# Tivo Hard Drive Backup



## teamjr (Jan 28, 2006)

Hello,

I have a Directv Tivo and before I do any modifying I would like to make a full hard drive backup to a spare drive. This way I can try mods on the backup drive and if anything goes wrong, I can always put back in the original drive. not sure what program to use to make the mirror drive.

Thanks JR


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## goony (Nov 20, 2003)

If the 2nd drive is the same size or larger I'd suggest dd_rescue. It will do a block-for-block copy from one drive to the other and isn't aware of the operating system, so you could use it to clone Tivo, Linux or Windows drives. It will also give you a nice status every few seconds so you can see how far along it is.

Make a utility disc with the latest dd_rescue and other Tivo tools on it - check out http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=327239

Finally: Mark your original before starting, put it away after your cloning is done.


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## tomreedtoon (Feb 25, 2010)

Okay, question. I have a Series 2 DirecTV Tivo which has a 320 GB SATA drive in it (using an IDE/SATA converter). This is the third time I've had to replace the drive over my ownership of the unit, and I foresee another drive replacement some day.

I don't want to buy that new drive yet. However, I have some USB external drives (formatted for Windows) that have lots of space. Does this dd_rescue boot disk have drivers so that Linux can see the USB drive and write some kind of disk image to it?

Better yet, is it possible to make a Ghost image (using Norton's Ghost) of a Tivo drive, and have it write the image of the drive to a Windows USB drive?

I'd really not have to go buy that backup drive right now. And Linux is like Chinese written backwards to me, so any instructions on how to do it in Linux will have to be real, Ernest P. Worrel-style, simple.


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## ronsch (Sep 7, 2001)

I believe that dd_rescue does speak USB but I've never actually tried it myself.

You can't use Ghost to copy the drive.


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## matthewak89 (Nov 1, 2010)

Does anyone have a backup of their rs-tx20 they would be willing to share?


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