# Problem - I accidentally initialized my TiVo Drive! Is it salvagable?



## goldenmonkey (Jan 12, 2007)

So I was following the steps for the drive upgrade, and after i connected the two drives, windows wasn't recognizing them, so instead of just going into WinMFS like I should have, my dumbass went into diskmgmt.svc and initialized the drives!

I did NOT format either drive, and I did not even assign the TiVo drive a drive letter or anything. But I did right click and hit 'initalize'. Now winMFS says it is not a TiVo drive. I'm not sure if it's possible to get my information off of it either, as I'm afriad to mount the drive for fear it'll force me to format it, or worse...

I have not tried the drive back in the tivo, yet i assume it will not work.

Any advice?!


----------



## spike2k5 (Feb 21, 2006)

WinMFS->Tools->Fix bootpage->Option1
Try it on your Tivo and if it doesn't work

WinMFS->Tools->Fix bootpage->Option2


----------



## goldenmonkey (Jan 12, 2007)

spike2k5 said:


> WinMFS->Tools->Fix bootpage->Option1
> Try it on your Tivo and if it doesn't work
> 
> WinMFS->Tools->Fix bootpage->Option2


you sir are a GOD AMONG MEN.

and i'm an idiot for not noticing that sooner. wow. glad i didn't resort to any drastic measures before waiting for an answer. thanks.


----------



## mr.unnatural (Feb 2, 2006)

You could also run a low level format on the drive to wipe the boot partition. Most diagnostic programs allow you to run a quick low level format that just wipes the beginning and end of the drive rather than writing 1's and 0's to the entire drive, which is more than enough to eliminate the drive initialization performed in Windows.


----------



## jlin (Nov 20, 1999)

Hey guys.. I have similar issue. My Windows Disk Manager wrote MBR (master boot record) to my original 320GB Tivo drive that I intended to copy over to a new 2TB. 

Now it won't boot up from on my Premiere unit (many warning lights flashing in the front.

I tried using WinMFS to fix the drive as described above but it's not seeing any drive on the list. The 320gb drive IS seen in Disk Manager as an unformatted drive without any drive letter.

So any way to get the recorded shows off?


----------



## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

jlin said:


> Hey guys.. I have similar issue. My Windows Disk Manager wrote MBR (master boot record) to my original 320GB Tivo drive that I intended to copy over to a new 2TB.
> 
> Now it won't boot up from on my Premiere unit (many warning lights flashing in the front.
> 
> ...


Unfortunately when the Series 4 TiVos came out the software that still works fine on the S1-S3s was instantly obsoleted because of some changes in whatever voodoo they (TiVo, Inc.) do with the hard drives.

Go to the end of this thead

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=503261

and post your problem and you should get the attention of those who know something about S4 disk structure.

I suspect in order to save your recordings you're going to need someone who knows what they're doing to overwrite just the Windows affected areas of your drive with the right 1s and 0s from a good drive.

It might even be a good idea to use something like

dd_rescue

or

ddrescue

to copy your 320 to the new drive first and then try to fix it instead so that you get more than one shot at it if necessary.

In fact, when you post there, direct them back here so they see this post as well, 'cause I'm having a hard enough time explaining it first hand and I fear you might do even worse trying to relay the message.


----------



## jlin (Nov 20, 1999)

If I use JMS to copy the drive.. would it skip over the bad boot sectors on the 320gb and produce a valid Tivo partition on the destination drive?


----------



## telemark (Nov 12, 2013)

Most tivo aware tools won't recognize the drive as a Tivo drive, cause what's suppose to be on a Tivo drive, is no longer there.

The first 2 structures on a Tivo disk is the Block0 and then the Partition Map. Overwriting either of these will prevent a Series 4 from booting.

If the drive is a factory drive, we know most the values for this from other Tivo's, so would be fixable if nothing else goes wrong.

Could you confirm a few things:
What version of Windows overwrote the drive?
What's your Tivo model number?
Does the hard drive say WD AV-GP WD3200AVVS on it?

As unitron said, you should backup the drive before doing anything else. You can do a sector or bit level copy to the 2TB target drive if you know how. If you don't know how, wait until someone spells it out.

After that, someone would need to take a look what's on the drive, the first 64 sectors (64 x 512k = 32768 bytes) is probably sufficient.


----------



## ggieseke (May 30, 2008)

Fixing the first sector (Block0) should do it as long as you didn't also partition the drive. We can use a hex editor like HxD to make the necessary changes.

Unitron's suggestion to copy the disk first using dd_rescue is good advice. If it hits physically bad sectors it will skip over them. Then we can work on the copy without risking any other damage. It may take a few tries to find out if partition 3 or 6 is the current active boot partition.


----------



## jlin (Nov 20, 1999)

You are right. JMS did not even recognize it as a Tivo drive anymore.

My system is Windows 8.1, my Tivo is the Premiere 320 model, the hard driv is WD3200AVVS indeed.

I did not partition the drive. It's currently 'unallocated' without a drive letter. However, the damage was done when Disk Manager initialized it by writing MBR to it.

Luckily I'm up and running with a 320 premiere image on a 2TB drive but now I just want to recover the shows on the factory 320gb drive.


----------



## lessd (Jan 23, 2005)

jlin said:


> You are right. JMS did not even recognize it as a Tivo drive anymore.
> 
> My system is Windows 8.1, my Tivo is the Premiere 320 model, the hard driv is WD3200AVVS indeed.
> 
> ...


May not be possible as the pointers (the thinging that tells the OS where things are on the disk) may have been overwritten by Windows 8.1


----------



## jlin (Nov 20, 1999)

I really don't intend to use that original drive in the Tivo anymore but can I somehow copy those shows to my 2TB?


----------



## ggieseke (May 30, 2008)

If the original 320GB drive is intact except for the MBR initialization, absolutely. Copy it to the new 2TB drive and we can take it from there.

The Block0 repairs are probably best done with it disconnected from the internet. If we fix that and it boots to an older OS (probably 20.3.8) the TiVo would upgrade anyway, but it's easier to just change two bytes and get it right the first time.


----------



## telemark (Nov 12, 2013)

jmbach has mentioned an app before, iBored which I just checked it out.

It has a remote, client/server mode over the internet which is pretty much ideal for this situation.

You can determine which partition is active in a single go, by checking which kernel is newer.


----------



## jlin (Nov 20, 1999)

Sorry I meant to say that the 2TB drive is using downloaded image.. it's not a copy of the original 320gb drive... therefore it's basically a blank Tivo drive without any shows to start with.

JMS wasn't able to copy the 320gb drive to the 2tb due to it not being recognized as a Tivo drive anymore.

How will iBored help me in recovering the shows on the 320gb drive?


----------



## telemark (Nov 12, 2013)

There's at least 2 ways to do this, but I know this one should work.

1) Backup the 320GB to the new 2TB drive, bit / sector level copy.
2) Locate the active partition.
3) Repair the Block 0.
4) Confirm that it boots in the Tivo, and shows are playable.
5) Put it back in PC to expand it.

iBored helps with #3, maybe #2, because someone can rewrite the Block0 if you're not comfortable with this.

The other way, might just be hypothetical, is you restore a generic Block0 from a working image to the 320GB, this would allow you to use your choice of tools to clone and expand a Tivo drive. Then you still have to fix the 2TB drive's block0 to the correct active partition. I do NOT recommend this method because you don't have a backup while writing to the 320GB the first time, so a mistake then will make the problem worse and possibly impossible.

So start with #1) Backup the 320GB to the new 2TB drive, bit, byte, or sector level copy/clone.


----------



## ggieseke (May 30, 2008)

You should be able to copy the drive using jmfs and dd_rescue even though it doesn't recognize it as a TiVo drive.

Worst case, image the whole drive with DvrBARS in the Full Backup mode and upload it to a free Dropbox account. I'll fix it and send you a link.


----------



## telemark (Nov 12, 2013)

Here's some numbers for anyone trying step #2 with a 20.4.1 Tivo Premiere..
Specifically notice whether the time and date match.


```
20.4.1 kernel has the version string:
Linux version 2.6.18-5.1 ([email protected]) (gcc version 4.2.0) #1 SMP Tue Feb 11 17:20:38 PST 2014

Located at decimal byte
2625600   L   i   n   u   x  sp   v   e   r   s   i   o   n  sp   2   .
2625616   6   .   1   8   -   5   .   1  sp   (   b   u   i   l   d   @
2625632   b   u   i   l   d   m   a   s   t   e   r   9   4   )  sp   (
2625648   g   c   c  sp   v   e   r   s   i   o   n  sp   4   .   2   .
2625664   0   )  sp   #   1  sp   S   M   P  sp   T   u   e  sp   F   e
2625680   b  sp   1   1  sp   1   7   :   2   0   :   3   8  sp   P   S
2625696   T  sp   2   0   1   4  nl nul nul nul nul nul nul nul nul nul

Partition map (with 512 byte blocks) on '/dev/sda'
 #:                type name                        length   base      ( size )
 3:               Image Kernel 1                     16384 @ 343828385 (  8.0M)
 6:               Image Kernel 2                     16384 @ 344369058 (  8.0M)
Device block size=512, Number of Blocks=625142448 (298.1G)
DeviceType=0x0, DeviceId=0x0
```
byte 2625600 / 512bytes/sector = sector 5128 (offset into partition 3 or 6)


----------



## jmbach (Jan 1, 2009)

If the downloaded image is a true 320GB image that you placed on the 2TB drive then you have the data necessary to repair your original 320GB drive. Make sure you either have a backup if you work on the original or work on a backup of the original image.
Essentially you just need to copy block0 from the 2TB drive over to your 320GB drive. Use what ever program you are comfortable with (dd, iBored, HxD, etc.) The only problem you may have is if the booting partition is switched on the 2TB image vs your 320GB image. Not a big issue to fix manually. We may get lucky and it will boot up and work. Since there are only two partitions to choose from, there is a 50-50 chance it will work the first time. Let us know how it goes.


----------



## telemark (Nov 12, 2013)

jmbach said:


> We may get lucky and it will boot up and work. Since there are only two partitions to choose from, there is a 50-50 chance it will work the first time. Let us know how it goes.


It should boot up either way. If the Premiere's been in operation recently and continuously, it'll either boot into 20.3.8 or 20.4.1.

I just don't know what happens to the database if it's from 20.4.1, and the Tivo boots into 20.3.8.

EDIT: oh wait, wasn't the Roamio downgrade epidemic also a 20.4.1 to 20.3.8 transition? Idk, what that tells us.


----------



## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

The jmfs cd has on it the utility

ddrescue

which can be invoked all by itself and used to "Xerox" drives without caring what, if any, format the source drive does or does not have.

The similar utility

dd_rescue

is available on the MFS Live cd v1.4, in case you've got one of those lying around.


----------



## jlin (Nov 20, 1999)

You guys are amazing! Even though I'm not sure half of the stuff you are talking about.. I'll going to give it a try sometime!


----------



## yergg (Oct 21, 2018)

Anyone know where I can get a copy of WinMFS or know how to use MFS tools to correct this same issue?


----------

