check out the copying thread on DBSTalk. They have a method to copy the contents from DTV DVRs. Maybe the same sort of thing would work on the TiVo drive.


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## leres (Jun 1, 2001)

Jerry_K said:


> Check out the copying thread on DBSTalk. They have a method to copy the contents from DTV DVRs. Maybe the same sort of thing would work on the TiVo drive.


Copying from an HR10 is different than from a THR22. But as I already said when I started this thread, I believe it's possible to use a JMFS aware copy process to copy a consumer drive formatted in a THR22 to another consumer drive.

But trying to do this with the 500GB Seagate Pipeline HD that comes stock in a THR22 won't work because there's something "different" with those drives and they won't talk to PCs.


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## chrissexton1956 (Jan 11, 2012)

does anyone have a Premire on the same network with new THR22 TiVo I have 4 OTA Premieres with 2 tb drives so 317 hours x 4 boxes and I want to know before I go back to DTV with a TiVo if I will be able to copy shows to and from my exsisting Premieres 
Thanks for any info you have


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## litzdog911 (Oct 18, 2002)

chrissexton1956 said:


> does anyone have a Premire on the same network with new THR22 TiVo I have 4 OTA Premieres with 2 tb drives so 317 hours x 4 boxes and I want to know before I go back to DTV with a TiVo if I will be able to copy shows to and from my exsisting Premieres
> Thanks for any info you have


Not possible.


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## Jerry_K (Feb 7, 2002)

leres said:


> Copying from an HR10 is different than from a THR22. But as I already said when I started this thread, I believe it's possible to use a JMFS aware copy process to copy a consumer drive formatted in a THR22 to another consumer drive.
> 
> But trying to do this with the 500GB Seagate Pipeline HD that comes stock in a THR22 won't work because there's something "different" with those drives and they won't talk to PCs.


You only use the PC to get the SATA interfaces required. The PC boots from a form of linux on a CD. Then a bunch of linux commands are used to copy the disk with content onto the empty disk.

http://www.dbstalk.com/showthread.php?t=148760&highlight=drive+copy


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## leres (Jun 1, 2001)

Jerry_K said:


> You only use the PC to get the SATA interfaces required. The PC boots from a form of linux on a CD. Then a bunch of linux commands are used to copy the disk with content onto the empty disk.
> 
> http://www.dbstalk.com/showthread.php?t=148760&highlight=drive+copy


Yes, I know how this all works and I've done it dozens of times over the last 12 years.

The problem is, there's something "special" about the 500GB drive the THR22's ship with. The PC bios can't talk to it. However, if you hook up a blank off the shelf (e.g. consumer) drive and let the THR22 format it, the result is something (a) a PC can access and (b) a JMFS linux CD can talk to.


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## Jerry_K (Feb 7, 2002)

So just keep the original drive for return to DirecTV and get other drives to install and do backups.


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## leres (Jun 1, 2001)

Jerry_K said:


> So just keep the original drive for return to DirecTV...


This is not my first rodeo.


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## bacon612 (Jun 16, 2014)

Hey guys. I just attempted to upgrade my thr22-100 from the stock 500 gig drive to a spare seagate 1.5 tb drive i had laying around. 

I first was going to use winmfs to copy the contents of my stock drive to the larger replacement when I noticed that after removing the stock drive, and plugging it into a sata to usb kit I had, it wouldnt spin up. 

I tried several different power supplies without any luck. 

I find it hard to believe that the stock unit just randomly sh*t the bed. (Though I suppose its possible)

Does this sound familiar to any of you? I just popped in the 1.5 tb drive now and its formatting in the tivo. I was kind of hoping to be able to copy content from the old drive.

Any thoughts?


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## stevel (Aug 23, 2000)

There does not appear to be a way to copy the content and expand the drive size. winmfs doesn't support the THR22 disk. I tried a lot of suggested methods and gave up.

I haven't had issues with the drive spinning up, but I suppose it's possible that it needed a command to do so. Not worth worrying about since you can't do anything with it anyway.


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