# DirecTV HD DVR HR10-250 Upgrade Thread



## weaknees

The good news is: the HD TiVo seems to be upgradeable. We have successfully backed up and restored the software, expanded it, and added second drives.

PLEASE NOTE: We havent yet filled up these drives with HD content. Once weve had a chance to try many other tests in these units (weve got a pretty big list) well try this. So for now, were relying on what we see in System Information. Until we have successfully loaded the drive with content, take all this with a grain of salt.

Here are the details:

We used our standard backup string:

mfsbackup f 9999 1so /image.bak /dev/hdc

The resulting image is 1486 MB.

We restored to our 300 GB Maxtor QuickView drive as:

mfsrestore xzpi /image.bak /dev/hdc

and in the TiVo we see 37 hours in HD and 248 in SD.

We have blessed drives in noswap and added them to the factory drive, and those drives are recognized by the system. Adding a 300 GB drive to the stock 250 GB drive creates 70 hours in HD and 470 hours in SD.

So far, we cant get a dual 300 setup to work reliably, but were still working on it.

So in short, we can get mfsadd to work with one drive, and we have successfully added a second drive to a stock A drive with BlessTiVo, but we have not yet successfully used mfsadd (or the x switch in mfsrestore) across two drives, with the first being >250GB.

The challenge here is to safely hold the second drive in the unit. Our TwinBreeze bracket wont work in its current configuration and we have begun the process of engineering a new bracket for this unit. Quality components take some time to engineer, test, tool, and manufacture. The power supply in the HD box is 85W so we dont see any reason to add the PowerTrip to this box at present.

More details as they come.

Michael

EDIT: 9/28/04

We have updated our D-I-Y upgrade site to support this model:

http://www.upgrade-instructions.com

We have a CD with large kernel support, and full instructions for using two large drives for this model.


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## bkdtv

weaknees,

How long would you *guess* it wll take you to engineer and mass produce a bracket for the HD Tivo? Are we talking weeks or months?


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## dswallow

Good luck Michael; I know I'm anxious to hear/see/buy the final results!


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## turls

Oh boy! I'm really surprised. I guess this is a reason to get a unit sooner rather than later. Not that I think DirecTV is quick enough on their feet to re-engineer hardware or software to prevent this any time soon, but it will probably be on their todo list.

Also, isn't the Maxtor drive much quieter than the stock WD drive?


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## Darin

WooHoo!


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## MrBigglesworth

Awesome news!


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## Darin

> _Originally posted by turls _
> *Not that I think DirecTV is quick enough on their feet to re-engineer hardware or software to prevent this any time soon, but it will probably be on their todo list. *


They've never done that in the past, have they?


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## turls

> _Originally posted by Darin _
> *They've never done that in the past, have they? *


No, but the design was done on the originals before they "took over" from Tivo. And of course, being an HD box, any hackability will be doubly discouraged by MPAA and other DirecTV "partners".

Not FUD at all. I'm being quite reasonable.


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## Paperboy2003

How soon is it typically before we get an idea on costs as well as time to get the add on done?

Doug


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## Paperboy2003

also, since doing this add on voids the warrantee, does weaknees (or anyone else) offer some kind of warrantee to protect those that work with them?

Doug


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## Darin

> _Originally posted by turls _
> *Not FUD at all. I'm being quite reasonable. *


 I'm not suggesting you're being unreasonable, just making sure there's not precedent that I'm not aware of. The good news is, software-wise, weaknees was able to use their existing tools and command lines... they didn't have to hack to make it work. I would THINK that if DirecTV really wanted to prevent it (it's not like they don't know it's going on now), they could have easily thrown in a speed bump before they reached final design.


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## Darin

> _Originally posted by Paperboy2003 _
> *also, since doing this add on voids the warrantee, does weaknees (or anyone else) offer some kind of warrantee to protect those that work with them?*


What incentive would there be for them to warranty your $1000 box, taking responsibility for your mod work, just for selling you a $20 part?

That's just the risk you take when doing this kind of stuff.


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## bcc

The maxtor 300gb is 5400rpm, right? Fast enough to keep up when the tivo is recording two HD shows and replaying a 3rd? How about noise/heat? Quieter than the built-in wd2500?


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## ljg

Michael:

What would be the maximum # of added drives weakness could do as a modification, of course assuming it goes well with one additional drive is there any way weakness could add additional drives outside of the Tivo box?

Lon


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## litzdog911

> _Originally posted by ljg _
> *Michael:
> 
> What would be the maximum # of added drives weakness could do as a modification, of course assuming it goes well with one additional drive is there any way weakness could add additional drives outside of the Tivo box?
> 
> Lon *


My understanding is that without MAJOR modifications Tivo only supports two IDE devices, that is, two hard drives.

Some have speculated that maybe external USB drives could be supported, but really bad things would happen if one of these drives got disconnected because of how Tivo's file system "marries" hard drives together.


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## Graphics

Nice going Michael..its upgradeable! its upgradeable! FANTASTIC!
Now another 250 gig is very affordable.

400gig x 2 is what I would most likely love to see.
Again Great News. Keep tinkering you guys...


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## weaknees

> _Originally posted by bkdtv _
> *weaknees,
> 
> How long would you guess it wll take you to engineer and mass produce a bracket for the HD Tivo? Are we talking weeks or months? *


We just don't know at this point. We intend to make something that builds on the quality of the TwinBreeze - not something quick and dirty that will result in increased vibration, noise, and heat. We recognize that these boxes are expensive and prized, and we don't intend to take any shortcuts in producing an add-on part for them. We certainly don't want to risk a $1000 machine by engineering a bracket just to get it fast to market.

More info when we have it - we're both professionally and personally eager as well.

Michael


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## weaknees

> _Originally posted by turls _
> *Also, isn't the Maxtor drive much quieter than the stock WD drive? *


This just hasn't been our priority so far - we haven't tested the two side by side in a quiet room.

Our experience at the 40 GB hard drive level shows that the Maxtor QuickViews are much quieter than the WDs, but at this size, we just don't yet know.

Michael


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## weaknees

> _Originally posted by Paperboy2003 _
> *How soon is it typically before we get an idea on costs as well as time to get the add on done?
> 
> Doug *


It's just too early to know at this point. As soon as we're confident in our testing, we'll begin to get some options out there.

Michael


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## tivoupgrade

For those interested in upgrades for their HD TiVo units, we have a mailing list signup here.

We will be making infrequent announcements to the list when brackets, kits, and professional services become available. We have been working on a prototype bracket for the new HD units for awhile and should have something in low volumes in the coming weeks. We tend not to rush these things, and don't release products without the proper testing and documentation, but we'll make an announcement here when the time is right.

Thanks,
Lou


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## weaknees

> _Originally posted by litzdog911 _
> *My understanding is that without MAJOR modifications Tivo only supports two IDE devices, that is, two hard drives. *


Two IDE devices per bus (that's the way the spec works), so potentially you could have four devices in a Pioneer or Toshiba since they have dual buses, but that's a whole different issue.

For now, we don't envision a way to go beyond the standard max of two drives.

Michael


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## oosik77

Due to heat issues I'd be interested in a possible external housing for both drives. Would need to take power up/down into account but that might be an interesting thing to look into as well.


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## jayerndl

> _Originally posted by oosik77 _
> *Due to heat issues I'd be interested in a possible external housing for both drives. Would need to take power up/down into account but that might be an interesting thing to look into as well. *


 You could take this idea one step further and have mutiple external 2 disk "sets" that you could switch between with the proper IDE switcher. This would allow some form of archive capability.

Jay


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## oosik77

I'd think that would mess up the program guide and probably cause corruption issues. Unless you mean complete bootable married pairs of drives.


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## Paperboy2003

> _Originally posted by Darin _
> *What incentive would there be for them to warranty your $1000 box, taking responsibility for your mod work, just for selling you a $20 part?
> 
> That's just the risk you take when doing this kind of stuff. *


 \\

I'm new at this...I was thinking that you send your new HD Tivo to weaknees and they do the work and send it back. If they just send you a kit then I certainly understand that there wouldn't be any kind of warrantee.

Doug


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## Darin

> _Originally posted by Paperboy2003 _
> *I was thinking that you send your new HD Tivo to weaknees and they do the work and send it back. *


Well, I believe they have generally offered upgraded TiVos (as in you buy the entire thing from them, already upgraded), and they may carry a warranty. I don't know if you can send yours in & have it upgraded. But whether or not they are willing to take the risk on parts that aren't related to their product is probably going to depend on how much you are spending.


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## PJO1966

I don't know if it has been mentioned, but there doesn't seem to be any way of telling if a box had been opened. There's no sticker or anything else. I assume one could always put the original drive back in if there was a warranty issue.


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## jayerndl

> _Originally posted by oosik77 _
> *I'd think that would mess up the program guide and probably cause corruption issues. Unless you mean complete bootable married pairs of drives. *


 Yes I was referring to "complete bootable married pairs of drives". All you would need to do is re-boot and select the desired drive pair with the IDE switch. Not a terribly elegant solution, but certainly workable and reasonably priced.

Jay


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## weaknees

Switching drives has certainly been discussed at lenght on these forums, but we really don't believe it's workable. Would you keep all of your Season Passes on each set of drives? Would you have to reboot while you are watching something to be sure that the other set of drives caught something in its To Do list?

You really start to lose the convenience of TiVo and you end up with a digital VCR.

Michael


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## WanMan

How long for you to add an Ethernet port?


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## jlin

and firewire output?

From an angry DISH 921 PVR user.


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## rogo

There is almost zero chance that a Firewire port could ever be added. Integration of chips would be the enemy of anyone trying to do that.

Also, I guess I'm not persuaded that "we can't get 300 x 2 working" means the unit is upgradeable. So far, it isn't really.

That said, I see no incentive for DirecTV to care about whether or not you upgrade and not a shred of evidence they will shut this down now anymore than they have in the past. 

I would note that if they chose to support USB 2.0 drives, there are many ways they can have the software changed to make the drive "marriage" issue go away. I still see tech-support headaches, but solutions nevertheless.

Mark


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## stephenC

Mark - You got me thinking. Would it be possible to "adapt" a 1394 port on a D-VHS box to USB 2.0? Would it then be possible to connect the TiVo USB 2.0 port to the "adapted" D-VHS port? Then output USB 2.0 to USB 2.0 on the two devices? I really haven't researched this, but it was a thought that crossed my mind.


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## unixadm

> _Originally posted by weaknees _
> *Switching drives has certainly been discussed at lenght on these forums, but we really don't believe it's workable. Would you keep all of your Season Passes on each set of drives? Would you have to reboot while you are watching something to be sure that the other set of drives caught something in its To Do list?
> 
> You really start to lose the convenience of TiVo and you end up with a digital VCR.
> 
> Michael *


Michael.....it depends on your use of the TiVo...and how many you have.

I have 3 DirectTiVos connected up to my main TV......

TiVo 1: Season Pass TiVo (108 hours T60) 
TiVo 2: Movie TiVo (228 hours T60), 
TiVo 3: Kids Season Pass TiVo (35 Hours HDVR2)

I will eventually be replacing TiVo1 with an HDTV TiVo, possibily TiVo 2 as well.....I would envision that multiple drive sets would be great for our TiVo 2...the movie TiVo. It does not have any Season Passes, just wishlists (some autorecord)......I would be great to have multiple disk sets with different movies....maybe even group them......Kids movies on one disk set, Comedies on another, Action on a third set, etc....

Yes, it is a digital VCR at that point, but since I subscribe to the Premiere package, I want to get the most out of the channels I get....it works well in my setup considering the other TiVos do the Season Passes.


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## WanMan

rogo, 600GB is not enough. Sorry, but I'm a pig and came out of the closet a long time ago on that subject. If I cannot extract to optical then its boring.


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## weldon

> _Originally posted by unixadm _
> *I will eventually be replacing TiVo1 with an HDTV TiVo, possibily TiVo 2 as well.....I would envision that multiple drive sets would be great for our TiVo 2...the movie TiVo. It does not have any Season Passes, just wishlists (some autorecord)......I would be great to have multiple disk sets with different movies....maybe even group them......Kids movies on one disk set, Comedies on another, Action on a third set, etc....*


I must be missing something here. If you have _different_ wishlists on each drive set, then only those movies that match the current drive's wishlists would be recorded. If you had a separate drive set (w/ corresponding wishlist) for kids, comedies, and action then the TiVo would only record one of those at a time (since the other drive sets' wishlists wouldn't be loaded).

Your other choice would be to duplicate the wishlists on a second drive set and "archive" the first set when it became full of recorded programs. Eventually, you'd have to keep a list of which movie was on which drive set and power down the TiVo and bring it back with that drive set to watch the movie. Might be better to get a DVD recorder and "archive" programs to DVD.

I'd like to see if someone can get 400GB+400GB drives working before I messed around with drive sets. I was also thinking, is there a device that can connect to an IDE controller and make a RAID set appear to be one volume to the TiVo?


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## unixadm

weldon,

You are correct.....it wouldn't be the perfect solution, but better than deleting movies I want to keep so I can record new movies I want to watch. My auto-record wishlists are for specific movie names that I want so it is rare that it really auto-record, so I would be willing to give them up and do manual wishlist searches if I had the setup to be able to swap between disk sets.

It would be much better if they would just go SCSI, then we could string a whole bunch of drives off of it....even be able to go RAID5 or RAID 0/1 so there would be drive failure protection. Of course I never expect that to happen, but it would be great if it would.


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## dswallow

> _Originally posted by unixadm _
> *weldon,
> 
> You are correct.....it wouldn't be the perfect solution, but better than deleting movies I want to keep so I can record new movies I want to watch. My auto-record wishlists are for specific movie names that I want so it is rare that it really auto-record, so I would be willing to give them up and do manual wishlist searches if I had the setup to be able to swap between disk sets.
> 
> It would be much better if they would just go SCSI, then we could string a whole bunch of drives off of it....even be able to go RAID5 or RAID 0/1 so there would be drive failure protection. Of course I never expect that to happen, but it would be great if it would. *


 I wonder just how small a market for a heavy duty version of the HD DVR would be practical to come out with a product for. If you take the existing design which could very well already have two IDE buses, and just make a cabinet and stick 4 400GB drives into it if that'd be minor enough they could actually do it and make a viable product from it.

There's probably a certain amount of tooling for the chassis and cabinet and front panel that has a relatively high fixed cost to start. But then there's so many micro-manufacturers that have niche markets for high end A/V products, it just wouldn't seem that it could be impractical to consider. There are people who'd drop $5,000 in something like that as there's obviously some people willing do drop $5,000 on the HD DVR as it is now.


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## tivoupgrade

Its interesting to see that the more things change, the more they stay the same. This very same dialog has actually taken place on this very same forum - in fact, it was so long ago, that I was unable to find an archive for it. I recall that before 160GB drives were readily available, people were discussing removable drive solutions and piggy-back racks for Series1 units as a way to break the 400-hour barrier. The funny thing is that the drive-densities keep going up, and the cost associated with just cramming a few big drives in vs all the tooling and engineering involved in a more exotic alternative still ends up in favor of waiting for the bigger drives.

Keeping in mind the design-center for products such as this, and all the bad things that happen when you put too much storage on a unit designed for 1/4 of what the 'bleeding edge' folks really want, it ends up being a difficult business model to seriously consider.

With that said, it will be interesting to see how far people can push the envelope with these new units -- clearly having lba48 support as part of the core OS really does offer a lot more alternatives than previous generation units, so at least there is less to be concerned with from the software perspective.

Lastly, a quick and dirty solution to something that might end up being just a huge sink of time and money --- how about two separate units, each collecting different shows, and the appropriate array of switchers and the ideal universal remote?

Cheers,
Lou


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## paouelle

I personally prefer having 2 receivers with 4 tuners then 1 receiver with 2 tuners and a hugue array of hard disks. Having 4 tuners allows me to better deal with scheduling conflicts and record more shows that runs at the same time.

Patrick


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## Darin

> _Originally posted by paouelle _
> *I personally prefer having 2 receivers with 4 tuners then 1 receiver with 2 tuners and a hugue array of hard disks.*


It's a mixed bag. Doubling the tuners can certainly be handy, but dealing with two separate sets of lists is a bit more tedious. HMO would certainly make it a little better.

That said, I'm going to be using two units too. My existing SD, and the new HD. I have over 200hrs on my main TiVo now, which is more than ample. If I can offload all SD to it, that should help the HD unit until an upgrade becomes practical. And when it does, I'll probably just add a 300GB or so drive to it. 70hrs of HD plus my SD storage should be plenty. I'm considering reducing my "channels I receive" list on the HD unit to just HD channels, just so it will only record HD suggestions. I wish we could put so hard limitations into what it suggests, in addition to it's own logic that it uses.


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## weldon

As cheap as DirecTiVo's are these days, I think two systems is perfectly reasonable. I just wish there was some way to coordinate scheduling to avoid conflicts across all four tuners and an integrated interface (which is somewhat possible with HMO).

I'm still waiting for the perfectly modular TiVo that allows for an unlimited number of tuners of different types (QAM, analog, DTV, ATSC, OpenCable, etc.) that record to a central storage server. All the programs would be accessible from an unlimited number of thin-client display heads that range from cheap RCA connectors only to HDMI-DVI & optical audio, in both wired and wireless versions. As pie-in-the-sky as that might sound, I think the only real hurdle left is the lack of a business environment that would allow a company to build tuners for multiple sources. OpenCable is promising though.


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## wkozun

> _Originally posted by WanMan _
> *rogo, 600GB is not enough. Sorry, but I'm a pig and came out of the closet a long time ago on that subject. If I cannot extract to optical then its boring. *


Even if you could extract to optical what would you do with it? DVDs can't play 1080i or 720p so what's the point unless you're going to watch it on a PC or HTPC connected up to your HDTV.


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## paouelle

> _Originally posted by Darin _
> *It's a mixed bag. Doubling the tuners can certainly be handy, but dealing with two separate sets of lists is a bit more tedious. HMO would certainly make it a little better.
> 
> That said, I'm going to be using two units too. My existing SD, and the new HD. I have over 200hrs on my main TiVo now, which is more than ample. If I can offload all SD to it, that should help the HD unit until an upgrade becomes practical. And when it does, I'll probably just add a 300GB or so drive to it. 70hrs of HD plus my SD storage should be plenty. I'm considering reducing my "channels I receive" list on the HD unit to just HD channels, just so it will only record HD suggestions. I wish we could put so hard limitations into what it suggests, in addition to it's own logic that it uses. *


I do agree that having HMO would definitely reduce the complexity in managing 2 receivers but there has been many times in the past for me that 2 tuners were not enough at a given time. Either it was due to multiple programs running at the same time (I know I am watching too much TV but that is what TiVos are for right? ) or just because I have to pad the time by a couple of minutes because of improper time synchronization between the various channels.

In my case, I will be recording all my SD programs including duplicates of HDs (to be on the safe side) on my SD TiVo receiver and use the 2 HD TiVo receivers for HD programming only.

I have been managing 2 lists for the last 2 years with my old ultimateTV and I am sure I can manage 3 receivers.

The one thing for sure, I can wait to get them here ...

Patrick


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## dswallow

> _Originally posted by paouelle _
> *...there has been many times in the past for me that 2 tuners were not enough at a given time. *


 While re-entering my season passes, I came across the one time I need 3 tuners... Angel, The O.C. and West Wing all are on at the same time. Fortunately I can catch The O.C. or West Wing from the west coast in HD I'm busy earlier, but still I have to watch it live.


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## bcc

Has anyone yet tried a maxtor maxline ii 300gb (non quickview)? It looks like the most cost effective and simple upgrade to wd2500 right now. But its latency is higher than the wd, and I'm afraid it might introduce glitches if the tivo is working on 3 HD streams at once. What if I configure it with 'amset /quiet'? Will that push it over the edge performance-wise?


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## Greg G

> _Originally posted by dswallow _
> *Fortunately I can catch The O.C. or West Wing from the west coast in HD I'm busy earlier, but still I have to watch it live.  *


How do you get the west coast in HD?

-Greg


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## Plugplay

> _Originally posted by Greg G _
> *How do you get the west coast in HD?
> 
> -Greg *


Either directv with Distant locals or a really big antenna!


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## dswallow

> _Originally posted by Greg G _
> *How do you get the west coast in HD? *


 Bell Expressvu subscription through a broker (www.canamsatellites.com) and their version of the Echostar 6000 piece-of-crap HD receiver. They have ABC/CBS/NBC/FOX/PBS in HD from Boston and from Seattle.


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## pkscout

> _Originally posted by weldon _
> *As cheap as DirecTiVo's are these days, I think two systems is perfectly reasonable. I just wish there was some way to coordinate scheduling to avoid conflicts across all four tuners and an integrated interface (which is somewhat possible with HMO).
> *


I wish HMO was an option too. Especially because adding an SD DTiVo (the HDTiVo is my first DirecTV TiVo) will require running two more lines to the living room, getting a multiswitch (I have a normal STB in the bedroom, so that would make 5 cables), finding a way to get another box in the wall (I need 7 ports on the plate, and I think the most I can get in one gang plate is 6)...

You get the point. If HMO was an option, I could just put the SD DTiVo in the bedroom and let it record stuff there, then move it to the living room later. Since that isn't an option, I'm hoping for a way to get another drive in my HDTiVo. Besides, over half of what I watch is in HD anyway.


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## paouelle

> _Originally posted by pkscout _
> *I wish HMO was an option too. Especially because adding an SD DTiVo (the HDTiVo is my first DirecTV TiVo) will require running two more lines to the living room, getting a multiswitch (I have a normal STB in the bedroom, so that would make 5 cables), finding a way to get another box in the wall (I need 7 ports on the plate, and I think the most I can get in one gang plate is 6)...
> 
> You get the point. If HMO was an option, I could just put the SD DTiVo in the bedroom and let it record stuff there, then move it to the living room later. Since that isn't an option, I'm hoping for a way to get another drive in my HDTiVo. Besides, over half of what I watch is in HD anyway. *


There are double gang plates where you can put either 8 connectors or 12 connectors; checkout www.smarthome.com/85523.HTML.

This is what I used in my living room where I brought in 8 coax cables, 1 phone line and 3 Ethernet connections just in case . I also have another plate next to it with 1 coax for the antenna and a rotor connection.

Patrick


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## weaknees

We've been getting a lot of emails and phone calls about availability of these upgrades. We want to stress again that these results are preliminary, and we won't be selling kits until we're sure that they're as stable as our current upgrade kits. In addtion, for add kits, we'll need new parts.

Michael


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## turls

Because they might not want to deal with the support calls? Maybe they don't care, but this is their baby from the beginning which makes a difference.

And I didn't say they have reason to care about this particular upgrade, what they may care about is the whole hacking concept that some MPAA types may say has been abused.

You really think the rights management crowd knows (or cares about) the difference between extraction and capacity upgrades?



> _Originally posted by rogo _
> *That said, I see no incentive for DirecTV to care about whether or not you upgrade and not a shred of evidence they will shut this down now anymore than they have in the past.
> *


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## Toeside

This is from a different thread:



> _Originally posted by weaknees _
> *
> Basically, FlyingDiver has the right issue. You need a kernel that supports lba48 to see the entire drive - the mfstools boot CDs specifically use older kernels so that 160 GB drives can be used on older machines without problems.
> 
> You probably need kernel 2.4.20.
> 
> Michael *


Does anyone have an ISO image available with the this newer kernel and LBA48 support?

I should have my HD TiVo next week, and I'm considering making a backup before powering it on.

Thanks!

Craig


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## WanMan

I want my HD TiVo to have this optical drive installed in it. Maybe they can make a carosel version, too for spanning optical disks.


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## weaknees

More info is here:

http://www.courtesan.com/tivo/bigdisk.html

You *don't* need any of the kernel swapping info, you just need to boot in a newer kernel that can see the entire drive.

You can find a variety of OS installs here:

http://www.knoppix.org/

Michael


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## Toeside

Michael, 

Thanks for the links!

Craig


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## tivoupgrade

> _Originally posted by Toeside _
> *This is from a different thread:
> 
> Does anyone have an ISO image available with the this newer kernel and LBA48 support?
> 
> I should have my HD TiVo next week, and I'm considering making a backup before powering it on.
> 
> Thanks!
> 
> Craig *


Here is a link to our LBA48 CD which contains all the utilities referenced in the LBA48 thread in the underground and in the courtesan how-to.

http://www.ptvupgrade.com/support/bigdisk/index.html


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## Toeside

> _Originally posted by tivoupgrade _
> *Here is a link to our LBA48 CD which contains all the utilities referenced in the LBA48 thread in the underground and in the courtesan how-to.
> 
> http://www.ptvupgrade.com/support/bigdisk/index.html *


Thanks. I grabbed the ISO earlier today from your site. I think I'm set.

Now, when my HR10-250 arrives, I'll just have to hope my wife isn't home so I don't have to explain why I'm opening up a $1k box immediately after getting it. 

I think I found a good use for that old 4GB drive: temporary location for the HD TiVo backup!

Craig


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## tivoupgrade

> _Originally posted by Toeside _
> *Thanks. I grabbed the ISO earlier today from your site. I think I'm set.
> 
> Now, when my HR10-250 arrives, I'll just have to hope my wife isn't home so I don't have to explain why I'm opening up a $1k box immediately after getting it.
> 
> I think I found a good use for that old 4GB drive: temporary location for the HD TiVo backup!
> 
> Craig *


Good luck with it!

You can try explaining to the wife that in 18 months it will only be worth a 1/3 of what you paid for it, if you are lucky. I'm sure that will go over like a lead balloon. ;-)

In any case, do be careful, and if possible, test your backup on another drive to ensure you can recover from the worst possible scenario. I can tell you right now, its unlikely that a backup image will not fit on a single CD, so no "InstantCake" for this unit in the forseeable future.


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## dvdude

> _Originally posted by tivoupgrade _
> *Good luck with it!
> 
> You can try explaining to the wife that in 18 months it will only be worth a 1/3 of what you paid for it, if you are lucky. I'm sure that will go over like a lead balloon. ;-)
> 
> In any case, do be careful, and if possible, test your backup on another drive to ensure you can recover from the worst possible scenario. I can tell you right now, its unlikely that a backup image will not fit on a single CD, so no "InstantCake" for this unit in the forseeable future. *


Bet it'll go on a single DVD/R though eh??


----------



## dvdude

> _Originally posted by paouelle _
> *There are double gang plates where you can put either 8 connectors or 12 connectors; checkout www.smarthome.com/85523.HTML.
> 
> This is what I used in my living room where I brought in 8 coax cables, 1 phone line and 3 Ethernet connections just in case . I also have another plate next to it with 1 coax for the antenna and a rotor connection.
> 
> Patrick *


I've been looking at these for a while (they're available in our local Home Depot/Lowes). Are they stil easy to put together when you've got 8 lines to 'em? I kinda put off buying afraid that I'd break them during install.

TIA


----------



## weaknees

Our test images using -1so show up at about 164 MB.

Michael


----------



## tivoupgrade

> _Originally posted by dvdude _
> *Bet it'll go on a single DVD/R though eh??
> 
> *


Been thinking about that... haven't played around much with the boot CD images and DVD drives; I have a feeling there will be a lot of compatibility issues. Another story for another thread, I suppose...


----------



## paouelle

> _Originally posted by dvdude _
> *I've been looking at these for a while (they're available in our local Home Depot/Lowes). Are they stil easy to put together when you've got 8 lines to 'em? I kinda put off buying afraid that I'd break them during install.
> 
> TIA *


The only hick I found with it is that one of the 2 sides has to be inverted. Not too much an issue for coax connectors but for cat5 connections, you end up having them upside down. Like I said, not too big of a deal.

The other issue was pushing all cables back in the wall. 8 RG6 cables are not easily bendable 

But overall, no problem. You just have to be careful about it.

Patrick


----------



## llogan

This is what I'd envisioned....x number of Tivos...all Turbonet modified running TivoNet, using mySQL as the backend (hosted on a pc) and create logic and a front-end to support managing your recording list and tuners from one location. Would allow PocketPC/Palm based control of menus and their related functions.

The problem that does not solve is the distribution of video from Tivo 8 to a specific location and having individual Tivos independently controllable from any location within the house without possible conflicts of users in other rooms attempting to access the same unit. A problem that certainly has a solution, albeit an expensive one.

So above scenario would work in a setup where you don't need to have too many different Tivos independently supplying video to various locations around the house, i.e. you'd either 

a) watch all of your tv in one or two places OR
b) you didn't care that what you're watching you'd be watching everywhere in the house


----------



## oosik77

Anything new on a dual 300 setup? Pardon me if I missed it!

Also can't wait to see about dual 400's.....


----------



## hongcho

So, has any tried the bracket from 9th Tee (http://www.9thtee.com/tivo-dthd.htm) yet? How does it hold up and would the lid close properly?

Hong.


----------



## 9thTee

> _Originally posted by hongcho _
> *So, has any tried the bracket from 9th Tee (http://www.9thtee.com/tivo-dthd.htm) yet? How does it hold up and would the lid close properly?
> 
> Hong. *


I have, I have! Actually we shipped several yesterday and today so folks will be able to give some feedback pretty soon. Our solution gives a very sturdy platform to mount the hard drive to and I would not hesitate to ship the unit with the upgrade in place. It's not going anywhere. The cover closes just fine and gives room on the top for air circulation.

BTW, just put up a new page with lots of inside pictures of the HR10-250. Here it is: www.9thtee.com/insidehdtivo.htm

Mark
9thTee.com


----------



## dswallow

I was just coming here to mention my order for one of them has shipped. I won't, however, be using it right away. I'm not too worried over the summer season about having more space, and would rather await some feedback from others taking the dive, first.


----------



## Fletch

How large is the swap on the factory drive? I noticed that Weaknees hasn't used the -s option to mfsrestore in their tests.


----------



## weaknees

Well, Mark beat us to the punch on shipping a bracket, but we have one in the works. More info is here:

http://www.weaknees.com/hd_tivo_twinbreeze.php

As far as swap, we think the existing swap is sufficient for the extra 50 GB on a 300 GB drive.

And we still don't recommend any upgrade, but we're getting closer to some answers.

Michael


----------



## tomr

> _Originally posted by 9thTee _
> *I have, I have! Actually we shipped several yesterday and today so folks will be able to give some feedback pretty soon. Our solution gives a very sturdy platform to mount the hard drive to and I would not hesitate to ship the unit with the upgrade in place. It's not going anywhere. The cover closes just fine and gives room on the top for air circulation.
> 
> BTW, just put up a new page with lots of inside pictures of the HR10-250. Here it is: www.9thtee.com/insidehdtivo.htm
> 
> Mark
> 9thTee.com *


I purchased one and would simply like to add another 250gig drive. I was going to make a back up of the original and then add the second drive. Has this upgrade been successful?


----------



## weaknees

> _Originally posted by tomr _
> *I purchased one and would simply like to add another 250gig drive. I was going to make a back up of the original and then add the second drive. Has this upgrade been successful? *


You can make the hours show, but we haven't yet seen stability with the resulting upgrade, so we don't recommend it yet.

Michael


----------



## 9thTee

> _Originally posted by tomr _
> *I purchased one and would simply like to add another 250gig drive. I was going to make a back up of the original and then add the second drive. Has this upgrade been successful? *


You have to realize that since we are dealing with such large hard drives, it takes a long time to fill them up and make sure things are stable. And then more time to give it a good workout to make sure nothing odd happens. I would imagine that in a few more days we will have some good news...

Mark
9thTee.com

See HR10-250 pictures at www.9thtee.com/insidehdtivo.htm


----------



## dswallow

> _Originally posted by 9thTee _
> *You have to realize that since we are dealing with such large hard drives, it takes a long time to fill them up and make sure things are stable. And then more time to give it a good workout to make sure nothing odd happens. I would imagine that in a few more days we will have some good news... *


It may not even hurt to let an upgrade from DirecTV/TiVo come through firstbefore declaring it truly compatible.


----------



## tomr

> _Originally posted by 9thTee _
> *You have to realize that since we are dealing with such large hard drives, it takes a long time to fill them up and make sure things are stable. And then more time to give it a good workout to make sure nothing odd happens. I would imagine that in a few more days we will have some good news...
> 
> Mark
> 9thTee.com
> 
> See HR10-250 pictures at www.9thtee.com/insidehdtivo.htm *


OK, thanks. I'll be ready


----------



## tomr

> _Originally posted by dswallow _
> *It may not even hurt to let an upgrade from DirecTV/TiVo come through firstbefore declaring it truly compatible.  *


It could be months or more before we see an upgrade from DirecTV


----------



## dswallow

> _Originally posted by tomr _
> *It could be months or more before we see an upgrade from DirecTV *


 I think it'll probabaly be sooner.


----------



## PJO1966

> _Originally posted by dswallow _
> *I think it'll probabaly be sooner. *


do you have inside info?


----------



## litzdog911

> _Originally posted by dswallow _
> *I think it'll probabaly be sooner. *


Hopefully at least enough of an upgrade to roll out channel logos to units built before April 27. Perhaps Weaknees or PTVUpgrade will be able to provide an image file that includes the logos for folks looking to upgrade, when they can prove it's stable.


----------



## edrock200

> _Originally posted by dswallow _
> *I think it'll probabaly be sooner. *


There goes Doug teasing us again...


----------



## dswallow

> _Originally posted by PJO1966 _
> *do you have inside info? *


There's a version 3.1.5.V1-01-2-3F7 being tested right now.


----------



## PJO1966

> _Originally posted by dswallow _
> *There's a version 3.1.5.V1-01-2-3F7 being tested right now. *


Are there any hints as to what might be covered in that?


----------



## dswallow

> _Originally posted by PJO1966 _
> *Are there any hints as to what might be covered in that? *


 That, I have no idea about.


----------



## MichaelK

you have that version on your box doug? 

if not - where did you see that posted (if you did)?

Or is this another mystery inbox thing?


----------



## dswallow

> _Originally posted by MichaelK _
> *you have that version on your box doug?
> 
> if not - where did you see that posted (if you did)?
> 
> Or is this another mystery inbox thing? *


It's probably not on my unit, since if it were, I'd probably be under an NDA and would be violating it by saying that. And if I were under an NDA, I wouldn't violate it. But since I'm not, it's a free-for-all.


----------



## aaronwt

How much does the temperature increase with the 9thTee bracket without any additional cooling?


----------



## tivoupgrade

> _Originally posted by aaronwt _
> *How much does the temperature increase with the 9thTee bracket without any additional cooling? *


We'll have more specifics on that in the coming weeks; right now, the cover is off...

Please see my post here regarding temperature and airflow as there are many factors that should be considered.

Lou


----------



## MichaelK

> _Originally posted by dswallow _
> *It's probably not on my unit, since if it were, I'd probably be under an NDA and would be violating it by saying that. And if I were under an NDA, I wouldn't violate it. But since I'm not, it's a free-for-all.  *


i thought maybe it was in the wild and you had it. I remember some letter versions bouncing around in the gerneral public when the hdvr2 came out.

With all the other stuff you seem to have going on, I wonder what the hec else winds up in your email box?


----------



## jmhays

> _Originally posted by weaknees _
> *Well, Mark beat us to the punch on shipping a bracket, but we have one in the works. More info is here:
> 
> http://www.weaknees.com/hd_tivo_twinbreeze.php
> 
> As far as swap, we think the existing swap is sufficient for the extra 50 GB on a 300 GB drive.
> 
> And we still don't recommend any upgrade, but we're getting closer to some answers.
> 
> Michael *


Michael,
If your new design is anything like your previous twinbreeze (it sure looks like it in the pictures and description!) design, I will wait for your new version instead of buying anything else.

When I ugraded my regular DirecTivo with one of your kits, I think it took me longer to read the instructions than it took to complete the entire upgrade. Completely painless and exteremely easy to do. Much, much easier than when I upgraded my SA Tivo by hand years ago...


----------



## lbroadfield

> _Originally posted by weldon _
> *As cheap as DirecTiVo's are these days, I think two systems is perfectly reasonable. I just wish there was some way to coordinate scheduling to avoid conflicts across all four tuners and an integrated interface (which is somewhat possible with HMO).
> 
> I'm still waiting for the perfectly modular TiVo that allows for an unlimited number of tuners of different types (QAM, analog, DTV, ATSC, OpenCable, etc.) that record to a central storage server. All the programs would be accessible from an unlimited number of thin-client display heads that range from cheap RCA connectors only to HDMI-DVI & optical audio, in both wired and wireless versions. As pie-in-the-sky as that might sound, I think the only real hurdle left is the lack of a business environment that would allow a company to build tuners for multiple sources. OpenCable is promising though. *


The bummer is, this is essentially available today, with a relatively straightforward change: support (as you pointed out) coordination of scheduling. Add coordinated scheduling to HMO, and you essentially have TiVo clustering, and a massive incentive to buy more TiVos.


----------



## stephenC

Aren't you really just describing VOD? The only difference is the placement of the storage (our homes or a central repository).


----------



## borghe

so has anyone done this with status to report? not begging either of the main ones here for additional info, just wondering if any of the non-pros here have done it.. my unit should be here tonight or tomorrow (depending on UPS) and I was thinking of heading out to Circuit City for one of those $160 250GB drives they have on sale this week...

I will probably do it no matter what (after a backup of course) but just wondering if there is anyone else here who was so bold.. also, with adding another 250GB, how large would you pros recommend making the swap?


----------



## dswallow

> _Originally posted by borghe _
> *so has anyone done this with status to report? not begging either of the main ones here for additional info, just wondering if any of the non-pros here have done it.. my unit should be here tonight or tomorrow (depending on UPS) and I was thinking of heading out to Circuit City for one of those $160 250GB drives they have on sale this week...
> 
> I will probably do it no matter what (after a backup of course) but just wondering if there is anyone else here who was so bold.. also, with adding another 250GB, how large would you pros recommend making the swap? *


I got my drive bracket today.

I'm in no rush to do this though. I'll probably just wait around until there's a few more reports and keep an eye out on rebate deals on drives.


----------



## weaknees

We're still working on the stability of the "add" upgrades.

Meanwhile, we've verified that single-drive replacements work, and for people wanting the extra 50 GB, we are selling 300 GB replacement drives.

Michael


----------



## mattdb

> _Originally posted by borghe _
> *I was thinking of heading out to Circuit City for one of those $160 250GB drives they have on sale this week...*


I don't see any sign of this drive with this price on the CC website.

Mattman


----------



## btwyx

> _Originally posted by weaknees _
> *We're still working on the stability of the "add" upgrades.
> 
> Meanwhile, we've verified that single-drive replacements work, and for people wanting the extra 50 GB, we are selling 300 GB replacement drives.*


 I've been wondering what the price on an "add" upgrade is going to be (say 250 or 300GB), and are you going to be selling the 400GB drives which have been announced (are available?) any idea on price. That's all assuming the upgrades actually work. Also how quiet are these drives compared to the stock ones. (One of the reasons I swap upgraded my HDVR2 was to get rid of the noisy drive, the stock 250GB is reasonably quiet, I don't want to end up with a whiny TiVo.)

On a different point, I seem to have developed a noisy fan, any suitable replacements? (Or should i try to get this fixed under warranty?)


----------



## tivoupgrade

> _Originally posted by borghe _
> *so has anyone done this with status to report? not begging either of the main ones here for additional info, just wondering if any of the non-pros here have done it.. my unit should be here tonight or tomorrow (depending on UPS) and I was thinking of heading out to Circuit City for one of those $160 250GB drives they have on sale this week...
> 
> I will probably do it no matter what (after a backup of course) but just wondering if there is anyone else here who was so bold.. also, with adding another 250GB, how large would you pros recommend making the swap? *


Current status is that there are no known issues with adding 250 or 300GB drives using standard BlessTiVo techniques. FYI, adding 300 will give you 70 hours HD, and 470 SD. We have an upgraded system happily recording everything it can, and another on the bench where we are messing around with replacement drives and add-on drives.

Default swap space on the factory shipped drive is 128MB. You aren't likely to have any success making a larger swap space with mkswap or tpip (in fact, if you try, you are likely to end up with none). No reason to have a larger swap space; the entire effort associated with enlarging swap spaces and all the algebra behind really has no benefits to anyone. I've yet to see it be a problem in any normal circumstance, you should just have a good backup because if you do get a green screen, its going to be because you have a bad drive.


----------



## ljg

Tivoupgrade:

Do you see any future possibility of adding more than 2 hd's possibly ext., possibly via USB, 70 hours is good but not great

Lon


----------



## tivoupgrade

> _Originally posted by ljg _
> *Tivoupgrade:
> 
> Do you see any future possibility of adding more than 2 hd's possibly ext., possibly via USB, 70 hours is good but not great
> 
> Lon *


I really don't. These units are not designed to do I/O through USB and no modifications have been made, to date, which allow kernel hacks to exist on any Series2. There are so many reasons why reverse engineering a solution to do this would be extremely difficult, time consuming and expensive. Not to mention that the design center for these systems is clearly more along the lines of a few hundred GB, not a TB and there would be all sorts of performance issues.

I understand why 70 hours sounds "good" but not "great" but when you think about it - HDTV with TiVo / dual-tuner with even only 30 hours for $1000 is amazing, even in this day and age.

Obviously, we'll continue to push-the-envelope around here, but remember, its reverse engineering and modification that we are doing - there is no 50 million dollar R&D budget behind our products...

Cheers,
Lou


----------



## tivoupgrade

... to those of you fiddling around:

After four years of mucking around in these units, I've finally done the one thing I haven't yet done, and what we constantly warn our customers about:

I managed to completely ZAP myself by touching the heatsink / ground just above the system hard drive at the same time as touching the hard drive. I have no intention of touching it again, at least not while the unit is plugged in; so please don't ask me what happens when you touch it along with anything else, or alone for that matter.

Save yourself the trouble and don't do it either!!!


----------



## borghe

> _Originally posted by mattdb _
> *I don't see any sign of this drive with this price on the CC website.
> 
> Mattman *


doh.. meant compusa.. not circuit city... my bad.

it's a 250GB maxtor drive for $209 with $50 instant rebate...

I will try to get this drive tomorrow.. if not I iwill wait until another one goes on sale (if I can't work it into the budget). I can't justify going with the 300GB drive just because of price (50% more cost for 20% more space).

so if I don't report back here tomorrow or saturday it means that I am waiting til next week.. but by then at the latest I am going to upgrade...

thanks for the info on the swap... I still wonder if the 127MB is large enough.. kind of like how 2x120GB is fine with the series 1 and 2 default swap, unless you get a serious crash and it doesn't have enough to recover... but I guess only time will tell....


----------



## oosik77

> _Originally posted by tivoupgrade _
> *Current status is that there are no known issues with adding 250 or 300GB drives using standard BlessTiVo techniques. FYI, adding 300 will give you 70 hours HD, and 470 SD. We have an upgraded system happily recording everything it can, and another on the bench where we are messing around with replacement drives and add-on drives.
> *


Anything good to report with dual 300's? What would be the rough storage for that?


----------



## tivoupgrade

> _Originally posted by oosik77 _
> *Anything good to report with dual 300's? What would be the rough storage for that? *


Nothing to report on that right now; out of the box, mfstools won't handle it. Its likely to be doable through some hand manipulating of the partition tables (see the lba48 thread there are some sub-discussions on this) however for the additional 7 hours of time I'm not making it a high-priority relative to productizing add-on kits, finishing up bracket design etc.


----------



## pmaddock

> _Originally posted by weaknees _
> *We're still working on the stability of the "add" upgrades.
> 
> Meanwhile, we've verified that single-drive replacements work, and for people wanting the extra 50 GB, we are selling 300 GB replacement drives.
> 
> Michael *


Can you elaborate a little about the stability issues you mention? 9th Tee's post makes it sound like the usual add a drive works fine. Is the stability issue you mention a situation where you boosted from 250 to 300 and then added a drive or is something bad happening with just adding a drive to the factory 250?


----------



## dswallow

> _Originally posted by tivoupgrade _
> *there is no 50 million dollar R&D budget behind our products...*


I hear you can fund your R&D by selling HR10-250's with a markup...


----------



## tivoupgrade

> _Originally posted by dswallow _
> *I hear you can fund your R&D by selling HR10-250's with a markup...  *


Don't think that I haven't considered selling my unit on Ebay where they are commanding a pretty penny.

I've got one in my entertainment center, and one on the bench, and that is where they will stay (until I get my VE pre-order and maybe that goes on Ebay to pay for the R&D)

FYI, my upgraded test unit is less than 12 hours away from being completely full; I see no reason folks shouldn't consider adding a drive whenever they feel like it (as long as you have a backup and know how to use it), heck I'd recommend that. BUT, we aren't going to sell anything until we have everything in place, including documentation and some other goodies we'll be bundling (hint hint).


----------



## aejanis

Will a MFS backup image restore to a Maxtor 250GB disk without problems (will it fit)?

I am wanting to add a another 300 to my box, but I also want to put the original WD Drive aside. I can get a good deal on the Maxtor 250, but want to make sure that the image from the WD drive will fit on the Maxtor 250.

Basically I want to:

Make a backup image of the WD 250 Drive

Restore the backup to a new Maxtor 250 (7Y250P0)

Add an additional drive...new Maxtor 300 (5A300J0)

Shelf the WD 250 until I know that things are stable...I will then use it to expand my second HDTiVo (when I get it).


It has been a while since I have done the restore thing, and the reason I am asking is that....I recall that you need to restore the backup image to a disk that is at least the same size as the disk that the backup image was created from. So the real question I guess is....Is the Maxtor 250 drive as big or bigger then the WD 250 Drive


----------



## weaknees

aejanis-

You have the issue exactly right. We are testing with Maxtor 300 GB drives, so we just don't know the answer. You can certainly go to a larger drive without expansion if you want to take the safe route. But our tests show that a larger A drive works fine, so if you want to just get a larger drive, it'll work fine.

Michael


----------



## aejanis

Anyone have the exact model # of the WD Drive that is in the unit from the factory?

Maybe I will just buy a exact WD250 and a Maxtor300.

Basically I want to ride out a software upgrade or two before I commit to relying on a MFS Backup image. With this being the first DVR that appears to be controlled by Directv I want to be extra safe.


----------



## JEbbesen

How much of a slow down in menu speed can be expected with the doubling (or more) of the HD capacity? That was a major factor when my 2x120gb DTivo was full, it was so slow as to be almost unbearable.


----------



## borghe

I will no for sure today as that is very similar to what I am doing. 

as far as I remember my hard drives correctly, the issue is never going from something else to a Maxtor... It is going from a Maxtor to something else (even another Maxtor possibly).

Maxtor for a while now has done drives on odd platter side counts... what they will sometimes do (who knows why) is use an even platter side count.. so to roughly sum it up (not real numbers mind you) a 250GB drive will have 3 platters in it. they will have have both sides formatted out on two platters, but only one side formatted out on the third platter.. on some drives. on other drives, they will have both sides formatted out giving you (not really but for example only) 300GB on the drive.

This is why on some Tivos (a friends series 2 for example) which come with Maxtor drives, if you try restoring that 40GB drive to another 40GB drive, it won't fit.. because the original maxtor drive is actually slightly bigger than 40GB...

as for going from a western digital to a maxtor both of the same size, I wouldn't even give it another worry.. there will more than likely be no problem.. I would only be worried in going from say a Maxtor to a Western Digital.

Anywyay, I also picked up the 250GB drive from CompUSA and will do the following today.. speak now if I am an idiot

a) open the box up before turning anything on
b) backup the original A drive
c) restore the backup to the new 250GB drive
d) powerup the new drive and go through setup
e) provided D goes fine, replace the original A drive and power up
f) go through setup for real. get service going on the box. stare in awe.
g) bless and add the second 250GB drive.

does that sound about right? this will give me 500GB of storage which should be enough for now (man I wish they would hurry up with development of 500GB+ drives).


----------



## tomr

I just got my bracket from 9th Tee today. I'm going to purchase a WD250 meg drive and then I'll be ready for the procedure once it has been done by someone else  . 

When PTV has the procedure down I'm going to upgrade. Before I backup the original I need to delete all my recordings correct? I haven't upgraded a Tivo in quite a while so I cant remember if the recordings do or do not get backed up. I'm assuming they would so I wouldn't want any on the drive.


----------



## dswallow

> _Originally posted by tomr _
> *I just got my bracket from 9th Tee today. I'm going to purchase a WD250 meg drive and then I'll be ready for the procedure once it has been done by someone else  .
> 
> When PTV has the procedure down I'm going to upgrade. Before I backup the original I need to delete all my recordings correct? I haven't upgraded a Tivo in quite a while so I cant remember if the recordings do or do not get backed up. I'm assuming they would so I wouldn't want any on the drive. *


You don't need to delete the recordings to do a backup; they're not part of the backup. And if you just bless the second drive and add it, your recordings will remain. Though a better thing to do would be to retry the backup you make using the new drive, and if it works, put the original drive back in, and bless the new drive and add it as the second. That way you've confirmed you have good backup and you'll retain your recordings.


----------



## weaknees

> _Originally posted by aejanis _
> *Anyone have the exact model # of the WD Drive that is in the unit from the factory?
> 
> Maybe I will just buy a exact WD250 and a Maxtor300.
> 
> Basically I want to ride out a software upgrade or two before I commit to relying on a MFS Backup image. With this being the first DVR that appears to be controlled by Directv I want to be extra safe. *


It's a WD2500LB-55EDA0.


----------



## tomr

> _Originally posted by dswallow _
> *You don't need to delete the recordings to do a backup; they're not part of the backup. And if you just bless the second drive and add it, your recordings will remain. Though a better thing to do would be to retry the backup you make using the new drive, and if it works, put the original drive back in, and bless the new drive and add it as the second. That way you've confirmed you have good backup and you'll retain your recordings. *


Thanks, I plan to try the backup on the new drive first. I don't mind opening and setting this up for two drives while under warranty, I just want to be able to put it back just in case.


----------



## tomr

> _Originally posted by weaknees _
> *It's a WD2500LB-55EDA0. *


Curious they used the 2meg version of the WD250. I also wonder if these drives utilize the "Fluid Dynamic Bearing (FDB) technology, perfect for noise-sensitive computing environments." quote from WDC.


----------



## PJO1966

I have questions regarding upgrades. I'm not the most technically savvy guy in the world, but I have a functioning brain. Realistically, how difficult is it to either upgrade the hard drive or add an additional drive (or both). I've been reading here about backing up drives and what-not, and I don't know how to do that. What are my options if I don't want to spend an arm and a leg?

I had a friend upgrade the drive in my Series 1 and the unit ran hot ever since. The HD TiVo hasn't been upgraded yet and is already running hot. Is this going to be an issue after upgrading?


----------



## aejanis

> _Originally posted by PJO1966 _
> *I have questions regarding upgrades. I'm not the most technically savvy guy in the world, but I have a functioning brain. Realistically, how difficult is it to either upgrade the hard drive or add an additional drive (or both). I've been reading here about backing up drives and what-not, and I don't know how to do that. What are my options if I don't want to spend an arm and a leg?
> 
> I had a friend upgrade the drive in my Series 1 and the unit ran hot ever since. The HD TiVo hasn't been upgraded yet and is already running hot. Is this going to be an issue after upgrading? *


If you havea PC that can boot off of a CD, and has 4 IDE connectors it is pretty easy. Just read and type the commands very carefully. Flipping a letter or number around can wipe a drive out completely.

If you understand Primary Master/Slave, and Secondary Master/Slave and how to set the jumpers on hard drives...well then you should be okay.


----------



## leftcoastdave

> _Originally posted by PJO1966 _
> *I have questions regarding upgrades. I'm not the most technically savvy guy in the world, but I have a functioning brain. Realistically, how difficult is it to either upgrade the hard drive or add an additional drive (or both). I've been reading here about backing up drives and what-not, and I don't know how to do that. What are my options if I don't want to spend an arm and a leg?
> 
> I had a friend upgrade the drive in my Series 1 and the unit ran hot ever since. The HD TiVo hasn't been upgraded yet and is already running hot. Is this going to be an issue after upgrading? *


Or you could hire a third party to do it for you if you are uncomfortable mucking around inside your equipment. People like www.weaknees.com are pretty proficient I am told.


----------



## rttrek

> _Originally posted by tomr _
> *Curious they used the 2meg version of the WD250. I also wonder if these drives utilize the "Fluid Dynamic Bearing (FDB) technology, perfect for noise-sensitive computing environments." quote from WDC. *


I believe the LB in WD2500LB means yes.


----------



## Fletch

> _Originally posted by weaknees _
> *It's a WD2500LB-55EDA0. *





> _Originally posted by tomr _
> *Curious they used the 2meg version of the WD250. I also wonder if these drives utilize the "Fluid Dynamic Bearing (FDB) technology, perfect for noise-sensitive computing environments." quote from WDC. *


Hmm. According to this post , it's the 8MB version.

According to the WD website:
WD2500BB = 2MB
WD2500JB = 8MB
I can't even find the WD2500LB listed. Can anyone clarify this?


----------



## rttrek

According to WD's spec sheet, it (the WD2500LB) is 2MB:

http://www.wdc.com/en/library/eide/2879-001021.pdf

A search of PriceWatch shows two sources for it, and calls them "WD2500LB QUIET DRIVE ". They go for about $260.


----------



## weldon

Help me out here. Is the current state of the art that we *can*

1) add a second drive ( <256GB MFS partition limit) or 
2) upgrade a single drive (300GB w/ <256GB MFS partition)

but we *can't*

3) upgrade the A drive and add a large B drive

Did I get that right?


----------



## weaknees

> _Originally posted by weldon _
> *Help me out here. Is the current state of the art that we can
> 
> 1) add a second drive ( <256GB MFS partition limit) or
> 2) upgrade a single drive (300GB w/ <256GB MFS partition)
> 
> but we can't
> 
> 3) upgrade the A drive and add a large B drive
> 
> Did I get that right? *


We can confirm #2 - all of our tests show this to be the case.

#1 is very likely, but we just aren't absolutely certain yet.

Michael


----------



## tomr

> _Originally posted by rttrek _
> *I believe the LB in WD2500LB means yes. *


No, the LB is the 2meg version. On both the 2meg and 8meg version FDB is listed as a "special order item".


----------



## tomr

> _Originally posted by Fletch _
> *Hmm. According to this post , it's the 8MB version.
> 
> According to the WD website:
> WD2500BB = 2MB
> WD2500JB = 8MB
> I can't even find the WD2500LB listed. Can anyone clarify this? *


look here


----------



## borghe

ok, got the drive in...

backup worked fine. restore to the new drive worked fine. blessing the new drive worked fine.

final numbers: 63 hours HD, 427 hours SD.


----------



## Toeside

> _Originally posted by borghe _
> *ok, got the drive in...
> 
> backup worked fine. restore to the new drive worked fine. blessing the new drive worked fine.
> 
> final numbers: 63 hours HD, 427 hours SD. *


Someone stepped up (besides the Pros)! Let us know how it goes. Get 63 hours of HD on there, hurry!

Craig


----------



## dswallow

> _Originally posted by borghe _
> *ok, got the drive in...
> 
> backup worked fine. restore to the new drive worked fine. blessing the new drive worked fine.
> 
> final numbers: 63 hours HD, 427 hours SD. *


Make sure after 3 to 4 weeks of recording suggestions you give us a good report about the number of pages in your Now Playing list and how responsive it may be; that was the big failing on my 240GB SAT-T60... once that Now Playing list had more than about 160-170 entries, the thing crawled to a stop.

Good luck!


----------



## tivoupgrade

> _Originally posted by dswallow _
> *Make sure after 3 to 4 weeks of recording suggestions you give us a good report about the number of pages in your Now Playing list and how responsive it may be; that was the big failing on my 240GB SAT-T60... once that Now Playing list had more than about 160-170 entries, the thing crawled to a stop.
> 
> Good luck! *


We've got a unit that is completely full - mostly HD stuff, a little bit of SD stuff. The unit is very responsive, but I suspect if we fill it completely with SD stuff, its going to slow down quite a bit. I don't think it will be as extreme as with your T60 (BTW, you do have a CacheCard in that T60, don't you? ;-)) Haven't done much testing of season pass sorts and how it affects interactivity, however.


----------



## Nomarian

Okay,

I ordered my bracket from 9thTee and installed it. I also picked up two Maxtor Maxline Plus II 250GB drives that have the 8MB caches. The Western Digital with the 2MB cache seems so small for all the recording it will have to do with 2 drives. I have used the tools to copy the original image from the WD to the Maxtor and then will add the 2nd drive. I plan to keep the WD as my backup.

I will keep you posted on my results.


----------



## pbolya

> _Originally posted by tivoupgrade _
> *(BTW, you do have a CacheCard in that T60, don't you? ;-))*


 Tivoupgrade,
I have a Sony SAT-T60 which is very very slow since I finaly filled up all the 242h. My HR10-250 is comming soon and I most certainly will upgrade it as soon as you guys finished testing. Until than: How much a CacheCard improves performance (especially pulling up the Now Playing list)? How much it cost ? And where can I get it ?

Thanks,
Peter


----------



## 9thTee

> _Originally posted by pbolya _
> *Tivoupgrade,
> I have a Sony SAT-T60 which is very very slow since I finaly filled up all the 242h. My HR10-250 is comming soon and I most certainly will upgrade it as soon as you guys finished testing. Until than: How much a CacheCard improves performance (especially pulling up the Now Playing list)? How much it cost ? And where can I get it ?
> 
> Thanks,
> Peter *


www.9thtee.com/tivocachecard.htm


----------



## dswallow

> _Originally posted by tivoupgrade _
> *We've got a unit that is completely full - mostly HD stuff, a little bit of SD stuff. The unit is very responsive, but I suspect if we fill it completely with SD stuff, its going to slow down quite a bit. I don't think it will be as extreme as with your T60 (BTW, you do have a CacheCard in that T60, don't you? ;-)) Haven't done much testing of season pass sorts and how it affects interactivity, however. *


 I have a Cache Card in there with 512MB of RAM that's never worked... well, before v2.2 it worked with up to 16MB DIMMs, -- but with v2.2 not even networking works anymore, and I've been round and round with Nick over it, but haven't pushed much knowing I'm getting rid of it... I was mostly waiting for the HD unit so I could send him the whole T-60 at this point so he could see it first hand and do whatever he needs to do to explore why it's happening.

Left on its own, suggestions are going to be very heavily slanted towards SD material if you don't have a lot of HD material recorded and saved. So I'm more anxious to see what really happens with the drives loaded with a lot of SD material. In the meantime, I just bought more H10-250's and have solved my 3-shows-on-at-once conflict and given me more space. 

And even better, this gives me a 3rd HR10-250 to play with upgrades and such stuff so I don't interfere with everything else.


----------



## dr_mal

My SAT-T60 has 2x80GB drives. After installing the CacheCard, performance feels like new. Maybe even a little better. Well worth it if you've upgraded the capacity on a Series 1.


----------



## tivoupgrade

> _Originally posted by pbolya _
> *Tivoupgrade,
> I have a Sony SAT-T60 which is very very slow since I finaly filled up all the 242h. My HR10-250 is comming soon and I most certainly will upgrade it as soon as you guys finished testing. Until than: How much a CacheCard improves performance (especially pulling up the Now Playing list)? How much it cost ? And where can I get it ?
> 
> Thanks,
> Peter *


note 9thtee's previous response for getting a cachecard (9thtee.com)

as for performance improvements, it will vary depending upon how you use your unit, however on my own unit with 2x120GB drives, it used to take up to 30 seconds to display the now playing list, now it takes about 4 seconds. sorting season passes takes about 1/10 of the time (used to be minutes, now its seconds...)

Lou


----------



## pbolya

Doug,
looks like it works for some and doesn't for others. I would also love to have an easy solution where I can do the following from my computer:

1. Check how much space available (I do not have suggestions turned on).
2. Copy the my playing list to excel so I can sort/print/analyze. I could for instance write a program that picks out the show titles that both my wife and I watch and prints it out weekly. Than we could just mark it off the list when one of us saw the show so the other one knows he/she can delete it (I could alternately download the list to her PDA).
3. Transfer season pass data to excel (than to my Sony Clie).
4. Change the title and other header data on shows I recorded to my standalone.

I heard that networking is not working anymore with 3.1 and 4.0.

By the way my standalone has the same amount of recordings as my series 1 DirecTV (they both have around 240gb close to filled up) and my standalone haven't slow down a bit while my SAT-T60 is a slug (of course DirecTV is only a series 1, and has dual tuner).

Also I probably would have paid $100 a year ago to speed things up (it was nowhere as bad as today otherwise I would have done something about it by now) but now that I am within a week of receiving my HR10-250 (93 people ahead of me at GG) it seems pretty expensive unless I can solve all of the above. Otherwise I will just move all my important season passes (HD or not) to the new machine and watch the slug only when the HR10-250 is empty.

I ordered the bracket from 9th Tee earlier today and I will buy a Maxtor 250 ($160) this weekend. I will upgrade mine as soon as I set it up (I will set up all the season passes before the upgrade so I will have them on my backup).


----------



## oosik77

> _Originally posted by aejanis _
> *Will a MFS backup image restore to a Maxtor 250GB disk without problems (will it fit)?
> 
> I am wanting to add a another 300 to my box, but I also want to put the original WD Drive aside. I can get a good deal on the Maxtor 250, but want to make sure that the image from the WD drive will fit on the Maxtor 250.
> 
> Basically I want to:
> 
> Make a backup image of the WD 250 Drive
> 
> Restore the backup to a new Maxtor 250 (7Y250P0)
> 
> Add an additional drive...new Maxtor 300 (5A300J0)
> 
> Shelf the WD 250 until I know that things are stable...I will then use it to expand my second HDTiVo (when I get it).
> 
> It has been a while since I have done the restore thing, and the reason I am asking is that....I recall that you need to restore the backup image to a disk that is at least the same size as the disk that the backup image was created from. So the real question I guess is....Is the Maxtor 250 drive as big or bigger then the WD 250 Drive *


Why not restore the 250 image to the 300? Then "expand" it and then marry the other 250 to it?


----------



## aejanis

> _Originally posted by oosik77 _
> *Why not restore the 250 image to the 300? Then "expand" it and then marry the other 250 to it? *


Because I can buy 250GB Drives for 159.99. The cost of 300GB drives is not very cost effective at this point.

I just bought 2 Maxtor 250's last night. I am going to give my unit a little longer to break in before I open it up...but I am ready once I am more comfortable with there not being anything wrong with it.


----------



## borghe

well, I have about 34 hours of material recorded on it.. all HD at this point (can't even being to think about filling it up with SD material at 427 hours)

obviously that's not what you guys are looking for in responsiveness, so I won't even go into that.. I will say that this thing is LIGHTNING compared to my SAT-T60 or Hughes series 1. My wife was floored when it took like 4 seconds total to schedule a recording from the guide (on our series 1s it could take 20 seconds to even a minute).

so far haven't found any problems.


----------



## Greg G

I have 200gb of disk in my Philips DirectTivo and it's full of sd shows and I find the speed very acceptable. I am keeping it hooked up for my sd recording as I plan to only record HD on my HD Tivo. To help make that happen I reduced the channels I receive to only the HD ones so the sugestions only record off of hd channels. Of course some SD stuff slips in but but so far so good. It would be great if they added a feature to only record HD sugestions. 

I will be upgrading my HD Tivo when I get some time and after it has had time to prove that it is defect free. I also want to see what weakness comes up with. I was very tempted to go for it right away so I don't have to give up any programs (I plan to replace both drives and keep my orig one as a backup) but I really don't have the time right now. Big thanks to all you pioneers! 

-Greg


----------



## borghe

ok, I am definitely on the second drive now.... 44 hours of material (roughly).. no problems....


----------



## aejanis

What is the exact command line that you used when backing up your A drive?

I am thinking about making myself a backup image and getting a new replacement A disk up and running in my unit.

I have never done a backup on a drive of this size, and am wondering if anything besides the large drive support version of the utils CD is needed. (like is there a flag I need to issue to maintain whatever larger swap file might be in place).

Thanks...


----------



## Joe Q

> _Originally posted by tivoupgrade _
> *We've got a unit that is completely full - mostly HD stuff, a little bit of SD stuff. *


Are you doing any investigating in regards to a firewire upgrade and I don't mean for expanding capacity by adding external firewire disks ?

D-VHS

Thanks,
Joe


----------



## weaknees

To backup the A drive, boot in kernel 2.4.18 or newer and run:

mfsbackup -f 9999 -1so /dev/hdc /hd_tivo.bak

Michael


----------



## borghe

firewire is very unlikely... almost everything is integrated onto the broadcom chip meaning it would be extremely difficult to manufacture a solution.

your best bet is to hope for "another means" of "grabbing" the video.


----------



## aejanis

> _Originally posted by weaknees _
> *To backup the A drive, boot in kernel 2.4.18 or newer and run:
> 
> mfsbackup -f 9999 -1so /dev/hdc /hd_tivo.bak
> 
> Michael *


I think you ment:

mfsbackup -f 9999 -1so /mnt/??? /dev/hd?

Well...anyway...I crossed my fingers and took the top off of my unit and tried to make a backup.

I tried:

mfsbackup -f 9999 -1so ..... and the backup was a success, but the restore failed with a decompression error.

So I tried the backup without compression, and then the backup fails @ 96%.

It is late and time for bed...good news is that the orignal disk is intact and working without a problem...just can't get a good backup->restore.


----------



## weaknees

Sorry - that's right - it should have been:

mfsbackup -f 9999 -1so /hd_tivo.bak /dev/hdc

/mnt is may necessary in your situation - it just depends on where you want the image to land.

Are you sure you're booting in the right kernel?

Michael


----------



## aejanis

> _Originally posted by weaknees _
> *Sorry - that's right - it should have been:
> 
> mfsbackup -f 9999 -1so /hd_tivo.bak /dev/hdc
> 
> /mnt is may necessary in your situation - it just depends on where you want the image to land.
> 
> Are you sure you're booting in the right kernel?
> 
> Michael *


Yes...I have a good boot disk w/mfstools (2.4.4 kernel).

I am going to try on another computer. I had a similar problem on a Samsung 4040R. I was able to get it to work on the Samsung without compression.....but that didn't reflect the same on the HR10-250. I have done backup/restores on SD-DVR40's with no problems on this system, but it seems to have this decompression issue with some other model images (don't know how that would make any sense, but it seems to be the case).

The computer that i am using is a rather old Pentium Celeron 433Mhz. I am starting to wonder if there might be something that just isn't agreeing with the older computer system. I will take down one of my webservers later today and see if that helps.


----------



## dr_mal

Does your computer's BIOS support drives >137GB? My old P2-400 which I've used to upgrade numerous TiVos in the past, won't be able to upgrade my HR10-250 since it can't support big hard drives.


----------



## borghe

about 62 hours

that was my final count... that's not including two half hour buffers..

unit responded fine.. no hiccups or lockups... not even any audio dropouts...

for what it's worth, the space upgrade gets my seal of approval.

though if your system dies I won't pay for it. 

can answer some questions but I have since blown away the system and am working on getting a bash prompt. wish me luck (and even give some help if you are able)

enjoy.


----------



## weaknees

> _Originally posted by dr_mal _
> *Does your computer's BIOS support drives >137GB? My old P2-400 which I've used to upgrade numerous TiVos in the past, won't be able to upgrade my HR10-250 since it can't support big hard drives. *


Generally Linux will work fine without having the BIOS recognize the drive. Have you tried just setting your BIOS to ignore that IDE designation?

Michael


----------



## pbolya

> _Originally posted by weaknees _
> *Generally Linux will work fine without having the BIOS recognize the drive. Have you tried just setting your BIOS to ignore that IDE designation?
> 
> Michael *


 Michael,
Didn't you say that you need kernal 2.4.18 or newer and aejanis has 2.4.4? Isn't 4 is lower than 18 or 18 is really 1.8 and thus it is in reality lower than 4 ?

Can't wait to upgrade mine (I just don't have it yet).

Regards,
Peter


----------



## aaronwt

I see someone is selling an upgraded HD-TiVo on EBay. It has been upgraded to 500GB.


----------



## flapbreaker

> _Originally posted by aaronwt _
> *I see someone is selling an upgraded HD-TiVo on EBay. It has been upgraded to 500GB. *


There was someone who posted somwhere on this forum that they upgraded to 500GB. I bet it's him.


----------



## borghe

no, I can assure you my tivo is not for sale.... unless you are talking about someone else, though I don't remember anyone else saying they have done it besides weaknees and ptvupgrade.


----------



## aejanis

> _Originally posted by aejanis _
> *I think you ment:
> 
> mfsbackup -f 9999 -1so /mnt/??? /dev/hd?
> 
> Well...anyway...I crossed my fingers and took the top off of my unit and tried to make a backup.
> 
> I tried:
> 
> mfsbackup -f 9999 -1so ..... and the backup was a success, but the restore failed with a decompression error.
> 
> So I tried the backup without compression, and then the backup fails @ 96%.
> 
> It is late and time for bed...good news is that the orignal disk is intact and working without a problem...just can't get a good backup->restore. *


Well...looks like my computer was the problem. Did the backup/restore on a newer machine and it worked fine.


----------



## weaknees

Sounds good - how big was the backup?

Michael


----------



## tivoupgrade

> _Originally posted by aaronwt _
> *I see someone is selling an upgraded HD-TiVo on EBay. It has been upgraded to 500GB. *


Not me either; mine is 550GB, BTW.


----------



## aejanis

> _Originally posted by weaknees _
> *Sounds good - how big was the backup?
> 
> Michael *


914MB, with "-1so".


----------



## weaknees

> _Originally posted by aejanis _
> *914MB, with "-1so". *


Hmm . . . I'll look tomorrow, but that sounds a lot bigger than mine. Was it virgin?

Michael


----------



## aejanis

> _Originally posted by weaknees _
> *Hmm . . . I'll look tomorrow, but that sounds a lot bigger than mine. Was it virgin?
> 
> Michael *


No it was not...it had been up and running for about 4 days before I finally got a good backup.


----------



## dave3

So what are the commands after you boot a lb48 cd to add a second 250 or 300meg drive

1. backup:mfsbackup -f 9999 -1so /hd_tivo.bak /dev/hdc
2. marry?
3. expand?

thanks


----------



## borghe

the same as are in hinsdale's guide for series 2.

backup

restore (optional)

add


----------



## weaknees

To just add the extra space, you'd do:

mfsadd -x /dev/hdc /dev/hdd

but, as we posted in the first post here, that won't work properly. We're still testing a whole bunch of scenarios, but the safe answer is to wait. Those who have added a drive have, I suspect, used BlessTiVo booted in a noswap kernel.

Michael


----------



## pmaddock

Please forgive my ignorance but what's the difference between using MFS Add vs Blessing a drive and installing it?


----------



## weaknees

Basically, one works with this situation, and the other doesn't. We have some suspicions on the reasons and we're in the process of testing all of the variations.

Michael


----------



## Fletch

Does piping the output of mfsbackup into mfsrestore (dual drive) work with the HR10-250.


----------



## borghe

mfsadd did work with my 250GB drive.. haven't done anything with a 300GB drive so I will assume that is where you are having the problems with it....


----------



## weaknees

Right - the mfs file system support sizes up to 256 GB. So using mfsadd with a drive greater than that size chokes the system. Blessing the drive gives the initial impression of working, but probably doesn't work when the drive hits that point.

Michael


----------



## pmaddock

> _Originally posted by weaknees _
> *Right - the mfs file system support sizes up to 256 GB. So using mfsadd with a drive greater than that size chokes the system. Blessing the drive gives the initial impression of working, but probably doesn't work when the drive hits that point.
> 
> Michael *


So, if someone wants to upgrade now the safe route would be to add another 250GB drive? Conicidentally that's probably more cost effective as the premium from 250 to 300 GB gets a little steeper.

I'm also a little concerned that the most likely solution for a drive over 250GB would involve a software re-work (e.g. new MFSADD with a different partitioning scheme and/or a kernel modification). Would such a solution create a greater risk of being incompatible with future software updates?


----------



## pbolya

> _Originally posted by pmaddock _
> *So, if someone wants to upgrade now the safe route would be to add another 250GB drive? Conicidentally that's probably more cost effective as the premium from 250 to 300 GB gets a little steeper.
> 
> I'm also a little concerned that the most likely solution for a drive over 250GB would involve a software re-work (e.g. new MFSADD with a different partitioning scheme and/or a kernel modification). Would such a solution create a greater risk of being incompatible with future software updates? *


 Weaknees,
Does the HR10-250's kernel supports >256GB drives and the MFS CD's kernel image does not ? If so I am sure somebody sooner or later will get a new CD image that will. However if the HR10-250's kernel does not I would not even consider messing with that kernel and accept the horrifying idea that my TiVo will never have more than 500GB.

Ideally I would upgrade to 500GB for now (which I will as soon as I get it) and in about a year or 2 when the 500GB hard-rive become economically available (<$500) upgrade to 1 TB (wow it feels good even just to say it out loud).

I know that this is too early to ask these kind of questions but I ask anyway. If I upgrade to 250/250 now do you see any problems to upgrade that to 500/500 later ?

Thanks,
Peter


----------



## weaknees

We don't think it's specifically the kernel, but rather the mfs file system that is the limitation.

Hard to know about future upgrades to 500/500.

Michael


----------



## weaknees

> _Originally posted by pmaddock _
> *I'm also a little concerned that the most likely solution for a drive over 250GB would involve a software re-work (e.g. new MFSADD with a different partitioning scheme and/or a kernel modification). Would such a solution create a greater risk of being incompatible with future software updates? *


The way we look at it, it shouldn't be any worse than expanding another drive twice - just two sets of partitions.

Michael


----------



## pmaddock

WeaKnees,
I noticed you're selling "Quckview" Maxtor drives on your site. Looking at the specs it seems that they would be slower (5400 RPM and 2MB cache vs 7200 and 2 or 8MB caches) than regular HDs although they might run cooler. 
Do you think they will perform better in an HD Tivo? If so, are you going to carry the 250GB version?


----------



## borghe

the Tivo's kernel, _should_ be able to recognize partitions up to 2TB in size. The problem as I am reading it comes with the MFS filesystem limitations.

and yeah, more than likely this will be solved by just partitioning drives <256GB with multiple partitions.


----------



## weaknees

> _Originally posted by pmaddock _
> *WeaKnees,
> I noticed you're selling "Quckview" Maxtor drives on your site. Looking at the specs it seems that they would be slower (5400 RPM and 2MB cache vs 7200 and 2 or 8MB caches) than regular HDs although they might run cooler.
> Do you think they will perform better in an HD Tivo? If so, are you going to carry the 250GB version? *


They should be cooler. The speed doesn't really matter here - that's not the slow bottleneck. And in our testing there is no slowdown at all. We may get the 250s.

Michael


----------



## dave3

For those of you testing now with the 300 maxtors, how is the drive whine from these units? Are they quiet?


----------



## HiDefHusker

The QuickView specs (from weaKnees) states that a QuickView can simultaneously stream (4) 6Mb/sec HD streams. That doesn't appear to be enough bandwidth to record two OTA HD streams and watch a third previously recorded OTA HD stream (at 19Mb/sec each). Is Maxtor just being overly cautious? Hmmm.

It's peculiar that the specs show 19Mb/sec for HD capacity, but they show 6Mb/sec for HD streaming performance.


----------



## aaronwt

Aren't they also fine tuned for video streaming?
I can stream froma regular Maxtor 5400 rpm drive, over my network, to my two HiPix cards, and also transfer a file to another PC. The HD coming over the network will play without glitches. the file transfer from another networked PC slows down a lot. Normally it would transfer at 150mbs but it slows down to under 50mbs when also streaming to my two HiPix cards simultaneously. I'll have to check it tonight to get exact transfer speeds.


----------



## tivoupgrade

> _Originally posted by dave3 _
> *For those of you testing now with the 300 maxtors, how is the drive whine from these units? Are they quiet? *


No additional noise or whining.


----------



## pmaddock

> _Originally posted by 9thTee _
> *I have, I have! Actually we shipped several yesterday and today so folks will be able to give some feedback pretty soon. Our solution gives a very sturdy platform to mount the hard drive to and I would not hesitate to ship the unit with the upgrade in place. It's not going anywhere. The cover closes just fine and gives room on the top for air circulation.
> 
> BTW, just put up a new page with lots of inside pictures of the HR10-250. Here it is: www.9thtee.com/insidehdtivo.htm
> 
> Mark
> 9thTee.com *


Are you still planning on posting the actual assembly/install instructions? I'm a little fuzzy about how that 3rd leg goes in as I'm comparing to the Weaknees prototype.


----------



## 9thTee

> _Originally posted by pmaddock _
> *Are you still planning on posting the actual assembly/install instructions? I'm a little fuzzy about how that 3rd leg goes in as I'm comparing to the Weaknees prototype. *


Certainly, we are finalizing the pictures and expect to have complete insturctions up later this week. Check www.9thtee.com/tivo-dthd.htm for the link later in the week and we will post here as well. Our mount provides a very sturdy platform to hold your hard drive while leaving room for good air flow.

Mark
9thTee.com - *Proud & Very Most Special TiVo Community Sponsor*


----------



## HiDefHusker

The following link indicates that a 5400 RPM Maxtor drive sports a sustained data rate of at least 142.4 Mb/sec. So it shouldn't have any problem with 3 X 19Mb/sec = 57Mb/sec....


----------



## weaknees

> _Originally posted by HiDefHusker _
> *The following link indicates that a 5400 RPM Maxtor drive sports a sustained data rate of at least 142.4 Mb/sec. So it shouldn't have any problem with 3 X 19Mb/sec = 57Mb/sec.... *


I sent the question over to Maxtor for comment, but I haven't heard back. The first PDF (the one on our site) does seem to be a bit conservative, and they have told us on several occasions that the drives can easily handle more than three simultaneous HD streams. I'll post back if we get something interesting from them.

In the meantime, the confirmation you found looks pretty good.

Michael


----------



## aaronwt

And those are the older drives from 2 years ago. I would think the newer ones are even faster.


----------



## btwyx

> _Originally posted by HiDefHusker _
> *The following link indicates that a 5400 RPM Maxtor drive sports a sustained data rate of at least 142.4 Mb/sec. So it shouldn't have any problem with 3 X 19Mb/sec = 57Mb/sec.... *


 The problem with that is 3x19Mb/s is not a sustained data rate. Its read-seek-read-seek-read-seek. That's a lot different from read-read-read.


----------



## HiDefHusker

> _Originally posted by btwyx _
> *The problem with that is 3x19Mb/s is not a sustained data rate. Its read-seek-read-seek-read-seek. That's a lot different from read-read-read. *


Agreed. This will depend on the I/O behavior of the Tivo software.


----------



## bfdhe

> _Originally posted by tivoupgrade _
> *Current status is that there are no known issues with adding 250 or 300GB drives using standard BlessTiVo techniques. FYI, adding 300 will give you 70 hours HD, and 470 SD. We have an upgraded system happily recording everything it can, and another on the bench where we are messing around with replacement drives and add-on drives.
> 
> . *


I am trying to do this via mfsadd -x /dev/hdd /dev/hdc (hdd=new drive)

However I am getting an MFS read error?

What am I missing? I have the BootCD that recognizes large drives.


----------



## weaknees

The post you quoted uses BlessTiVo which is distinctly different in process than mfsadd, although results are often similar. mfsadd really doesn't work at this point with these units and drives. Just use BlessTiVo and you should be fine - at least with a drive of 250 GB or smaller.

Michael


----------



## bfdhe

> _Originally posted by weaknees _
> *The post you quoted uses BlessTiVo which is distinctly different in process than mfsadd, although results are often similar. mfsadd really doesn't work at this point with these units and drives. Just use BlessTiVo and you should be fine - at least with a drive of 250 GB or smaller.
> 
> Michael *


ahhh..... That makes sense. Could you point me to the proper version of BlessTivo?


----------



## bfdhe

Nevermind. I found it.

Do I need to do the "noswap"?


----------



## weaknees

Yes - you need 'noswap' here.


----------



## bfdhe

Ok. One last issue..... The BlessTivo CD I downloaded does not recogonize the full size of the disk.

Do I need another version?


----------



## weaknees

You just need to use it when booted into a newer kernel.


----------



## tivoupgrade

> _Originally posted by bfdhe _
> *Ok. One last issue..... The BlessTivo CD I downloaded does not recogonize the full size of the disk.
> 
> Do I need another version? *


Yes, you need one that supports "LBA48"

Try this one here, its free:

http://www.ptvupgrade.com/support/bigdisk/index.html


----------



## bfdhe

> _Originally posted by tivoupgrade _
> *Yes, you need one that supports "LBA48"
> 
> Try this one here, its free:
> 
> http://www.ptvupgrade.com/support/bigdisk/index.html *


That's the one I got. Too late though.

Since BlessTivo works, I decided to go ahead and set my unit up, then add the drive later. I got part way through guided setup when the unit "blue screened" and said it was too hot and to power down. After a cooling period I hooked it back up and now all I get is a popping sound on the speakers and flashes on the screen. I am headed to CC for a refund and the hunt is on for another HR10-250.


----------



## dswallow

> _Originally posted by bfdhe _
> * I am headed to CC for a refund and the hunt is on for another HR10-250. *


 Void your warranty, then you expect the retailer to deal with it?


----------



## aejanis

> _Originally posted by dswallow _
> *Void your warranty, then you expect the retailer to deal with it? *


I don't think he made it to that point...seems to me he changed his mind about adding the drive...wait until later.


----------



## bfdhe

> _Originally posted by dswallow _
> *Void your warranty, then you expect the retailer to deal with it? *


I guess it is a grey area. I took the drive out, but never added the second. Put the drive back in after I decided to just get it running and add the drive later. Everything was fine.

The unit overheated (or so it told me) about 1/2 through setup. The fan was running (Still runs) but nothing else happened. Before that, I never powered it up.

You cannot be sure I did anything wrong or caused any issue. This could have happend regardless.

I suppose you would just say, "well it is my fault" and eat the $1K?


----------



## dswallow

> _Originally posted by bfdhe _
> *I guess it is a grey area. I took the drive out, but never added the second. Put the drive back in after I decided to just get it running and add the drive later. Everything was fine.
> 
> The unit overheated (or so it told me) about 1/2 through setup. The fan was running (Still runs) but nothing else happened. Before that, I never powered it up.
> 
> You cannot be sure I did anything wrong or caused any issue. This could have happend regardless.
> 
> I suppose you would just say, "well it is my fault" and eat the $1K? *


I hadn't realized you had given up adding the second drive and just put it back without ever having been trying a second drive in the unit itself, or a different first drive, so I fully understand the grey area thing, but you did take the drive out. I would reasonably expect what you did to NOT have caused a problem, though I think it is technically voiding the warranty to do what you did.  I'm glad I'm not in your shoes because I don't honestly know if I'd eat it or try to return it as DOA, though a third possibility is paying for an out-of-warranty repair, which wouldn't necessarily mean eating $1K, though I'm not sure anybody is even set up to think in terms of an out-of-warranty repair, yet, so approaching that might be difficult at best.

In hindsight, you should've verified all works OK first, I suppose.


----------



## btwyx

> _Originally posted by dswallow _
> *though I think it is technically voiding the warranty to do what you did.
> 
> ...
> 
> In hindsight, you should've verified all works OK first, I suppose. *


From the warranty section in the manual.

"Any modifications or other changes to the product, including but not
limited to software or hardware modification in any way other than as
expressly authorized by DIRECTV will void this limited warranty.
Except in the case of hardware or software provided by DIRECTV,
adding drive capacity, installing software modifications "hacks" or
utilizing service access or "back doors" will void this limited
warranty."

Now if the machine was really DOA and he didn't realise it before opening it up, then he should have a separate claim against his supplier. In general anything you're sold should be fit for the purpose for which it was sold. (I'm not a lawyer and the exact law varies by location.) It can be very handy to claim against a supplier and not against a warranty at times.

Without having verified that the machine works before he started makes it look very dark grey to me.

Also its useful to get a baseline for any modification you make, trying to trouble shoot a modification on a system which doesn't work in the first place is very unrewarding.


----------



## farce

> From the warranty section in the manual.
> 
> "Any modifications or other changes to the product, including but not
> limited to software or hardware modification in any way other than as
> expressly authorized by DIRECTV will void this limited warranty.
> Except in the case of hardware or software provided by DIRECTV,
> adding drive capacity, installing software modifications "hacks" or
> utilizing service access or "back doors" will void this limited
> warranty."


From what he's said, he did not do any of these things. In no way did he do any software or hardware modifications before his unit crashed.

I guess some will argue that even opening the case is suspect.. but I dont subscribe to those type of beliefs.

Take it back and see if CC will replace it.

-farce


----------



## btwyx

> _Originally posted by farce _
> *From what he's said, he did not do any of these things. *


 To quote: "I took the drive out," that sounds like a modifciation to me. Its also quite possible to kill things just bumbling around. (I'm not saying that this is what happened, just that its possible.)


----------



## JEbbesen

> _Originally posted by btwyx _
> *To quote: "I took the drive out," that sounds like a modification to me. Its also quite possible to kill things just bumbling around. (I'm not saying that this is what happened, just that its possible.) *


100% correct. I have on more than one occasion Fd up a computer removing a component and making a stupid move. Youd think Id learn. Last time happened when I was messing with my DP7200s drive and I forgot to power down the PC I had attached the drive to. I trashed the PCs HD and had to buy a new HD to replace it.

Worst screw up was when I fried the HD at my video store only to learn the backup was bad, I had to go back two weeks and reenter each transaction, balance and process each day separately. Three very long days later I was back on line.

Now Im not suggesting that anything happened in this case but you never really know.


----------



## bfdhe

I can confirm that there was no fumbling or shorting or any of the like. I have worked with electronics and PCs for 20 years. I used a grounding strap and static mats. There was no mishandling or any of the like.

If error on my part had been the case, the unit would not have functioned for 30 minutes during setup. I began setup, left the room, came back, did some more setup, left the room, came back "oh s*** what is this blue screen!!!" 

Had something happened while the lid was off, most likely, the unit would never have powered up or functioned normally for any amount of time. However, the unit was assembled and everything back in its place before I powered it up. 

This is probably a bad part that needed time to get hot before it ceased to function. The HDD and fan still spin up, but there is no video and there is a click, click on the speakers (not the hard drive).


----------



## aaronwt

If there wasn't a seal on the back then they would never know. if you broke the seal, then don't expect them to replace it, although I doubt they would even check.


----------



## bfdhe

None of them, from what I have read, have seals. Mine didn't.

I am going to let it sit for a few days while I am out of town. Maybe it will work when I get back.


----------



## barkode

> _Originally posted by bfdhe _
> *None of them, from what I have read, have seals. Mine didn't.
> *


Man. No seals on the initial boxes. They must have known that the initial boxes were all going to go to the insane TiVO hacking community. How odd.

Mine gets here sometime in the next 45 minutes, I'm going to go over it with a fine-toothed comb before cracking it to take a virgin backup of the drive, which I'll probably only do if there's no seals, considering the high failure rate of these boxes lately.


----------



## aejanis

> _Originally posted by barkode _
> *Man. No seals on the initial boxes. They must have known that the initial boxes were all going to go to the insane TiVO hacking community. How odd.
> 
> Mine gets here sometime in the next 45 minutes, I'm going to go over it with a fine-toothed comb before cracking it to take a virgin backup of the drive, which I'll probably only do if there's no seals, considering the high failure rate of these boxes lately. *


None of the SD Directivo "Series 2" units have them either...This lack of warranty sticker is nothing new..


----------



## aaronwt

There is a seal on my Philips DSR704 model.


----------



## aaronwt

> _Originally posted by aaronwt _
> *Aren't they also fine tuned for video streaming?
> I can stream froma regular Maxtor 5400 rpm drive, over my network, to my two HiPix cards, and also transfer a file to another PC. The HD coming over the network will play without glitches. the file transfer from another networked PC slows down a lot. Normally it would transfer at 150mbs but it slows down to under 50mbs when also streaming to my two HiPix cards simultaneously. I'll have to check it tonight to get exact transfer speeds. *


OK I just checked. Using my MAxtor 250GB MAXline drive(5400rpm) I can stream to my two hipix cards two separate HD streams and my upload speed from that hardrive is around 40mbs. Then if I copy a folder with a half hour program)4.2 GB I get a total transfer rate from that drive of between 100mbs to 135 mbs. This is much better than I had last time I tried it. It must be from putting my 2 PCs with the HiPix cards on a separate Gigabit switch from the Gigabit switch that my HD storage PCs are connected.
So i would think since the data would be transferred internally in the HD-TiVo, it defintely shouldn't be a problem with the 5400rpm drive. It should be quieter and run cooler than the 7200rpm drive.
I hope to be able to put a couple of the 250GB Quickview drives,from Weaknees, in my HD-TiVo this Summer, after they get the bracket manufactured and of course after I receive the HD-TiVo.


----------



## barkode

> _Originally posted by aaronwt _
> *OK I just checked. Using my MAxtor 250GB MAXline drive(5400rpm) I can stream to my two hipix cards two separate HD streams and my upload speed from that hardrive is around 40mbs. Then if I copy a folder with a half hour program)4.2 GB I get a total transfer rate from that drive of between 100mbs to 135 mbs.*


Maybe I'm reading this incorrectly, but that sounds like you're streaming a bunch of sequential data off of the hard drive while not writing anything to it, and isn't at all characteristic of TiVO activity. A dual-tuner TiVO will *always* be writing LiveTV to the drive for both tuners at any given time, whether it's recording the show or recording to the standard Live TV cache. Try writing two seperate HD streams to the drive and reading one. You should be able to do it fine, but your numbers are going to tank. A QuickView drive will be at around 75%-80% operating capacity (high in my opinion) while you're doing that (according to Maxtor's own documents, not sure about the MAXline).


----------



## aaronwt

OK. I'll try that tonight or tomorrow.


----------



## chewie1

Just wondering if someone could tell me how long it should take to backup a virgin drive? I started my backup last night and it's been around 10 hours now, and it's still not finished. It just says scanning source drive. And if this is not normal, what do I need to do to stop the process?


----------



## aejanis

> _Originally posted by chewie1 _
> *Just wondering if someone could tell me how long it should take to backup a virgin drive? I started my backup last night and it's been around 10 hours now, and it's still not finished. It just says scanning source drive. And if this is not normal, what do I need to do to stop the process? *


When I backed up my drive the "Scanning" part did take a long time...but not that long!

Something is not right...


----------



## aaronwt

> _Originally posted by barkode _
> *Maybe I'm reading this incorrectly, but that sounds like you're streaming a bunch of sequential data off of the hard drive while not writing anything to it, and isn't at all characteristic of TiVO activity. A dual-tuner TiVO will *always* be writing LiveTV to the drive for both tuners at any given time, whether it's recording the show or recording to the standard Live TV cache. Try writing two seperate HD streams to the drive and reading one. You should be able to do it fine, but your numbers are going to tank. A QuickView drive will be at around 75%-80% operating capacity (high in my opinion) while you're doing that (according to Maxtor's own documents, not sure about the MAXline). *


OK I decided to try it this morning. I wrote 2 HD streams to the 5400 rpm MAXLINE drive and also simultaneously copied files from that drive to another. The writing speed was around 40mbs but the reading speed was only between 40mbs and 55mbs. That would still be enough headroom for the HD-TiVo. I played the streams back and the recordings seemed fine.


----------



## weaknees

> _Originally posted by chewie1 _
> *Just wondering if someone could tell me how long it should take to backup a virgin drive? I started my backup last night and it's been around 10 hours now, and it's still not finished. It just says scanning source drive. And if this is not normal, what do I need to do to stop the process? *


Can you post the command you used? Did you boot with a newer Linux kernel?

This should only take a few minutes with the proper mfsbackup command.

Michael


----------



## chewie1

> _Originally posted by weaknees _
> *Can you post the command you used? Did you boot with a newer Linux kernel?
> 
> This should only take a few minutes with the proper mfsbackup command.
> 
> Michael *


I took the following steps:

mkdir /mnt/dos

mount /dev/hda1 /mnt/dos

(at this point it said success, but also showed a message saying to specify the file system)

mfsbackup -f 9999 -1so /mnt/dos/tivo.bak /dev/hdb

(I have the tivo drive slaved on my primary IDE and my master drive is a 15GB quantum that I newly partitioned and formatted fat32 with partition magic, but it is not a system disk)

And I did boot with the newer kernal with the large drive support.

When I left this morning, it was still hitting both hard drives. Thanks.


----------



## weaknees

The only issue seems to be your file system message. 

Try the mount command as:

mount -t vfat /dev/hda1 /mnt/dos

and see if that helps.

Michael


----------



## chewie1

> _Originally posted by weaknees _
> *The only issue seems to be your file system message.
> 
> Try the mount command as:
> 
> mount -t vfat /dev/hda1 /mnt/dos
> 
> and see if that helps.
> 
> Michael *


Thanks, I'll give that a shot when I get home this evening. Is there anything special I should do to stop the currenly hanging backup, or can I just turn off the power and reboot?


----------



## weaknees

You can try CTRL-Z or CTRL-C but it sounds like it's hung and you'll need to shut it off.

Michael


----------



## edrock200

Michael, have you added the HR10-250 do your online web "wizard" for upgrades? I would check but I can't get to your site from work.
-Ed


----------



## apnar

Michael,

How are the new brakets coming along? Any ETA?

-apnar


----------



## weaknees

> _Originally posted by edrock200 _
> *Michael, have you added the HR10-250 do your online web "wizard" for upgrades? I would check but I can't get to your site from work.
> -Ed *


Not yet - since we don't consider all of the options stable yet (except replacing your existing drive) we haven't updated the instructions. We probably will soon.

Michael


----------



## weaknees

> _Originally posted by apnar _
> *Michael,
> 
> How are the new brakets coming along? Any ETA?
> 
> -apnar *


No solid dates yet - but we've got the final design basically finished. We're trying to push ahead on some expedited tooling.

Michael


----------



## pmaddock

> _Originally posted by weaknees _
> *They should be cooler. The speed doesn't really matter here - that's not the slow bottleneck. And in our testing there is no slowdown at all. We may get the 250s.
> 
> Michael *


If you get the 250's do you have any idea of the ETA and pricing? At this point I'm thinking that a 2x250 approach with backing up the original as being the safest approach.

Also, with your approach of adding a fan - any thoughts about the power supply load of 2 drives plus the 2nd fan?


----------



## weaknees

We don't have pricing info on 250s at this point, but they generally cost us almost twice what 160s cost. We haven't gotten bulk pricing, delivery, etc. And we don't even know that it'll pay to carry yet another drive size, but we'll see.

The power supply looks to be completely adequate at this point, for two drives and two fans. The second fan adds virtually no load to the power supply compared to a drive.

Michael


----------



## Nomarian

Please excuse my ingorance on this issue, but I want to make sure I this is correct. Instead of using the MFS tools 2.0 CD to add the 2nd 250GB drive, I should be using BlessTivo with the new kernal with the HR10-250.

I know that if I boot up the MFS Tools it will load the new kernal. Now how would you run the BlessTiVo tool? Is it also on the CD or do I have put another CD or diskette in with that tool? Thanks in advance for the help.


----------



## weaknees

When you say that you know that if you boot mfstools you get the new kernel, what do you mean? Most CDs out there don't have the new kernel - do you have one of the ones that does, specifically?

Michael


----------



## Nomarian

I should have been more clear. I thought the new kernal meant that you had the large hard drive support. When I boot up the CD, it does see the full size of both 250GB Maxtor drives. I guess this is not the case.


----------



## weaknees

There are two CD images out there, at least. One has an older kernel, one a newer kernel. Can you find the kernel version and post it and we'll go from there?

Michael


----------



## Graphics

Here is a pre-order page just posted for KITS with drive upgrades
This page is for 9thTee customers who wish to pre-order the PTVupgrade add-on drive kit for the Hughes HR10-250 DirecTV unit with HDTV.

http://www.ptvupgrade.com/resellers/9thTee/HDD2A-preorder.html

KITS:
21 HR Add-On (160GB adds 21 hours at HD and adds 146 at SD) $249.00 
33 HR Add-On (250GB adds 33 hours at HD and adds 226 at SD) $399.00 
40 HR Add-On (300GB adds 40 hours at HD and adds 270 at SD) $499.00

Instructions in PDF format:
http://www.ptvupgrade.com/installation/pdf/hr10-250-add.pdf

http://www.ptvupgrade.com/products/brackets/s2-hd-bracket.html
All add-on drive kits include the following components:
Series2 HD bracket and mounting supplies
Custom IDE (ATA/66) Cable 
"Y" power splitter 
High-quality Torx T10 Driver 
Printed Instructions
InstantCakeHD


----------



## Nomarian

I will have to check when I get home, but the one I used was downloaded from PTVupgrade on their webpage. They have the MFS 2.0.iso for download and that is what I used to boot up with.

I even successfully copied from the orginal WD drive to a new Maxtor 250GB drive with no problems. I did this to use the 8MB caches instead of the 2MB cache on the WD drives. 

I am just trying to find out what utilty to use from this point to add the 2nd 250GB Maxtor drive and how to use that utility. Any input would be appreciated.


----------



## weaknees

You need "BlessTiVo." You can download it here:

http://www.tivofaq.com/hack/tivoboot_v3.zip

Michael


----------



## weaknees

We've been running one of our HD boxes with a drive added using BlessTiVo (300GB) for several days now. It's full, and it works. We've removed and recorded new shows, and it all test out.

Michael


----------



## Nomarian

Thank you for your help. It is nice to see a retailer answer the questions without asking for money.


----------



## oosik77

Is InstantCakeHD going to be available as a stand alone product?


----------



## pmaddock

Weaknees,
I'm a little confused as I thought there were partition issues with drives over 256GB. Does that issue and the stability concerns you've alluded to only happen when you upgrade the A drive or did the whole thing end up being a "false alarm" (which I guess would mean a current max of upgrading to a 300+300 arrangement)?


----------



## ChofuHS

Here is a simple question but one that I cna';t find a search answer to. Why doesn't D* offer these in 500 gb out the door? Same thing applies to all the TiVo manufacturers out there. Is it simply D* and others know we will upgrade and then they are off the hook for warranties?

I should be able to buy these things without having to go to third parties and screw up my warranty. D* and others could simply make a company like Weeknees an authorized repair/upgrade center.

I pay the monthy D* insurance fee, but if I upgrade, what good does that do?


----------



## weaknees

> _Originally posted by pmaddock _
> *Weaknees,
> I'm a little confused as I thought there were partition issues with drives over 256GB. Does that issue and the stability concerns you've alluded to only happen when you upgrade the A drive or did the whole thing end up being a "false alarm" (which I guess would mean a current max of upgrading to a 300+300 arrangement)? *


It seems that mfsadd has issues here, and BlessTiVo doesn't. We're still digging through to try to figure out exactly why, but we don't have a good answer. mfsadd works with smaller drives, but not drives over 250 GB, it seems.

Michael


----------



## Fletch

Does mfsrestore work? Can I mfsbackup from the single 250g drive and then mfsrestore to a pair of 300g drives? Or to a pair of 250g drives?


----------



## weaknees

Yes - just use the "-zi" switch.

Michael


----------



## chewie1

> _Originally posted by weaknees _
> *The only issue seems to be your file system message.
> 
> Try the mount command as:
> 
> mount -t vfat /dev/hda1 /mnt/dos
> 
> and see if that helps.
> 
> Michael *


OK, it seemed to be something corrupted with my fat32 partition. I repartitioned and reformatted the drive, and I stopped getting the specify filesystem message. My question is how long should mfsbackup say scanning source drive? Is there some other progress that I should be seeing, because it's been scanning the source drive for about 10 minutes now. Thanks.


----------



## weaknees

If it's a really slow PC, it could take some time, but even so, 10 minutes seems pretty slow. What's the processor speed?

Michael


----------



## chewie1

It's a 1.0 ghz athlon processor


----------



## aejanis

> _Originally posted by weaknees _
> *If it's a really slow PC, it could take some time, but even so, 10 minutes seems pretty slow. What's the processor speed?
> 
> Michael *


FWIW...My 2.0Ghz AMD spent about 10-15 minutes "Scanning Source Drive".


----------



## weaknees

That shouldn't be very slow - if it's still holding there, you likely have another problem.

Are you just trying to make a backup, or do you have a new drive you're trying to add? If you have a new drive, try temporarily throwing a FAT32 partition on there to see if that helps.

Michael


----------



## chewie1

I was just trying to make a backup at this point and was going to worry about adding the drive after your testing was stable, so I don't have a 2nd drive as of yet. I guess i'll wait a little longer to see if it's just slow. The fact that both drives are on the same ide controller wouldn't affect it, would it?


----------



## weaknees

Shouldn't matter if they are on the same bus.

Maybe just wait until you have another drive, and go from there.

Michael


----------



## chewie1

ok, I guess I'll just throw it back in the unit and worry about it later. Thanks for your help.


----------



## weaknees

Surprised you could live with the HD box working for this long . . .

Good luck on the next go 'round.

Michael


----------



## Fletch

> _Originally posted by weaknees _
> *Yes - just use the "-zi" switch.
> 
> Michael *


-zi or -xzpi ?


----------



## weaknees

Just "-zi" is what you want. The "x" in there is basically mfsadd which is what can cause problems here and would also cause a new 300 GB A drive to not see a Blessed B drive. The "p" isn't needed here.

Michael


----------



## Fletch

Hmm. So will this work with dual 300g drives? I plan to just save the old A drive as my archive.

mfsbackup -Tao - /dev/hdc | mfsrestore -zi - /dev/hda /dev/hdb


----------



## weaknees

No. If you want to save recordings, you can either do:

mfsbackup -Tao - /dev/hdc | mfsrestore -zi - /dev/hda

then bless the second drive in noswap, or "dd" the old to the new A drive, then bless the B drive in "noswap."

Michael


----------



## Fletch

I get it now. Thanks.


----------



## pmaddock

I'd like to solicit some advice with the developments here. 

If I'm hearing things correctly MFS can do A expansions and BlessTivo can do B drive adds with no worries about drive sizes. So a 300 + 300 HD Tivo seems to be possible now. 

I'm sort of stuck on the cost issue. 300GB drives have a hefty price premium - the Quickview drives have an even bigger premium. I really want to back up the original drive and keep it on the shelf in case something goes really bad in the future but $600 or so for 2 300GB drives is more than I can take after $1K for the HD Tivo.

Since nobody is selling the 250GB version of the Quickview what seems to be the best 'normal' 250GB drive that I could use as an A replacement? I'll probably bite the bullet and get the 300 Quickview at Weaknees for the B drive.


----------



## weaknees

Just to be clear, we don't (yet) have a way to do 300 + 300. The most we have working stably is 250 + 300. We do have some ideas in development for the dual 300s though.

Michael


----------



## pmaddock

> _Originally posted by weaknees _
> *Just to be clear, we don't (yet) have a way to do 300 + 300. The most we have working stably is 250 + 300. We do have some ideas in development for the dual 300s though.
> 
> Michael *


Thanks for the clarification. Since the the 250 Quickview doesn't seem to be on hand out there what would you recommend to use as an A drive replacement?


----------



## barkode

Successful HR10-250 250GB upgrade (500GB total) - got 63 hours HD / 425 SD.

Screenshot here - http://www.barkode.com/stuff/tivo/hr10_250_upgraded_screenshot.jpg

Started with a complete virgin TiVO (just wanted to get a virgin backup of my own, my preference), never booted the system. Used a WD2500JB (the same drive that's inside, only with 8MB cache instead of 2MB), with the MFS Tools 2.0 LBA48 boot cd. Went off mostly without a hitch - although for some reason on my XP4 mini pc I couldn't run mfsbackup while the drives were on the same IDE channel. The mfsbackup process would actually go dead. I let it sit for six hours. Switched one drive to the other IDE channel and it worked fine.

I also did a full backup/restore, and also an mfsbackup piped into mfsrestore just for testing purposes.

mfsbackup -Tao - /dev/hda | mfsrestore -s 127 -xzpi - /dev/hdc

...generated a 3137 megabyte piped restore, and that drive booted the TiVO fine into setup.

mfsbackup -f 9999 -1so /mnt/c/tivo.bak /dev/hda

... gave me a 155MB backup file of a 1486 megabyte image. -6so gave me ~85MB of the same.

mfsadd -x /dev/hda /dev/hdc

... joined the drives, reported 481 total hours.

I *just* finished this and haven't even activated the unit yet, but you'll hear me scream here if it has issues when I start to fill it up.

Will have some documentation and photos up later this week. I'm also going to be installing a rather interesting cooling system (it's currently running with the top off, drives outside the unit) and the 9th Tee mounting bracket in the next two days. The bracket is here, but I need to modify some things to get the cooling system running.

Hope everyone else has positive experiences upgrading their HR10-250s as well. Let's just hope I don't fry it in the next few days fiddling with it.


----------



## AbMagFab

Some folks have posts an issue with noswap. Did you have to specify that somewhere, or did the mfstools 2.0 default to noswap?

(And what's up with the DVR service inactive in your screenshot?)


----------



## barkode

> _Originally posted by AbMagFab _
> *Some folks have posts an issue with noswap. Did you have to specify that somewhere, or did the mfstools 2.0 default to noswap?
> 
> (And what's up with the DVR service inactive in your screenshot?) *


I had no issue with swap, my backup restored properly and booted, I didn't pass any parameters to the kernel or mess with swap at all, other than passing -s 127 into my restore.

As I mentioned, my service was inactive when I took that shot because I had just finished the upgrade 30 seconds earlier and hadn't even activated the unit yet (I knew someone would ask anyway...) On a side note, DirecTV's systems are down until 8AM Eastern for maintenance today, so I'm still not activated.


----------



## borghe

I can report MFSTools problems on the same bus as well.... saw it two different times in particular.

The first was restoring from the FAT32 drive to the new drive to test the backup. Both were on the same bus and it would always lockup around 9%..

The second was restoring to the original A drive (after my failed bash attempt) from CDROM image with the CDROM and Tivo A drive being on the same bus.. again a lockup around 9%..

MFSTools most definitely does have some problems when copying images on the same bus on many computers..


----------



## Graphics

I have been doing a net search on the WD2500JB drives, found
Source: www.newegg.com Drive info: www.hardwarezone.com/articles/view.php?cid=10&id=748

(Cost factor too much for anything higher i.e.*300 gig) and have boiled it down to about $192.00 ~ has anyone found a source that we all can pounce on or can do a volume buy as a group?...suggestions?


----------



## aejanis

> _Originally posted by Graphics _
> *I have been doing a net search on the WD2500JB drives, found
> Source: www.newegg.com Drive info: www.hardwarezone.com/articles/view.php?cid=10&id=748
> 
> (Cost factor too much for anything higher i.e.*300 gig) and have boiled it down to about $192.00 ~ has anyone found a source that we all can pounce on or can do a volume buy as a group?...suggestions? *


FWIW...Compusa had Maxtor 250 drives on sale for $159.99 late last week. I bought 2 of them. The sale (or something similar) might pop up again. You can do better if you wait for a sale.


----------



## edrock200

CompUSA is selling 7200 250GB hd's for $159 no rebates and 200s for $129 no rebates. Not sure of the brand and model though. Picked up a 250.

*edit* aejanis beat me to it.


----------



## aejanis

They are 179.99 today at Compusa

http://www.compusa.com/products/product_info.asp?product_code=302225&pfp=BROWSE

I am running one as my "A" drive, and will add as "B" drive once I get a bracket for it. (I put the orignal WD on the shelf for now, just incase there are problems with the first software download or something).


----------



## Bill Milford

Yesterday and Today only:
At DFW area Fry's Electronics: Maxtor Retail 250GB, 7200RPM drive for $139.99
I Picked up one at lunch today. Some of the kits had a ATA133 + SATA card included.

Bill


----------



## aaronwt

WOW! They have really come down in price! A year and a half ago I paid almost $300 each for several 250GB drives, and they were only 5400rpm.


----------



## pmaddock

You know I have to wonder why so many Maxtor 250GB drives are being marked down so much. The one at Frys is the same one that Compusa has on special.


----------



## JohnTivo

They are probably trying to reduce inventory so they can introduce new models... Hitachi is already shipping in low quantities their 400 GB drive. I've read rumors that Maxtor will also be releasing a 400 GB drive....


----------



## Nomarian

Weaknees,

From your reply, I surmised that as long as you keep the primary drive at 250GB, then you can pretty much add any size drive as the secondary drive? So for instance, I could to a 250GB+300GB or 250GB+400GB and it should work okay?

Thanks.


----------



## pbolya

> _Originally posted by aaronwt _
> *WOW! They have really come down in price! A year and a half ago I paid almost $300 each for several 250GB drives, and they were only 5400rpm. *


 aaronwt,
You really have to watch out for sales. In December 2002 I bought a $160GB (8MB 7200 WD) for $150 and 3 200GB's (8MB 7200 WD) for $180 at Fry's (no error on either of them so far). Although The Maxtor 250GB sale at CompUSA ended last Friday I talked the salesperson into honoring it on Sunday. I realize it is Thursday already but it never hurt to try. Just tell them that you saw this advertisement and you can only afford it at that price. Worth thing can happen is that they turn you down (believe me it's not as bad as a turned down marriage proposal).

Regards,
Peter


----------



## weaknees

> _Originally posted by Nomarian _
> *Weaknees,
> 
> From your reply, I surmised that as long as you keep the primary drive at 250GB, then you can pretty much add any size drive as the secondary drive? So for instance, I could to a 250GB+300GB or 250GB+400GB and it should work okay?
> 
> Thanks. *


Well, we haven't tested drives over 300 GB, so we can't say for sure, but this seems likely at this point. Smaller drives do work fine.

Michael


----------



## ruckusboy

> _Originally posted by barkode _
> *Successful HR10-250 250GB upgrade (500GB total) - got 63 hours HD / 425 SD.
> 
> mfsadd -x /dev/hda /dev/hdc
> 
> ... joined the drives, reported 481 total hours.
> *


I followed your mfsadd that you said was successful in giving you the extra hours. When I run the command it says 
'New estimated standalone size: 582 hours (301 more).'
'Done! Estimated standalone gain: 301 hours'
I put the drives in the Tivo and the system info still only shows the 30HD and 200SD.
The jumpers have been set correctly. I think the only thing could be that you had your drives both set as master. One on A and one on C. My PC has no secondary IDE so I have both drives on the same cable. The command I ran was
mfsadd -x /dev/hda /dev/hdb

Am I missing something? Ok, I'm sure I am. Any idea what?

Thanks
--ruckus


----------



## weaknees

ruckusboy-

Exactly what size drives did you use? Did you restore to the boot drive, or just use it as it came out of the TiVo?

I don't think we've ever seen mfsadd report an expansion and then see the TiVo not see it and yet boot except with the Toshiba SD-H400 and the Pioneer 810H (some).

Michael


----------



## ruckusboy

> Exactly what size drives did you use? Did you restore to the boot drive, or just use it as it came out of the TiVo?


Drive A is the factory drive, drive B is a Maxtor 250. I did not perform a backup/restore yet. I was hoping that I would not have to.

I tried the mfsadd several times. Each time it reported successful but failed to show the expanded space.

Should I try the backup/restore?

Thanks for the help.


----------



## weaknees

That's pretty odd - we haven't seen exactly that in any test yet. Basically, once you run mfsadd, you shouldn't need (or be able) to run it again. It should say "nothing to add."

The first thing you should do here it to make a backup - that way, no matter what comes, you'll be able to get back to square one.

Next, try blessing the B drive in "noswap" and see what happens. That's pretty likely to work.

Michael


----------



## ruckusboy

Ok, I'm in the process of backing up the drive.



> Next, try blessing the B drive in "noswap" and see what happens. That's pretty likely to work.


Is that a command line flag?


----------



## tivoupgrade

> _Originally posted by ruckusboy _
> *Drive A is the factory drive, drive B is a Maxtor 250. I did not perform a backup/restore yet. I was hoping that I would not have to.
> 
> I tried the mfsadd several times. Each time it reported successful but failed to show the expanded space.
> 
> Should I try the backup/restore?
> 
> Thanks for the help. *


You don't have to, but having a backup is a good idea. You can just "Bless" the B drive using BlessTiVo, you know...


----------



## ruckusboy

> You don't have to, but having a backup is a good idea. You can just "Bless" the B drive using BlessTiVo, you know...


That's what I'm trying to do. Is that with mfsadd? Or is there a blessTivo command I'm not aware of?


----------



## aejanis

> _Originally posted by ruckusboy _
> *That's what I'm trying to do. Is that with mfsadd? Or is there a blessTivo command I'm not aware of? *


Yes...BlessTiVo is a command on the CD. It was the orignal way that people added an extra drive to their TiVo. Before the MFS/Tiger tools.


----------



## weaknees

Are you booting off a CD or do you have a Linux PC? Either way, BlessTiVo is the way to do this, but you need to be sure you are booted into a "noswap" kernel when you do it. If you don't have BlessTiVo, you can download it here:

http://www.tivofaq.com/hack/tivoboot_v3.zip

Michael


----------



## tivoupgrade

> _Originally posted by ruckusboy _
> *That's what I'm trying to do. Is that with mfsadd? Or is there a blessTivo command I'm not aware of? *


Yes, here is a simple way to do things:

Get yourself a copy of our LBA48 Boot CD here:

http://www.ptvupgrade.com/support/bigdisk/index.html

Connect your add-on drive to your PC; in this example, we assume it to be connected as the SECONDARY SLAVE (/dev/hdd):

Boot LBA48 CD (just hit return at the boot prompt)

and when its completed, type:

BlessTiVo /dev/hdd

and follow the instructions.


----------



## Graphics

tivoupgrade ~ weaknees:
How does the "Adding another DRIVE" scenario look to you that I typed up??
(I wish not to touch my original drive in anyway shape or form, other than remove and reinsert power and ribbon cable.)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
I purchase an additional drive i.e. (WD2500JB), I purchase HR10-250 DirecTiVo Hard Drive Mounting Bracket with Hardware. I have a standard ribbon cable for PC&#146;s that support 2 drives. I have a split &#147;Y&#148; Black/Yellow/White for power to the second drive.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
I have a PC running at 2.7gig under XP Pro. I shut off my PC, and disconnect any ribbon cables at the mother board, that feed my present HD set up (i.e.Primary IDE drive controller). I connect a single ribbon cable to the NEW drive for the add-on, and plug in (*for this setup process into the mother board). I boot my PC, and go to BIOS set up and change my boot sequence to CD as primary boot device, I (F10), as to save the BIOS configuration and re-boot the system. I re-boot, with CD (Standard and LBA48 Support, All on one CD) in the CD/DVD reader. I follow the on screen directions. Hopefully all goes well. I shut down the PC, and remove the add-on drive that was just plugged in. I put back the original ribbon cable that has my PC drives connected back to the Primary IDE controller on the mother board. I reboot the PC, and go into BIOS set up, and place boot sequence back to the original set up. I (F10), as to save the BIOS configuration and re-boot the system. If all goes well the PC should be back to the state as before this prepare the TiVo 2nd Drive. (Yes/No?)
I now open the HR10-250 DirecTiVo and as per instructions put in the purchased mounting plate, along with the Add-on Drive that was prepared on the PC, that was stated above. I remove the original ribbon cable that came with the NEW HR10-250, and plug in (the standard ribbon cable for PC&#146;s that support 2 drives.) I also add (split &#147;Y&#148; Black/Yellow/White for power) to feed both hard drives.

Question #1: Does the original drive (leave as is PRIMARY), and the Add-on drive set to (Slave) ~ or your instructions.
When I turn on the HR10-250, and all goes well, and accessing the system info, it should state, doubling my original recording times HD/SD.

How does this instruction summary look to you, for those who wish to just add-on another standard 250 gig, like the original?


----------



## tivoupgrade

> _Originally posted by Graphics _
> *tivoupgrade ~ weaknees:
> How does the "Adding another DRIVE" scenario look to you that I typed up??
> (I wish not to touch my original drive in anyway shape or form, other than remove and reinsert power and ribbon cable.)
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------
> I purchase an additional drive i.e. (WD2500JB), I purchase HR10-250 DirecTiVo Hard Drive Mounting Bracket with Hardware. I have a standard ribbon cable for PC&#146;s that support 2 drives. I have a split &#147;Y&#148; Black/Yellow/White for power to the second drive.
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------
> I have a PC running at 2.7gig under XP Pro. I shut off my PC, and disconnect any ribbon cables at the mother board, that feed my present HD set up (i.e.Primary IDE drive controller). I connect a single ribbon cable to the NEW drive for the add-on, and plug in (*for this setup process into the mother board). I boot my PC, and go to BIOS set up and change my boot sequence to CD as primary boot device, I (F10), as to save the BIOS configuration and re-boot the system. I re-boot, with CD (Standard and LBA48 Support, All on one CD) in the CD/DVD reader. I follow the on screen directions. Hopefully all goes well. I shut down the PC, and remove the add-on drive that was just plugged in. I put back the original ribbon cable that has my PC drives connected back to the Primary IDE controller on the mother board. I reboot the PC, and go into BIOS set up, and place boot sequence back to the original set up. I (F10), as to save the BIOS configuration and re-boot the system. If all goes well the PC should be back to the state as before this prepare the TiVo 2nd Drive. (Yes/No?)
> I now open the HR10-250 DirecTiVo and as per instructions put in the purchased mounting plate, along with the Add-on Drive that was prepared on the PC, that was stated above. I remove the original ribbon cable that came with the NEW HR10-250, and plug in (the standard ribbon cable for PC&#146;s that support 2 drives.) I also add (split &#147;Y&#148; Black/Yellow/White for power) to feed both hard drives.
> 
> Question #1: Does the original drive (leave as is PRIMARY), and the Add-on drive set to (Slave) ~ or your instructions.
> When I turn on the HR10-250, and all goes well, and accessing the system info, it should state, doubling my original recording times HD/SD.
> 
> How does this instruction summary look to you, for those who wish to just add-on another standard 250 gig, like the original? *


Keep in mind that you'll need to move the jumper on the "A" drive in your TiVo - the default setting right now is "single or master" and it should be set to "master w/ slave present"

Actually, I haven't tried it by leaving it in the current position "single or master" but I should - always better not to touch things that you don't have to.

One comment: not sure if your 'instructions' are intended to be a step-by-step guide for others - if they are, I would break things up into 'steps' - having things running together like that all in one paragraph is very difficult to follow if you are looking for a cookbook recipe as a reader.

Here are the step-by-step instructions for installing the bracket:

http://www.ptvupgrade.com/installation/pdf/hr10-250-add.pdf

as an example.


----------



## pmaddock

Any thoughts on the best backup method - DD or MFSBACKUP? What I'm thinking I'd like to do is keep the original drive intact and on the shelf so I imagine an Image (DD) would work better.

If anyone has tried DD vs. MFS - how long did it take to run?


----------



## Graphics

tivoupgrade


> not sure if your 'instructions' are intended to be a step-by-step guide for others


 No not at all, just trying to summarize in my head how I would do it. Since this unit isn't even a week old yet, I won't be needing that 2nd drive for awhile, but just trying to get my options lined up so to speak as to "WHEN" I do decide ~ as to what the game plan would be. I do think many other owners are also looking into this type of game plan ~
Most likely Ill jump on this when ever a I see a 250 gig drive ON SALE ~ just missed that CompUSA $135.00 deal too. lol
I couldn't for-see any reason to go beyond that capacity...at least for now, you guru's can still tinker some more! ~ thanks for the info:


----------



## weaknees

> _Originally posted by pmaddock _
> *Any thoughts on the best backup method - DD or MFSBACKUP? What I'm thinking I'd like to do is keep the original drive intact and on the shelf so I imagine an Image (DD) would work better.
> 
> If anyone has tried DD vs. MFS - how long did it take to run? *


"dd" would take quite a long time and you'd need a large drive as a destination, where "mfsbackup" would take much, much less time and would make a much, much smaller backup file.

Michael


----------



## tivoupgrade

> _Originally posted by pmaddock _
> *Any thoughts on the best backup method - DD or MFSBACKUP? What I'm thinking I'd like to do is keep the original drive intact and on the shelf so I imagine an Image (DD) would work better.
> 
> If anyone has tried DD vs. MFS - how long did it take to run? *


MFSbackup really is your best option; shouldn't take you more than 20-30 minutes to backup your hard drive and all the necessary stuff (without your videos, which I assume you are ok losing). If you are going to copy the drive with all the video streams, it will take significantly longer; performance is going to vary based upon the PC you use. DD will work fine, too - its really just a matter of preference.


----------



## mikemav

Is there a reason I would need to back up my drive "virgin", before I start using the HDTiVo I have coming next week? I will not need to upgrade or hack for a while, but if there is a compelling reason to have a virgin backup I may consider opening her up. I would rather not do that until I decide I need to modify it. My fear is if I ever do hack it, I would want to be able to get back to stock if I mess up. Would I be able to get an ISO at some point of a new HDTiVo so I do not have to open up my own now? Other alternative? 

Also, can anyone point me to a thread or place that discusses if it is possible to get TurboNet-like functionality out of these. I know the TurboNet or Cache Card do not plug into a Series 2, but are there alternatives if I want to network my new HD box? Sorry for the newbie questions


----------



## weaknees

You really don't need to backup the drive until you start working inside the unit, but there have been some HD failures on these units already, so it's not a bad idea. Now is the time to get a stock image if you think you might need to restore it at some point. ISO images are a bit hard to come by at this point - TiVo has (and is) cracking down on the distribution of images.

Michael


----------



## mikengr

Can you configure the Tivo drive(s) by mounting them in an external USB 2.0 enclosure rather than installing them inside the computer? Seems like it would be much simpler and the USB 2.0 enclosures are selling for only about $30.


----------



## weaknees

> _Originally posted by mikengr _
> *Can you configure the Tivo drive(s) by mounting them in an external USB 2.0 enclosure rather than installing them inside the computer? Seems like it would be much simpler and the USB 2.0 enclosures are selling for only about $30. *


We've never seen that work - you need pretty low-level access to them to make this all work. In addition, mfstool would need to be totally re-written to talk to USB drivers, which would also need to be included in the Linux OS on most CDs, etc . . .

Michael


----------



## borghe

I see all this talk about BlessTivo.. should I be worried about running mfsadd on my 250GB?I have have fuilled it up once and have been using it for a week now with no problems... is there anything I should be worried about that I am not realizing? Thanks.


----------



## flapbreaker

Which hard drives in the 250GB range are being recommended?


----------



## aejanis

> _Originally posted by flapbreaker _
> *Which hard drives in the 250GB range are being recommended? *


The one that costs least 

I am a Maxtor fanboy...I have replaced my original A drive with a Maxtor 250 (159.99 @ Compusa last week). It has been running fine for 7 days now.

I also noted a 2 degree decrease in temperature when compared to the factory WD drive. Also it is a little softer....but from my experience noise can change not only by the brand of the drive, but the drive itself...Seems to me that the same brand and model drive can have its own noise "personality".

Oh..I turned on the acoustical stuff to quiet on the Maxtor before I installed it.


----------



## pmaddock

> _Originally posted by tivoupgrade _
> *MFSbackup really is your best option; shouldn't take you more than 20-30 minutes to backup your hard drive and all the necessary stuff (without your videos, which I assume you are ok losing). If you are going to copy the drive with all the video streams, it will take significantly longer; performance is going to vary based upon the PC you use. DD will work fine, too - its really just a matter of preference. *


Thanks for the input - I think I'm stuck with DD to get what I want. The unit has been operating for a month now (wanted to wait 30 days before cracking the case) so its no longer 'virgin' by any means. As I'm a little nervous I want to copy the factory drive, put it in a safe place, and then use the copy as the A drive. This approach requires 2 drives but it gives me the ability to swap the drive back if something goes wrong.

Now to figure out how to slip the expense of 2 drives past the wife.... (this one might force me to get 2x250 - the price premium of 250 vs 300 is really getting steep lately).


----------



## weaknees

> _Originally posted by pmaddock _
> *Thanks for the input - I think I'm stuck with DD to get what I want. The unit has been operating for a month now (wanted to wait 30 days before cracking the case) so its no longer 'virgin' by any means. As I'm a little nervous I want to copy the factory drive, put it in a safe place, and then use the copy as the A drive. This approach requires 2 drives but it gives me the ability to swap the drive back if something goes wrong.
> 
> Now to figure out how to slip the expense of 2 drives past the wife.... (this one might force me to get 2x250 - the price premium of 250 vs 300 is really getting steep lately). *


Why are you stuck with 'dd'? Just because you've used it doesn't conflict with mfstools in any way, and with mfstools you'll get a much smaller backup file - so you may not need a whole separate drive just to house this.

Michael


----------



## Nomarian

Okay,

I seem to be having a problem. I downloaded the ptv-mfstools2-large-disk.iso file and made a bootable CD. I then boot to the CD and hit enter when it comes up to the prompt. I then proceed to just type BlessTivo /dev/hdb at the command prompt and it states "sh: BlessTivo command not found"

What am I doing wrong? Can someone help?

EDIT
I figured it out. I did two things. I went into the bin directory where the command was located and I also guess it is case sensitive. I had to type "BlessTiVo" to get it to run.


----------



## weaknees

Yup - Linux is case sensitive, and this has been a bit of an issue ever since BlessTiVo was created. Note that mfstool uses all lower case (except for a few switches).

Michael


----------



## pmaddock

> _Originally posted by weaknees _
> *Why are you stuck with 'dd'? Just because you've used it doesn't conflict with mfstools in any way, and with mfstools you'll get a much smaller backup file - so you may not need a whole separate drive just to house this.
> 
> Michael *


Basically I'm cornering myself...

My plan is to keep the factory drive intact and not disturb it in any way - requiring a complete copy unless I want to lose the recordings. I know this is probably being overcautious but I figure if I'm replacing the A drive anyway I should try to leave the original drive undisturbed in case I have to go back.


----------



## weaknees

OK- then you can do a 'dd' or a "-Tao" backup which will be much faster if your drive isn't full.

Michael


----------



## AbMagFab

I'm getting ready to upgrade my HD Tivo. Quick questions:

1) Does the LBA48 CD/Linux build recognize NTFS partitions, or will I still need to scrape up a FAT HD to store my backup image?

2) What is the noswap issue, and do I have to actively do or check anything? I'll be using the LBA48 from PTV

3) BlessTivo or mfsadd?

4) Boxers or Briefs?

Thanks!


----------



## bsnelson

1) There's no write capability for NTFS (well, there sorta is, but not really), so a FAT or ext2 drive is still needed.
2) Shouldn't have to worry about it; mfstools will sort it out
3) If you're adding a second drive, BlessTivo (at the time of this writing). If you're expanding, mfsadd is the only way.
4) Commando

Brad


----------



## pmaddock

> _Originally posted by AbMagFab _
> *I'm getting ready to upgrade my HD Tivo. Quick questions:
> 
> 1) Does the LBA48 CD/Linux build recognize NTFS partitions, or will I still need to scrape up a FAT HD to store my backup image?
> 
> 2) What is the noswap issue, and do I have to actively do or check anything? I'll be using the LBA48 from PTV
> 
> 3) BlessTivo or mfsadd?
> 
> 4) Boxers or Briefs?
> 
> Thanks! *


1. Has to be a FAT drive - the CD and NTFS don't mix - its Bill's world after all.

2. Look at the following post for noswap info:
http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=170759&highlight=noswap

3. Assuming you're talking about adding a B drive - I'd say BlessTivo but there seems to be some confusion. Some seem to have made MFSAdd work but weaknees has reported issues with MFSAdd that don't occur with Bless Tivo - I think its related to drives over the 256GB MFS partition limit. Of course the only way to do an A drive expansion is MFSADD.

4. Its a personal choice....


----------



## tivoupgrade

> _Originally posted by AbMagFab _
> *I'm getting ready to upgrade my HD Tivo. Quick questions:
> 
> 1) Does the LBA48 CD/Linux build recognize NTFS partitions, or will I still need to scrape up a FAT HD to store my backup image?
> 
> 2) What is the noswap issue, and do I have to actively do or check anything? I'll be using the LBA48 from PTV
> 
> 3) BlessTivo or mfsadd?
> 
> 4) Boxers or Briefs?
> 
> Thanks! *


1) you'll need FAT

2) you won't have an issue if you use our LBA48 CD it will use 'noswap' by default

3) BlessTivo

4) Boxers with little Tivo Guys on them


----------



## weaknees

Right - mfsadd will work for larger A drives or B drives smaller than a certain size - but we don't know where the line is at this point. We do know that if you want a 300 GB B drive, that's over the line, so you'll need to use an un-expanded A drive with a blessed B drive to get that far. We're testing several more permutations with the standard tools plus our homemade ones, and we'll hopefully get some more answers here soon. We'd like to get dual 300s going, or even larger.

Michael


----------



## aaronwt

Does anyone still upgrade drives if the drive is sent to them? I see alot are sold ready to install, but there is a premium for the price of the hard drive. A 250Gb drive can be had for $150 on sale. How much does any of the TiVo upgrade companies charge if a drive is sent to them.


----------



## weaknees

We do - contact us by email.

Michael


----------



## tivoupgrade

> _Originally posted by aaronwt _
> *Does anyone still upgrade drives if the drive is sent to them? I see alot are sold ready to install, but there is a premium for the price of the hard drive. A 250Gb drive can be had for $150 on sale. How much does any of the TiVo upgrade companies charge if a drive is sent to them. *


Special services (kit recertification or user-supplied drive certification):

http://www.ptvupgrade.com/products/services.html

Thx,
Lou


----------



## seanmcgpa

Have we confirmed that the HD Tivo is upgradable?

I have a 250gig drive waiting for use in my HDTivo to double the capacity... I've done many a Series 1 upgrade so am comfortable with moving stuff around on my IDE chains.

So if it possible, then I'll need a bracket, and what else? The software that is compatible with large drives? And where can I buy the bracket from without buying the entire drive upgrade kit?

Thanks for any tips,

Sean


----------



## tivoupgrade

> _Originally posted by seanmcgpa _
> *Have we confirmed that the HD Tivo is upgradable?
> 
> I have a 250gig drive waiting for use in my HDTivo to double the capacity... I've done many a Series 1 upgrade so am comfortable with moving stuff around on my IDE chains.
> 
> So if it possible, then I'll need a bracket, and what else? The software that is compatible with large drives? And where can I buy the bracket from without buying the entire drive upgrade kit?
> 
> Thanks for any tips,
> 
> Sean *


You can purchase the bracket from 9thTee here:

http://www.9thtee.com/tivo-dthd.htm

as well as the custom IDE cable which allows you to connect two drives.

You can also download the LBA48 CD here:

http://www.ptvupgrade.com/support/bigdisk/index.html

at no charge, and use BlessTiVo to prepare your secondary drive.


----------



## AbMagFab

Custom IDE cable, or just a replacement for the 1-drive IDE cable in the HD10-250? I've assumed it uses standard PC IDE cables (I think the DVR40 I upgraded did).


----------



## tivoupgrade

> _Originally posted by AbMagFab _
> *Custom IDE cable, or just a replacement for the 1-drive IDE cable in the HD10-250? I've assumed it uses standard PC IDE cables (I think the DVR40 I upgraded did). *


Custom means specially made.

We've been having them made for several years now - the cable is long enough to be used in any Series1 or Series2 unit, and does not have one of the pins blocked on the IDE connector as many standard cables do.


----------



## weaknees

> _Originally posted by AbMagFab _
> *Custom IDE cable, or just a replacement for the 1-drive IDE cable in the HD10-250? I've assumed it uses standard PC IDE cables (I think the DVR40 I upgraded did). *


You don't need a custom cable, but they can help with air flow. If you look at pictures on our site, you'll see that we have cables specifically sized to fit all of our brackets - they don't fit dual-drive Series 1 standalone machines since we didn't want extra length sitting in all of the other boxes. They are also vented to make sure that they don't block air flow to drives and motherboard components.

Most cables will work, but, again, heat is the enemy of hard drives, so keeping the unit as cool as possible is definitely a good insurance policy.

Michael


----------



## buzzword

> _Originally posted by bfdhe _
> *None of them, from what I have read, have seals. Mine didn't.
> 
> I am going to let it sit for a few days while I am out of town. Maybe it will work when I get back. *


Might be a good idea.

Sometimes they fix themselves. I once upgraded a Sony SAT-T60, I think was putting in a network card, which I've done successfully with an SVR2000.

First of all, the driver install did not go according the sequence of events outlined in the instructions, the supplied script was messed up. It hung on boot, then to compound things, on a retry I messed something up further by accidentally unplugging the unit at a crucial point in the boot up. The machine refused to boot at all afterwards, it came up, got to a certain point and (I think) said something about corruption and hung (it was a long time ago, so I'm definitely not exactly sure of messages or exact sequence of events). Repeated attempts to reboot gave the same result.

That morning I jokingly said to my wife, "guess what I ate for breakfast?, our TiVo!" she was not amused (I tend to relieve stress with humor).

I tried repeatedly to boot it over the next day or two in desparate hope that it would magically start working. I gave up, then on the third day I tried one more time, and this time it acted differently, I got a grey screen that said something like "Dialing in progress for software repair" (it was a year 1/2 ago, so I don't recall exactly), it then spent the hour on the phone and another god knows how many hours trundling away with a grey screen and a message to the effect that repair was in progress. I didn't dare touch it. Hours later I came back , the machine had booted and all was normal and has been ever since.

(has this "self repair" happended to anyone else???)

Needless to say, I was mighty impressed with Tivo, and chose not tempt fate by attempting to reinstall the network card.

This is the same machine that a few weeks earlier earlier I had installed a second hard drive to and forgotten to reinstall the fan (!) noticing a day later when the machine started refusing to dial out. I was sure I had fried the modem chip. It wouldn't dial out for 2 days, then started working again. This Tivo just will not die!


----------



## borghe

Well, chalk up a loss to mfsadd....

I don't know what happened and I don't know how it happened, but my B drive magically disappeared from my Tivo. I went into System Information (as I do every day to see if an update was sent that will fix a problem I've been having) and happened to glance at my recording capacity... 30 HD hours and 200 SD hours!?!? WTF!? So I checked the drive, it was running fine. hmm.. Well, after all of the talk between Bless Tivo and mfsadd here, I decided (after a couple of reboots) to BlessTivo the second drive. Put it back in and hoped to god my recordings were all there.. they were and the system once again says 63/427.

So, as has already been the consensus of this thread, BlessTivo is the way to go I am guessing.. IF you try mfsadd, be wary of your extra space just disappearing, and heaven help you if you have any recordings spanned to partitions on the B drive when it does.


----------



## weaknees

> _Originally posted by borghe _
> *Well, chalk up a loss to mfsadd....
> 
> I don't know what happened and I don't know how it happened, but my B drive magically disappeared from my Tivo. I went into System Information (as I do every day to see if an update was sent that will fix a problem I've been having) and happened to glance at my recording capacity... 30 HD hours and 200 SD hours!?!? WTF!? So I checked the drive, it was running fine. hmm.. Well, after all of the talk between Bless Tivo and mfsadd here, I decided (after a couple of reboots) to BlessTivo the second drive. Put it back in and hoped to god my recordings were all there.. they were and the system once again says 63/427.
> 
> So, as has already been the consensus of this thread, BlessTivo is the way to go I am guessing.. IF you try mfsadd, be wary of your extra space just disappearing, and heaven help you if you have any recordings spanned to partitions on the B drive when it does. *


We've heard a couple of other reports of capacity disappearing, something we've never seen with other units and we can't explain at this point.

Were all of your recordings there when you noticed the new (smaller) size?

Is it possible that the second drive was never working? That you saw the space reported in the PC when you added the second drive, but never in the System Information screen?

Michael


----------



## borghe

no, the space was showing in the Tivo.. if you recall, I also filled up my Tivo with recordings last weekend to test it out.. everything worked fine. I then messed around with trying to get bash working, blew away my system, restored it, mfsadded the B drive, checked my capacity which was 63/427, then proceeded to use my Tivo as normal. then I noticed it at 30/200 yesterday.

as for recordings, I ran mfsadd, used it as normal (like I said), and when I went back to 30/200, I just blessed the second drive and added it back in and yes, all of my recordings were still there.

all of my capacity times were strictly off of what my System Information screen showed.. I think I am close to having the first drive filled up anyway, so hopefully I will see what happens now sooner rather than later.


----------



## tivoupgrade

> _Originally posted by borghe _
> *
> So, as has already been the consensus of this thread, BlessTivo is the way to go I am guessing.. IF you try mfsadd, be wary of your extra space just disappearing, and heaven help you if you have any recordings spanned to partitions on the B drive when it does. *


BlessTiVo is absolutely the way to go.


----------



## weaknees

borghe-

Pretty interesting - keep us updated as you proceed.

Michael


----------



## Nomarian

I finally finished my upgrade with the upgrade bracket by 9thTee. I installed the 2nd drive after using BlessTiVo and system shows 63/427 now. I will let you know if anything else happens, but it is humming along fine right now.


----------



## weaknees

So you used a 250 GB drive? WD or Maxtor?

What's the temp inside the machine?

Michael


----------



## jb007

I had difficulty installing the PTVUpgrade bracket because of the tie clip which holds the two coaxial cables running to the OTA tuners. The cables are held in place by a white plastic tie clip that is on a tower. I couldn't remove the tower from the system board, so I've though about just cutting it in half, then running the two black cables under the bracket as I assume they are supposed to be run. Does this sound correct?

TIA.


----------



## 9thTee

If you just bend the clip over to the left or right it will be fine. The easiest way is to remove the cables from the clip, bend the clip over and then seat the cables back in the clip and twist back closed. That will keep the cables together, not that they are going anywhere.

Mark
9thTee.com


----------



## weaknees

jb007-

No one really knows yet what will happen in situations where people need to pay for repairs for these units, but considering the cost of the unit, just be extremely careful with anything even remotely involving the motherboard. 

Sony, for example, will charge an outrageous amount of money for out-of-warranty repairs where they decide that you've tampered with the motherboard, where normal out-of-warranty repairs can be had for a much more reasonsable amount of money.

Michael


----------



## Cheezmo

Does anyone know how many 512K blocks the stock hard drive is? I just got a Hitachi 250Gb drive from Fry's ($109!). It is 488397168 blocks and I want to know if that is enough to do a 'dd' copy of my stock drive.


----------



## AbMagFab

So what's the difference between 6s0 and 1s0 on the mfsbackup line? Just level of compression?

What about -f9999?


----------



## weaknees

Cheezmo-

Not too sure, but be a little wary of Hitachi drives in TiVos - they don't have a great track record historically. They do seem to be quite good in computers, though.

Michael


----------



## weaknees

> _Originally posted by AbMagFab _
> *So what's the difference between 6s0 and 1s0 on the mfsbackup line? Just level of compression?
> 
> What about -f9999? *


First, that's not a 'zero' but an 'o' in the string.

The number is the level of compression. The higher the number (up to 9) the more compression, thus the more time involved, but the less space taken for the image. Robert S made some suggestions a little while ago about compression levels so we did a thorough test to see what the times and sizes look like. Basically, "1" seems to be pretty optimum. It's much faster than higher numbers, compresses to about half of the uncompressed size, and only compresses a small amount less than higher numbers. We put the results up here:

http://tivo-upgrade.blogspot.com/

Finally, the "-f 9999" takes all files up to that size. Without that switch, you'll lose the background animations on newer OS versions.

Michael


----------



## borghe

question I have for those who have upgraded to a 300GB drive.. does it actually create a partition larger than 256GB? Also, has anyone tested out to see how much recording time you actually get on the drive? I am just wondering if the Tivo is reading the recording hours from the status screen based on the drive size reported in the bios or based on the partition sizes it is seeing on the filesystem.


----------



## weaknees

It'll always be hard to know if you are getting the full amount of hours - don't forget that DirecTV does variable bit rate encoding. So having, say, 30 hours of space is a max. If you record all action movies, they make take more space - i.e. a 2 hour movie may take more than 1/15 of the hard drive capacity. Don't forget the key term here: variable.

Michael


----------



## borghe

right, I understand that.. I was just curious as to how the Tivo was figuring out the recording space.. if it was based on available MFS partitions or fuzzy math based on drive sizes reported by the BIOS. I was wondering if BlessTivo was partitioning out the 300GB drive to the full 279GB or if it was only partitioning it to 256GB and simply able to see the 300GB drive and assuming it was able to use the full amount.


----------



## weaknees

> _Originally posted by borghe _
> *right, I understand that.. I was just curious as to how the Tivo was figuring out the recording space.. if it was based on available MFS partitions or fuzzy math based on drive sizes reported by the BIOS. I was wondering if BlessTivo was partitioning out the 300GB drive to the full 279GB or if it was only partitioning it to 256GB and simply able to see the 300GB drive and assuming it was able to use the full amount. *


Full 279 GB, or so it seems. The partition is 286099 MiB.

Michael


----------



## mikemav

With easy to use products such as Instant Cake HD offered by one company, or the assistance of the other people out there that help w/ upgrades, is there a reason I need to make a backup copy of my virgin HD before I do anything to it? I am considering having someone I know who is very qualified do some upgrades, but I want to use the TiVo for a few days first to try it out. If I understand InstandCake, it provides an image of a virgin TiVo, so if mine gets messed up, I can get a new 250gb drive and install it w/ Instant Cake and be back to square one? Or probably get the same service from one of the other TiVo upgrade sites? Or am I missing something? I want to make sure I have a backup plan in case something goes wrong. I understand I will be voiding my warranty and not protected from hardware problems, but w/ if I knew I could always reload the factory fresh software should my problem be related to hacks, it would make me feel better.


----------



## weaknees

We offer the service of preparing your drive for your TiVo. Should it come to that, email us at [email protected].

Michael


----------



## mikemav

> _Originally posted by weaknees _
> *We offer the service of preparing your drive for your TiVo. Should it come to that, email us at [email protected].
> 
> Michael *


Thanks for the quick response Michael. So I wouldn't need to scour the internet begging for an image of a (rare) HD TiVo should I mess it up or fry my drive? I can send you a stock Maxtor 250GB and you can make it work, if I understand correctly? How is the TwinBreeze bracket for HD coming along? I like the idea of this over a bracket w/o fans, but was wondering how development was coming?


----------



## tivoupgrade

> _Originally posted by mikemav _
> *With easy to use products such as Instant Cake HD offered by one company, or the assistance of the other people out there that help w/ upgrades, is there a reason I need to make a backup copy of my virgin HD before I do anything to it? I am considering having someone I know who is very qualified do some upgrades, but I want to use the TiVo for a few days first to try it out. If I understand InstandCake, it provides an image of a virgin TiVo, so if mine gets messed up, I can get a new 250gb drive and install it w/ Instant Cake and be back to square one? Or probably get the same service from one of the other TiVo upgrade sites? Or am I missing something? I want to make sure I have a backup plan in case something goes wrong. I understand I will be voiding my warranty and not protected from hardware problems, but w/ if I knew I could always reload the factory fresh software should my problem be related to hacks, it would make me feel better. *


It would be a good idea to have a backup, or at least a backup plan. InstantCakeHD is currently not released as a 'standalone' product, but bundled with our add-on drive kits. Not to say that it won't be released as a standalone product, eventually, but we tend not to talk about things, or make any commitments surrounding unreleased products. Worst case is that you can send a drive in for a recertification (software reinstallation) if you have to start over from scratch and don't have a backup.


----------



## weaknees

> _Originally posted by mikemav _
> *Thanks for the quick response Michael. So I wouldn't need to scour the internet begging for an image of a (rare) HD TiVo should I mess it up or fry my drive? I can send you a stock Maxtor 250GB and you can make it work, if I understand correctly? How is the TwinBreeze bracket for HD coming along? I like the idea of this over a bracket w/o fans, but was wondering how development was coming? *


Right - you don't need to scour, and we frankly doubt that images are out there.

Yes, you send us a stock 250 GB and we can format it for you as requested..

Our bracket designs are in Asia being tooled and produced. We won't really have a timeline update until we get first parts. But, as with the current TwinBreeze, our prototype is showing a substantial temperature decrease. This is due in part to the second fan, and in part to the open design below the drive mounts.

Anyway, the first batch of these brackets will go to our "early adopters" and we will be shipping them from Asia to our warehouse via air. So if you want to be at the top of the list . . .

Michael


----------



## bfdhe

> _Originally posted by weaknees _
> *Right - you don't need to scour, and we frankly doubt that images are out there.
> 
> *


There is a virgin HR10-250 image floating around. You don't have to look very hard to find it. Just do a little reading/searching of posts.


----------



## Cheezmo

I just did the Weaknees 300Gb add-on upgrade (leaving the top off for now). I had a couple of scares. When I first looked at System Information, it sayd "DIRECTV Account Status: Account Closed Call 800-531-5000".

A few minutes later (after doing a system test) it now says my Account is in Good standing again.

My Tivo Suggests list is now empty, even after rethumbing a few things. Hopefully it will straighten itself out tonight.

All my recordings and Season passes (and thumb ratings of non-season pass shows) seem to be intact.


----------



## weaknees

Both problems are generally just results of the power down/power up and should resolve when the unit gets full info from the satellite. Keep us posted . . .

Michael


----------



## Cheezmo

I just noticed that it is recording a suggestion, but the Tivo Suggests screen still has the "If your recorder is new..." message.


----------



## weaknees

Have you dialed back in since the re-boot?

Michael


----------



## RC3105

> _Originally posted by weaknees _
> *Right - you don't need to scour, and we frankly doubt that images are out there....
> Michael *


oh puleeeeeeeeeez! they've been on bittorrent 'n such for ages 

edit: you guys probably haven't seen the 40 gig 3.1.5 images then either


----------



## weaknees

OK - my mistake. I haven't been looking since I've got plenty, but we have been getting emails from people looking for them suggesting that they can't find them on Google. In any event, you might want to edit the post to remove the location . . .

Michael


----------



## Cheezmo

OK, my suggestions list is back. On the System Information screen it says that GC and indexing took place 10 minutes ago so I guess that is what we were waiting for.

All is well...


----------



## flapbreaker

> _Originally posted by Cheezmo _
> *I just did the Weaknees 300Gb add-on upgrade *


I thought they only had a 300GB "replacement" drive and not "addon drive". Has that changed now?


----------



## RC3105

bittorent is a location??? sure, that narrows it down to somewhere on this planet...

a few hints for the clueless:

google doesn't search p2p networks, but there are engines that do

lots of folks host files on more than one network

some of the newer p2p sw hosts & searches across ALL the networks


----------



## weaknees

We are selling an "early adopter" kit - everything but the bracket ships today, and the bracket ships as soon as we get it in from Asia. This is for people who really want the expansion now, and who want to be the first to get our bracket when they arrive (and the first shipment is coming via air from Asia for them).

Michael


----------



## mikemav

> _Originally posted by weaknees _
> *We are selling an "early adopter" kit - everything but the bracket ships today, and the bracket ships as soon as we get it in from Asia. This is for people who really want the expansion now, and who want to be the first to get our bracket when they arrive (and the first shipment is coming via air from Asia for them).
> 
> Michael *


Michael, 
Once it is shipping, will you be selling the bracket solo?


----------



## weaknees

Absolutely.


----------



## mikemav

> _Originally posted by weaknees _
> *Absolutely. *


Do you have a price and a way to order that now? I did not see it on the web page.


----------



## weaknees

Nope - we won't until we're much closer to having them in stock probably.

If there's demand for them, we might be able to do a pre-order, and just get that many more by air.

For now, just sign up on the bracket list.

Michael


----------



## aaronwt

Any word yet on getting the 250GB quickview drives as a cheaper option than the 300GB quickview. That extra 50GB costs alot on the regular drives. I assume the same would be true with the quickview. $400 is alot for that 300GB drive. Although I see you are $100 less than your competition! At $500 I might as well just buy another HD-TiVo! Of course I am still waiting for my first one.


----------



## jmhays

> _Originally posted by weaknees _
> *
> Anyway, the first batch of these brackets will go to our "early adopters" and we will be shipping them from Asia to our warehouse via air. So if you want to be at the top of the list . . .
> 
> Michael *


I guess this means I am on the bottom of the top! I see my additional drive has already shipped and I just placed the order at weaknees a few hours ago!! Thanks Michael!


----------



## pentium7

Was just wondering if anyone has fooled around with the HD Tivo and upgraded with the InstantCakeHD CD. If you have tried this I'd be interested in hearing your experience, please PM me or email me at [email protected]

Thanks


----------



## flapbreaker

So is the process for adding a 250GB drive to the HDTivo the same as for the DirecTivo? If not is there a guide specific to the HDTivo?


----------



## weaknees

This process will work for DirecTiVos, but isn't really the preferred options for those boxes.

Basically, you just need to get BlessTiVo, and boot in "noswap" and bless the drive, then physically add it to the unit.

The backup process would be the same as for the other boxes.

A download location for the BlessTiVo software and also backup instructions are earlier in this thread.

Michael


----------



## dstroot

Micheal/Weaknees:

It would be *very* helpful to get a step-by-step guide specific for the HR10-250. I've done it with a Sony SAT-T60 but am a little worried about tackling my brand-new $1k unit.

From what I can tell so far you just get the "tivoboot_v3" zip file with large drive support. Create a boot disk, connect your new additional drive, boot up with the boot disk, bless the drive and slap it into your HD Tivo.

If you're smart you also back up the existing single drive first, but there seems to be multiple ways to do this (or at least multiple command lines I've seen scattered in the thread.)

A real quick step-by-step would be much appreciated.


----------



## oosik77

Old news....


----------



## weaknees

I think the issue here is solely TiVo's. The techincal aspects of external storage are trivial since these and other boxes have USB 2.0 ports. But TiVo has to want to do this, and it opens up a raft of issues like what happens when you detach the drive, can you have several, can you detach while recording, can you move it to another machine, etc. It gets pretty murky, and part of the elegance of TiVo is the simplicity of hiding these issues.

Michael


----------



## Gotchaa

I just got two 250MB drives and I'm having a little issue. 
I'm trying to make a complete backup of the HD-TIVO WD drive. So I've got it in my PC as the following:

Primary Master:WDC-250 (HD-TIVO Orginal)
Primary Slave: none
Seondary Master:MAXTOR 205GB (New drive)
Seconday Slave:CD-ROM (w/Msftools 2.0 boot CD)

Bios is set to boot off CD, and I've tried the Auto drive detect and turn it off as well. Both times the Linux Kernal is reporting only seeing 137GB

I know this is a limitation of UDMA33 onboard controller, so is this going to be a problem for me?

When I get to a bash prompt I type the following:

mfsbackup -Tao - /dev/hda | mfsrestore -s 127 -xzpi - /dev/hdc

I get the following error:

mfs_load_volume_header: mfsvol_read_data:Success
mfsbackup: Backup failed to startup. Make sure you specified the right devices, and the drives are not locked.


I then tried the diskutil to unlock and it failed indicating it could not find a locked drive.

What am I missing here, it's been 2 years since I've upgraded my Sat T60

The Maxtor drive hasn't been formatted yet, don't recall if this is necessary?
Also do I need to mount both drives before issuing the backup commands?
I tried mounting the WD250 Tivo drive and it fails with an error of must specify drive type, the Maxtor fails because it's not formatted, so that's pretty straight forward.

Someone point me in the right direction.

Thanks


----------



## pentium7

You will need a motherboard capable of seeing >137GB drives. Basically most P4 boards. Or alternatively you'll need a controller card that can see 48bit LBA. UDMA33 definately won't see it. This will be required before you can do anything.


----------



## Gotchaa

that's what i figured, luckily I've got a client's to use. trying again.


----------



## Gotchaa

looks like I had the wrong boot image too...
doh!


----------



## tivoupgrade

> _Originally posted by Gotchaa _
> *looks like I had the wrong boot image too...
> doh! *


Link for LBA48 image...

http://www.ptvupgrade.com/support/bigdisk/index.html


----------



## ChromeAce

Any success in getting the HR10-250 onto a network for daily calls and other hacks?


----------



## Gotchaa

How long is a complete disk to disk copy suppose to take? usings -Tao and -zxpi, I have it at 22% after 7 hours. It's running off a P4 2Ghz system. I don't recall it taking this long when I upgraded the Sat T60...


----------



## weaknees

Gotchaa-

This all depends on how much you have recorded on the drive. That does seem a bit slow - maybe DMA is off.

Also, with -zxpi, you likely won't be able t add a large second drive until we figure out a way to solve some issues there. Were you intending to do that? What size drive are you transferring to now?

Michael


----------



## Gotchaa

> _Originally posted by weaknees _
> *Gotchaa-
> 
> This all depends on how much you have recorded on the drive. That does seem a bit slow - maybe DMA is off.
> 
> Also, with -zxpi, you likely won't be able t add a large second drive until we figure out a way to solve some issues there. Were you intending to do that? What size drive are you transferring to now?
> 
> Michael *


I want to add two new 250GB drives and keep the orginal as a spare. I thought I could use Blesstivo when I'm done with this transfer!

At any rate it's at 44% after 17 hours. I used the ptv mstools 2 large iso and just booted off that, so not sure if the default option is DMA off or on.

Regardless if I have to start over to add the second drive so be it. Do I user dd to copy instead? What about the swap file size.

My intention was to do a complete copy of the drive. The first time I tried it, I ended up seeing that mfsbackup was reporting 281 hours and 199GB to copy with -Tao. So I stoppped the backup, I reattached the orginal drive, booted Tivo up and I went in and deleted all recordings, then did a daily call and shutdown the system, pulled the drive out, started the backup and mfsbackup reported the same size, so I don't know if deleting did anything (perhaps items are marked for deletion and a complete restart purges them?)

The goal is to copy the WD250 orginal drive to the Maxtor 251GB drive, through that in, boot up and see it work, then add a second Maxtor 251GB drive. I was going to use BlessTivo to do that after I verified the new backup/restore image on the Maxtor worked.

Should I be doing this differently? I thought that I need to do the one step backup>restore to set the proper swap size, but if the orginal drive has the swap already set at 127, then perhaps a dd would work faster, or perhaps I just need to attach the second Maxtor now as well and backup/restore to both now? Or maybe use different mfsbackup options?

If I do end up killing the backup, would I need to low level format the Maxtor?

Would this work any faster assuming the following:

Primary Master:WD205GB original
Primary Slave:CD-ROM
Seconday Master: Maxtor 251GB
Secondary Slave: Maxtor 251GB

mfsbackup -f 9999 -so - /dev/hda | mfsrestore -s 127 -xzpi - /dev/hdc /dev/hdd


----------



## Cheezmo

I used 'dd' on a PowerBook, placing the TiVO drive and backup drive in Firewire enclosures. After watching the transfer speed at various block sizes, I ended up using a large block size like 16K or so. The backup up the entire drive took just over 4 hours. I would expect with a PC not going through Firewire, you should be able to do it at least that fast.


----------



## flapbreaker

So I want to add a second 250GB drive. Would I be crazy to just use blessTivo and add it without backing up the original? What's the worst that can happen?


----------



## bsnelson

> _Originally posted by flapbreaker _
> *What's the worst that can happen? *


 You could lose all of your recordings and setting and have to start over with a newly restored A drive.

Brad


----------



## pbolya

tivoupgrade, Weaknees,
I know you are really busy with testing that can yield more drive upgrade choices but do you think it would be possible to find the logo file and post a procedure how we could add logos if we are willing to take our drive out and put it into a computer ? I think I will hold of with my upgrade until September (fall season starts). Until then 250GB will be enough but after September I would need way over 500GB. Maybe 400Gb disk will come down in price by then or even the 500GB (fat chance). However I wouldn't mind opening it up though if I could fix the logo issue.

Thanks,
Peter


----------



## flapbreaker

> _Originally posted by Graphics _
> *I have been doing a net search on the WD2500JB drives, found
> Source: www.newegg.com Drive info: www.hardwarezone.com/articles/view.php?cid=10&id=748
> 
> (Cost factor too much for anything higher i.e.*300 gig) and have boiled it down to about $192.00 ~ has anyone found a source that we all can pounce on or can do a volume buy as a group?...suggestions? *


Just picked one up at Fry's for 149.00


----------



## flapbreaker

I have a question regarding formating the new addon drive. Does it need to be done? I have not seen any reference to that process. If so should I do a low level format as I think this blocks any bad sectors?


----------



## ChromeAce

> _Originally posted by pbolya _
> *tivoupgrade, Weaknees,
> I know you are really busy with testing that can yield more drive upgrade choices but do you think it would be possible to find the logo file and post a procedure how we could add logos if we are willing to take our drive out and put it into a computer ? I think I will hold of with my upgrade until September (fall season starts). Until then 250GB will be enough but after September I would need way over 500GB. Maybe 400Gb disk will come down in price by then or even the 500GB (fat chance). However I wouldn't mind opening it up though if I could fix the logo issue.
> 
> Thanks,
> Peter *


Where have you found the 400GB for sale? I can't find it anywhere.


----------



## weaknees

Gotchaa-

Once you put an "x" in your restore string, you remove the ability of a primary drive to see a secondary drive if it's simply Blessed. Generally, this is no big deal - you just use mfsadd to get the second drive attached. But here mfsadd isn't working with large drives (probably due to partition sizes) so that won't work.

So adding a large B drive likely won't work for you here, unfortunately.

Michael


----------



## weaknees

> _Originally posted by pbolya _
> *tivoupgrade, Weaknees,
> I know you are really busy with testing that can yield more drive upgrade choices but do you think it would be possible to find the logo file and post a procedure how we could add logos if we are willing to take our drive out and put it into a computer ? I think I will hold of with my upgrade until September (fall season starts). Until then 250GB will be enough but after September I would need way over 500GB. Maybe 400Gb disk will come down in price by then or even the 500GB (fat chance). However I wouldn't mind opening it up though if I could fix the logo issue.
> 
> Thanks,
> Peter *


Peter-

We're authorized DirecTV dealers, so we really don't do that type of hacking. We understand that there's nothing wrong with adding channel logos, but to get into these systems requires something on the order of the monte hack, and that's just not something we do.

Best bet is to just look for an image with logos - and, of course, you'd lose recordings and settings when you do it. You might want to just hold out for an upgraded OS to come down from DTV.

Michael


----------



## weaknees

> _Originally posted by flapbreaker _
> *I have a question regarding formating the new addon drive. Does it need to be done? I have not seen any reference to that process. If so should I do a low level format as I think this blocks any bad sectors? *


You need a boot CD with a newer kernel that supports LBA48 addressing (a few are listed previously in this thread). Then you need to boot in the "noswap" kernel, and run BlessTiVo on the new drive. Then pop it in your TiVo (careful with the jumpers) and go.

Michael


----------



## flapbreaker

> _Originally posted by weaknees _
> *You need a boot CD with a newer kernel that supports LBA48 addressing (a few are listed previously in this thread). Then you need to boot in the "noswap" kernel, and run BlessTiVo on the new drive. Then pop it in your TiVo (careful with the jumpers) and go.
> 
> Michael *


Ok so the boot cd that I made with the LBA48 support must do some form a formatting.

Next I downloaded version3 of BlessTivo from what I think is the main website for this file but it won't unzip. Never had a zipped folder do that. Is there some reliable site to get this from?


----------



## weaknees

First, it's already on some CDs, so check to be sure.

If you don't have it, you can download it here:

http://www.tivofaq.com/hack/tivoboot_v3.zip

Michael


----------



## Gotchaa

> _Originally posted by weaknees _
> *Gotchaa-
> 
> Once you put an "x" in your restore string, you remove the ability of a primary drive to see a secondary drive if it's simply Blessed. Generally, this is no big deal - you just use mfsadd to get the second drive attached. But here mfsadd isn't working with large drives (probably due to partition sizes) so that won't work.
> 
> So adding a large B drive likely won't work for you here, unfortunately.
> 
> Michael *


I've since restarted the copy yesterday at 4 PM:

dd if=/dev/hdb of=/dev/hdc bs=1024k

It's already been 17 hours and its not done yet. DMA is on according to the boot sequence. there is no progress indicator other than the HDD led light blinking.

So when it is done, I will boot the new copied tivo drive up. If all goes well, the next step is to use boot cd with "noswap" and use BlessTivo correct?

Do I need to worry about the swapsize? Or can I assume it is already set at 127MB because of the dd copy?

thanks


----------



## weaknees

That should do it - just make sure that the reported partition size is around 250 GB. So far, there's no reliable way to increase swap space here, and we haven't seen it be a problem as-is.

Michael


----------



## oosik77

When you use BlessTivo on a 300 gig drive does it end up making 2 partitions on that drive? If so and you could find a 400 gig drive would you assume that it would be fine there too?


----------



## weaknees

No - it'll only make one partition, but that seems to work fine. We haven't tried a 400 GB drive.

Michael


----------



## Gotchaa

in booting off ptv's large disk iso, what's the command you type at the boot prompt for noswap?


----------



## weaknees

I haven't used that CD, but I assume it's just "noswap" by itself.

It may default to noswap - you can try just hitting return and blessing. Then, if it shows as added space in your TiVo, it was in noswap. If not, it shouldn't hurt, just do it again in "noswap."

Michael


----------



## leftcoastdave

> _Originally posted by weaknees _
> *We are selling an "early adopter" kit - everything but the bracket ships today, and the bracket ships as soon as we get it in from Asia. This is for people who really want the expansion now, and who want to be the first to get our bracket when they arrive (and the first shipment is coming via air from Asia for them).
> 
> Michael *


Michael,

Any update as to when you think the brackets might be available to early adopters?

Thanks,

Dave


----------



## pbolya

> _Originally posted by weaknees _
> *Peter-
> 
> We're authorized DirecTV dealers, so we really don't do that type of hacking. We understand that there's nothing wrong with adding channel logos, but to get into these systems requires something on the order of the monte hack, and that's just not something we do.
> 
> Best bet is to just look for an image with logos - and, of course, you'd lose recordings and settings when you do it. You might want to just hold out for an upgraded OS to come down from DTV.
> 
> Michael *


 Thanks Michael,
I understand. It's just that no logos is one of the main reason why I am waiting with the drive upgrade. If the logos do not come down by September I have to replace the unit somehow since I do not want to hack a unit that has problems and 30 hour will not be enough to store one week worth of our show's.

Regards,
Peter


----------



## tivoupgrade

> _Originally posted by pbolya _
> *Thanks Michael,
> I understand. It's just that no logos is one of the main reason why I am waiting with the drive upgrade. If the logos do not come down by September I have to replace the unit somehow since I do not want to hack a unit that has problems and 30 hour will not be enough to store one week worth of our show's.
> 
> Regards,
> Peter *


Peter,

Why are you not considering simply adding a drive right now? When channel logos come down, or when the TiVo software is updated, the unit should embrace the changes without issue. Am I not understanding your question/problem?

Lou


----------



## pbolya

> _Originally posted by SonyPlanet _
> *Where have you found the 400GB for sale? I can't find it anywhere. *


 SonyPlanet,
The hitachi Deskstar 7K400 (400 GB,8 MB, S-ATA/P-ATA) especially made for PVR's was available in limited quantities but I can not found it anymore either.

Regards,
Peter


----------



## weaknees

> _Originally posted by leftcoastdave _
> *Michael,
> 
> Any update as to when you think the brackets might be available to early adopters?
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> Dave *


We're past prototypes and into tooling. This should be done soon, and then we'll be waiting on first parts, so we still have several weeks to go here.

Michael


----------



## pbolya

> _Originally posted by tivoupgrade _
> *Peter,
> 
> Why are you not considering simply adding a drive right now? When channel logos come down, or when the TiVo software is updated, the unit should embrace the changes without issue. Am I not understanding your question/problem?
> 
> Lou *


 Lou, 
Since the TV season is over there is no big rush to upgrade until September. I understand that the upgrade should still come down to my unit regardless I upgrade it or not. However D* can not even acknowledge the fact that the channel logos are a problem. If they upgrade my unit with the logos during the summer I will upgrade the next day (I have a 250GB and a bracket ready to go) but if they don't I will see if I can get them to replace the unit. Logos are very important to me and I just want to be 100% sure that I will get them in case they decide that the no logos are a "feature" and not an error they need to fix.

Of course it is also an added bonus if I can find a 300GB on sale or the 400GB or 500GB drives will be available with <$1/GB (I am not holding my breath).

Regards,
Peter


----------



## tivoupgrade

> _Originally posted by pbolya _
> *Lou,
> Since the TV season is over there is no big rush to upgrade until September. I understand that the upgrade should still come down to my unit regardless I upgrade it or not. However D* can not even acknowledge the fact that the channel logos are a problem. If they upgrade my unit with the logos during the summer I will upgrade the next day (I have a 250GB and a bracket ready to go) but if they don't I will see if I can get them to replace the unit. Logos are very important to me and I just want to be 100% sure that I will get them in case they decide that the no logos are a "feature" and not an error they need to fix.
> 
> Of course it is also an added bonus if I can find a 300GB on sale or the 400GB or 500GB drives will be available with <$1/GB (I am not holding my breath).
> 
> Regards,
> Peter *


got it - well, doubt very much that even if its a problem (or whether there should even be an expectation that logos should be available at this stage), that it would have anything to do with the unit beyond the revision of the software on the hard drive - historically, logos and their availability, had to do with the proper 'slice data' being loaded into the TiVo database; nothign related to the unit's hardware, itself.

again, not sure what the expectations *should* be, but your approach is probably the best one - wait and see - if you don't need to upgrade it now, might as well wait and keep your options open.


----------



## pbolya

> _Originally posted by tivoupgrade _
> *got it - well, doubt very much that even if its a problem (or whether there should even be an expectation that logos should be available at this stage), that it would have anything to do with the unit beyond the revision of the software on the hard drive - historically, logos and their availability, had to do with the proper 'slice data' being loaded into the TiVo database; nothign related to the unit's hardware, itself.
> 
> again, not sure what the expectations *should* be, but your approach is probably the best one - wait and see - if you don't need to upgrade it now, might as well wait and keep your options open. *


 Lou,
I had the bracket and the 250 GB ready to go before I even had the unit. I wanted to do a lot of testing after the upgrade like for instance recording 400+ hours of SD and see if I will have the same performance problems that I have with the 242 hours of SD on my series 1. But since I do not have an absolutely perfect unit I have to hold off with the upgrade until I do. If I open the box my options are limited to basically fix everything myself. I will not do that until I am forced to do so (September deadline).

Regards,
Peter


----------



## mikemav

> _Originally posted by tivoupgrade _
> *got it - well, doubt very much that even if its a problem (or whether there should even be an expectation that logos should be available at this stage), that it would have anything to do with the unit beyond the revision of the software on the hard drive - historically, logos and their availability, had to do with the proper 'slice data' being loaded into the TiVo database; nothign related to the unit's hardware, itself.
> 
> again, not sure what the expectations *should* be, but your approach is probably the best one - wait and see - if you don't need to upgrade it now, might as well wait and keep your options open. *


So if I read this correctly, it is no problem adding a second drive in the future and not losing exsiting recordings? I know to do other hacks (when available) often requires starting over and losing recordings, but I assume this is not the case w/ just expanding to a second drive? If that is the case, I see no reason not to do this later unless I need the space now.


----------



## tivoupgrade

> _Originally posted by mikemav _
> *So if I read this correctly, it is no problem adding a second drive in the future and not losing exsiting recordings? I know to do other hacks (when available) often requires starting over and losing recordings, but I assume this is not the case w/ just expanding to a second drive? If that is the case, I see no reason not to do this later unless I need the space now. *


the more things change, the more they stay the same...

adding a second drive can be done while preserving your existing recordings and settings.

you can just run "BlessTivo" on the drive you are adding, and stuff it in your unit - do make sure you use an LBA48-kernel CD, such as the one on our site.


----------



## weaknees

That's right, and true of TiVos historically. You can add a drive without hurting the existing programming.

Michael


----------



## Tivogre

Added a second 250gb HD (Maxtor).

BlessTiVo reported 233gb.

Added drive to unit using 9thTee bracket.

Booted cleanly first try; unit reports (up to) 63 hours of HD / 426 hours of SD

Only difficult parts were:

1. Getting the stand-offs in holes 3 and 12 along the left side of the unit properly aligned took a couple of tries. 

Hint: use the supplied bracket to align the stand-offs with the holes before tightening down the stand-offs.

2. Contorting an IDE cable to fit properly between Master and new Slave.

Hint: if I were doing this again, I would switch drive locations; put the ORIGINAL drive on the 9thTee bracket, and the new slave drive in place of the original.

Anyway... No issues (in the first hour at least).

Thanks guys!


----------



## tivoupgrade

> _Originally posted by Tivogre _
> *Added a second 250gb HD (Maxtor).
> 
> Hint: if I were doing this again, I would switch drive locations; put the ORIGINAL drive on the 9thTee bracket, and the new slave drive in place of the original.
> 
> Anyway... No issues (in the first hour at least).
> 
> Thanks guys! *


Glad you got it working. FYI, we have a new component on order that is going to replace the stand-off/spacer assembly; much easier to install, and less pieces, as well. Also coming is a shorter IDE cable with a neat 'twist' and a new power cable.

Curious - why would you remove the original drive and swap positions? Conventional wisdom is to not touch what you don't have to, if there is no apparent benefit, but there is a good reason to, I'm all ears!


----------



## Tivogre

> _Originally posted by tivoupgrade _
> *Curious - why would you remove the original drive and swap positions? Conventional wisdom is to not touch what you don't have to, if there is no apparent benefit, but there is a good reason to, I'm all ears! *


In my case (and I would hope in most), the original drive was already pulled to make a back-up using mfstools. While it was out, it would have been a simple matter to dismount it and swap to your bracket.

Switching positions of the drives would have mad the IDE cable less "twisty" as the slave would now be closest to the motherboard IDE port (easier access to the middle connector on the ide cable) and the master further out (and just a half twist of the cable).

I found it difficult to "fold" the cable in such a way to get both drives connected to the proper connectors on the IDE cable... but it could have just been me.


----------



## flapbreaker

> _Originally posted by weaknees _
> *First, it's already on some CDs, so check to be sure.
> 
> If you don't have it, you can download it here:
> 
> http://www.tivofaq.com/hack/tivoboot_v3.zip
> 
> Michael *


Well it's not on the CD I burned (using the mfstools iso file). and when I download the file from the link you provided it will not unzip. It's the strangest thing. Maybe I'ts a sign.  Not sure where to go from here.


----------



## Gotchaa

> _Originally posted by Gotchaa _
> *I've since restarted the copy yesterday at 4 PM:
> 
> dd if=/dev/hdb of=/dev/hdc bs=1024k
> 
> It's already been 17 hours and its not done yet. DMA is on according to the boot sequence. there is no progress indicator other than the HDD led light blinking.
> *


I am at about 27 hours now and dd is still not done with the copy of the orginal 250MB drive. Unlike msftools there is no indication how much is left, so at this point I am just going to let it go.

1. Anyone else do a complete copy of their original drive?
2. If so, did you use mfstools or dd?
3. How long did it take? (mfstools reported I had 199GB worth of data to copy)
4. Should I kill the backup at this point?


----------



## tivoupgrade

> _Originally posted by Tivogre _
> *In my case (and I would hope in most), the original drive was already pulled to make a back-up using mfstools. While it was out, it would have been a simple matter to dismount it and swap to your bracket.
> 
> Switching positions of the drives would have mad the IDE cable less "twisty" as the slave would now be closest to the motherboard IDE port (easier access to the middle connector on the ide cable) and the master further out (and just a half twist of the cable).
> 
> I found it difficult to "fold" the cable in such a way to get both drives connected to the proper connectors on the IDE cable... but it could have just been me. *


Ok, I understand. If you jumper the drives as 'master' and 'slave' then the positions on the cable won't matter. With that said, it still does require finesse to fold the cable properly; eventually we'll have a new one which addresses that.

Thx for the input.

Lou


----------



## tivoupgrade

> _Originally posted by Gotchaa _
> *in booting off ptv's large disk iso, what's the command you type at the boot prompt for noswap? *


Just hit return at the boot prompt; its in 'noswap' mode by default.


----------



## weaknees

> _Originally posted by Gotchaa _
> *I am at about 27 hours now and dd is still not done with the copy of the orginal 250MB drive. Unlike msftools there is no indication how much is left, so at this point I am just going to let it go.
> 
> 1. Anyone else do a complete copy of their original drive?
> 2. If so, did you use mfstools or dd?
> 3. How long did it take? (mfstools reported I had 199GB worth of data to copy)
> 4. Should I kill the backup at this point? *


Sure - we've done several complete copies of drives with dd for these units. That's faster (for us) then filling up a new 250 GB drive with content. The copy generally takes us about 2 hours. We've also done it many times with mfstools.

If you have DMA off, then this could be a realistic amount of time. Otherwise, it seems pretty extreme.

Michael


----------



## weaknees

> _Originally posted by Tivogre _
> *In my case (and I would hope in most), the original drive was already pulled to make a back-up using mfstools. While it was out, it would have been a simple matter to dismount it and swap to your bracket.
> 
> Switching positions of the drives would have mad the IDE cable less "twisty" as the slave would now be closest to the motherboard IDE port (easier access to the middle connector on the ide cable) and the master further out (and just a half twist of the cable).
> 
> I found it difficult to "fold" the cable in such a way to get both drives connected to the proper connectors on the IDE cable... but it could have just been me. *


We include shorter (and vented) cables with our kits - and you could likely buy one at most computer stores. Just a note about them - they're too short to work on Series 1 standalone units. We didn't want the extra cable hanging in the other boxes touching heat sinks and the like, so we opted to make the custom cables shorter and omit those units from the compatibility list. Those units come with three position cables from the factory.

But you can always put the master in the middle, just so long as you take both drives off "cable select" and jumper them appropriately. The jumper on the factory drive is set as "cable select" in this unit (and pretty much every stock TiVo).

You can also reverse the cable in many cases, and use the motherboard connector on the master drive, with the master connector in the motherboard. This sometimes helps make 18" cables work in situations where the spacing otherwise wouldn't do the trick.

Michael


----------



## TallGuy

I haven't read the whole thread yet, but searched and didn't find this topic here:

Will it ever be possible to upgrade/improve/replace the OTA tuner in the HR10-250? For the first 3 weeks, I received Fox 21-1 on the HD-TiVo just fine. Now it won't tune it in, except for about 1 time out of every 20, even though the signal strength is around 80! Driving me crazy. My Mitsubishi TV tuner grabs the channel just fine, as did my Samsung SIR-TS160 (though all 3 receivers/tuners have had some weird vertical picture jitter on this one channel, which is 480p...)

I've read about the sensitive tuner in the HR10-250. I've tried an attentuator, and I've tried a SquareShooter antenna outside and a big ugly 6 foot Radio Shack antenna in my attic, to see if multipath was the reason for the problem. No matter what I do for the last 2 weeks, I can't tune in a station with an 80 on the signal strength screen!

If it's not possible to put in a new/better tuner, maybe I have to swap the box. Ugh. That should be fun after having it from VE for more than 30 days. Help please.


----------



## weaknees

No news on that here - better information is probably in the specific HD forum.

Michael


----------



## Gotchaa

what is the defalt swap size on the 250MB Tivo drives? Is it 64mb or 127mb?


----------



## pbolya

Fry's has both the Maxtor and the WD 250 GB drive for $160 (both with 7,200 RPM and 8 MB cash). It also has the 300 GB Maxtor (5,400 RPM and 2MB buffer) for $235.


----------



## pmaddock

> _Originally posted by pentium7 _
> *You will need a motherboard capable of seeing >137GB drives. Basically most P4 boards. Or alternatively you'll need a controller card that can see 48bit LBA. UDMA33 definately won't see it. This will be required before you can do anything. *


I thought that an LBA48 CD would work with >137GB regardless of the PC BIOS? Doesn't the Linux Kernel do the addressing directly?


----------



## weaknees

Yes - that's right. The BIOS doesn't matter here. Of course, if the PC is a real dinosaur . . .

And if you use a controller card you may have issues where the card isn't seen by your Linux distribution without additional drivers.

Michael


----------



## borghe

actually as far as I can tell, default swap size is 64MB.. using mfsrestore to the original drive I tried setting it to 127MB and it informed me that the image wouldn't fit on the drive. I also ran pdisk and it showed 64MB swap.


----------



## weaknees

Just so you know, so far, none of our upgrade kit customers have experienced any problems due to swap space, nor have any of our internal tests showed problems relating to it.

Michael


----------



## k2ue

I've ordered a new B drive for my HD Tivo, and would like to make two backups of A on 9.1GB IDE's I have plenty of, for safety, then bless and add the new B drive. I'd prefer to have no (bootable) DOS drives connected, to minimize the chance of accidents. So, assuming the boot CDROM is Secondary Slave, what is the recommended hookup and commands for making the safety backups? (I'll do it twice). Must the backup drives be preformatted for DOS (they were in Suns)? Sorry for the newbie questions, but I do this so infrequently there is just no learning curve.

A PM pointer to an HD drive image would also be appreciated (for extra safety).


----------



## tivoupgrade

> _Originally posted by borghe _
> *actually as far as I can tell, default swap size is 64MB.. using mfsrestore to the original drive I tried setting it to 127MB and it informed me that the image wouldn't fit on the drive. I also ran pdisk and it showed 64MB swap. *


That's interesting; I will have to check again, but I looked at the partitions with tpip and saw 128 MB and the swap file was that size, as well. -s 127 worked fine for me on the original drives.


----------



## HDLouco

I am a newbi here and would like a link to a thread that is intended for someone who has never owned a Tivo unit before. I have a Pentium 4 PC running at 3 GHz with 512 MB of 400-MHz DDR ram and plenty of HD space. Do I have to run Linux to format the additional 250-GB drive? How do I do that with a PC that only runs MSDOS and Windows XP PRO? Thanks for any answers and links!


----------



## Cheezmo

I seem to remember seeing 128MB for the swap partition as well. When I saw 64Mb posted here, I thought maybe I was mis-translating 512-byte blocks or something in the way pdisk reported sizes.


----------



## Cheezmo

In fact, here is what pdisk reports...



Code:


 8:                Swap Linux swap                  262144 @ 269683431 (128.0M)

Looks like 128Mb to me.


----------



## weaknees

> _Originally posted by k2ue _
> *I've ordered a new B drive for my HD Tivo, and would like to make two backups of A on 9.1GB IDE's I have plenty of, for safety, then bless and add the new B drive. I'd prefer to have no (bootable) DOS drives connected, to minimize the chance of accidents. So, assuming the boot CDROM is Secondary Slave, what is the recommended hookup and commands for making the safety backups? (I'll do it twice). Must the backup drives be preformatted for DOS (they were in Suns)? Sorry for the newbie questions, but I do this so infrequently there is just no learning curve.
> 
> A PM pointer to an HD drive image would also be appreciated (for extra safety). *


You do need a formatted drive - if it's FAT32, that's fine.

You can use whatever drive positions you'd like, but let's assume primary slave for the HD TiVo drive and primary master for the DOS/FAT32 drive.

You boot in your CD, mount with:

mount /dev/hda /mnt

Then make the backup with:

mfsbackup -f 9999 -1so /mnt/tivo.bak /dev/hdb

That should make the file tivo.bak on the DOS drive as a backup.

Michael


----------



## weaknees

> _Originally posted by HDLouco _
> *I am a newbi here and would like a link to a thread that is intended for someone who has never owned a Tivo unit before. I have a Pentium 4 PC running at 3 GHz with 512 MB of 400-MHz DDR ram and plenty of HD space. Do I have to run Linux to format the additional 250-GB drive? How do I do that with a PC that only runs MSDOS and Windows XP PRO? Thanks for any answers and links! *


You can't do it in DOS or XP, but it's not too complicated to get it working in Linux. Download a CD as listed in this thread, and boot your PC in that. Then run:

BlessTiVo /dev/hdc

replacing hdc with the proper position on your IDE bus.

You should see the software report a drive blessed to a number near the drive size (if you see 137 GB you booted in an early kernel and won't get all of the space on the drive).

You may want to make a backup first as listed in the previous post.

Michael


----------



## tivoupgrade

> _Originally posted by Cheezmo _
> *In fact, here is what pdisk reports...
> 
> 
> 
> Code:
> 
> 
> 8:                Swap Linux swap                  262144 @ 269683431 (128.0M)
> 
> Looks like 128Mb to me. *


Note that this is just a listing of the PARTITION information, not the size of the swap file that is actually being used; Again, the swap file size can be verified by taking a look at the log file in /var/log/kernel where the actual size is reported. The aforementioned partition reading can be misleading because you CAN actually create a LARGER partition using the LBA48 CD, however the swap file will NOT be created, the kernel on your TiVo will BARF unless you are doing something like that on a Series1 unit with a modified kernel...

... so just a word to the wise -- a large swap partition does not mean a large swap file; in fact, if you try to create a larger than 128MB swap partition on this unit, you will end up with NO swap file.


----------



## k2ue

When using the 7-second drive spinup delay devices, which works better; delaying the Master or the Slave? I would guess delaying the master, since when it does come up and boot commences the Slave is already good-to-go; but perhaps there are other considerations. . .


----------



## weaknees

That's exactly right. With most brands of drives (even two different brands) the TiVo boots fine either way - the problematic drives are the Hitachis. Otherwise, we recommend the Master for the reason you mentioned.

Michael


----------



## tivoupgrade

> _Originally posted by k2ue _
> *When using the 7-second drive spinup delay devices, which works better; delaying the Master or the Slave? I would guess delaying the master, since when it does come up and boot commences the Slave is already good-to-go; but perhaps there are other considerations. . . *


If you are referring to SmartStart, there is only one way to install it - you need to connect it between the power source and the MASTER drive. It won't work if you plug it into the SLAVE device for the reasons you mentioned.

Installation instructions here


----------



## Cheezmo

I have a Hitachi 250G; 7200 RPM; 8 MB Buffer as the MASTER Drive in my HR10-250 (Weaknees 300Gb as the slave). I haven't had any problems. Anything I should be watching out for?


----------



## MichaelK

not that it makes a bit of difference to me- I plan to slap in a new set of 250's as soon as I can get a couple hours- but I'm curious.

Are you guys with the 2nd drives noticing higher temps in the system info screens?


----------



## Nomarian

Gotcha,

I am surprised that your DD backup is taking so long. I did the same thing you did two weeks ago. I did a DD copy from the virgin WD drive to a new 250GB Maxtor(A) drive. I enabled DMA and let it run. The copy took about 2 hours.

From there, I put the WD drive in the away for safe keeping. Then installed the new Maxtor(A) drive in my PC and added the 2nd drive and used BlessTiVo to add it. I ordered the bracket from 9thTee and installed the 2nd drive.

I then installed it and turned it on. Everything works and both drives are seen by the unit. I have 63 hours of HD recording available.

The only tool I used was the boot CD that is listed several times on this thread.

As for temp questions, with both Maxtor 250GB 7200RPM 8MB cache drives running during HD content, temp does not get above 44 degrees. I do keep the unit on a shelf in a open area though.


----------



## weaknees

From our tests with our prototype bracket, we've dropped the temp a few degress with our second fan. We haven't done the extensive testing that we did with the original TwinBreeze yet - we'll wait for first parts before we do that. But so far, good news.

Michael


----------



## tivoupgrade

> _Originally posted by MichaelK _
> *not that it makes a bit of difference to me- I plan to slap in a new set of 250's as soon as I can get a couple hours- but I'm curious.
> 
> Are you guys with the 2nd drives noticing higher temps in the system info screens? *


2 degrees warmer (Celsius) is what I've seen. The power supply seems to be the warmest part of the unit, and not sure where the thermal sensors that provide the information to the system information screen actually reside.


----------



## tivoupgrade

> _Originally posted by MichaelK _
> *not that it makes a bit of difference to me- I plan to slap in a new set of 250's as soon as I can get a couple hours- but I'm curious.
> 
> Are you guys with the 2nd drives noticing higher temps in the system info screens? *


2 degrees warmer (Celsius) is what I've seen. The power supply seems to be the warmest part of the unit, and not sure where the thermal sensors that provide the information to the system information screen actually reside.


----------



## pmaddock

I took the plunge and did the upgrade and all seems well in its first hour of operating. Used the following sequence:

1. Used dd to copy the original drive - took about 5 hours. Then I removed the factory drive in case of disaster.
2. Ran the unit with the dd copy (a Maxtor 250GB) to ensure it was running OK.
3. Added 2nd 250GB (budget kept me from 300 - I was able to get 2 250GB drives for what 300's are going for) using BlessTivo.
4. Started unit - unit is reporting up to 63HD hours (variable). Its been running for an hour now and the temp is 50 C - no signs of stuttering or other problems.

Since the Weaknees bracket isn't out yet I did this with the 9th Tee/PTV upgrade bracket. 
Some notes on things that worried me along the way:
1. An older machine using the LBA 48 Linux kernel CAN address drives over 250GB without any problems despite what was indicated on an earilier thread.
2. The twist holder for the 2 OTA lines was really problematic. It took some pressure to get it out of the way. This was one spot where I wish the Weaknees design was available as it seems to work around this item.
3. The IDE cable arrangement gets pretty annoying - you really have to twist the cable around. I hope that 9th Tee gets that new cable out soon.\
4. Removing the Master drive has an added annoyance/danger - you have to slide it towards the power supply to get it out.


----------



## weaknees

Paul,

Congrats!

Our bracket will allow the post to pass through - with one cable above and one cable below for the OTA tuner. And you can order our cable now from our parts page if you want - it should work fine in this situation. From what another poster described, though, you might be better off switching the drive positions.

Michael


----------



## Tivogre

> _Originally posted by weaknees _
> *Paul,
> 
> Congrats!
> 
> Our bracket will allow the post to pass through - with one cable above and one cable below for the OTA tuner. And you can order our cable now from our parts page if you want - it should work fine in this situation. From what another poster described, though, you might be better off switching the drive positions.
> 
> Michael *


Hey... that was me!!! 

I'm famous. :up:


----------



## flapbreaker

I downloaded the LBA48 boot cd iso from your website. I burned it to cd but I am confused if the BlessTivo program is also on there. Please let me know if it is. Thanks.


----------



## pmaddock

> _Originally posted by weaknees _
> *Paul,
> 
> Congrats!
> 
> Our bracket will allow the post to pass through - with one cable above and one cable below for the OTA tuner. And you can order our cable now from our parts page if you want - it should work fine in this situation. From what another poster described, though, you might be better off switching the drive positions.
> 
> Michael *


Michael,
I think when your bracket becomes available I'll be ordering both the bracket and cable. If I'm going back in there to relieve the cable tensions I might as well get both taken care of and a little more fan cooling to boot.

I did read Tivogre's post about the cables and actually I took his advice and used the "Master" on the cable on the secondary drive but since the drives were jumpered that didn't matter. Since I had done the "A" drive swap and test I was lazy and decided to leave the new "A" drive in place rather than try to switch them. (besides the A drive is near the power supply area and I really hate that they make you slide the drive toward the power supply to release it)


----------



## pmaddock

> _Originally posted by flapbreaker _
> *I downloaded the LBA48 boot cd iso from your website. I burned it to cd but I am confused if the BlessTivo program is also on there. Please let me know if it is. Thanks. *


Its there but you have to use the right case "BlessTiVo" (uppercase B, T, and V).


----------



## Gotchaa

> _Originally posted by Gotchaa _
> *what is the defalt swap size on the 250MB Tivo drives? Is it 64mb or 127mb? *


Upgrade is done dd took 43 hours, BlessTiVo went smooth

Total HD recording time is 63 hours.

I looked at the swap size, and it did indeed report 128MB
so short of having another swap file on the second drive I assume all is good

* WARNING FOR THOSE ORDERING BRACKET FROM 9TH TEE*

Make sure you check that you have all your parts listed in the instructions before you start!

I've been waiting a week for this package only to find I was missing a 1/4 inch spacer, so basically I am on two legs!! OTA coax are supporting the missing hex standoff and plastic spacer.

Hopefully they'll send out the spacer. I've yet to contact them.


----------



## 9thTee

> Make sure you check that you have all your parts listed in the instructions before you start!


Actually that is a good idea for anything that has to be assembled! It is always possible to get hardware packs with something missing or just lost out of the pack as well. So, excellent idea!

Now, if you will email us, we can get your problem fixed.

Mark
9thTee


----------



## k2ue

> _Originally posted by 9thTee _
> *Actually that is a good idea for anything that has to be assembled! It is always possible to get hardware packs with something missing or just lost out of the pack as well. *


The old Heathkit manuals used to begin each section by showing the parts to be used in that section, and asking that you locate and identify each required part before beginning the actual assembly. It remains good advice, as Mark noted.


----------



## HDLouco

> _Originally posted by weaknees _
> *You can't do it in DOS or XP, but it's not too complicated to get it working in Linux. Download a CD as listed in this thread, and boot your PC in that.
> 
> Thanks for the prompt repply, Minhael! And, please, forgive me for one additional question: how can I download the CD you indicated? I searched the thread, but could not find it. I would be very grateful to you or anyone else who can help me with this.*


----------



## tivoupgrade

> _Originally posted by k2ue _
> *The old Heathkit manuals used to begin each section by showing the parts to be used in that section, and asking that you locate and identify each required part before beginning the actual assembly. It remains good advice, as Mark noted. *


I also think its a good idea to give a vendor the opportunity to support you before placing big bold warnings on the forum to everyone else. None of us are perfect, and its how we support our customers when stuff like that happens that really can make the difference. I can only hope that the warning is followed up with an additional posting indicating how the problems was resolved; 9thTee, as our partner, as a great reputation for support, and folks should know that, as well.


----------



## weaknees

> _Originally posted by HDLouco _
> *
> 
> 
> 
> Originally posted by weaknees
> You can't do it in DOS or XP, but it's not too complicated to get it working in Linux. Download a CD as listed in this thread, and boot your PC in that.
> 
> Thanks for the prompt repply, Minhael! And, please, forgive me for one additional question: how can I download the CD you indicated? I searched the thread, but could not find it. I would be very grateful to you or anyone else who can help me with this.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> Info about various CDs is here:
> 
> http://www.courtesan.com/tivo/bigdisk.html
> 
> We don't use them since we hve PCs with Linux on the hard drives, so we can't vouch for them. But others seem to use these with success.
> 
> Michael*


----------



## Gotchaa

> _Originally posted by 9thTee _
> *Actually that is a good idea for anything that has to be assembled! It is always possible to get hardware packs with something missing or just lost out of the pack as well. So, excellent idea!
> 
> Now, if you will email us, we can get your problem fixed.
> 
> Mark
> 9thTee *


* 9thTee promptly sent out a replacement kit, Excellent customer service.*

Thanks Mark!


----------



## dave3

I would just like to clarify the procdeure since my hdtivo comes tommorow.

I have an additional 250gig drive that I am adding as a b drive. I want to just do a simple mfs backup onto a win98 fat drive, and then blesstivo, marry, the drives.

so if I understand correctly the procedure is as follows

1. install my existing hdtivo drive in secondary master and my new b drive in secondary slave, my fat 32 win98 Hd is primary master, and my cdrom is primary slave.
2. boot up ptv's lb48 cd
3. mount drive using following command

mkdir /mnt/dos

mount /dev/hda1 /mnt/dos

4. backup using this command

mfsbackup -f 9999 -1so /hd_tivo.bak /dev/hdc

4. Bless tivo? what is this command for my set up? is blesstivo on ptv's lb48 cd?
5. install back in hdtivo and watch tv.

thanks
dave


----------



## pmaddock

> _Originally posted by dave3 _
> *
> 4. Bless tivo? what is this command for my set up? is blesstivo on ptv's lb48 cd?
> 
> thanks
> dave *


Dave,
BlessTiVo is on the lba48CD use the following command for the setup you described:

BlessTiVo /dev/hdd

Be sure to watch the letter case (the B, T, and V are in Upper Case).

Otherwise I think your procedure should work as outlined.

As a precaution I would advise you start up the Tivo and at least put it through some initial paces before performing the upgrade. 
In my case I decided to let it run for a month so there would be no issue with an initial vendor return. The side effect though was that it accumulated some programming. So, I blew some cash and did a complete dd backup of the factory drive, put it on the shelf, and then used the backup and a Blessed B drive. With that arrangement dropping back to the original is very simple.

Good luck!

Edited - forgot to include the "/dev" on the BlessTiVo.


----------



## dave3

Thanks paul.

pc richard is comming tommorow to install the tivo, they will also activate it, so I will know if it is working at that point.

After I test it for a couple of hours I will then take out the hardrive and then do the backup and marry.

thanks again
dave


----------



## tivoupgrade

> _Originally posted by dave3 _
> *I would just like to clarify the procdeure since my hdtivo comes tommorow.
> 
> I have an additional 250gig drive that I am adding as a b drive. I want to just do a simple mfs backup onto a win98 fat drive, and then blesstivo, marry, the drives.
> 
> so if I understand correctly the procedure is as follows
> 
> 1. install my existing hdtivo drive in secondary master and my new b drive in secondary slave, my fat 32 win98 Hd is primary master, and my cdrom is primary slave.
> 2. boot up ptv's lb48 cd
> 3. mount drive using following command
> 
> mkdir /mnt/dos
> 
> mount /dev/hda1 /mnt/dos
> 
> 4. backup using this command
> 
> mfsbackup -f 9999 -1so /hd_tivo.bak /dev/hdc
> 
> 4. Bless tivo? what is this command for my set up? is blesstivo on ptv's lb48 cd?
> 5. install back in hdtivo and watch tv.
> 
> thanks
> dave *


Almost right - for your specific situation:

-- mfsbackup -f 9999 -1so /mnt/dos/hd_tivo.bak /dev/hdc

-- BlessTiVo /dev/hdd

Our CD does have "BlessTivo" on it - just hit <return> at the boot prompt. For what its worth, we use -6 not -1, when backing up. It won't make a big difference either way; -1 is a little faster, -6 will give you a smaller backup size.

As a suggestion - if you are making a backup, you should consider testing it - in which case, do your backup as described above, and then do this:

-- mfsrestore -s 127 -zpi /mnt/dos/hd_tivo.bak /dev/hdd

Then change your jumpers on the 'slave' drive to "master" and boot up your unit to ensure it works. If it does, you'll know you have a good backup; then go back and "Bless" the drive.

Lou


----------



## Gotchaa

For those of you adding the new Maxtor 7200 RPM drives, the default setting for the drives is performance, and it's seems louder than older gen Maxtors. 

If you do not want the sound to be loud, I recommend you set it to quiet with the acoustic management software. This really makes a noticeable difference, do it while you've got the drives attached to your PC for backing up or expanding and save yourself some time. 

You can find the utility on Maxtor's website, just go to the support knowledge base and look for amset


----------



## weaknees

> _Originally posted by Gotchaa _
> *For those of you adding the new Maxtor 7200 RPM drives, the default setting for the drives is performance, and it's seems louder than older gen Maxtors.
> 
> If you do not want the sound to be loud, I recommend you set it to quiet with the acoustic management software. This really makes a noticeable difference, do it while you've got the drives attached to your PC for backing up or expanding and save yourself some time.
> 
> You can find the utility on Maxtor's website, just go to the support knowledge base and look for amset *


I don't think any 300 GB drives are 7200 RPM at this point - is that what you added?

Michael


----------



## flapbreaker

Ok. I have seen the mfstools command line shown several different ways.

mfsbackup -f 9999 -1so /mnt/dos/hd_tivo.bak /dev/hdc
mfsbackup -f 9999 -1so /mnt/hd_tivo.bak /dev/hdc
mfsbackup -f 9999 -1so /mnt/tivo.bak /dev/hdb


So in the first case there is a /dos command
the second one doesn't have the /dos command
the third one has /hdb instead of /hdc

I guess I don't know what I should be using?


----------



## weaknees

The 'dos' directory is just something that Hinsdale recommends. He's having you make a sub-directory on your FAT32 drive. If you intend to use that (or a comparable sub-directory) and you don't have it already, you'll need:

mkdir /mnt/dos

first, to create the directory.

The /dev/hdb or /dev/hdc issue is just pointing to the location of the source drive - the drive you pulled from the TiVo and installed in your PC. Here's the legend:

/dev/hda = primary master (very often your PC's boot drive)
/dev/hdb = primary slave
/dev/hdc = secondary IDE bus master
/dev/hdd = secondary slave

Michael


----------



## CoreyMD

Ok, I'm not only new to HDTivo, but Tivo in general and have no experience adding a drive (although I have done it for my UTV). I've tried to follow this thread, but at 23 pages there's too much info to digest. 

Last I checked the FAQs did not include HR10-250 specific upgrade info, nor did the weaknees 'wizard' type website. Is anything in the works? Or do any of the manufacturers provide concise upgrade instructions with their bracket if buying without a bundled hard drive? I'm lost.


----------



## dave3

Lou 

according to your instructions, I am restoring my mfs backup onto my new b drive, putting it in the tivo testing it and then putting it back in the computer to bless it. When I bless the b drive, will it overwrite the backup os?

thanks
dave


----------



## tivoupgrade

> _Originally posted by CoreyMD _
> *Ok, I'm not only new to HDTivo, but Tivo in general and have no experience adding a drive (although I have done it for my UTV). I've tried to follow this thread, but at 23 pages there's too much info to digest.
> 
> Last I checked the FAQs did not include HR10-250 specific upgrade info, nor did the weaknees 'wizard' type website. Is anything in the works? Or do any of the manufacturers provide concise upgrade instructions with their bracket if buying without a bundled hard drive? I'm lost. *


Corey -

There's two pieces you need to worry about; software and hardware. If you are going to do-it-yourself, get used to doing the reading and the digging; that is part of the sport. Suffice it to say, this upgrade is fundamentally no different, from a software perspective, than any other Series2 upgrade except for the fact that you need an LBA48 CD to bless your new drive. Beyond that, its the same basic process. We have hardware installation instructions on our site if you are going to use the PTVupgrade/9thTee bracket.

If you are going to do it yourself, you really should wade through this entire thread, and start searching on the forum for the concepts you are not familiar with - its just not that trivial and it is good to go in well-informed if you are going to forge ahead on your own.

But if you are truly lost, then consider hiring a professional.

Lou

Lou


----------



## tivoupgrade

> _Originally posted by dave3 _
> *Lou
> 
> according to your instructions, I am restoring my mfs backup onto my new b drive, putting it in the tivo testing it and then putting it back in the computer to bless it. When I bless the b drive, will it overwrite the backup os?
> 
> thanks
> dave *


Yes. It will "Bless" the B drive so that you can that add it to your original. But the backup you created is still on your FAT partition - all I am suggesting is that you test your backup before you add the drive to your unit.


----------



## pmaddock

> _Originally posted by CoreyMD _
> *Ok, I'm not only new to HDTivo, but Tivo in general and have no experience adding a drive (although I have done it for my UTV). I've tried to follow this thread, but at 23 pages there's too much info to digest.
> 
> Last I checked the FAQs did not include HR10-250 specific upgrade info, nor did the weaknees 'wizard' type website. Is anything in the works? Or do any of the manufacturers provide concise upgrade instructions with their bracket if buying without a bundled hard drive? I'm lost. *


Corey,
I'll try to encapsulate this but this reflects my approach (moderate technical experience, cautious and budget conscious). As Lou pointed out if you aren't comfortable I have to remind you that this is a $1K box. The risk level is such that if you have any trepidation you really should consider using one of the services. If you do it yourself there are no guarantees and ethically you have no warranty to fall back on. However, the procedure I'm about to outline leaves the factory drive intact so backing out of this is relatively easy - assuming you don't damage the Tivo itself.

The essentials:
1. The really good news is from a software perspective most of the existing Tivo Toolset can be used on the HDTivo. There have been some concerns about using MFSADD so BlessTiVo seems to be the best approach.

2. Only the 9thTee bracket is actually available at this time but the Weaknees bracket is coming. If you want to do this now you'll have to go with 9thTee but I think the Weaknees bracket is worth a look when it comes out. You'll need to get an IDE cable, Y adapter for the Power, Torx driver, and bracket (all available at http://www.9thtee.com/tivo-dthd.htm). Alternately PTV upgrade sells this as a whole kit. Weakness is selling an early adopter kit where they will ship their bracket when its ready.

About the brackets - the 9thTee works but I can't say I was really happy with how you have to contort the OTA wires in the Tivo to get it to fit. On paper the Weaknees bracket works around this issue but it isn't actually ready to ship so if you want to upgrade now you'll have to accept this issue. There is a similar contortion issue around the first IDE cables that were shipped but I think both vendors are now shipping "shredded" cables that work easier.

3. The actual installation procedure I used involved copying the factory drive, putting the factory drive on the shelf for safekeeping, then marrying the copy to a new drive using BlessTiVo. Alternately you can use MFSBackup and spare yourself buying a drive but any recordings will be lost and the recovery procedure will have a few more variables. Since I ran my box for a month before upgrading I did the full backup.
You'll need:
a. 1 250GB drive IF you do a full backup. Otherwise you'll need a FAT32 formatted drive with about 1GB or more free space.
b. A new "B" drive - the "ideal" drive is probably the 300GB Maxtor Quickview that Weaknees sells or you can buy one of the many 250GB drives on sale at Fry's etc. (there are a variety of posts for/against various drive brands, the best "middle of the road" approach I can say here is to get either a WD or Maxtor drive - they seem to be used the most in past Tivo Upgrades).
c. Bracket, Y power adapter, ide cable, Torx driver

The procedure went like this:
a. Setup a relatively new PC with the CD drive on the Primary Slave, remove the factory drive (be careful - its near the power supply) and put it on the Secondary Master, and then if you are using the "full" backup then put a new 250GB drive on the Secondary Slave position. (validate the jumper on your new drive is set to slave). If you are going to use MFSBackup instead of dd put a FAT32 drive with at least 1GB of free space on the Primary Master and put the new "B" drive on the Secondary Slave (make sure the jumpers are set to slave).
b. Download and burn a CD for the LBA48 (http://www.ptvupgrade.com/downloads/ptv-mfstools2-large-disk.iso) 
c. Boot the PC off the CD (you may have to change your Bios settings), validate that the drives are showing correctly on the boot screen.

d. Backup the Factory drive:
Method 1: Requires the spare 250GB drive - All recordings will be fully preserved and your factory drive will be unaltered:
dd if=/dev/hdc of=/dev/hdd bs=1024k

Method 2: Uses space on existing FAT drive - Recordings will not be part of the backup but you don't have to 'waste' a 250GB drive:
mkdir /mnt/dos
mount /dev/hda1 /mnt/dos
mfsbackup -f 9999 -1so /mnt/dos/hd_tivo.bak /dev/hdc
(backs up OS content to your FAT32 drive - you can burn the hd_tivo.bak file to a DVD if you need the drive space later)
mfsrestore -s 127 -zpi /mnt/dos/hd_tivo.bak /dev/hdd
("restores" the backup to the future "B" drive for testing)
e. Shut down the PC - use ctl-alt-del - wait for it to start rebooting and then power it off. If doing a "full" backup put the original factory drive in a static bag and put it in a safe place.
f. Test the backup:
dd method:
Install the new 250GB drive from the dd step into the Tivo where the factory drive sat. Start the Tivo and validate that its operating normally. All recordings, etc. should still be there. If all is well shut down the Tivo. If it isn't then you can swap back to the original drive and come back here for advice.
MFSBackup Method:
Switch the jumpers on the future "B" drive to Master and install the future "B" drive in the factory drive position. Start up the Tivo and validate its operation (note: any recordings will not have been carried over). 
g. Put your new B drive on the Secondary Slave on the PC. Make sure its set to slave on the appropriate jumper.
h. Boot the PC from the CD, again validate that the boot screen displays the drives.
i. Use BlessTiVo to "Bless" the new "B" drive - be sure to verify that the size report from BlessTiVo approximates the size of the drive (it won't be an exact match but it should be within 10% or so) The command is (be sure to note the Upper/lower case):
BlessTiVo /dev/hdd
j. ctl-alt-Del to close unix and power down the PC when it starts to reboot.
k. Install the new drive using the bracket and cables per your bracket manufacturer instructions. (the 9th tee instructions are at http://www.9thtee.com/TiVoMtgBracket-hd.htm)
l. Restart the Tivo and validate that its operating properly and showing the new capacity on the system information screen. Note: At this point the drives are "married" - they cannot be separated without using some of the more sophisticated MFS tools and the experience level with those tools and HDTivos is minimal at this time.

Should something horrible happen and you want to go back:
dd Method:
Make sure everything is powered down and simply put the factory drive back in its original position with the original cabling.
Restart the Tivo - unless the Tivo itself was damaged it should be restored to its original state.

MFSbackup method:
Start the PC again with the LBA48CD. The FAT32 drive should be set up as primary master and the A drive should be connected to the Secondary slave.
mkdir /mnt/dos
mount /dev/hda1 /mnt/dos
mfsrestore -s 127 -zpi /mnt/dos/hd_tivo.bak /dev/hdc
ctl-alt-del to shut down unix, power down the PC when it starts the reboot cycle
Make sure everything is powered down and put the factory drive back in its original position with the original cabling.
Restart the Tivo - unless the Tivo itself was damaged it should be functioning normally.

Good luck and don't forget to read the subsequent posts - I'm sure this will elicit some opinions.


----------



## tivoupgrade

A few comments on pmaddock's previous post...

1) contorting the OTA cables is not a requirement; we've done about a dozen of these installs now, and its really quite simple to run one OTA cable under the bracket and one above it. You can easily and safely remove the top OTA cable from the rear of the unit (its a friction fit) when placing the bracket in the unit. the nylon standoff can be pushed aside without much force, or if you are comfortable remove it with a needlenose pliars from beneath the unit, you can do it without damaging it (ie, you can replace it later, if you need to)

2) the Maxtor 300GB drives we provide are QuickView drives; we've found no significant benefit to the standard MaxLine II drives in terms of temperature or reliability

3) we recommend you use mfstools to backup your system drive

Lou


----------



## flapbreaker

> _Originally posted by weaknees _
> *The 'dos' directory is just something that Hinsdale recommends. He's having you make a sub-directory on your FAT32 drive. If you intend to use that (or a comparable sub-directory) and you don't have it already, you'll need:
> 
> mkdir /mnt/dos
> 
> first, to create the directory.
> 
> The /dev/hdb or /dev/hdc issue is just pointing to the location of the source drive - the drive you pulled from the TiVo and installed in your PC. Here's the legend:
> 
> /dev/hda = primary master (very often your PC's boot drive)
> /dev/hdb = primary slave
> /dev/hdc = secondary IDE bus master
> /dev/hdd = secondary slave
> 
> Michael *


This helps thanks.

Also when you use the mount command prior to the backup command are you basically at that point selecting the drive that you are backing up to?


----------



## weaknees

pmaddock-

Nice post - sums up most of the information here so far.

One thing we'd add on the topic of sucking up an extra 250 GB drive in the process is that you can just make a backup with:

mfsbackup -f 9999 -1so /tivo.bak /dev/hdd

and then test that on the new "add" drive before going forward. If you know it works, then you can just use your factory drive as the A drive, use your new drive as the B drive, and stick the roughly 1 GB file on a DVD or a much smaller hard drive for safekeeping.

Michael


----------



## weaknees

> _Originally posted by flapbreaker _
> *This helps thanks.
> 
> Also when you use the mount command prior to the backup command are you basically at that point selecting the drive that you are backing up to? *


Yup - that's exactly it. This will only work with FAT32 partitions if the drive is a Windows drive.

Michael


----------



## flapbreaker

> _Originally posted by weaknees _
> *Yup - that's exactly it. This will only work with FAT32 partitions if the drive is a Windows drive.
> 
> Michael *


Thanks for all your help michael. I'll order one of your brackets once it's ready.

One last question. I'll backup my tivo drive to the B drive like you have suggested and test the backup. Once I do that i'll probably burn the backup to dvd. Do I have to re "prepare" the B drive by re-fromatting it before I bless it or just delete the files? Thanks.


----------



## CoreyMD

I was willing to accept Lou's comment that the HR10-250 upgrade is essentially a Series2 upgrade using LBA48. That gives me a starting point and a rough blueprint to follow in the absence of a FAQ. But Paul gave me exactly what I was looking for. 

This info should be added to a FAQ somewhere for the TiVo newbies - so we don't have to bother the experts with tiresome questions (or dig through -- now 24 -- pages to find out how to even start). Thanks a bunch for all the replies.


----------



## weaknees

> _Originally posted by flapbreaker _
> *Thanks for all your help michael. I'll order one of your brackets once it's ready.
> 
> One last question. I'll backup my tivo drive to the B drive like you have suggested and test the backup. Once I do that i'll probably burn the backup to dvd. Do I have to re "prepare" the B drive by re-fromatting it before I bless it or just delete the files? Thanks. *


Don't even bother to delete the files. Just Bless it, and the new partitions will assume that nothing else is there.

Michael


----------



## CoreyMD

> _Originally posted by weaknees _
> *One thing we'd add on the topic of sucking up an extra 250 GB drive in the process is that you can just make a backup with:
> 
> mfsbackup -f 9999 -1so /tivo.bak /dev/hdd
> 
> and then test that on the new "add" drive before going forward. If you know it works, then you can just use your factory drive as the A drive, use your new drive as the B drive, and stick the roughly 1 GB file on a DVD or a much smaller hard drive for safekeeping.
> *


Michael,
That's a great suggestion. But can a 1GB backup be made after recordings have been stored? (i.e. can I just delete existing recordings and then do the backup? or are there options to backup only system files and ignore recordings?)

I remember reading that many people were backing up their virgin drives before making any recordings - just want to know if it's possible to back up a 'used' drive.

-Corey


----------



## dstroot

I created this for myself but thought others might find it useful. I HAVE NOT TESTED the instructions yet. Please let me know if there are obvious problems. Thanks!
--------------------------

*Make a Backup First!*

You need the original HD Tivo drive and a second drive for the backup. The backup drive needs to be a FAT or FAT32 formatted drive. There's no write capability for NTFS so a FAT or FAT32 drive is needed.

Download a LBA48-kernel CD and boot your PC in that.

You can use whatever drive positions you'd like, but let's assume primary slave for the HD TiVo drive and primary master for the DOS/FAT32 drive. Your CD-ROM can be secondary master  but not really relevant, just make sure you can boot from it.
o You boot from your CD, 
o mount the backup drive with: mount /dev/hda /mnt
o Then make the backup with: mfsbackup -f 9999 -1so /mnt/tivo.bak /dev/hdb
o That should make the file tivo.bak on the DOS drive as a backup. It should take about 2 hours. The backup does not keep your recordings, so it is only about a 1.5GB file. The resulting image is 1486 MB.

*Heres how to test the backup: (or do a restore in the future)*

Note that you will be restoring the backup to your new drive, putting it in the HD Tivo, testing it, and then putting it back in the computer to bless it. When you run BlessTiVo it will "Bless" the B drive so that you can that add it to your original. Put another way, BlessTiVo will overwrite the restored drive just like it was a fresh drive. If you are confident in your backup you can skip this whole section.

o Disconnect the original HD Tivo drive (primary slave from above). Leave the FAT drive you backed up on to connected (primary master), and connect the new drive you wish to restore to on primary slave. In this case we are going to use the new 250 gb drive we purchased.
o You boot from your CD again, then type:
o mount the backup drive with: mount /dev/hda /mnt
o Run the restore with: mfsrestore -s 127 -zpi /mnt/tivo.bak /dev/hdb (use the code for where the drive is located  hdb indicates primary slave)
o Put the new restored drive in your HT Tivo and boot it up (make sure the jumpers are set right). If it runs then the backup and restore was successful and you can now bless the drive (see below) and add it to the original.
o Save the backup in a very safe place. I'm going burn my "tivo.bak" file to a DVD.

*Adding a second drive*

Adding a second drive can be done while preserving your existing recordings and settings. You just run "BlessTivo" on the drive you are adding, and put it in your unit  again do make sure you use an LBA48-kernel CD.
o Connect your new add-on drive to your PC; make sure jumpers and connections are clear. 
o Boot from LBA48 CD (just hit return at the boot prompt) (Note you need to boot in the "noswap" kernel. When booting off ptv's large disk iso just hit return at the boot prompt; its in 'noswap' mode by default.)
o At prompt type: root (you may be able to just hit return)
o Type one of the following strings depending on how your drive is hooked up and follow the instructions. Note that Linux is case sensitive, i.e. blesstivo wont work.
- PRIMARY MASTER: BlessTiVo /dev/hda
- PRIMARY SLAVE: BlessTiVo /dev/hdb
- SECONDARY MASTER: BlessTiVo /dev/hdc
- SECONDARY SLAVE: BlessTiVo /dev/hdd
o When complete you should see the software report a drive blessed to a number near the drive size (if you see 137 GB you booted in an early kernel and won't get all of the space on the drive). A 250 gig drive should show about 233 Gb.
o Then pop it in your TiVo (careful with the jumpers) and go.


----------



## pmaddock

> _Originally posted by tivoupgrade _
> *A few comments on pmaddock's previous post...
> 
> 1) contorting the OTA cables is not a requirement; we've done about a dozen of these installs now, and its really quite simple to run one OTA cable under the bracket and one above it. You can easily and safely remove the top OTA cable from the rear of the unit (its a friction fit) when placing the bracket in the unit. the nylon standoff can be pushed aside without much force, or if you are comfortable remove it with a needlenose pliars from beneath the unit, you can do it without damaging it (ie, you can replace it later, if you need to)
> 
> 2) the Maxtor 300GB drives we provide are QuickView drives; we've found no significant benefit to the standard MaxLine II drives in terms of temperature or reliability
> 
> 3) we recommend you use mfstools to backup your system drive
> 
> Lou *


Lou, 
Thanks for the comments. I really should have thought about running the cables above and below the bracket. However, I still wish that your bracket didn't require moving around the factory standoff. I really prefer to leave as much of the Tivo alone as I can with these sorts of things.

Side bar: Can anyone believe that they used fricition fit cables in a $1K box - how cheap.

On MFSbackup - you and Michael are both absolutely right - its probably the better alternative. I've revised the post to include backing up both ways. For me dd was a better fit because the unit had been running for a month. I wanted to keep my recordings and having the factory drive ready to be swapped in felt a lot more comfortable. I guess I'm just overly cautious.


----------



## pmaddock

> _Originally posted by CoreyMD _
> *Michael,
> That's a great suggestion. But can a 1GB backup be made after recordings have been stored? (i.e. can I just delete existing recordings and then do the backup? or are there options to backup only system files and ignore recordings?)
> 
> I remember reading that many people were backing up their virgin drives before making any recordings - just want to know if it's possible to back up a 'used' drive.
> 
> -Corey *


Corey,
The regular MFSbackup can be made after recording are on the Tivo but the backup won't carry the recordings - only the system files and settings.

If you want to carry recordings on the backup you either have to use -Tao on MFSbackup which will require more space. How much more depends on how much is on the drive. Mine was getting full which is why I went with the dd method.


----------



## ChromeAce

I paid PTVupgrade for the $399 300GB b-drive kit. It includes HD Instant Cake. The way I understand it, I can just pop in this B-drive into the TiVo and not even do a backup, correct? The backup image is already on the Instant Cake CD, correct? I don't have to use a PC to do the upgrade?


----------



## weaknees

> _Originally posted by dstroot _
> *I created this for myself but thought others might find it useful. I HAVE NOT TESTED the instructions yet. Please let me know if there are obvious problems. Thanks!
> --------------------------
> 
> Make a Backup First!
> 
> You need the original HD Tivo drive and a second drive for the backup. The backup drive needs to be a FAT or FAT32 formatted drive. There's no write capability for NTFS so a FAT or FAT32 drive is needed.
> 
> Download a LBA48-kernel CD and boot your PC in that.
> 
> You can use whatever drive positions you'd like, but let's assume primary slave for the HD TiVo drive and primary master for the DOS/FAT32 drive. Your CD-ROM can be secondary master  but not really relevant, just make sure you can boot from it.
> o You boot from your CD,
> o mount the backup drive with: mount /dev/hda /mnt
> o Then make the backup with: mfsbackup -f 9999 -1so /mnt/tivo.bak /dev/hdb
> o That should make the file tivo.bak on the DOS drive as a backup. It should take about 2 hours. The backup does not keep your recordings, so it is only about a 1.5GB file. The resulting image is 1486 MB.
> 
> Heres how to test the backup: (or do a restore in the future)
> 
> Note that you will be restoring the backup to your new drive, putting it in the HD Tivo, testing it, and then putting it back in the computer to bless it. When you run BlessTiVo it will "Bless" the B drive so that you can that add it to your original. Put another way, BlessTiVo will overwrite the restored drive just like it was a fresh drive. If you are confident in your backup you can skip this whole section.
> 
> o Disconnect the original HD Tivo drive (primary slave from above). Leave the FAT drive you backed up on to connected (primary master), and connect the new drive you wish to restore to on primary slave. In this case we are going to use the new 250 gb drive we purchased.
> o You boot from your CD again, then type:
> o mount the backup drive with: mount /dev/hda /mnt
> o Run the restore with: mfsrestore -s 127 -zpi /mnt/tivo.bak /dev/hdb (use the code for where the drive is located  hdb indicates primary slave)
> o Put the new restored drive in your HT Tivo and boot it up (make sure the jumpers are set right). If it runs then the backup and restore was successful and you can now bless the drive (see below) and add it to the original.
> o Save the backup in a very safe place. I'm going burn my "tivo.bak" file to a DVD.
> 
> Adding a second drive
> 
> Adding a second drive can be done while preserving your existing recordings and settings. You just run "BlessTivo" on the drive you are adding, and put it in your unit  again do make sure you use an LBA48-kernel CD.
> o Connect your new add-on drive to your PC; make sure jumpers and connections are clear.
> o Boot from LBA48 CD (just hit return at the boot prompt) (Note you need to boot in the "noswap" kernel. When booting off ptv's large disk iso just hit return at the boot prompt; its in 'noswap' mode by default.)
> o At prompt type: root (you may be able to just hit return)
> o Type one of the following strings depending on how your drive is hooked up and follow the instructions. Note that Linux is case sensitive, i.e. blesstivo wont work.
> - PRIMARY MASTER: BlessTiVo /dev/hda
> - PRIMARY SLAVE: BlessTiVo /dev/hdb
> - SECONDARY MASTER: BlessTiVo /dev/hdc
> - SECONDARY SLAVE: BlessTiVo /dev/hdd
> o When complete you should see the software report a drive blessed to a number near the drive size (if you see 137 GB you booted in an early kernel and won't get all of the space on the drive). A 250 gig drive should show about 233 Gb.
> o Then pop it in your TiVo (careful with the jumpers) and go. *


Nice - two comments:

-It shouldn't take anywhere near two hours for the backup. It should take maybe five minutes.

-You mention the jumpers - we highly recommend taking the factory drive off "Cable Select" and setting it to "Master."

Otherwise, this looks good!

Michael


----------



## weaknees

> _Originally posted by CoreyMD _
> *Michael,
> That's a great suggestion. But can a 1GB backup be made after recordings have been stored? (i.e. can I just delete existing recordings and then do the backup? or are there options to backup only system files and ignore recordings?)
> 
> I remember reading that many people were backing up their virgin drives before making any recordings - just want to know if it's possible to back up a 'used' drive.
> 
> -Corey *


In fact, most backup commands you see specifically disregard all video streams. If you wanted to *include* the recordings, you'd need the "-a" switch, and you'd have a pretty big backup file.

Michael


----------



## pmaddock

> _Originally posted by SonyPlanet _
> *I paid PTVupgrade for the $399 300GB b-drive kit. It includes HD Instant Cake. The way I understand it, I can just pop in this B-drive into the TiVo and not even do a backup, correct? The backup image is already on the Instant Cake CD, correct? I don't have to use a PC to do the upgrade? *


That's the great thing about buying kits from the vendors - its simpler. As I understand that kit the only time you'll need a PC is in the event of a disaster to use the CD to restore.


----------



## mikemav

> _Originally posted by dstroot _
> *I created this for myself but thought others might find it useful. I HAVE NOT TESTED the instructions yet. Please let me know if there are obvious problems. Thanks!
> --------------------------
> 
> Make a Backup First!
> 
> o Then make the backup with: mfsbackup -f 9999 -1so /mnt/tivo.bak /dev/hdb
> o That should make the file tivo.bak on the DOS drive as a backup. It should take about 2 hours. The backup does not keep your recordings, so it is only about a 1.5GB file. The resulting image is 1486 MB.*


I am a little confused. Someone game me a backup image from a virgin HD TiVo (please do not ask where, but suffice to say it was from some searching.) Having this, I decided to mess with my HD TiVo without making a backup on my own. The file is called HDTIVO_VIRGIN.BKZ, and it is 153.4 MB. That is WAY different than 1.5GB. What gives? Do I have a viable way to go back if anything should go wrong? I heard I can take this file and restore it to a new 250GB HD should I have problems. If that is the case, why is the tivo.bak file so much larger, and what do I have with the .bkz?


----------



## weaknees

That might be a backup file with maximum compress ("-9so") but more likely, it's a backup file with out the proper background images and the like (missing "-f 9999"). I wouldn't rely on it at least until you test it.

Michael


----------



## mikemav

We'll thats why we have vendors like you . I could always send in a blank drive for "re-commissioning" or get a replacement A drive kit!


----------



## weaknees

> _Originally posted by mikemav _
> *We'll thats why we have vendors like you . I could always send in a blank drive for "re-commissioning" or get a replacement A drive kit! *


We'll be here - but hopefully you won't need that!

Michael


----------



## tivoupgrade

> _Originally posted by SonyPlanet _
> *I paid PTVupgrade for the $399 300GB b-drive kit. It includes HD Instant Cake. The way I understand it, I can just pop in this B-drive into the TiVo and not even do a backup, correct? The backup image is already on the Instant Cake CD, correct? I don't have to use a PC to do the upgrade? *


You've got it right; the only reason to involve your PC would be in the case of restoring your original drive, if you should choose to do so. InstantCake acts as your backup.

Naturally, as our customer, we would support you with a GetWell kit; we don't expect you to take matters into your own hands unless you choose to do so...

Thanks again,
Lou


----------



## flapbreaker

So I am trying to do a backup with the ptv lba iso bootable cd. when I get to the part of the boot cycle that says to press enter to continue I get the following message and am a bit stumped as to what to do


mount: no medium found
cat: /dcrom/.menu/startup: no such file or directory
/#



not sure what it all means. it does detect both the tivo drive and my new drive. I have the HDTivo as the primary master and the new B drive as the primary slave. (I disconnected my system drive so I wouldn't screw it up).


----------



## weaknees

> _Originally posted by weaknees _
> *That might be a backup file with maximum compress ("-9so") but more likely, it's a backup file with out the proper background images and the like (missing "-f 9999"). I wouldn't rely on it at least until you test it.
> 
> Michael *


My mistake - 1.5 GB is roughly the expanded file size. Even with -1so, you'll see an image file under 200 MB.

Michael


----------



## tivoupgrade

> _Originally posted by flapbreaker _
> *So I am trying to do a backup with the ptv lba iso bootable cd. when I get to the part of the boot cycle that says to press enter to continue I get the following message and am a bit stumped as to what to do
> 
> mount: no medium found
> cat: /dcrom/.menu/startup: no such file or directory
> /#
> 
> not sure what it all means. it does detect both the tivo drive and my new drive. I have the HDTivo as the primary master and the new B drive as the primary slave. (I disconnected my system drive so I wouldn't screw it up). *


That is strange - the error you are seeing is a result of the CDROM not being mounted properly - normally it just displays some additional information by dumpeing the contents of the file /cdrom/.menu/startup after mounting the CD.

If you are getting the # prompt, you should still be able to use the CD as all of the utilities are loaded into the RAMDISK created when the CD boots.


----------



## flapbreaker

> _Originally posted by tivoupgrade _
> *That is strange - the error you are seeing is a result of the CDROM not being mounted properly - normally it just displays some additional information by dumpeing the contents of the file /cdrom/.menu/startup after mounting the CD.
> 
> If you are getting the # prompt, you should still be able to use the CD as all of the utilities are loaded into the RAMDISK created when the CD boots. *


 ok but if I type the mount command mount /dev/hdb /mnt I received various errors depending on where I put spaces before the slashes. but here is what I get:

mount: you must specify the filesystem type

I can type dir and see a list of directories but I guess I just don't know how to start a backup from here. any more ideas?


----------



## tivoupgrade

> _Originally posted by flapbreaker _
> *ok but if I type the mount command mount /dev/hdb/mnt I received various errors depending on where I put spaces before the slashes. Mostly something about not finding a file.
> 
> I can type dir and see a list of directories but I guess I just don't know how to start a backup from here. any more ideas? *


That is a completely different issue. Your syntax for the mount command should be:

mount -t vfat /dev/hd<x> /<mnt>

where <x> is the filesystem you are mounting, and <mnt> is the "mount point"


----------



## flapbreaker

> _Originally posted by tivoupgrade _
> *That is a completely different issue. Your syntax for the mount command should be:
> 
> mount -t vfat /dev/hd<x> /<mnt>
> 
> where <x> is the filesystem you are mounting, and <mnt> is the "mount point" *


well I feel like a complete idiot because I still don't understand the mount command and I have followed this thread from the beginning. This is the first time I have seen the mount command with a -t vfat refference. also am I supposed to litterely type /mnt cause I don't know what a mount point is or what else I should be typing in it's place. Sorry to be such a pain but I really thought all I had to do is use mount /dev/hdd /mnt according to most posts with the only variable is the hda, hdb, ect.

If I type the command line just excatly as you I get the following error

mount: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on /dev/hdb, or too many mounted file systems


----------



## pmaddock

> _Originally posted by flapbreaker _
> *well I feel like a complete idiot because I still don't understand the mount command and I have followed this thread from the beginning. This is the first time I have seen the mount command with a -t vfat refference. also am I supposed to litterely type /mnt cause I don't know what a mount point is or what else I should be typing in it's place. Sorry to be such a pain but I really thought all I had to do is use mount /dev/hdd /mnt according to most posts with the only variable is the hda, hdb, ect.
> 
> If I type the command line just excatly as you I get the following error
> 
> mount: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on /dev/hdb, or too many mounted file systems *


Flapbreaker,
Don't be hard on yourself - at least you're taking a backup. These threads are filled with people who just do an MFSAdd or BlessTivo and have something go wrong with no backup to fall back on.

If you're getting the 'too many mounted' error you can try:
umount -f -a -r 
to clear the mounts and/or re-booting.

Also as I'm reading through your posts I'm a little confused. You said you've connected the A and B drives but where's your backup destination drive? You need a separate drive (be it your system drive or some other FAT32 drive) to put the backup on or it will get lost when you Bless your new B drive. This may be part of the problem since the 
mount /dev/hda1 /mnt/dos
command is assuming a FAT32 drive has been put on the primary master (hda).


----------



## flapbreaker

I am planning on backing up to the drive that will be the B drive and then putting it in the tivo to test it. If it looks like it works then I will put it back in the pc and burn the backup to dvd. Then I will bless the B drive and put it in the tivo with the A drive. 

I noticed the you use hda1 and not just hda what is the 1 for?

In my pc I put the HDTivo A drive on the primary master and the fat32 b drive on the primary slave. Maybe this is causing a problem but as long as I use the correct hdb, hda ect. I didn't think there would be a problem.


----------



## tivolovit

> _Originally posted by flapbreaker _
> *I noticed the you use hda1 and not just hda what is the 1 for?*


The 1 is for partition one, hda specifies primary master (first drive). Basically you are telling it the first partion on the first disk.


----------



## flapbreaker

> _Originally posted by tivolovit _
> *The 1 is for partition one, hda specifies primary master (first drive). Basically you are telling it the first partion on the first disk. *


Thanks for the explanation. If this dang msftools came with a manual it would have helped. I only saw one person using the hda1 command most people that are posting their method seem to leave the 1 off but maybe they are assuming people should know your supposed to do it.

Anyway buy using the mount /dev/hda1 /mnt I seem to have some progress now. It is currently scanning the source drive (I also switched the hdtivo to primary slave and the backup drive to primary master).

by the way, how long does it usually say that's it's scanning the source drive?


----------



## k2ue

I'm backing up the drive on my HR10-250:

mfsbackup calls it a 281 hour drive, and says the backup will be 1486MB using -1so -- does all this sound kosher?


----------



## flapbreaker

Well now I am not so sure that things are working correctly.

After I typed "mfsbackup -f 9999 -1so /mnt/tivo.bak /dev/hdb"

I got the message "scanning source drive. please wait a moment".

but after 1.5 hours it still says that. I thought it was supposed to be no more than 1/2 hour? Should I start over?


----------



## weaknees

> _Originally posted by flapbreaker _
> *Well now I am not so sure that things are working correctly.
> 
> After I typed "mfsbackup -f 9999 -1so /mnt/tivo.bak /dev/hdb"
> 
> I got the message "scanning source drive. please wait a moment".
> 
> but after 1.5 hours it still says that. I thought it was supposed to be no more than 1/2 hour? Should I start over? *


Something's definitely not right. Can you shift-pgup to see if the drive was recognized at the proper size?

Michael


----------



## weaknees

> _Originally posted by k2ue _
> *I'm backing up the drive on my HR10-250:
> 
> mfsbackup calls it a 281 hour drive, and says the backup will be 1486MB using -1so -- does all this sound kosher? *


That sounds right - the backup will actually likely be less than 200 MB, but it takes 1486 fully expanded.

Michael


----------



## flapbreaker

> _Originally posted by weaknees _
> *Something's definitely not right. Can you shift-pgup to see if the drive was recognized at the proper size?
> 
> Michael *


I paged up to a place that lists hda and hdb it shows them both as being 250059mb after the reported cache there is something that looks like this and might be the problem

chs=30401/255/63 (this is for the new b drive)
chs=484521/16/63 (this is for the original tivo)

This is the only difference and I don't know why the numbers are different. I suppose the new drive that I tried to format as fat32 might be incorrectly formatted but it was displayed correctly in windows.


----------



## k2ue

OK, 63 hours up and running -- when the 9th Tee Bracket comes tomorrow I can close it up.

Observation on temperature: It runs 49C with the cover OFF, and was 43C with one drive -- so if it only rises a few degrees with two, we should be A-OK.

FYI, I used a WD2500PB "Quiet Drive" for the 2nd disk, and enabled Acoustic Management with "ataac". This is the 8MB cache version of the factory drive.


----------



## flapbreaker

I am having a problem getting the 250gb drive formated in fat32. Of course the dos fdisk doesn't go that big and windows xp won't format a drive that large in anything but NTSF. It's a western digital drive and the software it comes with seems to be junk. If anyone has ideas I would appreciate it.


----------



## oosik77

You don't need to format the drive.


----------



## flapbreaker

> _Originally posted by oosik77 _
> *You don't need to format the drive. *


I thought that if I was using it temporarily to backup the original drive and then put it in the tivo to test the backup that it needed to be fat32 first.


----------



## bsnelson

> _Originally posted by flapbreaker _
> *I thought that if I was using it temporarily to backup the original drive and then put it in the tivo to test the backup that it needed to be fat32 first. *


 No, if you're just testing a backup, you're going to do one of two things: (1) Do a backup directly from the old drive to the new or (2) Backup to a third drive, then restore from that drive to the new drive. Neither requires that the drive you're going to put into the TiVo to be fat32.

Brad


----------



## weaknees

Glad to hear that you got a partition on the big drive.

It gets to 80 MB out of 1486 and then fails? What exact commands are you using?

Michael


----------



## flapbreaker

> _Originally posted by weaknees _
> *Glad to hear that you got a partition on the big drive.
> 
> It gets to 80 MB out of 1486 and then fails? What exact commands are you using?
> 
> Michael *


mount /dev/hda3 /mnt (I use the 3 because it's the 3rd partition)

although it says "success" it also says:

mount: you must specifiy the filesystem type

Then I use

mfsbackup -f 9999 -1so /mnt/tivo.bak /dev/hdb

(the tivo drive is primary slave)


----------



## weaknees

And when it fails, do you see a partial image stored on the /mnt directory?


----------



## flapbreaker

The problem might be with selecting the correct partition. when I ctr page up to the partition check area it lists hda1, hda2 , (hda5,hda6). I am not real sure why there is no hda3 since I have this drive split in 3 partitions I assumed my last partition (the 2 gig one) would be hda3 so I guess I could try the other two 5,6 but I don't know why they are there.


----------



## flapbreaker

> _Originally posted by weaknees _
> *And when it fails, do you see a partial image stored on the /mnt directory? *


well there is nothing on the partition if that is what you mean.


----------



## weaknees

Maybe put some files on there in DOS or Windows, then mount each partition and check for the files - that should help you figure out which one to send the TiVo backup to.


----------



## flapbreaker

> _Originally posted by weaknees _
> *Maybe put some files on there in DOS or Windows, then mount each partition and check for the files - that should help you figure out which one to send the TiVo backup to. *


I just tried mounting hda5 and hda6 when I use the mount command on them I don't get any confirmation that anything happend and when I try to backup to them it just stays on scanning source disk forever. however if I use hda3 (which isn't listed) I a confirmation of the mount with the message of needing to specify file type (don't knowhow) and then backup it at least starts but then fails.

if I put files on it and then mount it how do I check for files? Do you type dir?


----------



## weaknees

Just "cd" to each mount point like:

cd /mnt

then type:

ls


----------



## flapbreaker

Also I am not sure why after mounting I get a success confirmation and then the message

mount:you must specify the filesystem type
/#


I am using mount /dev/hda3 /mnt


----------



## weaknees

You can try:

mount -t vfat /dev/hda3 /mnt

and see if that helps.


----------



## flapbreaker

> _Originally posted by weaknees _
> *You can try:
> 
> mount -t vfat /dev/hda3 /mnt
> 
> and see if that helps. *


I get this error when using this

mount: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on /dev/hda3, or too many mounted file systems.

I rebooted before using it so I know I don't have too many mounted file systems.


----------



## pmaddock

> _Originally posted by flapbreaker _
> *I get this error when using this
> 
> mount: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on /dev/hda3, or too many mounted file systems.
> 
> I rebooted before using it so I know I don't have too many mounted file systems. *


Flapbreaker,
You may have already realized this but I think the core of your problem is that you're trying to use your future B drive to hold the compressed backup. This is a little out of the ordinary which puts you in untested waters.

I think you might want to get a FAT 32 drive (doesn't have to be large by any means) and then start from the beginning using the sequence in the prior posts.

Good luck.


----------



## flapbreaker

> _Originally posted by pmaddock _
> *Flapbreaker,
> You may have already realized this but I think the core of your problem is that you're trying to use your future B drive to hold the compressed backup. This is a little out of the ordinary which puts you in untested waters.
> 
> I think you might want to get a FAT 32 drive (doesn't have to be large by any means) and then start from the beginning using the sequence in the prior posts.
> 
> Good luck. *


I originally started trying that but bailed. What I did now is just created a 2 gig fat32 partition on my primary pc hd to back up to. I didn't think it would be this hard.


----------



## flapbreaker

Well I was able to verify that hda6 is indeed the partition that I should be using however when I run the backup it just stays on the "scanning source drive" part and never proceeds. here is the command I am using (hdtivo drive is on the primary slave setting).

mfsbackup -f 9999 -1so /mnt/tivo.bak /dev/hdb


----------



## Gotchaa

> _Originally posted by weaknees _
> *I don't think any 300 GB drives are 7200 RPM at this point - is that what you added?
> 
> Michael *


Nope I added two 251MB Maxtors w/ 8MB cache running at 7200RPM, was loud as hell, now I have to put my ear to it to hear it..


----------



## richierich

I just had PTVUpgrade add a 300 gig HD to my HD Tivo as I'm PC illiterate and I just love having 70 hours of HD recording capacity and 470 of SD which I want use because I have an SD Tivo with 2 120 gig HDs for that purpose. Finally got the OTA tuners to work correctly with about 86% signal strength. I love being able to record Jay Leno in HD or Bikini Destinations in HD. Interesting enough I recorded Bikini Destinations twice and got the same result, no audio on the last half of the recording. I guess that it must be a bad transmission.


----------



## k2ue

> _Originally posted by richierich _
> *I love being able to record Jay Leno in HD or Bikini Destinations in HD. Interesting enough I recorded Bikini Destinations twice and got the same result, no audio on the last half of the recording. I guess that it must be a bad transmission. *


Yeah, the dialog is really important to the appreciation of Bikini Destinations. . .


----------



## mikemav

> _Originally posted by richierich _
> * Interesting enough I recorded Bikini Destinations twice and got the same result, no audio on the last half of the recording. I guess that it must be a bad transmission. *


See this thread about this known problem.


----------



## weaknees

> _Originally posted by flapbreaker _
> *Well I was able to verify that hda6 is indeed the partition that I should be using however when I run the backup it just stays on the "scanning source drive" part and never proceeds. here is the command I am using (hdtivo drive is on the primary slave setting).
> 
> mfsbackup -f 9999 -1so /mnt/tivo.bak /dev/hdb *


That's the same error you were getting in the beginning, right? Have you tried just copying another file from the CD over to hda6 in Linux just to see if the drive can even accept a file in Linux?

Do an "ls" in your root directory, then do:

cp [file from ls] /mnt/test

and see what comes.

Michael


----------



## pmaddock

> _Originally posted by richierich _
> *I just had PTVUpgrade add a 300 gig HD to my HD Tivo as I'm PC illiterate and I just love having 70 hours of HD recording capacity and 470 of SD which I want use because I have an SD Tivo with 2 120 gig HDs for that purpose. Finally got the OTA tuners to work correctly with about 86% signal strength. I love being able to record Jay Leno in HD or Bikini Destinations in HD. Interesting enough I recorded Bikini Destinations twice and got the same result, no audio on the last half of the recording. I guess that it must be a bad transmission. *


The audio problem on HDNet is a known issue - see the posts at 
http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=171751&perpage=20&pagenumber=15


----------



## CoreyMD

Ok, I've started looking for a 250GB HDD for the upgrade, but I'm still not sure what the basic criteria are for chosing an HDD for the HR10-250. I have read recommendations for specific drive models in this thread, but I haven't seen those exact models for sale anywhere. I have been able to find both Maxtor and WD models that support ATA-100, 133, and 150 bus speeds that are 7200 RPM. Should I just go for ATA-150 -- is it compatible with the HR10-250's architecture?

Edit:

Important criteria?
* 7200rpm
* 8MB cache
* ATA-??? speed
* noise reduction


----------



## tivoupgrade

> _Originally posted by CoreyMD _
> *Ok, I've started looking for a 250GB HDD for the upgrade, but I'm still not sure what the basic criteria are for chosing an HDD for the HR10-250. I have read recommendations for specific drive models in this thread, but I haven't seen those exact models for sale anywhere. I have been able to find both Maxtor and WD models that support ATA-100, 133, and 150 bus speeds that are 7200 RPM. Should I just go for ATA-150 -- is it compatible with the HR10-250's architecture?
> 
> Edit:
> 
> Important criteria?
> * 7200rpm
> * 8MB cache
> * ATA-??? speed
> * noise reduction *


The only thing that is important is that it is a quality drive from a reputable manufacturer. And added bonus is getting it from a reputable source - mishandling and poor shipping/packing are the greatest contributor to failed drives.

Doesn't matter if its 5400rpm or 7200rpm, and it doesn't matter if its a 2MB or 8MB cache. It will be ATA/133 or 150, I guess; doesn't matter...


----------



## k2ue

> _Originally posted by CoreyMD _
> *Ok, I've started looking for a 250GB HDD for the upgrade, but I'm still not sure what the basic criteria are for chosing an HDD for the HR10-250. I have read recommendations for specific drive models in this thread, but I haven't seen those exact models for sale anywhere. I have been able to find both Maxtor and WD models that support ATA-100, 133, and 150 bus speeds that are 7200 RPM. Should I just go for ATA-150 -- is it compatible with the HR10-250's architecture?
> 
> Edit:
> 
> Important criteria?
> * 7200rpm
> * 8MB cache
> * ATA-??? speed
> * noise reduction *


I used the WD2500PB "Quiet Drive" (from newegg.com), with Acoustic Management turned ON using the utility "atacc". This drive is the 8MB cache version of the factory drive (which is 2MB cache). Very happy -- can't hear the drives at all with the cover off (while waiting for my 9th-Tee bracket, due today).

Also, I used the highly flexible Weaknees IDE cable -- note that this has Cable Select connectors, BUT the Master will be on the MIDDLE (normally Slave) connector, so you MUST over-ride Cable Select by hard-jumpering the original drive as Master-with-Slave-present, and the new drive as Slave. I'm also going to add a 7-second drive power delay device to the Master (both 9th-Tee and Weaknees have them, as well as the drive power splitter cable) to ease the starting load on the Power Supply (although actual starting is very infrequent for a TiVo on a UPS, so this is not a big deal).

There seems to be no temperature increase after the upgrade, and it runs 6 degrees cooler with the cover on that it ran before upgrade with the cover off -- very happy with the upgrade overall.


----------



## dstroot

I think ATA 150 is only for serial ATA and THAT definitely won't work in the HD Tivo - just "regular" ATA 100 or 133.


----------



## CoreyMD

> _Originally posted by dstroot _
> *I think ATA 150 is only for serial ATA and THAT definitely won't work in the HD Tivo - just "regular" ATA 100 or 133. *


I'm glad I asked. The ATA/150 drive I was looking at is serial ATA. Thanks!

Tivoupgrade, I just ordred the bracket from 9th Tee, but none of the other components. I figure I've got an extra IDE cable (or two), power y-splitter, and the proper tool to open the cover. There's nothing particularly unique about 9th Tee's version of these items is there?

k2ue - thanks for the jumpering advice, btw.


----------



## tivoupgrade

> _Originally posted by CoreyMD _
> *I'm glad I asked. The ATA/150 drive I was looking at is serial ATA. Thanks!
> 
> Tivoupgrade, I just ordred the bracket from 9th Tee, but none of the other components. I figure I've got an extra IDE cable (or two), power y-splitter, and the proper tool to open the cover. There's nothing particularly unique about 9th Tee's version of these items is there?
> 
> k2ue - thanks for the jumpering advice, btw. *


the one thing you need to ensure is that the IDE cable you are going to use will work on the systemboard of the TiVo; many IDE cables have one of the pins blocked and it can't be plugged into the system board unless you use a 'hot needle' to melt a small hole in the connector; its not that difficult to do, but if you don't want to deal with it, that is what the cable we, and 9thTee use will work for....


----------



## pbolya

> _Originally posted by CoreyMD _
> *I'm glad I asked. The ATA/150 drive I was looking at is serial ATA. Thanks!
> 
> *


 Most serial ATA drives I looked at has both SATA and IDE connectors (on different end of the hard drive) so it will work for the TiVo too. Look at the specs carefully and you may find that you will be able to use that SATA drive.

Regards,
Peter


----------



## ChromeAce

OK I got PTVUpgrade's 300GB b-drive add-on kit in the mail yesterday and I couldn't be happier. I now have 70 hours of HD recording capability.

There were installation issues, but nothing too serious.

1. I ended up with 3 unused screws and a tiny washer instead of the 2 the instructions mentioned.

2. It took me 30 minutes to figure out the the screw for the post near the original hard drive gets inserted from OUTSIDE the TiVo underneath. The instructions just said to screw it in from underneath and I didn't realize the hole went thru the case so I couldn't imagine how I could fasten it that way with no room under the motherboard to get a screwdriver in there.

3. The screws come with washers on them already so it wasn't obvious that I had to add additional washers to the other posts to prevent the screws from going through the square holes.

4. The IDE cable is unnecessarily long. A custom one would be nice. Ditto for the Y power cable.

5. The instructions should warn you to be careful not to scratch your TiVo while working with the plate. It has sharp edges.

These are MINOR gripes. I am still very pleased with the ease of the upgrade and the thought that went into the bracket design.

I would like to add hard drive fans to the tops of the hard drives but don't know if that would be too much for the power supply or if they would fit.

Ideally, I'd like to see an external case for all TiVo hard drives. It would hold 2 drives, use its own power supply and fan, and an IDE cable would run from the inside of the TiVo to it. Would eliminate heat and power supply issues and allow you to more easily move the drives to a different TiVo (SA only to watch the shows) or to a PC for modification, removing the need to ever open up your TiVo again.


----------



## flapbreaker

> _Originally posted by weaknees _
> *That's the same error you were getting in the beginning, right? Have you tried just copying another file from the CD over to hda6 in Linux just to see if the drive can even accept a file in Linux?
> 
> Do an "ls" in your root directory, then do:
> 
> cp [file from ls] /mnt/test
> 
> and see what comes.
> 
> Michael *


Yes that is the same problem I had in the beginning. I will try your suggestion when I get home tonight. I have to mount the drive first and then type the above commands in right?


----------



## weaknees

Right.


----------



## flapbreaker

> _Originally posted by weaknees _
> *That's the same error you were getting in the beginning, right? Have you tried just copying another file from the CD over to hda6 in Linux just to see if the drive can even accept a file in Linux?
> 
> Do an "ls" in your root directory, then do:
> 
> cp [file from ls] /mnt/test
> 
> and see what comes.
> 
> Michael *


Well I did it and it looks like the file was copied to that partition but when I run the backup command it just stays on the scanning source drive. Please wait.

Is there anything I should look for in the initial system information readout when first running the lba48 bootdisk that might help find out why?

Also how long should I let it sit in the scanning recource drive status before determining that it's just not going to advance?


----------



## weaknees

It should move certainly within five minutes.

We haven't done any of this booted off a CD, but several others have reported it working (we have a Linux boot drives, and we store the images right on them, so no need for FAT partitions).

I'm not sure that I have any other ideas. All I can think for you to watch for in the boot sequence is the kernel version (2.4.18 or newer) and the size of the TiVo drive.

Michael


----------



## flapbreaker

I went into my MB bios and looked at some settings for the HD's. The only thing that stands out is the source drive (original tivo of course) has LBA/Large mode disabled as well as Block mode and 32Bit Data transfer mode is off. SHouldn't I enable these?


----------



## weaknees

Well, you can try that, but in general, BIOS settings like those affect Windows but not Linux. We generally recommend setting the BIOS to ignore those drives entirely, if possible, and to just boot from the CD.

Michael


----------



## flapbreaker

> _Originally posted by weaknees _
> *It should move certainly within five minutes.
> 
> We haven't done any of this booted off a CD, but several others have reported it working (we have a Linux boot drives, and we store the images right on them, so no need for FAT partitions).
> 
> I'm not sure that I have any other ideas. All I can think for you to watch for in the boot sequence is the kernel version (2.4.18 or newer) and the size of the TiVo drive.
> 
> Michael *


I can't find where it shows the kernal version. I downloaded the ptvupgrade cd iso for lba48 with mfstools 2.0 that is referrenced on this thread so I assumed everything was up to date. Is there another boot cd I could download?


----------



## flapbreaker

Ok i am on the right track now. I put the two drives on seperate ide buses and now I completed the backup in about 5 minutes (after endless hours of tinkering). The only problem now is when I restore it I get a restore error at 98% saying premature end of backup data

Do I do another backup or try a different syntax on the restore. Here is what I am using
mfsrestore -s 127 -zpi /mnt/tivo.bak /dev/hdd


----------



## aaronwt

Are two, 300GB drives, an option in the HD-TiVo? Or does the A drive have to be a 250GB or lower?


----------



## weaknees

> _Originally posted by flapbreaker _
> *Ok i am on the right track now. I put the two drives on seperate ide buses and now I completed the backup in about 5 minutes (after endless hours of tinkering). The only problem now is when I restore it I get a restore error at 98% saying premature end of backup data
> 
> Do I do another backup or try a different syntax on the restore. Here is what I am using
> mfsrestore -s 127 -zpi /mnt/tivo.bak /dev/hdd *


Looks basically right - maybe try another backup and see if that restores properly.

Michael


----------



## weaknees

> _Originally posted by aaronwt _
> *Are two, 300GB drives, an option in the HD-TiVo? Or does the A drive have to be a 250GB or lower? *


Definitely an option - we have this working in our office, but we haven't begun selling kits in this configuration. It takes a fair amount of manual work to get there. Still testing to be assured of complete stability.

Michael


----------



## richierich

The audio drop was definitely a problem with HDNET's transmission because I recorded it again and I lost the audio in the exact same point into the recording, so I'm glad that it isn't the HD Tivo box. Thanks for the info about the known problem with HDNET's broadcast. I wonder if HDNET is aware of their audio problems? Mark Cuban occasionally visits here and at AVS forum.


----------



## flapbreaker

Well I finally made a successful backup and restore. My problem all along seemed to be having both drives on one ide channel. Once I seperated them the backup worked like it's supposed to however the first backup would not restore properly so I did it again and that worked so I would definately recommend testing your backup even if it was 100% successful. Also put the drives on seperate ide channels because there seems to be some issue there, I even tried it on another computer on the same channel and it would work either. Thanks to those that helped me. Now I just need a bracket before I install the blessed drive.


----------



## flapbreaker

One more question about the backup file. In linux it was shown as being 1489MB (or roughly that number) but when I boot up windows to burn the file to cd it is reported as being 186MB. Does this sound right? I used -6so as the compression. Anyway I know the bacup works but was surprised at the file size being so small.


----------



## weaknees

That's about the right size - we've seen them a bit under 200MB with -1 compression.

Michael


----------



## dr_mal

> _Originally posted by richierich _
> *The audio drop was definitely a problem with HDNET's transmission because I recorded it again and I lost the audio in the exact same point into the recording, so I'm glad that it isn't the HD Tivo box. Thanks for the info about the known problem with HDNET's broadcast. I wonder if HDNET is aware of their audio problems? Mark Cuban occasionally visits here and at AVS forum. *


Someboday sent Mark an e-mail and his reply was posted over at Avs. He's aware of the problem; HDNet, D*, and TiVo are aware of the problem and (presumably) working on a solution.


----------



## CoreyMD

Just want to post a success note here since I didn't run across any upgrade problems to ask about... Much thanks to everyone who has been posting in this thread!

I just backed up my original HR10-250 HDD to CD-ROM, tested it, and blessed the new 250GB drive. Now I'm waiting for the bracket before I officially marry the two in the unit. Should be here Thursday.

At first I thought making a backup was overkill and would be a big hassle, but it does add peace of mind. The entire backup, CD burn, restore and test took, maybe, 30 minutes. The longest part of the whole thing was using Partition Magic to convert an existing 40GB NTFS partition on my PC over to FAT32 for the backup (that was the best option I could think of). And the hardest part was re-jumpering my PC drive for each step of the upgrade -- my FAT32 is primary slave for XP, but had to be primary master for the upgrade.

I just wish I had been part of this community from the beginning of TiVo (yeah, I went with UTV). I'm sure it was lots of fun following the progress of the first upgrade and the development of the toolset - which is amazing stuff for the public domain BTW.


----------



## LarryInAz

CompUSA has a great price [IMHO] on a 250gb drive - $129, no rebates, no muss no fuss. 
Only catch is the online store is out of stock so you'll have to find a store that has inventory.


----------



## aaronwt

> _Originally posted by LarryInAz _
> *CompUSA has a great price [IMHO] on a 250gb drive - $129, no rebates, no muss no fuss.
> Only catch is the online store is out of stock so you'll have to find a store that has inventory.
> 
> *


What brand??
I see it's a Maxtor. At that price, If I can get 2, i can just replace the original drive and keep it as a backup to be installed if it needs a warranty repair.


----------



## aaronwt

I just picked up two of them. Thanks, LarryInAz, for the heads up! Now I can remove the WD drive and keep it in case there is a warranty repair. I'll just send the two drives to Weaknees and for $90 they will configure both drives for me. So my total price including the bracket will be less than if I purchased a preconfigured 300GB "B" drive.


----------



## HDLouco

> _Originally posted by aaronwt _
> *What brand??
> I see it's a Maxtor. At that price, If I can get 2, i can just replace the original drive and keep it as a backup to be installed if it needs a warranty repair. *


FRY's has the Maxtor 250-GB drive on sale this weekend for $129.99, no rebates, also! I think the sale price started on Friday and is good until Tuesday, June 1, 2004.


----------



## HDLouco

> _Originally posted by aaronwt _
> *I just picked up two of them. Thanks, LarryInAz, for the heads up! Now I can remove the WD drive and keep it in case there is a warranty repair. I'll just send the two drives to Weaknees and for $90 they will configure both drives for me. So my total price including the bracket will be less than if I purchased a preconfigured 300GB "B" drive. *


I wasn't aware that Weakness offers that type of service! You mean to say that for $90 they will configure 2 drives, one to be the back up of the original and the other to be an extra drive to increase recording time? Sounds like a good deal to me! Where do I sign up? Thanks!


----------



## HDLouco

> _Originally posted by weaknees _
> *Info about various CDs is here:
> http://www.courtesan.com/tivo/bigdisk.html
> We don't use them since we hve PCs with Linux on the hard drives, so we can't vouch for them. But others seem to use these with success.
> 
> Michael *


Thanks for the info, Michael. Can you tell me what version of Linux I should purchase to install in my hard drive? And, please, forgive me for being a pest with all these questions.


----------



## aaronwt

> _Originally posted by HDLouco _
> *I wasn't aware that Weakness offers that type of service! You mean to say that for $90 they will configure 2 drives, one to be the back up of the original and the other to be an extra drive to increase recording time? Sounds like a good deal to me! Where do I sign up? Thanks! *


Here is the link

Miscellaneous Services from WeaKnees.com

I would be using the original drive as a backup. They would configure the two drives I send them to work in the HD-TiVo.


----------



## weaknees

> _Originally posted by HDLouco _
> *Thanks for the info, Michael. Can you tell me what version of Linux I should purchase to install in my hard drive? And, please, forgive me for being a pest with all these questions. *


You really don't install Linux on your hard drive, per se. You put an image appropriate for your TiVo on your hard drive. So you should be using the image from your exisiting TiVo on your hard drive.

Michael


----------



## pbolya

> _Originally posted by HDLouco _
> *FRY's has the Maxtor 250-GB drive on sale this weekend for $129.99, no rebates, also! I think the sale price started on Friday and is good until Tuesday, June 1, 2004. *


 HDLouco,
Fry's is telling me that the sale ended yesterday and it costs $200 (or $190 I can't remember) now. You can still go online and by it for $159.99 as outpost is run by a seperate company they do not always have the same specials.


----------



## Cheezmo

Just be patient, They've had 250Gb drives on sale almost every weekend for several months now. Sometimes with rebates sometimes not, ranging from $109 -> $149.


----------



## seanmcgpa

It's been a few months since Hitachi's 400GB Deskstar 7K400 was announced. Their website says they are shipping in small quantities .... but to whom? The usual places have no mention of it (Pricewatch, etc.) Are these drives available for purchase anywhere?

Price or no, I need to upgrade my HDTivo, and would love to just throw in two 400GB drives at once.


----------



## weaknees

We certainly haven't seen them. Just be sure to have backups. Hitachis are pretty notorious about causing problems in TiVos.

Michael


----------



## seanmcgpa

> _Originally posted by weaknees _
> *We certainly haven't seen them. Just be sure to have backups. Hitachis are pretty notorious about causing problems in TiVos.
> 
> Michael *


YIKES! Well that settles that... how about Maxtor 300GB drives? How's the reliability with them?

I know this question\ has come up before... but has anyone succesfully upgraded to two 300GB drives? The new TV season is 3 months away so no rush... just curious.


----------



## pbolya

> _Originally posted by weaknees _
> *We certainly haven't seen them. Just be sure to have backups. Hitachis are pretty notorious about causing problems in TiVos.
> 
> Michael *


 Didn't Hitachi say that they built the 400GB ATA/SATA hard drive with PVR's in mind ? There release certainly resembles the HR10-250's release so far. Will Robert be the first to ship the Hitachi drive ?


----------



## JohnTivo

> _Originally posted by seanmcgpa _
> *It's been a few months since Hitachi's 400GB Deskstar 7K400 was announced. Their website says they are shipping in small quantities .... but to whom? The usual places have no mention of it (Pricewatch, etc.) Are these drives available for purchase anywhere?
> 
> Price or no, I need to upgrade my HDTivo, and would love to just throw in two 400GB drives at once. *


Yeah, certain Dell desktops are shipping with them... They cost about $400...


----------



## weaknees

> _Originally posted by seanmcgpa _
> *YIKES! Well that settles that... how about Maxtor 300GB drives? How's the reliability with them?
> 
> I know this question\ has come up before... but has anyone succesfully upgraded to two 300GB drives? The new TV season is 3 months away so no rush... just curious. *


The 300 GB drives (at least some) are Maxtor QuickViews, therefore specifically targeted for PVRs. We've been using those since January in our Pioneers (and the non-QVs before that - louder, without question) and they've been great. We've only used one per Pioneer.

We do have dual 300 GB drives working in HD TiVos. We haven't yet started selling kits of these, but we will be doing our "Early Adopter" kits soon.

Michael


----------



## HDLouco

> _Originally posted by weaknees _
> *You really don't install Linux on your hard drive, per se. You put an image appropriate for your TiVo on your hard drive. So you should be using the image from your exisiting TiVo on your hard drive.
> 
> Michael *


I know that, Michael. In a previous post, you indicated that you and other members of this forum are running Linux in your PC to be able to run the utilities required to prepare hard drives for the Tivo. So, I was asking what version of Linux I should buy to be able to run the same utilities on my own PC. I have several hard drives and would like to install Linux in one of them and to learn how to use it. Thanks again for your kind help.


----------



## weaknees

It all depends on what you need. If you are working with these HD boxes, 2.4.20 or newer is fine.

Michael


----------



## dr_mal

> _Originally posted by HDLouco _
> *So, I was asking what version of Linux I should buy*


Why buy Linux? Lots of good free distros out there. I use Gentoo (haven't done any TiVo upgrading since I installed it, but I see no reason it wouldn't work)

And unless you're doing TiVo upgrades professionally (ie more than a couple times), why not just boot Linux off one of the boot CDs that are freely available and specifically designed for upgrading TiVos?


----------



## tivoupgrade

I'm a big fan of Mandrake linux. 

But we use our own boot CD's (the same ones available for download on our site) for preparation of all our kits and services.


----------



## HDLouco

Thanks, you guys, for all the help and suggestions! One of you even emailed me with his suggestion, and I really appreciate it. I downloaded the ISO file from the web site and burned it, as is, to a CD. However, the PC doesn't boot with that CD, and I was wondering whether the ISO file is in compressed form and must be decompressed before it can be used. It is either that or my CD burner didn't copy it correctly. Again, thanks for all the help.


----------



## tivoupgrade

Best to check out this link (or do a google search on burning ISO's)...

... crawl before you walk!

http://www.linuxgazette.com/issue68/tag/11.html

Lou


----------



## weaknees

You can't just drag the contents of the ISO image to your CD. You need to use your CD burning software to tell it to burn the ISO image - it should recognize the difference.

Michael


----------



## HDLouco

> _Originally posted by weaknees _
> *You can't just drag the contents of the ISO image to your CD. You need to use your CD burning software to tell it to burn the ISO image - it should recognize the difference.
> 
> Michael *


And that worked very well. Thanks!


----------



## HDLouco

> _Originally posted by weaknees _
> *You can't just drag the contents of the ISO image to your CD. You need to use your CD burning software to tell it to burn the ISO image - it should recognize the difference.
> 
> Michael *


And that worked very well. Thanks!


----------



## JohnTivo

> _Originally posted by JohnTivo _
> *Yeah, certain Dell desktops are shipping with them... They cost about $400... *


CDW.com is now selling the sata version of the drive. Apparently it is the only version available at this time. Hitachi will be releasing the PATA version in the coming months.

I personally will be waiting to upgrade my HR10 until it is available...


----------



## Nomarian

Here is a site selling the PATA or IDE version of the 400GB Hitachi drive. 

Sorry about that. I did not know that we are not allowed to post links to other sites. I have seen links for downloads and stuff and just thought that I post the link for informational purposes.

If you want to know where the drive is located, it is for sale at ComputerHQ.com. I don't work for them, I just saw it for sale there. The ebags link was for my wife. This was definitely a mistake.


----------



## weaknees

Mistake or abuse?


----------



## dr_mal

I'm willing to give him(her) the benefit of the doubt and say mistake.

But just for anyone reading -- that link above to ebags.com actually sells handbags, not hard drives.


----------



## JohnTivo

All I found was the SATA version...


----------



## dr_mal

> _Originally posted by Nomarian _
> *Here is a site selling the PATA or IDE version of the 400GB Hitachi drive.
> 
> Sorry about that. I did not know that we are not allowed to post links to other sites. I have seen links for downloads and stuff and just thought that I post the link for informational purposes.
> 
> If you want to know where the drive is located, it is for sale at ComputerHQ.com. I don't work for them, I just saw it for sale there. The ebags link was for my wife. This was definitely a mistake.  *


Oh, links for informational purposes are fine. As long as you're not hawking your own site -- that's what sponsorships are sold here for 

The fact that the link want to a site selling handbags -- that was what we were wondering about. Glad to hear it was just an honest mistake :up:


----------



## jjmpeters

Should I be at all concerned that the image I downloaded from a link in this thread, that has a file name of ptv-mfstools2-large-disk.iso, shows the following text when it boots?:

*PTVUpgrader LBA48 Utility Disk Version 1.0 - Series 1 Units Only*

I don't want to risk my $900 investment.....


----------



## flapbreaker

> _Originally posted by jjmpeters _
> *Should I be at all concerned that the image I downloaded from a link in this thread, that has a file name of ptv-mfstools2-large-disk.iso, shows the following text when it boots?:
> 
> PTVUpgrader LBA48 Utility Disk Version 1.0 - Series 1 Units Only
> 
> I don't want to risk my $900 investment..... *


That's the same one I used.


----------



## Richard Chalk

OK, Guys, I could use a little help here....
I have made a backup of the original 250 G drive, and I have a second WD 250 that I want to add to the machine. I have looked through the instructions, but don't see any reference to "BlessTivo", and whether this step alone will allow the drive to be added.
Do I need to run BlessTivo, or MFSAdd, or both? Can someone talk me through this a little, perhaps with the proper command line syntax?
I did do a successful single-drive upgrade to a Hughes 35-hour box, so I get the general idea, but the specifics of adding a second to the HD box escape me.
Thanks for any help you can offer...
Richard


----------



## weaknees

You need to boot in a version of Linux that will see all 250 GB (or close to it) of the drive. Then, with the BlessTiVo application available, simply type:

BlessTiVo /dev/hdc

Capitalization is critical. The /hdc would be for a drive as secondary master - change that as necessary to conform to the location of the add-on drive.

Don't Bless the boot drive.

Michael


----------



## dropper

You know, I did everything here, including trying to run both drives of a backup on the same IDE chain (ran much better after separating them), Blessed my new WD2500JB, set the jumpers to slave and master and powered it up, to "Powering up...", forever.

The drives just wouldn't spin up. My heart sank. I went back, disconnected the new drive, moved the jumper back to CS and it booted (wouldn't boot with Master W/Slave without the second drive).

Going back, I put them both on CS and had them on the correct spots and it started fine. Going back to try again, placing them as Master and Slave, I got nada.

Some nice oragami later and I have both up and running with CS and CS selected.

This is with parts from 9th Tee, which otherwise seemed fine, if not a bit long for the cables (I know it's being remedied).

On the WD drives I had the Master set as:
: : [:] : : [o o o o]

On the Slave:
: : : [:] : [o o o o]

Any ideas?

Keith


----------



## weaknees

What results were you getting from BlessTiVo and from mfsbackup?

Michael


----------



## duffin

Now that I've been using the HR10-250 for a month or so, I want to evaluate whetehr I need the extra space via an upgrade.

I tried the backdoor code to see where I stand on recorded space: Pick Programs to Record and press ZERO-THUMBSUP.

This code doesn't seem to work on the HR10-250. Any one else have luck? Something else I should try?


----------



## tivoupgrade

> _Originally posted by jjmpeters _
> *Should I be at all concerned that the image I downloaded from a link in this thread, that has a file name of ptv-mfstools2-large-disk.iso, shows the following text when it boots?:
> 
> PTVUpgrader LBA48 Utility Disk Version 1.0 - Series 1 Units Only
> 
> I don't want to risk my $900 investment..... *


Actually, it should say,

PTVupgrade LBA48 Utility Disk Version 1.0...

In any case, we'll have that changed for the next release of the software to be more specific. At the time we released the CD, the only use of the tools was for Series1 units using our copykern scripts and the Todd Miller LBA48 kernels for Series1 units -- we didn't want folks to accidentally use the CD for Blessing large drives for Series2 units or doing restores on large drives for Series2 units.

You can definitely use this CD for Series2 units such as the Pioneer DVD burners and the Hughes HR10-250 - more information on the use of the CD is provided here:

http://www.ptvupgrade.com/support/bigdisk/index.html

By opening and attempting to upgrade your system, you will be putting your $900 'investment' at risk (compared to not doing it at all), but you need not worry about the risks from a software perspective, the tools work just fine.

Thanks,
Lou


----------



## scottym

Hi,

I'm waiting for delivery of my HD tivo from American Satellite. I'm #98 on their waiting list. I already have my upgrade bracket from PTV.

1. Should I upgrade the cooling before adding a second 250 GB drive?

2. Does anyone know if there is a warranty seal on the new HD's?

Thanks,
Scott

btw-saw 250 GB Maxtor 7500 at Compusa for $129.


----------



## weaknees

> _Originally posted by scottym _
> *Hi,
> 
> I'm waiting for delivery of my HD tivo from American Satellite. I'm #98 on their waiting list. I already have my upgrade bracket from PTV.
> 
> 1. Should I upgrade the cooling before adding a second 250 GB drive?
> 
> 2. Does anyone know if there is a warranty seal on the new HD's?
> 
> Thanks,
> Scott
> 
> btw-saw 250 GB Maxtor 7500 at Compusa for $129. *


There is no warranty seal that we've seen on any HD box so far.

We STRONGLY recommend added cooling in these boxes. They run hot as-is due to the stock 7200 RPM drive, and they weren't designed for a second drive at all. We don't know of any way to add cooling to these units until our bracket is available, but if you do, great. In the meantime, you might want to run with the lid off. Just watch your temps closely. We've heard reports of temps in the 60C range on these boxes.

Michael


----------



## scottym

I'll keep an eye open for your bracket/fan. Meanwhile, I'm running two HDVR2 units with twin 120 GB drives and no cooling modification. Is a mod recommended for the HDVR2?

Scott


----------



## weaknees

> _Originally posted by scottym _
> *I'll keep an eye open for your bracket/fan. Meanwhile, I'm running two HDVR2 units with twin 120 GB drives and no cooling modification. Is a mod recommended for the HDVR2?
> 
> Scott *


We highly recommend our TwinBreeze Complete for that:

http://www.weaknees.com/twinbreeze.php

Michael


----------



## btwyx

> _Originally posted by weaknees _
> *We highly recommend our TwinBreeze*


 Is there any news about the arrival of the TwinBreeze for the HR10?

I have your 300GB kit sitting around waiting for the bracket. Its especially confusing when your twin breeze ad pops up on the HD TiVo forum.


----------



## dropper

> _Originally posted by weaknees _
> *What results were you getting from BlessTiVo and from mfsbackup?
> 
> Michael *


I had no problem with either the BlessTiVo nor the mfsbackup. The backup appeared to be the correct size and proceded smoothly (made 2 for safety).

The only problems I was having were related to jumpering and the cable. I did not try a different cable, since I did get it to work using the CS positions. Unit reported 63/425 hours of recording time available.

Keith


----------



## weaknees

> _Originally posted by btwyx _
> *Is there any news about the arrival of the TwinBreeze for the HR10?
> 
> I have your 300GB kit sitting around waiting for the bracket. Its especially confusing when your twin breeze ad pops up on the HD TiVo forum. *


Well, we've started taking pre-orders for the bracket because we're fairly certain we'll see our air shipment sometime in early July - possibly even a bit sooner. We're not promising a date, but anyone who has bought our "early adopter" upgrade kit is definitely getting one in the first shipment.

Michael


----------



## weaknees

> _Originally posted by dropper _
> *I had no problem with either the BlessTiVo nor the mfsbackup. The backup appeared to be the correct size and proceded smoothly (made 2 for safety).
> 
> The only problems I was having were related to jumpering and the cable. I did not try a different cable, since I did get it to work using the CS positions. Unit reported 63/425 hours of recording time available.
> 
> Keith *


If they're both WD drives, then those jumper settings for Master and Slave look right.

Any reason not to just leave them on CS?

Michael


----------



## tivoupgrade

> _Originally posted by scottym _
> *Hi,
> 
> I'm waiting for delivery of my HD tivo from American Satellite. I'm #98 on their waiting list. I already have my upgrade bracket from PTV.
> 
> 1. Should I upgrade the cooling before adding a second 250 GB drive?
> 
> 2. Does anyone know if there is a warranty seal on the new HD's?
> 
> Thanks,
> Scott
> 
> btw-saw 250 GB Maxtor 7500 at Compusa for $129. *


No warranty seal on these units, but by opening the unit you really should accept accountability if something goes wrong in the future; its part of the risk of upgrading.

I wouldn't alter the cooling inside the unit - let the fan in the back do its job of exhausting the warm air, and drawing the cooler air from beneath.

We've only seen a 2-4 degree (celsius) rise in temp when adding additional drives (both quickview and non-quickview) and although the power supply continues to end up being the hottest component in the unit, the reported temperature is still well within the 'normal' range as long as your unit is kept in a well-ventilated spot (that should be a priority whether or not you are going to upgrade your unit).


----------



## LarryInAz

> _Originally posted by weaknees _
> *Well, we've started taking pre-orders for the bracket because we're fairly certain we'll see our air shipment sometime in early July - possibly even a bit sooner. We're not promising a date, but anyone who has bought our "early adopter" upgrade kit is definitely getting one in the first shipment.
> *


Michael,
Is the cutoff on pre-orders 350? Can you let me know what number I am in the pre-order line?  Sorry, couldn't help myself...


----------



## weaknees

Not sure what you mean - where did you get 350?

We haven't yet sent an email out to the people on the list - but you can certainly pre-order one!

Michael


----------



## dropper

> _Originally posted by weaknees _
> *If they're both WD drives, then those jumper settings for Master and Slave look right.
> 
> Any reason not to just leave them on CS?
> 
> Michael *


More of just the challenge of why it didn't work right.

Thanks,

Keith


----------



## weaknees

Well understood - we also hate when technology doesn't perform as it should. Something (potentially important) seems to be missing.

Michael


----------



## pbolya

> _Originally posted by weaknees _
> *Not sure what you mean - where did you get 350?
> 
> We haven't yet sent an email out to the people on the list - but you can certainly pre-order one!
> 
> Michael *


 Michael,
he was refering to the pre orders for the HR10-250 from VE. I think after the ordeal with VE he get's suspicious any times he hears the word pre-order.

I just pre ordered your bracket myself too. I already have one from 9th tee but my friend needs an upgrade too. This way I test both brackets and keep the best one. I like the idea of the second fan and the vented short cables. My HR10-250 runs at 54C and thats without any upgrades.

Regards,
Peter


----------



## weaknees

Got it. We'll try not to disappoint on the pre-order. We can't really guarantee the date although we're pretty comfortable with "early July" and we'll cut it off as far as air-shipments if the number is beyond what we can handle.

Michael


----------



## LarryInAz

> _Originally posted by pbolya _
> *Michael,
> he was refering to the pre orders for the HR10-250 from VE. I think after the ordeal with VE he get's suspicious any times he hears the word pre-order...
> *


 Exactly and questions were asked with tongue firmly planted in cheek. 

I was fortunate to be #134 in VE's pre-order and got one of the first units off the assembly line. Now I'm anxious to be one of the first to upgrade the HD recording space.

I figure by adding another 250gb drive this will keep me happy for the next couple of years and by then Terrabyte drives will be the norm. 
Hmmm, I wonder how many hours of HD programs I can record on 2 Terrabyte drives.


----------



## btwyx

> _Originally posted by weaknees _
> *Well, we've started taking pre-orders for the bracket because we're fairly certain we'll see our air shipment sometime in early July - possibly even a bit sooner.*


 Sooner would be really good, we have a 3 week vacation starting 1st july. It'd be really handy to have the upgrade working while we're away.


----------



## weaknees

We'll keep our fingers crossed, but early July is really what's realistic.

If you'll be away, maybe you can find a creative way to use the new drive by leaving the lid off? Obviously, just be very, very careful.

Michael


----------



## btwyx

> _Originally posted by weaknees _
> *If you'll be away, maybe you can find a creative way to use the new drive by leaving the lid off? Obviously, just be very, very careful.*


 I don't want to be creative and then leave it to cook on its own.


----------



## weaknees

Better safe than sorry does make sense . . .

Michael


----------



## pbolya

> _Originally posted by duffin _
> *Now that I've been using the HR10-250 for a month or so, I want to evaluate whetehr I need the extra space via an upgrade.
> 
> I tried the backdoor code to see where I stand on recorded space: Pick Programs to Record and press ZERO-THUMBSUP.
> 
> This code doesn't seem to work on the HR10-250. Any one else have luck? Something else I should try? *


 Duffin,
I always wanted to know when my recordings are gonna start deleting (as they finaly did 2 month ago even though I have a 242h). So my face lit up when I heard that there may be a code for at least my series 1/2. But neither the Sony SAT-T60 (series 1) or the DVR40 (series 2) did anything when I went to the Pick Programs to Record sub menu and pressed zero and than thumbsup. Am I missing something ? Is there a way to see how much space left on the hard drive (I do not use surgestions) ?

Thanks,
Peter


----------



## pbolya

> _Originally posted by pbolya _
> *Duffin,
> I always wanted to know when my recordings are gonna start deleting (as they finaly did 2 month ago even though I have a 242h). So my face lit up when I heard that there may be a code for at least my series 1/2. But neither the Sony SAT-T60 (series 1) or the DVR40 (series 2) did anything when I went to the Pick Programs to Record sub menu and pressed zero and than thumbsup. Am I missing something ? Is there a way to see how much space left on the hard drive (I do not use surgestions) ?
> 
> Thanks,
> Peter *


 OK. I found it. This will only work with standalone TiVo's with 4.0 software that has been hacked in a coputer to turn backdoor codes on. Dam it. Besides my HD TiVo a series 1 tivo and the series 2 tivo I also have a series 2 standalone Sony TiVo (I am not a collector it just happened this way).

Duffin,
can you point me in the right direction where I can find out how I can turn on the backdoors for my 4.0. I have a dual 120GB in them and not afread to take it out and mess with it as long as I have a good instructions. I do not have bash or any other hack installed I just did a capacity upgrade.

Thanks in advance,
Peter


----------



## tarman

> _Originally posted by weaknees _
> *Got it. We'll try not to disappoint on the pre-order. We can't really guarantee the date although we're pretty comfortable with "early July" and we'll cut it off as far as air-shipments if the number is beyond what we can handle.
> 
> Michael *


So Michael,

Does this mean: If your site lets me pre-order, I will get one from the "early july" batch.


----------



## weaknees

Yes. If the number gets to the point where we're uncomfortable and think we can't fill all of these with the air shipments, and we can't increase the quantity of the air shipments, we'll end the pre-order. For now, though, you're in.

Michael


----------



## jjmpeters

Anyone added a 300GB drive as their second drive? Any problems getting the full capacity out of it?

UPS failed to deliver my HR10-250 from CC today saying it required a signature. I'm having it delivered tomorrow at work. FINALLY!!!


----------



## weaknees

Many have added 300 GB drives, as have we. Works fine. We sell kits that way, and haven't heard a peep of problems.

Michael


----------



## Cheezmo

The only problem I'm having is filling it up, since I got it just as the TV season ended 

There just aren't enough good movies on DirecTV's HD channels.


----------



## weaknees

> _Originally posted by Cheezmo _
> *The only problem I'm having is filling it up, since I got it just as the TV season ended
> 
> There just aren't enough good movies on DirecTV's HD channels. *


Agreed. Can't wait until September.


----------



## scottym

Hi,

I'm interested in adding a second hardrive to the HD HR10-250 and installing bash access through the USB port. I'm assuming that mfsbackup and mfsrestore can be used to backup my Otivo drive. Since I can't afford to replace the Otivo with another 250 GB drive my plan is to create the backup and save it on my fat32 disk (and on CD/DVD/ROM) so I can restore and expand my Otivo drive while adding a second 250 GB. Would it be best to create this backup using mfsbackup or dd?

I'r also like to install the hacks to get a bash prompt through a Linsksys 200M USB-Ethernet adapter. I've run this procedure using sleeper's iso to run the monte scripts to install the hacks. Worked gread on my HDVR2. My understanding is the HD Tivo will run the same software and hardware so I'm assunming monte will work for the HD Dtivo as well.


Any suggestions will be welcome.

Thanks,
Scott


----------



## jjmpeters

Got my HDTiVo yesterday. Tried to do a backup using the instructions posted here, but it wouldn't finish after 30 minutes at which point I stopped it. It said something like please wait a moment while scanning drives, then nothing after that. I tried it on two different PC's. Had my 11GB FAT32 drive as hda and my TiVo 250GB drive as hdb. Linux saw the both the drives fine.

I saw someone here said it took 2 hours to backup, but I believe it was Michael who said it should only take 5 minutes. I was really concerned that I messed up something, but the drive booted fine when placed back into the TiVo. I'll try again once I get my new 300GB "B" drive on Friday.

I've upgraded 3 SA TiVo's and 3 DirecTiVo's, so I feel confident that I followed the directions correctly. The only thing I didn't try was placing the 250GB on the second IDE channel, but I thought that was only a problem when restoring from one drive directly to another.

Thanks for any help.


----------



## LarryInAz

> _Originally posted by jjmpeters _
> *Got my HDTiVo yesterday. Tried to do a backup using the instructions posted here, but it wouldn't finish after 30 minutes at which point I stopped it... *


Boy you have more guts than I - you've only had the unit for 24 hours and already you've cracked the case. I've upgraded about a dozen standalone and D* flavored TiVo's myself but I always run it hard at least 30 days for burn in, software upgrades and just peace of mind.

Sorry I don't have an answer to your quesiton but I'm sure Weaknees or TiVoUpgrade will chime in soon.


----------



## pbolya

> _Originally posted by jjmpeters _
> * Tried to do a backup using the instructions posted here, but it wouldn't finish after 30 minutes at which point I stopped it. Had my 11GB FAT32 drive as hda and my TiVo 250GB drive as hdb. Linux saw the both the drives fine.
> 
> Thanks for any help. *


 Lot of people reported problems when both the backup and the TiVo drive where on the same cahannel. Try to connect one to the primary master or slave and the other to the secondary master or slave.


----------



## dropper

> _Originally posted by jjmpeters _
> *Got my HDTiVo yesterday. Tried to do a backup using the instructions posted here, but it wouldn't finish after 30 minutes at which point I stopped it. It said something like please wait a moment while scanning drives, then nothing after that. I tried it on two different PC's. Had my 11GB FAT32 drive as hda and my TiVo 250GB drive as hdb. Linux saw the both the drives fine.*


Had the same problem, so did another here, where I got the same solution as listed above. You need to have the drives on seperate chains. Don't know why. It should only take a few minutes.

Keith


----------



## jjmpeters

Switching the drives so they weren't on the same channel did the trick. Backup completed in about 5 minutes. Restored the image to the new 300GB drive and placed it in the TiVo and everything worked fine. Removed the 300GB, blessed it, and installed it along with the original drive so I now have 70 hours of HD space. I left the drives as cable select. Weakness , why do you recommend master and slave?


Thanks for your help! Now I just have to fill it up with content


----------



## dropper

> _Originally posted by jjmpeters _
> * I left the drives as cable select. Weakness , why do you recommend master and slave? *


So you can put the cable going to the master first, then the slave. If you do CS, you have to have the master on the end (instead of the middle). I couldn't get it to work this way, but I may have had a cable issue.

Keith


----------



## jjmpeters

> _Originally posted by dropper _
> *So you can put the cable going to the master first, then the slave. If you do CS, you have to have the master on the end (instead of the middle). I couldn't get it to work this way, but I may have had a cable issue.
> 
> Keith *


It worked for me with CS. Even setting the drives master and slave, I was always told that the master should be on the terminating end of the cable. Maybe that's BS, but that's the way I've always done it.


----------



## k2ue

> _Originally posted by jjmpeters _
> *It worked for me with CS. Even setting the drives master and slave, I was always told that the master should be on the terminating end of the cable. Maybe that's BS, but that's the way I've always done it. *


I have worked on SCSI and ATA driver ICs -- the master being on the end for ATA drives is only an issue if: a) the slave is absent; and b) the cable is long (>18 inches).


----------



## Paul_D

> _Originally posted by dropper _
> Had the same problem, so did another here, where I got the same solution as listed above. You need to have the drives on seperate chains. Don't know why. It should only take a few minutes.


For those of us who did wait it out (11 hours for my HDTiVo virgin backup) .. are our backups still good, or are they corrupted?


----------



## pbolya

> _Originally posted by Paul_D _
> *For those of us who did wait it out (11 hours for my HDTiVo virgin backup) .. are our backups still good, or are they corrupted? *


 Didn't you test the backup before you married the drives ?


----------



## Paul_D

> _Originally posted by pbolya _
> Didn't you test the backup before you married the drives ?


There was no drive marrying involved. I just wanted a backup of the 250G drive since I've had bad experiences with WD drives before. At some point I will upgrade the unit, but given how little OTA HD content is receivable (reliably) around here, I'm in no rush.


----------



## pbolya

> _Originally posted by Paul_D _
> *There was no drive marrying involved. I just wanted a backup of the 250G drive since I've had bad experiences with WD drives before. At some point I will upgrade the unit, but given how little OTA HD content is receivable (reliably) around here, I'm in no rush. *


 Got it. That is too bad. I leave in the Sacramento, CA area and I can get NBC, ABC, CBS and WB in the mid 90's. PBS and UPN (still broadcasting with reduced power) in the mid 80's. They also fixed all of the schedule mishaps so life is good. The only problem remain is CBS likes to move it's prime time schedule back 1 hour (start at 7pm) so they can air the news at 10 before all other networks. In order to do that they need to tape the east feed, delay it for 2 hours and cut to the tape from the live feed at 7pm and cut back to live feed at 11pm. They can not do that yet with HD content (maybe they ordered there HD TiVo from Robert). This means that they broadcast an SD version of the prime time schedule between 7pm and 8pm (taped from the east feed) and than cut back to live HD feed at 8pm (no HD recording capability no 10pm news). What they do not realize is that they screw up the TiVo as TiVo will record the 7pm SD show instead of the 8pm HD shows.

I hope you will have good OTA reception by September (august for NBC) when it will be really needed.

I will upgrade my unit the week before the Olympics start. Hopefully I will get Weaknees bracket by than and maybe found a good special on a 300GB or even the 400GB disks. If not I still have a 250GB and the 9th Tee bracket ready to go.


----------



## HDLouco

> _Originally posted by pbolya _
> *Got it. That is too bad. I leave in the Sacramento, CA area and I can get NBC, ABC, CBS and WB in the mid 90's. PBS and UPN (still broadcasting with reduced power) in the mid 80's.
> 
> I live in Walnut Creek and have no problems with the PBS KVIE reception. However, I no longer receive channel 21 which is the UPN affiliate in Sacramento. I wonder how soon the Weakness bracket will be available. 30 hours is hardly enough to record all the shows of interest to me.*


----------



## pbolya

Weaknees or 9th tee,
Do you see any problem with adding an extra 250GB now and replacing the upgraded 250 x 2 to a 400 x 2 or even a 500 x 2 later vs waiting and upgrading from 250 directly to 500 x 2 when available ?

Thanks,
Peter


----------



## leftcoastdave

*



Originally posted by pbolya 
I wonder how soon the Weakness bracket will be available. 30 hours is hardly enough to record all the shows of interest to me.

Click to expand...

*We all are wondering. Michael, do you have an updated status on your bracket availability?

Thanks,

Dave


----------



## dropper

Having used the 9th Tee bracket for a couple of weeks now, I can highly recommend it. The production bracket is a bit different than the one shown in the pictures. It is hollowed out on the bottom, allowing for air flow across the bottom of the drive.

It's not perfect, but I think they have already addressed some of the issues. It didn't take long to install and was very sturdy.

Keith


----------



## pbolya

> _Originally posted by leftcoastdave _
> * We all are wondering. Michael, do you have an updated status on your bracket availability?
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> Dave *


 leftcoastdave,
It was HDLouco who said that. He was quoting me and the end quote tag got deleted so it is hard to figgure out where my quote ended. By the way I have it on order too but since I got the 9th tee bracket I can wait a couple of weeks.


----------



## pbolya

> _Originally posted by dropper _
> *Having used the 9th Tee bracket for a couple of weeks now, I can highly recommend it. The production bracket is a bit different than the one shown in the pictures. It is hollowed out on the bottom, allowing for air flow across the bottom of the drive.
> 
> It's not perfect, but I think they have already addressed some of the issues. It didn't take long to install and was very sturdy.
> 
> Keith *


 dropper,
Not mine. Mine is exactly as pictured and I was hoping the cable is specially made for the TiVo but it is the same long cables I already have. I heared that all of these are changed for the new shipments but I guess I just bought it too quickly.

My series 1 Sony SAT-T60 runs at 62C (has a 120GB and a 160GB WD 7200 RPM drive) and my HR10-250 runs at 54C without any upgrade. I can't wait for the weaKnees bracket to see if the temperature will stay at 54C. I know that without the additional fan it will go to 62C too (there is not enough ventilation on the shelves). By the way if I turn the SAT-T60 off (standby) for several hours it cools all the way down to 54C.


----------



## tarman

I have two 200GB drives and am getting my HDTivo soon.

Will I have a problem if I pull the 250GB from the HD box, back it up, and lock it away for safe keeping...

... then restore to one of the 200GB drives, bless the second, and put them in the HDTiVo box as a 400GB pair?

If this will work, what mfsrestore parameters should I use?

Thanks for any help,

Tom


----------



## jerrymc

> _Originally posted by tarman _
> *I have two 200GB drives and am getting my HDTivo soon.
> 
> Will I have a problem if I pull the 250GB from the HD box, back it up, and lock it away for safe keeping...
> 
> ... then restore to one of the 200GB drives, bless the second, and put them in the HDTiVo box as a 400GB pair?
> 
> If this will work, what mfsrestore parameters should I use?
> 
> Thanks for any help,
> 
> Tom *


Tom,

Sorry to say, that won't work. The primary drive must be at least as big as the original drive. You may want to exchange one of those 200GB drives for a 250GB.

Regards,
Jerry


----------



## tarman

> _Originally posted by jerrymc _
> *Tom,
> 
> Sorry to say, that won't work. The primary drive must be at least as big as the original drive. You may want to exchange one of those 200GB drives for a 250GB.
> 
> Regards,
> Jerry *


Thanks Jerry,

I hoped it would.

Since mfsbackup puts the info on a small ( < 1GB ) FAT partition, I hoped that it could expand it back out to whatever size drive you had [obviously not keeping all/any program data that would be too large to fit].

Oh, well, looking for sales on 250GB drives!

Tom


----------



## tivoupgrade

> _Originally posted by tarman _
> *Thanks Jerry,
> 
> I hoped it would.
> 
> Since mfsbackup puts the info on a small ( < 1GB ) FAT partition, I hoped that it could expand it back out to whatever size drive you had [obviously not keeping all/any program data that would be too large to fit].
> 
> Oh, well, looking for sales on 250GB drives!
> 
> Tom *


Why not just backup your system, put the backup away for safe-keeping, and then bless one of those 200GB drives and add it to your unit?


----------



## tarman

> _Originally posted by tivoupgrade _
> *Why not just backup your system, put the backup away for safe-keeping, and then bless one of those 200GB drives and add it to your unit? *


My main thought was, "What do I do if I need to send it in for repair?"

With your approach, I would need to reload the 250GB with the backup (after removing the 2nd drive and bracket) and restore it to original condition before shipping.

Problem is, I would lose all of my recordings.

My way, I remove both drives still on the bracket, re-install the original drive, and ship for repair, keeping my recordings intact to reinstall upon return.

[I guess if I could insure a "receive before return" type swap, I could save the data off of the replacement drive, load it with my original backup, and install and send it back with the broken unit. Then put my two drives into the replacement unit.]


----------



## weaknees

> _Originally posted by leftcoastdave _
> * We all are wondering. Michael, do you have an updated status on your bracket availability?*


* 
We are expecting first off-tool parts early next week, and assuming all goes well, we hope to be shipping brackets early to mid-July.




Weaknees or 9th tee, Do you see any problem with adding an extra 250GB now and replacing the upgraded 250 x 2 to a 400 x 2 or even a 500 x 2 later vs waiting and upgrading from 250 directly to 500 x 2 when available ?

Click to expand...

I don't see a difference from a software perspective, although you might have issues--given the current limitations of mfstool--with copying your programming from dual-250s to dual-400s; we have not yet tried that.*


----------



## dswallow

> _Originally posted by tarman _
> *My main thought was, "What do I do if I need to send it in for repair?"
> 
> With your approach, I would need to reload the 250GB with the backup (after removing the 2nd drive and bracket) and restore it to original condition before shipping.
> 
> Problem is, I would lose all of my recordings.
> 
> My way, I remove both drives still on the bracket, re-install the original drive, and ship for repair, keeping my recordings intact to reinstall upon return.
> 
> [I guess if I could insure a "receive before return" type swap, I could save the data off of the replacement drive, load it with my original backup, and install and send it back with the broken unit. Then put my two drives into the replacement unit.] *


I don't know if anyone has ever received their repaired unit back; it's almost always just going to get swapped out with a different unit, not repaired.

And when that happens, your recordings will not be playable on the replacement DVR since the encryption hardware key is different on every unit. The most you'll have saved are your season pass, wishlist, and thumbs up/down data, plus whatever remains of the 28-day rule list, and your general configuration. All the recordings will be listed; none will be playable. You'll just have to delete them all.


----------



## tivoupgrade

> _Originally posted by tarman _
> *My main thought was, "What do I do if I need to send it in for repair?"
> 
> With your approach, I would need to reload the 250GB with the backup (after removing the 2nd drive and bracket) and restore it to original condition before shipping.
> 
> Problem is, I would lose all of my recordings.
> 
> My way, I remove both drives still on the bracket, re-install the original drive, and ship for repair, keeping my recordings intact to reinstall upon return.
> 
> [I guess if I could insure a "receive before return" type swap, I could save the data off of the replacement drive, load it with my original backup, and install and send it back with the broken unit. Then put my two drives into the replacement unit.] *


Ok, well, that it an expensive way to insure yourself for the case of the unit breaking in a very rare way. In most cases, failed units turn out to be bad hard drives, so clearly you'd be able to take care of that type of 'repair' yourself, as long as you have a good backup. However, if the unit were to truly fail in a way that was other than the hard drive, you could just remove your add-on drive and send the unit back for repair. They are just going to replace it with a refurbished (or new) unit anyway.


----------



## pbolya

> _Originally posted by weaknees _
> *I don't see a difference from a software perspective, although you might have issues--given the current limitations of mfstool--with copying your programming from dual-250s to dual-400s; we have not yet tried that. *


 Can I just restore the original single 250 backup onto a new 400GB and than bless the other 400GB and replace the two 250GB with the 2 400GB ? Would that give me 800GB (~100h) ? How did you get the dual 300GB working ? Did you do any testing on upgrading any configuration that is already upgraded ?

Thanks,
Peter


----------



## seanmcgpa

Are 400GB drives even available yet?


----------



## dswallow

> _Originally posted by seanmcgpa _
> *Are 400GB drives even available yet? *


No stock, but you can order one...
http://www.techdepot.com/product.asp?productid=1996827
http://www.pcmall.com/pcmall/shop/detail.asp?dpno=450646&store=pcmall


----------



## jjmpeters

> _Originally posted by dswallow _
> *No stock, but you can order one...
> http://www.techdepot.com/product.asp?productid=1996827
> http://www.pcmall.com/pcmall/shop/detail.asp?dpno=450646&store=pcmall *


At quite a price premium too. These are SATA drives, so don't you need an adapter to make them IDE?


----------



## weaknees

> In most cases, failed units turn out to be bad hard drives, so clearly you'd be able to take care of that type of 'repair' yourself, as long as you have a good backup.


I would respectfully offer a different opinion when in comes to the HR10-250. While we have had people contact us with drive failures, the more common issues have been DVI/HDMI issues, heat issues, SAT issues and picture issues (the picture issues have generally not been drive-related).

This is certainly gospel when it comes to every other TiVo out there...but when an HR10-250 has problems, the likely source of problems is larger than just the drive.

Michael


----------



## aaronwt

> _Originally posted by dswallow _
> *No stock, but you can order one...
> http://www.techdepot.com/product.asp?productid=1996827
> http://www.pcmall.com/pcmall/shop/detail.asp?dpno=450646&store=pcmall *


WOW! That's $300 more than the 250GB drives I just bought to upgrade one of my HD-TiVos. I just need to wait for another sale to get 2 more for my second HD-TiVo.


----------



## mercurial

> _Originally posted by weaknees _
> *I would respectfully offer a different opinion when in comes to the HR10-250. While we have had people contact us with drive failures, the more common issues have been DVI/HDMI issues, heat issues, SAT issues and picture issues (the picture issues have generally not been drive-related).
> *


Well, I had one that got a drive problem then just got a replacement that had a HDMI problem right out of the box. Waiting for the second replacement. Follow the thread here.

The interesting thing is they don't seem to be able to consistently diagnose the drive issue over the phone despite the fact that I told them that was most certainly what it was (had to send out a tech) and then when I called back with the HDMI issue (the tech didn't even know what an HDMI port was) after researching it she said she was surprised I said it was a commonly known issue since they had no record of it and "thanks for bringing it to our attention..."

Sheesh... Well, if this one is stable for 2-3 months then maybe I'll be comfortable upgrading. I was hoping to have one stable for a few months and then upgrade before the new fall season started...


----------



## JohnTivo

> _Originally posted by jjmpeters _
> *At quite a price premium too. These are SATA drives, so don't you need an adapter to make them IDE? *


Here is the only place selling the ATA-100 version: CDW.com

No one has these in stock for immediate delivery. Each drive is basically a special order...


----------



## gr8reb8

I received my brand new HR10-250 yesterday. This is what I did to upgrade to two new 250Gb drives. The original 250Gb will be set on a shelf as a "virgin" backup drive. Overkill? Yes. 

From this page 
Download this and burn as ISO to a CD 
Follow hardware guide to remove original drive from Tivo

1. Install original hdtivo drive in secondary master (hdc). FAT32 win98 Hd is primary master, cdrom is primary slave.

2. Configure BIOS to boot to CD. Boot up ptv's lb48 cd. (When prompted, press enter until you get to the Linux prompt.)
If you know your FAT32 drive, your cable and your PC support DMA, turn it on with 
hdparm -d1 /dev/hda (this turns it on for your FAT32 disk connected to primary master)
hdparm -d1 /dev/hdc (this turns it on for the drive connected to secondary master (hdtivo drive))

3. Mount drive using following commands
mkdir /mnt/dos
mount /dev/hda1 /mnt/dos

4. Backup using this command (should take 5-20 minutes)
mfsbackup -f 9999 -1so /mnt/dos/hd_tivo.bak /dev/hdc

5. Type reboot and when machine has rebooted and stopped at the first prompt on CD, turn off pc.

6. Remove original hdtivo drive from pc.

7. Install brand new 250Gb drive in secondary master (hdc). Leave jumper on "cable-select"

8. Boot up ptv's lb48 cd. (When prompted, press enter until you get to the Linux prompt.)
If you know your FAT32 drive, your cable and your PC support DMA, turn it on with 
hdparm -d1 /dev/hda (this turns it on for your FAT32 disk connected to primary master)
hdparm -d1 /dev/hdc (this turns it on for the drive connected to secondary master (new 250Gb drive))

9. mount drive using following commands
mkdir /mnt/dos
mount /dev/hda1 /mnt/dos

10. Restore to new drive using following commands (should take 5-15 minutes)
mfsrestore -s 127 -zpi /mnt/dos/hd_tivo.bak /dev/hdc

11. Type reboot and when machine has rebooted and stopped at the first prompt on CD, turn off pc.

12. Remove the newly created hdtivo primary drive. Move jumper to "primary master w/slave present"

13. Install brand new 250Gb (or larger) drive in secondary master (hdc). Leave jumper on "cable-select"

14. Boot up ptv's lb48cd. (When prompted, press enter until you get to the Linux prompt.)

15. Prepare the drive to be used as secondary in the HDTivo using the following command (this should take less than 10 seconds)
BlessTiVo /dev/hdc

16. Type reboot and when machine has rebooted and stopped at the first prompt on CD, turn off pc.

17. Remove the newly created hdtivo secondary drive. Move jumper to "slave".

Follow hardware guide to install the two new drives in Tivo.

Now, enjoying my 63HD hours!


----------



## mikemav

I am sorry if this had been asked millions of times before, but I am having a brain fart and can't remember. If I add a second drive in the future, is there a way to easily keep my existing recordings? Does marrying a second drive overwrite the existing programs? Thanks


----------



## weaknees

No--adding a second drive does not affect your settings or recordings. They all remain.


----------



## aaronwt

Hmm. I might try this. It seems simple enough. I'm going to be reconfiguring one of my PCs so I'll have my harddrives removed. This will be the perfect time to try it. Now If I can just find old win98 installation CD.
Does it have to be win98? Can it be winXP as long as it is FAT32? Or does Windows even need to be on the drive? Can it just be a hardrive that is formatted with FAT32?



> _Originally posted by gr8reb8 _
> *I received my brand new HR10-250 yesterday. This is what I did to upgrade to two new 250Gb drives. The original 250Gb will be set on a shelf as a "virgin" backup drive. Overkill? Yes.
> 
> From this page
> Download this and burn as ISO to a CD
> Follow hardware guide to remove original drive from Tivo
> 
> 1. Install original hdtivo drive in secondary master (hdc). FAT32 win98 Hd is primary master, cdrom is primary slave.
> 
> 2. Configure BIOS to boot to CD. Boot up ptv's lb48 cd
> If you know your FAT32 drive, your cable and your PC support DMA, turn it on with
> hdparm -d1 /dev/hda (this turns it on for your FAT32 disk connected to primary master)
> hdparm -d1 /dev/hdc (this turns it on for the drive connected to secondary master (hdtivo drive))
> 
> 3. Mount drive using following commands
> mkdir /mnt/dos
> mount /dev/hda1 /mnt/dos
> 
> 4. Backup using this command (should take 5-20 minutes)
> mfsbackup -f 9999 -1so /mnt/dos/hd_tivo.bak /dev/hdc
> 
> 5. Type reboot and when machine has rebooted and stopped at the first prompt on CD, turn off pc.
> 
> 6. Remove original hdtivo drive from pc.
> 
> 7. Install brand new 250Gb drive in secondary master (hdc). Leave jumper on "cable-select"
> 
> 8. Boot up ptv's lb48 cd
> If you know your FAT32 drive, your cable and your PC support DMA, turn it on with
> hdparm -d1 /dev/hda (this turns it on for your FAT32 disk connected to primary master)
> hdparm -d1 /dev/hdc (this turns it on for the drive connected to secondary master (new 250Gb drive))
> 
> 9. mount drive using following commands
> mkdir /mnt/dos
> mount /dev/hda1 /mnt/dos
> 
> 10. Restore to new drive using following commands (should take 5-15 minutes)
> mfsrestore -s 127 -zpi /mnt/dos/hd_tivo.bak /dev/hdc
> 
> 11. Type reboot and when machine has rebooted and stopped at the first prompt on CD, turn off pc.
> 
> 12. Remove the newly created hdtivo primary drive. Move jumper to "primary master w/slave present"
> 
> 13. Install brand new 250Gb (or larger) drive in secondary master (hdc). Leave jumper on "cable-select"
> 
> 14. Boot up ptv's lb48cd
> 
> 15. Prepare the drive to be used as secondary in the HDTivo using the following command (this should take less than 10 seconds)
> BlessTiVo /dev/hdc
> 
> 16. Type reboot and when machine has rebooted and stopped at the first prompt on CD, turn off pc.
> 
> 17. Remove the newly created hdtivo secondary drive. Move jumper to "slave".
> 
> Follow hardware guide to install the two new drives in Tivo.
> 
> Now, enjoying my 63HD hours! *


----------



## JohnTivo

> _Originally posted by aaronwt _
> *Hmm. I might try this. It seems simple enough. I'm going to be reconfiguring one of my PCs so I'll have my harddrives removed. This will be the perfect time to try it. Now If I can just find old win98 installation CD.
> Does it have to be win98? Can it be winXP as long as it is FAT32? Or does Windows even need to be on the drive? Can it just be a hardrive that is formatted with FAT32? *


No need to have windows on the drive at all... the Boot CD just needs to be able to mount the hard drive where the backup file is going to be stored. A FAT32 drive is needed, or knowledge of the Linux file-system and an appropriate linux partition. For most people, a FAT32 hard drive is easier.

Also note, DO NOT boot into Windows XP or 2000 w/ a tivo hard disk connected to your system.


----------



## LarryInAz

> _Originally posted by dswallow _
> *I don't know if anyone has ever received their repaired unit back; it's almost always just going to get swapped out with a different unit, not repaired.
> 
> And when that happens, your recordings will not be playable on the replacement DVR since the encryption hardware key is different on every unit. The most you'll have saved are your season pass, wishlist, and thumbs up/down data, plus whatever remains of the 28-day rule list, and your general configuration. All the recordings will be listed; none will be playable. You'll just have to delete them all. *


Doug - just wanting to clarify what you're saying about the potential loss of programs. Just suppose D* sent me a replacement unit under my $7.99 service agreement. If I swap hard drives the programs that are stored on the original drive would not be watchable?

An inquiring mind...


----------



## dswallow

> _Originally posted by LarryInAz _
> *Doug - just wanting to clarify what you're saying about the potential loss of programs. Just suppose D* sent me a replacement unit under my $7.99 service agreement. If I swap hard drives the programs that are stored on the original drive would not be watchable?
> 
> An inquiring mind... *


Programs on a hard drive from one unit will be unwatchable if the hard drive is moved to a different unit.


----------



## aaronwt

Using this method, can the second drive, using bless TiVo, be added anytime or do both drives need to be installed at the same time?



> _Originally posted by gr8reb8 _
> *I received my brand new HR10-250 yesterday. This is what I did to upgrade to two new 250Gb drives. The original 250Gb will be set on a shelf as a "virgin" backup drive. Overkill? Yes.
> 
> From this page
> Download this and burn as ISO to a CD
> Follow hardware guide to remove original drive from Tivo
> 
> 1. Install original hdtivo drive in secondary master (hdc). FAT32 win98 Hd is primary master, cdrom is primary slave.
> 
> 2. Configure BIOS to boot to CD. Boot up ptv's lb48 cd
> If you know your FAT32 drive, your cable and your PC support DMA, turn it on with
> hdparm -d1 /dev/hda (this turns it on for your FAT32 disk connected to primary master)
> hdparm -d1 /dev/hdc (this turns it on for the drive connected to secondary master (hdtivo drive))
> 
> 3. Mount drive using following commands
> mkdir /mnt/dos
> mount /dev/hda1 /mnt/dos
> 
> 4. Backup using this command (should take 5-20 minutes)
> mfsbackup -f 9999 -1so /mnt/dos/hd_tivo.bak /dev/hdc
> 
> 5. Type reboot and when machine has rebooted and stopped at the first prompt on CD, turn off pc.
> 
> 6. Remove original hdtivo drive from pc.
> 
> 7. Install brand new 250Gb drive in secondary master (hdc). Leave jumper on "cable-select"
> 
> 8. Boot up ptv's lb48 cd
> If you know your FAT32 drive, your cable and your PC support DMA, turn it on with
> hdparm -d1 /dev/hda (this turns it on for your FAT32 disk connected to primary master)
> hdparm -d1 /dev/hdc (this turns it on for the drive connected to secondary master (new 250Gb drive))
> 
> 9. mount drive using following commands
> mkdir /mnt/dos
> mount /dev/hda1 /mnt/dos
> 
> 10. Restore to new drive using following commands (should take 5-15 minutes)
> mfsrestore -s 127 -zpi /mnt/dos/hd_tivo.bak /dev/hdc
> 
> 11. Type reboot and when machine has rebooted and stopped at the first prompt on CD, turn off pc.
> 
> 12. Remove the newly created hdtivo primary drive. Move jumper to "primary master w/slave present"
> 
> 13. Install brand new 250Gb (or larger) drive in secondary master (hdc). Leave jumper on "cable-select"
> 
> 14. Boot up ptv's lb48cd
> 
> 15. Prepare the drive to be used as secondary in the HDTivo using the following command (this should take less than 10 seconds)
> BlessTiVo /dev/hdc
> 
> 16. Type reboot and when machine has rebooted and stopped at the first prompt on CD, turn off pc.
> 
> 17. Remove the newly created hdtivo secondary drive. Move jumper to "slave".
> 
> Follow hardware guide to install the two new drives in Tivo.
> 
> Now, enjoying my 63HD hours! *


----------



## gr8reb8

> _Originally posted by aaronwt _
> *Using this method, can the second drive, using bless TiVo, be added anytime or do both drives need to be installed at the same time? *


I believe that you can add the second drive anytime. In my case, I added it before ever powering on the Tivo.


----------



## LarryInAz

> _Originally posted by gr8reb8 _
> *I believe that you can add the second drive anytime. In my case, I added it before ever powering on the Tivo. *


You are a brave soul


----------



## aaronwt

When I back up my HDTiVo drives, how much space will that take? I have about 20 hours of HD on one, how much space will the backup take and how much spcae will the backup take if I delete all the recordings?

THANKS


----------



## gr8reb8

> _Originally posted by aaronwt _
> *When I back up my HDTiVo drives, how much space will that take? I have about 20 hours of HD on one, how much space will the backup take and how much spcae will the backup take if I delete all the recordings?
> 
> THANKS *


My guess would be 2/3 of 250Gb. About 160Gb-170Gb. I do not think it will be reduced by deleting. I seem to remember seeing messages earlier in this thread that discussed the command to use to only back up the operating system.


----------



## Fletch

> _Originally posted by gr8reb8 _
> *I received my brand new HR10-250 yesterday. This is what I did to upgrade to two new 250Gb drives. The original 250Gb will be set on a shelf as a "virgin" backup drive. Overkill? Yes.
> [...]
> *


If you plan to just put the original on a shelf, is there a reason to bother making a backup to a file? Couldn't you just put both drives in the machine and do something like this:

mfsbackup -f 9999 -o - /dev/hdc | mfsrestore -s 127 -zpi - /dev/hda

This eliminates the need to have a FAT32 drive lying around.


----------



## JohnTivo

> _Originally posted by aaronwt _
> *When I back up my HDTiVo drives, how much space will that take? I have about 20 hours of HD on one, how much space will the backup take and how much spcae will the backup take if I delete all the recordings?
> 
> THANKS *


If you delete the recordings, the backup can be very small. I forget which compression setting I used, but my backup came out to be about 140 megs.

Also, there is a command in the mfsbackup that allows you to backup just the necessary info and skip the recordings. So you really don't need to delete them at all...


----------



## seanmcgpa

I'm having the hardest time getting the cover back on properly... any tips?


----------



## k2ue

> _Originally posted by seanmcgpa _
> *I'm having the hardest time getting the cover back on properly... any tips? *


You want to drop the cover straight down while it is about 1/2 inch to the rear of its final position, then push it forward until it contacts the back of the front panel. Take a look at the inside of the cover and notice what tabs and projections will mate with structures on the chassis.


----------



## marcello696

Ok please excuse my ignorance but I just want to add a 2nd 300GB hard drive to my HDTivo. WHat is the easiest way to do this.


----------



## btwyx

> _Originally posted by marcello696 _
> *Ok please excuse my ignorance but I just want to add a 2nd 300GB hard drive to my HDTivo. WHat is the easiest way to do this. *


 Buy an upgrade from Weaknees or the other guys. (I've only done the Weaknees one.)


----------



## marcello696

Ok so I buy the bracket kit but when I get the 2nd HD what tools do I need to have it properly formatted to install it. I know this is an easy answer but I've been reading this thread and some of the lingo has me slightly confused.


----------



## btwyx

> _Originally posted by marcello696 _
> *Ok so I buy the bracket kit but when I get the 2nd HD what tools do I need to have it properly formatted to install it. I know this is an easy answer but I've been reading this thread and some of the lingo has me slightly confused. *


 If you buy the complete kit, including the drive, from one of the upgraders, you don't need to do anything. Its just a question of plugging everything together.

You did ask what the easiest way to do it was, that's it.


----------



## marcello696

lol that is true 

Let me change that by saying I want to purchase my own drive. So I guess just need the bracket and then whatever software to format the drive so I can install it.


----------



## HDLouco

> _Originally posted by marcello696 _
> *Ok so I buy the bracket kit but when I get the 2nd HD what tools do I need to have it properly formatted to install it. I know this is an easy answer but I've been reading this thread and some of the lingo has me slightly confused. *


Read Post 652 a couple of pages back! And let me know how it works. I also have problems with Linux syntax, but Post 652 gives me the courage to try it one day. Godd luck to you!


----------



## HDLouco

Actually, that post 652 was on the previous page 33. Sorry!


----------



## marcello696

SO for a secondary drive this is all I need to do then correct:

Boot up ptv's lb48cd

15. Prepare the drive to be used as secondary in the HDTivo using the following command (this should take less than 10 seconds)
BlessTiVo /dev/hdc

16. Type reboot and when machine has rebooted and stopped at the first prompt on CD, turn off pc.

17. Remove the newly created hdtivo secondary drive. Move jumper to "slave".

Follow hardware guide to install the two new drives in Tivo.


----------



## gr8reb8

Yes. The only devices you would need on your IDE cables when doing this would be the cdrom on primary slave(hdb) and the new empty drive on secondary master.
When installing this new drive in the HDTiVo, I would also move the jumper on the existing drive (the one already in the HD TiVo) to "primary w/slave present".


----------



## marcello696

thanks this will be an easy install then.


----------



## buckeye1010

> _Originally posted by btwyx _
> *If you buy the complete kit, including the drive, from one of the upgraders, you don't need to do anything. Its just a question of plugging everything together.
> 
> You did ask what the easiest way to do it was, that's it. *


Btwyx is absolutely correct. Get a Weaknees kit - it's the easiest way to go. If you want the cheapest way to go, then read some of the previous posts.


----------



## dropper

> _Originally posted by seanmcgpa _
> *I'm having the hardest time getting the cover back on properly... any tips? *


If you installed the 9th Tee bracket, the cover might be catching on the left side (facing the front of the unit). If this is the case, you just need to work around it a bit and it should then slide together.

Keith


----------



## tomr

Well, I finally upgraded my HDTivo. I added a 250 gig WD. Fry's has them for $160.00 plus a $30.00 rebate. I bought mine from CC about a week ago. for $200 + $50.00 rebate. I went back to CC today and they price matched Frys so I actually got it for $100 after rebate. 

I got the bracket from 9th Tee. Anyway, I followed the instructions here and I am pretty much a linux idiot but finally got yhe backup to work when a lightbulb went off and i remembered you have to mount the fat32 drive first! DUH! 

After that I backed up, did a restore put the new drive into the TIVO to see if the restore worked, it did. Took it back out and blessed it Now I have a lean mean 63 hour HD recording machine! Just having a valid backup makes me feel better. 

Runs at 41C soevery thing looks good now! Thanks for the tips!


----------



## aaronwt

How long is this partition check supposed to take? I just booted up with this iso image. I have a 250GB drive partitioned to 80GB FAT32 on the primary master and the CD rom on the primary slave.
I don't haVE THE HD-TiVo drive connected to the secondary master yet.
It booted from the CD but it has showed

Partition check:
hda: hd1 < hda5 >

for the last 5 minutes.
Is this normal?



> _Originally posted by gr8reb8 _
> *I received my brand new HR10-250 yesterday. This is what I did to upgrade to two new 250Gb drives. The original 250Gb will be set on a shelf as a "virgin" backup drive. Overkill? Yes.
> 
> From this page
> Download this and burn as ISO to a CD
> Follow hardware guide to remove original drive from Tivo
> 
> 1. Install original hdtivo drive in secondary master (hdc). FAT32 win98 Hd is primary master, cdrom is primary slave.
> 
> 2. Configure BIOS to boot to CD. Boot up ptv's lb48 cd
> If you know your FAT32 drive, your cable and your PC support DMA, turn it on with
> hdparm -d1 /dev/hda (this turns it on for your FAT32 disk connected to primary master)
> hdparm -d1 /dev/hdc (this turns it on for the drive connected to secondary master (hdtivo drive))
> 
> 3. Mount drive using following commands
> mkdir /mnt/dos
> mount /dev/hda1 /mnt/dos
> 
> 4. Backup using this command (should take 5-20 minutes)
> mfsbackup -f 9999 -1so /mnt/dos/hd_tivo.bak /dev/hdc
> 
> 5. Type reboot and when machine has rebooted and stopped at the first prompt on CD, turn off pc.
> 
> 6. Remove original hdtivo drive from pc.
> 
> 7. Install brand new 250Gb drive in secondary master (hdc). Leave jumper on "cable-select"
> 
> 8. Boot up ptv's lb48 cd
> If you know your FAT32 drive, your cable and your PC support DMA, turn it on with
> hdparm -d1 /dev/hda (this turns it on for your FAT32 disk connected to primary master)
> hdparm -d1 /dev/hdc (this turns it on for the drive connected to secondary master (new 250Gb drive))
> 
> 9. mount drive using following commands
> mkdir /mnt/dos
> mount /dev/hda1 /mnt/dos
> 
> 10. Restore to new drive using following commands (should take 5-15 minutes)
> mfsrestore -s 127 -zpi /mnt/dos/hd_tivo.bak /dev/hdc
> 
> 11. Type reboot and when machine has rebooted and stopped at the first prompt on CD, turn off pc.
> 
> 12. Remove the newly created hdtivo primary drive. Move jumper to "primary master w/slave present"
> 
> 13. Install brand new 250Gb (or larger) drive in secondary master (hdc). Leave jumper on "cable-select"
> 
> 14. Boot up ptv's lb48cd
> 
> 15. Prepare the drive to be used as secondary in the HDTivo using the following command (this should take less than 10 seconds)
> BlessTiVo /dev/hdc
> 
> 16. Type reboot and when machine has rebooted and stopped at the first prompt on CD, turn off pc.
> 
> 17. Remove the newly created hdtivo secondary drive. Move jumper to "slave".
> 
> Follow hardware guide to install the two new drives in Tivo.
> 
> Now, enjoying my 63HD hours! *


----------



## aaronwt

I finally got it to boot correctly but when I try to mount the drive using the commands listed above it says :


dev/hda1: Success
Mount: you must specify the filesystem type

Then when I try to backup it says backup failed.

So what am I doing wrong??


----------



## gr8reb8

If you have multiple partitions on the drive connected to primary master, you will most likely have to specify which partition.

mkdir /mnt/dos (Press enter after this command)

mount /dev/hda1 /mnt/dos (The 1 after hda is referring to partition 1 on this drive. So if partition 1 on this 250Gb drive is NTFS and you created the 80Gb partition as partition 2, the command would be mount /dev/hda2 /mnt/dos)


And I repeat, when I did this, I HAD to use the mkdir command listed above prior to the mount command before this would work.


----------



## aaronwt

> _Originally posted by gr8reb8 _
> *If you have multiple partitions on the drive connected to primary master, you will most likely have to specify which partition.
> 
> mkdir /mnt/dos (Press enter after this command)
> 
> mount /dev/hda1 /mnt/dos (The 1 after hda is referring to partition 1 on this drive. So if partition 1 on this 250Gb drive is NTFS and you created the 80Gb partition as partition 2, the command would be mount /dev/hda2 /mnt/dos)
> 
> And I repeat, when I did this, I HAD to use the mkdir command listed above prior to the mount command before this would work. *


Yes I did this. I also had only one partition on the drive. It's a 250GB drive and I made one 80GB FAT32 partition at the beginning of the drive.
After I typed those commands is when the screen showed

dev/hda1: Success
Mount: you must specify the filesystem type

I made the partition a logical partition. Does it need to be a primary partitiion?


----------



## gr8reb8

It might be simpler to make it a primary partition. The other option is to search through the threads and look for possible command line options. Good grief, Linux sure has a few..... I have seen some messages mention VFat as an option. I like to keep things simple. Primary partition.


----------



## aaronwt

I will try it again tonight. Thanks


----------



## gsmith66

1) Buy HR10-250 from Circuit City website during a lucky window
2) Order up two 300G drives from Weaknees
3) Open boxes
4) Crack the case on the HR10-250, don't even bother plugging it in first.
5) Remove original drive, put in a safe place in case you blow everything up and have to send unit back because it was "DOA"
6) Make poor mans brackets for drives, I stacked them on on top of each other with as much space as I could between the drives and still be able to place the cover on. Runs cool.
7) Plug in and boot it up
8) Sit back and be amazed with HDTV, 77 Hours of HD or 550+ of SD.
9) Thank you Weaknees


----------



## Rew452

I am getting my HR 10-250 tomorrow!!!! and need to know if it is better backup drive before activating or after? Or does it matter; when that is?

I plan on adding a 200gb Maxtor but not until it has time to burn-in and get checked out.

Any good advice on this?

Rew


----------



## pbolya

> _Originally posted by Rew452 _
> *I am getting my HR 10-250 tomorrow!!!! and need to know if it is better backup drive before activating or after? Or does it matter; when that is?
> 
> I plan on adding a 200gb Maxtor but not until it has time to burn-in and get checked out.
> 
> Any good advice on this?
> 
> Rew *


 If you activate it and update your settings maybe even add some season passes (they are still playing reruns for most of the shows) then these will be backed up too and you don't have to set it up from scratch if you need to restore. Also you only have to take it apart once when you are ready to do the upgrade. If it fails within the first month or so you would return it anyway for a replacement so the backup wouldn't do you any good anyway. If it fails after the upgrade than at least you have all your settings already on the backup so you do not have to go through the initial setup again.


----------



## aaronwt

This is annoying now. I'm having the exact same problems where it says 

dev/hda1: Success
Mount: you must specify the filesystem type

I made the 80GB partition the primary but the results are the same.


----------



## aaronwt

I guess I'll have to go back to my original plan and send the both drives to Weaknees. The only thing is I'll have to wait for the bracket since when they do both drives, they have to be insatlled together. I was hoping I would be able to copy my drive and install the new hard drive now. And when the bracket came, i would install the second drive. 
Any one have some ideas on how to solve my problem?


----------



## pbolya

> _Originally posted by aaronwt _
> *I guess I'll have to go back to my original plan and send the both drives to Weaknees. The only thing is I'll have to wait for the bracket since when they do both drives, they have to be insatlled together. I was hoping I would be able to copy my drive and install the new hard drive now. And when the bracket came, i would install the second drive.
> Any one have some ideas on how to solve my problem? *


 aaronwt,
flapbreaker had the same problem in post 513. Maybe he can help you.


----------



## aaronwt

I wish I saw that post earlier. thanks anyway.
I already put the WD drive back in the HD-TiVo. Maybe I'll try again next month.


----------



## Runch Machine

I upgraded my HD-Tivo successfully. I used the CD downloaded from PTV. I followed the Hinsdale instructions as, I have before when upgrading SD DirecTivos and then used BlessTiVo after testing the backup to bless the second drive. 

I bought two Maxtor 250 gig HDs at Best Buy, on sale for $160 each. I backup the original Western Digital drive and then restored onto one of the Maxtors. Then I installed the Maxtor and tested it for a few minutes. Then I used BlessTiVo to set up the second drive. I installed them into the HD-Tivo and it shows 63 hours of HD storage. I did this on Sunday. Wednesday my mounting kit came from 9thTee. I installed it according to their directions and the Tivo is closed up and running normally. Temperature after 3 hours is at 43 degrees, which is the same temp I got before adding the second drive. That is a pleasant surprice. The Tivo sits on the self under my Sony KDF70XBR950 so it has plenty of air circulation. It was interesting to me that while the Tivo was running with the top off, while I was waiting for the kit from 9th Tee, that the temp ran around 48 degrees. 

The only issue I ran into was the drive IDE cable. First I plugged the blue plug into the slave drive, the center plug into the mother board and the end plug into the original drive. The Tivo would not boot up. It stayed at the first powering up screen. This happened even though I had the drives properly jumpered as master and slave. When I plugged the blue plug into the mother board and the other plugs into the disk drives, the Tivo came up normally. I was able to fold the drive cable so that it takes up very little room. I used the drive cable the came with one of the Maxtor drives. 

I liked the kit from 9th tee. It was easy to install and there is no additional noise from the HD-Tivo. The Maxtor drives have FDB motors. I did remove the plastic part that holds the two coax cables together that go into the digital over the air tuners. It didn't seem to serve any purpose and it was somewhat in the way of the new bracket.


----------



## weaknees

> _Originally posted by Runch Machine _
> *The only issue I ran into was the drive IDE cable. First I plugged the blue plug into the slave drive, the center plug into the mother board and the end plug into the original drive. The Tivo would not boot up. It stayed at the first powering up screen. This happened even though I had the drives properly jumpered as master and slave. When I plugged the blue plug into the mother board and the other plugs into the disk drives, the Tivo came up normally. I was able to fold the drive cable so that it takes up very little room. I used the drive cable the came with one of the Maxtor drives. *


Right - you can use the cables a few different ways, but not with the motherboard in the middle of the cable. The expected way is to do blue to motherboard, gray to slave, and black to master. You can do a few different combinations beyond that, but only with the drives jumpered as master and slave - the way I just mentioned is the only way that will work with cable select.

Michael


----------



## robroy90

Just wanted to remind everyone most of the "Good Deals" you are getting on drives from local retailers generally only have a one year warranty. 

Unless the "deal" is just incredible, and I feel like rolling the dice with the rebates, I just get my drives from a place like newegg.com - most of their drives are OEM and have a 3 year warranty, well worth the extra $10-15 in my book.

Hope that helps. I am waiting to see if my HDMI is going to die on mine before upgrading.

Rob


----------



## stuartcs

Thanks for all of the useful information.

I learned the "read the entire thread first" lesson the hard way and it's worth reiterating what was the point for me.

I have a Compaq Deskpro P3-866 that I have used to upgrade and hack my SD-DTiVo. Throughout that process I had both drives (FAT32 and TIVO) connected to the primary controller cable. I modified the MFSTools and other commands appropriately and everything worked. 

When it came to backing up and upgrading my HD10-250. I tried the same approach (both drives on the primary IDE controller). Although the PC BIOS reported the WD 250 Gb drive size as 137 Gb, the MFSTools boot CD reported the correct size. But I too got stuck at the "scanning drive" point and after about 6 hours of trial and failure, including an unsuccessful new drive controller install, I nearly gave up. Then I went back to this thread and found the posts about having the drives on separate IDE controllers. Lesson learned.

Thanks again.


----------



## aaronwt

I wish mine would have turned out OK!.
Does it matter if I use a VIA chipset or INTEL?
It would see my drives and everything, but it kept saying something about the filesystem. I might have to put together a system, just so I can do this.
Again, does it matter about being a VIA or INTEL chipsset.


----------



## pbolya

> _Originally posted by robroy90 _
> *Just wanted to remind everyone most of the "Good Deals" you are getting on drives from local retailers generally only have a one year warranty.
> 
> Unless the "deal" is just incredible, and I feel like rolling the dice with the rebates, I just get my drives from a place like newegg.com - most of their drives are OEM and have a 3 year warranty, well worth the extra $10-15 in my book.
> 
> Hope that helps. I am waiting to see if my HDMI is going to die on mine before upgrading.
> 
> Rob *


 robroy90,
I am not a cheep person. If I would I would not have a 42" Sony Plasma with 7.1 surround and HDTiVo. But if I have to choose between buying the same reputable drive for $129 with 1 year warranty and $195 with 3 years warranty I'll take the 1 year in a heartbeat. I have bought over 1TB worth of hard disks over the last 2 years (7 WD's and 1 Maxtor) all with 1 year warranty and had no problem with any of them. But even in the very unlikely event that something goes wrong after the first year you already saved $71 ! chances are that a year or two from now that is all it will take to buy a brand new one! So I do not consider it a risk at all. In fact I saved over $500 on the 8 drives. That alone would buy me 4 x 250MB = 1TB today! You have to look for good prices. That is your number 1 warranty. You may get a 3 year warranty with newegg.com but with the incredible deals and the falling prices the money saved on deals will warrant your drive forever.

And by the way you are most likely to experience problems in the first couple of month after you installed the drive. It is much less likely to have a problem on the 2nd and 3rd years.


----------



## aaronwt

I currently have over 5TB of storage in use in my PCs, all Maxtor. And another terabyte of Maxtor waiting to be put in my HD-TiVos. I've only had one problem with one Maxtor drive(replaced under the 1 year warr)out of over 40 i've used these last 6 years.


----------



## robroy90

Pbolya,

I didn't mean to imply anyone (yourself included) was "cheap".

What I was trying to point out, and stand behind, is often times the price difference you referenced between a retail (1 year warranty, typically) and OEM (3 year warranty, typically) is generally FAR LESS than $70 or so.

In fact:

WD 250GB Hard Drive @ compusa.com with 1 year warranty: $199

WD 250GB Hard Drive @ newegg.com with 3 year warranty: $174.00

In this particular case, the newegg drive is cheaper, with free shipping and no sales tax. Even if one was to find a really good retail deal with a rebate you will wait weeks for, my point is that even at a $25-30 premium for the OEM drive, I would still pay it to get the 3 year warranty.

I have already been burned by the 1 year warranty, and was faced with spending the savings I thought I had retained all over again.

It's a sad state of affairs that the drive manufacturers play this game, but I have learned how to play it effectively now.

Good luck to you, I hope you fair better than I did. I was merely trying to point out my experiences and save others from the hassles I experienced.

Rob


----------



## Richard Chalk

Today CompUSA has store-branded Maxtor 250 G for $129, no rebates, just an in-store discount.

You have to watch for the deals!!!


----------



## Rew452

Thanks!
I took advantage of it.

Rew


----------



## aaronwt

Hopefully they'll have some left tomorrow evening. I need to get one more so i will have four of them.


----------



## RC3105

there's a thread on the "other forum" about problems using maxtor drives in tivos

in a nutshell - maxtor will void your warrenty if you use 'em in a pvr

$129 is an expensive paperweight...


----------



## litzdog911

> _Originally posted by RC3105 _
> *there's a thread on the "other forum" about problems using maxtor drives in tivos
> 
> in a nutshell - maxtor will void your warrenty if you use 'em in a pvr
> 
> $129 is an expensive paperweight... *


Maxtor honored the warranty on a 120GB drive that I had used the first time I upgraded by Sony SAT-T60. It failed the PowerMax diagnostics and they replaced it within 3 days, all via their Web site.


----------



## LarryInAz

> _Originally posted by RC3105 _
> *there's a thread on the "other forum" about problems using maxtor drives in tivos
> 
> in a nutshell - maxtor will void your warrenty if you use 'em in a pvr
> 
> $129 is an expensive paperweight... *


A link to this thread would be appreciated...


----------



## mercurial

> _Originally posted by RC3105 _
> *there's a thread on the "other forum" about problems using maxtor drives in tivos
> 
> in a nutshell - maxtor will void your warrenty if you use 'em in a pvr
> 
> $129 is an expensive paperweight... *


That seems to be a slippery slope for them from a consumer confidence and trust perspective. And what constitutes a PVR? Is it just special purpose boxes (TiVos, Replays, etc.) or does an HTPC with a video capture card count? How about a "normal" PC that has video capture capabilities that are used occasionally to archive a DVD of a show and/or is used for editing home movies?


----------



## aaronwt

How would they know you used it in a PVR? Is that listed in the warranty?


----------



## pbolya

> _Originally posted by robroy90 _
> *I didn't mean to imply anyone (yourself included) was "cheap".
> *


I know you did not. I was just saying that to make a point.


> *
> What I was trying to point out, and stand behind, is often times the price difference you referenced between a retail (1 year warranty, typically) and OEM (3 year warranty, typically) is generally FAR LESS than $70 or so.
> *


If you wake up one day and you just have to have a disk in the next couple of hours you might not find a deal that fast. But when I needed a disk I always found one $70 cheaper within 2 to 3 weeks and I only look at 2 stores: Fry's and Comp USA. That is well worth the wait. If I look at the last 2 month there where hardly any days when there wasn't at least a $159 deal on a 250GB but most of the time the $129 was also available. I usually buy disks in bulk at Christmas where the deals are just in sane. And even though I can not wait for that long to upgrade my HDTivo I already have a Maxtor ready for $129. I am hoping I can get a couple of 300GB for $200 a piece or a 400GB for $300 by September when I am forced to upgrade.

I know I am a gambler but with these insane deals becoming so standard it seems that the gamble is to buy the extended warranty these days. Again I am up over $500 in 2 years and I can replace the same total GB once and I will still break even. This way I virtually have life time warranty which is better than 3 years in my book. Not to mention that I can use the money in the meantime.

This is what I always did. I usually by Sony product 80% of the time and never bought an extended warranty in my life. Since I have not paid a penny on out of warranty repairs the last 10 years the savings probably totaled at least $2000 probably even more (I am a gadget freak and I just have to have everything). Now I can be confident that even if the sky is falling and most of my stuff goes south I still break even.

Let's be clear I am not telling anybody to not to by insurance especially on high cost equipments but this strategy is working for me and I could buy much more stuff because of it. What I am saying though is that with disk drives the exact same drive can be bought for much less money with very little or no risk at all. I am not the only one either aaronwt says he bought 6TB of disk space in the last couple of years and I am willing to bet that he bought most of them on special deals with savings similar than mine.


----------



## RC3105

> _Originally posted by LarryInAz _
> *A link to this thread would be appreciated... *


sorry, the management here has decided the other forum is evil or something. they even go so far as to censor links in pm's

a google search for "database, deal, tivo" should turn it up 

someone had a horrible experience with maxtor & was kind enough to post a warning - maxtor seems to have decided they can't afford to honor consumer warranties when drives are used in "extreme" conditions like servers or pvr's. the poor guy had to deal with the legal dept for simple rma


----------



## aaronwt

That person eventually got both his drives replaced by Maxtor. Bottom line, don't tell them you used it in a TiVo. They will honor the warranty without any problems. I still haven't seen these problems with the Maxtors. I'm using over 2 dozen Maxtor drives currently. They are all fine. I have 4 ready to go into my two HDTiVos. I just picked up the 4th one from Compusa last night for $130.


----------



## JohnTivo

> _Originally posted by aaronwt _
> *That person eventually got both his drives replaced by Maxtor. Bottom line, don't tell them you used it in a TiVo.*


Exactly! It shouldn't matter where the drives are being used... What if you built a computer as a DVR? Are they going to tell you the warranty does not apply then?


----------



## tivoupgrade

Why not just consider using a different brand of hard drive until Maxtor gets their problems sorted out? 

I would not be so eager to give them our business/money if we had to lie, or misrepresent the truth, to get warranty support.


----------



## jayerndl

It's odd that Maxtor would claim that a DVR environment is too demanding for their drives. Both of my SD Directivos came with Maxtor drives. Unless their written warranty specifically states thet DVR use is not covered, I doubt they can really enforce this. I do agree with tivoupgrade that people should vote with their wallet and buy another brand if Maxtor actually starts doing this as a standard practice.

Jay


----------



## jerrymc

Rather than clutter this thread with discussion of the Maxtor warranty, you guys should really search the other forum for the thread in question and read it. All the points you're making have already been thoroughly dissected there. Bottom line was the guy who posted got a CSR moron who thought he knew it all and it soon became a personal p*ssing match.

It's an aberration, guys. Don't sweat it.

-Jerry


----------



## pbolya

I do not think you can find a single manufacture who does not have a story like that. In my view this has blown out of proportion. CSR's are CSR's. Just look at D*. How many threads tell horror stories about dealing with D* CSR's. This is a problem with the industry not with Maxtor. Maxtor and WD are the most reputable HD manufacturars. I would like to see Maxtor not honoring my warranty for any reason! The best way to deal with CSR's like that is hang up and dial again. 99% of the time you get a different CSR who is willing to work with you or has better knowledge (or worth whichever you looking for) about there properer procedures. Most importantly never get into a pissing contest with a CSR! You can only lose (even if you win he/she will take years of your life). I use to buy WD's but that is only because they got the best price when I was looking. I bought a Maxtor 250 for $129 a month ago because at that time they where the ones with the better deal and I do not lose any sleep over it.


----------



## such

Well, I'm a Tivo rookie, just got my Hd-Tivo last week. Have my Weaknees bracket on order & I'm shopping for a drive. Folks here have discussed 250Gb, 300Gb & 400Gb ATA and SATA drives. My question is this:

What's the minimum spec on a HD for the HD-Tivo, will a 5400rpm work, do you need to buy a quickview version, will an ATA133 be OK?

Also, where can I find BlessTivo?

Sorry if all these have been answered somewhere else.


----------



## tivoupgrade

> _Originally posted by such _
> *Well, I'm a Tivo rookie, just got my Hd-Tivo last week. Have my Weaknees bracket on order & I'm shopping for a drive. Folks here have discussed 250Gb, 300Gb & 400Gb ATA and SATA drives. My question is this:
> 
> What's the minimum spec on a HD for the HD-Tivo, will a 5400rpm work, do you need to buy a quickview version, will an ATA133 be OK?
> 
> Also, where can I find BlessTivo?
> 
> Sorry if all these have been answered somewhere else. *


You can use any ATA133 drive; Maxtor is the popular choice right now. Western Digital will work fine, too. It doesn't matter whether its a 5400 RPM, or a 7200 RPM drive; it doesn't matter whether its a QuickView drive or not. Plenty of religious discussions on what is superior about one or the other, but the reality is that it truly doesn't matter, and individual opinions and experiences are no more than that.

As for BlessTiVo, you can use our LBA48 CD which you can download from our site for free.

Lou


----------



## weaknees

I would caution that the above statement is, again, an opinion, just as the poster dismisses all other discussions as opinions. TiVo's opinion is that PVR-specific drives do matter.

By the way SATA drives don't work - they must be old-fashioned ATA.

Michael


----------



## such

That helps, thanks.

I have 1Tb of Maxtor drives in my server/HiPix raid array & have been happy with them. Surprised 5400rpm drives will work, but will use them for cost reasons unless I find a similarly price 7200rpm.


----------



## tivoupgrade

> _Originally posted by weaknees _
> *I would caution that the above statement is, again, an opinion, just as the poster dismisses all other discussions as opinions. TiVo's opinion is that PVR-specific drives do matter.
> 
> By the way SATA drives don't work - they must be old-fashioned ATA.
> 
> Michael *


I'll ignore that flame, as well as the sweeping generalization that just followed it.

Those who know PTVupgrade's history will also know that it is a well-founded opinion that is backed up by four years of good practices.


----------



## dswallow

> _Originally posted by tivoupgrade _
> *I'll ignore that flame, as well as the sweeping generalization that just followed it.
> 
> Those who know PTVupgrade's history will also know that it is a well-founded opinion that is backed up by four years of good practices. *


It's not impossible to consider that as the software exists right now a 5400RPM drive is quite sufficient, as in practice people are using them and they work.

But perhaps with some functionality TiVo has implemented but DirecTV has not approved or contracted for release (HMO, for instance), more capable drives are required to maintain a necessary margin of error.

Who knows. It's conjecture. All we really know is that 5400RPM drives work right now just fine.


----------



## DCIFRTHS

> _Originally posted by dswallow _
> *It's not impossible to consider that as the software exists right now a 5400RPM drive is quite sufficient, as in practice people are using them and they work.
> 
> But perhaps with some functionality TiVo has implemented but DirecTV has not approved or contracted for release (HMO, for instance), more capable drives are required to maintain a necessary margin of error.
> 
> Who knows. It's conjecture. All we really know is that 5400RPM drives work right now just fine. *


What do the DirecTiVo's ship with? 5400 or 7200 RPM drives?


----------



## tivoupgrade

> _Originally posted by DCIFRTHS _
> *What do the DirecTiVo's ship with? 5400 or 7200 RPM drives? *


Both. Series1 DirecTiVo units came with 5400 RPM drives, as do most Series2 DirecTiVo units. The HR10-250 comes with a 7200RPM drive.


----------



## dwynne

> _Originally posted by weaknees _
> *Well, we've started taking pre-orders for the bracket because we're fairly certain we'll see our air shipment sometime in early July - possibly even a bit sooner. We're not promising a date, but anyone who has bought our "early adopter" upgrade kit is definitely getting one in the first shipment.
> 
> Michael *


Any news on when these will start shipping?

Dennis


----------



## weaknees

We're fairly sure that we'll have them in late next week at this point. We increased our initial order so that we will have enough to cover all current orders, plus our projected orders until more arrive by sea, so if you order now, you should have no problem getting one from next week's shipment.

Michael


----------



## dwynne

I am already in the queue 

I am planning on taking out the OEM drive and saving it. I have found a deal on 1 replacement drive and I am watching for a deal on a 2nd. So if I had the bracket in my hand right now I would not use it (yet) - but you never know when the next deal will fall into your lap.

Thanks,
Dennis


----------



## Mark Lopez

Sorry if I missed it somewhere in this thread, but does anyone know for sure if you can use the same backup in a different unit (doing a clear and delete like previous models)?


----------



## weaknees

> _Originally posted by Mark Lopez _
> *Sorry if I missed it somewhere in this thread, but does anyone know for sure if you can use the same backup in a different unit (doing a clear and delete like previous models)? *


Yes, you definitely can.

Michael


----------



## slocko

any idea of when the upgrade bracket will ship????? anxiously waiting.


----------



## weaknees

> _Originally posted by slocko _
> *any idea of when the upgrade bracket will ship????? anxiously waiting. *


Hopefully the bracket will be here and shipping late next week.

Michael


----------



## aaronwt

Any word on images with logos? If I get my blank drives configured at Weaknees, I would like to make sure that I get the logos like both my HD-TiVos have.


----------



## weaknees

That's actually a very good question since we've been working on that a bit. I think we've got an idea as to what's going on with the logos, and that is that a Clear and Delete Everything may remove them.

Has anyone out there gotten logos AFTER a Clear and Delete Everything?

Michael


----------



## Gomer Pyle

> _Originally posted by weaknees _
> *I think we've got an idea as to what's going on with the logos, and that is that a Clear and Delete Everything may remove them.
> 
> Has anyone out there gotten logos AFTER a Clear and Delete Everything?
> 
> Michael *


I assume the "Contact" question I sent you via your website earlier this morning puts me in the "we've" group? I did send you the link to the post that states a C&D will delete logos, and they won't come back until a software upgrade comes through. Since the HD units don't have an upgrade available, they won't get logos back until one comes out. That does NOT explain why Virgin units don't have logo's though...

Here is the essence of my note to Weaknees:

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=184047


----------



## weaknees

Caught in the spam filter - sorry. But that's basically our conclusion also - any time an image gets a C&D, the logos are gone, whether it goes to the same machine or a different one.

And, yes, our drives are set at C&D before shipping.

Michael


----------



## dwynne

If I take out my HDTivo OEM drive and replace it with 2 new drives (on my Twin Breeze bracket) and do the normal backup/restore/marry procedures then I should still have logos - right?

Thanks!
Dennis


----------



## weaknees

Right - if you go from your own drives to the new drive.


----------



## tomr

> _Originally posted by weaknees _
> *I would caution that the above statement is, again, an opinion, just as the poster dismisses all other discussions as opinions. TiVo's opinion is that PVR-specific drives do matter.
> 
> By the way SATA drives don't work - they must be old-fashioned ATA.
> 
> Michael *


I find this statement VERY misleading since the HR10-250 comes with a non-specific HD such as the WesternDigital 2meg Cache version, or did those $1300 HR10-250's you were selling come with PVR specific HD's?


----------



## weaknees

Those HDs were definitely WD's line of drives for PVRs. They have a "55" in the part number. The full number is WD2500LB-55EDA0. You won't find "55" drives available for retail sale, and if you talk to a WD sales rep (who came to our office for this specific issue) they will tell you that these drives were specifically made for PVRs because they have different characteristics.

Michael


----------



## gr8reb8

> _Originally posted by weaknees _
> *Those HDs were definitely WD's line of drives for PVRs. They have a "55" in the part number. The full number is WD2500LB-55EDA0. You won't find "55" drives available for retail sale, and if you talk to a WD sales rep (who came to our office for this specific issue) they will tell you that these drives were specifically made for PVRs because they have different characteristics.
> 
> Michael *


Did you ask what specific characteristics are different?
Is it like Migraine Excedrin. What is the difference between the standard "extra strength Excedrin" and "Migraine Excedrin"?
The instructions are different, the UPC is different, the price is different, the packaging is different, but, the stuff is exactly the same.


----------



## weaknees

Yes, we did. Same features that Maxtor adds to the QuickView drives, and that WD added to the Performer line, when they called them that. Three key differences: quieter, cooler, different error recovery.

Michael


----------



## aaronwt

But the regular drives will still work fine instead won't they? I've already bought my 4 drives(Maxtor 250GB 7200rpm), I just need to purchase your drive service and send them to you(2 at a time) so you can prepare them for the HD-TiVo. Then once the bracket gets shipped I'll be ready ton do the install.


----------



## weaknees

They should probably work generally without problems - albeit at higher temperatures. The fan on the bracket should mitigate that a bit.

Our view is just that with a unit that costs $1k (and is basically irreplaceable at the moment) why take chances.

Michael


----------



## Mark Lopez

This is the same thing that I wanted to do (original drive tucked away). Thanks for posting the specific instuctions. It worked perfectly. Backup of the virgin drive took about 5 minutes and restore took about 10. The whole thing from popping the case to powering up with the new drive took about 30 minutes. 



> Originally posted by gr8reb8
> I received my brand new HR10-250 yesterday. This is what I did to upgrade to two new 250Gb drives. The original 250Gb will be set on a shelf as a "virgin" backup drive. Overkill? Yes.
> 
> From this page
> Download this and burn as ISO to a CD
> Follow hardware guide to remove original drive from Tivo
> 
> 1. Install original hdtivo drive in secondary master (hdc). FAT32 win98 Hd is primary master, cdrom is primary slave.
> 
> 2. Configure BIOS to boot to CD. Boot up ptv's lb48 cd
> If you know your FAT32 drive, your cable and your PC support DMA, turn it on with
> hdparm -d1 /dev/hda (this turns it on for your FAT32 disk connected to primary master)
> hdparm -d1 /dev/hdc (this turns it on for the drive connected to secondary master (hdtivo drive))
> 
> 3. Mount drive using following commands
> mkdir /mnt/dos
> mount /dev/hda1 /mnt/dos
> 
> 4. Backup using this command (should take 5-20 minutes)
> mfsbackup -f 9999 -1so /mnt/dos/hd_tivo.bak /dev/hdc
> 
> 5. Type reboot and when machine has rebooted and stopped at the first prompt on CD, turn off pc.
> 
> 6. Remove original hdtivo drive from pc.
> 
> 7. Install brand new 250Gb drive in secondary master (hdc). Leave jumper on "cable-select"
> 
> 8. Boot up ptv's lb48 cd
> If you know your FAT32 drive, your cable and your PC support DMA, turn it on with
> hdparm -d1 /dev/hda (this turns it on for your FAT32 disk connected to primary master)
> hdparm -d1 /dev/hdc (this turns it on for the drive connected to secondary master (new 250Gb drive))
> 
> 9. mount drive using following commands
> mkdir /mnt/dos
> mount /dev/hda1 /mnt/dos
> 
> 10. Restore to new drive using following commands (should take 5-15 minutes)
> mfsrestore -s 127 -zpi /mnt/dos/hd_tivo.bak /dev/hdc
> 
> 11. Type reboot and when machine has rebooted and stopped at the first prompt on CD, turn off pc.
> 
> 12. Remove the newly created hdtivo primary drive. Move jumper to "primary master w/slave present"
> 
> 13. Install brand new 250Gb (or larger) drive in secondary master (hdc). Leave jumper on "cable-select"
> 
> 14. Boot up ptv's lb48cd
> 
> 15. Prepare the drive to be used as secondary in the HDTivo using the following command (this should take less than 10 seconds)
> BlessTiVo /dev/hdc
> 
> 16. Type reboot and when machine has rebooted and stopped at the first prompt on CD, turn off pc.
> 
> 17. Remove the newly created hdtivo secondary drive. Move jumper to "slave".


----------



## tomr

> _Originally posted by weaknees _
> *Yes, we did. Same features that Maxtor adds to the QuickView drives, and that WD added to the Performer line, when they called them that. Three key differences: quieter, cooler, different error recovery.
> 
> Michael *


The "Performer Line" came out in '99 so I imagine any technology developed back then is incorporated in ALL their drives now or has been replaced with newer technology.


----------



## tomr

> _Originally posted by weaknees _
> *They should probably work generally without problems - albeit at higher temperatures. The fan on the bracket should mitigate that a bit.
> 
> Our view is just that with a unit that costs $1k (and is basically irreplaceable at the moment) why take chances.
> 
> Michael *


Added an WD2500JBRTL temp didn't change one degree. Still runs at 44C. No additional cooling. $159.00 @ CC in-store price plus $40 rebate.


----------



## weaknees

> _Originally posted by tomr _
> *The "Performer Line" came out in '99 so I imagine any technology developed back then is incorporated in ALL their drives now or has been replaced with newer technology. *


The point is that the Performer/55/QuickView lines aren't superior to desktop IDE drives in every way - but that they are specifically tailored to the PVR environment.

In a desktop environment, you need every single bit on the drive to be perfect. If one is bad, you need the drive to wait and retry, otherwise your Excel spreadsheet is toast. But on a PVR drive, do you care about one bit? Not if it's in the audio track of The Screensavers - you won't even notice. What you want is for the drive to move past it and NOT try to re-read it until it gets it right - otherwise you get stutters.

Next, you'd want a large cache on a desktop drive, but a cache is basically useless when you are pumping video through the drive right?

Nobody wants all of these "features" in one drive - you want the ones you need where you need them.

So WD likely (hopefully) hasn't put these features in all of their drives.

Michael


----------



## Runch Machine

I upgraded my HD-Tivo by using BlessTiVo and adding a 250 gig Maxtor Drive. I backup the HD-Tivo prior to activating it. I now have the matching Western Digital drive and I would like to install that as the B drive instead of the Maxtor. Can I just remove the Maxtor, Bless the WD and install it? If not, what should I do to accomplish this? I'd prefer not to go back to the backup.


----------



## weaknees

No - you need to do a full restore.

Restore the A drive with the "-zi" switch only, then bless the new B drive and add it.

Or you can DD the Maxtor to the WD if the WD is at least as large.

Michael


----------



## Runch Machine

I have Hinsdales instructions. Are you saying to do a backup with both drives connected as the instructions show using this comand: mfsbackup -f 9999 -6so /mnt/dos/tivo.bak /dev/hdc /dev/hdb ? It says that this creates a divorced single drive image. When I do the restore, I am worried about the swap space. Do I need to do anything about swap space or will it be the same? What is the difference between -bzpi and -zi?


----------



## weaknees

The "-bzpi" and the "-zi" are the same here for these purposes.

That backup file that this creates should be fine to restore to the two new drives. Or you can restore the backup image you made earlier.

Michael


----------



## flapbreaker

Michael, (aka weaknees)

Any sign of the twinbreeze brackets this week? Just wondering since I have one on order.


----------



## weaknees

They've been sighted off the port bow!


----------



## aaronwt

WooHoo! I got emails saying that both my orders for the TwinBreeze bracket has shipped! I guess it won't do me any good though until I get my drives back next week from being configured.


----------



## dr_mal

Me too! Woo hoo!


----------



## LarryInAz

> _Originally posted by dr_mal _
> *Me too! Woo hoo! *


Me three - YabaDabaDooo :up: :up: :up:


----------



## DeputyTIVO

> _Originally posted by LarryInAz _
> *Me three - YabaDabaDooo :up: :up: :up: *


My bracket is en route too (or four I guess!!)


----------



## mikemav

I'll enter and sign-in as a FedEx rabid tracker as well. Can't wait for that bracket. 

Now a quick question. I already have a mfsbackup of my hard drive. If I add the second drive and bless it when my bracket arrives, and then something bad happens, can I restore (without recordings, of course) from the backup I already have even though it was from my TiVo before I added the second drive? I'm hoping the backup would still be valid, and then even if worst case, both HD died, I would replace the A drive, mfsrestore from my previous backup, then add a second drive and bless it?


----------



## AbMagFab

Yes, although I would suggest you test a restore from your backup to be sure. For example, take your new drive, do a mfsrestore, put that in the primary slot (disconnect the current one), and boot up.

If you need to use it later, you'll need to mfsrestore to A, and probably re-BlessTivo B (although I'm not sure about the latter).


----------



## mikemav

> _Originally posted by AbMagFab _
> *Yes, although I would suggest you test a restore from your backup to be sure. For example, take your new drive, do a mfsrestore, put that in the primary slot (disconnect the current one), and boot up.
> 
> If you need to use it later, you'll need to mfsrestore to A, and probably re-BlessTivo B (although I'm not sure about the latter). *


Yeah, when I made the backup I restored it to my spare 250GB drive and tried it in the tivo, so I know it works. I burned that image on CD for safe keeping. When the bracket arrives, I will format that spare drive and bless it for use as my B drive.

BTW, I think the 400GB drives may be more available and hopefully cheaper in the near future. My contact at LaCie tells me they announced a 1.6TB version of their BiggerDisk external hard drive. The only way to get 1.6TB in that form factor is four 400GB drives. So hopefully this means they are starting to get closer to an everyday product.


----------



## LarryInAz

For those needing a large drive for upgrading Fry's has a Hitachi branded 250gb hard drive for *$79.99* after rebates. At this rate they'll be giving them away in the next year.


----------



## AbMagFab

Got a link for that drive? I can't find it on-line...


----------



## such

Though it's showing it at $109 for me after a $140 rebate.http://shop4.outpost.com/product/3983238


----------



## LarryInAz

> _Originally posted by AbMagFab _
> *Got a link for that drive? I can't find it on-line... *


The sales price is in the Friday 7/16 Fry's 8 page advertisement in the Phoenix newspaper. If it might help for price matching I'd be happy to post a scan of the ad later this morning. Alot of times I see this info on Slickdeals.net or Techbargains.com .


----------



## AbMagFab

> _Originally posted by LarryInAz _
> *The sales price is in the Friday 7/16 Fry's 8 page advertisement in the Phoenix newspaper. If it might help for price matching I'd be happy to post a scan of the ad later this morning. Alot of times I see this info on Slickdeals.net or Techbargains.com . *


I'd love to see a scan of it. Both for price match, and a bet with a friend of mine as to when the fir <$99 250's will show up.


----------



## LarryInAz

> _Originally posted by AbMagFab _
> *I'd love to see a scan of it. Both for price match, and a bet with a friend of mine as to when the fir <$99 250's will show up. *


Hope this helps...


----------



## AbMagFab

Link isn't working (and it's very long and strange looking).


----------



## mikemav

> _Originally posted by AbMagFab _
> *Link isn't working (and it's very long and strange looking). *


You guys should try ******* (not enough posts here to show links)
... for that kind of thing. Makes things much easier to refer people to.


----------



## dr_mal

It works just fine, unless the board administrators ban t i n y u r l. A bunch of asterisks do nobody any good 

(it's not a post count thing -- you only need 5 posts to show links... the problem is people were using t i n y u r l to bypass the ban on other, banned URLs)


----------



## dswallow

> _Originally posted by mikemav _
> *You guys should try www.*******.com for that kind of thing. Makes things much easier to refer people to. *


 www.tinyurl.com is a censored term here because such redirectors can be used to get to sites you're not supposed to mention here.


----------



## mikemav

> _Originally posted by dr_mal _
> *It works just fine, unless the board administrators ban t i n y u r l. A bunch of asterisks do nobody any good  *


yeah, I was just trying to edit my post. you would think 350+ posts at AVS forum would translate over here w/ same user name. Spammer I am not! Anyway, that's what I was trying to say. I love that little web utility.



> _Originally posted by dswallow _
> *www.tinyurl.com is a censored term here because such redirectors can be used to get to sites you're not supposed to mention here. *


Oh, that explains it even more. I mean, I know I only have 25 post here, but that now makes more sense.


----------



## LarryInAz

> _Originally posted by AbMagFab _
> *Link isn't working (and it's very long and strange looking). *


Sorry, worked fin on my end. However here is the *******'ized version of it. Hope this works for you.


----------



## AbMagFab

/sigh, still doesn't work.


I'll PM you with my e-mail address?


----------



## gr8reb8

Try this link.


----------



## LarryInAz

I'll try one more time. Hopefully this link works.


----------



## aaronwt

Are the Hitachi drives any good?


----------



## dswallow

> _Originally posted by aaronwt _
> *Are te Hitachi drives any good? *


Many people have cold feet with Hitachi drives (formerly IBM) because of some problems which occurred with controller chips used in a very large number of drives IBM made before selling the division to Hitachi.

Till that debacle, IBM drives were my personal favorite over other brands. Now, I still can't bring myself to allow Hitachi drives to be purchased for anything we build. My choice has little to do with whether Hitachi drives made now are any good; it's more a gut reaction to the pain I went through ebfore.


----------



## AustinJerry

I have received from PTVUpgrade what I think is the "improved, Version 2" bracket for my HR10-250. However, the parts don't match the picture of the parts in the installation instructions. Specifically, there are no "C-clips" as shown in the parts picture. I'm having trouble installing the bracket when the parts don't match the instructions. Are there upgraded instructions? I searched this formidable (but extremely useful) thread, but couldn't find others having the same problem.

Jerry


----------



## weaknees

I haven't seen any of these other than the pictures, but they have started an entire thread on the subject here:

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=182986

Hope the answers are there!

Michael


----------



## AustinJerry

Thanks for the link, Michael. However, in step 7 the picture shows a C-clip which is not included in my bracket kit. I have sent a message to PTVUpgrade tech support for clarification.

Jerry


----------



## Cheezmo

I just got my Weaknees twinbreeze installed (after running with the top off for a few weeks).

The installation was pretty smooth, complicated a bit by the fact that I had installed the A/B drives on the opposite IDE connectors previously and first tried to avoid disconnecting them. Doesn't work that way 

After all is done it is running about 40-42C which is 10C below what the single drive one was (and where my two drive's stacked with the cover on loosely was). So, I'm definitely happy about the cooler internal temperature.

By the way, I've been running one of the 250Gb Hitachi drives mentioned above as my master (I backed up and saved the original) along with the Weaknees 300Gb add on and haven't had any problems.


----------



## LarryInAz

> _Originally posted by Cheezmo _
> *I just got my Weaknees twinbreeze installed (after running with the top off for a few weeks).
> *


I'm jealous - I'm in Arizona and my Twinbreeze won't get here until Monday.
According to the tracking info it was sent out on the 15th and arrived in Phx Friday afternoon but too late for it to be delivered to me same day. :down:

Seriously though, I'm glad to hear the backet and your extra drive is working well for you. I've always been very happy with the Twinbreeze brackets in my standalone and then D* TiVo boxes.


----------



## dr_mal

Monday -- bah! Mine won't be here until Tuesday


----------



## LarryInAz

> _Originally posted by dr_mal _
> *Monday -- bah! Mine won't be here until Tuesday  *


Thanks Doc - I feel better now that you put it in perspective.


----------



## tivoupgrade

> _Originally posted by AustinJerry _
> *I have received from PTVupgrade what I think is the "improved, Version 2" bracket for my HR10-250. However, the parts don't match the picture of the parts in the installation instructions. Specifically, there are no "C-clips" as shown in the parts picture. I'm having trouble installing the bracket when the parts don't match the instructions. Are there upgraded instructions? I searched this formidable (but extremely useful) thread, but couldn't find others having the same problem.
> 
> Jerry *


Jerry,

It sounds like the hardware kit you received is from the first version of the brackets we've been shipping. There are a few more pieces in the older version of the mounting kit, however it is just as stable and secure and the new mounting kit, which does have less pieces and is a bit easier to install.

Here is a link to the instructions for your version of the bracket:

http://www.ptvupgrade.com/installation/pdf/hr10-250-add.pdf

Thanks,
Lou


----------



## pdoyle

Back on June 1, Michael (of WeekKnees Fame) said that they had reliably gotten dual 300s to work. Does anyone have any idea how? Did I miss it?Has Michael listed the utilites/steps involved? Michael - you there?

Thanks,
Pat


----------



## gem

I can verify that the dual 300 configuration is working. I had WeaKnees (great bunch of guys) install their new HR10-250 bracket with 2 new 300 Maxtor drives. Kept the original 250 as backup.
Results:

77 Hours HD / 514 Hours SD
Run quieter that original.
Runs cooler 4 to 5 degrees.

Thanks to Michael, Jeff and the crew and WeaKnees.


----------



## slocko

can anyone point me to a good deal on a 250-300 drive.

just got email that my bracket has shipped!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


----------



## Anubys

> _Originally posted by slocko _
> *can anyone point me to a good deal on a 250-300 drive.
> 
> just got email that my bracket has shipped!!!!!!!!!!!!!! *


I don't know if I can post link or not, so I won't.

Go to CompUSA and look for a 250GB, 7200RPM internal hard drive. It's not listed as a Maxtor, but it's a maxtor. It's ATA/133, which is perfect for HD-Tivo. it's $129.

I read in another forum of someone finding a Hitachi for $90, but some people are skeptical of its quality.


----------



## slocko

thxs!!!!!!!!!!!!!! will pick one up today.


----------



## JohnTivo

> _Originally posted by gem _
> *I can verify that the dual 300 configuration is working. I had WeaKnees (great bunch of guys) install their new HR10-250 bracket with 2 new 300 Maxtor drives. Kept the original 250 as backup.
> Results:
> 
> 77 Hours HD / 514 Hours SD
> Run quieter that original.
> Runs cooler 4 to 5 degrees.
> 
> Thanks to Michael, Jeff and the crew and WeaKnees. *


Does the normal procedure for adding two new 300 gig drives work? Or do they have to manipulate the partitions some how?


----------



## dstroot

When I go to Compusa the drive is 179 not 129?


----------



## aaronwt

They were on sale a 2 weeks ago at $129 in the store. The store I went to had a stack of Maxtor boxes instead of the Compusa labeled boxes. The same drive in either one.


----------



## weaknees

We use custom tools here to perform the dual 300 GB drive upgrades, but we'll outline some steps that should do the trick at home. We've tested this method only a bit, but it shares enough with our custom method that we're pretty certain it'll result in a stable upgrade.

The key is that mfstool won't work with partitions larger than 256 GB. So here's a D-I-Y method for making smaller partitions:

1 - Put the HR10-250 image on the 300 GB drive, without expansion. To do this, make a backup and restore the backup to the 300 GB drive under a newer Linux kernel (2.4.18 or newer). Make sure to use only "-zi" as the switch so that you don't expand the image to fill the drive:

mfstool -zi /tivo.bak /dev/hdX

2 - Bless the second 300 GB drive in "noswap" under an OLDER Linux Kernel - the standard boot CD is fine for this. This will create a 127 GB partition on the drive.

BlessTiVo /dev/hdY

3 - "Marry" the two drives by booting them in the HR10-250. You should be able to verify the extra hours in System Information (I don't have the exact number on me, but HD hours should be in the forties).

4 - Attach both drives back to the PC and boot in a NEWER kernel. Then run:

mfsadd -x /dev/hdX /dev/hdY

This will force partitions using the extra space on each drive - and neither drive will have more than (or even close to) 256 GB of space left to partition out.

5 - Put them back in the TiVo and verify the hours.

That should do it!

Michael


----------



## Anubys

> _Originally posted by dstroot _
> *When I go to Compusa the drive is 179 not 129? *


This sale has come and gone a couple of times. If you can wait, it sounds like a great deal...I have not been able to find a better deal. I didn't want to buy a generic but then someone on this forum said it was a Maxtor.

Sure enough, when I bought it, it was a Maxtor :up:

It was out of stock when I was ready to buy, so I saved it to my wish list and then bought it later. When I posted that it was available earlier, I could swear it was up there for $129. Maybe you just missed the window, maybe I just didn't pay enough attention.

I know it's far away and patience has never been a virtue of most people on this thread  but labor day will sure get you some great sales...

not to rub it in, but my twinbreeze will be at my house on Thursday  so I should double my recording hours for the weekend!


----------



## pdoyle

Michael,
Thanks for the reply! I have 2 questions though. In step 1 you mention using mfstool to copy the 250GB to the new 300GB drive. Is it OK to do this using "dd" instead? Yesterday, I booted using the big_disk iso and made a copy to my 300GB drive. I let it run all night. All I can say for sure is that it took more than 5 hours and less than 12! ;-) Anyway, if this method of making the copy is OK, I wil proceed to step to using an old iso. 

I still have an old Kazymyr cd that I used for my old DirecTiVo upgrade 2 years ago which is iso linux 1,62. I assume that this will be OK for step 2 - BlessTiVo. Correct?

Thanks again,
Pat


----------



## weaknees

pdoyle-

Yes - the 'dd' would work fine in this case.

Your CD should be OK - just boot in "noswap" and try it.

Michael


----------



## JohnTivo

Michael,

What if I'm using two 400 gig drives? Sounds like that procedure will not work as the second drive would have just over 256 gigs left.


----------



## weaknees

You are certainly close - and maybe under the magic number. A 300 GB drive formats to 279 GB, so a 400 GB drive might make it under 383 GB (127 + 256). That's the easiest thing to try. Otherwise you have to get fancy and maybe bless a 160 in the new kernel, then 'dd' that to a 400 and marry, then 'mfsadd' from there.

Michael


----------



## slocko

i bought one this afternoon from the website with store pickup for $129.00. I can't wait.



> _Originally posted by dstroot _
> *When I go to Compusa the drive is 179 not 129? *


----------



## pbolya

> _Originally posted by weaknees _
> *We use custom tools here to perform the dual 300 GB drive upgrades, but we'll outline some steps that should do the trick at home. We've tested this method only a bit, but it shares enough with our custom method that we're pretty certain it'll result in a stable upgrade.
> 
> The key is that mfstool won't work with partitions larger than 256 GB. So here's a D-I-Y method for making smaller partitions:
> 
> 1 - mfstool -zi /tivo.bak /dev/hdX
> 2 - BlessTiVo /dev/hdY
> 3 - "Marry" the two drives.
> 4 - mfsadd -x /dev/hdX /dev/hdY
> 
> This will force partitions using the extra space on each drive - and neither drive will have more than (or even close to) 256 GB of space left to partition out.
> 
> 5 - Put them back in the TiVo and verify the hours.
> 
> That should do it!
> 
> Michael *


 Weaknees,
so this procedure works with drives up to 383 GB. Would it work with the 400 GB's (just loose 34GB) ? Any other tricks we can do to make 2 x 400GB work ?

If there is no way to do the dual 400GB than there is no point in waiting for a better price/availability on those. I can upgrade to dual 250GB (already has a Maxtor 250GB ready to go and I just got your bracket - thanks). One thing is sure: 600GB will not be enough in the long run and the extra 14h I get vs. the 500GB will not make a huge difference. So I either upgrade to 2x400GB ($900) or even 2x500GB (when becames available) or I buy another HR10-250 and put another 250GB in it to get 4x250=1T (~$1130). That way I have 140h HD which I can work with (currently have 242h SAT T-60 which I keep maxing out).


----------



## pbolya

> _Originally posted by pbolya _
> *Weaknees,
> so this procedure works with drives up to 383 GB. Would it work with the 400 GB's (just loose 34GB) ? Any other tricks we can do to make 2 x 400GB work ?
> 
> If there is no way to do the dual 400GB than there is no point in waiting for a better price/availability on those. I can upgrade to dual 250GB (already has a Maxtor 250GB ready to go and I just got your bracket - thanks). One thing is sure: 600GB will not be enough in the long run and the extra 14h I get vs. the 500GB will not make a huge difference. So I either upgrade to 2x400GB ($900) or even 2x500GB (when becames available) or I buy another HR10-250 and put another 250GB in it to get 4x250=1T (~$1130). That way I have 140h HD which I can work with (currently have 242h SAT T-60 which I keep maxing out). *


 Weaknees,
Never mind. I just had to work so I did not have chance to send out my question for a long time. I now read your previous reply.

I did not consider in the deci GB and the bin GB ratio. The 400GB is actually 372.5GB confortably below the 383 limit.

So a 500GB (or 466GB in bin GB) theoratically can be achived by dd or backup/restore the 233GB to a 466GB drive, blessing a 233GB in the new kernal and marry the two. Then DD the 233GB to the 466GB and use MFSadd to create a 233GB partition on both of the drives (just below the 256GB limit). Is that right ?


----------



## weaknees

In theory, that should all work. We haven't tried it obviously, but that all sounds right. I don't know where you'd fine a 233 GB drive, but you can cross that bridge when you find the 500 GB drive.

Michael


----------



## levytv

i received my weakness fattened hd machine and hooked it up. all went well all tests succeeded till i tried to record and got a 'problem found' message. it said error 51. i tried resetting and no luck. the buffer works the off air works the directv works but the machine will not record till the hardware problem is resolved. anyone else experience this? thanks.


----------



## weaknees

That certainly shouldn't have happened, but all you need to do is a "Clear and delete everything" and it'll take a few minutes and work properly after a re-setup.

Please email us at [email protected] with your info and we'll try to figure out what's going on.

Michael


----------



## levytv

thanks for the quick reply


----------



## levytv

its all good now. thanks for the help.


----------



## Anubys

Weaknees: I know I'm just having a bad day, but I cannot find the instructions for installing the twinbreeze for the HR10-250 on your web site. the link for the kit instructions does not have a link to that model.

I know it's there somewhere but I just can't find it. Can you please direct me?

I'm scheduled to receive the kit on Thursday and I like to do my homework!


----------



## pbolya

> _Originally posted by weaknees _
> *In theory, that should all work. We haven't tried it obviously, but that all sounds right. I don't know where you'd fine a 233 GB drive, but you can cross that bridge when you find the 500 GB drive.
> 
> Michael *


 Weaknees, 
the 233GB drive is the 250GB drive. I just switched to binary GB in the entire note otherwise the numbers would not have add up right. So theoratically this procedure would work for a 1,024 GB or 1,100 GB (deci) but most likely there will be no 550GB disk so realisticly 1 TB (deci) is the limit.


----------



## weaknees

> _Originally posted by pbolya _
> *Weaknees,
> the 233GB drive is the 250GB drive. I just switched to binary GB in the entire note otherwise the numbers would not have add up right. So theoratically this procedure would work for a 1,024 GB or 1,100 GB (deci) but most likely there will be no 550GB disk so realisticly 1 TB (deci) is the limit. *


Way ahead of me! Nice idea since you've already got that drive.

Michael


----------



## pbolya

> _Originally posted by weaknees _
> *Way ahead of me! Nice idea since you've already got that drive.
> 
> Michael *


 All I need now is two 500GB drives


----------



## leftcoastdave

Michael,

I installed the Weaknees 300GB upgrade with Twinbreeze bracket yesterday and everything went as expected. The ambient temp inside the box is 41 degrees and the second drive is recognized and shows 70 hours of HD capacity in the unit.

I did notice one thing that I wanted to ask about .. this morning when I walked by the entertainment center I heard what sounded like excessive fan noise coming from the upgraded 10-250. I then decided the sound could also be as a result of the second hard file. Clearly this sound of either air movement or of a spinning disk was not present before the upgrade.

Can you tell me if this increase in "noise level" is common with upgraded units or if I have a noisier than normal muffin fan or hardfile?

Thanks.

Dave


----------



## weaknees

We haven't seen excess noise as a result of the upgrades. The fan is right in the middle of the unit, so that really muffles its sound. In addition, the material of the bracket absorbs and dampens sound.

If you are hearing noise, it could be a few different things. Check that all screws on the fan and drives are evenly tightened (not too tight, just even). Also check to see if any wires might be resting on fan blades.

Michael


----------



## leftcoastdave

> _Originally posted by weaknees _
> *We haven't seen excess noise as a result of the upgrades. The fan is right in the middle of the unit, so that really muffles its sound. In addition, the material of the bracket absorbs and dampens sound.
> 
> If you are hearing noise, it could be a few different things. Check that all screws on the fan and drives are evenly tightened (not too tight, just even). Also check to see if any wires might be resting on fan blades.
> 
> Michael *


Michael,

Thanks for getting back to me.

Firstly, I would not describe the noise as "excessive". The sound is clearly discernible from a distance of six to eight feet from the unit but I would not characterize it as loud. In fact I did not even notice it when I first put the unit into service because the sound was masked by the A/V gear which was on at the time. I first noticed the sound when I walked into our media room the next morning when none of the audio equipment was on.

What I am hearing is definitely the sound of air flow. It is not the sound of something making contact with the fan blades nor is it like a bearing noise one hears when a hard drive spins down. In fact, the closest thing it resembles is the noise one hears from the air movement device (call it a fan or a blower depending upon your computer background) in a PC. You have to listen carefully to discern the sound from other sounds in the room, but once detected, it pretty clear where is is coming from.

I went back and verified that the fan is installed in the correct position and that there are no cables obstructing the air flow. I made minor adjustments to the self tapping screws to see if that made a difference and it did not. The fan assembly is securely attached to the Twinbreeze bracket which does provide a dampening effect.

I conclude what I am hearing is probably normal for a unit with two fans operating within. When I have the TV volume or the A/V receiver volume at the normal listening level, I do not hear the air movement, but when the audio equipment if off, I can hear the sound of the fan pushing air. The temperature inside the unit this morning read 43 degrees C.

Now that I have determined the fan asssembly is indeed installed correctly, I am not certain there is anything more for you to do.

Thanks.

Dave


----------



## aaronwt

I haven't modified my units yet, but i can hear them in a quiet room. I have the HD-TiVos stacked and an SD unit on the other side of my HD-Monitor. I have always been able to hear the fans or the hard drives in a quiet room. As soon as the A/C comes on, I can no longer hear it over the sound of the heat pump and I defiitley can't hear it when watching a program.


----------



## weaknees

> _Originally posted by Anubys _
> *Weaknees: I know I'm just having a bad day, but I cannot find the instructions for installing the twinbreeze for the HR10-250 on your web site. the link for the kit instructions does not have a link to that model.
> 
> I know it's there somewhere but I just can't find it. Can you please direct me?
> 
> I'm scheduled to receive the kit on Thursday and I like to do my homework! *


We just posted them:

http://www.weaknees.com/instructions/twinbreeze_hd.pdf

Michael


----------



## Mark Lopez

I installed a second 250GB drive using the weaknees bracket today and it went perfect. 63hrs HD 425 SD


----------



## aaronwt

SWEET! I'll be doing one HD-TiVo tomorrow night. I'll wait a few days for the second one so I can get my season passes transferred and watch my remaining shows.
THANKS.


----------



## pdoyle

Michael (a.k..a. Weeknees) YOU ARE THE MAN!!!!!
I just completed an upgrade using your instructions on the prior page to upgrade to twin 300's! It worked perfectly! Thank you so much.

My HD recording time is now 77 hours!

Pat


----------



## dr_mal

Another success story (63 HD hours), but my TiVo sounds like it's infested with crickets. It's busy recording stuff tonight, but sometime over the next few days, I'll try to see I can make any adjustments. The sound is rather bothersome at the moment


----------



## Mark Lopez

> _Originally posted by dr_mal _
> *...but my TiVo sounds like it's infested with crickets. *


Hard drive or fan noise? I started with a Maxtor 250GB drive, but it was sort of noisy with the seeks and amset does not work on it (reports drive does not support it). So I got a WD drive instead and it is very quiet.


----------



## dr_mal

> _Originally posted by Mark Lopez _
> *Hard drive or fan noise? I started with a Maxtor 250GB drive, but it was sort of noisy with the seeks and amset does not work on it (reports drive does not support it). So I got a WD drive instead and it is very quiet. *


Pretty sure it's the new fan. The original drive wasn't noisy at all, and the 2nd drive I added was so quiet when I was BlessTiVoing it, I almost wasn't sure it was even running.


----------



## weaknees

> _Originally posted by dr_mal _
> *Pretty sure it's the new fan. The original drive wasn't noisy at all, and the 2nd drive I added was so quiet when I was BlessTiVoing it, I almost wasn't sure it was even running. *


The TwinBreeze fan really should be very quiet--much quieter than the factory fan. We'd be happy to send you a replacement--just send us an email.



> _Originally posted by pdoyle _
> *Michael (a.k..a. Weeknees) YOU ARE THE MAN!!!!!
> I just completed an upgrade using your instructions on the prior page to upgrade to twin 300's! It worked perfectly! Thank you so much.
> My HD recording time is now 77 hours!
> *


Glad to hear it!


----------



## pbolya

Michael (weaknees),
If I upgrade to 2 x 250GB now with blesstivo-ing the second drive and a year from now I buy 2 x 500GB disks I just need to DD the 250's to the 500's and use MFSADD to add the remaining space to a new partition (<256GB) right? Or would blesstivo work better in this scenario ? If this would work theoretically than there is no reason for me to wait any longer with my upgrade. Just do the upgrade to 500GB now and wait for the 500GB disk's to come out and drop in price for the ultimate 1TB upgrade. If you do not think it will work I probably will wait for the 400GB's to be more readily available and buy 2 early september.


----------



## weaknees

pbolya-

In theory, that should work. I don't see anything wrong with that plan at all.

Michael


----------



## Anubys

> _Originally posted by weaknees _
> *We just posted them:
> 
> http://www.weaknees.com/instructions/twinbreeze_hd.pdf
> 
> Michael *


Thank you for the instructions. I printed them and went through them. Very detailed and easy to read and follow. Just a great job. Thank you! :up:

60 Hours of HD should hold me over until 500 GB hard drives are available and under $200


----------



## Darin

Everyone I see is talking about upgrading to 2 x XXXGB drives... is there an issue with mis-matched sized drives when upgrading the HR10-250? Can you not add a 300 or 400GB drive to the existing 250? If that does cause a problem, I'm sure there's mention of it in this thread, but it's huge, and I'm lazy.


----------



## weaknees

> _Originally posted by Darin _
> *Everyone I see is talking about upgrading to 2 x XXXGB drives... is there an issue with mis-matched sized drives when upgrading the HR10-250? Can you not add a 300 or 400GB drive to the existing 250? If that does cause a problem, I'm sure there's mention of it in this thread, but it's huge, and I'm lazy.  *


No problem at all. We've added a lot of 300 GB drives to the stock 250s, and we've also added 160 GB drives. Mismatched drive sizes are fine, but the A drive needs to be 250 GB or larger.

Michael


----------



## aaronwt

For almost the price of two 400GB drives, I can get another HD-TiVo. I think I'll wait. Four 250GB drives at $130 each was a good deal for my HD-TiVos. I think it will be a while until the 400 GB drives reach a price point close to that.


----------



## Mark Lopez

> _Originally posted by Darin _
> *Everyone I see is talking about upgrading to 2 x XXXGB drives... is there an issue with mis-matched sized drives when upgrading the HR10-250? Can you not add a 300 or 400GB drive to the existing 250? *


I went with adding a 250GB because of the price. The 300GB is still too much of a price jump over a 250GB to make it worth it for the 7 extra hours.


----------



## dr_mal

I had an extra 250GB laying around from an attempt at an HTPC-based HD OTA PVR. At the time I built that system, 250GBs had just hit the consumer market and were the biggest you could get.


----------



## flapbreaker

I just added my 2nd drive that I prepared a few months back. I used the new weaknees twinbreeze bracket. It installed without a hitch. Looks real good. I love the added fan since my Tivo is in an enclosed cabinet. My internal temp went from 50 deg down to 46. Thats a real plus considering there are now 2 HD's cramed in there. Since the fan blows air at the top of the Tivo I believe the temp reading is accurate. If it blew down to the MB I would wonder if it wasn't blowing directly on the sensor and giving a false sence of temp. Just my opinion. Thanks Weaknees!


----------



## buckeye1010

Just got my Weaknees bracket yesterday. Installed without a hitch! I've had the drives stacked on top of each other for a couple of weeks, with the case cover off. I was getting temps at 50-51. So far, my closed-case with two drives (orginal 250 + 300), with twinbreeze temps are all under 42! Happy camper, here. (well, except for my T-60 which went into endless reboots last week - but that's another story).


----------



## Darin

> _Originally posted by flapbreaker _
> *My internal temp went from 50 deg down to 46. ... Since the fan blows air at the top of the Tivo I believe the temp reading is accurate. If it blew down to the MB I would wonder if it wasn't blowing directly on the sensor and giving a false sence of temp.*


Just to nit-pick, I'd expect that the fan IS causing air movement that is making the sensor give a false reading. Adding an internal fan that just blows air around is not going to reduce the heat load within the unit. There's still the same amount of air circulating in/out of the unit from the main fan. In fact, there should be MORE heat load inside, due to the added drive. That's not so say that the fan doesn't help - the additional circulation can provide better heat exchange between the individual components, and the air within the cabinet. But the sensor is not going to give any meaningful indication of that, unless it is embedded in the component that you are worried about.


----------



## pdoyle

I decided to go the route to install 2, 300GB drives because, well.... I could! It just happens to be yearly bonus time at the office and my wallet was talking to me. As I looked at the drives on the shelf @ Fry's I heard "Go ahead, get those 300GB BadBoys!" I crumbled under the pressure.

But now, I've got 77Hours of HD capacity! ;-)
Live is good. Now it's time to go offer a sacrifice to the TiVo Gods.

Pat


----------



## mercurial

> _Originally posted by pdoyle _
> *But now, I've got 77Hours of HD capacity! ;-)
> Live is good. Now it's time to go offer a sacrifice to the TiVo Gods.
> *


No, *LIVE* is bad, that's why we all have TiVos...


----------



## slocko

are these instrunctions the easiest way to add a 2nd 250 drive?

12. Remove the newly created hdtivo primary drive. Move jumper to "primary master w/slave present"

13. Install brand new 250Gb (or larger) drive in secondary master (hdc). Leave jumper on "cable-select"

14. Boot up ptv's lb48cd

15. Prepare the drive to be used as secondary in the HDTivo using the following command (this should take less than 10 seconds)
BlessTiVo /dev/hdc

16. Type reboot and when machine has rebooted and stopped at the first prompt on CD, turn off pc.

17. Remove the newly created hdtivo secondary drive. Move jumper to "slave".

this will be my first ever attempt to mess with a pvr. i have changed drives in pcs before.


----------



## dr_mal

I know this thread is kind of long, but...

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?postid=2052740#post2052740

If you can change a drive in a PC, you'll have no problems with this upgrade. Good luck!


----------



## Mark Lopez

> _Originally posted by slocko _
> *are these instrunctions the easiest way to add a 2nd 250 drive?
> 
> 12. Remove the newly created hdtivo primary drive. Move jumper to "primary master w/slave present"
> 
> 13. Install brand new 250Gb (or larger) drive in secondary master (hdc). Leave jumper on "cable-select"
> 
> 14. Boot up ptv's lb48cd
> 
> 15. Prepare the drive to be used as secondary in the HDTivo using the following command (this should take less than 10 seconds)
> BlessTiVo /dev/hdc
> 
> 16. Type reboot and when machine has rebooted and stopped at the first prompt on CD, turn off pc.
> 
> 17. Remove the newly created hdtivo secondary drive. Move jumper to "slave".
> 
> this will be my first ever attempt to mess with a pvr. i have changed drives in pcs before. *


Yep. However, I would recommend making the backup described in the prior steps though. You never know when you may need it.


----------



## flapbreaker

> _Originally posted by Mark Lopez _
> *Yep. However, I would recommend making the backup described in the prior steps though. You never know when you may need it. *


And test the backup. Just because it says it's successful doesn't mean anything. My first backup was succefull but wouldn't restore. My second attempt worked great. Just an FYI


----------



## flapbreaker

> _Originally posted by Darin _
> *Just to nit-pick, I'd expect that the fan IS causing air movement that is making the sensor give a false reading. Adding an internal fan that just blows air around is not going to reduce the heat load within the unit. There's still the same amount of air circulating in/out of the unit from the main fan. In fact, there should be MORE heat load inside, due to the added drive. That's not so say that the fan doesn't help - the additional circulation can provide better heat exchange between the individual components, and the air within the cabinet. But the sensor is not going to give any meaningful indication of that, unless it is embedded in the component that you are worried about. *


This could be a whole topic unto itself but the fact that the Temp didn't go up speaks volumes to me anyways.


----------



## slocko

worst comes to worst, aren't there virgin hr10-250 images i can just put on a new drive and be back in business?

or is the backup because there is a chance that adding the 2nd drive will cause Tivo to trash the orginal drive that will not be leaving the Tivo?

problem with backup is where will i store it? i don't have the space for a 250 image and i don't want to spend another $130 just to have a safety blanket.


----------



## weaknees

> _Originally posted by slocko _
> *problem with backup is where will i store it? i don't have the space for a 250 image and i don't want to spend another $130 just to have a safety blanket. *


You can try to find images online, but it's pretty tough at this point. We can always do a reformat for you if the need arises.

But just to be clear - the backup ends up being about 200 MB - not even close to the size of the original drive. You could burn it to a CD and stick it under your mattress.

Michael


----------



## Bill Milford

Sounds like we should fix BlessTiVo to not create a partition larger than the maximum MFS size. That would add one line to the code.

I sure hope that weeknees' custom tools are not based on BlessTiVo since any changes made to that must be re-released due to GPL.

Too bad tiger never GPL'ed mfstools or we could fix them too.


----------



## Mark Lopez

> _Originally posted by slocko _
> *worst comes to worst, aren't there virgin hr10-250 images i can just put on a new drive and be back in business?
> 
> or is the backup because there is a chance that adding the 2nd drive will cause Tivo to trash the orginal drive that will not be leaving the Tivo?
> 
> problem with backup is where will i store it? i don't have the space for a 250 image and i don't want to spend another $130 just to have a safety blanket. *


I'm sure you could find one, it may just take some time. I probably wouldn't wait until you need it to go looking though. 

There is always the chance that something could go horribly wrong rendering your original drive unusable.

Backups take very little space. My virgin HD TiVo backup was around 115MB


----------



## tivoupgrade

> _Originally posted by Bill Milford _
> *Sounds like we should fix BlessTiVo to not create a partition larger than the maximum MFS size. That would add one line to the code.
> 
> I sure hope that weeknees' custom tools are not based on BlessTiVo since any changes made to that must be re-released due to GPL.
> 
> Too bad tiger never GPL'ed mfstools or we could fix them too. *


mfstools has been gpl'ed:

http://sourceforge.net/projects/mfstools/


----------



## flapbreaker

> _Originally posted by slocko _
> *worst comes to worst, aren't there virgin hr10-250 images i can just put on a new drive and be back in business?
> 
> or is the backup because there is a chance that adding the 2nd drive will cause Tivo to trash the orginal drive that will not be leaving the Tivo?
> 
> problem with backup is where will i store it? i don't have the space for a 250 image and i don't want to spend another $130 just to have a safety blanket. *


Just create a small FAT32 partition on your system drive or any drive for that matter. And backup to that. You don't need more than a 2GB partition.

A couple tips:

Don't boot to windows with the Tivo drive in (very easy to do) it will ruin your day.

Keep the Original Tivo drive on a seperate IDE channel than the backup drive. I wasted about 10 hours due to this problem.

Good luck. And I wouldn't trust files I got off the Internet to save your butt.


----------



## weaknees

> _Originally posted by Bill Milford _
> *Sounds like we should fix BlessTiVo to not create a partition larger than the maximum MFS size. That would add one line to the code.
> 
> I sure hope that weeknees' custom tools are not based on BlessTiVo since any changes made to that must be re-released due to GPL.
> 
> Too bad tiger never GPL'ed mfstools or we could fix them too. *


The problem isn't the maximum MFS size - the problem is the maximum mfstool size, as far as we can tell.

And, no, our tools aren't based on BlessTiVo - but we do use that as-is in certain situations.

Michael


----------



## Mark Lopez

Question - Can a virgin (virgin=never powered up) backup be restored to another HD TiVo *without* having to do a 'clear and delete everything'?


----------



## weaknees

No - it's already serialized from the factory.

Michael


----------



## Mark Lopez

> _Originally posted by weaknees _
> *No - it's already serialized from the factory.
> *


Thanks. Guess I'll make a backup of my second unit too then since I wouldn't want to loose logos if I need to do a restore using my existing backup.


----------



## LarryInAz

Is there any difference between using mfsadd or blesstivo to simply add an additional drive in the HR10-250? 

If I already have an image on a CD and just want to add the 2nd drive for the recording "elbow room" does it make a difference as to which utility is used?


----------



## weaknees

There are differences under the hood, but nothing too major, except that BlessTiVo doesn't have the 256 GB limit of mfsadd.

Michael


----------



## LarryInAz

> _Originally posted by weaknees _
> *There are differences under the hood, but nothing too major, except that BlessTiVo doesn't have the 256 GB limit of mfsadd.
> 
> Michael *


So if I use the mfsadd option do I simply put the two drives in my pc [as an example original TiVo A Primary Master (changing the jumper to Master w/ slave) and the new 250gb as Primary Slave] do I boot up from the LBA48 CD in noswap mode and run this command?

mfsadd -x /dev/hda /dev/hdb

It will then tell me what the new recording time is and then I "3-finger" salute to shutdown, pull the drives, mount them on my Twinbreeze rack and enjoy?

BTW Michael the new bracket looks and feels great...


----------



## weaknees

That's all exactly right - you should see an incorrect report of something like 600 hours.

Glad you like the bracket!

Michael


----------



## aaronwt

I got the first pair of drives in, but the seeks from the hard drive seem excesssively loud. It's a maxtor Diamondmax plus 9 drive. Don't these drives come with AM set to the quiet mode? Or is the HD-TiVo doing something and it will be quiet after things are downloaded?


----------



## aaronwt

If acoustic management isn't enabled, would I be able to remove both drives from the HD-TiVo and connect them to the PC, enable AM, then put them back in the HD-TiVo without causing any problems or loosing any data? The AM program is booted from a dos disc.


----------



## DeputyTIVO

> _Originally posted by aaronwt _
> *... would I be able to remove both drives from the HD-TiVo and connect them to the PC, enable AM, then put them back in the HD-TiVo without causing any problems or loosing any data?*


Yes ... if Amset is compatible with your drive, it is non-destructive.


----------



## LarryInAz

I installed the new drive and bracket as I described in my earlier post however after my unit boots up and I get into System Information the Recording Capacity still shows the same numbers.
"Variable, up to 30 HD or 200 SD hours". After having run the mfsadd command it said it expanded the capacity an estimated 302 hours for approximately 582 total hours. So why is the System Info not reflecting this?


----------



## aaronwt

OK. The Acoustic Management was the problem. All the drives were set to performance.(they were all brands new drives) I set them to QUIET and now, it IS Quiet. I can barely hear the hard drives. It's like it was with the WD. I wish I would have known this earlier. I really didn't want to mess with it again. Well at least now I know. I went ahead and set my other two drives on quiet. I won't be installing those in my second HD-tiVo until later this week. thanks for the quick responses.


----------



## aaronwt

> _Originally posted by aaronwt _
> *OK. The Acoustic Management was the problem. All the drives were set to performance.(they were all brands new drives) I set them to QUIET and now, it IS Quiet. I can barely hear the hard drives. It's like it was with the WD. I wish I would have known this earlier. I really didn't want to mess with it again. Well at least now I know. I went ahead and set my other two drives on quiet. I won't be installing those in my second HD-tiVo until later this week. thanks for the quick responses. *


This is so much better. It is such a huge difference in the sound output. Without background noise I have to put my ear within 2 feet to hear anything. Before I could hear it 20 feet away with background noise.


----------



## pdoyle

> _Originally posted by weaknees _
> *No - it's already serialized from the factory.
> 
> Michael *


Michael,
I have never really though about this but does this mean that you cannot take a drive out of a TiVo and put it into another TiVo? Say, for example, you have an HR10-250 and your HDMI port fails. You call DirectTV and they send a replacement unit. Can the drives then be swapped and you send back the old unit to DirectTV with the new drive in it and keep the new unit with the old drive (and you saved shows)? If this "cannot be done" - what happens if you do it?

Pat


----------



## dswallow

> _Originally posted by pdoyle _
> *Michael,
> I have never really though about this but does this mean that you cannot take a drive out of a TiVo and put it into another TiVo? Say, for example, you have an HR10-250 and your HDMI port fails. You call DirectTV and they send a replacement unit. Can the drives then be swapped and you send back the old unit to DirectTV with the new drive in it and keep the new unit with the old drive (and you saved shows)? If this "cannot be done" - what happens if you do it?*


No recorded shows will be playable. You'll have to do a Clear & Delete Everything before you can record anything new.


----------



## weaknees

> _Originally posted by LarryInAz _
> *I installed the new drive and bracket as I described in my earlier post however after my unit boots up and I get into System Information the Recording Capacity still shows the same numbers.
> "Variable, up to 30 HD or 200 SD hours". After having run the mfsadd command it said it expanded the capacity an estimated 302 hours for approximately 582 total hours. So why is the System Info not reflecting this?  *


Pretty strange - this is what was happening with Pioneers and Toshibas.

I would just try mfsadd again and see what happens - I seem to remember seeing situations where mfsadd didn't really take on the first try.

Also, you can try blessing, but before you do that, you should try to boot with just the A drive to be sure the drives aren't married.

Michael


----------



## aaronwt

I'm curious why my first upgrade machine shows 64 HD hours. I thought that two 250GB drives gave you 63 hours. Not that I'm complaining. I'm sure I'll use that extra hour.


----------



## weaknees

Where did you see the 63 hour number? If it's from WD drives and you have Maxtors, that explains the different.

Michael


----------



## LarryInAz

> _Originally posted by weaknees _
> *Pretty strange - this is what was happening with Pioneers and Toshibas.
> 
> I would just try mfsadd again and see what happens - I seem to remember seeing situations where mfsadd didn't really take on the first try.
> 
> Also, you can try blessing, but before you do that, you should try to boot with just the A drive to be sure the drives aren't married.
> 
> Michael *


I opened the case and pulled the power plug and IDE cable from the new B drive, reconnected the unit and it just sits on the "Welcome. Powering up..." screen. Does this indicate that the drives did marry?
Assuming this is the case you would suggest I pull both drives and do the MFSADD again? If so it will have to wait until this afternoon because I am getting ready to leave for work.


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## weaknees

> _Originally posted by LarryInAz _
> *I opened the case and pulled the power plug and IDE cable from the new B drive, reconnected the unit and it just sits on the "Welcome. Powering up..." screen. Does this indicate that the drives did marry?
> Assuming this is the case you would suggest I pull both drives and do the MFSADD again? If so it will have to wait until this afternoon because I am getting ready to leave for work.  *


That's all pretty unusual - especially since you saw mfsadd report the increase in hours.

Did you make a backup? At this point, starting with that might be the safest option.

Michael


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## LarryInAz

> _Originally posted by weaknees _
> *That's all pretty unusual - especially since you saw mfsadd report the increase in hours.
> 
> Did you make a backup? At this point, starting with that might be the safest option.
> 
> Michael *


I do have a backup but not of my programs [I'd hate to lose all my HD TiVo'd Bikini Destinations]  
Seriously though before I create a fresh drive from the backup do you think it would hurt anything if I put the 2 drives back in my PC and rerun MFSADD?

Assuming that's what I do and the same issue occurs then would the next option be to try and marry the drives with Blesstivo or simply create the fresh drive from my backup cd, test it and then marry the two drives again?


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## dr_mal

I'm no expert, so don't take my word without confirmation, but I don't think you'll lose your recordings if you restore your backup to the original TiVo drive. IIRC, backups include an index of recorded shows, but not the shows themselves. Since the TiVo hasn't recorded anything new, the restored index should still point to the saved shows on your original drive.


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## Robert S

That only works on very early TiVo's original drives.

Although the -p optimisation creates a similar layout to the original A drives on 13-partition TiVoes, it's not quite the same, so the partitions don't line up and you lose the recordings.

Once you've upgraded and you're on an A drive created by MFS Tools, as long as you use the same options, the partitions will line up and you should be able to reimage without losing recordings.


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## weaknees

Another thought here - when you tried to boot without the B drive, did you move the jumper on the A drive back to Master (far right) as opposed to Master with Slave? That might account for the lack of boot in that situation.

Michael


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## LarryInAz

> _Originally posted by weaknees _
> *Another thought here - when you tried to boot without the B drive, did you move the jumper on the A drive back to Master (far right) as opposed to Master with Slave? That might account for the lack of boot in that situation.
> 
> Michael *


Aha! You are correct I left the jumper in Master w/ Slave position. When I move it to the far right pins it boots fine. So I'm assuming your first theory about the MFSADD not "sticking" is correct.
Would you think if I pull the two drives and boot from the LBA48 MFSTools disk and run MFSADD again like my earlier post would make any difference? If not would it be safe to instead use the BlessTiVo utility instead?
What was the issue and solution on the Pioneer w/ TiVo units that you mentioned had similar issues?

Thanks for your assistance..


----------



## dr_mal

> _Originally posted by Robert S _
> *Once you've upgraded and you're on an A drive created by MFS Tools, as long as you use the same options, the partitions will line up and you should be able to reimage without losing recordings. *


Ah, I think that's the scenario I'd experienced. Thanks for chiming in Robert :up:


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## dr_mal

> _Originally posted by LarryInAz _
> *Aha! You are correct I left the jumper in Master w/ Slave position. When I move it to the far right pins it boots fine. So I'm assuming your first theory about the MFSADD not "sticking" is correct.
> Would you think if I pull the two drives and boot from the LBA48 MFSTools disk and run MFSADD again like my earlier post would make any difference? If not would it be safe to instead use the BlessTiVo utility instead?
> What was the issue and solution on the Pioneer w/ TiVo units that you mentioned had similar issues?
> 
> Thanks for your assistance.. *


Why not just use BlessTiVo? That's the procedure I used to add a 2nd 250GB drive. No need to pull the master drive from the TiVo -- just put the new drive into your PC, BlessTiVo it, and when the TiVo boots, it'll marry the drives.


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## weaknees

> _Originally posted by LarryInAz _
> *Aha! You are correct I left the jumper in Master w/ Slave position. When I move it to the far right pins it boots fine. So I'm assuming your first theory about the MFSADD not "sticking" is correct.
> Would you think if I pull the two drives and boot from the LBA48 MFSTools disk and run MFSADD again like my earlier post would make any difference? If not would it be safe to instead use the BlessTiVo utility instead?
> What was the issue and solution on the Pioneer w/ TiVo units that you mentioned had similar issues?
> 
> Thanks for your assistance.. *


As dr_mal suggested, BlessTiVo is probably the easiest way to proceed here. You can try mfsadd again; hard to know what will happen.

The other units just simply aren't upgradable yet with certain version of the software.

And I should correct my earlier post - the far right position is Cable Select, not Master.

Michael


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## LarryInAz

> _Originally posted by dr_mal _
> *Why not just use BlessTiVo? That's the procedure I used to add a 2nd 250GB drive. No need to pull the master drive from the TiVo -- just put the new drive into your PC, BlessTiVo it, and when the TiVo boots, it'll marry the drives. *


That's probably what I'll do now that I know the two drives never "married" - my earlier concern was if they did marry but did not "cohabitate" was if I did MFSADD again would it cause any harm?
I'm not adverse to using BlessTiVo that's how I upgraded my first Series 1 standalone back in '99. However my two DirecTiVo units upgraded great with the MFSADD and I was hoping it would work the same way for the HD TiVo.

At the very least I'm more than curious as to why the MFSADD appeared to work reporting increased SD recording time in the PC but when installed in the TiVo unit it was like I had not done anything. With the many HD TiVo users that might be upgrading I suspect I won't be the only person that has this issue so maybe we can find a "fix" for them.


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## LarryInAz

I have downloaded the 1.36mb compressed BlessTiVo file and it looks "empty". After the download completes on my laptop running WinXp I attempt to open the zipped file and there is nothing there. I have tried downloading it a couple of times from the link in this thread as well as going direct to the TiVoFAQ websight.

Is it me or is the file "broken" or


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## dr_mal

If you have the ptvUpgrade boot disk for large disks, BlessTiVo will already be on that image. This post has a link: http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?postid=2046838#post2046838


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## LarryInAz

> _Originally posted by dr_mal _
> *If you have the ptvUpgrade boot disk for large disks, BlessTiVo will already be on that image. This post has a link: http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?postid=2046838#post2046838 *


Thanks Doc - that is the same disk image I used to create my bootable cd and ran MFSADD. I didn't know it also has the BlessTiVo file on it. However has anyone else downloaded the BlessTiVo file to see if there is something wrong with it?


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## aaronwt

I see 4 files after unzipping.


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## flapbreaker

> _Originally posted by LarryInAz _
> *Thanks Doc - that is the same disk image I used to create my bootable cd and ran MFSADD. I didn't know it also has the BlessTiVo file on it. However has anyone else downloaded the BlessTiVo file to see if there is something wrong with it? *


Yes, I have downloaded it and I couldn't get it to unzip. It seemed like the zipped folder was empty or something. I just used the blesstivo commands from the ptvugrade boot Cd.


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## LarryInAz

Thanks flap [if that is your real name]  that's the same result I had.
FWIW, I was trying to unzip using WinXp's builtin Zipper. I notice Aaron is using PKzip. I don't have that installed on my work machine. I'll try it at home and see if I get a different result with the same file.

Thanks again to the group for your help and feedback.

I'll report when I get home this afternoon and run BlessTiVo from the large disk tools CD. Fingers are crossed hoping this will resolve the marriage problems though I'm still curious about this. Michael had mentioned a similar MFSADD issue occured in the Pioneer + TiVo machine. Was using BlessTiVo also the fix for this or


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## weaknees

BlessTiVo actually does work with Pioneers (some) but the problem is that the unit can't hold two drives.

I really don't think you are having that exact problem - I think you may have just had mfsadd failure for some reason. Blessing should be fine.

Michael


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## LarryInAz

BlessTiVo did the job and I now have "Variable, up to 63 HD or 426 SD hours". :up: :up: :up:


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## pbolya

Michael,
I have your bracket and I am not waiting anymore for special deals. I have one Maxtor 250GB drive ($129). I am planning to backup my HDTiVo and restore it to a Maxtor 250GB just to check the backup. After that I would like to use that Maxtor drive as my B drive with my original drive as the A drive. As I recall from my non HD upgrades (my last upgrade was 1.5 years ago) that I did not need to reformat the restored drive in order to use it as a B drive. Back than I used MFSADD of course and that seamed to wipe out whatever was on that drive. If I just put this drive in my PC and use BlessTivo would that delete whatever is on that drive? would I be able to DD it later to a 500GB and blesstivo it again to expand it to 500GB?

Thanks,
Peter


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## aaronwt

Make sure you set the acoustic managemnt on the Maxtor to quiet. It comes set to performance which makes it extremely loud.


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## weaknees

That's all right - mfsadd and BlessTiVo will overwrite anything on the drives in those circumstances.

Michael


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## pbolya

> _Originally posted by aaronwt _
> *Make sure you set the acoustic managemnt on the Maxtor to quiet. It comes set to performance which makes it extremely loud. *


 aaronwt,
My drive is also a Diamondmax plus 9 drive. There is nothing in the book about setting the Maxtor to quite mode. Is this on the CD somwhere (got MAXBlast3)?


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## dropper

Will this work for you?

AMSET Utility

Keith


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## pbolya

> _Originally posted by dropper _
> *Will this work for you?
> 
> AMSET Utility
> 
> Keith *


 Thanks,
This will work.


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## mikemav

> _Originally posted by dropper _
> *Will this work for you?
> 
> AMSET Utility
> 
> Keith *


Do you people suggest Quiet or Fast (as opposed to Off, which has no acoustic management) ? Also, can I do this to other Maxtor drives I have on my PCs that already have data? It does not format or lose data does it?


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## tivoupgrade

> _Originally posted by mikemav _
> *Do you people suggest Quiet or Fast (as opposed to Off, which has no acoustic management) ? Also, can I do this to other Maxtor drives I have on my PCs that already have data? It does not format or lose data does it? *


AMSET is non-destructive to data. On some Maxtor drives (MAXLINE II) it can make a noticible difference when set to "quiet" mode. It will not affect your DVR performance when set to "quiet" as opposed to "fast."


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## pbolya

tivoupgrade (or anybody who knows),
I booted into the PTV's CD but I have 3 questions:

- Which linux should I chose VMLINUZ or VMLNODMA ?
- How do I page up to see if the disks are recognized at full capacity and on what device.
- Would the HR10-250 upgrade instructions (Backup, Restore, BlessTivo) and the PTV's large disk CD work to add a B drive to a Sony series 2 SVL3000 Tivo? I will need to upgrade my friends new Tivo next week.

Thanks in advance,
Peter


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## weaknees

I can answer the second two:

-to page up, use Shift-Pgup
-the instructions will work, but you should NOT do this with drives larger than 120s since they won't work properly in that machine.

Michael


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## pbolya

> _Originally posted by weaknees _
> *I can answer the second two:
> 
> -to page up, use Shift-Pgup
> -the instructions will work, but you should NOT do this with drives larger than 120s since they won't work properly in that machine.
> 
> Michael *


 Thanks Michael,
I am trying to use Shift-PguP but it does not want to page. We are putting in a 120GB disk so I guess it will be ok. But thanks for the warning. I did put in a 160GB in my Sony SAT-T60 to get 242h (using the old limited Kernal of course).


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## pbolya

Got Shift-PGup to work. It just doesn't work on the numeric keypad. I have to use Shift-Function-Up. My bad.


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## pbolya

I flipped a coin at it was heads so I went with VMLINUZ. The backup (mfsbackup -f 9999 -1so /mnt/dos/HR10-250.BAK /dev/hdc) is only going for 11 and a 1/2 minutes but it only done 1%. At this rate the backup will take over 19 hours ! Is this normal ? Do I need to do anything to be in noswap mode (I think that is the default isn't it)?


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## dennya

Best buy has a Maxtor 250GB drive ("L01P250") on sale for $149 this week. Anyone using that drive in an HR10-250?


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## weaknees

> _Originally posted by pbolya _
> *I flipped a coin at it was heads so I went with VMLINUZ. The backup (mfsbackup -f 9999 -1so /mnt/dos/HR10-250.BAK /dev/hdc) is only going for 11 and a 1/2 minutes but it only done 1%. At this rate the backup will take over 19 hours ! Is this normal ? Do I need to do anything to be in noswap mode (I think that is the default isn't it)? *


You should maybe try the other kernel - that's WAY too long.


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## pbolya

> _Originally posted by weaknees _
> *You should maybe try the other kernel - that's WAY too long. *


 It actually failed after 16 minutes. It said "Failed backup ..... Successful" now that is confusing. I am currently trying it again and if it fails again (got about 8 minutes to go) then I will try the other kernal.

Can anybody who used this kernal tell me what they did?

Thanks,
Peter


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## pbolya

> _Originally posted by pbolya _
> *It actually failed after 16 minutes. It said "Failed backup ..... Successful" now that is confusing. I am currently trying it again and if it fails again (got about 8 minutes to go) then I will try the other kernal.
> 
> Can anybody who used this kernal tell me what they did?
> 
> Thanks,
> Peter *


 VMLINUZ failed both time and now I see that it failed after the backup file reached 2GB. Looks like it backing up the whole disk. I now tried with VMLNODMA and the backup completed in 14 minutes resulting a 234MB file. I am gonna do the restore now.


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## tivoupgrade

> _Originally posted by pbolya _
> *tivoupgrade (or anybody who knows),
> I booted into the PTV's CD but I have 3 questions:
> 
> - Which linux should I chose VMLINUZ or VMLNODMA ?
> - How do I page up to see if the disks are recognized at full capacity and on what device.
> - Would the HR10-250 upgrade instructions (Backup, Restore, BlessTivo) and the PTV's large disk CD work to add a B drive to a Sony series 2 SVL3000 Tivo? I will need to upgrade my friends new Tivo next week.
> 
> Thanks in advance,
> Peter *


Just hit <return> and yes, you can use BlessTiVo and MFStools as documented in a variety of places. Don't use the LBA48 CD to Bless drives for any units that do not include LBA48 support or units on which you can't use CopyKern (Series1 units) to replace the kernel. So, NO, don't use it for the SVR-3000 (you can use our Universal Boot CD, or any of the freely distributed CD's booted "noswap" for that one.


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## pbolya

> _Originally posted by tivoupgrade _
> *Just hit <return> and yes, you can use BlessTiVo and MFStools as documented in a variety of places. Don't use the LBA48 CD to Bless drives for any units that do not include LBA48 support or units on which you can't use CopyKern (Series1 units) to replace the kernel. So, NO, don't use it for the SVR-3000 (you can use our Universal Boot CD, or any of the freely distributed CD's booted "noswap" for that one. *


 Thanks. I tried to press enter but it just kept repeating the Boot prompt. I tried it now that I put all the disks back and voila it works. It must have been my fat finger. In any way when I typed VMLINUZ it kept creating a one on one backup failing after reaching 2GB. When I typed vmlnodma it worked fine. I now now that I should have type neither.

Thanks,
Peter


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## pbolya

Michael,
Another success story. The TwinBreeze rocks. DirectTv could not have designed it better even if they design the TiVo around the bracket. It is so easy to instal and still rock solid. My original tempriture was 56c before the upgrade now it is between 46c and 50c. My SAT-T60 heats up to 66c next to it as usual. I do not even know why is it still running after all these years. It should have been melted by now. 

The backup took 14 minutes and the restore took 11:30 minutes. BlessTivo was of course instantaneous. The backup is 234MB. TiVo reporting 63hd 426SD. By the way the Maxtor was 1GB larger than the stock WD.

I did set the Maxtor to Quite mode (thanks aaronwt and dropper) and when I put it into the TiVo to test the backup I could not hear a thing (I could hear a couple of seeks for the first 5 seconds but it was virtually silent after that).

Now the next step is to run my tests before the fall TV schedule (or the Olympics) starts. First I will fill the TiVo with 400+ hours of SD shows and see how responsive it will be when I have 50 pages of shows recorded. My SAT-T60 is so slow (over 200h filled) that sometimes I call home and ask my wife to bring the List up so I can watch it when I get home. 

Sorry that I took over this thread tonight.


----------



## mikemav

> _Originally posted by pbolya _
> *
> 
> Now the next step is to run my tests before the fall TV schedule (or the Olympics) starts. First I will fill the TiVo with 400+ hours of SD shows and see how responsive it will be when I have 50 pages of shows recorded. My SAT-T60 is so slow (over 200h filled) that sometimes I call home and ask my wife to bring the List up so I can watch it when I get home.
> 
> *


Speaking of "how responsive", I was wondering if anyone has looked into upgrading memory in the HD Tivo? I have heard from an inside source that they probably should have put in more memory and it may get very slow with a lot of SD content (more pages of Now Playing.)


----------



## aaronwt

> _Originally posted by dennya _
> *Best buy has a Maxtor 250GB drive ("L01P250") on sale for $149 this week. Anyone using that drive in an HR10-250? *


That should be the Ultra series retail hard drive kit with the Diamond max plus 9 drive. I bought 4 of those. I installed the first two drives Wednesday and everything is working perfectly so far. I'll get the other two installed in a few days. As soon as I finish watching a couple of shows I still have on the WD drive. All 4 of my drives came with Acoustic Management set to performance, which makes the hard drive very loud. Make sure you set the AM to Quiet before installation in the HD-TiVo.


----------



## dennya

Thanks, Aaron.

Though now I see a 300GB (yipes!) Maxtor drive at NewEgg, so that's tempting me. Should up the HD time to 36 hours on that drive! There are gripes in the reviews on the site that it's loud, but I'm wondering if they just didn't turn on the acoustic management...

Anyone tried the a 300?


----------



## RC3105

mwave.com had 200G wd drives for $88 last week - nice & quiet (no rebate crapola either)

edit: newegg's great, I buy a lot of refurb from them & never have a prob when something dies, but dual wd 200's for $23 more than the cost of that mxt 250 is hard to pass up...


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## AbMagFab

> _Originally posted by mikemav _
> *Speaking of "how responsive", I was wondering if anyone has looked into upgrading memory in the HD Tivo? I have heard from an inside source that they probably should have put in more memory and it may get very slow with a lot of SD content (more pages of Now Playing.) *


They did something on the HD Tivo so the Now Playing list seems to pop up right away and fills as it goes (where on the older Tivo's it seemed to wait until the entire list was populated before showing it).

I have an SD Tivo with ~240 hours, and my HD Tivo has 500GB and 20+ pages of recordings. The HD Tivo pops up the NP list right away, the SD Tivo takes 10-30 seconds to pop up the first time.


----------



## RC3105

bout darn time!!! sounds like a good reason to run the hd sw release on hdvr2 & such


----------



## LarryInAz

Maybe it's my imagination but has anyone else that's added a 2nd drive to their HD TiVo noticed the unit seems to be faster?


----------



## JohnTivo

> _Originally posted by dennya _
> *Thanks, Aaron.
> 
> Though now I see a 300GB (yipes!) Maxtor drive at NewEgg, so that's tempting me. Should up the HD time to 36 hours on that drive! There are gripes in the reviews on the site that it's loud, but I'm wondering if they just didn't turn on the acoustic management...
> 
> Anyone tried the a 300? *


Yes, I'm running my unit with the Maxtor 300 GB drive. No issues thus far, and temps are down slightly.


----------



## tivolovit

> _Originally posted by dennya _
> *Best buy has a Maxtor 250GB drive ("L01P250") on sale for $149 this week. Anyone using that drive in an HR10-250?*


I have used dozens of them in HD TiVos...no problems. I have been buying them on sale at multiple places over the past couple of months. Watch for price matching and rebate opportunities. You can pick them up for ~$129 no rebates at places when there is a good sale, with rebates or PM sometimes better.

Regards,


----------



## pbolya

> _Originally posted by dennya _
> *Thanks, Aaron.
> 
> Though now I see a 300GB (yipes!) Maxtor drive at NewEgg, so that's tempting me. Should up the HD time to 36 hours on that drive! There are gripes in the reviews on the site that it's loud, but I'm wondering if they just didn't turn on the acoustic management...
> 
> Anyone tried the a 300? *


 I recorded about 16 hours SD so far with the Maxtor 250 drive (well it is probably recorded it on the stock WD) and I can tell you that Aeron is right on the money after I set it to Quite mode it is the most silent hard drive I ever saw. It does make a huge difference.

As for the 300GB it is probably the same but when you can get the 250GB for $129 you have to buy the 300GB for $150 to get the same rate. If you buy a 300GB for $300 that is twice the price. If you buy a 250GB you have a 63 hours for $129 (2 $/h) If you buy 2 300GB for $300 each you have a 76 hours for $600 (8 $/h). If you buy just one 300GB it will be 70 hours for $300 (4 $/h). Buying one 400GB is cheaper than the 2 x $300 as it will result in 83 hours for $430 (5 $/h). However it is still very rare it is Hitachi and it is crossing uncharted teritoty for upgrade.

If money is not a problem though go for it. Every hour counts.


----------



## pbolya

> _Originally posted by mikemav _
> *Speaking of "how responsive", I was wondering if anyone has looked into upgrading memory in the HD Tivo? I have heard from an inside source that they probably should have put in more memory and it may get very slow with a lot of SD content (more pages of Now Playing.) *


 mikemav, 
The HR10-250 is already way slower (before upgrade) than even the series 1's in a lot of area. For example responding to remote functions, bringing guide up, changing channels or tunners etc.. Of course it is recording 2 HD streams most of the time instead of 2 SD. However when I set both tunner on an SD channel I can not see any difference in performance. I am looking forward to the result of my 400+ SD recording test. If it is faster after 200h than my T60 than it is already ahead of the curb. I think it will die before I will get to 400h but than again maybe it will suprise me. We will see within 2 weeks. Seting up ~400 recordings and trying to manage my shows between 400 dummy recordings will suck though.


----------



## pbolya

> _Originally posted by AbMagFab _
> *They did something on the HD Tivo so the Now Playing list seems to pop up right away and fills as it goes (where on the older Tivo's it seemed to wait until the entire list was populated before showing it).
> 
> I have an SD Tivo with ~240 hours, and my HD Tivo has 500GB and 20+ pages of recordings. The HD Tivo pops up the NP list right away, the SD Tivo takes 10-30 seconds to pop up the first time. *


 That is a great news. I never undestood why they never fixed that. It is the most anoying feature on upgraded TiVo's. If they would fix that for the T60 the rest of the performance issues wouldn't even matter.

So I assume when I finnaly record 400+ hours SD I will still have relatively good performance. We shall see.

By the way the HR10-250 is the first TiVo with 200h SD from the factory so they probably did not bother even looking at this as an this issue before (can not blame them).


----------



## weldon

> _Originally posted by pbolya _
> *Seting up ~400 recordings and trying to manage my shows between 400 dummy recordings will suck though. *


Does the S-O-R-T code work on the new HR10-250? It might help quite a bit to sort by title to find things in that huge list. It will still be a pain, but much easier to make sure you don't miss something when sorting by record date.

For those that aren't familiar with SORT... When in the Now Playing list, enter the following sequence of key presses - Slow, Zero, Record, Thumbs Up. This will enable the sorting function which is indicated by a banner at the bottom of the NP list (which says to push "display" to set sorting options). You can press 1 to sort normally (by date), 2 to sort by expiration, and 3 to sort alphabetically.

I know this works on Series 1 with 3.x software and I think it also works with Series 2. I'm not sure about the HR10-250, but I assume that it also works on that model.


----------



## dr_mal

SORT works on the HR10-250.

pbolya -- nice new avatar :up: Much more clear than the old one.


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## dr_mal

> _Originally posted by pbolya _
> *I am looking forward to the result of my 400+ SD recording test. If it is faster after 200h than my T60 than it is already ahead of the curb.*


Have you considered putting a CacheCard in your SAT-T60? The performance on my upgraded SAT-T60 was dramatically improved with the CacheCard.


----------



## pbolya

> _Originally posted by weldon _
> *Does the S-O-R-T code work on the new HR10-250? It might help quite a bit to sort by title to find things in that huge list. It will still be a pain, but much easier to make sure you don't miss something when sorting by record date.
> 
> For those that aren't familiar with SORT... When in the Now Playing list, enter the following sequence of key presses - Slow, Zero, Record, Thumbs Up. This will enable the sorting function which is indicated by a banner at the bottom of the NP list (which says to push "display" to set sorting options). You can press 1 to sort normally (by date), 2 to sort by expiration, and 3 to sort alphabetically.
> 
> I know this works on Series 1 with 3.x software and I think it also works with Series 2. I'm not sure about the HR10-250, but I assume that it also works on that model. *


 It still works. In general the HR10-250 uses the same software than the series 2's (with changes to handle HD and very little performance related differences - more like bug fixes) they did not remove any functionality (they havn't added any either).


----------



## tivolovit

The Maxtor 250GB drives are $129.00 at outpost.com now and they have the 300GB drives for $239.00 (5400RPM 2MB Cache) for a long time they were $234.00. This is less attractive to me than those that don't live in CA or TX (maybe other states too) because we have Fry's B&M stores (affiliated with Outpost.com) in our states and have to pay tax AND shipping.


Just thought someone might want to know ,


----------



## pbolya

> _Originally posted by tivolovit _
> *The Maxtor 250GB drives are $129.00 at outpost.com now and they have the 300GB drives for $239.00 (5400RPM 2MB Cache) for a long time they were $234.00. This is less attractive to me than those that don't live in CA or TX (maybe other states too) because we have Fry's B&M stores (affiliated with Outpost.com) in our states and have to pay tax AND shipping.
> 
> Just thought someone might want to know , *


 Still a $110 diference for 50GB more. For $20 more you can get another 250GB.


----------



## pbolya

> _Originally posted by dr_mal _
> *Have you considered putting a CacheCard in your SAT-T60? The performance on my upgraded SAT-T60 was dramatically improved with the CacheCard. *


 I thought about it a couple of times but now that I have an HR10-250 my SAT-T60 will only be secondary. I assume I will use the HR10-250 most of the time. I already watching some of the backlog from HD reruns. E.g. I have a whole season of Las Vegas and NAVI NCIS recorded on the SAT-T60. But instead of watching them in order from the begining in SD I tend to watch the replays in HD on the HR10-250.


----------



## pbolya

I almost had a nervous breakdown. My upgrade to 63 hours worked perfectly last night but 3 hours ago I lost the HDMI feed. It came back a couple of time but the slightest push on the top cover made the picture disappear and all I saw is the digital snow. I took the cover off and I did some testing and this is what I found out:

- At the end of the HDMI card there is a gold colored pin standing strait up with the to banded toward the front of the unit. The pin has a hole on the middle where the HDMI card can can fit in it. My guess is that this pin should secure the card to the motherboard. When the bracket is in place the fan touches the pin and pushes it toward the card. It may be a coincidence but when the pin touches the card then the slightest push on the casing makes the picture disappear. When I push the pin back a little disconnect the HDMI cord and reconnect it the picture comes back. When the pin does not touch the card gentle push on anywhere on the casing (I guess this moves the motherboard slightly hence the HDMI card and the pin) does not result in lose of picture. 

Finally I ended up bending the top of the pin backward slightly so it does not touch the bracket fan's housing and added a broken plastic toy peace (I got two sons so I have a plenty of those) that fits perfectly between the pin and the HDMI card/board. I put the TiVo together and it seams to work now.

I do not think that Weknees bracket has anything to do with the problem as I had signs of problems before the upgrade too. Although the picture never disappeared before a lot of time when I turn the TiVo on there is no picture until I change channel or go to menu or list. Of course it does not help that there is so little space between the fan and the card. I still think that the bracket is fantastic and if I ever get a new HR10-250 the bracket will be the first thing I will order.

Did anybody have issues with the HDMI card/pin ? I am attaching a before and after picture of my fix. Anybody knows what that pin is for (my guess is hold the card down but that again why does it have issues when it touches the card). 

Let me close with a conspiracy theory: Could it be that the reason they still making new TiVo's without logos because they are randomly setting up TiVo's to test and than they do a clear and delete everything before they ship it to the customer which removes logos ?


----------



## aaronwt

I didn't look very closely at it when I had it open. I'll take a closer look when I do my 2nd one next week. I looked at my pictures I took but none of them show that vantage point.


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## pbolya

> _Originally posted by aaronwt _
> *I didn't look very closely at it when I had it open. I'll take a closer look when I do my 2nd one next week. I looked at my pictures I took but none of them show that vantage point. *


 Thanks


----------



## tivolovit

> _Originally posted by pbolya _
> *Still a $110 difference for 50GB more. For $20 more you can get another 250GB. *


I was just posting this mostly for informational purposes for those looking for good prices on drives to upgrade units...HOWEVER....

You do bring up a valid point, but sometimes we are left with few options. While it may be less expensive to buy another 250GB for only $20 more you cannot put three drives in one HD-TiVo. The cost of purchasing ANOTHER HD-TiVo is more than the cost of upgrading to dual 300s. But either way you are still spending a good amount of money.

To me it looks like dual 250s is the reasonable way to go right now unless someone finds a REALLY good price on 300+GB drives, or a REALLY good deal on a second (THIRD, FOURTH, etc) HD-TiVo.


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## tlrowley

We upgraded our HD-TiVo this afternoon - dual 250s. The operation was a complete success - the patient lived!

Thanks so much to everyone who contributed to the process - this really is an invaluable resource.

Tracey


----------



## mikemav

Me too. Thanks Weaknees! The bracket is great. Instructions were very clear. 500GB HD TiVo, now that rocks! It is also 4-5 degrees cooler now than before. Love the additional fan, even if it is partially a false reading. It can't hurt, and it sure makes me feel better considering my voided warranty.


----------



## pbolya

> _Originally posted by mikemav _
> *Me too. Thanks Weaknees! The bracket is great. Instructions were very clear. 500GB HD TiVo, now that rocks! It is also 4-5 degrees cooler now than before. Love the additional fan, even if it is partially a false reading. It can't hurt, and it sure makes me feel better considering my voided warranty. *


 I agree. The extra fan rocks. It doesn't matter what the reading is. The main thing is that with the two drives covering the space it could get really hot under the disks. The fan sucks the hot air out from underneath the drive and more than repairs the obstructed airflow without adding any audible noise. Before the upgrade the shelf below the HR10-250 got really hot (so as the T60 still does) now the self is warm at most even with two drives. Even the top seams cooler.

Thanks again Michael. It was money well spent.


----------



## pbolya

> _Originally posted by tivolovit _
> *I was just posting this mostly for informational purposes for those looking for good prices on drives to upgrade units...HOWEVER....
> 
> You do bring up a valid point, but sometimes we are left with few options. While it may be less expensive to buy another 250GB for only $20 more you cannot put three drives in one HD-TiVo. The cost of purchasing ANOTHER HD-TiVo is more than the cost of upgrading to dual 300s. But either way you are still spending a good amount of money.
> 
> To me it looks like dual 250s is the reasonable way to go right now unless someone finds a REALLY good price on 300+GB drives, or a REALLY good deal on a second (THIRD, FOURTH, etc) HD-TiVo. *


 13 hours extra for almost $600? If 13 extra hours would make that much of difference to pay $470+ extra I would recommend to buy 1 x 400GB for $430 and gain 20h more for $170 less.

Unfortunately 63 hours will not be enough for me but 76 hours would not be enough either. I am left with waiting for the 500GB's or buying another TiVo. Maybe the price will drop in a couple of month/years and than I can by another one. 126h sounds much better although I have a 242h and 228h and maxed both of those out. Buying another Tivo sounds logical enough but than you pay an extra $5-$10 every month which adds up to hundreds of dollars over the years.

Maybe people who upgrade to 600GB can sell there original drives to people who are trying to get good deals on 250GB's.


----------



## kyee

> _Originally posted by pbolya _
> *
> Did anybody have issues with the HDMI card/pin ? I am attaching a before and after picture of my fix. Anybody knows what that pin is for (my guess is hold the card down but that again why does it have issues when it touches the card). *


pbolya - I have this exact same problem. I installed the TwinBreeze bracket yesterday, and as soon as I booted up the Tivo, the video seemed off somehow. It looked similar to what happens when you're using component video cables, and you have two of the cables on the wrong color output. Then after a few minutes, I lost the HDMI feed altogether. The component outs still work fine.

I tried what you did, and wedged a plastic piece in between the gold/metal piece and the HDMI card. The video came back, but it was the garbled off-color version that came back. I'm trying a few other things with that metal piece and hopefully something will work. I'm going crazy over this! I don't want to have to resort to just using the component outs.

kevin


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## kyee

Well waddaya know, that funky little trick worked. My HDMI output is back on! However, this time I left everything connected and turned on as I was putting the cover back on. As I started tightening the first screw, which was on the middle of the cover, the sound crackled, and the video went screwey again. The hell with this, I said, and just decided to leave the screws off the case lid. It's in an equipment rack anyway, so there shouldn't be a problem leaving the screws off. Kind of a hokey solution, but if it works, that's all that matters to me. Case closed.


----------



## aaronwt

Looks like I'll need to open my unit back up to see if I have the same problem. but I won't need the HDMI until I get a new HD monitor this Winter so maybe it can wait. I'll just be on the lookout for it when I upgrade my second unit.


----------



## dwynne

> _Originally posted by weaknees _
> *Michael *


I got my TwinBreeze bracket last week, thanks!

Whoever is shipping them needs to spend a few pennies on packing material, however. The box was pretty crushed - the items inside appear OK but there was NO packing material - just the bracket, fan (wrapped in bubble wrap), and a bag of hardware rattling around in the otherwise empty box.

I have had 0 luck with Maxtors in my Tivos, so I am waiting for another sale on a different drive before I get to use the bracket - but hopefully it is all there and undamaged from lack of packing.

Dennis


----------



## tivolovit

> _Originally posted by dwynne _
> *I have had 0 luck with Maxtors in my Tivos, so I am waiting for another sale on a different drive before I get to use the bracket - but hopefully it is all there and undamaged from lack of packing.
> 
> Dennis *


Western Digital 250GB 7200RPM 8MB Cache (#3620115) drives are on sale online at Fry's/Outpost right now for $149.99 and have a $30 MIR (total $119.99+TAX if applicable+shipping). If you have a local B&M Fry's they are on sale for $139.99 and still have the $30 MIR (total of $109.99+TAX). A good NON-MAXTOR solution for you .

Good luck,


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## aaronwt

Are these the same model that have been failing in the HD-TiVo? Or is that model different?


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## aaronwt

I just finished upgrading my second HD-TiVo. It's doing the Clear and Delete now. I didn't see anything wrong with my clip on the HDMI card. Although I could see how I could have been able too hit it with the bracket if I wasn't looking. Hopefully my First upgrade was fine, because I don't plan on opening the unit again unless I have too. I won't need the HDMi until I get a new monitor, so I'll worry about it then.

Thanks Weaknees! The Upgrades are Excellent!



> _Originally posted by pbolya _
> *I almost had a nervous breakdown. My upgrade to 63 hours worked perfectly last night but 3 hours ago I lost the HDMI feed. It came back a couple of time but the slightest push on the top cover made the picture disappear and all I saw is the digital snow. I took the cover off and I did some testing and this is what I found out:
> 
> - At the end of the HDMI card there is a gold colored pin standing strait up with the to banded toward the front of the unit. The pin has a hole on the middle where the HDMI card can can fit in it. My guess is that this pin should secure the card to the motherboard. When the bracket is in place the fan touches the pin and pushes it toward the card. It may be a coincidence but when the pin touches the card then the slightest push on the casing makes the picture disappear. When I push the pin back a little disconnect the HDMI cord and reconnect it the picture comes back. When the pin does not touch the card gentle push on anywhere on the casing (I guess this moves the motherboard slightly hence the HDMI card and the pin) does not result in lose of picture.
> 
> Finally I ended up bending the top of the pin backward slightly so it does not touch the bracket fan's housing and added a broken plastic toy peace (I got two sons so I have a plenty of those) that fits perfectly between the pin and the HDMI card/board. I put the TiVo together and it seams to work now.
> 
> I do not think that Weknees bracket has anything to do with the problem as I had signs of problems before the upgrade too. Although the picture never disappeared before a lot of time when I turn the TiVo on there is no picture until I change channel or go to menu or list. Of course it does not help that there is so little space between the fan and the card. I still think that the bracket is fantastic and if I ever get a new HR10-250 the bracket will be the first thing I will order.
> 
> Did anybody have issues with the HDMI card/pin ? I am attaching a before and after picture of my fix. Anybody knows what that pin is for (my guess is hold the card down but that again why does it have issues when it touches the card).
> 
> Let me close with a conspiracy theory: Could it be that the reason they still making new TiVo's without logos because they are randomly setting up TiVo's to test and than they do a clear and delete everything before they ship it to the customer which removes logos ? *


----------



## kyee

> _Originally posted by aaronwt _
> *I just finished upgrading my second HD-TiVo. It's doing the Clear and Delete now. I didn't see anything wrong with my clip on the HDMI card. Although I could see how I could have been able too hit it with the bracket if I wasn't looking. Hopefully my First upgrade was fine, because I don't plan on opening the unit again unless I have too. I won't need the HDMi until I get a new monitor, so I'll worry about it then.
> 
> *


I didn't hit my HDMI clip either, but it wouldn't work after the install. You won't know if your HDMI output works or not till you actually try it.


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## dennya

Geeze. So if you discover your HDMI is hosed, is there a way to get the Tivo back to factory condition after the upgrade so you can get it serviced?


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## AbMagFab

Sure, undo the physical things you did, and restore the original backup you made to the original HD.


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## aaronwt

> _Originally posted by dennya _
> *Geeze. So if you discover your HDMI is hosed, is there a way to get the Tivo back to factory condition after the upgrade so you can get it serviced? *


I would just put the original WD drive back in the HD-TiVo. And take out the two Maxtor drives I installed and remove the bracket. This is why I got 2 new drives for each unit, just in case I need a warranty return in the future.


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## pbolya

> _Originally posted by aaronwt _
> *I just finished upgrading my second HD-TiVo. It's doing the Clear and Delete now. I didn't see anything wrong with my clip on the HDMI card. Although I could see how I could have been able too hit it with the bracket if I wasn't looking. Hopefully my First upgrade was fine, because I don't plan on opening the unit again unless I have too. I won't need the HDMi until I get a new monitor, so I'll worry about it then.
> 
> Thanks Weaknees! The Upgrades are Excellent! *


 Aaron,
Did the pin in your TiVo touched the HDMI card or it was facing streight up? After you installed the bracket did the fan housing touched the pin (and maybe even pushed it ever so slightly) ? Answers to these questions would enable me to figgure out how the pin is suppose to be. I did not hit the pin but it was definately touching the bracket when I positioned the bracket over the right holes.


----------



## pbolya

> _Originally posted by kyee _
> *Well waddaya know, that funky little trick worked. My HDMI output is back on! However, this time I left everything connected and turned on as I was putting the cover back on. As I started tightening the first screw, which was on the middle of the cover, the sound crackled, and the video went screwey again. The hell with this, I said, and just decided to leave the screws off the case lid. It's in an equipment rack anyway, so there shouldn't be a problem leaving the screws off. Kind of a hokey solution, but if it works, that's all that matters to me. Case closed. *


 Kyee,
Case closed or is it? Can you say that the "case closed" when the case is still missing the screws? In any way I had the same thing. I "fixed the problem" and proudly put the TiVo back on the shelf connecting all the cables only to find out that no picture. So I opened it up running and played with fire as I tried out a couple of things. It was weird. When I "fixed it" and put the cover on the slightest push on the top cover made the picture disappear. And not just in one point. Almost anywhere. Than I took the top of and found out that even a slight downward push on the back wall of the TiVo made the picture disappear. Than I "played" around the card and found that separating the pin and the card stops the problem from reoccurring when the case get's handled. When I touched the card and pushed it down very gently that's when I saw the picture discoloration you where mentioning so obviously I stopped doing that right away. I was able to put all the screws back on now without losing the picture but I was also contemplating not to put the screws back on earlier.

I am sorry that you have the same problem but happy that you where able to fix it too. Also I am aware that from now on the picture could disappear at any times and over time we might not be able to fix it without servicing our TiVo. This is just how these kind of problems are. But until then I will record and watch every show in HD like there is no tomorrow.


----------



## Anubys

I upgraded my HD-Tivo yesterday and it was a success. Here are some observations:

1. Thanks Pbolya for the warning about the gold pin. This and the "white ribbon" were the two things I went directly to. The gold pin was already resting on the HDMI card. I have my TV set using the HDMI/DVI cable so I know it was working with the gold pin touching the card. Even being careful, I still bumped into that darn pin twice. I was only able to watch TV for an hour, but it seems to be working fine.

2. My temp ranged from 41 to 44 before the upgrade. So I'm not worried about overheating. I did use the twinbreeze with the extra fan, so I'm REALLY not worried about the heat  

3. I used a 250 GB drive. the difference in cost between 250 GB and 300 GB was just too great for the incremental increase in recording capacity. When 500 GB drives are cheap, I will upgrade to 1 TB anyway. So since this upgrade is only for a year or so (I hope), it just didn't make sense to fork over all that money for the extra 7 hours.

4. The TwinBreeze instructions were great. It was hard to find a spot to put all the power cables and close the lid and the fan was a little in the way of the IDE cable. Otherwise, it was a smooth operation all the way.


----------



## aaronwt

> _Originally posted by pbolya _
> *Aaron,
> Did the pin in your TiVo touched the HDMI card or it was facing streight up? After you installed the bracket did the fan housing touched the pin (and maybe even pushed it ever so slightly) ? Answers to these questions would enable me to figgure out how the pin is suppose to be. I did not hit the pin but it was definately touching the bracket when I positioned the bracket over the right holes. *


The bracket was not touching the pin when postitioned over the right holes. It was about 1/4 inch away from the bracket. I may have hit this pin on my first modification because I had put the bracket in and removed it several times. The second upgrade I knew exactly what I was doing and only had to place the bracket once, and it never came close to touching it since I looked at it periodically. I might decide to open up the 1st upgraded unit later this week. Although if I had thought about it, I should have opened it up last night while I was upgrading my second unit. Now my second unit is on top of the first which makes it a pain to access. Plus I wouldn't mind going back in and cleaning up how I ran the power cable. I got it just right on the second one but my first unit I made a mess with the cables and basically bundled them together.


----------



## pbolya

> _Originally posted by aaronwt _
> *The bracket was not touching the pin when postitioned over the right holes. It was about 1/4 inch away from the bracket. I may have hit this pin on my first modification because I had put the bracket in and removed it several times. The second upgrade I knew exactly what I was doing and only had to place the bracket once, and it never came close to touching it since I looked at it periodically. I might decide to open up the 1st upgraded unit later this week. Although if I had thought about it, I should have opened it up last night while I was upgrading my second unit. Now my second unit is on top of the first which makes it a pain to access. Plus I wouldn't mind going back in and cleaning up how I ran the power cable. I got it just right on the second one but my first unit I made a mess with the cables and basically bundled them together. *


 Aaron,
In my TiVo the bracket touched the pin if I put it in the right spot. I was contenplating putting the crew in the holes one closer to the front but than the bracket wouldn't sit straight. I straightened out the top of the pin a little bit istead but still I be damed if there is more space than 1/16th inch difference between the pin and the bracket.


----------



## Anubys

> _Originally posted by pbolya _
> *Aaron,
> In my TiVo the bracket touched the pin if I put it in the right spot. I was contenplating putting the crew in the holes one closer to the front but than the bracket wouldn't sit straight. I straightened out the top of the pin a little bit istead but still I be damed if there is more space than 1/16th inch difference between the pin and the bracket. *


This is very strange. In my unit, I had a very different experience:

1. the gold pin was touching the HDMI card, it actually snapped back to it when I accidentally pulled it away.

2. the twinbreeze bracket was a good half inch away from the gold pin when I positioned the bracket correctly (the holes lined up per Weaknees instructions).

can the insides be different like that? mine was made in Mexico (don't know where it was made, but it does not say made in the USA, so I'm assuming Mexico) and was manufactured in the middle of June.


----------



## pbolya

> _Originally posted by Anubys _
> *This is very strange. In my unit, I had a very different experience:
> 
> 1. the gold pin was touching the HDMI card, it actually snapped back to it when I accidentally pulled it away.
> 
> 2. the twinbreeze bracket was a good half inch away from the gold pin when I positioned the bracket correctly (the holes lined up per Weaknees instructions).
> 
> can the insides be different like that? mine was made in Mexico (don't know where it was made, but it does not say made in the USA, so I'm assuming Mexico) and was manufactured in the middle of June. *


 Manufactured April in the USA. I wonder if the logos are missing due to there testing of the HDMI fix and a consecutive clear and delete. But of course this is just a conspiracy theory.


----------



## aaronwt

My second one was made in Mexico and my first one was made in USA. (1/4 inch was a guess since I forgot to take after pictures)Sounds like I really need to check the USA one. Also was everyone able to pull the coax cable off the splitter like in the instructions. On both of mine I had to remove it from the tuner. It felt as if something had been applied to the splitter end to prevent the cable from sliding off. I tried pulling it, but didn't want to exert too much force on it. It worked out fine removing the cable from the tuner end.

Clear and delete will remove logos so even if the image had them initially, you have to do clear and delete since the drives are in a different system. Hopefully we'll have that software update soon. It's weird looking at the now playing list without the logos.


----------



## Anubys

I didn't have trouble with the coax cable...I twisted it a little back and forth...but I didn't feel it was any different from any old RCA cable ...maybe a little deeper than normal...

for what it's worth I also have logos...


----------



## aaronwt

> _Originally posted by Anubys _
> *I didn't have trouble with the coax cable...I twisted it a little back and forth...but I didn't feel it was any different from any old RCA cable ...maybe a little deeper than normal...
> 
> for what it's worth I also have logos... *


You only added one drive? Or you made a copy of the original drive in your HD-TiVo?
My boxes both had logos but I had weakness configure my drives, and replaced my original, so a clear and delete has to be performed since the drives are being put in a different system than the image came from.


----------



## Anubys

oh yeah, I didn't touch the original. I didn't want to lose the logos!

I just added a second drive...I'll replace both when I can put two 500 GB in there...


----------



## Anubys

I've had a very busy couple of days so I have not been able to watch a lot of TV  

But in the two days since I added a 250 GB drive to my HD-Tivo, I've noticed a strange clicking sound coming from the second hard drive. The sound is there as I'm playing a show and increases in speed when I press fast forward. I know it's only from the second HD because shows I recorded before the upgrade don't make the sound.

It's almost the sound a HD makes when it's defragmenting. The noise was quite loud on the first day, and not as loud yesterday. I hope it will be gone today (I'm a statistician, so I'm big on trends!)...

Any idea if this is a portent of trouble ahead?


----------



## aejanis

> _Originally posted by Anubys _
> *I've had a very busy couple of days so I have not been able to watch a lot of TV
> 
> But in the two days since I added a 250 GB drive to my HD-Tivo, I've noticed a strange clicking sound coming from the second hard drive. The sound is there as I'm playing a show and increases in speed when I press fast forward. I know it's only from the second HD because shows I recorded before the upgrade don't make the sound.
> 
> It's almost the sound a HD makes when it's defragmenting. The noise was quite loud on the first day, and not as loud yesterday. I hope it will be gone today (I'm a statistician, so I'm big on trends!)...
> 
> Any idea if this is a portent of trouble ahead? *


Might be that you need to turn on the acoustic management. If it is a Maxtor drive "out of the box" it will be noisy.


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## Anubys

> _Originally posted by aejanis _
> *Might be that you need to turn on the acoustic management. If it is a Maxtor drive "out of the box" it will be noisy. *


Cool. it is a maxtor drive. If that's all it is, I can deal with that...I was just afraid that the drive is failing. I foolishly do not have the box it came in, so it might be hard to return it.


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## pbolya

> _Originally posted by Anubys _
> *Cool. it is a maxtor drive. If that's all it is, I can deal with that...I was just afraid that the drive is failing. I foolishly do not have the box it came in, so it might be hard to return it. *


 Anubys, I had the same thing and turned the acustic management to quite and now it is much more quite than the stock WD. I do not ever hear anything anymore (see previous posts).


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## Anubys

> _Originally posted by pbolya _
> *Anubys, I had the same thing and turned the acustic management to quite and now it is much more quite than the stock WD. I do not ever hear anything anymore (see previous posts). *


whew...I'm feeling much better now...I didn't want to go through a big round of returning the drive, getting another one...etc.

Thanks for giving me some peace of mind ! :up:


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## JohnTivo

Anubys,

It's probably the acoustic management, but IF it is a bad drive, I hope you made an image of your original drive now that you've married the two drives.


----------



## Anubys

> _Originally posted by JohnTivo _
> *Anubys,
> 
> It's probably the acoustic management, but IF it is a bad drive, I hope you made an image of your original drive now that you've married the two drives. *


Yikes.

Well, that peace of mind lasted a good half hour 

serenity now. serenity now. serenity now.


----------



## mikemav

> _Originally posted by JohnTivo _
> *Anubys,
> 
> It's probably the acoustic management, but IF it is a bad drive, I hope you made an image of your original drive now that you've married the two drives. *


If the B drive was to fail down the line, is there a way to save the recordings on the A drive? I have a mfsbackup of the factory drive (not a full dd), but now that the factory drive is married to #2, is there a way to recover what is on a good A drive should B fail? What happens if I DD the A drive? How about restore from my backup image to a fresh drive, then somehow move over my recordings from the current working A to the fresh drive (which will not be married to anything.) Does it work that way? No problems, knock on wood; I'm just curious.


----------



## weaknees

Recordings are spread across both drives, and the TiVo won't even boot without seeing both. If you lose the B drive, you lose everything.

Michael


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## JohnTivo

> _Originally posted by Anubys _
> *Yikes.
> 
> Well, that peace of mind lasted a good half hour
> 
> serenity now. serenity now. serenity now.  *


Sorry about that! 

If the drive does fail, it is possible to get an image from someone else... so don't worry about it too much.


----------



## JohnTivo

For those in the LA area, Fry's is running an ad today for 250GB drives priced at $119.99. No rebate required. No mention of brand or warranty though.


----------



## RF_Eng

I am on my way there right now. There is a limit of 1 per customer so I will have to do the buy/exit/re-enter procedure.


----------



## aaronwt

I just ordered one online for 119.99 plus shipping. I guess I'll find out shortly if they actually ship it for that price.


----------



## Darin

Outpost had it at that price for a while, then went to $129, and today it's back to 119 (limit one). I ordered one too... just can't resist that.

http://shop1.outpost.com/product/3700356/


----------



## tivolovit

> _Originally posted by JohnTivo _
> *For those in the LA area, Fry's is running an ad today for 250GB drives priced at $119.99. No rebate required. No mention of brand or warranty though. *


It is a Maxtor drive, model #L01P250.

Online and at B&M stores.


----------



## Darin

Ugh, well the HD I ordered through Outpost is showing backordered... hope this isn't something that stays eternally backordered until they cancel it.


----------



## pbolya

My upgraded TiVo (63h-Stock 250GB WD and Maxtor 250GB set to Quiet mode) passed my first test with well above expectations. I filled it up with 17hours oh HD and 265h of SD material (using VH1 and HBO for the SD) for over 30 pages in the list. Amazingly it took only 7 seconds to page through the 30+ pages with most of the time the list wasn't even viewable yet before going to the next one. It is not just that the TiVo did not slow down a bit but it even seamed to be faster than before the upgrade (which sounds pretty unbelievable). The list took 1 second (or even less) to display. Schedule new shows or delete shows from the list was extremely fast and the TiVo guide was pretty fast too (less then a second per page). The D* guide takes about 3 seconds per page to draw but that one was sluggish from day one (I even remember 4-5 seconds at times before the upgrade). 

Overall I am extremely impressed and concluded that when available upgrading to 1TB most likely will not be a performance issue.


----------



## aaronwt

> _Originally posted by Darin _
> *Ugh, well the HD I ordered through Outpost is showing backordered... hope this isn't something that stays eternally backordered until they cancel it.  *


Mine is showing backordered also. If I knew it was going to be backordered, I wouldn't have chose overnight shipping.


----------



## RC3105

HR10-250 software *ONLY* exploit

don't need a prom mod to get bash anymore

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&q=bounty+treocentral+site+tivo

spread the word & pass the hat 

edit: there ya go, tcf is so picky about censoring links sometimes. the google search finds a ddb thread, which links to the thread with the hd-tivo sw exploit


----------



## leftcoastdave

> _Originally posted by RC3105 _
> *HR10-250 software ONLY exploit
> 
> don't need a prom mod to get bash anymore
> 
> http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&...treocentral+site:************.com&btnI=Search
> 
> spread the word & pass the hat  *


Huh?


----------



## JohnTivo

There is no exploit yet... the whole point of the tread is to encourage someone to find an exploit...


----------



## jerrymc

> _Originally posted by JohnTivo _
> *There is no exploit yet... the whole point of the tread is to encourage someone to find an exploit... *


There IS an exploit. If you read further, the thread points out another thread which explains that an exploit exists. The point of that thread is to generate sufficient "bounty" to encourage the "exploiters" to publish it.


----------



## dstroot

I have two HD Tivos, one is stock and one I added another 250gig drive (Western Digital) to bump it to 63 hrs of HD recording. The one I added capacity to seems to have a lot more "hiccups" where the picture or sound goes out/pixelates for a brief period and then comes back - couple times an hour I'd say.

It's a new unit and is still loading guide data probably as well. OK so here's the question - does writing data across two drives, with two tuners, etc increase or cause the "hiccups" I'm seeing? Anyone else notice that upgraded machines don't run as smoothly as non-upgraded ones?


----------



## JohnTivo

Jerrymc,

I should have looked at the thread since Saturday before I posted today... 

dstroot,

I would guess your original WD drive is failing... you should not be seeing hiccups because you added a second drive.


----------



## pbolya

> _Originally posted by dstroot _
> *I have two HD Tivos, one is stock and one I added another 250gig drive (Western Digital) to bump it to 63 hrs of HD recording. The one I added capacity to seems to have a lot more "hiccups" where the picture or sound goes out/pixelates for a brief period and then comes back - couple times an hour I'd say.
> 
> It's a new unit and is still loading guide data probably as well. OK so here's the question - does writing data across two drives, with two tuners, etc increase or cause the "hiccups" I'm seeing? Anyone else notice that upgraded machines don't run as smoothly as non-upgraded ones? *


 dstroot,
I just filled up my 63 hours with 300h mainly SD content and everything seemed faster than before the upgrade  . Now I deleted all of those shows (it was a pain sorting out what is test data and what is actual regular recordings without having the LOGOS  ) and it seems a little bit slower again. The bottom line is it seems to be faster when it is actually using the new drive (Maxtor 250 changed to Quiet mode from performance!) than the stock WD.

Pixelating usually relates to antenna issues. Try both Satellite and OTA channels. If the OTA pixelates on one of the TiVo but not on the other try switching the 2 TiVo. If it starts pixelating on the other one instead on the one it previously pixelating than it is the cables or the splitter (some splitters have less signal loss on some outputs than others).

If it is still the upgraded TiVo than open it up and check if your OTA cables are secure. The only reason why the upgraded TiVo would start pixelating if you would bump some of the vital organs of the TiVo during the upgrade or did not connect the cables securely.


----------



## dstroot

pbolya - you might be right. I did have to shove the antenna lines out of the way to fit the new drive and bracket. I'll have to watch more carefully since I thought I was seeing the same thing on the Sat channels (where the upgrade wouldn't have done anything.


----------



## Darin

The other thing to keep in mind is that DirecTV was having some problems the other day. Showtime had a lot of pixelization Saturday.


----------



## DocNo

> _Originally posted by llogan _
> *This is what I'd envisioned....x number of Tivos...all Turbonet modified running TivoNet, using mySQL as the backend (hosted on a pc) and create logic and a front-end to support managing your recording list and tuners from one location. Would allow PocketPC/Palm based control of menus and their related functions. *


There is already an open source solution that supports multiple tuners in one box, and then displays the video remotely - the cheapest remote video station is a modded Xbox. The nice thing about this is you don't have to run cable all over the house for multiple tuners like with a multiple Tivo solution.

I can't remember the name of the project, but it looked pretty good - I fear that is a direction I will be going if Tivo doesn't get more aggressive 

I don't mind paying for the convenience of a pre-made solution like Tivo, but I'm just about ready to trade that for the flexability of a homebrew solution


----------



## aaronwt

I see Outpost shipped my Maxtor 250GB hard drive and it should arrive today. I meant to cancel my order yesterday but forgot. This is gettung out of hand for me. I swore I wouldn't buy anymore ide drives. I think 6 Terabytes is more than enough storage for me especially since I'm not using my HiPix cards like I used to. If I count the drives in all my TiVos I have over 7.5 Terabytes of storage available although I still have to sell my 3 series 1 DTiVos.


----------



## Darin

> _Originally posted by Mark Lopez _
> *I started with a Maxtor 250GB drive, but it was sort of noisy with the seeks and amset does not work on it (reports drive does not support it).*


Mark, which drive model do you have? Several other people in this thread have reported using amset on a 250GB maxtor drive. Mine is being delivered tomorrow (along with my bracket - YAY), and I'm really hoping to be able to use amset. I've read the maxtors have rather loud seeks without using the acoustic management.

For what it's worth, the one I'm getting is this one: http://shop.outpost.com/product/3700356


----------



## Anubys

> _Originally posted by Darin _
> *Mark, which drive model do you have? Several other people in this thread have reported using amset on a 250GB maxtor drive. Mine is being delivered tomorrow (along with my bracket - YAY), and I'm really hoping to be able to use amset. I've read the maxtors have rather loud seeks without using the acoustic management.
> 
> For what it's worth, the one I'm getting is this one: http://shop.outpost.com/product/3700356 *


Darin, did you buy this drive?

the Maxtor I got from CompUSA and put into my HD-Tivo is driving me crazy...it makes a clicking sound when it's recording or playing...loud enough sometimes to hear it over the show...I'm thinking of replacing it with the one you've got here but I want to make sure that it will work and is a quiet one!


----------



## dswallow

> _Originally posted by Anubys _
> *the Maxtor I got from CompUSA and put into my HD-Tivo is driving me crazy...it makes a clicking sound when it's recording or playing...loud enough sometimes to hear it over the show...I'm thinking of replacing it with the one you've got here but I want to make sure that it will work and is a quiet one! *


Have you run amset on it yet?


----------



## Anubys

> _Originally posted by dswallow _
> *Have you run amset on it yet? *


way over my head...don't know what amset is 

I sent it to PTVupgrade and they sent it back to me. I just received an e-mail from them saying that they did set it for acoustic management. I assume they know what they are doing.

I can replace a HD or memory, drive...etc. in my PC...but once you guys start talking linux, I run and hide under my desk


----------



## dswallow

> _Originally posted by Anubys _
> *way over my head...don't know what amset is
> 
> I sent it to PTVupgrade and they sent it back to me. I just received an e-mail from them saying that they did set it for acoustic management. I assume they know what they are doing.
> 
> I can replace a HD or memory, drive...etc. in my PC...but once you guys start talking linux, I run and hide under my desk  *


amset is a utility Maxtor provides that lets you set the acoustical management options on the drives; it's run from a bootable DOS diskette.

Here's info on the utility from Maxtor: http://maxtor.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/maxtor.cfg/php/enduser/olh_adp.php?p_faqid=1200

Here's a place you can get a DOS boot disk image: http://bootdisk.com (I generally use the Dr DOS version for this sort of thing)

You'd need to remove the disk, connect it to your PC and boot from the diskette and run the utility. Just make sure you don't boot into Windows with the TiVo hard drive connected. If you're up to it, it couldn't hurt to confirm the acoustic management was configured properly.


----------



## Anubys

Excellent. Thanks Doug!

I'll try it. I'm not sure it will work. the noise I'm getting is a clicking sound, not a "loud" hard drive...it sounds more like a bigger problem...but it's worth a shot...

Thanks again for the advice :up:


----------



## Darin

But to answer your question, yes, I did buy that drive. Both it and my bracket are being delivered tomorrow, so with any luck I may have time to install them tomorrow night (I'm already out of space  ). I'll let you know how it goes.


----------



## Mark Lopez

> _Originally posted by Darin _
> *Mark, which drive model do you have? Several other people in this thread have reported using amset on a 250GB maxtor drive. *


It was the MaXLine II 5A250J0 (it's a 5400 rpm drive).


----------



## Darin

Thanks Mark... at least that's not the one I got, so hopefully amset will work on mine.


----------



## weldon

The clicking noise is indicative of the "performance" setting on the Maxtor drive. Follow Doug's instructions to make sure it is set to "quiet" mode.


----------



## Anubys

> _Originally posted by weldon _
> *The clicking noise is indicative of the "performance" setting on the Maxtor drive. Follow Doug's instructions to make sure it is set to "quiet" mode. *


that's good to hear. PTVupgrade assures me that they turned on the acoustic management. I guess I'll need check to make sure!

I'd rather find out that the problem is AM and not a drive failure...of course, once I find out that it's AM, I'll be pissed at PTVupgrade


----------



## Darin

It's possible that they turned it on, just didn't turn it on to what you want. There are typically three settings: AM on in quiet mode, AM on in performance mode, and AM off. The COULD have turned on AM, but turned it on in performance mode. That would be quieter than having AM turned off, but not as quiet as quiet mode.


----------



## pbolya

> _Originally posted by Darin _
> *It's possible that they turned it on, just didn't turn it on to what you want. There are typically three settings: AM on in quiet mode, AM on in performance mode, and AM off. The COULD have turned on AM, but turned it on in performance mode. That would be quieter than having AM turned off, but not as quiet as quiet mode. *


 I bought mine at CompUSA and it was set to AM Performance. I heard the same noises as you described and I turned it to AM Quiet with the same procedure as Doug describes and I can not even hear it anymore. As for the performance difference: if you look up my post a couple of days ago you see that it still seams to be faster than the stock WD drive.

Regards,
Peter


----------



## Anubys

It was almost too easy. The whole thing took about 30 minutes. I downloaded DrDos and the amset, created the two discs, took out the hard drive from the HD-Tivo, plugged it into the PC, ran the amset, put everything back and was up and running with no trouble. My only regret is that I didn't check to see what the drive was set to by PTVupgrade.

I only got to watch an hour of a movie (it was the Mighty Ducks -- in my defense, I had never seen it and it was in HD). Here are my observations:

1. The noise is GONE. I was half an hour into the movie when I made the switch. The noise before the switch was unbearable. After the switch, quiet as can be  

2. I had 3 or 4 audio/video drop-outs. The screen just went blank for half a second and the audio went as well. I also had 2 instances of some pixelation (again, very brief). Since it's only one movie that I tested, I can't tell if this is a performance issue with the HD or something was wrong with HBO the night the movie aired. Try as I might, I don't remember if I had the same experience with the movie before running the amset.

3. Just for Pbolya, I measured the distance between the twinbreeze and the HDMI gold pin, just about 2/3 of an inch...so there was plenty of room. Maybe the newer models have a smaller HDMI card (?)

4. Not very happy with PTVupgrade. Their e-mail responses were quick, but were not at all helpful. 

5. Very happy with the help I got from your guys :up: :up: :up: 

you guys are awesome...thanks Doug, Pbolya, Weldon, and Darin (I hope I didn't leave anyone out!)...if you ever need help with statistics, I'm your man!


----------



## tivoupgrade

> _Originally posted by Anubys _
> *
> 4. Not very happy with PTVupgrade. Their e-mail responses were quick, but were not at all helpful.
> 
> *


Not sure what the source of this comment is; we responded to all of your emails with same content and observations provided in this thread.... we did provide the service to you as contracted and our scripts do set acoustic management on for add-on drives for these units.


----------



## pbolya

> _Originally posted by Anubys _
> *3. Just for Pbolya, I measured the distance between the twinbreeze and the HDMI gold pin, just about 2/3 of an inch...so there was plenty of room. Maybe the newer models have a smaller HDMI card (?)*


 2/3 of an inch ? I had to straighten the top of the pin so I can get a 1/16th separation! I wonder if mine is one of the units that needed to be fixed due to the HDMI issue and they did a clear and delete to set it back and that is why I do not have the logos  By the way it looks like the plastic separator worked as I had no problem with the picture ever since.

For the pixalations try to rewind the show to the same points where it pixelated before. If it does it at the same places again and again then it was recorded that way and has nothing to do with the unit/drive getting slower (especially if it was recorded before the upgrade).


----------



## Anubys

> _Originally posted by tivoupgrade _
> *Not sure what the source of this comment is; we responded to all of your emails with same content and observations provided in this thread.... we did provide the service to you as contracted and our scripts do set acoustic management on for add-on drives for these units. *


OK...here's a record of the e-mails...

Hello

I sent you a support e-mail days ago. I was under the impression that you respond within one hour during business days (?)

I sent you a maxtor 250 GB drive to be set-up as a Add on a HD-Tivo. The installation went fine but the hard drive is VERY loud with constant clicking sound when it's writing or reading. I know the sound is only from the drive you guys configured because stuff that I had recorded pre-upgrade do not make the sound when I watch them.

I need to know if you turned on the acoustic management to quiet or what the problem is. I need to know if this is something you can fix.

Can someone please give me a call or respond to my questions?

thanks!

Anubys note: I fixed the spelling from "Quite" to "Quiet"
___________________________

Hazem -

Its possible that one of your drives is failing; we do not provide support for user-supplied hardware, however. My only recommendation would be to either send your unit for a recertification so we can diagnose the problem. 
We did run diagnostics on your drive and it should have been set for acoustic management as part of the configuration we did.

Thx, 
Lou Jacob 
PTVupgrade 
___________________________

lots of questions:

1. do I need to send you the entire unit? once the two drives are married, I can't remove the new drive, can I?

2. if yes to the first question, how long would it take? and how much?

3. Is it cheaper to just get a new drive (there's one at Outpost right now for $119) and send it to you? I can then try to return the old maxtor for a refund or exchange...

4. When I sent you the drive, it was in the original box, you guys did not ship the box back with it...am I in trouble without the box (in terms of return/exchange)?

thanks!

Anubys: Deleted URL to the Outpost Hard drive
____________________________

Hazem,

Please check your email, I sent you a response detailing all of this info right after you sent your original support email.

Steve.

____________________________
Reply from me (Anubys = Hazem!)

I checked my spam/junk folder and I do not see your e-mail. I really need to know the answers to my questions. Any chance you can forward your e-mail to this address?

People on the forum seem sure that the AM is not set to quiet. I'm going to try to do it myself which is annoying since I send it to you guys just to avoid this sort of thing. Any reason I should not try?

thanks again for any advice...

___________________________

Hazem -

The answer to your question is BELOW; please see MY response! 

Thanks, 
Lou 
_________________________

End of E-mail trail

Anubys: By below, I'm guessing Lou meant the e-mail where he tells me my drive is failing. It makes no sense to refer me to their original response when my e-mail to them says I didn't get any response in the first place.

Look, I don't really care. I'm not asking for my money back or anything. E-mail responses where quick (if you assume there was a problem with my e-mail for the initial response). it just didn't help me. The best tech support I got was from Doug, who directed me to where I can do it. That's all I needed.

The only complaint I have is that clearly my drive was not set to Quiet. my recommendation to PTV is to include that as an option on the web site.

I'm not upset. It was easy to fix. I like doing stuff like that. PTV was quick and the price was reasonable. I'm going to upgrade my HD-Tivo to two 500 GB drives as soon as the price is below $500 (for both). I have no problem doing it with PTV upgrade again.


----------



## weaknees

We've seen most be about 2/3 of an inch from the edge of the HDMI card to the TwinBreeze. We haven't noticed any actually touching the card, so this may be an earlier box.

Depending on where the factory bracket sits (it's just adhered down with double-sided tape) this may shift the final bracket position a bit, but again, we haven't seen much variation there.

You might try to change where the bracket is screwed down to the unit - you could try to move one air hole up and see if you can get it to leave more space but still sit securely.

Michael


----------



## Darin

> _Originally posted by Anubys _
> *Thanks Pbolya for the warning about the gold pin. This and the "white ribbon" were the two things I went directly to. *


Ok, I'm expecting to come home to both my new hard drive, and bracket, waiting on my front porch to upgrade my unit tonight. I've searched the forums for a "white ribbon" issue, but didn't really find anything. Is there something I should be aware of here?

Thanks!


----------



## aejanis

The white ribbon that connects the front panel controls to the mainboard...

Don't touch it...if it comes loose (on some of the early series 2 DTivos) it will cause a problem...Don't know if that has carried over to the HDTiVo, but I don't want to be the first to find out.

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=105719


----------



## weaknees

> _Originally posted by Darin _
> *Ok, I'm expecting to come home to both my new hard drive, and bracket, waiting on my front porch to upgrade my unit tonight. I've searched the forums for a "white ribbon" issue, but didn't really find anything. Is there something I should be aware of here?
> 
> Thanks! *


Also known as the "cable of death," we have a sticky post about it at the top of the forum.

Long story short - the ribbon cable that goes from the motherboard into the front panel is very sensitive on series 2 units. If all the way or partially out when the unit is booted, it can cause permanent damage to the motherboard making the unit inoperative via remote control or front panel buttons. We haven't (fortunately) seen if this is a problem on HR10-250s, but please exercise caution here. Make sure you can't see any of the silver contacts on the bottom of the cable before you power up the unit.

Michael


----------



## Anubys

> _Originally posted by Darin _
> *Ok, I'm expecting to come home to both my new hard drive, and bracket, waiting on my front porch to upgrade my unit tonight. I've searched the forums for a "white ribbon" issue, but didn't really find anything. Is there something I should be aware of here?
> 
> Thanks! *


yep. it's very important. When you open the unit and you're facing the front, there will be a white ribbon connected to the board and into the front of the unit. Because all the new cables will be concentrated there, you will have a very hard time not hitting it. If this cable becomes dislodged, even slightly, and you power-up your unit, the machine is dead and cannot be repaired.

So you MUST make sure that this white cable is secure before you close things up and power the unit.

The Twinbreeze instructions are very good about showing you the cable using pictures.


----------



## weaknees

Looks like we're all in agreement here . . .


----------



## Anubys

talk about service! three replies about the white cable!


----------



## Darin

Ah, ok. Thanks everyone.


----------



## Darin

Ok, now that I'm getting close, I'm starting to get my ducks in a row, and I have a couple more questions. My intent is to make a back-up of my original drive (without recordings), skip the step of confirming the backup is good (because I'm lazy and impatient, but I may back it up twice if that part goes fast), bless the new drive, and put it all back together. I know nothing about linux commands, but I can follow directions as easily as the next guy. I've upgraded both my series 1 SD tivo and my sister's series 2 SD tivo successfully, so I'm not overly concerned, just want to make sure I've got the commands right. So I've found two posts in this thread that recap the steps:

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?postid=1988222#post1988222

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?postid=2046838#post2046838

The first one says to mount using:

*mount /dev/hda /mnt*

The second one says to use:

*mkdir /mnt/dos
mount /dev/hda1 /mnt/dos*

Is the mkdir command in the second one necessary? I'm assuming this is just making a directory on my PC's boot drive to place the backup in, and without that step, it will just go to the root (where I can move it later)?Why the "1" in "hda1" for the drive designation?

The backup commands are also a little different, but I'm assuming that's just because the second one has created a directory just for the backup file, so it has to direct the file into that location (?)

Just want to make sure I've got it all correct.


----------



## weaknees

The "1" means to use the first partition. If your c: drive's main storage area is later, adjust accordingly.

The /mnt/dos is just a sub-directory of /mnt. We don't see any reason for bothering with that.

Michael


----------



## Darin

Ah, ok, thanks. If the 1 is omitted on a dual partition drive, does it fail, or does it assume the first partition? And at the risk of stating the obvious, I'd just change it to 2 if my HD has two partitions, and I specifically want it saved in the second partition?

Also, is it safe to assume that since I'm just doing an OS backup, and not saving the recordings, that there wouldn't be much time savings in bothering with enabling DMA beforehand?


----------



## weaknees

Actually, you should enable DMA - it could make a big difference timewise.

I haven't done the hda without a number recently that I can remember, but I'm pretty sure it defaults to 1. The key here is just that you need a FAT partition to write the image file. 

Once you mount, you can see exactly where you are by switching there and listing the directory:

cd /mnt
ls

That works on most Linux systems.

Michael


----------



## Darin

Ok, thanks again.


----------



## pbolya

> _Originally posted by weaknees _
> *We've seen most be about 2/3 of an inch from the edge of the HDMI card to the TwinBreeze. We haven't noticed any actually touching the card, so this may be an earlier box.
> 
> Depending on where the factory bracket sits (it's just adhered down with double-sided tape) this may shift the final bracket position a bit, but again, we haven't seen much variation there.
> 
> You might try to change where the bracket is screwed down to the unit - you could try to move one air hole up and see if you can get it to leave more space but still sit securely.
> 
> Michael *


 Michael,
I tried to mount the bracket one whole up and that did leave much more space between the pin and the bracket but than it was sitting on an angle on the original bracket. Now that I straightened out the pin a little bit and added separators it works perfectly so I rather have the bracket in the proper position (I could have made it secure in that position too but it looks much more secure this way). I just need to make sure that I put the plastic separator back if I ever need to shake the unit. 

There is absolutely no chance for the cable of death (white ribbon) to dislodge as the bracket fan housing is pushing the cable down (had to push it down carefully until it banded enough to fit the bracket). Now the fan housing sits on the top of the ribbon so it is not going anywhere. If I make it sound that we should be surprised that my machine even boots I apologize. Actually it wasn't bad at all (little bending here, little straightening out there and a lot of cable tucking). All is well if it ends well.


----------



## weaknees

> _Originally posted by pbolya _
> *There is absolutely no chance for the cable of death (white ribbon) to dislodge as the bracket fan housing is pushing the cable down (had to push it down carefully until it banded enough to fit the bracket). Now the fan housing sits on the top of the ribbon so it is not going anywhere. If I make it sound that we should be surprised that my machine even boots I apologize. Actually it wasn't bad at all (little bending here, little straightening out there and a lot of cable tucking). All is well if it ends well. *


Actually, that's not the "cable of death." If that one get's dislodged, the TiVo just won't start up at all. The "cable of death" goes from the mobo to the front of the machine, right over the inputs for the RF connectors.

Michael


----------



## pbolya

> _Originally posted by weaknees _
> *Actually, that's not the "cable of death." If that one get's dislodged, the TiVo just won't start up at all. The "cable of death" goes from the mobo to the front of the machine, right over the inputs for the RF connectors.
> 
> Michael *


 Now you are scaring me. That is where I tucked all the cambles away. Oh well it is done now and I hope I will never need to tuch it again. No wait I hope I do. That would mean that I have to 500GB discs in my hand to upgrade to 1TB (never hurts to dream).


----------



## Anubys

> _Originally posted by weaknees _
> *Actually, that's not the "cable of death." If that one get's dislodged, the TiVo just won't start up at all. The "cable of death" goes from the mobo to the front of the machine, right over the inputs for the RF connectors.
> 
> Michael *


And this is really my only criticism of the Twinbreeze: the jumble of cables around the "cable of death" is really unfortunate. I can certainly sympathize with the limited space and I think the Twinbreeze is wonderful, but I would've felt a lot better had there been a way to tuck all those cables neatly and/or away from the cable of death (I love that name!). The power cables are longer than necessary and the hard plastic tips must really be jammed on top of the cable of death in order to close the lid.

Heck, maybe LONGER power cable would work better...then you can stretch them away from the cable of death and into the open space on the left front side (as you're facing the front of the unit).

Weaknees: I love the twinbreeze, I think it's great...I'm just trying to see if it can be even better!


----------



## aaronwt

I just tied everything together with some ty-raps. it makes it much neater. And gets everything out of the way. Of course that was my second installation. The first one was a bit messier. I'll have to open it up sometime and clean it up so it looks as good as the second one. Although I'm not in any rush to crack it open.


----------



## Anubys

> _Originally posted by aaronwt _
> *I just tied everything together with some ty-raps. it makes it much neater. And gets everything out of the way. Of course that was my second installation. The first one was a bit messier. I'll have to open it up sometime and clean it up so it looks as good as the second one. *


Once you tie them together, where do you put them? I couldn't find an empty spot where I could tuck them neatly...that middle part is a jungle of cables...

Working against me is I don't have much patience...so I just stuffed them in there and closed the lid...then I just imagine they're in there neatly


----------



## gr8reb8

> _Originally posted by Darin _
> *Ok, now that I'm getting close, I'm starting to get my ducks in a row, and I have a couple more questions. My intent is to make a back-up of my original drive (without recordings), skip the step of confirming the backup is good (because I'm lazy and impatient, but I may back it up twice if that part goes fast), bless the new drive, and put it all back together. I know nothing about linux commands, but I can follow directions as easily as the next guy. I've upgraded both my series 1 SD tivo and my sister's series 2 SD tivo successfully, so I'm not overly concerned, just want to make sure I've got the commands right. So I've found two posts in this thread that recap the steps:
> 
> http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?postid=1988222#post1988222
> 
> http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?postid=2046838#post2046838
> 
> The first one says to mount using:
> 
> mount /dev/hda /mnt
> 
> The second one says to use:
> 
> mkdir /mnt/dos
> mount /dev/hda1 /mnt/dos
> 
> Is the mkdir command in the second one necessary? I'm assuming this is just making a directory on my PC's boot drive to place the backup in, and without that step, it will just go to the root (where I can move it later)?Why the "1" in "hda1" for the drive designation?
> 
> The backup commands are also a little different, but I'm assuming that's just because the second one has created a directory just for the backup file, so it has to direct the file into that location (?)
> 
> Just want to make sure I've got it all correct.  *


Darin,

I wrote the procedure I had to follow to get it to work. (the second post).
If I attempted the mount command without the mkdir command first, it would not mount. I used the boot disk mentioned in the message. Not sure why the mount works (without the mkdir first) for some but I know that it will NOT work on my system. My procedure (using the mkdir first) worked good for me and it is still running fine, (knock on wood) and I had seen so many messages with the Linux commands with various mistakes (usually corrected in a later message) that I decided to write my experience and double checked the commands and syntax.

Good luck.


----------



## dswallow

"mount" makes a logical connection point in your directory structure; the directory you specify becomes the root of what you mounted. By mounting something to "/mnt" you're taking over that point entirely for your connection to the other drive. By creating a subdirectory and mounting to it, you're providing room for other subdirectories to be created and connected to other mount points within the "/mnt" directory.

If you know you don't need to mount other file systems there, there's nothing wrong with not using the subdirectory.


----------



## such

Did my upgrade last night. Attempted a backup of my factory drive, blessed a new 250Gb, and installed with the twinbreeze bracked. All worked as planned, now ahve 63 HD hours. Not as painful as I imagined after doing some advance reading. 

Would be great if someone would post a guide, navigating through this thread is confusing and time consuming.

A couple of things to note, I added a Maxtor drive, didn't change the factory settings to quiet mode (couldn't find it on the CD they shipped MaxBlast3). The unit is definately a bit warmer and louder than before, but all seems to be working 12 hours later.


----------



## Anubys

> _Originally posted by dswallow _
> *amset is a utility Maxtor provides that lets you set the acoustical management options on the drives; it's run from a bootable DOS diskette.
> 
> Here's info on the utility from Maxtor: http://maxtor.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/maxtor.cfg/php/enduser/olh_adp.php?p_faqid=1200
> 
> Here's a place you can get a DOS boot disk image: http://bootdisk.com (I generally use the Dr DOS version for this sort of thing)
> 
> You'd need to remove the disk, connect it to your PC and boot from the diskette and run the utility. Just make sure you don't boot into Windows with the TiVo hard drive connected. If you're up to it, it couldn't hurt to confirm the acoustic management was configured properly. *


Such: Here's Doug's advice on how to set the amset to quiet. Those 2 web sites had everything that you need in case you hear a lot of noise from the hard drive. It worked like a charm for me.


----------



## weaknees

> _Originally posted by Anubys _
> *...the jumble of cables around the "cable of death" is really unfortunate. I can certainly sympathize with the limited space and I think the Twinbreeze is wonderful, but I would've felt a lot better had there been a way to tuck all those cables neatly and/or away from the cable of death (I love that name!). The power cables are longer than necessary and the hard plastic tips must really be jammed on top of the cable of death in order to close the lid....Weaknees: I love the twinbreeze, I think it's great...I'm just trying to see if it can be even better! *


By now we have upgraded a pretty significant number of these units, and I'm pretty comfortable saying that the cables that lie on top the front-panel ribbon cable are not going to dislodge it. If anything, they tend to push down on the cable when the lid is on, which is fine. If you have actually tried to pull it, you'll notice that it is in quite firmly, and some cables resting on it is not going to do harm.

In fact, unlike in the non-HD Series 2 units, the placement of the OTA tuners in the HD box makes it tougher to dislodge the cable when you are removing the factory drive/bracket.

So generally, we make a big deal about that cable in the instructions because it is important to watch for. That having been said, we have have never heard of the cable coming out as a result of the power/IDE cables that lie near the front-panel cable.

Michael


----------



## kkluba

I've been reading in the other forums of the very recent success of some who've successfully gotten their USB ports live and are networking the HR10-250. With Tivoweb, YAC and other add-ons I find essential this is good news. Looking forward to seeing it become more mainstream...


----------



## RC3105

don't expect to see the sw to do that here - the copyright holders are not overly fond of TCF since you can't even link to there from here


----------



## kkluba

Yeah I know RC. Just wanted to let folks here know that it can be done and that its very frikkin cool. I'm stalling a bit, don't want to be an early adopter on this one.


----------



## RC3105

dd if=/dev/hda3 of=kern3.dd
dd if=/dev/hda6 of=kern6.dd
bootpage -p /dev/hda > boot_parms.txt

will back up everything that gets changed, go for it

watching the background tuner via streaming to an xbox is just TOO cool

(xbox can even drive a hdtv with the right cable)


----------



## Darin

Well, I didn't have the chance to do my upgrade the other night after all. But now I have a couple more questions... is the LBA48 boot CD able to "see" drives connected to a separate IDE controller, or do they need to be connected to the ports on the motherboard. If the IDE controller CAN be used, what are the commands to list or view the connected drives, so I can figure out which one is which? If it must be the motherboard controller, does it matter that they aren't LBA48?


----------



## aaronwt

I Thought it needed to be on the MB controller. I know when I tried it, nothing was seen from either of my Promise contollers. It only saw the drives connected to the motherboard.


----------



## tivoupgrade

> _Originally posted by Darin _
> *Well, I didn't have the chance to do my upgrade the other night after all. But now I have a couple more questions... is the LBA48 boot CD able to "see" drives connected to a separate IDE controller, or do they need to be connected to the ports on the motherboard. If the IDE controller CAN be used, what are the commands to list or view the connected drives, so I can figure out which one is which? If it must be the motherboard controller, does it matter that they aren't LBA48? *


The LBA48 CD will not recognize external IDE controllers (eg Promise, Maxtor (ata/133 promise)).

It doesn't matter, within the context of your question, if you have a "standard" ata/66 IDE controller in your PC, the LBA48 CD should effectively address the full range of your large drives when you boot with the LBA48 CD.

Lots of discussions here on issues of LBA48 and the 137GB limitation (some discussion of PC hardware and what the issues are...).


----------



## Weez

> _Originally posted by kkluba _
> *Yeah I know RC. Just wanted to let folks here know that it can be done and that its very frikkin cool. I'm stalling a bit, don't want to be an early adopter on this one. *


As an early adopter, I can tell you it was easy to do and nothing like having ftp, telnet, tivoweb and other tools were not allowed to talk about up and running on the HR10-250.


----------



## tivoupgrade

> _Originally posted by Weez _
> *As an early adopter, I can tell you it was easy to do and nothing like having ftp, telnet, tivoweb and other tools were not allowed to talk about up and running on the HR10-250. *


FYI - we'll be making some announcements here at TC shortly with more details... sneak peek: we'll have an offering and some tools to make networking your HR10-250 a snap; and it will be soon. Here is a link to join the mailing list (subscribe to the Series2 networking list).


----------



## kkluba

Weez - you're far more courageous than I and probably a better Tivo hack as well. 

Tivoupgrade - I'm glad and impressed to hear you guys are on it so quickly. I think you'll generate a lot of new upgrade customers with the addition of networking. Count me in...


----------



## such

Can you change the acoustic management setting on a drive that has already been installed/married in the HD-Tivo? I will likely do this as my unit is humming like ac compressor!


----------



## weaknees

> _Originally posted by such _
> *Can you change the acoustic management setting on a drive that has already been installed/married in the HD-Tivo? I will likely do this as my unit is humming like ac compressor! *


Sure. Changing this setting has no effect on the other data on the drive. Just take the usual precautions, and be sure not to boot the drive into XP or 2000.

Michael


----------



## Anubys

> _Originally posted by such _
> *Can you change the acoustic management setting on a drive that has already been installed/married in the HD-Tivo? I will likely do this as my unit is humming like ac compressor! *


I just did it a few days ago and it was real easy...go up about 6-7 posts, you'll see another post from me about it that includes a quote from Doug about how to do it...


----------



## jayerndl

I am in the process of copying my original WD disk to a new Maxtor and I want to preserve recordings. I used the following command:

mfsbackup -Tao - /dev/hda | mfsrestore -zi - /dev/hde (hda-original WD is primary master on promise IDE controller, hde-new Maxtor primary master on builtin IDE controller)

Everything was going well, it was more than 1/2 done after 2 hours. Then it started going very slow. It then started to copy about 4% (10GB) per hour. So it was going to take another 10+ hours. I stopped it and started a dd copy with:

dd if=/dev/hda of=/dev/hde bs=1024k

Does anyone have any idea why the backup/restore slowed down? BTW, I am using the ptv mfstools w/large disk support disk that was referenced earlier in this thread. All disks were recognized with the proper size and partition info during bootup. I have verified that I have DMA enabled. It appears that it should take approx. 3-4 hours to do the copy. Does that seem about right? Thanks in advance for any help.

Jay


----------



## weaknees

I haven't watched a "Tao" backup that carefully recently, but I seem to remember that they move faster and slower, depending on what streams they find.

Michael


----------



## such

One last question before I crack my hdTivo for "hopefully" the last time. Has anyone had any performance issues with setting a Maxtor to Quiet mode? I have a 7200 250Gb drive.


----------



## weaknees

We haven't. All QuickView drives are set that way from the factory, and we've had no performance issues whatsoever.

Michael


----------



## bernaise

I just had my hr10-250 die yesterday after upgrading it with the Weaknees Twinbreeze setup about 2 weeks ago and everything running fine. I had problems with the system being noisey in my entertainment center. It sounded like the fan was loud. I raised the unit up onto hockey pucks and this helped but you could still hear it a little bit. I made sure that everything was mounted correctly and that the fan wasn't too tight and it was balanced. All was fine. In fact, the upgrade kit is awesome. I'm not saying that it had anything to do with the failure at all. But yesterday it sounded like a jet engine and then both drives started clicking. I never got past the Welcome, Powering Up screen. Both drives (factory and a fluid bearing Western Digital WD2500PB) were clicking. I unhooked everything from the entertainment center and took it to my work area and cracked the case. I removed the power connector power from the second drive and reapplied power to the system, to my surprise, everything sounded fine. Drive powered up and no clicking. I then tried the same with only powering the added drive. I got the same result. So, seperately both drives are fine, but when everything is all plugged in together, the system takes a dump and the drives sound horrible. I went ahead and put my original backup image on my factory drive and everything is working fine again, but am I now screwed and can't do the 2 drive setup? I called DirecTV and they are shipping me a replacement, but is it a power supply issue or something else? I'm stumped and had a ton of stuff recorded that I lost. Is this something I should worry about with the replacement? Could hooking everything up with a 2 drive setup be taxing the power supply to the point of death? I'm stumped, please help. Thanks in advance.


----------



## aejanis

Sounds to me like you have a powersupply problem (not able to power everything).


----------



## weaknees

We haven't seen that before either - could it be a bad power splitter? When you boot one drive, are you still using the power splitter? We haven't seen any of our power splitters go bad, but you could be the first . . . just a thought.

Michael


----------



## bernaise

Thanks for the quick replies. Yes, I was still connected to the power splitter when I was running my tests. Now that I took it back to factory default, the splitter is out. It, so far is running okay in the default setup, but now I'm a little timid to upgrade the new one. Are the power supplies in these things too weak or is there something I'm doing wrong? Also, any ideas on quieting the fan noise? The system is really quiet again without the extra fan. But when I was testing everything in my work area and the system was open, I couldn't hear any excessive noise. I wonder if it's because I have a builtin wood entertainment center and it just vibrates in that.


----------



## Anubys

I'm also in the same boat...did the upgrade a few of weeks ago...just had to go through the process of setting the maxtor drive to quiet...but in the past two days, there's this new, LOUD, vibration noise...

didn't sound like a drive spinning, more like a fan...I was going to wait till the weekend to take the unit apart and see if I made some screw too tight or too loose...so I'm curious to know: did you try just disconnecting the fan?

my unit ran very cool before the upgrade (39-41 degrees)...so I'm not that concerned about heat...FYI: I don't have a wood cabinet...


----------



## weaknees

The power supplies are plenty adequate in those units for two drives - just like all DirecTiVos to date.

As far as the fan noise, we really haven't heard it. Did you install with the rubber grommets? Is each screw tightened about the same amount so that the case of the fan isn't being twisted?

Michael


----------



## Anubys

> _Originally posted by weaknees _
> *The power supplies are plenty adequate in those units for two drives - just like all DirecTiVos to date.
> 
> As far as the fan noise, we really haven't heard it. Did you install with the rubber grommets? Is each screw tightened about the same amount so that the case of the fan isn't being twisted?
> 
> Michael *


Yes I did install the rubber grommets. I TRIED to tighten the screws about the same (not too much, not too little)...I'll open it up and take a look...I would think if that were the problem, the noise would've been there all along...

I don't even know if it IS the fan yet, mind you!


----------



## weaknees

OK - thanks for the info. Keep us posted.

One other possibility is that a cable is resting on a fan. We specifically chose the length of the cables we send to avoid this as much as possible, but it's still possible in certain places.

Michael


----------



## aaronwt

> _Originally posted by such _
> *One last question before I crack my hdTivo for "hopefully" the last time. Has anyone had any performance issues with setting a Maxtor to Quiet mode? I have a 7200 250Gb drive. *


In the 1.5 months I used my 1st HDTiVo before the upgrade, If I switched tuners, the picture would sometimes freeze. If I backed up and replayed it was fine so all the info was on the disc(this is with the stock WD drive. )Now when I upgraded(2 Maxtor drives), my first set of drives were set on performance. They were very loud, but I noticed that when switching between tuners, I never had the picture freeze for a second like the WD(which are set to quiet or equivalent- at least thats what AMSET showed me)Anyway the picture would never freeze. Now when I put the Maxtor drives back in, after setting them to Quiet, They were just as quiet as thw WD drive but it would freeze again when switching between tuners. Both HDTiVos act this way and they did with the stock drive. So I guess setting it to Quiet causes this but it is not a problem and the drives are very quiet.


----------



## bmel

I just completed an upgrade with the weaknees 160 gb hd and the twin breeze. I seem to be stuck on the welcome powering up screen. What should I do next?
Brian


----------



## weaknees

Are you sure you set the jumper properly on the Western Digital drive? Are you sure the IDE cable is properly plugged into the motherboard?

Michael


----------



## bmel

Thanks, reseated all the ide connetors. Works fine. 52 hours of hd recording available.
Brian


----------



## weaknees

Glad to hear it!

Michael


----------



## shutitdotnet

Im going to attempt to add a Maxtor 250 gig to the HD10-250's WD250, however when im trying to make a backup, I have all the IDE cables set correctly on my puter but it wont power up, i suspect it to be an issue with the 250w powersupply, but has anyone run into this where two large drives drain all the power and are unable to boot.. also should i just tell my boss to buck up and get a better computer.. also I have my NT5 machine at home i would like to do it on, but i read somewhere that you shouldnt make a back up or boot up to make a back up with the primary C drive as NTFS.. does the C: drive have to be formatted with FAT32..?? 
Thanks in advance


----------



## weaknees

We haven't seen that - if you simply remove the power cable from the drive, the PC will still boot?

Michael


----------



## shutitdotnet

Okay sorry got past that, Im now at a point where im trying to use MFSrestore to copy my backup of Drive A from my windows drive Ctivo.bak) onto the new Maxtore for testing before i try to add the new drive.. I think im doing this right, again sorry if i seem ignorant.. okay so I run this command "mfsrestore - s 127 -bzpi /mntdos/tivo.bak /dev/hdb " after I mounted my C: drive it gets to about 6% and I get "Restore Failed : Decompression error .%) (97.86 % compression) 

any ideas?
I'm following to the T Hinsdale how to guide.. 

I'm using the MFStools 2.0 with large drive support that was mentioned in the how to guide.. 

any help again is greatly appreciated..

Steve


----------



## tivoupgrade

> _Originally posted by shutitdotnet _
> *Okay sorry got past that, Im now at a point where im trying to use MFSrestore to copy my backup of Drive A from my windows drive Ctivo.bak) onto the new Maxtore for testing before i try to add the new drive.. I think im doing this right, again sorry if i seem ignorant.. okay so I run this command "mfsrestore - s 127 -bzpi /mntdos/tivo.bak /dev/hdb " after I mounted my C: drive it gets to about 6% and I get "Restore Failed : Decompression error .%) (97.86 % compression)
> 
> any ideas?
> I'm following to the T Hinsdale how to guide..
> 
> I'm using the MFStools 2.0 with large drive support that was mentioned in the how to guide..
> 
> any help again is greatly appreciated..
> 
> Steve *


Sounds like you have a bad backup.


----------



## shutitdotnet

Thats the thing i've tried creating a new backup multiple times and all goes well I rebooted and verified the tivo.bak was in my C directory and I burned it to a CD just for safe keeping.. it just wont restore from the C drive to my upgrade drive.. does it sound like im doing everything correctly???


----------



## shutitdotnet

I have a question about this 
"We used our standard backup string:

mfsbackup f 9999 1so /image.bak /dev/hdc

The resulting image is 1486 MB."

According to the hinsdale how-to guide it says to use the string 
"mfsbackup -f 9999 -6so /mnt/dos/tivo.bak /dev/hdc dev/hdb"
for backing up series 2 Tivos, and Directivos.. so im kinda confused is it -1s0 or -6so ??

sorry for the dumb questions but linux is not my bag...


----------



## tivoupgrade

> _Originally posted by shutitdotnet _
> *Thats the thing i've tried creating a new backup multiple times and all goes well I rebooted and verified the tivo.bak was in my C directory and I burned it to a CD just for safe keeping.. it just wont restore from the C drive to my upgrade drive.. does it sound like im doing everything correctly??? *


Try backing up again... and before rebooting your PC, type "sync" and instead of pushing the button to reboot it, type "reboot" - then try to verify...


----------



## shutitdotnet

Here I go again, I'm trying to be descriptive as possible.
Hardward config is as follows :
Primary Master = windows C: Drive
Primary Slave = Maxtor 250G drive for upgrade
Secondary Master = WD250G stock Tivo Drive
Secondary Slave = CDROM

I have check all the jumpers and they are correct.
Booted to MFSTools 2.0 w/ large disk support.
Checked drive sizes they all were fine.

1. I mounted the C drive as follows :
mkdir /mnt/dos
mount /dev/hda1 /mnt/dos

2. Backed up Drive A(WD250) to C Drive :
mfsbackup -f 9999 -6so /mnt/dos/tivo.bak /dev/hdc /dev/hdb
this completed fine with the size at 1486 or something

3. Restored Backup from C drive to Maxtor 250 gig to test :
mfsrestore -s 127 -bzpi /mnt/dos/tivo.bak /dev/hdb

this is where it gets stuck I get to the screen that says "
"Restore Failed Decompression error .%) (97.86% compression)

And I've tried to do this procedure a couple times but it keeps stopping at this one place, im begging for help, please chime in there weakness =o(


----------



## tivoupgrade

Did you try the "sync" and the "reboot" prior to rebooting your PC (after the backup was complete?)


----------



## shutitdotnet

yes but again im desperate Im doing this for my boss, LOL soo let me try one more time.. thanx i really appreciate your help


----------



## Lee L

> They were very loud, but I noticed that when switching between tuners, I never had the picture freeze for a second like the WD(which are set to quiet or equivalent- at least thats what AMSET showed me)


Dumb question. Can AMSET be used to change the settings for WD drives, I thought you could only set Maxtors? My HR10-250 is in a wood cabinet and I do not care how loud it is at all. I would love to set the drives to whatever gave me the best performance. I would also love to set the WD I added to my SD DVR40 to quiet as well.


----------



## shutitdotnet

NO DICE.. =o( I did the sync and reboot commands after the backup, after the reboot i mounted the C drive and attempted the MFSrestore . I get this message
Restoring 93 of 1486 MegaBytes (6.30%) (97.86% compression) 
Then the same error "Retore Failed etc etc etc"


----------



## tivoupgrade

> _Originally posted by shutitdotnet _
> *NO DICE.. =o( I did the sync and reboot commands after the backup, after the reboot i mounted the C drive and attempted the MFSrestore . I get this message
> Restoring 93 of 1486 MegaBytes (6.30%) (97.86% compression)
> Then the same error "Retore Failed etc etc etc" *


Next thing I would try is putting the drive you are backing up onto a different IDE chain; so try secondary master, instead of primary slave...

... oh, and make sure there is plenty of room on the drive on which you are saving the backup - could it be full?


----------



## shutitdotnet

Again im a novice at the linux commands soo if I were to change the maxtor(upgrade) drive to Secondary Maser my mfsrestore command would be 
mfsrestore -s 127 -bzpi mnt/dos/tivo.bak /dev/hdc is that correct im guessing the last part points to where i want the restore to go and If I remember correctly the hdc is the secondary master.. and the drive is an 80 gig and the backup I think only comes out to be 195 megs tops.. soo its not the drive, Im thinking about taking the drives home and working with them on my computer over the weekend.. is this going to be a problem seeing im running window 2K pro, i read somewhere to make sure you dont boot into windows or else it will write something to the drives to make them un-useable.. if thats the case i can always format an 80 gig i have laying around with FAT32 98se or something.. thanks for the help.. i cant thank you enough I just hate the thought of turning a nice working piece of machinary of my boss's into a 1000 dollar paper weight.. haha 
Late®
Steve


----------



## Runch Machine

What's up with 9th Tee? Did they go on vacation? I ordered on Sunday August 9th and got the auto response and order number. I haven't received any shipping info or my package and it's been 5 days. I've emailed them twice, once on Wednesday and once on Thursday and have gotten no response.

I have previously ordered from them twice and was impressed with their fast service and quality products. Each time I got an email the next day with tracking info. This time, nothing. 9th tee, are you out there???


----------



## jerrymc

> _Originally posted by shutitdotnet _
> *Here I go again, I'm trying to be descriptive as possible.
> Hardward config is as follows :
> Primary Master = windows C: Drive
> Primary Slave = Maxtor 250G drive for upgrade
> Secondary Master = WD250G stock Tivo Drive
> 
> ...
> 
> 2. Backed up Drive A(WD250) to C Drive :
> mfsbackup -f 9999 -6so /mnt/dos/tivo.bak /dev/hdc /dev/hdb
> this completed fine with the size at 1486 or something
> 
> *


Here's your problem. Your command tries to create a backup file from a PAIR of drives. Since there is nothing on /dev/hdb, your backup is bogus. Drop the "/dev/hdb" from your backup command and you should be good to go.

Good luck!

-Jerry


----------



## edrock200

ok, what am I doing wrong....

Took out the original drive

made it primary master

made my new 250gb primary slave

booted to lba48 CD and did:

mfsadd -x /dev/hda /dev/hdb

It comes back and says 300 hours added for a total of 500 hours. Sounds good. 

Put both drives back in my HD-Tivo, double check jumpers and cabling, etc. All is good but HDTivo still reports 30 hours (upto 200 SD)

Did I do something wrong?


----------



## jerrymc

> _Originally posted by edrock200 _
> *ok, what am I doing wrong....
> 
> Took out the original drive
> 
> made it primary master
> 
> made my new 250gb primary slave
> 
> booted to lba48 CD and did:
> 
> mfsadd -x /dev/hda /dev/hdb
> 
> It comes back and says 300 hours added for a total of 500 hours. Sounds good.
> 
> Put both drives back in my HD-Tivo, double check jumpers and cabling, etc. All is good but HDTivo still reports 30 hours (upto 200 SD)
> 
> Did I do something wrong? *


Use BlessTiVo.

-Jerry


----------



## edrock200

Yes I see that earlier in the thread now. Thank you. Do I use the "noswap" option with blesstivo?
*edit* I see now that the large HD iso has noswap auto set.


----------



## edrock200

That worked! Sweet...63 hours.
Attached a pic with the Weaknees bracket. Pretty easy to install...since I put it in and took it out 4 times to figure out why MFSAdd wasn't working. 

*edit* What a cool post to hit 3000 on!


----------



## buzzword

> _Originally posted by weaknees _
> *We use custom tools here to perform the dual 300 GB drive upgrades, but we'll outline some steps that should do the trick at home. We've tested this method only a bit, but it shares enough with our custom method that we're pretty certain it'll result in a stable upgrade.
> 
> The key is that mfstool won't work with partitions larger than 256 GB. So here's a D-I-Y method for making smaller partitions:
> 
> 1 - Put the HR10-250 image on the 300 GB drive, without expansion. To do this, make a backup and restore the backup to the 300 GB drive under a newer Linux kernel (2.4.18 or newer). Make sure to use only "-zi" as the switch so that you don't expand the image to fill the drive:
> 
> mfstool -zi /tivo.bak /dev/hdX
> 
> 2 - Bless the second 300 GB drive in "noswap" under an OLDER Linux Kernel - the standard boot CD is fine for this. This will create a 127 GB partition on the drive.
> 
> BlessTiVo /dev/hdY
> 
> 3 - "Marry" the two drives by booting them in the HR10-250. You should be able to verify the extra hours in System Information (I don't have the exact number on me, but HD hours should be in the forties).
> 
> 4 - Attach both drives back to the PC and boot in a NEWER kernel. Then run:
> 
> mfsadd -x /dev/hdX /dev/hdY
> 
> This will force partitions using the extra space on each drive - and neither drive will have more than (or even close to) 256 GB of space left to partition out.
> 
> 5 - Put them back in the TiVo and verify the hours.
> 
> That should do it!
> 
> Michael *


Thanks so much for this post. I've had 2 machines with HDMI port failure, the first failed after 3 months, the second (a replacement unit for the first)displayed distinct green bands across the screen, so I'm on my third unit and wanted to preserve my original drive in case I had to return this unit as well (so far it seems to be working, fingers crossed).

In any case, I had a 300mb Quickview drive I bought off Weaknees but hadn't installed yet, I bought a second 300mb Maxtor at Fry's, backed up the original, restored it to the Fry's Max 300, Blessed the Quickview, married the drives, did the MFSadd, it all worked like a charm, 77hrs HD baby!

I figured it was probably a good idea to use the regular drive as the system drive, might as well load the tivo program from the drive with more comprehensive error checking, no?

Anyway, just wanted to thank you for all the time and effort you put in here helping people. I will definitely be buying off of Weaknees again in the future and have recommended your site to friends.


----------



## buzzword

> _Originally posted by Anubys _
> *And this is really my only criticism of the Twinbreeze: the jumble of cables around the "cable of death" is really unfortunate. I can certainly sympathize with the limited space and I think the Twinbreeze is wonderful, but I would've felt a lot better had there been a way to tuck all those cables neatly and/or away from the cable of death (I love that name!). The power cables are longer than necessary and the hard plastic tips must really be jammed on top of the cable of death in order to close the lid.
> 
> Heck, maybe LONGER power cable would work better...then you can stretch them away from the cable of death and into the open space on the left front side (as you're facing the front of the unit).
> 
> Weaknees: I love the twinbreeze, I think it's great...I'm just trying to see if it can be even better! *


I found that it helped to replace the power splitter that came with the TwinBreeze (one long power lead, one short lead) with a regular splitter that had two long tails, it allowed me to tuck some of the power lead wired beside the drive (towards the front of the machine) and definitely made for a cleaner install bcause the conectors weren't bunched on top because of the short lead on the supplied splitter.

Weakness, you might reconsider the splitter you're supplying...


----------



## nowaydoc

<Lurk mode:OFF>

FYI, I am coming out of FOUR YEARS of lurk mode here at TCF to let you guys know that there is now a public hack available to let you enable the Sony IR remote control protocol to control the HR10-250's.
This is important because the Sony remote protocol is much faster and more responsive than the Hughes protocol that shipped with the HR10-250's. It also means that if you have a Series 1 SAT-T60, you can program your RM-Y809 remote to control the HR10-250 as well as your older T60, toggling between which Tivo you want to control by simply pressing Tivo-Pause-#.

</ Lurk mode:back ON>


----------



## weaknees

> _Originally posted by buzzword _
> *I found that it helped to replace the power splitter that came with the TwinBreeze (one long power lead, one short lead) with a regular splitter that had two long tails, it allowed me to tuck some of the power lead wired beside the drive (towards the front of the machine) and definitely made for a cleaner install bcause the conectors weren't bunched on top because of the short lead on the supplied splitter.
> 
> Weakness, you might reconsider the splitter you're supplying... *


Early adopters and early kits got the asymmetrical power splitter, but now we ship (and use) a shorter Y power splitter since the position of our bracket place the two drives' power connectors fairly close to one another. Then, the cable tucks right in front and stays out of the way.

Michael


----------



## pbolya

> _Originally posted by nowaydoc _
> *<Lurk mode:OFF>
> 
> FYI, I am coming out of FOUR YEARS of lurk mode here at TCF to let you guys know that there is now a public hack available to let you enable the Sony IR remote control protocol to control the HR10-250's.
> This is important because the Sony remote protocol is much faster and more responsive than the Hughes protocol that shipped with the HR10-250's. It also means that if you have a Series 1 SAT-T60, you can program your RM-Y809 remote to control the HR10-250 as well as your older T60, toggling between which Tivo you want to control by simply pressing Tivo-Pause-#.
> 
> </ Lurk mode:back ON> *


 nowaydoc,
Can you tell us how to do that? I love my Sony Peanut more than any remote in the world (including the Harmony). If I could control both TV's with the basic TV and Amp control it already has I could use the Sony peanut for 80% of what I usually use and 99% of what my wife needs the remote for.


----------



## NJChris

Woo! Just added a 2nd 250gb drive.. mostly followed this: http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?postid=2046838#post2046838 and adjusted to just add a 2nd 250gb instead of putting in two new 250gb and using the one in the Tivo as a backup.

I tested the backup and it worked! (logos and all.)


----------



## shutitdotnet

> _Originally posted by jerrymc _
> *Here's your problem. Your command tries to create a backup file from a PAIR of drives. Since there is nothing on /dev/hdb, your backup is bogus. Drop the "/dev/hdb" from your backup command and you should be good to go.
> 
> Good luck!
> 
> -Jerry *


Thanks for the good eye Jerry I was soo busy Friday I didn't realize i was looking at the dual drive backup, so I corrected it this morning. Backup completed successfully, attempted the restore, and I got 7% done and it errored out again, so I'm going to try the other alternative and switch around the IDE config and see if that has anything to do with it. I read somewhere else that if the faster drive 7200 is slave and master is 5400 somewhere that it would cause conflict.. so wish me luck.. 
LaTe®
Steve


----------



## shutitdotnet

Woohoooo Managed to get it done finally.!.!.! thanks to all that replied to me.. Now on to working on the second HD10-250 For a second there I thought I had a 1000 dollar paper weight.. 
LaTe®
Steve


----------



## nowaydoc

> _Originally posted by pbolya _
> *nowaydoc,
> Can you tell us how to do that? I love my Sony Peanut more than any remote in the world (including the Harmony). If I could control both TV's with the basic TV and Amp control it already has I could use the Sony peanut for 80% of what I usually use and 99% of what my wife needs the remote for. *


you'll have to disable the ram disk initialization check, enable bash and/or ethernet, and then run a freeware script to enable the sony IR sets.

Info and details is available at the other place, which can be found by googling for "HR10-250 bounty".

If you want to wait a few weeks or months, PTVupgrade is apparently going to start shipping a new user-friendly CD ROM which enables bash and ethernet


----------



## dwynne

If These instructions are correct, maybe Michael (weaknees) can post them into the first message in this thread?

With 55 pages and counting, it would be nice if the instructions for doing:

a) add a drive to your existing HDTivo

b) replace the existing drive

c) replace the existing drive and add a drive

were all listed together at the start of the thread. Or maybe we could start a new thread that started with the instructions for the 3 things folks might want to do.

I have my drives, I have my bracket, now I just need some free time 

Dennis


----------



## Darin

> _Originally posted by dwynne _
> *If These instructions are correct, maybe Michael (weaknees) can post them into the first message in this thread?
> 
> With 55 pages and counting, it would be nice if the instructions for doing...*


I agree... when I did mine, it took a bit of searching to find all the proper commands. I used that post, but had a coouple of difficulties:

While this may seem stupid to someone who knows a little bit about Linux, it took me a while to figure out that I needed to hit enter after booting up off of the LBA48 CD. I kept trying to enter the commands at the initial "boot" prompt (or whatever the initial prompt is... I've forgotten already).

The other difficulty I had was in mounting the drive to create the backup. I kept getting the error to the effect of "you must specify a file system" (or something like that). I saw one person in the thread that had that problem, but his problem was that he had both hard drives attached to the same IDE port (as master/slave). He had to put them on separate ports. But that wasn't my problem. The drive I was trying to back-up to had two partitions (both fat32). I wanted to back-up to the second partition (so I was using hda2 to specifiy that). It just plain wasn't happy unless I put the back-up on the first partition (hda1). In fact, I'd SWEAR there was a time I tried hda1, and I STILL got that error, but maybe I was confused.

So those are the two stumbling blocks I had, maybe it will help someone else.


----------



## such

Well, I added a second 250Gb drive a couple weeks ago using the Weaknees bracket. The unit has been operating fine, but I'm beginning to hear a clicking noise during some drive operations, playback and jumps mostly. Hoping my drive is not dying. It's a Maxtor 7200rpm model, I never changed it to quiet mode, will be doing that tonight, hoping that's all it is and not the drive itself......


----------



## pbolya

> _Originally posted by Darin _
> *I agree... when I did mine, it took a bit of searching to find all the proper commands. I used that post, but had a coouple of difficulties:
> 
> While this may seem stupid to someone who knows a little bit about Linux, it took me a while to figure out that I needed to hit enter after booting up off of the LBA48 CD. I kept trying to enter the commands at the initial "boot" prompt (or whatever the initial prompt is... I've forgotten already).
> 
> The other difficulty I had was in mounting the drive to create the backup. I kept getting the error to the effect of "you must specify a file system" (or something like that). I saw one person in the thread that had that problem, but his problem was that he had both hard drives attached to the same IDE port (as master/slave). He had to put them on separate ports. But that wasn't my problem. The drive I was trying to back-up to had two partitions (both fat32). I wanted to back-up to the second partition (so I was using hda2 to specifiy that). It just plain wasn't happy unless I put the back-up on the first partition (hda1). In fact, I'd SWEAR there was a time I tried hda1, and I STILL got that error, but maybe I was confused.
> 
> So those are the two stumbling blocks I had, maybe it will help someone else. *


 Darin,
The Hinsdale upgrade guide is updated with the HD TiVo upgrade instructions and I believe it also mentions to put the disks on seperate channels.


----------



## pbolya

> _Originally posted by such _
> *Well, I added a second 250Gb drive a couple weeks ago using the Weaknees bracket. The unit has been operating fine, but I'm beginning to hear a clicking noise during some drive operations, playback and jumps mostly. Hoping my drive is not dying. It's a Maxtor 7200rpm model, I never changed it to quiet mode, will be doing that tonight, hoping that's all it is and not the drive itself...... *


 Don't worry. Just set it to quiet and that will be the last time you hear anything from the drive.


----------



## dbuchthal

Has anyone found a reliable source for 400GB drives yet? I'll pay the "luxury tax" for bigger drives just so I won't need to go through this again. Pricegrabber doesn't even list the Hitachi 7k400. Dell.com has the 7k400, but only the SATA version. CDW.com lists the drive but doesn't have it in stock. I'd love to get dual 400's running before the new TV season starts this fall, but time is running out...


----------



## Darin

> _Originally posted by dbuchthal _
> *Dell.com has the 7k400, but only the SATA version.*


I thought someone reported earlier that SATA drives also have a parallel interface. I don't have any SATA drives, so I can't confirm, but if true, it seems like you could use that.

Go on! Be the first with 800GB!!!!


----------



## dwynne

> _Originally posted by Darin _
> *I thought someone reported earlier that SATA drives also have a parallel interface. I don't have any SATA drives, so I can't confirm, but if true, it seems like you could use that.
> 
> Go on! Be the first with 800GB!!!!  *


Some SATA drives are actually PATA drives with a converter chip on them. In fact, most are probably made this way. It lets them make a single drive (more or less) with both interfaces. The trouble is there is no EIDE connector on these drives. So INTERNALLY the drive would work, but no easy way to connect it up.

They do make a cheap ($20) SATA adapter - to let you use an EIDE drive with a SATA controller, but I don't think I have seen an adapter to go the other way.

Dennis


----------



## weldon

You can buy converters that will change SATA to PATA and vice versa. The signals/commands are essentially the same so it's just a matter of changing the way the signals are carried on the cable.

I'd like to see an 800GB TiVo too!


----------



## Darin

> _Originally posted by dwynne _
> *The trouble is there is no EIDE connector on these drives.*


Hmmm, I thought the post I thought I remember reading said the EIDE connector was on the opposite end of the drive. For some reason, I'm thinking it was dswallow that posted it, but I could be wrong. That was the first time I'd heard that, but not having a need currently for SATA, I just kind of read it & moved on.

I probably just either read it wrong, or I'm having a memory issue related to drug use in the 90s.


----------



## dswallow

> _Originally posted by Darin _
> *Hmmm, I thought the post I thought I remember reading said the EIDE connector was on the opposite end of the drive. For some reason, I'm thinking it was dswallow that posted it, but I could be wrong. That was the first time I'd heard that, but not having a need currently for SATA, I just kind of read it & moved on.
> 
> I probably just either read it wrong, or I'm having a memory issue related to drug use in the 90s.  *


Wasn't me; though I do recall someone saying that around here.


----------



## Anubys

I also remember the same thing Darin is talking about. As I was doing my research on what kind of drive to get (7200 or 5400, ATA or SATA, 100 or 133...etc.), I remember very well a post saying SATA will NOT work and that it must be ATA...I thought the post was from weaknees or PTVupgrade...

I considered the source a very reliable one...I certainly put Doug in that category so it's very possible that he made the comment...a search on those 3 posters will get you the answer...


----------



## weaknees

Might have been us - SATA isn't compatible with ATA. We haven't heard of the converters. Those might work, but we haven't tried it.

Michael


----------



## Darin

Well, it wasn't Doug, but at least I didn't fabricate the post completely:

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?postid=1990681#post1990681


----------



## DCIFRTHS

> _Originally posted by dwynne _
> *Some SATA drives are actually PATA drives with a converter chip on them. In fact, most are probably made this way .....
> Dennis *


I've been trying to figure out a way to determine native SATA drives (without the bridge chip). Do you know if there is a way?

Thanks


----------



## dwynne

> _Originally posted by DCIFRTHS _
> *I've been trying to figure out a way to determine native SATA drives (without the bridge chip). Do you know if there is a way?
> 
> Thanks *


"Native Command Queuing" should be the key. If the drive claims to do that, then it is likely a native SATA drive. Note that most companies do not sell any NCQ drives right now, nor do most (any?) controllers support it.

Also, Seagate (currently) sells the 7200.7 models and they are supposed to be "non bridged". In tests I have read having SATA drives equals about 0 performance gains and generally just costs you extra money. There is a good reason to buy SATA, however - a lot of motherboards will do RAID 0/1 with the onboard SATA controller - and you can add up to 4 EIDE drives and 2 SATA drives to the same system w/o extra controller cards.

FWW, I have never seen a converter to take a SATA drive and let you use it on an EIDE controller. Not saying they do not exists, just have never seen one - and I don't know why someone would use one as SATA drives cost more, can run longer cables that are easier to connect and block less air flow.

Hitachi/IBM has a 400gb EIDE Deskstar model as well as the SATA drive. Don't know if it is out yet or not.

Link to the drive for sale - out of stock

Dennis


----------



## pbolya

> _Originally posted by Darin _
> *Well, it wasn't Doug, but at least I didn't fabricate the post completely:
> 
> http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?postid=1990681#post1990681 *


 Yes. It was me (I am a little bit behind in reading with work and the Olympics recording on 4 tuners and all).

Since then I saw 3 different implementation of the drive (on paper only of course) one had a SATA only, one had PATA only and one (which is documented by Hitachi) had both SATA and PATA on opposite end of the drive. Since all the website list them similarly there is no way to tell which one it is without calling them. Good luck finding a PATA or SATA/PATA combo though. Also I can not find that picture in the Hitachi web site anymore so maybe the dual interface drive was only a design plan. Although if you can get a converter for $20 than it should cost them less then $5 per unit to make them dual interfaced and that is definitely worth it to not to have to deal with different model numbers.


----------



## pbolya

> _Originally posted by dwynne _
> Link to the drive for sale - out of stock
> 
> Dennis


 $300 ???? That makes you think. That is now getting closer to my price range. Now if they only would have them in stock. Also why is it advetised as Paralel ATA 100 instead of 133?


----------



## dbuchthal

> _Originally posted by weldon _
> *You can buy converters that will change SATA to PATA and vice versa. The signals/commands are essentially the same so it's just a matter of changing the way the signals are carried on the cable.*


You can't just slap a cable converter in the middle. There is real work to be done to convert from one to the other.


----------



## dwynne

> _Originally posted by pbolya _
> *$300 ???? That makes you think. That is now getting closer to my price range. Now if they only would have them in stock. Also why is it advetised as Paralel ATA 100 instead of 133? *


The whole listing is a mixed bag - it tells you that it is an ultra 100 ATA drive, then says it has a latching SATA connector, then says the drive is ultra ama/133. Note that the SATA version is shown for $400 and is also OOS.

Parallel ATA is just a new term for EIDE or ATA, just to keep folks from confusing it with SATA. Also, I don't think there are any drives on the market that can move data at the ATA133 speed now - and probably not many that can move it at the AMA100 speed either. The areal density and 7.200 rpm rotation speed make it "impossible". So ditto the 150mb SATA theoretical speeds, which is why they perform no better - and the manufacturers can get away with the converter chips on their SATA drives. Almost all the big drives now are still using 80gb/platter - this big 400gb drive is just 5 platters (not a good thing for heat). I think the latest Seagates are more dense - but they are not offering super large capacity drives now (200gb is their largest) since they refuse or can't put enough platters to get any larger. I assume the extra noise and heat are concerns.

Dennis


----------



## dwynne

By the way, talking about hard drives for Tivos. I recently found out that Western Digital will extend your warranty from 1 year to 3 years for $15. This is for retail purchased, EIDE (non SATA) drives only. Probably not worth it on the smaller, cheap after rebate drives - migth be worth it for large drives and for Tivo use.

Linky-Poo

Seagate is now doing 5 years on its drives, but offers nothing larger than 200gb (useless in an HDTivo :0).

Maxtor is also just doing a year, and I have had a high failure rate with them in my upgraded Tivos.

Dennis


----------



## DCIFRTHS

> _Originally posted by dwynne _
> *"Native Command Queuing" should be the key. If the drive claims to do that, then it is likely a native SATA drive. Note that most companies do not sell any NCQ drives right now, nor do most (any?) controllers support it.
> 
> Also, Seagate (currently) sells the 7200.7 models and they are supposed to be "non bridged". ..... *


Adaptec sells four controllers that support it, but they call it 
"Tagged Command Queuing".

I have the Seagate drives you mentioned. My searches have turned up no evidence that these drives are "native" SATA, and the Seagate website does not list this "feature". I was glad to hear that you have heard that they are though. Do you have any pages that I could link to? It would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks


----------



## DCIFRTHS

> _Originally posted by pbolya _
> *$300 ???? That makes you think. That is now getting closer to my price range. Now if they only would have them in stock. Also why is it advetised as Paralel ATA 100 instead of 133? *


Parallel is the type of interface that has always(?) existed on the ATA drives. It's called Parallel because the data is transmitted over a cable (interface) that has many wires - 40 in the case of PATA. The 80 cable versions include 40 additional ground wires to preserve signal integrity at faster speeds.

Serial ATA transmits data over far fewer wires (2 or 4 I believe). The data is transfered in "single file" fashion.

If you remember the release of CD players, they all had "parallel" DA converters. I don't think you can find a CD player today that doesn't use "serial" or "1 bit" DACs. If i remember correctly, I think Panasonic was one of the first to introduce "single bit" converters, and they enhanced it with MASH ("noise shaping technology").


----------



## RC3105

not to burst anyone's bubble, but did tivo even fix the 250 gig mfs partition size limit in the hd10-250's?


----------



## dwynne

> _Originally posted by DCIFRTHS _
> *I have the Seagate drives you mentioned. My searches have turned up no evidence that these drives are "native" SATA, and the Seagate website does not list this "feature". I was glad to hear that you have heard that they are though. Do you have any pages that I could link to? It would be greatly appreciated.
> 
> Thanks *


Test of a Seagate SATA

Link to a WD SATA, with on board chip

I have seen this mentioned other places as well. Like I said, it does not really matter since the drive is not capabile of exceeding the ATA100 max speed.

Note that not all of the 7200.7 drives do the command queue stuff.

Dennis


----------



## DeputyTIVO

Upgrade done ... thanks to all! Received my Maxtor 250gb/7200/8mb drive today, enabled quiet mode with amset, made a backup, expanded, reinstalled drives with the Weaknees HD Twinbreeze bracket .... 63 HD/426 SD. Awesome!


----------



## wade01

I'm preparing to add a 250gb drive to my HR10-250. According to previous posts I'll need to use BlessTivo to add the second drive. 

However, Hinsdale's updated instructions, that claim to work for the HR10-250, make no mention of BlessTivo instead using mfsadd. So the question is do I use the new Hinsdale instructions, which I've used in the past and am comfortable with, or go with BlessTivo? 

If I use the Hinsdale instructions I'll use upgrade configuration #3 to preserve recordings and then upgrade configuration #1 to add the additional drive. 

Any help is appreciated!


----------



## weaknees

Really, with a drive that size, either will work. mfsadd doesn't work for drives over 256 GB, so then you'd need to use BlessTiVo. One advantage for you using mfs tools here is that you can make a backup in the process.

Michael


----------



## wade01

Thanks Michael! I'll definitely make the backup. After 2 drive failures on my DSR6000 I've learned to backup every time the drive is out of the tivo. Now all I need is the bracket from you guys. FedEx says it should arrive on Wednesday.


----------



## weaknees

Sounds good - hope you like the bracket!

Michael


----------



## flapbreaker

Anyone know why I wouldn't be receiving emails when there are new posts even though I have subscribed to this thread? It used to but no anymore.


----------



## weaknees

Maybe your spam software is catching them?


----------



## Darin

Some time ago, maybe around six months(?), I suddenly stopped getting email notifications completely from this site, after it working fine for years. They still worked from AVS, and other sites. They were not getting filtered by the spam software. Suddenly, a couple weeks ago, they started working again.


----------



## AbMagFab

Same here. Stopped a few months ago, started working again a few weeks ago.


----------



## shutitd0tnet

Hmmmmmmmm... after upgrading to add a second 250 everything worked fine for about a week, 63 hours of HD recording, recorded a bunch of olympics, etc etc.. come Monday Morning the system was locked up, was not able to operate the unit at all so after power cycling the HD10-250 It never got passed Welcome, Powering up.. I thought maybe this could be a heat issue as the HD is in a rack mounted in my server stack.. is there anything i could do to properly diagnose the system without restoring the original drive image to one 250 and testing???
TIA
Steve


----------



## weaknees

Before restoring, at least run a "quick" test from the manufacturer's diagnostics software. It won't destroy your data (which is likely already gone) but it may tell you which drive is causing problems.

Michael


----------



## shutitd0tnet

Pardon my ignorance but how do i run the "quick test" from the OEM, I cant get passed the welcome..powering up screen, doesnt go any further, and the LED that usually at least flickers when it gets an IR command does nothing??!!?? 
Steve


----------



## weaknees

The test is in your PC - not the TiVo.


----------



## shutitd0tnet

haha sorry, and by test you mean??? im sorry for asking such stupid questions, but is this a software app I have to download or or this something on the boot CD MFStools 2.0 ?? do you mean to boot my PC with MFS 2.0 ,with both drives attached and see if the size comes up good.. is that a valid test???


----------



## weaknees

Software from the drive manufacturers. If you have two WDs, you need their DLGDIAG software. If one is a Maxtor, you also need PowerMax. Both run in DOS.

Michael


----------



## shutitd0tnet

thanx, just another stupid question, should i see the LED on the front of the box flicker when i send an IR command, even if its not completly booted, wouldnt this be something that is held in the system memory, and not on either HDD.. because if im not mistaken Im pretty sure I would see an amber LED light up when i sent a command to it.. 
Thanks Michael for your speedy replies it makes my job a lot easier
Steve


----------



## shutitdotnet

Okay here are the test results.. oddly enough.. kinda sorta...
Powered up with just the maxtor 250 gig in my machine, Returned no errors running the quick test... I didnt attempt the indepth test because I didnt want to further FUBAR my bosses Tivo..
Okay pulled it out, created the Diagnostic floppy for the WD and put in the machine alone, went to boot up and didnt even get to the post beep and the computer shut off.. I had to unplud the IEC cable just to get it to boot again but it did the same thing.. SOoOoOo Is it a safe assumption to say the WD250 is toast... At first because I thought maybe the power supply was inadaquate here on the work computer, its a small 250w but my question then would be if it fires the Maxtor Drive why not the WD.. is there a difference in power consumption between the two drives.. or should i quit chasing my tail and go get another Maxtor 250 and start over... ?? 
Thanks,
Steve


----------



## tivoupgrade

> _Originally posted by shutitdotnet _
> *Okay here are the test results.. oddly enough.. kinda sorta...
> Powered up with just the maxtor 250 gig in my machine, Returned no errors running the quick test... I didnt attempt the indepth test because I didnt want to further FUBAR my bosses Tivo..
> Okay pulled it out, created the Diagnostic floppy for the WD and put in the machine alone, went to boot up and didnt even get to the post beep and the computer shut off.. I had to unplud the IEC cable just to get it to boot again but it did the same thing.. SOoOoOo Is it a safe assumption to say the WD250 is toast... At first because I thought maybe the power supply was inadaquate here on the work computer, its a small 250w but my question then would be if it fires the Maxtor Drive why not the WD.. is there a difference in power consumption between the two drives.. or should i quit chasing my tail and go get another Maxtor 250 and start over... ??
> Thanks,
> Steve *


You may be attempting to read too much into the situation. You should definitely run the advanced test on the [edit] all the drives since you have the unit open; you should definitely get another 250 GB drive and run the advanced test on that prior to reinstalling in the TiVo, as well... To draw any specific conclusions, such as the ones you are suggesting, without additional data, would really be no more than random guessing; it more likely to just be bad luck than anything else...


----------



## shutitdotnet

That wouldnt suprise me I'm prone to having bad luck I stole some power(just power) from my NT5 machine and im running the WD dlgdiag test right now we'll see what it turns up.. wish me ..ahhh "luck" the good kind of course, thanks for the reply tivo
LaTe®
Steve


----------



## shutitdotnet

> _Originally posted by shutitdotnet _
> *That wouldnt suprise me I'm prone to having bad luck I stole some power(just power) from my NT5 machine and im running the WD dlgdiag test right now we'll see what it turns up.. wish me ..ahhh "luck" the good kind of course, thanks for the reply tivo
> LaTe®
> Steve *


Okay just got done with the test on the WD250 and it reports no errors on the drive.. sooo im at a loss here does anyone have any ideas should I just try to restore my tivo.bak to the OEM WD250 and see If i can at least get passed the "Welcome.Powering up" screen???? Im guessing thats my last straw I cant see any other avenue to go, if someone has a better idea, please please chime in.. 
Steve


----------



## shutitdotnet

Okay I'm going to attempt to restore my original WD250 backup back to itself, do I need to write zero's to the drive prior to running the mfsrestore command?? Or will it automatically overwrite whatever is on the drive, and hopefully bring it back to when it was working prior to the upgrade??
Thanks,
Steve


----------



## weaknees

> _Originally posted by shutitdotnet _
> *Okay I'm going to attempt to restore my original WD250 backup back to itself, do I need to write zero's to the drive prior to running the mfsrestore command?? Or will it automatically overwrite whatever is on the drive, and hopefully bring it back to when it was working prior to the upgrade??
> Thanks,
> Steve *


Nope. mfsrestore will write over whatever you have there (without even asking).

Michael


----------



## such

Might I suggest you create a second backup of what's on the drive right now. This will allow you to restore to backup #2 in the event it turns out not to be the drive.


----------



## shutitdotnet

okay im pretty sure thats my primary objective anyways... im almost done with the extended test on the WD250 and we'll see if this doesnt come back with anything im going to restore my original back up to the OEM WD250 and hope it works, does that sound like a plan??? or is there another way I can go..?


----------



## shutitdotnet

> _Originally posted by such _
> *Might I suggest you create a second backup of what's on the drive right now. This will allow you to restore to backup #2 in the event it turns out not to be the drive. *


If its not the drive then I think im pretty much screwed anyways.. but not a bad idea I guess... what do ya think weakness???


----------



## shutitdotnet

::Update:: 
DLGdiag reported no errors on the WD250 OEM drive on both the "quick" test and the extended test, so I guess the only thing left would be to try an extended test on the upgrade Maxtor 250, and then from there im open to suggestions.. can you think of anything else that might cause this weakness.. like i said worked flawlessly for about a week no hiccups, and then one morning it was froze the next reboot it just never quite got over the welcome powering up hump???
Thanks again for all your help everyone..
LaTe®
Steve


----------



## weaknees

Nope - do the extended on the Maxtor and see what's up.

But how could the WD extended be done that quickly? It should take quite a while . . . the Maxtor will take overnight at least.

Michael


----------



## shutitdotnet

the WD took about an hour maybe a lil more I started running it before i posted it, and when i was posting i looked over at my other machine and it finished.. haha sorry for the confusion... I have the maxtor running right now at work and I will check it tomorrow morning.. and let ya guys know whats up.. thanks for the help though its really appreciated.. i guess today wasnt a good day to stop smoking my nerves are racked.. =o)


----------



## weaknees

Even an hour isn't really long enough for a full test on a WD - which test did you do?


----------



## shutitdotnet

> _Originally posted by weaknees _
> *Even an hour isn't really long enough for a full test on a WD - which test did you do? *


I think i see where the problem lies I think i downloaded an older copy of the diagnostic utility from WD's website.. goddamn it.. how long does this test take to run usually.. haha my boss is gonna be pissed.. =o) ahh well company time..
here is what i downloaded and it did run the test on the drive, and didnt return any errors but maybe that point is moot and i will have to re-run it tomorrow morning, but in the mean time i have powermax checking out the 250 upgrade drive.. 
keep tuned tomorrow im sure i will have some more off the wall questions.. 
Steve


----------



## boiler11

> _Originally posted by shutitdotnet _
> * haha my boss is gonna be pissed.. =o) ahh well company time..
> *


Wish I had your job  Do you get paid to drink beer and play video games too  Are you accepting applications?


----------



## pbolya

> _Originally posted by boiler11 _
> *Wish I had your job  Do you get paid to drink beer and play video games too  Are you accepting applications? *


 I am not sure that job is as peachy as you paint it. Just think about what will happen if he can not fix it virtually reducing his boss's $1000 new toy to a paperweight.


----------



## DCIFRTHS

> _Originally posted by pbolya _
> *I am not sure that job is as peachy as you paint it. Just think about what will happen if he can not fix it virtually reducing his boss's $1000 new toy to a paperweight. *


I need a job


----------



## shutitdotnet

Back... 
Im going to retest the OEM WD250 with the newer diagnostic utility and see where it gets me, if this passes im just going to attempt to restore the WD from the image i created and see if i can get this Tivo to boot... if ... and im praying this doesnt fail but if the restore of the original image doesnt work, does anyone else have any suggestions.. or do i toss it??
Thanks,
Steve


----------



## shutitdotnet

Just some FYI I'm running the newer extended test right now, and I believe it was weakness that said the test should take longer than an hour, if not much longer.. well the estimated time on the test looks like its only going to take about an hour and 15 minutes.. but we'll see...could this be an indication that the WD250 is just fubar..?


----------



## shutitdotnet

> _Originally posted by pbolya _
> *I am not sure that job is as peachy as you paint it. Just think about what will happen if he can not fix it virtually reducing his boss's $1000 new toy to a paperweight. *


Well put not a good day to quit smoking was it?? haha its pretty stressful actually I mean I like toying with new things but **** 1000 bucks down the drian sure does suck


----------



## aaronwt

It's still under warranty!


----------



## shutitdotnet

No I modded the case and fabricated my own bracket.. soo thats outta the question, but it was a good idea.. =o/


----------



## aaronwt

I'm glad I pulled out my original WD drives and replaced them with MAxtor drives.


----------



## shutitdotnet

has anyone else here had any problems with the WD OEM drives, Im kinda partial to maxtor drives myself, but im thinking heat in the rack may have caused a failure somewhere a long the lines..


----------



## weaknees

> _Originally posted by shutitdotnet _
> *has anyone else here had any problems with the WD OEM drives, Im kinda partial to maxtor drives myself, but im thinking heat in the rack may have caused a failure somewhere a long the lines.. *


We've seen a few failures of the WD OEM drives in these units already.

Michael


----------



## shutitdotnet

Ahhh alass a slight glimmer of hope, maybe now i can get another Maxtor 250 and be done with this crap once and for all.. =o) ::evil laugh:: hows the weather out in LA weakness?

If the Drive does have errors when the extended test finishes in 6 minutes would it be usefull to have the WD diagnostic program to try and correct it or should I shoot over to CompUSA and get another Maxtor???


----------



## weaknees

The weather is great - as always in LA.

By the way, you said it might take an hour and fifteen minutes for the extended test on the WD - but how long did that take on the Maxtor? Overnight, I assume.


----------



## shutitdotnet

Yeah when I left yesterday I had about 40 minutes into the maxtor, and I can only assume it went all night it coulda finished the test 10 minutes after I walked outta the office.. Its really a guess how long it took.. but this WD250 drive is on about an hour and 23 minutes.. and its almost done.. id say 98% complete.. only 1 minute left..

the maxtor passed this morning by the way! =o)

No Errors found on the WD250... 

So what would be the next logical step here weakness??? restore my backup to the WD250 and see if the paper weights boots up, also im changing the power y adapter and EIDE cable, just to be safe..


----------



## edrock200

> _Originally posted by shutitdotnet _
> *has anyone else here had any problems with the WD OEM drives, Im kinda partial to maxtor drives myself, but im thinking heat in the rack may have caused a failure somewhere a long the lines.. *


I have one of each in mine, the oem wd and a maxtor retail in the HDTivo.

I work with PC's a lot, and with different types of HD's, and from my personal experience drives either die very early on, or last a long time. It's rare to see a drive that dies between the 1st and 3rd year, its the first 6 mo's IMO that's critical.

However, maybe others have more info on WD drives since, from the sounds of it, they don't seem as reliable? I've used WD drives in several HDVR2 upgrades with no problems.


----------



## shutitdotnet

Yeah I dont know right now im thinking something else is just not right, at this point im going to say its probably not the drives that are messed up its got to be something else but I have no other option other than to try and do a restore to both drives one at a time to see if I can get either of them in there and boot the Tivo... not looking good..


----------



## shutitdotnet

Im going to restore Original Image to my Maxtor...
And my Maxtor is set to Primary Slave, reports correctly when I boot to CD..
Let me make sure Im doing this correctly for the restore Im working pretty much off memory...
it would be mfsrestore -s 127 -bzpi /mnt/dos/tivo.bak /dev/hdb
Sound Right?


----------



## weaknees

That command should do it. You can put an "x" in there if you want to use any extra space on the drive. While you're at it, why not do that to the WD also and try both? If one doesn't boot, you have your culprit.

Michael


----------



## shutitdotnet

that was my idea weakness hopefully i dont have a paper weight here for my boss...cross your fingers, toes, eyes, hairs etc.. for me Late®
Steve


----------



## shutitdotnet

My aussumptions were right weakness, thanks for all your help looks like it was the WD250 I restored the Original Image to the Maxtor booted just fine in the Tivo everything grand, so then i restored the image to the WD250 looks like it got almost there and went blahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh then it looks like atari gone mad.. soo I guess i will get another maxtor 250 and then try again.. ... wait a minute jsut for grins i rebooted the Tivo again with the WD250 and it looks like its going now, but that first hiccup made me a little weary.. so im going to reboot it a couple more times and see how it goes..


----------



## shutitdotnet

WD250 is working now, weird.. Im not sure what may of happen do you have any ideas, my guess would be heat, I searched for a picture of the bracket on your site, but unfortunatly i was unable to find it , mind posting some high res pics here or emailing them to me my boss wants to check them out.. some close ups would be nice weakness .. if you could find it in your heart.. LOL 
Thanks again and again.
Steve


----------



## weaknees

Here's the best picture we have online:

http://www.weaknees.com/twinbreeze_hd.php

Just so you know, our initial run was in solid black, but now we've moved to totally clear material (not translucent like in the picture there, but transparent).

Michael


----------



## shutitdotnet

is that the only pic you got, sorry im tryign to sell my boss on one!! =oP
Im trying to help you out weakness, not that you need it , but since you've been such a big help to me, i figure i could return the favor.. how about a pic of one installed, from anyone on here that may have one.. Thanks
Steve


----------



## shutitdotnet

And what the hell is a vented IDE cable, I've never heard of such an animal.. =oP wait never mind its Custom!!

><gone> <fishin><


----------



## weaknees

OK - here's a quick picture of the new bracket with fan attached, and our vented IDE cable.


----------



## shutitdotnet

Thanks man much appreciated we will probably get a couple from you, does this require when installing it to remove the chassis for the single drive in the Tivo?? Not that I care either way seeing as I already ripped them out of two HD10-250's already.. Im a mad phucking scientist =o)

thanks,
Steve
www.shutit.net


----------



## weaknees

You just need to remove the metal bracket on which the drive is mounted with the four screws, not the underlying bracket that is secured to the base of the case.

Michael


----------



## shutitdotnet

> _Originally posted by weaknees _
> *You just need to remove the metal bracket on which the drive is mounted with the four screws, not the underlying bracket that is secured to the base of the case.
> 
> Michael *


HaHa it was secured with some phucking industrial strength double sided tape.. but a razor knife and screw driver took care of that.. =o)

wait a minute does your bracket mount to the bottom of the two the one set on the case?? if so i may have to fabricate my own again goddamn it..


----------



## aaronwt

Good luck quitting smoking!
I quit almost 15 years ago and I still ocassionally get an urge when seeing someone in a movie smoke. Of course If I can actually smell it, then it's a big turn off. Anyway, I would never smoke again, even if I wanted too I can't because of a pulmonary disease I had/have 4 years ago. I had to be on short term disablity for over 3 months and I sure don't want to do anything that would increase the odds of that happening again.


----------



## weaknees

> _Originally posted by shutitdotnet _
> *wait a minute does your bracket mount to the bottom of the two the one set on the case?? *


You do not have to remove any double-sided tape, use a razor blade, etc. All you have to do is remove two screws and the TiVo bracket slides off... should be very easy!

FYI, installation instructions are here.


----------



## shutitdotnet

haha never mind i will take some pics so you understand what im talking about, where the drives were originalyl6t777 haha sorry thats what my cat had to say to you.. no the bracket the drive was originally screwed to, it sits ontop of another bracket that is attached to the case, well both of those are now gone, so drive on sits directly on the bottom of the case with some room for ventilation (about 1/2") and the other stacks on top of that one with about another 1/2" for ventilation


----------



## shutitdotnet

> _Originally posted by aaronwt _
> *Good luck quitting smoking!
> I quit almost 15 years ago and I still ocassionally get an urge when seeing someone in a movie smoke. Of course If I can actually smell it, then it's a big turn off. Anyway, I would never smoke again, even if I wanted too I can't because of a pulmonary disease I had/have 4 years ago. I had to be on short term disablity for over 3 months and I sure don't want to do anything that would increase the odds of that happening again. *


Its going to be coming up on day three tomorrow and this is by far the hardest goddamn thing i have done.. giving up drugs wasn't even this phucking hard, that tells you something about the tobacco industry.. I'm not doing it for my health I'm doing it because it appears to be a woman repellent.. haha and i figure when I'm old and no longer able to pick up the 18 y/os i can pick the habit up or by then i will be too health conscious..


----------



## obrook

Is there a memory or any kind of upgrade to speed this turtle up a little.It is so slow it is almost unusable .

But i still love it


----------



## buckeye1010

I have the twin breeze with my HD Tivo, along with the original 250GB and a Weaknees 300GB hard drive. Was very easy to install, and the temperature now runs cooler (42 deg) than it did when it only had one drive (45 deg)! (an unsolictied testimonial) Thank you Weaknees!

Dude - good luck with the cigs - I've been there myself. Hardest thing I've ever done, but never regreted it. Hang in there, it slowly gets easier. But don't dare have just one - then you're right back at it!


----------



## shutitdotnet

> _Originally posted by buckeye1010 _
> *
> Dude - good luck with the cigs - I've been there myself. Hardest thing I've ever done, but never regreted it. Hang in there, it slowly gets easier. But don't dare have just one - then you're right back at it! *


I'm trying my best, my last few attempts i would reward myself after aday of not smoking with "just one" this time im not doing that and we'll see how it goes.. 
LaTe®
Steve


----------



## pbolya

> _Originally posted by shutitdotnet _
> *I'm trying my best, my last few attempts i would reward myself after aday of not smoking with "just one" this time im not doing that and we'll see how it goes..
> LaTe®
> Steve *


 As a long time second hand smoker I apploud your afforts and I hope you will be successful. Growing up in Hungary was not the healtiest thing to do as still to this day you can not even go to a restaurant without a protective bodysuit and a gas mask. Giving up second hand smoking was the hardest thing I did in my life. Eventually I had to move to a different country because the urge for others to smoke was just too big to handle. I tried carying nikotine patches but I just got punched in the face. Finally I broke the habit after we moved to California.


----------



## Anubys

> _Originally posted by shutitdotnet _
> *I'm trying my best, my last few attempts i would reward myself after aday of not smoking with "just one" this time im not doing that and we'll see how it goes..
> LaTe
> Steve *


another former smoker (1-2 packs a day for 15 years)...why do you consider a cancer stick to be a "reward"? maybe the first step is to take a deep breath  and re-evaluate your reward system!

back on topic: don't waste your time making your own bracket...the twinbreeze is really good...I highly recommend it :up:


----------



## edrock200

> _Originally posted by shutitdotnet _
> *is that the only pic you got, sorry im tryign to sell my boss on one!! =oP
> Im trying to help you out weakness, not that you need it , but since you've been such a big help to me, i figure i could return the favor.. how about a pic of one installed, from anyone on here that may have one.. Thanks
> Steve *


I posted a pic a few pages back of what it looks like installed:
http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?postid=2158401#post2158401

I have some hi res shots, if you still want them PM me and I'll email them to you.


----------



## tmtech

Does anyone know if the upgrade instructions that are on Weaknees' site will fill out two 300GB drives?

I want to shelve the 250 that came with the unit and max it out with two 300GB drives. Already have the twinbreeze ordered and the drives are sitting here just waiting...

Thanks,
Tom


----------



## edrock200

> _Originally posted by tmtech _
> *Does anyone know if the upgrade instructions that are on Weaknees' site will fill out two 300GB drives?
> 
> I want to shelve the 250 that came with the unit and max it out with two 300GB drives. Already have the twinbreeze ordered and the drives are sitting here just waiting...
> 
> Thanks,
> Tom *


Check this thread:
http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?postid=2101784#post2101784


----------



## weaknees

Right - that's the best DIY solution for now.

Michael


----------



## dennya

Anyone tried a 400GB drive yet? Supposedly they're streaming out.

As much as the upgrade temptation is hitting me (so I can stop saying "should I record this in HD? Is it worth that much space?"), part of me wants to hold out for the 500GB drives coming up in the next couple of months.

Just think -- assuming the file system can handle it, by Christmas you can have a Terabyte DirecTiVo.


----------



## edrock200

> _Originally posted by dennya _
> *Anyone tried a 400GB drive yet? Supposedly they're streaming out.
> 
> As much as the upgrade temptation is hitting me (so I can stop saying "should I record this in HD? Is it worth that much space?"), part of me wants to hold out for the 500GB drives coming up in the next couple of months.
> 
> Just think -- assuming the file system can handle it, by Christmas you can have a Terabyte DirecTiVo.  *


If I'm understanding Weaknees workaround correctly it probably won't be possibly with 500gb drives without a modified tool as the second partition on each drive will be 300+gb. But if a modified tool comes out that allows 3 partitions less than 250gb's each, totaling 500gb's for each drive, then it should be possible. The key seems to be creating partitions small enough for the tools/Tivo to handle, but using multiple ones to total the amount of drive space you have. Someone please correct me if I'm misunderstanding the concept.

With weaknees workaround it seems you can get a 137 +256 partition for a total of 393 per drive, so close to dual 400's might be possible, though I'm not sure if you can specify to leave off that last 7gb's so the tools can handle the second partition size.


----------



## weaknees

For drives that size, we'd suggest a different idea, but based on the same principal:

Backup up the boot drive and restore it to a 500 GB drive.

mfsadd the rest of that drive (with formatting, the remainder should be less than 256 GB).

mfsadd back the original 250 GB drive.

"dd" the 250 to a 500 GB drive.

mfsadd the remainder of the second 500 GB drive.

It'll take a while because of the "dd" but it should work.

Michael


----------



## AbMagFab

Okay, I tried the mfsbackup line from the original post, and after like 5 minutes of scanning the drive, it started to backup and then failed with an error. I tried again, and it failed again.

Two questions:

1) Any idea why?

2) I wanted to backup before I added a drive, but now I have a second drive in my HD Tivo. Do I need to have both drives in my PC to try a backup again? I don't care about recordings.

3) Can I back up after it's hacked?

I have a previous backup, but I got a new HD Tivo (HDMI failed), and this one has logos, so I wanted to back it up.


----------



## weaknees

1 - What was the error message?

2 - Yes, you do, even if you don't want recordings.

Michael


----------



## pbolya

> _Originally posted by edrock200 _
> *If I'm understanding Weaknees workaround correctly it probably won't be possibly with 500gb drives without a modified tool as the second partition on each drive will be 300+gb. But if a modified tool comes out that allows 3 partitions less than 250gb's each, totaling 500gb's for each drive, then it should be possible. The key seems to be creating partitions small enough for the tools/Tivo to handle, but using multiple ones to total the amount of drive space you have. Someone please correct me if I'm misunderstanding the concept.
> 
> With weaknees workaround it seems you can get a 137 +256 partition for a total of 393 per drive, so close to dual 400's might be possible, though I'm not sure if you can specify to leave off that last 7gb's so the tools can handle the second partition size. *


 Also you are mixing deci and binary GB's. It should be 137.4GB+274.8GB = 412.3GB which is comfortably over any 400GB drives we may enconter in the future.

With Weaknees DD method theoratically you could upgrade to a 750GB A drive and a 2TB B drive. Of course you will need a 500GB, 750GB, 1,000GB, 1,250GB, 1,500GB, 1,750GB and a 2,000GB disk to store the intermediate partitions. Of course by the time we have the 2TB disks (maybe 10 years from now) probably will fix mfsadd to be able to specify maximum partition size and HD TiVo's will come with a 1.5TB disks.


----------



## weaknees

Then there's always the limit on the amount of partitions you can have . . .


----------



## dbish

I just wanted to say you guys are AWESOME! Been lurking for a month or so and finally took the plunge

I upgraded my HR10-250 over the weekend with 2 new 7K250's. Took about 30 minutes start to finish.

I used the Weaknees twinbreeze bracket. Let me say that this bracket is very professional and installed without a hitch. Unit even runs 2 degrees cooler than with the one WD drive.

I can't imagine TV without Tivo. I think I'm going to have to upgrade my SD Tivo now!

BTW-My original HDTivo died after 3 weeks. Display (HDMI) stopped working. New one was upgraded before I even plugged it in.


----------



## edrock200

So MFSADD works on single drives in the HD unit but not for adding a second drive?


----------



## pbolya

> _Originally posted by edrock200 _
> *So MFSADD works on single drives in the HD unit but not for adding a second drive? *


 MFSADD works with any scenario where the remaining space is smaler than 274 GB. So it works fine to add another 250GB or even upgrade the A drive to 400GB and add a 250GB B drive. However it can not handle a 300GB B drive as it will try to create a single partition over the 274GB limit. For B drives larger than 274GB we have to use BlessTivo which do not have this limitation.


----------



## pbolya

> _Originally posted by weaknees _
> *Then there's always the limit on the amount of partitions you can have . . . *


 That is why I said the theoratical maximum is 750GB A drive and 2TB Bdrive. As you can upgrade the A drive twice (250 + 2 x 250 = 750GB) and the B drive 8 times (250 x 8 = 2TB) before running into the 16 partition limit.


----------



## borghe

just to comment on my experience.. being the first non-company upgrade posted to this board I did NOT have success with mfsadd on a second 250GB drive. It worked, looked like it gave me the space (I even posted pictures on another board), but the first time it had to go into the second drive (over 30 hours of material) I instantly lost that drive. My System Info screen reported 30 hours again.

I would not do anything other than BlessTivo.. have used up everything but about 4GB (yikes!!!!) at times and not a single problem.


----------



## weaknees

We've seen mfsadd erroneously report that an upgrade works when, in fact, nothing happens. Specifically, we've seen that with un-expandable Pioneer and Toshiba images. But we haven't personally experience it with the HR10-250, although we have seen other reports of it.

Michael


----------



## edrock200

Yes the reason I asked is because I tried to MFSADD a second 250GB Maxtor to my original drive and though it said successful nothing happened. I ended up using BlessTiVo. I didn't realize this wasn't happening to everyone.


----------



## weaknees

Was the A drive the factory drive, or a new drive?


----------



## pbolya

> _Originally posted by borghe _
> *just to comment on my experience.. being the first non-company upgrade posted to this board I did NOT have success with mfsadd on a second 250GB drive. It worked, looked like it gave me the space (I even posted pictures on another board), but the first time it had to go into the second drive (over 30 hours of material) I instantly lost that drive. My System Info screen reported 30 hours again.
> 
> I would not do anything other than BlessTivo.. have used up everything but about 4GB (yikes!!!!) at times and not a single problem. *


 I also did BlessTivo to upgrade to 63h and I did a test where I filled up the drives with mostly SD material (and some HD) untill it started to delete the earliest recordings. To my biggest suprise I did not see any performance degradation in any aspects of the TiVo even though I had 350+ hours recorded.

How do you know that only 4GB left. Do you have a good way to calculate how much GB left on your TiVo?


----------



## LarryInAz

> _Originally posted by pbolya _
> *...How do you know that only 4GB left. Do you have a good way to calculate how much GB left on your TiVo? *


Unfortuantely there's no "GIG GAUGE" you pretty much have to look at the number of HD programs and figure it out yourself. 
It could be though that PTVUpgrade's pending TiVoWeb would let us add a utility that keeps track.


----------



## edrock200

> _Originally posted by weaknees _
> *Was the A drive the factory drive, or a new drive? *


Factory


----------



## edrock200

> _Originally posted by LarryInAz _
> *It could be though that PTVUpgrade's pending TiVoWeb would let us add a utility that keeps track.  *


Link for more info? I'm outta the loop...didn't know any Tivoweb util development for the HDTivo even existed.


----------



## weaknees

> _Originally posted by edrock200 _
> *Factory *


Do you happen to remember how many gigs the new drive showed when you booted?


----------



## borghe

TivoWebPlus and other tools are available right now. PTVUpgrade's kit will just make it much easier to install everything than it is now.

My unit at its worst (two weeks ago) was about 4GB of free space.. for OTA that would be anywhere from an hour to half an hour depending on the station. For DirecTV HD that would be around 35-40 minutes.. Though that was also including suggestions which probably took up around 50-100GB (mixed SD and HD/OTA).


----------



## LarryInAz

> _Originally posted by edrock200 _
> *Link for more info? I'm outta the loop...didn't know any Tivoweb util development for the HDTivo even existed. *


It's a work in progress - supposedly TiVoWeb Plus will be available for Series 2 standalone and D*TiVo machines for a small fee. This will allegedly enable the USB ports and make these machines "hackworthy".

However I've seen in another thread recently with a "confirmation" from Robert at VE that HMO maybe just aroujnd the corner for D* machines with USB ports.

As a wise sage once said..."I'll believe it when I see it." 

I don't know if this link will go thru or not but you might try this


----------



## pbolya

> _Originally posted by LarryInAz _
> *Unfortuantely there's no "GIG GAUGE" you pretty much have to look at the number of HD programs and figure it out yourself.
> It could be though that PTVUpgrade's pending TiVoWeb would let us add a utility that keeps track.  *


 That is what I am doing but since there are differences in bit rates on most programs it is very inaccurate and very time consuming. Also borghe said 4GB. If you would add the hours up you would say something like 30 minutes or 4 hours not 4GB. borghe, care to comment?

Thanks,
Peter


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## AbMagFab

My HDTivo is currently "modified" with:

- USB ports enabled
- LinkSys 200M USB 2.0 ethernet adapter
- Telnet, FTP
- TivoWebPlus (w/ OTA channel mods)
- mfs_ftp (ftp'ing Tivo files natively, for archiving and moving across Tivo's)
- HDTyTool (for extracting MPG's, VOB's, etc. from a Tivo and playing on the PC)
- Caller ID (displays incoming calls on my TV when watching my HD Tivo)
- Descrambled (so I can use mfs_ftp and HDTyTool effectively)
- And of course, an extra 250GB hard drive

It took about 90 minutes to do all this (done it twice now). There are some new tools that make this much easier than previously, for HDTivo's and DTivo Series 2's (DTivo Series 1's have always been easy since you can flash the prom).

Just poke around the other board for a few minutes and you'll find all that you need (if you're comfortable popping hard drives in and out of your Tivo, which if you're in this thread you presumably are).

Next on my list is a server that let's me basically get HMO - that is, transfer from one Tivo to another using the Tivo UI only. With one click, it'll show me the "Now Playing" list from any other Tivo, and then I can tell it to stream it across Tivo's.


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## aaronwt

How long does it take to transfer between the HDTIvos with the USB 2.0 adapter?


----------



## tivoupgrade

> _Originally posted by aaronwt _
> *How long does it take to transfer between the HDTIvos with the USB 2.0 adapter? *


I'll choose my words very carefully as extraction talk is not permitted on this particular forum (you can use our own forum for that, if you'd like). In any case, I am currently watching the movement of a large file from my HDTIVO at approximately 1.6 MB/sec.

In other slightly related news:

I'm off to get married early next week, however when I get back (end of September) we'll be putting the final wraps on some groovy new DIY tools that will let you modify your HR10-250 drive quickly and easily with TiVoWeb access and some other goodies which will make life easier. We won't be offering, publicizing any tools/techniques here which will aid in video extraction (as are the wishes of the TCF management) and although we may choose to do so in time, it won't be mentioned here.

In any case, we do believe networking is the future and we'll be offering tools and how-to information at no charge here on TCF. So please stay tuned, or sign up for the list here and we'll let you know when the time has come -- good things come to those who wait.


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## Rshnrocket

PLEASE HELP!!!!! I have a post in the warning for the white ribbon.... Basically I tried using that hinsdale site to upgrade my tivo. I think I'm finding out it was a big mistake. Ahhh tried to upgrade got real confused so we tried to put old drive back in. When i went to power up it got stuck on the power up screen. Checked the drive & the jumper was wrong. Went to power up again & noticed right away something was wrong cause the fan was running slow & it would not turn on. By this time I found the thread about the white ribbon cable, checked it & sure enough partially dislodged... pushed it back in, powered up. Back to being stuck on the power up screen. Only thing we did was try the unlock utility on hinsdale site. Not sure if it worked or not. Could this be the problem or is it the white ribbon problem??????? man, really sorry I tried this. Thought it would be kinda easy with hinsdale site,WRONG!!!!! I just want to get my original drive working again, PLEASE HELP!!!!


----------



## Rshnrocket

> _Originally posted by Rshnrocket _
> *PLEASE HELP!!!!! I have a post in the warning for the white ribbon.... Basically I tried using that hinsdale site to upgrade my tivo. I think I'm finding out it was a big mistake. Ahhh tried to upgrade got real confused so we tried to put old drive back in. When i went to power up it got stuck on the power up screen. Checked the drive & the jumper was wrong. Went to power up again & noticed right away something was wrong cause the fan was running slow & it would not turn on. By this time I found the thread about the white ribbon cable, checked it & sure enough partially dislodged... pushed it back in, powered up. Back to being stuck on the power up screen. Only thing we did was try the unlock utility on hinsdale site. Not sure if it worked or not. Could this be the problem or is it the white ribbon problem??????? man, really sorry I tried this. Thought it would be kinda easy with hinsdale site,WRONG!!!!! I just want to get my original drive working again, PLEASE HELP!!!! *


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## AbMagFab

> _Originally posted by Rshnrocket _
> *PLEASE HELP!!!!! I have a post in the warning for the white ribbon.... Basically I tried using that hinsdale site to upgrade my tivo. I think I'm finding out it was a big mistake. Ahhh tried to upgrade got real confused so we tried to put old drive back in. When i went to power up it got stuck on the power up screen. Checked the drive & the jumper was wrong. Went to power up again & noticed right away something was wrong cause the fan was running slow & it would not turn on. By this time I found the thread about the white ribbon cable, checked it & sure enough partially dislodged... pushed it back in, powered up. Back to being stuck on the power up screen. Only thing we did was try the unlock utility on hinsdale site. Not sure if it worked or not. Could this be the problem or is it the white ribbon problem??????? man, really sorry I tried this. Thought it would be kinda easy with hinsdale site,WRONG!!!!! I just want to get my original drive working again, PLEASE HELP!!!! *


If you dislodged the white cable and then powered up, your Tivo might be fried. You need to be extremely careful of all the electronics in the Tivo whenever opening it up.

Additionally, I don't think the Hinsdale site covers the HD Tivo yet (which requires LBA48). I'd imagine it wouldn't work anyway.

For next time:
1) Do your research first. Make sure you're using the right tools/software for the job

2) Be careful! This is an electronic component, not a car. If you're not experienced and comfortable taking apart PC's, you shouldn't be messing with the Tivo (especially not the HD Tivo)

3) If you can't risk the cost of the box, don't mess with it.


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## Anubys

> _Originally posted by weaknees _
> *Also known as the "cable of death," we have a sticky post about it at the top of the forum.
> 
> Long story short - the ribbon cable that goes from the motherboard into the front panel is very sensitive on series 2 units. If all the way or partially out when the unit is booted, it can cause permanent damage to the motherboard making the unit inoperative via remote control or front panel buttons. We haven't (fortunately) seen if this is a problem on HR10-250s, but please exercise caution here. Make sure you can't see any of the silver contacts on the bottom of the cable before you power up the unit.
> 
> Michael *


This quote pretty much tells you that it is probably the white ribbon...But this quote states that it has not been confirmed on a HD-Tivo, only on a series 2 (not much difference, but the distinction is worth noting). Sorry to confirm your fears, but it looks like your unit is dead


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## aaronwt

On all my TiVos that I've upgraded, I always look at the ribbon cable and wonder how it can be dislodged. On all my machines the ribbon cable is firmly in place. It seems as though I would need to apply alot of force to dislodge this. Anyway, because of the warnings I have always been careful when sticking my hands in that area. I guess that warning is well heeded. Good luck with your HD-TiVo. I hope it works out for you.


----------



## weaknees

> _Originally posted by Rshnrocket _
> *PLEASE HELP!!!!! I have a post in the warning for the white ribbon.... Basically I tried using that hinsdale site to upgrade my tivo. I think I'm finding out it was a big mistake. Ahhh tried to upgrade got real confused so we tried to put old drive back in. When i went to power up it got stuck on the power up screen. Checked the drive & the jumper was wrong. Went to power up again & noticed right away something was wrong cause the fan was running slow & it would not turn on. By this time I found the thread about the white ribbon cable, checked it & sure enough partially dislodged... pushed it back in, powered up. Back to being stuck on the power up screen. Only thing we did was try the unlock utility on hinsdale site. Not sure if it worked or not. Could this be the problem or is it the white ribbon problem??????? man, really sorry I tried this. Thought it would be kinda easy with hinsdale site,WRONG!!!!! I just want to get my original drive working again, PLEASE HELP!!!! *


Neither of these symptoms is like the "cable of death" problem. In that problem, the machine boots fine but the remote and the front panel buttons don't work.

We haven't seen a unit have a slow fan and not boot because of this cable.

I think you might just have damaged the drive or corrupted the software somehow when it was in your PC. You tried to unlock it? Why?

Michael


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## edrock200

Yeah I fried one of my units this way but it still booted fine, never had a boot problem. Did you maybe change any jumper settings?


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## edrock200

> _Originally posted by weaknees _
> *Do you happen to remember how many gigs the new drive showed when you booted? *


Do you mean via MFSAdd or BlessTiVo? Unfortunately not, I think it said it added in the 250 range but I can't remember the exact number.


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## edrock200

> _Originally posted by borghe _
> *TivoWebPlus and other tools are available right now. PTVUpgrade's kit will just make it much easier to install everything than it is now.
> 
> My unit at its worst (two weeks ago) was about 4GB of free space.. for OTA that would be anywhere from an hour to half an hour depending on the station. For DirecTV HD that would be around 35-40 minutes.. Though that was also including suggestions which probably took up around 50-100GB (mixed SD and HD/OTA). *


Yes I found a how-to thread and it doesn't look that bad at all to upgrade. I'll wait a while longer and see if the upcoming utility cd will add any functionality the how-to guide doesn't. Regardless, this is a very cool development.


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## weaknees

> _Originally posted by edrock200 _
> *Do you mean via MFSAdd or BlessTiVo? Unfortunately not, I think it said it added in the 250 range but I can't remember the exact number. *


At over 256 GB, results are fairly unpredictable. We've seen drives simply not boot, so at least you didn't hit that snag.


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## Mr Pieces

I've read through about 10 pages of this thread and haven't found the method to add a 250gb drive to a HD TiVo. I just got the bracket in from weaknees and want to add a 250gb drive. Any help pointing me in the right direction would be great!


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## AbMagFab

Search for BlessTivo. It's pretty straightforward, and is in this thread a bunch of times.


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## Rshnrocket

Weaknees, thanx for answering!!! Hmmmmm dont know how the drive would get fried..... Anyways, I unlocked the drive cause of the hinsdale site instructions. They said that u have to unlock it??? We first tried to clone the drive with norton ghost... I think that might have been when all the problems started, But we really never did the transfer cause the tivo drive still seemed like it was locked. the ghost never recognized it. So like I said we put the drive back in... powered up ..stuck on welcome... then the ribbon problem. I guess I learned an expensive lesson.By the way, IF I try to be brave & try this again, what is a good site to learn about this????
I saw your site & probably will go that route. Just sliding in your drive... Easy enough. Just gotta remember about the stupid white ribbon. I cannot believe that the manufacture would put this into their product. But yea, the part thats got me puzzled is if it was ribbon then why does it not boot up at least cause u guys say the ribbon causes the remote not to work.
Oh by the way,AbMagFab.... I do have PC knowledge... Guess that does not apply to tivos.....Lmao!!! I built my p.c. very nice gaming machine. All the times I have worked on p.c.s I have NEVER seen a cable that is supposed to be connected with a connector come loose on the back side. I can understand if you dislodge the CONNECTOR but the ribbon I would think should be firmly attached to it. SERIOUS DESIGN FLAW!!! Oh well like I said I guess I learned a costly lesson. Thanx for all the response guys!!!


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## such

What Operating System did you boot up in when you tried to Ghost the drive? If it's XP, that's what hosed your drive, well documented here that you can't boot to XP with a Tivo drive connected because it destroys the boot sectors or something.


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## gregghuffman

I just got my HD Tivo and I also ordered a new drive and drive bracket. I want to backup my Tivo Image and then add a second drive through either BlessTivo or MFSAdd. My main problem is the lba48 support. I want to make sure I am very comfortable with the instructions before I experiment on a $1000 machine. I am able to upgrade regular tivos just fine. Thanks alot for any help. Also I saw 9th has a upgrade cd for the hd tivo and was wondering if that is the best way to go.


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## gregghuffman

I just got my HD Tivo and I also ordered a new drive and drive bracket. I want to backup my Tivo Image and then add a second drive through either BlessTivo or MFSAdd. My main problem is the lba48 support. I want to make sure I am very comfortable with the instructions before I experiment on a $1000 machine. I am able to upgrade regular tivos just fine. Thanks alot for any help. Also I saw 9th has a upgrade cd for the hd tivo and was wondering if that is the best way to go.


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## edrock200

Its a very easy upgrade. The HDTivos already have lba48 support so no kernel modification needed there. You just need to download the MFSTOOLS large disk (lba48 support) CD from ptvupgrade and run bless TiVo on your new drive. Search this thread for blesstivo and you should see the instructions.


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## jayerndl

> _Originally posted by gregghuffman _
> *I just got my HD Tivo and I also ordered a new drive and drive bracket. I want to backup my Tivo Image and then add a second drive through either BlessTivo or MFSAdd. *


 IMO, the best way to go is to get 2 new drives. Simply copy your original drive to one of your new drives, then add the second one with blesstivo. Put your original drive away in a safe place and your done. Outpost.com still has the 250GB Maxtor for $119 (no rebate required). A small price to pay for peace of mind. I have 2 of these in my system and they work perfectly. Good luck.

Jay


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## aaronwt

Or you can buy the drives and send them to one of the merchants and have them upgraded for around $90. then you can install them yourself. I bought my 4 drives with the intention of doing the expansion and copying myself, but I ran into problems. I followed the instructions exactly but I couldn't get it to make a backup. After spending a feew hours I figured it wasn't worth anymore of my time. So I just sent my for drives in and for $180 they configured them for my 2 HDTiVos. I lost logos since I'm not using a copy of my original drives, but I figure I'll get those back when the first software update materializes. I still have the original drives as a backup. It just wasn't worth it to me to spend anymore time trouble shooting the problem. It was probablyt associated with the motherboard i was attaching the drives. I have 6 PCs at home but it's a pain to connect and reconnect drives,since I have over 7 Terabytes between the 6 PCs. So sending the drives in to be configured was the best solution for me.


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## Anubys

> _Originally posted by aaronwt _
> *Or you can buy the drives and send them to one of the merchants and have them upgraded for around $90. then you can install them yourself. I bought my 4 drives with the intention of doing the expansion and copying myself, but I ran into problems. I followed the instructions exactly but I couldn't get it to make a backup. After spending a feew hours I figured it wasn't worth anymore of my time. So I just sent my for drives in and for $180 they configured them for my 2 HDTiVos. I lost logos since I'm not using a copy of my original drives, but I figure I'll get those back when the first software update materializes. I still have the original drives as a backup. It just wasn't worth it to me to spend anymore time trouble shooting the problem. It was probablyt associated with the motherboard i was attaching the drives. I have 6 PCs at home but it's a pain to connect and reconnect drives,since I have over 7 Terabytes between the 6 PCs. So sending the drives in to be configured was the best solution for me. *


Why did you lose your logos? I did the same thing and I didn't lose the logos...I even sent them an e-mail making SURE that I would not lose the logos...did you replace the original drive as well? why replace the original drive and replace it with a drive that's the same size? I'm guessing so you can restore it if something goes wrong but that seems to be a pretty expensive insurance...I just closed my eyes and prayed that it worked


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## weaknees

The lost-logos happens if you move software from one HR10-250 to another. In that case, you need to do a "Clear and delete everything" to reserialize the software, and logos are lost in the process.

aaronwt sent us the new drives, but not the old ones (presumably he wanted to actually USE the HD TiVo in the interim) so logos were lost. But we certainly expect them to be back with the first software update.

Michael


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## Anubys

I know I'm missing something obvious so please excuse my ignorance...

so, I have a HD-Tivo with the original drive. I buy a 250 GB HD and send it to you guys. You do what you do and send it back to me. I have my HD-Tivo to use during all that time. I now add this drive as a B drive next to the original (as A). In this case, no logos are lost (I know because this is what I did). 

So question 1: what did aaronwt do differently from this scenario which resulted in losing the logos?

question 2: what is the advantage of doing it differently from what I did (keeping in mind the disadvantage of losing the logos)?


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## weaknees

aaronwt sent us two drive sets - I'm not sure if he wanted to keep his as backups, or if they were just larger than 250 GB and he wanted to use all of the capacity.

If you're just adding one drive, then you plan makes more sense in every way: you keep use of the TiVo, and you get your logos.


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## aaronwt

I wanted to keep my original drives in case I needed to reinstall them for a warranty issue. That way if there is a problem in the future, like HDMI output dying, then I can take out the Twinbreeze and my two Maxtor drives and reinstall the original WD drive and send it back for a warranty replacement.
I also wanted to continue using my HD-TiVos, that's why I didn't send the original in to be copied.


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## LarryInAz

> _Originally posted by flapbreaker _
> *Ok i am on the right track now. I put the two drives on seperate ide buses and now I completed the backup in about 5 minutes (after endless hours of tinkering)... *


Is it accurate that creating a backup works better if the original and the backup drives should be on seperate IDE channels? I have created many images by booting from the CD [Secondary master - hdc]. DOS based hard drive as Primary master - hda and original single drive TiVo as Primaty slave - hdb. These have all been 40gb SD TiVos. I'm trying to create an image of my replacement HR10-250 the same way however the line:
"Scanning source drive. Please wait a moment" has been displayed for 90+ minutes and the cursor just blinks. I assume the scanning would take longer because of the 250gb size vs the 40gb drives on my previous backup, but 90+ minutes? 

FYI, I booted up with the large drive version of the tools cd - I hit enter twice. When I hit enter after the line "Please hit <enter> to continue!"
I get the following message in return - "mount: No medium found" "cat: /cdrom/ .menu/ startup No such menu or file" 
Nevertheless at the # prompt I type:
mount /dev/hdb1 /mnt
mfsbackup -f 9999 -1so /mnt/hdtivo.bak /dev/hda

I then get the "Scanning source drive..." line but nothing seems to be happening. In searching the forum the only thing I've seen that I might be doing wrong is a few posts saying the backup drive and the orignal TiVo drive needs to be on seperate channels.

FWIW, I'm wanting to create an image of this HR10 because my previous image does not have logos, this newer unit does. Any suggestions would be appreciated.


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## dr_mal

> _Originally posted by LarryInAz _
> *Is it accurate that creating a backup works better if the original and the backup drives should be on seperate IDE channels?*


It's more accurate that creating a backup works at all - not better - if the original and backup drives are on separate IDE channels.

On the same channel, you could be watching that blinking cursor for a very long time.


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## weaknees

90 minutes is definitely too long. What sizes did the drives show on startup?

You shouldn't need drives on separate channels, but that shouldn't matter either way.

Michael


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## LarryInAz

> _Originally posted by weaknees _
> *90 minutes is definitely too long. What sizes did the drives show on startup?
> 
> You shouldn't need drives on separate channels, but that shouldn't matter either way.
> 
> Michael *


hda [original TiVo drive] 250gb
hdb [Dos drive to create image] 20gb
hdc DVD reader
hdd DVD burner


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## LarryInAz

I went to bed while the cursor kept blinking and blinking giving it the benefit of the doubt. When I woke up 6 hours later the cursor was still blinking away. I hit CTRL+C to stop the action, rebooted the machine and hooked up the drives to seperate channels as a few had recommended.
This time it scanned the source drive for about 3 minutes and image creation began just fine. :up: :up: :up:

I'm baffled why I had no problems creating images hooking the 2 drives on the same IDE channel in the past though [mind you they were all SD type TiVo's]...


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## RC3105

it's fairly common for various ide drives to refuse to play nice on the same bus, even with when they're from the same manufacturer


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## LarryInAz

Just curous about image sizes - my HD TiVo image is 192megs [197,570KB] while an image I created from the new 540040 Series2 standalone is a whopping 592megs [604,681KB]. Does this seem right?


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## weaknees

Did you use the same compression (-1so) and the fsid switch (-f 9999) each time? I'd have to look at the office, but I think those files should be a bit closer in size.

Michael


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## LarryInAz

> _Originally posted by weaknees _
> *Did you use the same compression (-1so) and the fsid switch (-f 9999) each time? I'd have to look at the office, but I think those files should be a bit closer in size.
> 
> Michael *


Used the exact same instructions on both. I restored the large Series 2 image twice successfully to larger drives and it worked great. I just checked my earlier image of an HR10-250 that lacked logos and it's 153mb [160,862 kb] so that's right in line with the image I just created that has logos.


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## FlopShot

I had all kinds of problems making a valid backup of the HR10-250 drive to my hard disk. Backup was successful but took over 24hrs to complete, then when I tried to restore it to new 250GB drive, it would get stuck at 108 sectors. Tried multiple attempts at backup/restore, all with the same results. Finally did a -Tao directly from original to new disk and it went smoothly. Of course, now had to buy another 250Gb drive for the second drive, since I didn't dare touch the original drive without a valid backup anywhere. Installed both new drives into a Twinbreeze and it's been running great for a week with no problems. Would love to make a valid backup image at some point, if anyone else had the same problems and could give me some pointers.


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## FlopShot

> _Originally posted by Mr Pieces _
> *I've read through about 10 pages of this thread and haven't found the method to add a 250gb drive to a HD TiVo. I just got the bracket in from weaknees and want to add a 250gb drive. Any help pointing me in the right direction would be great! *


I just essentially did this research for twin 250GB, having the same problem as you figuring out exactly what I need to do, so here it is plain and simple. Since the new second drive is <256GB, then all you have to do is:
1) hook it up to your PC
2) boot with the LBA48 version of MFSTools (link provided earlier by PTV)
3) run BlessTiVo on the new drive. 
4) Hook up the two drives to the TwinBreeze and verify you have double the hours. My two 250GB drives ended up as "63hrs HD or 425hrs SD."

You do not need to run mfsadd afterwards because that only deals with the extra space above 256Gb (I actually tried anyway, and it reported "nothing to add".) Good luck.


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## tmtech

This was a great help to me... I just upgraded my hd-tivo to two 300G drives. Worked like a charm. The big "problem" for me was I used dd to backup my original drive since I wanted to preserve programming. That was a LONG backup!! I also had to switch to a configuration where each drive was on a different IDE channel.

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?postid=2101784#post2101784

BTW The twinbreeze monts are great. They don' leave a footprint if you need to send your box in for service and were very easy to install. I'd used 9thtee on my d-tivo's and like this product much more.

Tom



> _Originally posted by FlopShot _
> *I had all kinds of problems making a valid backup of the HR10-250 drive to my hard disk. Backup was successful but took over 24hrs to complete, then when I tried to restore it to new 250GB drive, it would get stuck at 108 sectors. Tried multiple attempts at backup/restore, all with the same results. Finally did a -Tao directly from original to new disk and it went smoothly. Of course, now had to buy another 250Gb drive for the second drive, since I didn't dare touch the original drive without a valid backup anywhere. Installed both new drives into a Twinbreeze and it's been running great for a week with no problems. Would love to make a valid backup image at some point, if anyone else had the same problems and could give me some pointers. *


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## weaknees

FlopShot-

Can you describe what you did?


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## weaknees

> _Originally posted by tmtech _
> *This was a great help to me... I just upgraded my hd-tivo to two 300G drives. Worked like a charm. The big "problem" for me was I used dd to backup my original drive since I wanted to preserve programming. That was a LONG backup!! I also had to switch to a configuration where each drive was on a different IDE channel.
> 
> http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?postid=2101784#post2101784
> 
> BTW The twinbreeze monts are great. They don' leave a footprint if you need to send your box in for service and were very easy to install. I'd used 9thtee on my d-tivo's and like this product much more.
> 
> Tom *


You shouldn't NEED to use a different IDE bus for each drive, but it won't hurt, and may increase transfer speed (although with that transfer, it'll still take a while). What size blocks did you use? 1024K? For others, try bs=10M for more speed on a DD.

Michael


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## tmtech

NEED is the right word... I originally used an old dell optiplex on the same channel. That box is a low end very compact unit. I have seen it have issues with Long dd's of drives on the same channel. Then I switched it to a new 3.6ghz dimension and watched it fly.

I suspect the dimension would have had no problem on the same channel, which is as it should be.

I did use bs=1024k... I have two more to upgrade. How much faster would bs=10M be? My backup took about 3 hours.

Tom



> _Originally posted by weaknees _
> *You shouldn't NEED to use a different IDE bus for each drive, but it won't hurt, and may increase transfer speed (although with that transfer, it'll still take a while). What size blocks did you use? 1024K? For others, try bs=10M for more speed on a DD.
> 
> Michael *


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## weaknees

My guess is that you'd see about a 10% to 20% speed increase - not a ton, but something when it comes to three hours.


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## Mr Pieces

> _Originally posted by FlopShot _
> *I just essentially did this research for twin 250GB, having the same problem as you figuring out exactly what I need to do, so here it is plain and simple. Since the new second drive is <256GB, then all you have to do is:
> 1) hook it up to your PC
> 2) boot with the LBA48 version of MFSTools (link provided earlier by PTV)
> 3) run BlessTiVo on the new drive.
> 4) Hook up the two drives to the TwinBreeze and verify you have double the hours. My two 250GB drives ended up as "63hrs HD or 425hrs SD."
> 
> You do not need to run mfsadd afterwards because that only deals with the extra space above 256Gb (I actually tried anyway, and it reported "nothing to add".) Good luck. *


Do I need to hook the original HD TiVo drive up to the computer at all or just the add on 250GB drive? I was under the impression that I had to hook my original drive and the new drive to the computer together. I was going to try this tomorrow and wanted to be 100% clear.

Thanks!


----------



## tmtech

You can bless the second drive without the "A" drive being in the PC. The blessing just preps the drive and the marrying actually takes place in the TiVo...



> _Originally posted by Mr Pieces _
> *Do I need to hook the original HD TiVo drive up to the computer at all or just the add on 250GB drive? I was under the impression that I had to hook my original drive and the new drive to the computer together. I was going to try this tomorrow and wanted to be 100% clear.
> 
> Thanks! *


----------



## pbolya

> _Originally posted by Mr Pieces _
> *Do I need to hook the original HD TiVo drive up to the computer at all or just the add on 250GB drive? I was under the impression that I had to hook my original drive and the new drive to the computer together. I was going to try this tomorrow and wanted to be 100% clear.
> 
> Thanks! *


 You do not need to hook your original drive to the PC at all if you are just adding another 250GB.

However I found it very dangerous not to make a backup before the upgrade. I know it is a hussle and without it it is a 2 minute job but with all the HDMI failures going around it is not a good idea to not to have a backup to restore back from.


----------



## Mr Pieces

Can I just copy the drive from a friends HD TiVo (Unmodified) in the event of a disaster? Is the drive specific to my tivo?


----------



## LarryInAz

> _Originally posted by Mr Pieces _
> *Can I just copy the drive from a friends HD TiVo (Unmodified) in the event of a disaster? Is the drive specific to my tivo? *


Yes you can assuming it remains "Unmodified" - if he adds a drive and also does not create a backup as a safety net you have to create an image for a 2-drive HD TiVo.

I see though you're in Scottsdale. If you need an image of an HR10-250 w/ logos just PM me. I have a business near PV Mall if you want to come by and get a CD of the image.


----------



## pbolya

> _Originally posted by Mr Pieces _
> *Can I just copy the drive from a friends HD TiVo (Unmodified) in the event of a disaster? Is the drive specific to my tivo? *


 If your friend has a backup you can load that backup into your TiVo and do a clear and delete everything (on your TiVo of course). Be aware that you will lose the Logos this way (I wish i would have logos to lose).

EDIT - Looks like I am too slow today. Just ignore my posts. - END EDIT


----------



## LarryInAz

> _Originally posted by pbolya _
> *If your friend has a backup you can load that backup into your TiVo and do a clear and delete everything (on your TiVo of course). Be aware that you will lose the Logos this way (I wish i would have logos to lose). *


We can hope and pray if he ever needs to use the backup D* will have made a patch that fixes the logo-less units [amongst other issues]. We can dream can't we?


----------



## pbolya

> _Originally posted by LarryInAz _
> *We can hope and pray if he ever needs to use the backup D* will have made a patch that fixes the logo-less units [amongst other issues]. We can dream can't we?  *


 Wouldn't that be nice? However he would still lose the logos.

By the way. Is there anybody out there who installed TiVoWebPlus on there HR10-250 who did not have logos before ? If so where you able to add logos with the Logo utility of TiVoWebPlus ?

Is there a post somwhere that details how to get a bash prompt and TiVoWebPlus (and maybe TyTool and mfs-ftp) on HD TiVo boxes ?


----------



## RC3105

search for killhdinitrd on the other big tivo forum. should take all of 5 mins to get bash + networking


----------



## weaknees

> _Originally posted by LarryInAz _
> *Yes you can assuming it remains "Unmodified" - if he adds a drive and also does not create a backup as a safety net you have to create an image for a 2-drive HD TiVo. *


Just to be clear, the resulting image is the same, you just need both drives in the PC to make it. And when you move an image from one TiVo to another, you'll have to do a "Clear and delete everything" once it's in the new box so that it re-serializes.


----------



## RC3105

1) a backup made from a drive that's been in use is NOT the same as a virgin backup. for most purposes it's equivilant, but make a backup anyway 


2) you REALLY want to make a backup with the -asv9 options and those are SO much smaller when done before the drive's been used or immediatly after a clear & delete


3) nuke_DC_key.tcl & 51killer.tcl both allow moving drives/images between tivos w/o the clear & delete hassle (good for preserving recording history or season passes)


4) if you disable scrambling (10 seconds work after you have bash) recordings on a drive moved between units or in a backup restored to a different unit play fine


----------



## Mr Pieces

What is the command line I want to use to make the backup of my original drive? It is a nearly full tivo, any idea how long it will take?

Thanks in advance.


----------



## mattdb

> _Originally posted by pbolya _
> *Wouldn't that be nice? However he would still lose the logos.
> 
> By the way. Is there anybody out there who installed TiVoWebPlus on there HR10-250 who did not have logos before ? If so where you able to add logos with the Logo utility of TiVoWebPlus ?
> 
> Is there a post somwhere that details how to get a bash prompt and TiVoWebPlus (and maybe TyTool and mfs-ftp) on HD TiVo boxes ? *


I have done exactly this. There is however no one post that fixes it all.

I had to add a slice of the locals first. I had to do alot of digging and don't remember my exact steps. I had to add a slice etc.

Check out this thread for adding locals:

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-v...d=1795023&highlight=loadlogos.tcl#post1795023

Matt


----------



## weaknees

> _Originally posted by Mr Pieces _
> *What is the command line I want to use to make the backup of my original drive? It is a nearly full tivo, any idea how long it will take?
> 
> Thanks in advance. *


Assuming you aren't trying to get recordings:

mfsbackup -f 9999 -1so /mnt/hr10.bak /dev/hdc

the "hdc" assumes the drive is on the secondary master.


----------



## FlopShot

> _Originally posted by weaknees _
> *FlopShot-
> 
> Can you describe what you did? *


Red Hat 9 drive hooked up as primary master.
Original Tivo drive hooked up as primary slave.
New blank 250Gb drive hooked up as secondary slave.
Booted using PTVupgrade's LBA48 boot CD on secondary master.

Attempt #1
mfsbackup -f 999 -1so /mnt/c/tivo.bak /dev/hdb
mfsrestore -s 127 -zpi /mnt/c/tivo.bak /dev/hdd
Backup took 24+ hrs, then restore got stuck after first 108 of 225000 megabytes

Attempt #2
mfsbackup -Tao /mnt/c/tivo.bak /dev/hdb
mfsrestore -s 127 -zpi /mnt/c/tivo.bak /dev/hdd
Backup took 24+ hrs, file size was about the same as before, then restore got stuck at the same point.

Finally gave up trying to restore either of those backups.

Attempt #3
mfsbackup -Tao - /dev/hdb | mfsrestore -zi - /dev/hdd
Backup and restore took somewhere between 10-18hrs (completed while I was at work). The new drive booted up fine in the HD Tivo with no problem. BlessTiVo a second blank drive, hooked it up using the TwinBreeze, and I was off to the races. Just don't have a valid backup anywhere.


----------



## weaknees

In the first backup step, you would have needed "9999" instead of "999" to get a good backup, but that wouldn't explain why it didn't work. I assume you have a directory on your mount point called "c" and that you mounted first, yes? Otherwise, that would cause a problem. And backup shouldn't take more than 10 minutes.

#2 should produce a huge file - do you remember how large it was?


----------



## Runch Machine

I am having a strange backup problem. I have upgraded several HD-Tivos. If I backup up before going through Guided Setup, the backup is successful. If I backup after doing Guided Setup, the backup fails at around the 60-80% point. The backup command I am using is:
mfsbackup -f 9999 -6so /mnt/dos/hdtivo.bak /dev/hdd

I have also tried it with -1so with the same results. 
Has anyone else had this problem and does anyone know how I can get a good backup after a receiver has been subscribed? By the way, I have tried this multiple times on 3 different HD-Tivos. I now backup them up before I even turn them on and this works fine.


----------



## bigrig

> _Originally posted by Runch Machine _
> *I am having a strange backup problem. I have upgraded several HD-Tivos. If I backup up before going through Guided Setup, the backup is successful. If I backup after doing Guided Setup, the backup fails at around the 60-80% point. The backup command I am using is:
> mfsbackup -f 9999 -6so /mnt/dos/hdtivo.bak /dev/hdd
> 
> I have also tried it with -1so with the same results.
> Has anyone else had this problem and does anyone know how I can get a good backup after a receiver has been subscribed? By the way, I have tried this multiple times on 3 different HD-Tivos. I now backup them up before I even turn them on and this works fine. *


I recently did a backup on my activated HDTivo. I just followed the Hinsdale how-to, and used the following command - 
mfsbackup -f 9999 -6so /mnt/dos/tivo.bak /dev/hdc

Only difference is I had the Tivo drive on the secondary master. Did a restore to the new drive and it worked fine.

Matt


----------



## bigrig

> _Originally posted by FlopShot _
> *Red Hat 9 drive hooked up as primary master.
> Original Tivo drive hooked up as primary slave.
> New blank 250Gb drive hooked up as secondary slave.
> Booted using PTVupgrade's LBA48 boot CD on secondary master.
> *


Haven't others in this thread reported problems creating a backup with both drives on the same IDE channel?

Matt


----------



## weaknees

> _Originally posted by Runch Machine _
> *I am having a strange backup problem. I have upgraded several HD-Tivos. If I backup up before going through Guided Setup, the backup is successful. If I backup after doing Guided Setup, the backup fails at around the 60-80% point. The backup command I am using is:
> mfsbackup -f 9999 -6so /mnt/dos/hdtivo.bak /dev/hdd
> 
> I have also tried it with -1so with the same results.
> Has anyone else had this problem and does anyone know how I can get a good backup after a receiver has been subscribed? By the way, I have tried this multiple times on 3 different HD-Tivos. I now backup them up before I even turn them on and this works fine. *


This is interesting - is there anything else different about the systems after they've been through setup? Obviously, if you've added drives, you can't get a good backup unless you put both drives in your PC.

In any event, we've made numerous backups both ways here (we generally use -1so) and we haven't had any problems.

Michael


----------



## flapbreaker

I made a successful backup of mine after activation. The one thing that cause all kinds of trouble for me was having both drives on the same IDE channel. Once I put them on different channels it worked great.


----------



## pbolya

My original WD hard drive failed over the weekend. Since I already opened the unit I did not want to return it (no logos and HDMI failure as well though). Even though none of the backup/restore procedures worked as the drive had errors (mfsbackup hanging/DD image resulted in none bootable image) I was able to restore everything including season passes and recordings using telnet, tivoweb and mfs_ftp. In the process I even GOT MY LOGOS BACK.

Here is more info on what I did:

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?postid=2222802#post2222802


----------



## jrock

I'm considdering getting the 300 gig Upgrade drive kit from Weaknees, has anyone here purchased that upgrade? Has there been any problems with it? I am kind of worried because I notice quite a few threads in the HDTiVo forum about there TiVo's just dieing out of the blue, I don't want to help push mine over the edge lol.

-Joe


----------



## Bakes11

I upgraded my HR10-250 with weaknees 300gb drive. Everything worked fine until my HDMI failed two weeks later. With few questions asked they are sending me a replacement unit.
I was considering switching the drives between the two machines and sending back the old HR10-250 with the new unused drive. (another words keeping my current drives A and B and installing them in the new HR10250.
Does anyone know if this approach is sound and presents no problems.
Will both units still work and will the warranty be at risk.


----------



## LarryInAz

This will work however you'll need to run "Clear & Delete Everything" and you will lose any programs you have accumulated on the 2 drives.


----------



## Runch Machine

Just swap the HDMI cards. Assuming the replacement has a good one, put it into your upgraded unit. Put the bad one in the replacement. Then, call Directv, tell them the replacement has a bad HDMI card too, that you are disgusted and will send the replacement back because you don't want to setup another bad one. Then tell them you will wait till later to get the problem fixed.


----------



## btwyx

I got the 300G upgrade from Weaknees. It worked quite nicely until I ran across an unrelated problem and had to send the unit back. I had to get the factory drive reformatted before sending the unit back. Now I'm going to keep the factory drive untouched and use a 600G 2 drive upgrade.


----------



## Bakes11

I would switch the HDMI cards but as I understand the HDMI problem it relates to the seating of the cards in the unit. Some have had success in wiggling the card and others by placing plastic between the metal pin that holds the card in place. I therefore think to tamper with the new one will result in both units with faulty HDMI's.


----------



## aaronwt

This is why I kept the original drive and replaced it with two 250GB Maxtor drives. If I have any warranty problems, I can put the original drive back in before I ship the unit back. I won't find out if my HDMI outputs work, until I get a new HD set next year. Hopefully a 1080P set.


----------



## Bakes11

Wouldn't this be the same for me --- putting the new original drive (unused) from the replacement unit they are sending me into the old unit and sending it back.


----------



## edrock200

> _Originally posted by Runch Machine _
> *Just swap the HDMI cards. Assuming the replacement has a good one, put it into your upgraded unit. Put the bad one in the replacement. Then, call Directv, tell them the replacement has a bad HDMI card too, that you are disgusted and will send the replacement back because you don't want to setup another bad one. Then tell them you will wait till later to get the problem fixed. *


Uh don't do this. DirecTV is already swapping out a unit that has been opened for you. To then take a working unit and call them up and tell them it doesn't work is wrong. They've done there part in replacing a defective unit with a working one, don't give some CSR a hard time because of some scheme based on lies.


----------



## buckeye1010

> _Originally posted by jrock _
> *I'm considdering getting the 300 gig Upgrade drive kit from Weaknees, has anyone here purchased that upgrade?
> -Joe *


I did - works like a charm!


----------



## Runch Machine

> _Originally posted by edrock200 _
> *Uh don't do this. DirecTV is already swapping out a unit that has been opened for you. To then take a working unit and call them up and tell them it doesn't work is wrong. They've done there part in replacing a defective unit with a working one, don't give some CSR a hard time because of some scheme based on lies. *


What's wrong it that 50% of these are coming with DEFECTIVE HDMI CARDS! If this happened for the first month or two, that would be one thing, but these HD Tivos have been out for several months and I am still getting HALF of them with bad HDMI cards. I upgrade about 2 of these a week for others and this is my experience. If Directv didn't sell JUNK then we wouldn't be having this problem. Likewise, if they had the option of buying one with two drives instead of one. 30 hours just isn't enough time.

IF Directv was doing their part, this problem, and the LOGO problem would have been solved a long time ago!


----------



## weaknees

Well, we've seen (and upgraded) hundreds of these, and I have to say that we've not seen anything even close to 10% error rates with HDMI. I'd have to calculate it out, but my guess is that it's closer to 2% - not great, but workable.

Michael


----------



## AbMagFab

> _Originally posted by Runch Machine _
> *What's wrong it that 50% of these are coming with DEFECTIVE HDMI CARDS! If this happened for the first month or two, that would be one thing, but these HD Tivos have been out for several months and I am still getting HALF of them with bad HDMI cards. I upgrade about 2 of these a week for others and this is my experience. If Directv didn't sell JUNK then we wouldn't be having this problem. Likewise, if they had the option of buying one with two drives instead of one. 30 hours just isn't enough time.
> 
> IF Directv was doing their part, this problem, and the LOGO problem would have been solved a long time ago! *


Maybe your "upgrading" is a little rough, and your causing the problem? Weaknees has been around a while, and done an awful lot of these and has a good reputation. I'd be inclined to believe his statistic, and when coupled with yours, it sure seems like the only other variable is, well, *you*.


----------



## weaknees

Maybe this info will help explain our numbers a bit more: we didn't upgrade many TiVos from the initial batch, which had the HDMI non-recall recall early on. At that time, our bracket wasn't ready. So we didn't start selling upgraded units until July, by which time the channel was full of newer units.

So maybe the other poster was just working on older boxes that were more prone to problems?


----------



## LarryInAz

It'd be interesting what percentage of HR10-250 units in circulation actually are using the HDMI connection. I for one have an older Mitsubishi RPTV and am stuck using component. I do plan on upgrading in the next 12-24 months and getting a DLP that will most likely have HDMI.

I suspect in the coming months/years some of the "early adopters" may find their HDMI does not work. This is one of the reasons I choose to pay $7.99 for D* Protection Plan - kind of an insurance policy.


----------



## dswallow

> _Originally posted by LarryInAz _
> *This is one of the reasons I choose to pay $7.99 for D* Protection Plan - kind of an insurance policy. *


 In reality, you can start this anytime; such as after your 1 year warranty, or when you have problems (even DirecTV tell you that you can do this).


----------



## LarryInAz

> _Originally posted by dswallow _
> *In reality, you can start this anytime; such as after your 1 year warranty, or when you have problems (even DirecTV tell you that you can do this). *


True - however they make you wait 30 days before you can file a "claim". For instance when I got my HD TiVo I needed my dish fine tuned to be optimized for HD sat feeds, they said they'd have to charge me a service call unless I wait 30 days.


----------



## dswallow

> _Originally posted by LarryInAz _
> *True - however they make you wait 30 days before you can file a "claim". For instance when I got my HD TiVo I needed my dish fine tuned to be optimized for HD sat feeds, they said they'd have to charge me a service call unless I wait 30 days.  *


I believe you also have the option to prepay for 1 year of the service plan and you can get an immediate service call.


----------



## pbolya

> _Originally posted by LarryInAz _
> *It'd be interesting what percentage of HR10-250 units in circulation actually are using the HDMI connection. I for one have an older Mitsubishi RPTV and am stuck using component. I do plan on upgrading in the next 12-24 months and getting a DLP that will most likely have HDMI.
> 
> I suspect in the coming months/years some of the "early adopters" may find their HDMI does not work. This is one of the reasons I choose to pay $7.99 for D* Protection Plan - kind of an insurance policy. *


Check out this thread:

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?threadid=183203&perpage=40&pagenumber=1

I am watching it for the last 5 weeks and even though the number of votes and the complanes doubled since then the percentages only change within 1-2%.

27-30% do not use HDMI (explains why they just taking chances and sending bad units out).
48-50% HDMI is working after 2 weeks.
20-25% failed (3% has multiple returns).

I have to say though that somebody who has HDMI problem is more likely to vote (or even find this thread) on the forum than somebody who is not. Also when Weaknees (thanks again for the wonderful bracket) upgrades the drive I doubt that he has the TiVo's in his hand more than a week or so yet alone runs the HDMI card for a long time. A lot of pepole experience failures way after the first two weeks (mine went out after 6 weeks - though it might have been caused by my upgrade). Lot of other's around 4 weeks without even moving the TiVo an inch. Also I am convinced that some of the reported cases actually caused by TV firmware isses.


----------



## Runch Machine

> _Originally posted by AbMagFab _
> *Maybe your "upgrading" is a little rough, and your causing the problem? Weaknees has been around a while, and done an awful lot of these and has a good reputation. I'd be inclined to believe his statistic, and when coupled with yours, it sure seems like the only other variable is, well, *you*. *


Most of the failures have occured right out of the box before I upgrade it. I am never rough on electronic equipment. In a recent batch of 5, 4 were bad, again right out of the box. I run these for a few days before doing the upgrade due to this problem. Very few have failed after the upgrade.

One was totally dead, with no output, right out of the box. Three others had unstable colors and flickering, also right out of the box.


----------



## jeff125va

> _Originally posted by gr8reb8 _
> *I received my brand new HR10-250 yesterday. This is what I did to upgrade to two new 250Gb drives. The original 250Gb will be set on a shelf as a "virgin" backup drive. Overkill? Yes.
> 
> From this page
> Download this and burn as ISO to a CD
> Follow hardware guide to remove original drive from Tivo
> 
> 1. Install original hdtivo drive in secondary master (hdc). FAT32 win98 Hd is primary master, cdrom is primary slave.
> 
> 2. Configure BIOS to boot to CD. Boot up ptv's lb48 cd. (When prompted, press enter until you get to the Linux prompt.)
> If you know your FAT32 drive, your cable and your PC support DMA, turn it on with
> hdparm -d1 /dev/hda (this turns it on for your FAT32 disk connected to primary master)
> hdparm -d1 /dev/hdc (this turns it on for the drive connected to secondary master (hdtivo drive))
> 
> 3. Mount drive using following commands
> mkdir /mnt/dos
> mount /dev/hda1 /mnt/dos
> 
> 4. Backup using this command (should take 5-20 minutes)
> mfsbackup -f 9999 -1so /mnt/dos/hd_tivo.bak /dev/hdc
> 
> 5. Type reboot and when machine has rebooted and stopped at the first prompt on CD, turn off pc.
> 
> 6. Remove original hdtivo drive from pc.
> 
> 7. Install brand new 250Gb drive in secondary master (hdc). Leave jumper on "cable-select"
> 
> 8. Boot up ptv's lb48 cd. (When prompted, press enter until you get to the Linux prompt.)
> If you know your FAT32 drive, your cable and your PC support DMA, turn it on with
> hdparm -d1 /dev/hda (this turns it on for your FAT32 disk connected to primary master)
> hdparm -d1 /dev/hdc (this turns it on for the drive connected to secondary master (new 250Gb drive))
> 
> 9. mount drive using following commands
> mkdir /mnt/dos
> mount /dev/hda1 /mnt/dos
> 
> 10. Restore to new drive using following commands (should take 5-15 minutes)
> mfsrestore -s 127 -zpi /mnt/dos/hd_tivo.bak /dev/hdc
> 
> 11. Type reboot and when machine has rebooted and stopped at the first prompt on CD, turn off pc.
> 
> 12. Remove the newly created hdtivo primary drive. Move jumper to "primary master w/slave present"
> 
> 13. Install brand new 250Gb (or larger) drive in secondary master (hdc). Leave jumper on "cable-select"
> 
> 14. Boot up ptv's lb48cd. (When prompted, press enter until you get to the Linux prompt.)
> 
> 15. Prepare the drive to be used as secondary in the HDTivo using the following command (this should take less than 10 seconds)
> BlessTiVo /dev/hdc
> 
> 16. Type reboot and when machine has rebooted and stopped at the first prompt on CD, turn off pc.
> 
> 17. Remove the newly created hdtivo secondary drive. Move jumper to "slave".
> 
> Follow hardware guide to install the two new drives in Tivo.
> 
> Now, enjoying my 63HD hours! *


How important is the hdparm stuff in steps 2 & 8? I didn't do that because I wasn't sure and I was trying to get the upgrade done before 10:00 last night, but it seems to have worked fine. What exactly is the purpose of those steps?


----------



## weaknees

That just speeds up the process (sometimes pretty significantly) but it should work either way.


----------



## shutitd0tnet

> _Originally posted by shutitdotnet _
> *WD250 is working now, weird.. Im not sure what may of happen do you have any ideas, my guess would be heat, I searched for a picture of the bracket on your site, but unfortunatly i was unable to find it , mind posting some high res pics here or emailing them to me my boss wants to check them out.. some close ups would be nice weakness .. if you could find it in your heart.. LOL
> Thanks again and again.
> Steve *


Dum Dum Dum... 
Weakness same problem, After the drives failed and the unit stopped last time I started all over again and used the same drives, this time worked for about 2 weeks almost filled and now it just freezes no activity on the LEDs in the front I power cycled the unit all I get is welcome powering up.. etc etc.. never goes past that no change when pressing crap on the face panel.. this is the second time this has happened with this Tivo, could this be a heat issue ... has anyone else had this prolem..??
Steve


----------



## dswallow

> _Originally posted by shutitd0tnet _
> *Dum Dum Dum...
> Weakness same problem, After the drives failed and the unit stopped last time I started all over again and used the same drives, this time worked for about 2 weeks almost filled and now it just freezes no activity on the LEDs in the front I power cycled the unit all I get is welcome powering up.. etc etc.. never goes past that no change when pressing crap on the face panel.. this is the second time this has happened with this Tivo, could this be a heat issue ... has anyone else had this prolem..??
> Steve *


If/when you pull the drives again, be sure to run the low level tests on the drive that you can get from the dirve manufacturer's web site. There's probably some area of one of them with problems which is causing the TiVo to lock up when it tries to use it.


----------



## pbolya

> _Originally posted by weaknees _
> *That just speeds up the process (sometimes pretty significantly) but it should work either way. *


 Isn't DMA on by default on that CD ? It only took about 2 minutes for me to backup (-6so) and I did not turn DMA on manually either.

Also no matter what I do I just can't boot with byte swapping enabled. This means that I can not see the partitions on the drive (DTiVo S1 SAT-T60). I can boot with byte swapping with the NIC_INSTALL CD but that one is missing some modules (some tools like hexedit would not work), mfs tools and LBA48 support. It was only meant for installing the cards.

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Peter


----------



## shutitd0tnet

> _Originally posted by dswallow _
> *If/when you pull the drives again, be sure to run the low level tests on the drive that you can get from the dirve manufacturer's web site. There's probably some area of one of them with problems which is causing the TiVo to lock up when it tries to use it. *


No Dice dude, did that already last time it did the exact same thing, ran both extended test on the maxtor and the OEM WD, no errors =o( This sucks, I would feel a little bit better if just one other person has had this problem ..


----------



## Robert S

It's a very odd problem. I would be suspecting a hardware issue rather than a software one.

Here's the thing - before the TiVo activates it's MFS partitions (where the recordings live), it prints 'almost there' (the exact wording varies a bit). So, if the TiVo is failing because of a problem with the user side of things (the recordings and things like the Guide DB and the settings), the TiVo prints 'almost there' before it reboots.

So, your problem can not have anything to with how full the TiVo is.

Something is preventing the operating system loading.

I would try imaging both drives as A drives and run them independently for a bit. You'd want to plug them both into the power (so the thermal and power situation is the same), but only one or the other into the data cable.

Hopefully this would cause one drive to fail and the other one to be OK, at which point, it's obvious what to do.


----------



## shutitd0tnet

> _Originally posted by Robert S _
> *It's a very odd problem. I would be suspecting a hardware issue rather than a software one.
> 
> Here's the thing - before the TiVo activates it's MFS partitions (where the recordings live), it prints 'almost there' (the exact wording varies a bit). So, if the TiVo is failing because of a problem with the user side of things (the recordings and things like the Guide DB and the settings), the TiVo prints 'almost there' before it reboots.
> 
> So, your problem can not have anything to with how full the TiVo is.
> 
> Something is preventing the operating system loading.
> 
> I would try imaging both drives as A drives and run them independently for a bit. You'd want to plug them both into the power (so the thermal and power situation is the same), but only one or the other into the data cable.
> 
> Hopefully this would cause one drive to fail and the other one to be OK, at which point, it's obvious what to do. *


Let me just make sure I got what yer sayin... Basically backup each drive to the original OEM image, try running say my Maxtor as a single drive in the unit for a while, make sure there are no errors... and if that works good then try to run the OEM WD with the original image on it for a while and see if it acts up.. all the time having two drives plugged into power supply and present but only one at a time on the IDE cable.. 
sound aboot right?
LaTe
Steve


----------



## pbolya

> _Originally posted by shutitd0tnet _
> *No Dice dude, did that already last time it did the exact same thing, ran both extended test on the maxtor and the OEM WD, no errors =o( This sucks, I would feel a little bit better if just one other person has had this problem .. *


 shutitd0tnet,
You maybe able to find out what is wrong by looking into the KERNEL logs:

- Reboot the TiVo and wait 5 minutes even if it hangs (this way we have the boot up messages in the Kernel log. 
- Attach the TiVo A drive to secondary master and boot to the LBA48 CD.

mkdir /mnt/var
mount /dev/hdc9 /mnt/var 
pico /mnt/var/log/kernel

now you can look through the KERNEL log and see for error messages.

The HR10-250 is much more susceptible to heat issues then the previous models. You will see a little into the boot the following :

Sep 22 18:08:21 (none) kernel: Start fan control... 
Sep 22 18:08:21 (none) kernel: Terminal temp: 71 
Sep 22 18:08:21 (none) kernel: Critical temp: 62 
Sep 22 18:08:21 (none) kernel: Logging temp: 60 
Sep 22 18:08:21 (none) kernel: Target temp: 50

This means that current temperature is 50C.
The unit will start logging (in this file) temperature readings when they are above 60C.
It will report the temperature on the system information screen as critical above 62C.
And will stop working all together at 71C.

My series 1 DTiVo for example runs just fine at 66C without even logging anything to the kernel.

If it is not the heat chances are that you will found out what is wrong from those messages (unless the unit doesn't boot at all like when you set the jumpers wrong).

When you are done exit from pico with ctrl-x and say no to avoid changing the file.

umount /mnt/var
reboot


----------



## dwynne

> _Originally posted by pbolya _
> *Also no matter what I do I just can't boot with byte swapping enabled. This means that I can not see the partitions on the drive (DTiVo S1 SAT-T60). I can boot with byte swapping with the NIC_INSTALL CD but that one is missing some modules (some tools like hexedit would not work), mfs tools and LBA48 support. It was only meant for installing the cards.
> *


On the box I usually use to do Tivo drive stuff (because it is easy to get to) I have to go into the BIOS and turn off all the on board ports - serial, USB, parallel, LAN, etc to get the boot to work. Could that be your problem as well? Just disable anything except the video, keyboard, floppy, and IDE channels. Note that this box has 3 IDE channels and LINUX still works fine with it - but it does not like some of the other things in the box (probably the LAN).

Dennis


----------



## pbolya

> _Originally posted by dwynne _
> *On the box I usually use to do Tivo drive stuff (because it is easy to get to) I have to go into the BIOS and turn off all the on board ports - serial, USB, parallel, LAN, etc to get the boot to work. Could that be your problem as well? Just disable anything except the video, keyboard, floppy, and IDE channels. Note that this box has 3 IDE channels and LINUX still works fine with it - but it does not like some of the other things in the box (probably the LAN).
> 
> Dennis *


 dwynne, 
The PC boots just fine with both the regular and the 48lba CD and I can backup restore etc just fine as these operations do not address the partitions other then /dev/hda1 (PC dos drive with no byte swapping). They just use the whole disk (e.g. /dev/hdc).

They also work fine with the HR10-250 (LBA48 CD) and presumably with the series 2 DTiVos (regular CD) in every way as they also have no byte swapping (that is why the procedure to look at the kernel logs above will work with the HD TiVo).

However the series 1 DTiVo's have byte swapping enabled in there kernel. Hence unless I boot into noswaping with these CD's I can not see any of the partitions so I can not for example look at any of the partitions like the kernel logs mentioned above as I would need to mount hdc9 in order to do that. All of these CD's claim that they can boot into byte swapping by changing the boot parameters (e.g. enter swap instead of just enter on the boot prompt). But none of them works for me (one of them fails to boot the other seams like still in no swap.


----------



## rudolpht

I'm up & good with TivoWebPlus, Telnet, FTP etc. All work fine and have an IP for the unit.

I'm trying to get off the phoneline to do data updates (but not software updates) via ethernet.

Got the ,#401 and tone & line detection off.

Test is failing. Is this not supported on the HDtivo?

Thanks in advance,
Tim


----------



## edrock200

#401 is not supported by HDTivo's...also by data updates I assume you mean guide updates? Those come via satellite nightly, software updates come via phone line. (and possibly showcases.)


----------



## LarryInAz

> _Originally posted by edrock200 _
> *#401 is not supported by HDTivo's...also by data updates I assume you mean guide updates? Those come via satellite nightly, software updates come via phone line. (and possibly showcases.) *


I may be mistaken but the way I understand it the software updates actually come over the satellite as well but require a phone call to the "mothership" to execute them.


----------



## dswallow

> _Originally posted by LarryInAz _
> *I may be mistaken but the way I understand it the software updates actually come over the satellite as well but require a phone call to the "mothership" to execute them.  *


 Software updates always came in over the phone line; content updates come via satellite. I've never seen it reported that TiVo started software updates via satellite though at one point someone from TiVo said the capability was there, or could easily be there.


----------



## dmaneyapanda

huh? as of a new release several months ago software updates definitely come from the sat, but are stored on the HD until a phone call tells the tivo it's time to activate the new software. two demerits, doug!


----------



## dswallow

> _Originally posted by dmaneyapanda _
> *huh? as of a new release several months ago software updates definitely come from the sat, but are stored on the HD until a phone call tells the tivo it's time to activate the new software. two demerits, doug! *


See, everyone can learn something here.  I did figure they'd do it eventually. I'm surprised I did miss the discussion on them actually having started, though.


----------



## btwyx

> _Originally posted by dswallow _
> *See, everyone can learn something here.  I did figure they'd do it eventually. I'm surprised I did miss the discussion on them actually having started, though. *


 Its been discussed in the 3.1.5d upgrade thread, which is how the upgrade happened after a 3 min phone.


----------



## rttrek

> _Originally posted by edrock200 _
> *#401 is not supported by HDTivo's*


Can anyone confirm this? Do HDTiVo's use broadband for phone calls if hacked for enet support?


----------



## edrock200

Mine is hacked, and #401 does not work for me.


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## rudolpht

Thanks.

It's funny, on it's own it said it had a successful call (with the line disconnected) so I had assumed the "call" had gone over ethernet, despite the fact that I couldn't do a successful test or initiate a call.

Thanks for the heads up & will leave disconnected then.


----------



## shutitdotnet

> _Originally posted by pbolya _
> *mkdir /mnt/var
> mount /dev/hdc9 /mnt/var
> pico /mnt/var/log/kernel
> 
> *


With my A drive on HDC booted to the LBA48 CD after i enter "mount /dev/hdv /mnt/var" I get error mount: you must specify a file system. 
or something along those lines..


----------



## shutitdotnet

haha wait i see you edited the commands after i printer em out, will try again.. LaTe®
Steve


----------



## shutitdotnet

> _Originally posted by pbolya _
> *shutitd0tnet,
> You maybe able to find out what is wrong by looking into the KERNEL logs:
> 
> - Reboot the TiVo and wait 5 minutes even if it hangs (this way we have the boot up messages in the Kernel log.
> - Attach the TiVo A drive to secondary master and boot to the LBA48 CD.
> 
> mkdir /mnt/var
> mount /dev/hdc9 /mnt/var
> pico /mnt/var/log/kernel
> 
> now you can look through the KERNEL log and see for error messages.
> 
> The HR10-250 is much more susceptible to heat issues then the previous models. You will see a little into the boot the following :
> 
> Sep 22 18:08:21 (none) kernel: Start fan control...
> Sep 22 18:08:21 (none) kernel: Terminal temp: 71
> Sep 22 18:08:21 (none) kernel: Critical temp: 62
> Sep 22 18:08:21 (none) kernel: Logging temp: 60
> Sep 22 18:08:21 (none) kernel: Target temp: 50
> 
> This means that current temperature is 50C.
> The unit will start logging (in this file) temperature readings when they are above 60C.
> It will report the temperature on the system information screen as critical above 62C.
> And will stop working all together at 71C.
> 
> My series 1 DTiVo for example runs just fine at 66C without even logging anything to the kernel.
> 
> If it is not the heat chances are that you will found out what is wrong from those messages (unless the unit doesn't boot at all like when you set the jumpers wrong).
> 
> When you are done exit from pico with ctrl-x and say no to avoid changing the file.
> 
> umount /mnt/var
> reboot *


Sorry I paged down quite a bit and found the most current date of running the tivo and shutting it down for the 5 minutes as directed, it doesnt show anything about temp its got a lot of looking for group, and the onto some binary crap.. I do see one warning though a couple days ago...


----------



## borghe

software updates come from the satellite.. Doug is right in that they used to come over the phone line. Recently though Tivo has been sending out the updates for all models to every system. At 70MB per software, their can be up to seven different version on a series 2 system. No way Tivo is going to make us download 490MB over a phone line.. 

,#401 has never worked on series 2 directivos. there is currently no way known to make a series 2 directivo (including the HR10-250) call out over the internet.

software updates usually stick around on your hard drive for a little while before installed. Then Tivo changes SwSystemName in /State/ServiceConfig in MFS to the new version and schedules the tivo to reboot. When it sees that SwSystemName and your current system name don't match it installs the new software.


----------



## dave77

I successfully added a second 250GB drive a couple months ago, and the unit has worked fine until the last few days when it's started stuttering.  At first it was rare, but now it happens often enough to be annoying. I rebooted it and it seems a bit better, but the problem isn't gone. I'm afraid one of the drives is dying, but I don't know which one. I could assume it's the original drive since it's been in use longer and others have had them fail, but how can I be sure?
If I do replace the original drive (or either one for that matter), I'd like to preserve my recordings if at all possible by copying the data from the old one if it's not too far gone. Is there a way to do this?
- Dave


----------



## weaknees

You can use "dd" to copy the recordings to new drives.

There's a thread running in the HD area about problems since the new OS update. Have you checked your OS version? Have you checked the drives with the manufacturer's software in a PC?


----------



## dave77

Since my last post earlier today it's stuttering so bad it's not really watchable, and the menus hang up a bit as well. I'm really pissed because I wanted to watch a HD movie that I've been saving.

I think I got the update, but I doubt that's causing the problem because it's getting worse quickly and happening with shows I recorded a while ago that had no problem before, as well as on the live TV buffers. I think I need to replace a drive, but I really want to save the recordings if at all possible.

Unfortunately I don't have lots of time to search through the huge amount of information available here to figure out what I need to do, like I did before I added the second drive, but I'd like to get it working again in the next couple days. So if someone happens to know some or all of the answers or could point me specifically in the right direction I would be extremely grateful.

Here's what I need to know:

- What's the best/easiest way to determine which drive is bad? One is the original WD 250GB drive and the other is the retail version of the same drive. I have the CD that came with the retail one, but it's Windows software and I've heard somewhere that booting into Windows with a TiVo drive attached can be bad, so how would I run the diagnostics?

- Can I copy just the data from the bad drive to a new one and replace that drive, and how? Does dd do a complete copy of the drive regardless if it's one drive in a two drive system?

- How can I be certain that a replacement 250GB drive will be big enough? Should I get another WD 250GB? Is the retail version the same size as the original TiVo drive? Is there a better brand that's big enough that is more reliable (backed up by significant statistics - there's way too much anecdotal evidence and personal opinion floating around on this topic)? I really don't want to be doing this every few months.

I'll start looking into these questions myself, but unfortunately the time I can spend on this right now is very limited.

Thanks in advance,
- Dave


----------



## weaknees

Dave,

Here are some answers:

1 - You should use the WD software. It runs in DOS - it's called something like DLGCHK. If you can boot your PC from a DOS floppy (or CD or HD) you'll know that you aren't hurting the drive.

2 - 'dd' will do what you need - once you make a copy, it'll work as if it were the orignal drive. Use this command:

dd_ conv=noerror,sync_ if=/dev/hdX_ of=/dev/hdY_ bs=1024k

with "X" as the location of the old drive, and "Y" as the location of the new drive.

3 - This is an important point. A WD drive should be the same size (it won't have the same characteristics, but you likely don't have those in the second drive that you already added). For an extra measure of safety here, though, you could just get a 300 GB drive. To add to the anecdotal evidence, we've seen many more WD drives fail in these units than Maxtors - and any unit we've upgraded has at least one Maxtor, possibly two Maxtors.

Michael


----------



## pbolya

> _Originally posted by weaknees _
> *Dave,
> 
> Here are some answers:
> 
> 1 - You should use the WD software. It runs in DOS - it's called something like DLGCHK. If you can boot your PC from a DOS floppy (or CD or HD) you'll know that you aren't hurting the drive.
> 
> 2 - 'dd' will do what you need - once you make a copy, it'll work as if it were the orignal drive. Use this command:
> 
> dd_ conv=noerror,sync_ if=/dev/hdX_ of=/dev/hdY_ bs=1024k
> 
> with "X" as the location of the old drive, and "Y" as the location of the new drive.
> 
> 3 - This is an important point. A WD drive should be the same size (it won't have the same characteristics, but you likely don't have those in the second drive that you already added). For an extra measure of safety here, though, you could just get a 300 GB drive. To add to the anecdotal evidence, we've seen many more WD drives fail in these units than Maxtors - and any unit we've upgraded has at least one Maxtor, possibly two Maxtors.
> 
> Michael *


 Also stock maxtor 250GB drives are larger than WD250's. So you should be ok to go from WD to Maxtor but not the other way.


----------



## dave77

Thanks for the quick replies. They were very helpful.

I will try booting in DOS and running the WD diagnostic software. If/when I find a bad drive I'll replace it with a Maxtor and copy the data with dd as described. If I want it today I'll have to pay $180 for it a BB, but at least I'll hopefully have it back up and running soon.

- Dave


----------



## SpaceTraveler

After reading gr8reb8 instuctions I set up the drives as instructed. I burned the iso as a boot cd using nero. It did boot from the cd, but I never got to the Linux prompt. Instead it says something like this:

Dr DOS A:/

and the curser is flashing. I have no idea what I'm supposed to do next. Did I do something wrong? Did I not do something I was supposed to do?

Any help would be greatly appreciated!
SpaceTraveler


----------



## LarryInAz

Spacetraveler,
Sounds like you created a DOS bootable CD and then copied the *.ISO file to the CD. This is not the way it's done. I don't know Nero, I use Roxio however what you need to do is to tell Nero to use the *.ISO IMAGE and IMAGE to the CD so it will then boot to the Linux prompt.


----------



## dswallow

> _Originally posted by LarryInAz _
> *Spacetraveler,
> Sounds like you created a DOS bootable CD and then copied the *.ISO file to the CD. This is not the way it's done. I don't know Nero, I use Roxio however what you need to do is to tell Nero to use the *.ISO IMAGE and IMAGE to the CD so it will then boot to the Linux prompt. *


 Or he's got a floppy in the floppy drive and it's booting from there first.


----------



## SpaceTraveler

LarryInAz and dswallow:

Thanks for the help. LarryInAz was right. I couldn't get nero to burn the ISO correctly. I was able to use a different program and now it works perfectly, thanks!

SpaceTraveler


----------



## aaronwt

> _Originally posted by dave77 _
> *Thanks for the quick replies. They were very helpful.
> 
> I will try booting in DOS and running the WD diagnostic software. If/when I find a bad drive I'll replace it with a Maxtor and copy the data with dd as described. If I want it today I'll have to pay $180 for it a BB, but at least I'll hopefully have it back up and running soon.
> 
> - Dave *


Just make sure it's a Diamondmax drive and not a Maxline drive. I don't think the MAxline drives work with the acoustic management software. And you need to set the drive to Quiet. The diamond Max drives come set to perofmance. If you don't set it to quiet, the drive will be extremely loud.


----------



## dave77

I was able to verify that it was the original disk that was bad using the WD utilities that came with the new drive. It was having some sort of read failures.


> _Originally posted by aaronwt _
> *Just make sure it's a Diamondmax drive and not a Maxline drive. I don't think the MAxline drives work with the acoustic management software. And you need to set the drive to Quiet. The diamond Max drives come set to perofmance. If you don't set it to quiet, the drive will be extremely loud. *


 I did get a 250GB DiamondMax, and I downloaded the setacm (amset) utility. I started a full copy of the old drive using dd, and it's still going 14 hours later. It took a while for the system to recognize the drive and read from it when I ran the diagnostic on it, and the TiVo boots slow with it, so I figure it's going to be slow to read from because of the errors and will take an extra long time to copy. I really wish the dd program had some kind of progress report, like number of bytes copied. For all I know the drive is so bad it would take a week or more to finish, in which case I could give up now and just restore my old backup and start clean with no saved shows.

I plan to set the drive to quiet after the copy is done. It's fairly quiet now, but that's probably because it's being written to sequentially during the copy so there's not much head movement.

- Dave


----------



## dave77

While I have my TiVo open, I was wondering if it would be a good idea to replace the fan. It's fairly slow and doesn't blow much air, but that keeps it quiet. With two drives in there it was getting up to 47 degrees C, and although it was reported as normal that seems a bit hot to me.
The fan appears to be a standard 70mm 12 volt fan. I was thinking of pulling it out and finding a replacement that's rated more powerful, but is still reasonably quiet. Ideally with a potentiometer so I can optimize temperature vs noise. Has anyone done this? I did a search on this forum but nothing useful turned up.

- Dave


----------



## bigrig

47*C sounds good to me...I hit that with the factory configuration.

As far as the fan, I've heard it doesn't get 12V from that PCB connector...you can add a splitter off the hard-drive power to feed it a solid 12V for a little more ooomph. 

Matt


----------



## tivoupgrade

> _Originally posted by dave77 _
> *While I have my TiVo open, I was wondering if it would be a good idea to replace the fan. It's fairly slow and doesn't blow much air, but that keeps it quiet. With two drives in there it was getting up to 47 degrees C, and although it was reported as normal that seems a bit hot to me.
> The fan appears to be a standard 70mm 12 volt fan. I was thinking of pulling it out and finding a replacement that's rated more powerful, but is still reasonably quiet. Ideally with a potentiometer so I can optimize temperature vs noise. Has anyone done this? I did a search on this forum but nothing useful turned up.
> 
> - Dave *


There is absolutely no harm in just leaving things as they are, just keep your unit in a properly ventilated environment.

I know the urge to tinker is too strong for many, but there is no harm in just not messing with it, and risk in doing so.


----------



## weaknees

Our opinion is that cooler is always better. 

These units weren't originally designed to hold two drives and to ventilate their heat, so all of our dual drive units, upgrades, and bracket kits include a second fan for these HD units.

Michael


----------



## SpaceTraveler

I'm using ][ronMan's Hacking Guide v1.10 and I'm having a problem after part 2 of step 5:

5 Killing initrd

1. Mount the floppy that we copied tivoftpd.mips and killhdinitrd onto:

mount /dev/fd0 /floppy

2. Run killhdinitrd from the floppy. All of the new HR10-250's use partition 6 as the active kernel partition.

/floppy/killhdinitrd /dev/hdc6

Then after typing YES to agree to the terms, I get the following error:

fatal: invalid px header (not a valid kernel image)

Any ideas what happened? Any help would be greatly appreciated!

SpaceTraveler


----------



## AbMagFab

killhdinitrd won't work on 3.1.5d, only 3.1.5. You need to restore the 3.1.5 kernel (it's pretty much the same), and then run killhdinitrd. The 3.1.5 kernel is on the non-active partition, or you can get it on-line.


----------



## AbMagFab

killhdinitrd won't work on 3.1.5d, only 3.1.5. You need to restore the 3.1.5 kernel (it's pretty much the same), and then run killhdinitrd. The 3.1.5 kernel is on the non-active partition, or you can get it on-line.


----------



## dave77

> _Originally posted by bigrig _
> *47*C sounds good to me...I hit that with the factory configuration.
> 
> As far as the fan, I've heard it doesn't get 12V from that PCB connector...you can add a splitter off the hard-drive power to feed it a solid 12V for a little more ooomph.
> 
> Matt *


Maybe 47 degrees is OK, but cooler couldn't hurt.

I tried running the fan from the hard drive power last night to see if it would make a difference, and it seemed a little bit faster. I measured the voltage with a multi-meter and the regular fan connector was giving 12.02 volts, and the hard drive power was at 12.65 volts. Since fan power is proportional to voltage squared it's about 10% more powerful using hard drive power. Not much of a difference, but maybe worthwhile. However, I measured it with the hard drives removed and no fan, so a load may draw the voltage down in either case and change the real life results, but probably not by much.

I removed the fan today and saw that it's rated at 0.15A at 12V. I just got back from looking at several local computer stores for a more powerful 70mm fan, but I didn't find any 70mm fans at all. It's an odd size and not stocked in many places. I may try to find one online, with good bearings and a potentiometer.

Meanwhile it's been 18 hours and my A drive is still copying.

- Dave


----------



## tivoupgrade

> _Originally posted by dave77 _
> *Maybe 47 degrees is OK, but cooler couldn't hurt.
> 
> I tried running the fan from the hard drive power last night to see if it would make a difference, and it seemed a little bit faster. I measured the voltage with a multi-meter and the regular fan connector was giving 12.02 volts, and the hard drive power was at 12.65 volts. Since fan power is proportional to voltage squared it's about 10% more powerful using hard drive power. Not much of a difference, but maybe worthwhile. However, I measured it with the hard drives removed and no fan, so a load may draw the voltage down in either case and change the real life results, but probably not by much.
> 
> I removed the fan today and saw that it's rated at 0.15A at 12V. I just got back from looking at several local computer stores for a more powerful 70mm fan, but I didn't find any 70mm fans at all. It's an odd size and not stocked in many places. I may try to find one online, with good bearings and a potentiometer.
> 
> Meanwhile it's been 18 hours and my A drive is still copying.
> 
> - Dave *


Just be careful about how you measure "cooer" -- adding a more powerful fan would definitely be the way to go; putting a secondary fan in the middle of the unit might cool the air blowing on the sensors inside the unit, but it will definitely create a competitive scenario when it comes to the fan in the rear of the unit actually exhausting the warmer air - that means that it might get warmer in another part of the unit (eg the power supply).


----------



## dave77

> _Originally posted by tivoupgrade _
> *Just be careful about how you measure "cooer" -- adding a more powerful fan would definitely be the way to go; putting a secondary fan in the middle of the unit might cool the air blowing on the sensors inside the unit, but it will definitely create a competitive scenario when it comes to the fan in the rear of the unit actually exhausting the warmer air - that means that it might get warmer in another part of the unit (eg the power supply). *


I have no intention of adding a secondary fan, I'm looking for a more powerful exhaust fan to move more air through the unit.

Here are the specs for the stock fan, JMC 7025-12L, at 12V: 22 CFM, 24.3 dB, 2600 RPM.

I've been searching the internet and have found a few more powerful 70x70x25mm fans, but all the ones that flow more air are quite a bit louder. I haven't found anything that's only slightly louder and flows more air, or any with a potentiometer, so I guess the only option is to get a much louder and faster one and some sort of potentiometer and hope I can dial in a speed that has an appropriate balance of better cooling and reasonable noise level. I may not bother since my temperature is not that bad.

I did find a fan that is 5dB quieter and flows nearly as much air (21 CFM - Nexus SP702512M), for those looking to make their unit super quiet, but I only found it bundled with a CPU cooler (Nexus PHT-3600), making it somewhat expensive. If only there was a way to run this at around 14 volts it should flow more air than stock at around the same noise level.

- Dave


----------



## aaronwt

> _Originally posted by weaknees _
> *Our opinion is that cooler is always better.
> 
> These units weren't originally designed to hold two drives and to ventilate their heat, so all of our dual drive units, upgrades, and bracket kits include a second fan for these HD units.
> 
> Michael *


My HDTiVos run between 38C and 40C with the bracket and extra fan.


----------



## weaknees

> _Originally posted by aaronwt _
> *My HDTiVos run between 38C and 40C with the bracket and extra fan. *


That's great - those are good temps!

Michael


----------



## dave77

After running for 27 hours, dd finally finished copying my old failing A drive to the new Maxtor drive. I set it to quiet and installed it along with the B drive and it booted and seemed to work normally, although it was a bit slow to draw menus. Then I tried watching an old recording, and it worked for maybe 30 seconds then locked up and spontaneously rebooted. It had never done that before, even with the failing drive. When it restarted it came up with a green screen indicating a severe error. I'll let that run overnight and see if it works afterward. Maybe the drive was too bad to get a good enough copy for it to work properly. I hope after all this I don't have to wipe it clean and start from scratch with no shows.

I have an old series 1 that's been working for nearly 5 years with the original drive, and this damn $1000 thing can't go for more than a few months without many people having drive failures. TiVo really screwed up with this drive. It cost me an extra $190 because I wanted to try salvaging my shows instead of getting a replacement from DirecTV, and that may not have even worked. I'm now concerned that the second drive I added (WD retail version) will fail soon and I'll have to go through this all over again.

- Dave


----------



## weaknees

You should probably check the new drive in your PC to see if it's a hardware issue with the drive, or just bad software that was copied over from the old one. 

Did you get any errors during the copy?


----------



## dave77

I did not get any errors during the copy, so I don't know why it got that severe error.

Luckily it seems to have fixed itself overnight. When I got up this morning it was working fine as if nothing was ever wrong, and all my shows are there. Hopefully it stays that way.

Since re-installing the drive I have been running it with the cover off, and the drives are still pretty hot to the touch. I think I will go ahead and try a more powerful fan. The stock one is so quiet that a few more dB would be OK. The drives are noisier than the fan.

- Dave


----------



## AbMagFab

Running with the cover off can actually be worse than with the cover on. While the temp sensor might be cooler, since the fan isn't able to pull air across the drives, they will run hotter.

Even with the single fan, you're probably better off with the case closed.

(And they will always be hot to the touch... the temp between okay and bad both feel pretty hot to a human hand.)


----------



## dwynne

> _Originally posted by dave77 _
> *Since re-installing the drive I have been running it with the cover off, and the drives are still pretty hot to the touch. I think I will go ahead and try a more powerful fan. The stock one is so quiet that a few more dB would be OK. The drives are noisier than the fan.
> 
> - Dave *


Try to find a thermostatically controlled fan - I used Vantec ThermalFlow 60mm fans (TF6025) on my non-HD DTivos (and power splitters to run them off of the drive power cable). If it is not hot in the case then the do not turns as fast so less noise, but will move more air (than the stock fan) if it is hot. I don't know what the size of the OEM HDTivo fan is, since mine is still "Stock".

Dennis


----------



## weaknees

We've now updated our upgrade instructions site:

http://www.upgrade-instructions.com

to include the HR10-250 (and all other new models). We have instructions there for any combination of capacity upgrade, and we've done our best to boil down the instructions to the fewest possible steps needed in light of the mfstools limitation of 256 GB per partition. We've also posted our CD with large kernel support.

I'll update the first post also . . .


----------



## BrianHDTIVO

First, I'm new to the Tivo world (DirecTV too), so I apologize for asking dumb questions.

I love my new HD Tivo but would love to get some hacks such as the TivoWebPlus, FTP, Telnet. I have searched all over the forums and read up on the hacks, but the first step is escaping me. What is the first step in even getting access to the hard drive to install these tools. Also, will it get me in trouble when software updates come from DTV? I know that the DTivo is behind the SA in features, so I figured the DTivo hacks are probably a special case.

Thanks for any help!


----------



## edrock200

> _Originally posted by BrianHDTIVO _
> *First, I'm new to the Tivo world (DirecTV too), so I apologize for asking dumb questions.
> 
> I love my new HD Tivo but would love to get some hacks such as the TivoWebPlus, FTP, Telnet. I have searched all over the forums and read up on the hacks, but the first step is escaping me. What is the first step in even getting access to the hard drive to install these tools. Also, will it get me in trouble when software updates come from DTV? I know that the DTivo is behind the SA in features, so I figured the DTivo hacks are probably a special case.
> 
> Thanks for any help! *


I pm'ed you a nice step by step guide. Keep in mind it assumes you have the original software version, not the latest software.


----------



## borghe

here is a little hint.. if you have the latest software version, just replace all instances of /dev/hda7 with /dev/hda4, run the special program on /dev/hda6, and then from the boot disc execute

bootpage -f -C /dev/hda


----------



## dwynne

I think I will FINALLY have time to install my twin breeze bracket and 2nd drive this weekend.

I have two spare 250gb drives so I plan on putting the OEM drive on the shelf.

So I need to:

1) Copy the OEM drive to one of my drives - use dd ?

2) "Marry" the 2nd drive for use with the new main drive ?

3) Install the drives and bracket and go to town recording stuff?

I have done one other multi drive upgrade (YEARS AGO) and tons of single drive ones (small drive out, large drive in) on SA Tivos and DTivos but I have not yet opened my HDTivo.

Thanks in advance for help tips/help!

Dennis


----------



## BrianHDTIVO

> _Originally posted by borghe _
> *here is a little hint.. if you have the latest software version, just replace all instances of /dev/hda7 with /dev/hda4, run the special program on /dev/hda6, and then from the boot disc execute
> 
> bootpage -f -C /dev/hda *


Thanks, I do have the latest (D) version. I assume this doesn't disable anything the software gave me, right?

I haven't actually received the PM from edrock200 yet, but I'll add this to the steps.

Thanks.


----------



## weaknees

> _Originally posted by dwynne _
> *I think I will FINALLY have time to install my twin breeze bracket and 2nd drive this weekend.
> 
> I have two spare 250gb drives so I plan on putting the OEM drive on the shelf.
> 
> So I need to:
> 
> 1) Copy the OEM drive to one of my drives - use dd ?
> 
> 2) "Marry" the 2nd drive for use with the new main drive ?
> 
> 3) Install the drives and bracket and go to town recording stuff?
> 
> I have done one other multi drive upgrade (YEARS AGO) and tons of single drive ones (small drive out, large drive in) on SA Tivos and DTivos but I have not yet opened my HDTivo.
> 
> Thanks in advance for help tips/help!
> 
> Dennis *


That should basically work - we have a faster method in our upgrade instructions involving a "Tao" instead of a "dd" so you won't spend time copying empty space:

http://www.upgrade-instructions.com

Michael


----------



## BrianHDTIVO

> _Originally posted by borghe _
> *here is a little hint.. if you have the latest software version, just replace all instances of /dev/hda7 with /dev/hda4, run the special program on /dev/hda6, and then from the boot disc execute
> 
> bootpage -f -C /dev/hda *


Thanks, worked perfectly! Thanks to edrock200 also for the step-by step. I know have a networked HD Tivo.

Now, off to find all the goodies I can get.


----------



## edrock200

Glad it worked out for you. Just for the record though, it's not my step by step guide. I'd post a link in this thread however the author also included instructions on extraction, which is a no-no around here.


----------



## Rew452

edrock200

Would you please PM me a copy of your step by step too?

Thanks
Rew


----------



## edrock200

Sure.


----------



## jerrymc

I'm about to back up my 3.1.5 and 3.1.5d kernels to files on my RedHat Kinux system hard drive prior to trying out the hacks for network support, ect... Does it matter whether I boot byteswapped or not? Redhat doesn't do byteswapping and the Boot CDs don't recognize my extra IDE card. Using only my Primary and Secondary IDE busses will be a right royal pain due to the cramped conditions in my case.

If I "dd if=/dev/hde6 of=/tmp/kernel_315.img" in Redhat, will I get a valid copy of the kernel? Same question in reverse for restoring the kernel?

Thanks,
Jerry


----------



## jerrymc

> _Originally posted by jerrymc _
> *I'm about to back up my 3.1.5 and 3.1.5d kernels to files on my RedHat Kinux system hard drive prior to trying out the hacks for network support, ect... Does it matter whether I boot byteswapped or not? Redhat doesn't do byteswapping and the Boot CDs don't recognize my extra IDE card. Using only my Primary and Secondary IDE busses will be a right royal pain due to the cramped conditions in my case.
> 
> If I "dd if=/dev/hde6 of=/tmp/kernel_315.img" in Redhat, will I get a valid copy of the kernel? Same question in reverse for restoring the kernel?
> 
> Thanks,
> Jerry *


Nevermind. RedHat won't even recognize the MFS partition table so the question is moot.


----------



## KyCats

Hi,

I'm trying to backup my HD Tivo hard drive on a Gateway PII 400mhz.

Is this fast enough for the Weaknees boot cd?

Thanks,

Scott


----------



## jbs01

You shouldn't have a problem Scott. I just backed mine up this week with a similar PII. My TIVO HD was almost full and it took approximately 8-9 hours to back it up saving all recordings.


----------



## weaknees

The speed of the PC is fine - and it shouldn't take anywhere near 8 to 9 hours if you aren't backing up recordings - it should be just a few minutes.

Michael


----------



## pbolya

> _Originally posted by borghe _
> *here is a little hint.. if you have the latest software version, just replace all instances of /dev/hda7 with /dev/hda4, run the special program on /dev/hda6, and then from the boot disc execute
> 
> bootpage -f -C /dev/hda *


 Do not do that. Just copy the 3.1.5 kernel over the 3.1.5d (dd if=/dev/hdx6 of=/dev/hdx3). The new software will happily run with the old kernel. But perhaps I said too much.


----------



## dwynne

> _Originally posted by weaknees _
> *That should basically work - we have a faster method in our upgrade instructions involving a "Tao" instead of a "dd" so you won't spend time copying empty space:
> 
> http://www.upgrade-instructions.com
> 
> Michael *


You site is super! No more using one size fits all instructions - just choose your options and get a "custom" sheet.

One question: How long will it take to copy a nearly full (235gb or so) drive to two new ones? I started it with the mfsbackup about 6 hours ago and I don't think it is even 20 percent done yet! I was doing this because I didn't have anything scheduled but I will have before it gets done at this rate  My Tivo work machine is a P4/2.4 with 640mb and does UDMA100.

*Edit: I am copying everything including the recordings. My OEM drive is master on the primary IDE, the new "a" drive is master on the secondary IDE and the new "B" drive is slave on the secondary IDE. *

Also, my twin-breeze kit was missing one of the four rubber spacers for the fan. That was a disappointment.

Dennis


----------



## weaknees

Email us directly at [email protected] and we'll get you a new rubber washer.

If you have a full drive, and if DMA isn't set, the amount of time your drive is taking is definitely possible. Is the percentage progressing still?


----------



## dwynne

> _Originally posted by weaknees _
> *Email us directly at [email protected] and we'll get you a new rubber washer.
> 
> If you have a full drive, and if DMA isn't set, the amount of time your drive is taking is definitely possible. Is the percentage progressing still? *


I can do that, but once the copy is done (if ever) I plan on putting it back together and use it. So I would not put the washer in until I next have it apart.

It is still counting up, getting close to 50% done . It is counting up steadily and the hd access light is on pretty solid - so it does not seem to be having any problems reading the drive. DMA is enabled in the BIOS, but I don't know if the LINUX boot disk is using it. I wonder if my original plan of using dd to copy the OEM drive to the new "a" drive then marry it to the new "b" drive would have been quicker?

Dennis


----------



## KyCats

Hello,

Bought a 2nd hard drive with bracket for my Hd-Tivo, installed it, everything looked great, 63 hours of HD.

Went to a previously recorded movie, watched for 2 min. then it froze, and then went to a gray screen, and the Tivo was locked up.

Rebooted, and now its stuck on Powering up.... 

I then spent the next 12 hours going thru this forum, learning how to do Linix, make a msftools cd, a blesstivo cd, boot floppies to test the hard drives, ect.

I've since found out that my original Tivo WD2500 hard drive has boot or mapping problems, that keeps me from backing up any of the files.

I'm not sure how to fix this problem.

I'm at a point now where I would like to start over fresh, than try and fix up a screwed up hard drive.

I need either a good backup file from a single drive HD-Tivo, or maybe the Instantcake cd?

I'm not sure if the InstantCake cd will make a single hard drive or its just for making the add-on drive work with the HD-Tivo.

I'll take any help.

Scott


----------



## borghe

> _Originally posted by pbolya _
> *Do not do that. Just copy the 3.1.5 kernel over the 3.1.5d (dd if=/dev/hdx6 of=/dev/hdx3). The new software will happily run with the old kernel. But perhaps I said too much. *


It's half a dozen of one six of the other.

I "switched back" so that I still had the 3.1.5d kernel available. But really it doesn't matter. I just said bootpage because it doesn't generate any errors. dd if=/dev/hdc6 of=/dev/hdc3 will generate a not enough room error (even though the error doesn't matter)

but really it doesn't matter.


----------



## Vizcaya

If adding a second drive to the HDTivo causes the drives to marry each other, what happens when one drive fails.? Lets say the original is fine, and the new added drive fails. Can I just remove the bad drive and will the Tivo still work correctly? do I need to do a clear and delete? 

This is what I would like to do. Upgrade the Tivo with a add-on harddrive. And would like to be able to return the tivo system back to normal at any time I would need to. If I had to return to original config, I would not need any recorded programs. Is there a way to revert back to original factory settings after I installed the second drive?

Thanks in advance
Vizcaya


----------



## weaknees

Vizcaya,

Once the two drives are married, you'd need to restore a backup to one drive to make the TiVo work with one drive again. Simply removing one will result in a machine that will fail to boot.

Just make a backup and you'll be able to reconfigure whenever you want to.

Michael


----------



## dwynne

> _Originally posted by weaknees _
> *Email us directly at [email protected] and we'll get you a new rubber washer.
> 
> If you have a full drive, and if DMA isn't set, the amount of time your drive is taking is definitely possible. Is the percentage progressing still? *


Well it got done 

I had finished when I got home from work last night, so it was something less than 48 hours - which is a long time. No errors and I am showing 63 (or was it 64?) hours HD now (2 x 250gb drive). I recorded some stuff - no problem and played back some of the older recordings copied over from the OEM drive and it all looks good. Still wondering why it took so darn long. I could burn 250gb to DVDs quicker than this - and I only have a 4x burner....

Besides missing a rubber washer I also only had 7 drive mounting screws. I guess I should have inventoried everything back when I got the twin breeze, but I did not. It would be nice if someone could double count this stuff - or even better take the "baker's dozen" approach and just include 1 extra of each part. Then if they miscount I would still have had the right number.

Dennis


----------



## weaknees

Wow - we were just remarking about how the guy who puts together the parts hasn't made a mistake in quite a while - and now here are two! It looks like you ordered back in June, so we don't have to take any (more) fingers off him, correct?

If that's you, we'll send the parts out today.

Had you enabled DMA on the PC before the copy? It looks like we need to add that to the instructions since everyones copies are taking so long.

Michael


----------



## dwynne

> _Originally posted by weaknees _
> *Wow - we were just remarking about how the guy who puts together the parts hasn't made a mistake in quite a while - and now here are two! It looks like you ordered back in June, so we don't have to take any (more) fingers off him, correct?
> 
> If that's you, we'll send the parts out today.
> 
> Had you enabled DMA on the PC before the copy? It looks like we need to add that to the instructions since everyones copies are taking so long.
> 
> Michael *


I think so, I got in on the pre-order so I got one of the kits right after they came out. I found deals on the drives, but never "got around" to putting the drives in until this past weeked.

DMA IS on in the computer I used for this - DMA100 is supported and it works fine in XP. I have used the same box to do DTivo and SA Tivo copies and upgrades and it seemed a lot faster then (but I didn't have nearly 250gb to copy).

Dennis


----------



## bfdhe

I posted this in the Upgrade forum, but it wasn't getting any action, so I hope you don't mind that I posted it here.

HR10-250 does not "see" added drive 
I added a 300gb drive to my existing stock drive. I used the Weeknees interactive guide and mfsadd. After performing mfsadd, I was shown the message that the command had completed and it showed me the new estimated capacity.

I put the drives in and booted the TiVo. All works fine, except that in System information the capacity shows 30 hours HD 200 SD.

I have checked all cables, jumpers etc, and everything is correct. 

I disconnected the 2nd drive as a test and tried to boot with the single drive, but it will not boot that way.

So am I hosed? Is there another way to check capacity?

Thanks.


----------



## weaknees

Wait - if you were adding a 300 GB drive, and using our instructions, you shouldn't have been directed to mfsadd. Are you sure you checked the box on step 3 asking about using drives over 250 GB? If you didn't say "yes" to that, then you would have the problem you had . . .

Michael


----------



## bfdhe

> _Originally posted by weaknees _
> *Wait - if you were adding a 300 GB drive, and using our instructions, you shouldn't have been directed to mfsadd. Are you sure you checked the box on step 3 asking about using drives over 250 GB? If you didn't say "yes" to that, then you would have the problem you had . . .
> 
> Michael *


Ok, so I screwed up. How can I fix it?


----------



## weaknees

First, try removing the second drive and see what happens. If the TiVo still boots fine, just do it all again with the other info.

Michael


----------



## bfdhe

It does not boot with only the first drive, but I guess at this point, it couldn't hurt to just try and do it again with the Blesstivo command.


----------



## weaknees

NO! Don't do that! Make a backup from both drives using the info on the upgrade-instructions site. Then restore it and go forward.


----------



## bfdhe

uhgg... No way to just "un-marry" the 2nd drive?

How long will that backup take with about 15 hours of HD and lots of SD programming?

By the way, thank you for helping me.


----------



## edrock200

When you removed the second drive did you reset the jumpers on the primary drive to "Master Only"?

It won't boot unless you change those back.


----------



## bfdhe

> _Originally posted by edrock200 _
> *When you removed the second drive did you reset the jumpers on the primary drive to "Master Only"?
> 
> It won't boot unless you change those back. *


Yes I did put the jumpers back, and I put the original cable back also, just to check that the other cable was good.

I am going to re-try everything tonight when I get home.


----------



## weaknees

> _Originally posted by bfdhe _
> *uhgg... No way to just "un-marry" the 2nd drive?
> 
> How long will that backup take with about 15 hours of HD and lots of SD programming?
> 
> By the way, thank you for helping me. *


The backup without recordings should just take a few minutes - if you want to save recordings, you'll need another large drive to house that.

Michael


----------



## Mr Pieces

I get a loud clicking sound from the hard drive when playing back some HD shows. (Doesn't always do it)

It is loud enough to be heard while watching TV with surround. Anyone else having this problem?

HR10-250 with Weaknees bracket and dual 250GB drives (Factory drive + Maxtor 250gb drive)

Any help would be great. This is driving the wife nuts.


----------



## weaknees

Are the drives Maxtors or one of each? Did you set the Maxtor to Quiet mode?


----------



## Mr Pieces

One drive is WD (Factory drive A) B drive is Maxtor and I didn't know anything about quiet mode. Is it possible to still do this?


----------



## dwynne

> _Originally posted by Mr Pieces _
> *One drive is WD (Factory drive A) B drive is Maxtor and I didn't know anything about quiet mode. Is it possible to still do this? *


You download the free utility from Maxtor, connect the drive back up to the PC, and set it for "quiet" mode. It should not harm what is on the drive, but you will get all the fun of un-doing the bracket install and re-doing it 

I think this should be the correct program:

EDIT to add the link

Dennis


----------



## edrock200

> _Originally posted by Mr Pieces _
> *I get a loud clicking sound from the hard drive when playing back some HD shows. (Doesn't always do it)
> 
> It is loud enough to be heard while watching TV with surround. Anyone else having this problem?
> 
> HR10-250 with Weaknees bracket and dual 250GB drives (Factory drive + Maxtor 250gb drive)
> 
> Any help would be great. This is driving the wife nuts. *


I had the same issue. As Dwynne mentioned download the amset utility to set to quiet.

I actually had set mine to quiet, however I didn't realize that newer Dell BIOS's auto sets the acoustic mode every time it boots. If your dell bios has ide acoustic settings make sure it's set to "quiet" and not Performance or Normal. If your Dell bios does have this feature all you have to do is attach the drive, set the bios to quiet and reboot. Once it posts all drives attached to the IDE chain are set to quiet.


----------



## Mr Pieces

Has anyone tested changing a drive to quite after it has been in use for a while in a HD TiVo? I just want to make sure I don't screw anything up with my HD TiVo.


----------



## tivoupgrade

> _Originally posted by Mr Pieces _
> *Has anyone tested changing a drive to quite after it has been in use for a while in a HD TiVo? I just want to make sure I don't screw anything up with my HD TiVo. *


It won't hurt a thing; just don't boot your TiVo without both of the drives present and configured at the same time.


----------



## Mr Pieces

I'll give it a try tomorrow. It really is a loud click that I will not miss.


----------



## dave77

When replacing a failing drive in my dual drive HD TiVo recently I decided to see if I could find a replacement fan that would keep the unit cooler. It was reporting 46 degrees C with a room temperature of 76 Fahrenheit, and even though it's in the normal range I figured cooler temps could help preserve the life of the drives.

After digging around on the internet and looking at lots of specs I found a fan that seemed like it might be a suitable replacement for the stock one that had the options for thermal or knob speed control. It was tough to find a 70mm fan that had the right combination of flow and quietness. The one I chose was the fan from the Thermaltake Spark 7+ heatsink/fan package. I could not find the fan by itself, so I had to shell out over $30 for the whole thing with shipping.

I removed the stock fan from the TiVo, removed the Thermaltake fan from the heatsink, and attached both to a computer power supply. I tested the new fan with the knob and with the thermal control. Both fans made about the same about of noise (very little) when I matched the airflow to the stock fan, and of course the new fan got noisier when cranked up, but still reasonably quiet with noticeably more airflow. It got real loud when cranked up all the way, and it generated noticeable thrust, but of course I won't be running it that hard in the TiVo.

I plugged the new fan in to the same pins on the motherboard used by the old fan, making sure the power and ground lined up (there is a third unused wire that is off to the side). I tried at first mounting the fan the same way the old one was, but when the fan spun faster the noise was amplified through the case, so I cut a gasket out of an 1/8" sheet of foam rubber to go between the fan and the case, and used rubber washers on the outside. I used the original screws. I ran the temperature sensor over to the area between the two hard drives.

After replacing the cover and letting it get to a steady state temperature (a few hours with both tuners on HD) it reports the temperature as 41 degrees C, with the same room temperature (76 Fahrenheit). It's a bit louder because the fan spins faster to maintain this lower temperature, but it's not noticeable sitting on top of a stand next to my TV about 7 feet from my couch, except in very quiet scenes when the AC and refrigerator in the nearby kitchen are off. If I wanted it to be a bit quieter (but warmer) I could move the temp sensor to a cooler part of the case (nearer to the vent holes).

So, it now runs about 5 degrees cooler Celsius (9 degrees Fahrenheit) without being too loud, and the heat sensor will make sure the temperature stays reasonable even if the room temperature goes up, like when we go on vacation and set the AC to 80. It will also allow the fan to run quieter if the room is cooler. For those who want manual control instead of thermal, the knob that comes with the kit could probably be removed from the drive bay or PCI slot cover and placed wherever you want, with wires run to it through a vent hole in the bottom of the TiVo case (or a hole could be cut for it to be mounted right on the case somewhere).

This may be a good mod for people who put their TiVo in a cabinet, because not only will the cabinet help hide the extra fan noise, but the fan will automatically compensate for the tendency of the cabinet to be hotter than the room. Another plus is that it does not require modifying the case so it can be easily returned to stock if need be.

- Dave


----------



## dwynne

> _Originally posted by Mr Pieces _
> *Has anyone tested changing a drive to quite after it has been in use for a while in a HD TiVo? I just want to make sure I don't screw anything up with my HD TiVo. *


Don't boot your PC with your windoze boot hard drive attached. Win2k and XP can "fingerprint" your drive on boot up should something go wrong. So make the boot floppy with the set program, then when you have the PC powered down to hook up the Tivo drive pull the power connector on the windows hard drive "to be safe" then boot off of the floppy.

Dennis


----------



## aaronwt

You have to boot off the CD/Floppy to use the AMset program. I have to boot from CDs since I haven't put a floppy in any of my PCs in almost 5 years. I set mine to quiet after having them in the HD-TiVo. When I put the drives back in the HD-TiVo everything was fine. It makes a huge difference once it is set to quiet.


----------



## Mr Pieces

Do you just make a dos book disc to run the program from? 

Sorry for all the questions. I just don't want to have to redo the TiVo.


----------



## edrock200

Yes, you can use a DOS boot disk. If you don't have one grab one of the standard 95/98 ones from www.bootdisk.com like this one:
http://www.mirrors.org/archived_software/www.bootdisk.com/winfiles1/boot98se.exe


----------



## dwynne

> _Originally posted by weaknees _
> *Email us directly at [email protected] and we'll get you a new rubber washer.
> *


I got my missing washer and drive mounting screw in the mail today - actually I got 4 rubber washers, 3 drive screws, 3 self tapping screws, and 2 metal washers. I guess I am all set if I ever take the HD Tivo apart again. That was fast - mailed on the 5th from CA and arrived on the 7th in TN.

Thanks,
Dennis


----------



## Mr Pieces

Ran the /quiet command on the Maxtor drive and WOW what a difference! Thanks for all the help.


----------



## jnangano

Super HDTivo!

Well, I got tired of watching Sat 1 lose signal on all of the odd transponders for 101 and decided to do something about it. On top of that, the damn thing was getting unresposive to the remote and stuttering. 

This morning was going to be a big day for my HD Tivo.

I ordered and received this week, the twinbreeze upgrade kit, I had purchased to Maxtor 250 GB drives, one to replace my stock WD, the other to expand my capacity. During my web browsing, I found a page on networking your HD Tivo. After reading it, I knew it would be a piece of cake to do.

I removed the WD drive for the Tico and attempted to back it up. No luck, it was pretty much toast, So I located a virgin backup of the HDTivo's 3.1.5 software. I successfully loaded it up on the new Maxtor, reinstalled it on the Tivo and booted up.

I skiped the guided setup and went to Clear and Delete everything to avoid that dreaded error #51. Once that was done, I went thru the guided setup and got the Tivo working with the new drive. I then disconnected the phone line so it doesn't get ruined with version 3.1.5d.

Next step was getting it networked. I followed DSmooth's instructions and got it up and running the first time. TivoWeb saves alot of time when setting up season passes and searching for shows to record. It's like having a whole new Tivo.

Last step was installing the second drive, that too was very easy and it reports a capacity of 63 hours of HD and 430 hour of SD.

I also noticed that with Acoustic Management turned off, the Tivo is quicker than with the stock WD drive.

Networked Tivo on Steroids, gotta love it.

I'm a happy camper.


----------



## dwynne

> _Originally posted by jnangano _
> *
> I removed the WD drive for the Tico and attempted to back it up. No luck, it was pretty much toast, *


At that point, I would have put the OEM drive back in and called in for a free replacement. Not only would you have gotten a good, working 250gb drive (worth $100 or more) you probably would have gotten a new box that would not have the odd xponder problem.

I am glad you are happy, but that is not what I would have done.

Dennis


----------



## rttrek

OTOH, jnangano can now put the toast back in and exchange it, then swap back the drives into the replacement unit.


----------



## buzzword

> _Originally posted by Rew452 _
> *edrock200
> 
> Would you please PM me a copy of your step by step too?
> 
> Thanks
> Rew *


edrock200,

can you PM me one as well? Much appreciated!


----------



## dwynne

> _Originally posted by rttrek _
> *OTOH, jnangano can now put the toast back in and exchange it, then swap back the drives into the replacement unit.  *


If you move the drives from one box to another you have to do a clear and delete and lose all your settings, recordings, and season passes. Rather than do all that I would have gotten the new box first, let it update the software and burn in for a few weeks. Then if no problems back up the drive to the new drives and go to town. If there were problems, get another and keep doing that until you get a good one.

One "working theory" is that the new load exposed a faulty component in SOME of the boxes. If this is true, then a replacement box would be only way to fix it.

Dennis


----------



## jnangano

> _Originally posted by dwynne _
> *If you move the drives from one box to another you have to do a clear and delete and lose all your settings, recordings, and season passes. Rather than do all that I would have gotten the new box first, let it update the software and burn in for a few weeks. Then if no problems back up the drive to the new drives and go to town. If there were problems, get another and keep doing that until you get a good one.
> 
> One "working theory" is that the new load exposed a faulty component in SOME of the boxes. If this is true, then a replacement box would be only way to fix it.
> 
> Dennis *


I've already replaced the box once three months ago. But, if I see any other problems with the box, I can always put in the old drive and get a replacement unit. I'm quite happy with what now have and see if it works out OK.


----------



## dwynne

> _Originally posted by jnangano _
> *I've already replaced the box once three months ago. But, if I see any other problems with the box, I can always put in the old drive and get a replacement unit. I'm quite happy with what now have and see if it works out OK. *


Be sure and post one way or the other. Lots of folks having problems are all unsure if getting a new box will actually fix the odd xponder problem or not. I only use the HDTivo for HD so I have had no problems, but will likely test it out "sometime" before the warranty is up (depending on what the problem turns out to be).

I put two new 250's in mine last weekend and copied over all the shows - man was that slow, but I have 63 HD hours capability now 

Dennis


----------



## pbolya

> _Originally posted by jnangano _
> *I've already replaced the box once three months ago. But, if I see any other problems with the box, I can always put in the old drive and get a replacement unit. I'm quite happy with what now have and see if it works out OK. *


 Do not forget that you can back up your season passes with the TiVoWebPlus Backup routine. If anything goes wrong and you need to put your failed drive in and get a new one you can load the backup back to the new drive without having to do a clear and delete. The module backs up your wish lists and season passes as well as the channel data for those channels used in your season passes. When you search you will probably find backup.itcl module version 1.00.0013. It is not ment to be used with HD TiVo's and it will fail out of the box since it sorts channel numbers as integers (HD TiVo has local channels like 13.1 etc.). Before you install it delete words -integer (twice) and -int (twice) in the backup.tcl file. All 4 of these are lsort (list sort) parameters. By removing them channels will be sorted alphabetically.

Anyway it saved me a lot of time. I downloaded about 50 season passes before I replaced my drives and reloaded them after the new drives are installed.


----------



## Gotchaa

All, after the 3.1.5d upgrade I noticed my HD-OTA would not lock in. Since I've already added two 250GB drives I figured perhaps the cables for OTA perhaps came loose. I opened up the box and found the cables to be secure. I then tested the OTA signal. My Sony HD-300 locks on at about 60% signal strength, and plugging the HD-Tivo OTA into the same line results in 14-25 numbers without being able to lock into the signal. I tried both an attenuator and a signal booster and no luck, OTA signals just cannot lock in. I don't know if the upgrade caused this or if it was just when I noticed it was out. 

Anyone experience the OTA tuner crapping out?

At any rate DirecTV is sending out a new unit next week, and I need to send it back. Question I have is how do I get it ready to go back? I have the original drive, I assume I can just pop it in and boot it up once, make a call in (or is that not even necessary?) And then just swap the new unit's drive with my two upgrade drives again? Or do I need to perform the upgrade all over again?


----------



## pixlpush

> _Originally posted by Gotchaa _
> *All, after the 3.1.5d upgrade I noticed my HD-OTA would not lock in.
> .....
> then just swap the new unit's drive with my two upgrade drives again? Or do I need to perform the upgrade all over again? *


When 3.1.5d showed up in my US manufactured hr10-250 (April 22'nd build) it first began to stutter on playback and eventually started rebooting itself. It got so bad the thing would hardly stay up for 10 minutes in the end.

Directv sent out a replacement then I had to go to work swapping in my 300gig upgrade drive that I originally bought from Weaknees as part of their upgrade kit. I first tried to just swap in the 300gig drive without doing anything and the new tivo didn't recognize it. I finally ran "BlessTiVo" on it from the weakness linux boot disk and everything seems to be working now. I don't think the straight swap will work from everything I've been told, but I'm no expert and just know enough to be dangerous.

As far as the old unit I just put everything back to the way it was physically before I did the upgrade. I didn't even try to see if it will boot up. I'd already spent way to much time screwing around with this problem and I'm just going to play dumb if Directv starts asking questions about the unit I return.

Weaknees was more than helpful with my problem and I'd not have gotten the new unit up and running without their help, great customer support on something that wasn't they're problem to solve.

Good luck with your new hr10-250, I've got my fingers crossed that mine doesn't have anymore problems.


----------



## HDLouco

> _Originally posted by pixlpush _
> *Directv sent out a replacement then I had to go to work swapping in my 300gig upgrade drive that I originally bought from Weaknees as part of their upgrade kit. I first tried to just swap in the 300gig drive without doing anything and the new tivo didn't recognize it. I finally ran "BlessTiVo" on it from the weakness linux boot disk and everything seems to be working now. I don't think the straight swap will work from everything I've been told, but I'm no expert and just know enough to be dangerous.
> 
> Thanks for the info! I also ordered a 300-GB replacement drive from Weakness, and it will be arriving today. I understand that all I have to do is to install this new drive in the place of the original and then run the Tivo setup. Hope I don't have to run BlessTivo because I am not at all familiar with what is involved. Could it be that you had to run BlessTivo because you were installing the 300-GB drive in a different Tivo unit than the original one? Did you have to run BlessTivo on that drive when you originally installed it in your original Tivo unit? If you have the time, I would appreciate a repply.*


----------



## buckeye1010

HDLouco - you won't have to run any BlessTivo or any software. However, you'll have the new bracket to install. It isn't difficult if you read the directions at least once before you pop the hood open. Things fit a little tight, but it will work!


----------



## weaknees

BlessTiVo isn't for replacement drives - just for add-on drives.


----------



## buckeye1010

> _Originally posted by buckeye1010 _
> *HDLouco - you won't have to run any BlessTivo or any software. However, you'll have the new bracket to install. It isn't difficult if you read the directions at least once before you pop the hood open. Things fit a little tight, but it will work! *


EDIT: Oops - I just re-read, if you have the REPLACEMENT drive, there is NO new bracket. (I was thinking you were adding a second drive.) If it's just a replacement, then it's very very easy!


----------



## HDLouco

> _Originally posted by buckeye1010 _
> *HDLouco - you won't have to run any BlessTivo or any software. However, you'll have the new bracket to install. It isn't difficult if you read the directions at least once before you pop the hood open. Things fit a little tight, but it will work! *


Thanks, Buckeye1010! I appreciate your repply, but I am not addomg a secpmd drove tp ,y Tivo! I am just replacing the original 25-GB drive with a 300-GB one from Weakness. The reason for this is that I have recorded on the original Tivo drive a lot of shows that I would like to retain. Since I have no way of archiving those shows to tape or any other medium, I thought I would just buy another drive for future recordings. And I hope it works! The question will be how to play those recordings when I want to watch those shows in the future! Any ideas? Someone said here that one of those hard-drive removable enclosures might work, but I haven't heard of anyone who has actually done that. I am talking about a 5.25-inch crate that can be added to a PC, with the hard drive installed in a 3.5-inch drawer that mates with the crate. That would allows the easy replacement of the hard drive. At least, the physical replacement. But does that work? I sure would like to know that! Thanks, my friend, for your repply!


----------



## HDLouco

> _Originally posted by weaknees _
> *BlessTiVo isn't for replacement drives - just for add-on drives. *


Thanks, Michael! I replaced the original Tivo drive with the 300-GB one I bought from Weakness. After the setup, everything seems to be alright except for the Directv local channels. Somehow, the San Francisco area local channels were not authorized during the setup. I did a reset and ran the entire setup a second time, but the result was the same: no local San Francisco channels. I will try again today. Since I have no recordings on this new drive, I was wondering how long it would take to make a backup of this drive to a Mastor 250-GB one using the instructions at the Weakness website with the command:
msfbackup -Tao - /dev/hda | msrestore -s 127 -xzpi /dev/hdb,
where hda is the 300-GB dirve, and hdb is the 25--GB one.

Also, if I may, after the backup/restore is complete, is there any way to check for the contents of the new drive? I am not familiar with Linus, and what I am asking is: is there in Linus, the equivalent of a DIR command in DOS? I really would appreciate an answer. And thanks once more!


----------



## weaknees

> _Originally posted by HDLouco _
> *Thanks, Michael! I replaced the original Tivo drive with the 300-GB one I bought from Weakness. After the setup, everything seems to be alright except for the Directv local channels. Somehow, the San Francisco area local channels were not authorized during the setup. I did a reset and ran the entire setup a second time, but the result was the same: no local San Francisco channels. I will try again today. Since I have no recordings on this new drive, I was wondering how long it would take to make a backup of this drive to a Mastor 250-GB one using the instructions at the Weakness website with the command:
> msfbackup -Tao - /dev/hda | msrestore -s 127 -xzpi /dev/hdb,
> where hda is the 300-GB dirve, and hdb is the 25--GB one.
> 
> Also, if I may, after the backup/restore is complete, is there any way to check for the contents of the new drive? I am not familiar with Linus, and what I am asking is: is there in Linus, the equivalent of a DIR command in DOS? I really would appreciate an answer. And thanks once more! *


Sometimes locals take a day or so to download again, but if you call DirecTV while the box is up and running and you tell them that you've lost your locals, they can send the signal back down to the card right then and there and they should come back immediately.

The backup/restore line will transfer the info to a new drive. Is that what you want? If you want a backup for same-keeping down the road, you need a command more like:

mfsbackup -f 9999 -1so /mnt/hr10.bak /dev/hda

With the destination FAT or EXT2 partition mounted as /mnt.

Michael


----------



## HDLouco

Thanks for the repply, Michael. I purchased the 300-GB drive from Weakness because I was afraid I might zap the original Tivo drive. But now that I replaced the original Tivo drive with the 300-GB one that I got from Weakness, I would like to make an exact copy of this 300-GB drive using a Maxtor 25-GB drive that I already had. I do not want to make a back up in the form of an image file on a FAT partition. I want to make a copy of the hda drive on the hdb drive. Should I then use the command
mfsbackup -Tao /dev/hda | mfsrestore -s 127 -xzpi /dev/hda ?
Since I don't have any recordings on hda, how long would the backup and restore process take? And what is the expected indication that the process is complete? Is there the equivalent of the DIR command in Linux that allows me to check the contents of a disk drive? I know you are very busy and I shouldn't be asking these questions, but I may not be the only one on this thread who is interested in learning. Thanks again.


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## weaknees

Unfortunately, you can't use that command to go to a smaller drive, even if you don't have recordings. Re-run the instructions and choose "ignore recordings" and you'll get the right info.

Michael


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## HDLouco

> _Originally posted by weaknees _
> *Unfortunately, you can't use that command to go to a smaller drive, even if you don't have recordings. Re-run the instructions and choose "ignore recordings" and you'll get the right info.
> 
> Thanks, Michael! Will follow your advice.*


----------



## pbolya

> _Originally posted by HDLouco _
> *Is there the equivalent of the DIR command in Linux that allows me to check the contents of a disk drive? *


 Yes there is. "ls" However it is not that simple. Before you can use ls on your tivo drive you have to mount the right partition. You can mount your var partion (partition 9) like this:

mkdir /mnt/var
mount /dev/hdx9 /mnt/var
cd /mnt/var
ls

mkdir will make a new directory (logical at this point).
mount will mount a file system (e.g. the EXT2 file system in partition 9) into the directory created.
cd as you guessed it will change to the directory
and ls will list all the files in that directory

you can use pico to edit a file. e.g. to look at your kernel log file:

mkdir /mnt/var
mount /dev/hdx9 /mnt/var
cd /mnt/var/logs
pico kernel

Also you can list all the partitions on all disks with pdisk -l (don't use other swithes as you might reformat the hard drive).

Of course replace x with the correct letter (A, B, C or D) in all mount commands.

I hope this helps.

Regards,
Peter


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## HDLouco

> _Originally posted by pbolya _
> *Yes there is. "ls" However it is not that simple. Before you can use ls on your tivo drive you have to mount the right partition. You can mount your var partion (partition 9) like this:
> 
> mkdir /mnt/var
> mount /dev/hdx9 /mnt/var
> cd /mnt/var
> ls
> 
> mkdir will make a new directory (logical at this point).
> mount will mount a file system (e.g. the EXT2 file system in partition 9) into the directory created.
> cd as you guessed it will change to the directory
> and ls will list all the files in that directory
> 
> you can use pico to edit a file. e.g. to look at your kernel log file:
> 
> mkdir /mnt/var
> mount /dev/hdx9 /mnt/var
> 
> Thank you very much, Peter! With explanations such as yours, I am certain to start learning fast. If you ever run for office, I will vote for you!
> cd /mnt/var/logs
> pico kernel
> 
> Also you can list all the partitions on all disks with pdisk -l (don't use other swithes as you might reformat the hard drive).
> 
> Of course replace x with the correct letter (A, B, C or D) in all mount commands.
> 
> I hope this helps.
> 
> Regards,
> Peter *


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## HDLouco

I don't know what is the cause of this, but my answer to you, Peter, was not included in the previous post. Thank you very much for your clear explanations. It encourages me to attempt to learn more about Linux. If you ever run for office, I will certainly vote for you!
Mauro


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## dmwierz

Been wading through this whole thread while watching the World Series in glorious HD, and had a simple question: I just ordered a 300GB add-on drive from weaknees, and was wondering, if I have the HDMI problem later (haven't had a single issue since the "d" software upgrade, and the recent "e" is also working well), can I just take out the weaknees drive, do a Clear and Delete on the original drive and send the unit back? I have the BB extended warranty, as well as my OEM warranty.


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## aaronwt

This is why I replaced my original drive. So I could put it back in if there are any warranty issues.


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## Lee L

If you have backed up your drive using the MFS tools proceedure when you did your initial upgrade, you can take the extra drive out, then back up your old image onto the original drive and send that off.


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## dmwierz

> _Originally posted by aaronwt _
> *This is why I replaced my original drive. So I could put it back in if there are any warranty issues. *


Maybe I need to make myself clearer. I can't even spell MFS Tools, nor do I want to back up anything by plugging into my PC. That's why I'm buying the upgrade kit, and not doing it myself.

I'm also not replacing BOTH drives, so my original drive won't be available as a spare as aaronwt said.

I assume I'll lose whatever I have on the original drive if I un-install the second drive (or will I?).

So, if I add a second drive and my HDMI port dies, how do I return the TiVo to HDMI-less operation so I can exchange it if this becomes necessary? If I take out the second drive, will the TiVo run with just the original drive, or are the two married, and will I need to do a Clear and Delete before exchanging it?


----------



## tivoupgrade

> _Originally posted by dmwierz _
> *Maybe I need to make myself clearer. I can't even spell MFS Tools, nor do I want to back up anything by plugging into my PC. That's why I'm buying the upgrade kit, and not doing it myself.
> 
> I'm also not replacing BOTH drives, so my original drive won't be available as a spare as aaronwt said.
> 
> I assume I'll lose whatever I have on the original drive if I un-install the second drive (or will I?).
> 
> So, if I add a second drive and my HDMI port dies, how do I return the TiVo to HDMI-less operation so I can exchange it if this becomes necessary? If I take out the second drive, will the TiVo run with just the original drive, or are the two married, and will I need to do a Clear and Delete before exchanging it? *


The TiVo won't run without the drive you've just added.

You'd need to restore the original drive, however. Or replace it.

Also, if you remove the drive to put it into a different unit, you'll have to have the drive you removed "reblessed" so it will work in that different unit.

Keep in mind, you've voided your warranty by opening the unit and installing stuff, so its up to you whether to remove the add-on drive and claim a warranty repair on the unit which might now be broken.


----------



## dswallow

> _Originally posted by dmwierz _
> *So, if I add a second drive and my HDMI port dies, how do I return the TiVo to HDMI-less operation so I can exchange it if this becomes necessary? If I take out the second drive, will the TiVo run with just the original drive, or are the two married, and will I need to do a Clear and Delete before exchanging it? *


The only way to remove the added drive and be operational is to restore the original drive image, which you won't have unless you perform a backup and make one before installing the second drive.

Alternately, you could get an image from someone else, restore it, and do a clear & delete everything.


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## btwyx

> _Originally posted by dmwierz _
> *I'm also not replacing BOTH drives, so my original drive won't be available as a spare as aaronwt said.
> 
> I assume I'll lose whatever I have on the original drive if I un-install the second drive (or will I?).*


 That's why I replaced both drives. As well as getting a little more space, you have the original drive to go back to if things do go wrong. That way you can work out if its the TiVo or your upgrade which is the problem.

If you do just add a drive, you can't just take the second one out. Weaknees will reformat your original drive back to factory condition for a small fee.

I'd recommend keeping your original drive safe though, but that is a little more expensive.


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## dmwierz

Thanks to all who responded. I looks like, should I have an HDMI failure and have to send the unit back, I (or someone else) will have to do something to the original drive to get the unit back to "original" condition, and this will require pulling the drive out of the TiVo and restoring it, whatever that entails. 

Yes, TiVoUpgrade, I realize I'll be tampering with the Gods of Warranty, but the HDMI thing is so latent that I might have the problem down the road, and it very well may be independent of anything I am doing with the hard drives. Beyond DirecTV's OEM warranty, I've paid for a 4-year extended coverage at BB for this thing (actually, I received it for free as a promotion - got it instead of 10% off with a coupon at BB 'cuz the coupon said "No DirecTV Products"), but the HDMI thing is so widespread, I'd feel no compunction at returning the unit if it fails regardless of what I have done to the hard drives. I'm already on my second Panasonic Plasma display in the first month, and they only replaced this (also under an extended warranty) with much arguing and hair pulling, after only two weeks of service. They wanted to try and fix the display, and I had to INSIST they replace it. This comes within 9 months of another instance where a DVD-burner I bought from them died 6 weeks into its life last January and I still haven't got it back repair part back-ordered. They also insisted on repairing this unit rather than replacing it, which begged the question "Exactly HOW bad does something have to break before you replace it?"

So, you see, I'm not too keen on cutting BB slack when it comes to warranties.

Sending my HD TiVo to Weaknees is an interesting option. I suppose they'll do the restore and Clear and Delete for me, which will reset the unit to its factory condition?


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## HDLouco

I am certainly glad Weakness is around to help us out of dilemas like this. I wonder whether it is also possible to return my unit back to the software version prior to D or E? With version D, it seems that when I select a probram to be recorded, the wait is much longer than it used to be before the D upgrade. Any ideas? Thanks!


----------



## dwynne

> _Originally posted by btwyx _
> *That's why I replaced both drives. As well as getting a little more space, you have the original drive to go back to if things do go wrong. That way you can work out if its the TiVo or your upgrade which is the problem.
> 
> If you do just add a drive, you can't just take the second one out. Weaknees will reformat your original drive back to factory condition for a small fee.
> 
> I'd recommend keeping your original drive safe though, but that is a little more expensive. *


If you replace the OEM drive with another 250gb you will not gain any space, and it does not add much to the overall cost. If you watch the deal sites on the web you can find a 250gb drive for a little over $100 (usually after a rebate). That is what I did, so I have my OEM drive sitting on the shelf in case of problems and put in 2 new 250gb drives with a TwinBreeze bracket.

Other than the LONG wait for it to copy my full OEM drive and the missing parts from my kit (1 rubber washer and 1 screw, which has been replaced) it was no problem to do. If you don't have a full Tivo or don't care to save the records it would take a lot less time.

Dennis


----------



## HDLouco

> _Originally posted by HDLouco _
> *I am certainly glad Weakness is around to help us out of dilemas like this. I wonder whether it is also possible to return my unit back to the software version prior to D or E? With version D, it seems that when I select a probram to be recorded, the wait is much longer than it used to be before the D upgrade. Any ideas? Thanks! *


I have been acused of having made a smartass remark in answer to someone's post. That is why I am quoting my previous post. Where, please, is the smartass remark?


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## ken_kimg

Think I screwed this up royally, maybe somebody could possibly make suggestions...

Bought from Weaknees a 'Single 300g Upgrade Kit', intending to add to my stock 250g WD in my HR10-250. Then changed my mind and purchased another 300g Maxtor quietdrive (not formatted) to replace the 250g WD.

Using the computer i dd'ed the image of the 250g onto the unformatted 300g, and the new drive worked ok in the Tivo as a single drive, but showed only 30 /200 hrs capacity.

Using the computer i then mfsadded this drive, and the capacity report in HR10-250 increased to 37/ 250 or thereabouts, so far so good...

Then figured i could add the Weaknees drive as a slave in the TiVo without doing anything special (mistake, i know). I set the jumpers properly (master and slave). All heck broke loose--TiVo failed to boot, severe errors etc. Removed the Weaknees slave drive and tried booting the Tivo with the master drive by itself, TiVo now also refused to boot. Put the STOCK drive back in by itself and everything worked normally (thank goodness).

So what do i do now? (to get the new 300g drives working) Please somebody....


----------



## bfdhe

Go here and follow the directions to upgrade from one drive to two.

http://tivo.upgrade-instructions.com/


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## dwynne

A good reason to keep the OEM drive and put in two new drives. With the cost of a 250gb drive being so cheap ($100 or so after MIR) no reason not to.

If you choose to copy everything from the OEM drive to your new primary drive, be prepared to wait a long time - a very long time. My OEM 250gb was nearly full and it took nearly 2 days to copy.

Dennis


----------



## ken_kimg

Ok, thanks.

Had studied this and other threads quite alot, but failed to notice in the Weaknees dual upgrade instructions to use MFSTool 2.0 WITHOUT Large Kernel Support...which checks with the other Weaknees posts for properly preparing two 300g drives. Had figured the Weaknees secondary drive was already 'blessed', but with the wrong blessing (assumed the master would be a 250g harddrive). Always something...

Will do the proper procedure after work tonite, thanks

dwynne- Definitely aware of the slow copy time. Drive is only 20 percent or so full at most. It's all standard def stuff anyway, probly dump to dvd then do the non-data-save copy. Thanks for the comment.


----------



## ken_kimg

Mission accomplished--77 hours capacity finally! Thanks for the help...

Couple points of information: Had about 10 hours of standard def. recordings I wanted to transfer. Starting the Weaknees procedure, the utility reported about 227gb of data to backup from orig. HR10-250 harddrive. It took about 1/2 hour to do 1 percent. At that rate, approx. total time figures to be roughly two days. Aborted that and used Weaknees' no-data-save command, which was 1.4gb completed in about 1/2 hr. 

Sounds like, even if you have a small number of programs to xfer BUT have been saving/deleting for awhile, a lot of garbage (i.e., previously deleted material) gets included, and there's no way around this...?

One other thing: With the new drives in the TiVo, the information and list screens now 'show thru' in the background to whatever you had playing (live TV or a recording and audio). With original harddrive the info screens didn't do that (had DirecTv / tiVo std. background screens & no audio). Seems to work ok this way, but anybody else encounter this, anything to worry about?


----------



## weaknees

If you have transparent backgrounds in menus, that generally means that you did a backup and restore, and at the backup phase, you omitted the "-f 9999" switch, or typed it as "-f 999" instead.

Did you do a backup and restore or a direct, no-recordings transfer?


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## ken_kimg

Michael-

I used Weaknees Interactive TiVo Upgrade Instructions for no backup, no fat, no XP/2000, Ignore recordings, drives > 250gb:

mfsbackup -so - /dev/hdX | mfsrestore -zi - /dev/hdZ

So instead, I should do something like...?

mfsbackup -so -f 9999 - /dev/hdX | mfsrestore -zi - /dev/hdZ

Would the B drive require a reblessing also? Thanks


----------



## weaknees

I just ran that, and, sure enough, the step omits the "-f 9999" switch. It's fixed now. Thanks for posting the exact options you chose - that seems to have been the only combination that would produce the mistake. My apologies.

Yes, you'd need to do the new command, re-bless the B drive, and then mfsadd again.

Michael


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## ken_kimg

Ok, i redid the above procedure, succeeded in not screwing anything up, the animated backgrounds restored, 77 HD hours reported, everything's hunky dorey...

Thanks Weaknees and everybody else


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## weaknees

Glad it worked out - sorry for the misstep in the instructions.

Michael


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## madpoet

Does itmatter what type of hard drive you use? I know that theoretically the "made for DVR" 5400 drives from Maxtor are nice because they spin slower, and thus generate less heat. But I've seen some numbers that say the heat difference is only about 1d C between a 5400 and 7200 RPM drive. Noise is obviously another factor. But 250gb Maxtors are relatively cheap, compared to their 5400 RPM cousins. I bought the twinbreeze bracket, but I don't want to fry my unit if running Maxtor 7200s will do that.

Thanks,
MP


----------



## Anubys

> _Originally posted by madpoet _
> *Does itmatter what type of hard drive you use? I know that theoretically the "made for DVR" 5400 drives from Maxtor are nice because they spin slower, and thus generate less heat. But I've seen some numbers that say the heat difference is only about 1d C between a 5400 and 7200 RPM drive. Noise is obviously another factor. But 250gb Maxtors are relatively cheap, compared to their 5400 RPM cousins. I bought the twinbreeze bracket, but I don't want to fry my unit if running Maxtor 7200s will do that.
> 
> Thanks,
> MP *


I have a 7200 RPM maxtor and I have no problem with high temp...I like the twinbreeze design and the extra fan is great...the internal temp is the same as before the upgrade.

One person, I think it was Doug, who said that you might want to consider getting a 7200 because -- while the 5400 is fast enough now -- you might need that extra speed after software upgrades that give the unit more capability (none that we know of...we're just guessing). I'm sure he said it much better than the way I've just said it...but it hit home with me...I'd rather have too much of a good thing than get an upgrade and find that I have too little...


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## bfdhe

So, I want to buy two 400 GB drives. Can I use them in my HDTiVo? Anyone done this yet?


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## kcmchugh

I've already upgrade one HD Tivo using the MFSTools (with LSA support) with no problems. But, the 2nd unit didn't go as planned.

After adding the 2nd drive, running mfsadd, getting the proper notification that mfsadd worked properly with the right number of hours, and putting the drives back in the HDTivo, the system information screen on the TIVO UI still says 30 HD and 200 SD hours.

Even after buying a NEW 250GB WD drive and repeating the entire pricess I get the same results... the Tivo works fine, by the way.

NOTE: Checked and re-checked jumpers, replaced the IDE cables, power seems to be getting to both drives. 

What could be the problem? Should I try the BlessTivo command instead?


----------



## JohnTivo

Did you expand the first drive when replacing the original? What was the command you used?

I upgraded to a 300 GB drive from the original 250 GB drive with no issues. I will be upgrading again when I can find the new seagate 7200.8 400 GB drive. Any one seen them forsale yet?


----------



## bfdhe

> _Originally posted by JohnTivo _
> *Did you expand the first drive when replacing the original? What was the command you used?
> 
> I upgraded to a 300 GB drive from the original 250 GB drive with no issues. I will be upgrading again when I can find the new seagate 7200.8 400 GB drive. Any one seen them forsale yet? *


I have not been able to find the Segate, but ZipZoomFly.com has the Hitachi DeathStar 400GB. For $340. (Or at least they did the other day.)


----------



## kcmchugh

We issued the mfsadd command, specifically:

mfsadd -x /dev/hdc /dev/hdb 

I did not issue any other command beside this, since all I was doing was adding a 2nd 250GB drive.


----------



## kcmchugh

UPDATE:

We kind of punted. We bought a 2nd 250GB drive and did a backup, then restored to the new drive; issued the mfsadd command to the new Tivo A: drive and new B: drive and everything works fine.

I still don't know why I couldn't expand the original Tivo drive, but this method seems to have worked--we just lost all the programming (because we didn't want to wait the 12 hours to back up all the programming...).


----------



## DJRobX

Ugh, I'm having TOTAL nightmares trying to perform an upgrade on a HR10-250 with two Maxtor 300GB drives.

Basically, whenever MFSTools touches this system in any form, I get a GSOD. Even if I simply backup and restore the original, working drive to the 300GB drive without adding space, it GSODs. The original drive is fine. I've tried performing this dozens of times over the last two weeks and despite many different variables (different computers, different A and B drives, DMA on and off), the results are always exactly the same. I even tried the PTVUpgrade disc vs. the weaknees disc. I'm tellin' ya, I'm desperate here!

Now, if I restore the image and boot and let it sit at GSOD for a while, the tivo will eventually work out the problem and boot up, and all will be OK. I performed the BlessTivo step and it added the extra 127GB without any trouble. However, trying to perform the final MFSADD causes another GSOD. This final GSOD is an endless, rapid loop of GSODs, it's as if it doesn't even try to repair the issue. Perhaps this is the swap space issue I'm reading about? But why aren't the MFSTOOLS working for me, like they seem to be working for everyone else?


----------



## weaknees

MFSTool (alone) does not work with dual 300gb drives. We posted special instructions on how to get this upgrade to work...and we also have step-by-step instructions here:

http://www.upgrade-instructions.com

Good luck.


----------



## DJRobX

Yes, I was following your instructions and command lines to the letter. See my post above, the only part that does work is the part where BlessTiVo adds 127GB. Something strange is going on, because I cannot get through the simple MFSRestore without expansion, without causing a GSOD. When booting from the weaknees LBA48 disc, the Dell computers appear to recognize the larger disks during boot. Maybe I should try on a non-Dell PC?

-- Rob


----------



## weaknees

Well, FWIW, we have a battery of Dell PCs here where we do all of our work. They all work just fine, but you could have a different model.

I can't really see how a GSOD comes up in this process. Are you sure you are shutting down the PC properly before disconnecting the destination drive? Have you tried making a new backup file to use?


----------



## DJRobX

I've made 5 different backups. I just retried the entire procedure with an older Compaq. The result is exactly the same; so the Dell is not the problem. I don't have any other HDTiVo images to test with. There must be something wrong with the original A drive's image that prevents it from being able to be backed up / restored properly. Every step of your procedure *seems* like it's going to work; the tools all report numbers that you'd expect them to, but GSOD is the result when you try and boot once it's been touched by any of the MFS tools. It's just strange because the original drive works. Unfortunately I don't have an alternate source for a backup TiVo image for the HR10-250.

-- Rob


----------



## dswallow

Did you try sending a PM to StanSimmons? (As in his thread saying PM for info about TiVo images)... might be worth a try at this point.


----------



## HDLouco

This post has nothing to do with the problem being discussed. It has to do with an attempt on my part to backup a Tivo drive using a Maxtor 250-GB one that had previously been used in a PC running Windows XP. The backup process completed, but the copy drive did not work in my Tivo. I had to do a low-level reformating of the drive using the Maxtor utilities first. It took many hours overnight! But after that, I managed to do the backup, and the resulting backup disk worked in my Tivo. The low-level reformating aparently overwrites the Windows XP signature on the drive.


----------



## DJRobX

Problem solved! This TiVo's original A image, while it does work on it's own, is apparently not upgradable or something about it is incompatible with MFSTools. I acquired a backup image (thanks, you know who you are), and that backup image worked perfectly as prescribed by the weaknees instructions.

Moral: If the upgrade just won't take, try a virgin image!

-- Rob


----------



## JohnTivo

I've picked up two of the new seagate 400 gig drives. I'm going to use one of them in my HR10-250. 

Since I've already upgraded the orignal 250 gig to a 300 gig, I'm I correct in assuming I can only back up the 300 gig image and restore to the new drive? I cannot keep my existing recordings and expand the new drive?


----------



## weaknees

You probably can't expand the A drive again, so you'll need to lose your recordings if you want to use the extra space.

Michael


----------



## JohnTivo

That's what I figured. Thanks.


----------



## JohnTivo

Just to confirm what I'm doing here:

I've made a backup of the 300 gig using mfsbackup -f 9999 -1so /mnt/backup.bak /dev/hdX.

Now to restore the back up to a new 400 gig, I'm planning on using:
mfsrestore -zi /mnt/backup.bak /dev/hdX
then 
mfsadd -x /dev/hdX

Is this correct?

Thanks


----------



## weaknees

Well, if you are only going to one 400 GB drive, then yes. If you are going to two eventually, then you need to do this differently, with the instructions here:

http://www.upgrade-instructions.com

In fact, if you are going to one drive only, just use "-zxpi" in the first line and you won't need the second.

Michael


----------



## JohnTivo

Thanks...

For now I'm leaving it as a single drive unit. If I add a second drive in the future, I'll start over from my backup...


----------



## weaknees

Then just do:



Code:


mfsrestore -zxpi /mnt/backup.bak /dev/hdX

Michael


----------



## JohnTivo

Well the upgrade is complete...

50 hours of HD... the drive is not as quiet as the maxtor that I replaced, but its still very quiet.


----------



## horta

Hey All

Well I have been a long time reader but not very many post. I have also never hacked or upgraded any of my three tivos, espesially not my HR10-250.

Well today I just bought a Western Digital 250GB drive
WDC WD2500JBRTL  250GB capacity 
 For high-storage activities  8MB data buffer 
 Protection/repair software 

from CC for $79 (after rebates). I also just ordered the weeknees twinbreeze set for my HD Tivo HR10-250 for $49. My plan is to add this to my stock tivo, so two drives with a total of 500 gig. No I have NO CLUE about kernals and MF tools and such. I am hoping the instructions will CLEARALY explain everything to me.

I have a brand new P4 HP pc runing XP (HP Pavilion a350n).


Do you guys with your experiance think I will have any problems with my upgrade plans. I have NOT oped the box to the new WD 250gig drive? I will not open anything until I get the twinbreeze brakets. I am fairly computer literate if i have good instructions but I have never messed with a tivo. My plan is to follow the twinbreeze instructions.

My HR10-250 is plugged into the phone line and has all the lates tivo software upgrades. It has worked perfectly sence day one. I do not use HDMI port yet and may not ever. I know I should upgrade both drives for warrrenty perposes but am just thrilled I could get one 250gig drive for $79. 

Any suggestions will be highly appriciated. My HD tivo is my pride and joy. If I kill it my wife will kill me.

Thanks all
Jerry


----------



## weaknees

We have complete instructions for what you want to do here:

http://www.upgrade-instructions.com

Michael


----------



## horta

Michael

Yes thanks, thats why I bought you twinbreeze kit. I see many people buying MAXTOR drives. Do you have any fear the the Western Digital i bought will not work properly? It was so cheep I just try to be proactive.

Also sence I have zero experiance with MSF tools will I be OK?

Thanks
Jerry


----------



## weaknees

You should be OK without experience - just read carefully.

We really do think the Maxtor QuickViews are the right drives for the job. Western Digital and Seagate also make PVR-specific drives that get used in some TiVos, although QuickViews still account for the majority. Off-the-shelf IDE drives will generally work, but may be noisier and exhibit some other characteristics that aren't perfectly suited to the PVR environment.

Michael


----------



## aaronwt

> _Originally posted by horta _
> *Michael
> 
> Yes thanks, thats why I bought you twinbreeze kit. I see many people buying MAXTOR drives. Do you have any fear the the Western Digital i bought will not work properly? It was so cheep I just try to be proactive.
> 
> Also sence I have zero experiance with MSF tools will I be OK?
> 
> Thanks
> Jerry *


If you have any problems or would rather have someone else do it, you can send the drive into weaknees to have them prepare it. For both my HD TiVos, I bought two 250GB drives for each unit to repalce the existing WD drive. I think it cost me around $90 for Weaknees to prepare each pair of drives for me. Once I received them, all I had to do was install it in the HD-TiVos with the Twinbreeze brackets. They have been working great ever since the installation. The only thing I had to do was change the Acoustic management of the drives to quiet. The Maxtor dives come defaulted to Performance. Without changing teh AM, the drives would be very loud. Once the AM was changed to quiet, the fan noise was louder than teh hard drives. I found the link to the prices.

Supplying your own drive


----------



## horta

Well I try doing it. I think I will be ok. One question, I will be doing a back-up of my original drive but I have no idea how much space it will take? Could I in theroy burn this back-up to a DVD so that it does not take up computer space? 

I will deleate everything on there minus a couple of HD movies or clips. Whats the min space ofr back-up and is HD material take up 1 gig per hour? Obviously I'll need to keep it under 4.7 gig to fit into a DVD right?

Thanks again.

Now the wait begins for my twinbreez kit.....

Jerry


----------



## weaknees

If you do the backup WITH recordings, it'll be huge if you have anything recorded at all - two movies would be larger than a DVD. If you do it without recordings (recommended) the backup will be well under 1 GB - easily small enough to fit on a DVD.

Michael


----------



## horta

Michael

Man your the best, thanks for all the advice. 

So can I make a backup of the image, season passes, thumbs and other settings with out backing up the recordings? Or do I need to DELEATE ALL recordings before I do the back-up. I hope I dont, but if I do oh well. 

Ok last question. I placed my order for the twinbreeze bracket on Friday night. I live in South Florida, do you have any idea by when I should expect it to come it?

I dont think I should mess with my Tivo until I get the braket in my hands.

Thanks
Jerry


----------



## Bunny

Just a note that twin seagate 400gb drives do work with the method posted here by weaknees. Just got two of them on black friday at compusa and did the upgrade; 103 hd hrs / 693 sd hrs for the two 400gb drives. Originally had 77 hd hrs on standard WD and 300gb Maxtor. Temperature went down as well from 49 to 43. Waiting for my twinbreeze bracket which may make it even cooler. My original WD died.....


----------



## Anubys

> _Originally posted by Bunny _
> *Just a note that twin seagate 400gb drives do work with the method posted here by weaknees. Just got two of them on black friday at compusa and did the upgrade; 103 hd hrs / 693 sd hrs for the two 400gb drives. Originally had 77 hd hrs on standard WD and 300gb Maxtor. Temperature went down as well from 49 to 43. Waiting for my twinbreeze bracket which may make it even cooler. My original WD died..... *


oooh...103 HD hours...that's nice...I want that too!

does it make me a bad person to hate you for that? 

How much did you pay for those drives?


----------



## aaronwt

PROVANTAGE has the 400GB Seagate drives for $240 each. Not worth the premium over the 250GB drives for me.


----------



## Anubys

> _Originally posted by aaronwt _
> *PROVANTAGE has the 400GB Seagate drives for $240 each. Not worth the premium over the 250GB drives for me. *


that's a pretty good price...my rule of thumb is that a GREAT deal on a hard drive is about 50 cents per GB...at $240, this is 60 cents per GB...not bad at all...


----------



## vstone

Hitachi Deskstar (old IBM line) also makes a 400GB ATA drive with 8GB cache.

Maxtor is now making a 250 or 300 GB drive with 16 MB cache. Some think that an 8 MB cache (over 2 GB) speeds up response time. If this is true will going to 16 MB bring any benefits?

edit: cache sizes edited to indicate MB, not GB


----------



## horta

Hey guys quick question. When doing a back-up of my drive before adding a second drive, do I need to deleate all the recorded programs. I just wish to make the basic back-up to keep the file small. Can I grad just the bare essetial and not pick the recorded programs or is it a all or nothing type deal?

I would hate to deleat all the HD movies I have in there now if I dont have too, at the same time I dont want some 20 gig back-up file either. I want to burn it onto a DVD and put it away.


By the way I thought I was doing good adding another 250 gig to the stock set-up. Two 400 gig drives is just mind boggeling.

Jerry


----------



## dswallow

A backup won't include recorded programs; it will include the entries for them in Now Playing, so when you restore such a backup, you'll either need to delete them all or just let them roll off on their own and put up with their presence for awhile.


----------



## horta

Doug

Thanks you just made my day.


----------



## Bunny

> _Originally posted by Anubys _
> *oooh...103 HD hours...that's nice...I want that too!
> 
> does it make me a bad person to hate you for that?
> 
> How much did you pay for those drives? *


Compusa had them this Friday in-store for 239.95 before a $30 mail-in rebate, so final price was 209.95. I think it was a two-day special though. For me this was close enough to the 50 cts/GB which is what we all seem to be aiming at.


----------



## JohnTivo

Their online store is now listing the drive @ $299 w/ no rebate. Ouch.


----------



## flapbreaker

Quick question.

Has anyone that upgraded their tivo had the hdmi go out. And did you get DirecTv to replace it. Also how did you handle the dual drive issue. I am wondering if I can just swap the drives out when I get the replacement. So essentially they will get my "old" tivo with their new drives and I put my dual drives in the replacement. I understand that I might need to do a "clear and delete" on the replacement after I put my 2 drives in. Thanks.


----------



## dmwierz

thread discussing doing exactly this


----------



## Runch Machine

Don't swap the drives out, just swap the HDMI card from the hopefully good replacement unit into the unit you previosly upgraded. Test the replacment unit before you open it up to take out the HDMI card. 

Send back the replacement unit with the bad HDMI card and tell Directv that it is also bad and you have decided to wait until they figure out what the real problem is with the HDMI card.


----------



## PRMan

I just upgraded my HD TiVo with a 200GB WD drive I bought on Black Friday for $50. I just used BlessTiVo on PTVUpgrade's Series 2 iso CD and their bracket. Everything worked the first time (I have done this before, though). Do make sure you plug the IDE data cable into the existing drive BEFORE tightening down the angle bracket, though.

So, for $70, I almost doubled my space to 57 hours of HD. 

Also, when I looked at my troublesome HDMI card, I noticed that there is a small tin bracket that is supposed to hold it in place. Unfortunately, they bend it into place and the force of the card trying to escape is supposed to hold it. That will work right up until the truck hits a pothole, in which case the metal springs back upright instead of bent and the card comes loose. I have always had a flaky HDMI card, but after replacing the bracket while I was in there, it's now rock solid!

I highly recommend anyone with a flaky HDMI card to take out the 5 Torx screws and reposition this bracket. It's much easier than sending the unit back to D*. And, unfortunately, if they send you another one, the same thing can happen in shipping. There is no way that they will know whether you attempted this and you are saving them $$$ if you succeed.


----------



## dr_mal

I'm pretty sure I have a hard drive dying in my TiVo  (random stutters on playback of shows that go away after a reboot, random reboots, still on software version D so it's not related to a software upgrade)

I added a 2nd WD 250GB drive a while back, and I'd like to keep my recordings.

If I get another 250GB drive, will the dd command in Hinsdale's Step 10, upgrade configuration #4 do the trick? Or is there anything special I need to be aware of?

(upgrade-instructions.com appears to only have instructions for unmodified systems)


----------



## bsnelson

dr_mal, what is the command? Basically, you have to determine which of your drives is bad, then dd the contents of that one to the new drive. If you use the same make and model of drive, you'll probably have no issues, but if you use a different drive, beware: Not all xxxGB drives are created equal. The target must have as many or more LBA blocks as the source for the transfer to work. These numbers are printed on the disk label for most drives. 

I would hook the drives to seperate IDE channels in the PC, and do something like this:

dd if=/dev/hdb of=/dev/hdc conv=noerror,sync bs=512c

This means to not stop on errors, pad the target to make up for any unreadable sectors from the source, and copy 512 bytes (characters) at a time. This will be a little slower than using a bigger "bs", but it will give you a better chance at getting as much data as possible from a failing drive. 

Brad


----------



## dr_mal

Thanks Brad.

The command I was referring to is:

dd if=/dev/hda of=/dev/hdc bs=1024k

(of course, modifying hda to hdb if my TiVo's second drive is the bad one)

The extra parameters you mentioned make sense to me.

I need to run diagnostics against the drives tonight to confirm my suspicion that I have a bad drive, but once that's done, I'll pick up another drive. IIRC, going from WD to Maxtor drives will work, since the Maxtors are generally a bit bigger given the same marketing capacity. Or should I just stick with WD?

Grrr. Doesn't my TiVo know it's *next* week I have off work and will have time to deal with all this?


----------



## dr_mal

Boo. The original drive in my HR10-250 doesn't pass SMART testing - the Raw Read Error Rate is 1, where the threshold is 51. The WD disk testing utilities won't even run the quick test since it failed SMART testing.

The TiVo more or less works for a few hours at a time, though. Do I stand a chance of saving the data from this drive?


----------



## dswallow

> _Originally posted by dr_mal _
> *Boo. The original drive in my HR10-250 doesn't pass SMART testing - the Raw Read Error Rate is 1, where the threshold is 51. The WD disk testing utilities won't even run the quick test since it failed SMART testing.
> 
> The TiVo more or less works for a few hours at a time, though. Do I stand a chance of saving the data from this drive? *


Copying 250GB isn't going to go quickly, but as long as it all could be read, you'd have a chance.

I'd do it in two steps, first a regular backup that can be restored, then a disk-to-disk copy and see if that succeeds.


----------



## dr_mal

Thanks for the advice. I'll need to find a FAT drive to make a backup to, I guess. Seemed like a GREAT idea to convert my drives to NTFS 

I guess what bugs me the most isn't that a drive died -- with four working TiVos in the house, the oldest of which dates back to September 2000, and 3 of which have been expanded to dual drives, it was bound to happen sooner or later -- it's that it's the newest drive out of the 7 I have running in a TiVo, and the one that came with the most expensive TiVo yet. Heck, the 2nd drive in my HR10-250 was used in a PC-based HDTV PVR for over a year and checks out OK with WD's tests.

Payday's Wednesday -- I'll pick up a new drive then.

Thanks guys for the feedback.


----------



## aaronwt

Dump the WD drives. I removed both my original WD drives and replaced them with two MAxtor drives in each machine. That way I don't have to worry about the WD problems, and if I have a warranty issue, I can always put the original drive back in before shipping the unit back to DirecTV.


----------



## kjnorman

> _Originally posted by dr_mal _
> *Boo. The original drive in my HR10-250 doesn't pass SMART testing - the Raw Read Error Rate is 1, where the threshold is 51. The WD disk testing utilities won't even run the quick test since it failed SMART testing.
> 
> The TiVo more or less works for a few hours at a time, though. Do I stand a chance of saving the data from this drive? *


Try dd_restore.

You may want to look at this thread. It saved my recordings after an enormous failure (2208 bad sectors!)

Now this was on just a regular SD Tivo, and the process took about 2 hours (I think) but I did manage to save every program I had (some 77 hours worth) and bring my Tivo mack to life so it is worth a try.

Kerry


----------



## dr_mal

That sounds intriguing. I started the dd command suggested above on the 14th at 8:37 pm. On the evening of the 16th, it threw some read errors. After calculating my blocksize and number of blocks reported on the errors, it appeared to be at about the 120GB point of copying 250GB. The dd command still looks like it's running -- the hard drives are busy and I don't have a command prompt back yet. But I would've thought the last 130GB should've been done by now. Unless someone yells "don't!" I'm going to abort the 6-day-old dd command and try the dd_rescue as detailed in the link in the previous post.


----------



## dr_mal

Kerry, the next time you're in Denver, I owe you a drink or something. :up:

After six days of staring at the blinking "dd" cursor, I went ahead and tried dd_rescue. About 4 hours later, I had a fully-functional, recordings-saved HD TiVo again.

Thanks everyone for the help.


----------



## donaudio

Compusa has a 300 GB Seagate hard drive on sale for $150 after rebates. How do these compare to Maxtor and WD? Thanks, Don


----------



## dswallow

> _Originally posted by donaudio _
> *Compusa has a 300 GB Seagate hard drive on sale for $150 after rebates. How do these compare to Maxtor and WD? Thanks, Don *


I've heard different things from different people, and am not quite sure what to believe.

But one thing is certain -- Seagate refused to license the AAM technology so they have disabled the ability to adjust acoustic management on their drives.

Some say the Seagate 300GB is louder than the Seagate 400GB.

Some say the Seagate 400GB is noisy.

Some say the Seagate 300GB is as quiet as the Maxtor with acoustic management on.

Some say the Seagate 400GB is as quiet as the Maxtor with acoustic management on.

Performance-wise it works fine. Any noise is just something you'd have to judge for yourself, I think.


----------



## dswallow

BTW, Best Buy as the Seagate 300GB drive for $139.99 after $80 mail-in rebate.


----------



## donaudio

Thanks a lot for the quick response and the info. Don


----------



## jjmpeters

I just picked up a 300GB Seagate drive from BestBuy and want to upgrade my upgraded HR10-250. When I first got it, I installed a new 300GB Maxtor as the "B" drive keeping the original drive as the "A" drive.

I now want to replace the original "A" drive with the new Seagate model. If I just do a full backup from the old to the new, and then make sure its expanded to its full capacity, is that all I'd need to do? I want to restore the orginal image to the orginal drive in case I need to replace the unit in the future.

Thanks.


John


----------



## weaknees

It's actually a bit more complicated than that for several reasons. Best bet is to use the info here:

http://www.upgrade-instructions.com

and just make the backup from your two drives and then follow the steps to restore to two drives.

Michael


----------



## leesweet

Anyone have a current (good) source for the Seagate 400s? CompUsa is still $299, and Provantage doesn't seem to even list them (search there returns a max of 300GB). Thanks!


----------



## littymrmrs

I have had five Hr-10-250 units within a period of 6 weeks. The units that I have been receiving are all from Mexico. I was informed by DirecTV that I needed to receive a unit from a manufacturing site in USA. So I asked them to send me one and they have tried three different times and have failed each time. Still Mexico. My problem now is that when I receive and hook a new unit everything works great for 4 days while using the 3.1.5d software. On the 4th or 5th day Tivo downloads a new software version,3.1.5e. When this happens my ota signal meter stops working all together and the ota tuners ability to hold ota signals weakens.I experience breakup on certain ota stations. I have contacted DirecTV each time and each time I am told they have never heard of that. ( five times with me for sure). My newest receiver was installed yesterday by me and my ota signal meter is working great and no breakup. Meter readings are 85-95 on all ota stations. In less than 4 days Tivo will do there download and I will loose the ota signal meter, and the tuners ability to hold signal. Very upset with Tivo and DirecTV for not moving faster or recording these problems.


----------



## oatnet

> _Originally posted by aaronwt _
> *PROVANTAGE has the 400GB Seagate drives for $240 each. Not worth the premium over the 250GB drives for me. *


I'd jump on a pair of those if I could find that price on PROVANTAGE, but I can't find it on their website! I see EXTERNAL seagates 400gb for $320, and I see Hitachi 400gb for $380.

Can you help me find the price? I'd really like to get on this.

-John


----------



## leesweet

Huh? Are *any* made in the USA any more? That was the first batch, and then all production shifted to Mexico. Mine was made in July in Mexico, and is fine. (If they are trying to get you a USA-build, it could be even more likely to have a bad drive, being that old!)

As for e causing all these problems, I'd try swapping out the drive. There's no way for them to tell you did it, and you could just be getting bad units that were returned and reshipped after the image was loaded. Bad drives are bad drives, you can't fix them without replacing the drive, and I've not heard of D* replacing drives as long as they spun up! If e caused these problems directly, we'd have 25,000 flaky machines, and that's not the case at all.


----------



## JohnTivo

> _Originally posted by oatnet _
> *I'd jump on a pair of those if I could find that price on PROVANTAGE, but I can't find it on their website! I see EXTERNAL seagates 400gb for $320, and I see Hitachi 400gb for $380.
> 
> Can you help me find the price? I'd really like to get on this.
> 
> -John *


Provantage is not stocking the seagate 400 gb drive right now. The only place that I can find that has them in stock is compusa. Their current price is not that good considering they were selling them just a short while ago for under $200 after rebate.


----------



## leesweet

Thanks for the update... hm, how desperate am I to upgrade this beast *right now*... ?


----------



## jjmpeters

How big of a drive am I going to need to store the image if I'm trying to retain my recordings? I thought I could eliminate this if I could simply transfer the files from the old A drive to the new A drive. Thanks.



> _Originally posted by weaknees _
> *It's actually a bit more complicated than that for several reasons. Best bet is to use the info here:
> 
> http://www.upgrade-instructions.com
> 
> and just make the backup from your two drives and then follow the steps to restore to two drives.
> 
> Michael
> 
> --------------------------
> 
> Originally posted by jjmpeters
> 
> I just picked up a 300GB Seagate drive from BestBuy and want to upgrade my upgraded HR10-250. When I first got it, I installed a new 300GB Maxtor as the "B" drive keeping the original drive as the "A" drive.
> 
> I now want to replace the original "A" drive with the new Seagate model. If I just do a full backup from the old to the new, and then make sure its expanded to its full capacity, is that all I'd need to do? I want to restore the orginal image to the orginal drive in case I need to replace the unit in the future.
> 
> Thanks.
> 
> *


----------



## weaknees

You could "dd" from the old 250 to the new 300, and then do an mfsadd from there - that's probably your best bet if you want to save recordings. The copy will take quite a while.

Michael


----------



## dswallow

> _Originally posted by jjmpeters _
> *How big of a drive am I going to need to store the image if I'm trying to retain my recordings? I thought I could eliminate this if I could simply transfer the files from the old A drive to the new A drive. Thanks. *


The backup he's referring to is without recordings; good to have that around in any case -- typically it's around 150MB and can easily be burned to a CD for safekeeping.

There's a couple ways you can preserve recordings when you do an upgrade, but restoring the backup doesn't preserve them. Consider it a simple way to preserve all your settings should you need to go through a disaster recovery later.


----------



## dr_mal

> _Originally posted by weaknees _
> *You could "dd" from the old 250 to the new 300, and then do an mfsadd from there - that's probably your best bet if you want to save recordings. The copy will take quite a while.
> 
> Michael *


And if you have access to another Linux boot CD (or another Linux machine), you might consider using dd_rescue - dd_rescue provides you with feedback as it's copying. dd just gives you a blinking cursor, so you have no idea if you're 1% done, 99% done, or stuck somewhere in the middle.


----------



## longshot94

I have a few questions, I am using DSmooths method to enable USB ethernet support on my HR10-250 but am having problems. When i go to mount the hdc6 partition to copy over killinihdtrd it says sucessfull but then says i have to define the filesystem

I ran the weakness guide to backup the original drive and restored it to a Seagate 400gb and am using that. I have tested the drive and it works after the backup\restore.

Anyone have any insight?


----------



## buckeye1010

> I have a few questions, I am using DSmooths method to enable USB 
> ethernet support on my HR10-250 but am having problems. When i go to 
> mount the hdc6 partition to copy over killinihdtrd it says sucessfull but 
> then says i have to define the filesystem
>
That guide is rather old now - it was written before the "e" update. You probably have your kernel on the 3 partition now. Boot up with the boot CD, and use the "bootpage -p /dev/hdX" - where "X' is the drive letter of how your Tivo drive is hooked up to your PC. Bootpage will give you the partition of the root directory. The Kernel directory is one less.


----------



## longshot94

thx for the tidbit should be able to figure out from there.


----------



## bald_rick

HELP!

Here's the problem. I am replacing the original WD 250GB with 2 Seagate 300gb. If I install 1 300GB drive, it works great. When I install both, it goes into a reboot loop! I need to get a serial adaptor to get console access, but in the meantime, does anyone have any ideas what I may be doing wrong, or what the problem may be?

Note - I followed the directions carefully before trying a bunch of other things. I have tried 3 different cables (40 and 80 wire) with and without CS and hard-coded master slave, and nothing works.

-rick


----------



## dswallow

Did you read the info around here somewhere about a ~257GB limit to an MFS partition, such that you need to go through some extra steps to deal with a >250GB B drive?


----------



## bald_rick

Perhaps I need to be more specific. I followed the directions, including the ones from tivo.upgrade-instructions.com for using >250GB drives. I get a reboot loop.


----------



## dswallow

> _Originally posted by bald_rick _
> *Perhaps I need to be more specific. I followed the directions, including the ones from tivo.upgrade-instructions.com for using >250GB drives. I get a reboot loop. *


So among the other steps, you booted using the Tyger CD, ran BlessTiVo on the new B drive, saw it say it's blessed for 137GB, then booted with the Weaknees CD and ran the mfsadd -x ... command, right?

I just want to be sure because that's key to getting it to work; from there someone with more experience with large drives on the HR10-250 will have to start trying to help. I haven't gone through this yet myself.


----------



## KFL

Actually the instructions say to boot with Tyger, run blesstivo, and then put the drives back into the TiVo, let it boot up and then remove them and put them back in the pc, boot the Weaknees lba 48 cd and then do the mfsadd -x command. I did it wrong 4 times before I caught that little thing. I have been running with a 300 as A and a 400 as B for 4 days now. Two Seagate drives and very quiet too.

Thanks to the Weaknees folks for the instructions!!!!!!!!


----------



## spellow

So I just purchased my HD Tivo.

Do Ya'll reccomend that I wait a bit before I do the upgrade, or should I do it right off the bat?


----------



## PJO1966

If you're planning on using HDMI, I would wait a bit to make sure it works properly.


----------



## pmaddock

On the other hand if you wait you'll build up a stack of recordings. Either you'll have to lose them or your upgrade will take longer and require more resources because of the time to save the recordings.


----------



## spellow

My TV doesn't have an HDMI input so what would be the best solution for my tv. It's a rear projection Hitachi 51SWX20B, supports DVI, SVidio and Y, Pr, Pb Component Video.

what of the below would provide the best picture and how much better picture would I have if I had HDMI?

1. HDMI to DVI converter cable
2. Y, Pr, Pb Component Video Outputs
3. S Video


----------



## dr_mal

> _Originally posted by spellow _
> *My TV doesn't have an HDMI input so what would be the best solution for my tv. It's a rear projection Hitachi 51SWX20B, supports DVI, SVidio and Y, Pr, Pb Component Video.
> 
> what of the below would provide the best picture and how much better picture would I have if I had HDMI?
> 
> 1. HDMI to DVI converter cable
> 2. Y, Pr, Pb Component Video Outputs
> 3. S Video *


The order you've listed them has the best quality at the top and worst at the bottom.

HDMI is just DVI + audio - there's no conversion of the data involved going between HDMI and DVI, so you're not losing any quality. You'll just need to pass the audio to the TV (or your receiver) with a separate cable.


----------



## spellow

ah, cool...I run Dolby AC3 from the Tivo to my receiver anyway, I don't use my TV for sound at all.

Thanks a bunch for the info..

and I just read that the HD Tivo comes with a HDMI to DVI cable...so I guess I'm all set.


----------



## JaredB

Hi, I tried out the weaknees bracket for my hidef tivo. It works great, but I bought a cheap hard drive and it died.
Anyway, I'm getting rid of my bracket I think. Does someone want to buy it off me? It's in new condition and comes with all accessories etc.

I looked for a buying/selling section here on these boards but couldn't find one so forgive me if I'm not supposed to list this type of stuff here.

Feel free to emil or pm me directly.


----------



## Kbert5

<<Hi, I tried out the weaknees bracket for my hidef tivo. It works great, but I bought a cheap hard drive and it died.
Anyway, I'm getting rid of my bracket I think.>>

It sounds like you're giving up on the modification. (?)


----------



## JaredB

Yeah, I'm giving up on the mod for now. Adding the extra drive with the bracket was the easy part. The problem was in backing up drives and determining which drive went bad etc. I'm on a Mac, not a PC and I realized that most of the software out there for this stuff is PC only.

I'm thinking of buying a cheap PC and then doing an FTP setup with my Tivo in order to back up material. At that point an extra drive would be nice, but not that necessary. Thought I might as well pass it on to someone who can get more immediate use out of it.

I bought it for $50 and I'll try to sell it for $30. If no one wants it, maybe I'll still use it in the future.


----------



## tivoboy

I just PM'ed you


----------



## JaredB

Weaknees bracket has been sold.


----------



## tivoboy

doh!


----------



## leesweet

CompUSA has the Seagate 400s now at $229 after $30 mail-in and $40 instant rebates! Price good until 1/15, according to:
http://www.compusa.com/products/product_info.asp?product_code=316153&pfp=BROWSE&tabtype=rb#moreinfo


----------



## dean1969

Okay, I just signed up for this forum and I've seen numerous posts referring to the "Other" forum. Someone please fill me in on where the "Other" forum is.

Thanks


----------



## Anubys

one possibility is the AVS forum...try is without spaces and add the .com (I don't think we're allowed to post the URL)


----------



## dr_mal

www.avsforum.com is allowed - both avs and tcf are run by David Bott. The other forum is one where you might want to find a good DEAL in a DATABASE. They discuss things there that, under the most strict interpretations of the DMCA, could get Bott in trouble if his site has links to it, so that's why he doesn't allow links here.


----------



## pmaddock

Looking for any advice/experience unique to a HDTivo upgrade failure. 

I did my upgrade about 8 months ago when we were still learning. Its a dual 250GB HD arrangement where I added the 2nd one via BlessTivo. Fortunately I didn't trust much so I used a DD copy of the original drive. The original drive is still on the shelf from before the upgrade. (In fact my experience was recorded in the early posts on this thread.)

At this point I'm getting stuttering that gotten progressively worse. It started with random pausing but now its progressed to randomly causing the recorder to reboot. I'm not completely certain but I get the impression that deleting recordings seems to buy me some time so it might be a bad spot on the disk and/or a situation where the drive loses it after a certain period of time.

From the other posts out there this seems to look like typical drive failure. At this point the strategy seems to be replace one or both drives - using DD or ddrescue to save the data.

Questions:
1. Is there any foolproof method of determining which drive is going bad and/or how much life it may have before it totally fails?
2. Is there a way I can make lemonade out of this lemon and move to a dual 300 arrangement or is it best to go with the dual 250s as the safest restoration path?
3. I know its an opinion loaded area but any feelings on which drive maker is more reliable lately? The failing arrangement was done on Maxstors. (Sidebar I know the quickview drives have their fans but I really want something I can buy at a store and fix this weekend so I don't lose another episode of Lost.)

Thanks for the input.


----------



## dswallow

Paul there'll be utilities you can get from the drive manufacturer to perform non-destructive testing on the drives; those usually will identify problems -- though not 100% of the time. Make sure to look at any log files they create, too. Don't rely completely on it coming back with a :this drive has a problem" if the drive is just intermittently having troubles.

Lately I've not got a sense there's any real tendency of one manufacturers drives to fail over anothers. Failures seem to be somewhat across the board; unlike years ago when a version of IBM's Deskstar line had failures due to an overheating chip.


----------



## dwynne

Like dswallow said, you can download a drive test util for every drive now. If you used Maxtors then the program is "PowerMax". If you purchased retail drives then this is likely on the included CD - or the program to make a boot floppy is. If not, you can download it free from the Maxtor web page. The program is here or you can find it by going to maxtor.com, support, US, software downloads, ATA diagnostics.

I have had terrible luck with Maxtor drives in general, and with them in DVRs in particular. I quit buying them and use WD or Seagate - sometimes a Hitachi and have not had any problems with these (knock on wood).

Like you, I have not tried the quickview DVR type drives due to the high prices and limited availability.

Dennis


----------



## pmaddock

It appears that my drive options may be more limited than I thought. Maxstors seem to have slightly more LBA blocks than the other 'equivalent' drives. So to do the simple dd rescue operation it looks like I'm going to have to go with Maxstor again. Considering I've had a failure like this in a mere 8 months that's not a very good thought.

I've read hints that it might be possible to do a dd to a larger drive and then use MFS tools to create additional partitions. Anyone have any experience doing this on 2 drives at once? (Going from 2x250 to 2x300)


----------



## groovybeat

Q: Is it possible to replace the HR10-250's existing 250 GB drive with a larger drive (say 300 or 400 GB), and then later (down the road) add a second drive? Or if you're going to go to 2 drives, you must do this all at once (only one chance to upgrade)?

thanks
groovybeat


----------



## groovybeat

For some more detail on my last post:

I'm in the process of replacing my stock 250 with a new 400 GB A drive. I'm using

mfsbackup -Tao - /dev/hdX | mfsrestore -s 127 -xzpi - /dev/hdZ

to copy the contents of the 250 onto the new 400, and expand. I'll
then keep the old 250 on the shelf as a backup.

Now, down the road if I want to add a second drive to my newly
upgraded 400 GB system (say a second 400 GB == total of 800 GB),
what are the proper steps (given I've already upgraded/expanded the
primary drive)?

From what I've read, sounds like it *should* work if you just do a
BlessTivo on the 2nd drive and pop it in (instead of using
mfsadd). But it's not entirely clear...

What's not clear to me is if there's only one chance to do an upgrade. i.e., if I upgrade/expand my A drive, can I still later add a B drive. Btw, I'm aware of some of the issues regarding drives > 256GB and the MFSTools - but not sure if this is only an issue when upgrading 2 drives at once...


----------



## pmaddock

Small update - I got 2 new Maxstors and am doing the dd rescue now on the B drive. Errors started showing up fairly quickly so it would appear that it was indeed the B drive that was failing. Hopefully copying a new set will work out. I noticed that although the LBA size was the same that the model numbers have changed - perhaps these have been improved a little. I really wish I could have changed brands.

In the meantime I'm learning that having a backup came in handy. When I did the original upgrade I did a dd copy of the original factory drive and put the original on the shelf. It was really nice being able to plug that drive back in the unit and have something to work with right away.

For anyone considering upgrading take this as a lesson - ALWAYS have a backup ready. Either dd copy the factory drive and save it like I did or do an MFSbackup and TEST IT as part of any upgrade!


----------



## buckeye1010

> _Originally posted by pmaddock _
> *
> 
> For anyone considering upgrading take this as a lesson - ALWAYS have a backup ready. Either dd copy the factory drive and save it like I did or do an MFSbackup and TEST IT as part of any upgrade! *


No truer words have ever been typed. Got me out of a bind!

-Bruce


----------



## leesweet

> _Originally posted by groovybeat _
> *FFrom what I've read, sounds like it *should* work if you just do a
> BlessTivo on the 2nd drive and pop it in (instead of using
> mfsadd). But it's not entirely clear...
> 
> What's not clear to me is if there's only one chance to do an upgrade. i.e., if I upgrade/expand my A drive, can I still later add a B drive. Btw, I'm aware of some of the issues regarding drives > 256GB and the MFSTools - but not sure if this is only an issue when upgrading 2 drives at once... *


 I think you can do it twice, as you say. But I've not seen explicitly addressed here yet, I think partially because most people upgrade it once! (For example, I've got two Seagate 400s at the recent $219 price, and will do it this weekend; I can't see doing it twice when drives are so cheap.)


----------



## pmaddock

> _Originally posted by leesweet _
> *I think you can do it twice, as you say. But I've not seen explicitly addressed here yet, I think partially because most people upgrade it once! (For example, I've got two Seagate 400s at the recent $219 price, and will do it this weekend; I can't see doing it twice when drives are so cheap.) *


Well for some of the people who did upgrades last year the larger drives weren't so cheap. I would love to look at expanding past my dual 250 arrangement were it not for the crash I'm working with now.

Speaking of the crash - my dd_rescue has been running for over 2 days now. Its processed only the first 10GB with about 100MB of data errors. So, for anyone who has a crash and wants to try this - get ready for a potentially very long recovery window.


----------



## slocko

Okay. I finally got around to upgrading my Tivo using the Weak bracket. The instructions are excellent and even though I never had upgraded a Tivo before, it went pretty smooth. I am not good with spatial images, so some of the diagrams I had to look at frequently.

Now making the 2nd drive useable by Tivo proved to be a little bit of a challenge. I followed the steps below and immediately ran into some problems. First problem was that the BlessTivo command didn't work. Knowing DOS I figured that the actual command might be in a sub directory. Using dir to search for it, I found it in the Bin directory. First hurdle crossed!

For some reason, the order in which I had my drives connected differed than what the instructions assumed and my bless command didn't work.

I panicked and didn't know what to do. I thought maybe I needed the original drive so I hooked that one up to. Same thing.

The error screen gave me status on the mounted devices and I noticed that one of the drives aid -ro which I assumed meant readonly. Somehow it dawned on me that maybe it was trying to Bless the wrong drive. I tried playing with the mount command to see if I could mount the correct drive, but quickly gave up since I was out of my depth at that point.

I decided to reboot carefully looking at the messages and noticed that Maxtor was being mounted with HDB and not HDC. HDC was my dvd drive.

So I reran BlessTivo with HDB and it seemed to work.

At this point I was sure that somehow I had blessed the original Tivo drive and screwed up everything. With much trepidation, I finished installing the bracket and took my HD-Tivo upstairs and connected. I held my breath and saw that it has booting up. I felt relieved when I saw it finish and thought at least it's working.

I checked my recording and they were all there. Okay, good. At least I didn't lose anything. Then for the big test, I went to system settings and behold!!!! The must beautiful number in the universe, 63 hours!!!!!!!!

I consider myself lucky, that I didn't bless the wrong drive. I am not sure what would have happened.

Now I hope my luck holds out and this unit doesn't head south. I definetely don't want to have to put everything back just to ship it back to D*. I think at that point, I might just buy a drive and do it myself.

So my advice, if you are comfortable swapping drives in pcs and know how to use DOS, go for it.



> _Originally posted by gr8reb8 _
> *I received my brand new HR10-250 yesterday. This is what I did to upgrade to two new 250Gb drives. The original 250Gb will be set on a shelf as a "virgin" backup drive. Overkill? Yes.
> 
> From this page
> Download this and burn as ISO to a CD
> Follow hardware guide to remove original drive from Tivo
> 
> 1. Install original hdtivo drive in secondary master (hdc). FAT32 win98 Hd is primary master, cdrom is primary slave.
> 
> 2. Configure BIOS to boot to CD. Boot up ptv's lb48 cd. (When prompted, press enter until you get to the Linux prompt.)
> If you know your FAT32 drive, your cable and your PC support DMA, turn it on with
> hdparm -d1 /dev/hda (this turns it on for your FAT32 disk connected to primary master)
> hdparm -d1 /dev/hdc (this turns it on for the drive connected to secondary master (hdtivo drive))
> 
> 3. Mount drive using following commands
> mkdir /mnt/dos
> mount /dev/hda1 /mnt/dos
> 
> 4. Backup using this command (should take 5-20 minutes)
> mfsbackup -f 9999 -1so /mnt/dos/hd_tivo.bak /dev/hdc
> 
> 5. Type reboot and when machine has rebooted and stopped at the first prompt on CD, turn off pc.
> 
> 6. Remove original hdtivo drive from pc.
> 
> 7. Install brand new 250Gb drive in secondary master (hdc). Leave jumper on "cable-select"
> 
> 8. Boot up ptv's lb48 cd. (When prompted, press enter until you get to the Linux prompt.)
> If you know your FAT32 drive, your cable and your PC support DMA, turn it on with
> hdparm -d1 /dev/hda (this turns it on for your FAT32 disk connected to primary master)
> hdparm -d1 /dev/hdc (this turns it on for the drive connected to secondary master (new 250Gb drive))
> 
> 9. mount drive using following commands
> mkdir /mnt/dos
> mount /dev/hda1 /mnt/dos
> 
> 10. Restore to new drive using following commands (should take 5-15 minutes)
> mfsrestore -s 127 -zpi /mnt/dos/hd_tivo.bak /dev/hdc
> 
> 11. Type reboot and when machine has rebooted and stopped at the first prompt on CD, turn off pc.
> 
> 12. Remove the newly created hdtivo primary drive. Move jumper to "primary master w/slave present"
> 
> 13. Install brand new 250Gb (or larger) drive in secondary master (hdc). Leave jumper on "cable-select"
> 
> 14. Boot up ptv's lb48cd. (When prompted, press enter until you get to the Linux prompt.)
> 
> 15. Prepare the drive to be used as secondary in the HDTivo using the following command (this should take less than 10 seconds)
> BlessTiVo /dev/hdc
> 
> 16. Type reboot and when machine has rebooted and stopped at the first prompt on CD, turn off pc.
> 
> 17. Remove the newly created hdtivo secondary drive. Move jumper to "slave".
> 
> Follow hardware guide to install the two new drives in Tivo.
> 
> Now, enjoying my 63HD hours! *


----------



## oatnet

Anyone find any more good bargains on the Seagate 400gb? I really want to do the upgrade - but I really want to pay $240/drive or less, not $300+/drive like on ebay...


----------



## corba

can someone tell me if adding a 2nd disk to HR10 will slow down 'now playing' lists like it did on HDVR2?


----------



## aaronwt

It didn't on both of my units. I replaced the stock WD drive with two 250GB MAxtor drives in both of my units. I see no difference in the "Now Playing" list. With several pages it pops up very quickly.


----------



## btwyx

> _Originally posted by corba _
> *can someone tell me if adding a 2nd disk to HR10 will slow down 'now playing' lists like it did on HDVR2? *


 It may be a bit slow at times, but no where near as bad as a 120GB HDVR2.


----------



## oatnet

> _Originally posted by btwyx _
> *It may be a bit slow at times, but no where near as bad as a 120GB HDVR2. *


I have been running (2) HDVR2s and a GXCEBOT all with twin 120gb (240gb total). Generally they run pretty fast EXCEPT when I fill them up to the point of approaching capacity. Autorecord Tivo Selections also fills the disk to capacity so I have that turned off. Other than that I have no speed issues with them per se, and they are pretty much as fast as the two HR10-250s I have added. Hopefully when I install twin 400gb's (800gb total each) I'll won't have speed problems.

My only problem now is finding those 400gb at a good price -c'mon someone must have a hookup! 

John


----------



## weaknees

Right - keeping these units about 15% free does tend to alleviate many of the slowdowns that full units see. Keeping TiVo Suggestions auto-record off is pretty important for this reason.

Michael


----------



## CCBarnett

I plan to replace my original 250GB hard drive with 2 400GB hard drives.
I want to backup original TIvo drive on the drive with the FAT32 partition.
I can't get by the first step.

a=original TiVO hard drive
b=Hard Drive 76GB, FAT32, one partiton

Using the"Weaknees" boot disk.

I issued:
mount /dev/hdb /mnt 

I got back:

Bogus Logical Sector Size 55438
Can't find valid FAT filesystem
Mount Aborted


Where did I miss the boat? Thanks.


__________________


----------



## boiler11

> _Originally posted by CCBarnett _
> *
> I issued:
> mount /dev/hdb /mnt
> 
> I got back:
> 
> Bogus Logical Sector Size 55438
> Can't find valid FAT filesystem
> Mount Aborted
> *


You need to specify a partition to mount, not a drive. Also, it's good practice to mount in a directory other than /mnt, i.e. /mnt/fat_partition.

mkdir -p /mnt/fat_partition
mount /dev/hdb1 /mnt/fat_partition

Of course you don't have to use "fat_partition", you can use whatever you want.


----------



## pmaddock

Has anyone using the 9th tee bracket had any issues with heat related drive crashes - specifically on the B drive? 

The reason I ask is that I did an upgrade with the 9th tee bracket when they first came out last year. I started getting stuttering so I swapped in my backup and have been running rescue to try to restore the data. What I'm finding is that the A drive had no problem at all but the B drive was filled with bad sectors distributed across the drive. I thought this was odd since when I did the upgrade I replaced the A drive so both the A and B drive are the same Maxstor drives bought at the same time.

While running this extended rescue attempt (its been running for many days now) I've noticed that the drive, still mounted on the bracket, seems to be running fairly hot by comparison to the new target drive I've got mounted in the PC case. I don't have any sophisticated testing tools but on visual inspection it looks to me like that bracket doesn't offer much ventilation. The bottom is a solid metal piece as compared to the weaknees bracket which is open at the bottom. 

I'm starting to think that the bracket 'cooked' my B drive. I had no idea this was happening as the Tivo reported a perfectly normal overall operating temp.

Any opinions?


----------



## JB3

I posted this in a "bad drive" thread, but I guess it fits here...

I have an HD TiVo that I was sure had a drive going bad. This all started about a month after I'd added a second 250GB WD drive. The interface would randomly hang and then the box would reboot. It would get stuck at "powering up". If I'd power cycle it then it would reboot fine and then work a while longer.

This started right before the holidays, so I've been lazy in troubleshooting it. There was also about a 2 - 3 week interval where it all worked ok. 

Then the problem came back, so I took the time to start trying to figure this out. Backed things up and then I ran the Western Digital Diags on both drives. Both ok on quick scan and full surface scan. I didn't do any destructive writes.

Okay, time to work backwards...what changed last? So, I used DD to copy my recently added second drive to a new drive. I then put the new copied "B" drive back in the TiVo. Still having problems, so I checked the power supply voltages. Looks good. I tried replacing the IDE cable. No change. Double checked internal temps....running 36C...looks ok. I'd used a twin breeze bracket with the fan for the upgrade, so I expected this to be ok.

Last night I restored my backup to a new 250GB WD drive and put only this drive in the TiVo with the original mounting bracket and IDE cable. It booted fine. After clearing out the Now Playing List, I tried to schedule a recording of a HD show that was scheduled to start 30 mins in the future. I clicked on the show in the guide, clicked to record this showing and got the typical Please Wait popup. Well after waiting 3 minutes, the box just goes and reboots.

Okay, now I'm thinking this might not be hardware. What if somewhere along the line, the database that TiVo uses to schedule things was corrupted. So I went thru the pain of erasing and deleting everything. An hour+ later, it looks stable, but then again, there's nothing on the drive right now. Got most of my season passes back in this morning now that I have some guide data to work with. I added a bunch of other recordings to try and stress things a little. Time will tell if this solves anything. I plan to backup the new drive tonight just in case.

Anyone have any similar problems/solutions?


----------



## slocko

The Maxtor drive I added is making a clicking noise when I fast forward.

Good or bad thing?


----------



## boiler11

> _Originally posted by pmaddock _
> *The bottom is a solid metal piece as compared to the weaknees bracket which is open at the bottom.
> *


This doesn't help you any, but the bracket I got from ptvupgrade a few months ago has holes in it.



> _Originally posted by slocko _
> *The Maxtor drive I added is making a clicking noise when I fast forward.
> *


I put 2 new Maxtors in mine. They were very noisy all the time until I took them back out and turned on acoustic management. Now they are very quiet and everything works just fine.


----------



## TeeSee

> _Originally posted by slocko _
> *The Maxtor drive I added is making a clicking noise when I fast forward.
> 
> Good or bad thing? *


Bad thing if you don't like a noisy hard drive. Probably nothing to worry about, though.

You might be interested in this thread. http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=180254 This utility you can get from it worked wonders in dampening the loud ticks and clicks in my Maxtor.


----------



## slocko

okay kewl. it's only when fast forwarding. no big deal.


----------



## leesweet

I went to check at CompUSA for the Seagate 400s to see the current status, and they are now $350! Whoa!

At that price, you might as well have WK do it for you....


----------



## boiler11

> _Originally posted by leesweet _
> *I went to check at CompUSA for the Seagate 400s to see the current status, and they are now $350! Whoa!
> 
> At that price, you might as well have WK do it for you.... *


Newegg has them for $260, but they're out of stock until 2/11/2005 (ETA).

Seagate 7200.8 400GB 7200RPM IDE Hard Drive, Model ST3400832A-RK, Retail at Newegg.com


----------



## comp4pod

If noise is an issue, don't buy the Seagate 400's. It's seeks are loud and constant. AAM is not activated so you can't set them to quiet.


----------



## MichaelK

> _Originally posted by weaknees _
> *Right - keeping these units about 15% free does tend to alleviate many of the slowdowns that full units see. Keeping TiVo Suggestions auto-record off is pretty important for this reason.
> 
> Michael *


dont doubt you one bit- but i'm curious if you guys have a hypothesis why this is?

doesn't seem to be a logical reason that i can think of.


----------



## leesweet

Well, the 'noise' of the 400s may be dependent on the background noise, of course, but I don't hear a lot of noise from mine.

As for the 15%, I can see that one show could have problems from being 'squeezed' into all the fragments left, but beyond, I don't know. Linux filesytems shouldn't care that it's at 85% or 90% or whatever, as long as it's not full.


----------



## dswallow

> _Originally posted by MichaelK _
> *dont doubt you one bit- but i'm curious if you guys have a hypothesis why this is?
> 
> doesn't seem to be a logical reason that i can think of. *


I've attributed any major slowdown to exceeding a certain number of unique Now Playing entries -- somewhere around 150; above that it's extremely slow, below that its noticably faster, albeit somewhat linearly degraded depending on the number of entries -- but there's a point where beyond a certain number, the delay becomes extreme.

Someone recording mostly movies is less likely to see the problem than someone who ends up with lots of 30-minute recordings.


----------



## leesweet

Or if you have two large drives and have Suggestions on! 

I might turn Suggestions off in my upgrading unit, and leave it on for the vanilla one....


----------



## slocko

I think my hard drive might be failing.

I got some really bad pixelations during my recording of the superbowl. It started toward the end of the 2nd quarter and continue through the halftime show and beginning of 3rd quarter.

I checked the forums and didn't see any reports of bad pixelation for the broadcast. At one point, I couldn't even fast forward past a certain point in the recording.

If my extra drive fails, does the entire Tivo fail? Would I need at that point to copy a raw image back to the original drive?


----------



## pmaddock

> _Originally posted by slocko _
> *I think my hard drive might be failing.
> 
> If my extra drive fails, does the entire Tivo fail? Would I need at that point to copy a raw image back to the original drive? *


Sorry to report that the answer is yes - the B drive can drag down the entire Tivo. Remember that the drives are 'married' as such Tivo is treating the 2 drives as a single virtual space.

I'm experiencing the fallout of a similar problem which started with bad pixelization and over time the Tivo basically couldn't record anything new. Per some recent posts I found that the A drive was fine but the B drive had massive errors spread all over the drive.

I would recommend that you shut down your Tivo immediately and check out your drives using appropriate diagnostic software (being careful to never boot up with XP/2000 of course). If the damage is limited you will most likely be able to recover using dd_rescue (which will require a new drive). This approach will hopefully allow you to keep most of your recordings.

Unfortunately dd_rescue can run a REALLY long time - particularly if the drive has a lot of damage. I ran it for 2 weeks and only got through 100GB of the drive. Since I knew that the A drive was fine I'm now trying using normal dd set with the conv parameter to simply null out the bad blocks without attempting to recover them. That was last night and it got through 40GB in about 8 hours.

Of course this path assumes the damage is limited to the programming space. If your Tivo crashes and can't reboot its an entirely different ballgame.


----------



## btwyx

> _Originally posted by dswallow _
> *I've attributed any major slowdown to exceeding a certain number of unique Now Playing entries -- somewhere around 150;*


 That'd be me with 320 entries last I looked (only 50-80 were suggestions). Which particular slowdown are we talking about? Navigating the now playing list isn't bad, particularly after you've been through it once (caching it one presumes), but scheduling recording takes minutes and is annoying.


----------



## HDLouco

I tune my HD Tivo to a non-existing channel just before I start programming it for the day. In my area, channel 3 doesn't exist, so I tune my Tivo to channel 3. Then I start the guide and proceed to program for the shows I want to record. From the time a press Select on the RECORD TGHIS PROGRAM screen, it takes only 11 seconds until I get the guide display back. If the Tivo is tuned to an SD channel it takes much longer, and if it is tuned to an HD channel, it takes even longer! Maybe due to the amount of memory being used or CPU overloading. Thought I would post this in case someone here doesn't know it. Thanks for the attention!


----------



## csuich

I have Hughes HD 250 TiVo...

I just received replacement from DirecTV for the HDMI problem.
I wanted to upgrade to 2x250 Maxtors.

I used 
mfstool backup -f 9999 -1so - /dev/hda | mfstool restore -s 127 -zpi - /dev/hdc

BlessTiVo /dev/hdd

1st attempt in TiVo resulted in hanging after "Almost there" screen

I low level quick formated drives thinking they may have been WinXP'ed
Then executed backup -> restore again

When I run "pdisk -l on /dev/hdc" I get "no partion map exists".

Of course "pdisk -l /dev/hda" on original drive reports normal looking TiVo partitions.

"mfstool info" reports hdc10 - 13 on both new hdc and hdd drives

Any thoughts?
Is this normal?
Is this then reason TiVo hangs? duh... but I have to ask

Thanks


******************* 
Solved my own problem
*******************

I must have been running a host computer that did not support drives larger than 137GB even though Linux recognized drive sizes.

I ran on newer computer and changed backup switch to
mfsbackup -Tao - /dev/hdc | mfsrestore -s 127 -xzpi - /dev/hdd /dev/hde

All is well!!! Tivo has 64 hours of HD capacity.


----------



## Anubys

> _Originally posted by dswallow _
> *I've attributed any major slowdown to exceeding a certain number of unique Now Playing entries -- somewhere around 150; above that it's extremely slow, below that its noticably faster, albeit somewhat linearly degraded depending on the number of entries -- but there's a point where beyond a certain number, the delay becomes extreme.
> *


I've had it with how slow my HD-Tivo is...it took 6 minutes to record a movie off the guide two days ago (I timed it...it was 5 min and 46 sec)...so I jumped at this chance...I did it very late last night but I turned off the suggestions and deleted the 200+ (I stopped counting after 200) shows in the now playing list (the ones that were recorded by Tivo)...

I only had time to check the guide speed before I went to bed but the guide was super fast...I will try to do more tonight and report back on the speed...thanks for the tip!


----------



## MichaelK

now that you mention the size of the NPL that does correlate to my experience (both an HR10-250 and an HDVR2 that were upgraded). 

I acutally find the HDVR2 with a single 160(137) to be worse then the HDVR2 with a 400- probabbly i record mostly HD movies and hour long HD discovery channel stuff on the HR10 but the hdvr2 is full of 30 min kid shows.

THe hdvr2 sometimes wont even respond to the remote for 3-5 seconds when the NPL is full. I can go to the NPL and it will be fine, then if i get distracted for a minute or 2 it seems to go on to something else. So when i hit up or down it wont repond for several seconds (usually long enough that i hit the darn channel down button 5 times so i wind up all the way at the other end of the list...).

Anyhow, hopefully 6.x fixes this. It seems to me the database must be really convulted if the NPL effects some many other things. What's the data displyaed on the NPL take on the disk 8k? The way the thing churns and responds you'd think it is intertwined with 2 gigs of other stuff.


----------



## av8tor2

I am sure this question had been asked but got sleepy reading the first 30 pages of this thread!

I want to upgrade my HDTivo with a Maxtor 300GB hard drive now and in a few weeks add another drive to it. Is there any problem that will come up by following the WeeKnees to replace the orginal drive with a new one. Then add a second drive by adding a second larger 400GB drive.

Thanks for the info...

Paul


----------



## weaknees

Won't work that way, unfortunately. You can't add the 400 later to a non-factory A drive due to mfstool limitations. You'd need to add the 400 and the 300 at the same time, or at least following the general steps here:

http://www.upgrade-instructions.com

The key is that you are forcing two partitions on the new drive by using the blessing feature, which goes away with larger A drives.

Michael


----------



## Anubys

Following up on my earlier note...after turning off tivo suggestions and deleting all the tivo-suggested entries from the NPL (I have an upgraded unit with a second drive of 250 GB)... 

I notice a major improvement in the speed of the guide (still slow, but everything is relative). 

I also recorded 2 movies off the guide, each took about 15 seconds to go past the "please wait" screen...this is an improvement off a 5+ minutes worth of waiting before... 

I changed the priority on the season pass list and tried to go out...I never timed this but I usually do it and go away because it takes FOREVER to go to the next screen...I say this was easily a 5 minute wait...this time, it took about 2 minutes...again, not good, but better than before... 

I have not made any changes to the unit except for the suggestions and the cleaning of the NPL (deleted 200+ entries)...so out of a sample of ONE, I say it made a difference...


----------



## av8tor2

Okay...I'll wait until I get another drive...Its going to kill me, cause, I have the bracket, got a computer with FAT32, 300GB HD ATA133....just need to get another drive but $340 for a 400GB is way to much. 

Now for my last question does it matter that the drives are different speeds, The maxtor is ATA133, and other one the Barracuda 7200.8 400GB, 7200RPM, Internal ATA/100 Hard Drive?

Paul


----------



## boiler11

av8tor2 said:


> $340 for a 400GB is way to much.


Post 1561 (top of this page)



av8tor2 said:


> Now for my last question does it matter that the drives are different speeds, The maxtor is ATA133, and other one the Barracuda 7200.8 400GB, 7200RPM, Internal ATA/100 Hard Drive?
> 
> Paul


No.


----------



## jjmpeters

Well I finally decided to give dd a try in completing this upgrade of an upgrade. I installed the TiVo A drive as primary master, TiVo B drive as secondary master, and the new 300GB drive to replace TiVo A as the secondary slave. I input the following:

dd if=/dev/hda of=/dev/hdd bs=1024k

This returned a message of input/output error and returned to the prompt. I then tried:

dd conv=noerror,sync if=/dev/hda of=/dev/hdd bs=1024k

This is still running, but has displayed two different messages about input/output errors. The total records match at each of these messages, with this being an example:

132264+6 records in
132270+o records out

When this finishes, what should I do? Proceeed with mfsadd to expand and marry the drives, or give up and go back to my original configuration (if it still works)?

Thanks.



jjmpeters said:


> I just picked up a 300GB Seagate drive from BestBuy and want to upgrade my upgraded HR10-250. When I first got it, I installed a new 300GB Maxtor as the "B" drive keeping the original drive as the "A" drive.
> 
> I now want to replace the original "A" drive with the new Seagate model. If I just do a full backup from the old to the new, and then make sure its expanded to its full capacity, is that all I'd need to do? I want to restore the orginal image to the orginal drive in case I need to replace the unit in the future.
> 
> Thanks.
> 
> John


----------



## oatnet

That's right, my TiVo is DEAD as a doornail - immediately AFTER a successful upgrade.

I upgraded with twin Hitachi 400mb drives, Deskstar HDS724040KLAT80. They seem like good, quiet, solid units. I used the following procedure (preserving recordings,large drives,no XP,etc) that I got from http://tivo.upgrade-instructions.com/.

Prepare by downloading and burning to CD both the Weaknees and Tyger versions of the software (you need both)
http://www.weaknees.com/weaknees_lba_boot_cd.iso
http://hellcat.tyger.org/MFS/2.0/mfstools2noJ.iso

1) Standard backup of original drive (no problem)

2) Reassemble with these Drive Settings:
HDA: NEW Tivo Drive A (Primary IDE Master)
HDB: NEW Tivo Drive B (Primary IDE Slave)
HDC: CDROM {boot} (Secondary IDE Master)
HDD: original 250gb (Secondary IDE Slave)

3) Boot on Weaknees CD,

4) Run this command: 
mfsbackup -Tao - /dev/hdd | mfsrestore -zi - /dev/hda
It ran from about 2:00-9:00, roughly 7 hours, no problems, no reports of errors or anything. This was on an old Celeron 366mhz over standard 40-conducter cables.

5) Remove original drive and put in static bag.
HDA: NEW Tivo Drive A (Primary IDE Master)
HDB: NEW Tivo Drive B (Primary IDE Slave)
HDC: CDROM {boot} (Secondary IDE Master)

6) Boot onto "Tyger CD".

7) Run this CASE-SENSITIVE command:
BlessTiVo /dev/hdb
The guide indicated that my drive should come up as 137gb, the maximum that MFSTOOLS could handle (rest of space is allocated in step 11); oddly, it only came up as 127gb, but everything seemed to execute normally in a matter of seconds.

8) Mount the two drives in the TiVo and power it up to the "System Information" screen (this marry's the copied drive to the Blessed Tivo drive). 
Using the same IDE cable as in the computer, I loosely connected the drives making sure there was no grounding issue. I made sure that the front-panel ribbon cable was not affected, then powered it up. I forgot exactly what the status screen said - I _think_ it was 62 HD hours.

9) Put the TiVo in standby, disconnect power and let discharge for 5 minutes. Reconnect the drives as before:
HDA: NEW Tivo Drive A (Primary IDE Master)
HDB: NEW Tivo Drive B (Primary IDE Slave)
HDC: CDROM {boot} (Secondary IDE Master)

10) Boot onto the weaknees CD.

11) Run this command (this lets the TiVo allocate the unused space):
mfsadd -x /dev/hda /dev/hdb
This seemed to execute normally, in a matter of seconds.

12) re-mount the two drives in the TiVo and power it up to the "System Information" screen. 
I loosely connected the drives making sure there was no grounding issue. I made sure that the front-panel ribbon cable was not affected, then powered it up. I was a little concerned because the System Status screen said "Account status: Closed, call ####) but the thing was most looking for was there: 103 HD hours! I yelled Yahoo and ran upstairs to get my digital Camera to get a picture of my new success...

The problem?

Oh, the upgrade (my 5th tivo upgrade!) ran smooth as silk, delivered as promised. I think I had a freak hardware problem. I came back downstairs within a minute, and the system had booted itself and was at the Welcome screen. "Uh-Oh" I thought. It booted again as I watched. "Oh NO!" I thought. It did it again - and this time didn't start up again. I pulled the power cord a few times, no boot. Put back in the original drive and ribbon cable (checking the front panel ribbon cable) - no boot. The drives never even spin up! I'd think it was the power supply, but the fan spins - although IT is the only thing showing life, so maybe it is a seperate circuit or something.

I did notice the original IDE cable was a 80pin and I was using a 40pin because all my 80 pins have that one pin blocked off, and the motherboard has all pins on its IDE connector. Not that this should do anything but make it run slower.

Anyone have any ideas?

Is there a Fuse/breaker somewhere?

Do I need to replace the power supply (will the one from a GXCEB0T work?)?

Get a replacement from DirecTV? I'd hate to lose my recordings, can I move the original drive to a new TiVo with impunity?

HELP! <grin>
Thanks in advance to anyone with advice.

John

==========================================================
* UPDATE * UPDATE * UPDATE * UPDATE * UPDATE * UPDATE * UPDATE * UPDATE 
==========================================================

After writing the above novel, I again powered it up with the original drive. The drive spins up, it boots to the "Welcome" message, and it just sits there. Since both sets of drives seem to be having a problem, I think it is a hardware problem with the HR10-250, right?

Thanks Again.
John

==========================================================
* UPDATE2 * UPDATE2 * UPDATE2 * UPDATE2 * UPDATE2 * UPDATE2 * UPDATE2 * ==========================================================

Um, OK, so I went through my cables and found an 80-conducter IDE cable with an open hole, connected it to the drives, and hooked them to the TiVo on a whim, even though the main drive never came up. Went away for a few minutes, when I came back it was at a 90% complete screen! The system booted, I got screen shots of the capacity, played back SD and HD recordings, messed with they Season Passes... Its been about 20 minutes, so far so good, I hope it keeps running.

I'd think it was the IDE cable except the original drive didn't boot with it's original stubby IDE cable, maybe I didn't wait long enough. I noticed that in step

I've never had an upgrade go this way - with completely unreproducable results.


----------



## leesweet

I read all of this and didn't have anything to add, so I didn't..  But I have noticed in my upgrade that the first time in each step (with the two drives the first time and then after mfsadd) it took so long I thought it was hosed, so I pulled the plug. I asked QK to add a note to their instructions (see way above somewhere) at those two steps to tell people to 'sit down and wait five minutes'. 

If you follow the instructions, this seems to be the common problem: since there's no progress meter when Linux is finding all the partitions (it's still on the ROM black and white message), then we get impatient.

Glad it's fine now! 

(BTW, could have been a flaky cable, also. You never know how those cables take to being pulled several times by the cable, as it were. I'd like ones with a 'pull ring' on the plug to avoid strain on the cable attachment.)


----------



## jerrymc

oatnet said:


> That's right, my TiVo is DEAD as a doornail - immediately AFTER a successful upgrade.
> 
> ...
> 
> HELP! <grin>
> Thanks in advance to anyone with advice.
> 
> John
> 
> ==========================================================
> * UPDATE2 * UPDATE2 * UPDATE2 * UPDATE2 * UPDATE2 * UPDATE2 * UPDATE2 * ==========================================================
> 
> Um, OK, so I went through my cables and found an 80-conducter IDE cable with an open hole, connected it to the drives, and hooked them to the TiVo on a whim, even though the main drive never came up. Went away for a few minutes, when I came back it was at a 90% complete screen! The system booted, I got screen shots of the capacity, played back SD and HD recordings, messed with they Season Passes... Its been about 20 minutes, so far so good, I hope it keeps running.
> 
> I'd think it was the IDE cable except the original drive didn't boot with it's original stubby IDE cable, maybe I didn't wait long enough. I noticed that in step
> 
> I've never had an upgrade go this way - with completely unreproducable results.


I think the most likely explanation is that the power supply is being pushed to its limits when the two 400GB drives are both spinning up simultaneously. I've seen this flaky behaviour twice. On one HDTiVo, it only happens once in a blue moon. On the other one, adding a power up delay device solved the problem. Both Weaknees and PTVUpgrade have them. They attach between your A and B drives with the power supply going directly to B, so that the B drive spins up before A. The part is on the order of $20 I think and should do the trick.

Regards,
Jerry


----------



## buzzword

FYI, 

For future reference it's very easy to unblock the hole in an IDE cable connector.

Take a pin, safety pin or regular pin doesn't matter, and while holding it with pliers heat it with a lighter, then simply push it gently into the IDE connector where the hole should be. 

It's not difficult at all, the heated pin melts the plastic very easily and stays hot just long enough to create the hole and slide it out.

I've done this many times without any problems, it works perfectly.


----------



## av8tor2

Finally upgraded last night/this morning 

Started at 9:30 p.m. and finished at 1:30 a.m.

I replaced the TVIO hard drive with two 300 Gigs, and kept my recordings.

It was easy except for a few stupid mistakes...on my part the instructions from Weaknees was easy to follow.

I now have 77 HD and some godly amount of SD! :up: 

The Maxtor drive is kinda noisy...but I'll learn to live with it... :down: 

Paul


----------



## weaknees

Did you set the Maxtor to /quiet mode with amset? That'll take the noise down a bit for non-QuickView drives.

Michael


----------



## av8tor2

No, I didn't do that...guess I'll be taking the drives out of the TIVO this weekend...

Thanks for the information!

Paul


----------



## RF_Eng

I added a 250GB drive to the original master several moths ago. Started to recently experience strutting so I went and purchased (2) 300Gb drives to replace both 250s. Is there any way to preserve recordings and still use the full capacity of these drives. I can only hook 4 devices to my computer and 1 of them must be the CDROM, I can put the original Tivo A on hda and the (2) 300Gbs on hdb and hdc. What happens to the shows that were on the 2nd 250Gb drive (Tivo B). Would using dd to transfer the contents from each 250 GB drive to its replacement 300gb drive work, and then used BlessTivo and mfsadd. TY.

I have located a computer that has 4 IDE slots so I can hook all 4 drives and a CDROM drive together. I can now issue the following command

mfsbackup -Tao - /dev/hda /dev/hdb | mfsrestore -s 127 -xzpi - /dev/hdc /dev/hdd

I now need to find out if I need to do a mfsadd and or a BlessTivo to take advantage of the extra 50MB per drive.


----------



## RF_Eng

bump


----------



## pmaddock

weaknees said:


> Did you set the Maxtor to /quiet mode with amset? That'll take the noise down a bit for non-QuickView drives.
> 
> Michael


Side note: For some reason AMset doesn't work with the newer Maxtor drives (DiamondMax10).


----------



## pmaddock

RF_Eng said:


> I added a 250GB drive to the original master several moths ago. Started to recently experience strutting so I went and purchased (2) 300Gb drives to replace both 250s. Is there any way to preserve recordings and still use the full capacity of these drives. I can only hook 4 devices to my computer and 1 of them must be the CDROM, I can put the original Tivo A on hda and the (2) 300Gbs on hdb and hdc. What happens to the shows that were on the 2nd 250Gb drive (Tivo B). Would using dd to transfer the contents from each 250 GB drive to its replacement 300gb drive work, and then used BlessTivo and mfsadd. TY.
> 
> I have located a computer that has 4 IDE slots so I can hook all 4 drives and a CDROM drive together. I can now issue the following command
> 
> mfsbackup -Tao - /dev/hda /dev/hdb | mfsrestore -s 127 -xzpi - /dev/hdc /dev/hdd
> 
> I now need to find out if I need to do a mfsadd and or a BlessTivo to take advantage of the extra 50MB per drive.


I'm hoping that someone will pop out now and correct me but as far as I know once you add a drive you are stuck with the size combination due to the partitioning scheme issues. Your only option for using the larger combination would likely involve losing all existing recordings.


----------



## pbolya

pmaddock said:


> I'm hoping that someone will pop out now and correct me but as far as I know once you add a drive you are stuck with the size combination due to the partitioning scheme issues. Your only option for using the larger combination would likely involve losing all existing recordings.


He still has the original partition structure on the A drive so he has one more MFS partition par to go. On the B drive he has only one MFS partition par used (I assume) so he has planny left. So I do not see why DD-ing his original 250GB disks to the new 300GB disks and using mfsadd to add an extra 50GB partition to both of his new drives would not work.

Also you can attach just the A drive and 1 of the new 300GB disks to your computer. DD it over and use mfsadd to add 50GB to your new disk. Than disconnect the 2 drives and do the same for the B drive and the other new drive. As long as you do not boot the TiVo until you finished with all drives it should be fine.

This whole procedure should not take more than 2 days 

Regards,
Peter


----------



## pbolya

RF_Eng said:


> I added a 250GB drive to the original master several moths ago. Started to recently experience strutting so I went and purchased (2) 300Gb drives to replace both 250s. Is there any way to preserve recordings and still use the full capacity of these drives. I can only hook 4 devices to my computer and 1 of them must be the CDROM, I can put the original Tivo A on hda and the (2) 300Gbs on hdb and hdc. What happens to the shows that were on the 2nd 250Gb drive (Tivo B). Would using dd to transfer the contents from each 250 GB drive to its replacement 300gb drive work, and then used BlessTivo and mfsadd. TY.
> 
> I have located a computer that has 4 IDE slots so I can hook all 4 drives and a CDROM drive together. I can now issue the following command
> 
> mfsbackup -Tao - /dev/hda /dev/hdb | mfsrestore -s 127 -xzpi - /dev/hdc /dev/hdd
> 
> I now need to find out if I need to do a mfsadd and or a BlessTivo to take advantage of the extra 50MB per drive.


The x option in mfsrestore will automatically add a new partition to max the drive out. You do not need to use mfsadd or BlessTivo.

Regards,
Peter


----------



## RF_Eng

Thanks for the replies. I figured it would take a while to dd the 2 drives over so I will attemp this procedure this weekend. I will report back if it works.


----------



## David Ortiz

I'm upgrading my 2nd HR10-250. This one was stuttering and rebooting. The plan was to go with 2 300GB hard drives and save recordings. They shipped a day apart, so I started by replacing the A drive with a 300GB drive.

mfsbackup showed read errors on the drive. The restore completed. Popped the new drive in the TiVo and can view recordings, but no Live TV.

I'm not sure where to go next. I now have the second new drive and was planning on adding the drive with the BlessTiVo command, but I'm not sure if that will work or not.

Any ideas?

Thanks,

David Ortiz


----------



## weaknees

First, BlessTiVo won't work in this situation - but we have info here to help you deal with this:

http://www.upgrade-instructions.com

Next, you should try making a backup from your other HR10-250, restoring it to one of these drives, and doing a "Clear and delete everything" to get it to reserialize. Then see if you can see live TV. That way, you know if it's the backup or the unit.

Michael


----------



## David Ortiz

It seems strange that you cannot follow the steps to Replace with one drive and then at a later time, Add a drive.

Anyway, in hopes of trying to save recordings, I'm trying to find more information about dd_rescue. So far, I've only found this which I'm not done reading yet, but I wanted to get this reply out while people were around.

Again, thanks

David Ortiz


----------



## David Ortiz

I used dd_rescue on the original drive. So now I've got a 300GB drive with a copy of the original drive on it. I have a second 300GB drive.

I'm off for a haircut in a few minutes, but I'll leave this question. I plan to put the new drive with copy of original in the TiVo (HR10-250 for those not following) to make sure it works. Then, I want to add the other drive. Should I use the add a drive option? Should I use mfsadd first on the new drive to gain the extra 50GB? Do I need a third drive to do a replace with two drives upgrade?

Thanks for any input,

David Ortiz


----------



## David Ortiz

weaknees said:


> First, BlessTiVo won't work in this situation - but we have info here to help you deal with this:
> 
> http://www.upgrade-instructions.com
> 
> Next, you should try making a backup from your other HR10-250, restoring it to one of these drives, and doing a "Clear and delete everything" to get it to reserialize. Then see if you can see live TV. That way, you know if it's the backup or the unit.
> 
> Michael


Well the dd_rescue worked, and after a green screen for three hours, the TiVo rebooted. After going through guided setup again, things are back up.

I have a question, though. If I follow the instructions on the upgrade-instructions site, the first step in the replace with two drives is to do the mfsbackup/mfsrestore from the original drive to the new A drive. Is it okay to put that drive back in the TiVo like I did with my new drive? The second step is to run blesstivo from the Tyger CD on the B drive and then add it. Can I now do that and pick up from there?

Thanks,

David Ortiz


----------



## Richard Chalk

When I first got my HR10-250, I made an image of the HD, and saved it as "tivoHD.bak". Then I copied this file to a CD-ROM for safekeeping (no subdirectory, it's in the root of the CD).

Now, I want to restore the image to a new Seagate 300 GB Primary Drive, but I don't know how to construct the MFSRESTORE command line to access the CD-ROM drive, and read the file.

For reference, the CD-ROM drive containing the image is the secondary slave (HDD) and the new 300GB drive is the Primary Slave (HDB) The Tools disk is in the first CD-ROM drive, which is the secondary Master position (HDC)

Can someone please help me with the command line structure to restore from the CD, or, alternatively, the steps to copy the image file to the primary HD (HDA), including creating the proper directory and sub-directory, so that the default command line will work?

Thanks for your assistance.

Richard


----------



## pbolya

Richard Chalk said:


> When I first got my HR10-250, I made an image of the HD, and saved it as "tivoHD.bak". Then I copied this file to a CD-ROM for safekeeping (no subdirectory, it's in the root of the CD).
> 
> Now, I want to restore the image to a new Seagate 300 GB Primary Drive, but I don't know how to construct the MFSRESTORE command line to access the CD-ROM drive, and read the file.
> 
> For reference, the CD-ROM drive containing the image is the secondary slave (HDD) and the new 300GB drive is the Primary Slave (HDB) The Tools disk is in the first CD-ROM drive, which is the secondary Master position (HDC)
> 
> Can someone please help me with the command line structure to restore from the CD, or, alternatively, the steps to copy the image file to the primary HD (HDA), including creating the proper directory and sub-directory, so that the default command line will work?
> 
> Thanks for your assistance.
> 
> Richard


Richard,
I do not know if anybody helped you with this problem yet but if you have a FAT32 hard drive you can simply copy the file to the root directory (C:/) in either dos or even windows before you boot to linux. Than when you attach that drive to the primary master the standard commands (HDA) will work. You can also read from the CD rom but this method is much easier (provided that you have a FAT32 hard drive and enough space on it).

Regards,
Peter


----------



## TivoLouco

I would like to know how many partitions are on the hard drive and what type of partitions they are. I have used the mfstools to clone the Tivo drive several times and every one of the copiies worked. I have decided to leanr Linux now and installed Progeny Debian Linux for text mode only on a small 40-GB drive. I have tried to see the Tivo drives when I boot into the Devian Linux system, but have not been able to see the Tivo drive. That is the reason I asked about the partitions on the Tivo drive. Are they different than the Linux ext2 partitions that I created on the Tivo system drive? And, if I am not upseting anyone, in which partition are the recordings on the Tivo drive? Thanks for any repplies.


----------



## gamecox86

Could someone provide me the instructions for installing networking on the HR10-250?


----------



## dswallow

gamecox86 said:


> Could someone provide me the instructions for installing networking on the HR10-250?


http://www.imbetterthanyou.com/hr10-250/


----------



## gamecox86

dswallow said:


> http://www.imbetterthanyou.com/hr10-250/


Thanks!!!


----------



## muadib

Has anyone used Seagate drives in their upgrade, or is this a no-no?


----------



## weaknees

We do it all the time. Our 83 hour units use one Seagate and one WD drive (the drive that came in the unit) and our 103 hour units use two Seagate 400 GB drives.

Michael


----------



## gamecox86

dswallow said:


> http://www.imbetterthanyou.com/hr10-250/


OK, I've about worked up the nerve to try this. Here is my current situation. My original WD drive was stuttering (play 2 seconds hang for 5). I tried a clear and delete (might have just been on thumb rating/season passes), it stayed on that "clear and delete" screen for several days, even if I powered off/on.

I have a weeknees 300gb drop in replacement drive in hand, but am reluctant to start mucking with it right off the bat. I picked up a Maxtor 200 gb from Staples for $70, so I may do my experimenting with it, using the weeknees drive as the source of my OS software.

Should I do the network install using the original version of the OS? Or should I force upgrade calls to get it to a later version before installing networking? If so, which version?

Do the steps included in the guide above stop the nag screens? If not can someone point me to how to do that?


----------



## dswallow

You can't use a 200GB drive; you have to start with a drive that's at least as big as the drive where the image you're using was loaded, and no HR10-250's have ever had less than a 250GB drive.

I'm afraid I can't be of much help; I've not bothered to do it yet myself -- maybe in June/July I'll have the time. THe instructions on that page seem pretty version-specific though, as is everything I've seen about the various patches needed to do things like disable encryption, etc. But there might be versions specific to the latest HR10-250 software release you need to use. You'll have to check over in that other unmentionable hacking forum for answers, I fear.


----------



## TivoLouco

I purchased the Suse 9.3 version of Linux and installed on a spare hard drive. Now I am wondering whether I can copy the MFS Tools from the Weakness CD to the hard drive to run my backups and restores from the hard drive. Has anyone done this? Thanks!


----------



## weaknees

That should work, especially for this model TiVo. For older models, you'd need an older kernel so that you wouldn't format too much of the drive for the older kernel in the TiVo OS's Linux.

Bottom line is that you don't need to download the CD - you can just download mfstool and install that.

Michael


----------



## TivoLouco

Thanks, Michael! Will follow your advice and download the tools for installation on my Linux hard drive.


----------



## TivoLouco

Sorry to bother you again, Michael, but I can't find MFS Tools for download, except for the version that is used to create a bootable CDROM. Can you help me with a link? Thanks!


----------



## jerrymc

TivoLouco said:


> Sorry to bother you again, Michael, but I can't find MFS Tools for download, except for the version that is used to create a bootable CDROM. Can you help me with a link? Thanks!


I've done this on my RedHat Linux 8.0 system and it works fine. You need Tiger's statically linked binaries for MFSTools 2.0. You can down load them from here .

Regards,
Jerry


----------



## Richard Chalk

muadib said:


> Has anyone used Seagate drives in their upgrade, or is this a no-no?


I just completed upgrading to two Seagate 300 GB Drives, with no problem (after I discovered the updated instructions for drives greater than 250 GB).

I was drawn by the 5-year warranty, and was able to get them for $119.00 each (after rebate).

An interesting side-note here is the power consumption of the new drives. The original WD is rated as follows:

5 VDC @ 0.75 A = 3.75 Watts
12 VDC @ 0.90 A = 10.8 Watts

Total 14.55 Watts

The Seagate 300 GB drives are rated:

5 VDC @ 0.46 A = 2.30 Watts
12 VDC @ 0.56 A = 6.72 Watts

Total 9.02 Watts.

Total for 2 drives is 18.04 Watts, which is only slightly more than the older single drive. Much cooler running, and less load on power supply, should both add to the life of the unit.

Richard


----------



## muadib

I ordered two Seagate 300 GB Drives myself, but I don't know if I want to do the upgrade now. I'm in the NYC market, and if rumors are true, then shouldn't DTV be making some sort of swap soon? What do you guys think?


----------



## weaknees

Considering that there isn't even a prototype of a replacement box out there, we don't think there will be any new hardware any time soon. We think it'll be quite a while.


----------



## HDLouco

muadib said:


> I ordered two Seagate 300 GB Drives myself, but I don't know if I want to do the upgrade now. I'm in the NYC market, and if rumors are true, then shouldn't DTV be making some sort of swap soon? What do you guys think?


The last thing I heard about the new HD DVR for MPEG-4 is that it won't be available until the end of 2005 or after. Based on the delay of the 10-250, it probably won't be offered until the middle of 2006. But, I could be wrong! Hope I am!


----------



## muadib

weaknees said:


> Considering that there isn't even a prototype of a replacement box out there, we don't think there will be any new hardware any time soon. We think it'll be quite a while.


Have you heard who will be making it?

And what about regular HDTV receivers? Any word on those?


----------



## Mikehdtv

NDS is making the HD mpeg4 box and Ucentric is making the new Home Media Center 
HD/DVR


----------



## swinotai

Hello Guys... I was wondering if you could help me a little with my hd10-250 upgrade. I am upgrading to 2 x Seagate 400GB. I have followed the Hinsdale and Weaknees instructions three times already, and I am completely stumped.

I have backed up my original A drive and restored it to my upgraded A drive just fine. I plugged it into my Tivo and it worked fine. I expanded the drive and it sees the 50hrs/337hr just fine. It's when I put in the second drive is when it loops with the, "Welcome. Powering up..." -> "Just a second later" loop.

I have followed the Hinsdale instructions. I put in the command "mfsadd -x /dev/hdc /dev/hdb" And it goes to the loop right away after putting in the B drive.

I have followed the Weaknees instructions, and it will loop right after the same mfsadd command. The only difference between the weaknees and the hinsdale instructions for the B drive is that on the Weaknees instructions, I have to Bless the B drive before putting in the "mfsadd -x /dev/hdc /dev/hdb" command.

I have tried the A -> A + B instructions and the A -> larger A, then adding the B drive, but they all seem to fail because of this mfsadd command. Can anyone help me? Thanks! I am running Tivo version 3.1. I just purchased the Tivo last week.

Sam


----------



## weaknees

This is a pretty complicated issue, but basically the problem is that you have to bless the B drive and add it to the UNEXPANDED A drive in the TiVo, and boot the unit. Then, you power down and mfsadd the extra space on each drive.

So the first round uses only 250 GB of the A drive and 137 GB of the B drive. Then the mfsadd uses the remaining space on each drive.

You'll have to reformat your A drive to make this work.

Michael


----------



## swinotai

wow.. thanks for the very quick response. So just for clarity, I have to restore (don't expand) my A drive, Bless my B drive, THEN expand both drives? Can I just do a restore to the A drive, or do I actually have to reformat? Thanks!!

Sam


----------



## JamieP

weaknees said:


> This is a pretty complicated issue, but basically the problem is that you have to bless the B drive and add it to the UNEXPANDED A drive in the TiVo, and boot the unit. Then, you power down and mfsadd the extra space on each drive.
> 
> So the first round uses only 250 GB of the A drive and 137 GB of the B drive. Then the mfsadd uses the remaining space on each drive.


There's an easier way that several people have tried and have reported success with: use "-r 4" with mfsadd when creating partitions > 274GB. This avoids the need for the BlessTivo step. It should work with partition sizes up to 1TB. reference.


----------



## swinotai

Thanks weaknees and JamieP for the solution! 

Weaknees, thanks for the advice, but that solution didn't work for me. After saying what to do, it still went through the looping. =( However, JamieP's solution worked. Thanks again... both of you!

Sam


----------



## weaknees

We haven't fully embraced the "-r 4" routine yet, but many users are reporting success with it.

Michael


----------



## JamieP

weaknees said:


> We haven't fully embraced the "-r 4" routine yet, but many users are reporting success with it.


Yes, I guess it's worth pointing out that the BlessTivo approach has been around longer and is less "experimental".


----------



## svandive

All, 

I have recently purchased a HR10-250, but I purchased a NR10 not too long before this new purchase. 

My questions simple really, but I was having a hard figuring out how to search the forum for an answer so I figured best to ask...

Any way. Since I have not too long ago made everybody in the family suffer through losing everything we had on our old SAT T60 to move to the R10, I don't want to do this to them all again. So I want to pull the shows I have on my R10 and put them on the new HR10-250. I have also been playing with the idea of getting networking setup (via, killhdinitrd ) and or adding another 250 gig drive to the HR10-250. I mention this simply to say that I am already in a position to pull the drives (R10 / HR10-250) and play with them in my linux box so I figure if I can save the shows all the better.

Well thanks for the help...

Scott


----------



## aaronwt

440hrs!?!!


----------



## cjb

swinotai said:


> wow.. thanks for the very quick response. So just for clarity, I have to restore (don't expand) my A drive, Bless my B drive, THEN expand both drives? Can I just do a restore to the A drive, or do I actually have to reformat? Thanks!!
> 
> Sam


I replaced my 250 Gig A drive with a 300 Gig A drive (I did do a backup and have it still), and already ran mfsadd to get the extra space. Does this mean that I have to go back to the original "virgin" 250Gig backup in order to add another 300 Gig drive in?

Ie:

- Restore the original 250Gig image to the current 300Gig A drive (blowing away the current settings/recordings).
- Bless the new 300 Gig B drive.
- Put them in the Tivo, let it boot.
- Take them back out, then mfsadd the two drives together.

Do I understand this correctly? If this is true, then it sounds like you can only mfsadd once on a Tivo? Or maybe the 250Gig limit is the problem?

-CJ


----------



## boiler11

cjb said:


> I replaced my 250 Gig A drive with a 300 Gig A drive (I did do a backup and have it still), and already ran mfsadd to get the extra space. Does this mean that I have to go back to the original "virgin" 250Gig backup in order to add another 300 Gig drive in?
> 
> Ie:
> 
> - Restore the original 250Gig image to the current 300Gig A drive (blowing away the current settings/recordings).
> - Bless the new 300 Gig B drive.
> - Put them in the Tivo, let it boot.
> - Take them back out, then mfsadd the two drives together.
> 
> Do I understand this correctly? If this is true, then it sounds like you can only mfsadd once on a Tivo? Or maybe the 250Gig limit is the problem?
> 
> -CJ


Just a few posts back (#1623) JamieP mentioned using the "-r 4" option with mfsadd which should allow you to just add the extra drive without jumping through all the hoops. By saying "just a few posts back", I wasn't trying to be rude, just telling you where to find it.

Sean.


----------



## cjb

boiler11 said:


> Just a few posts back (#1623) JamieP mentioned using the "-r 4" option with mfsadd which should allow you to just add the extra drive without jumping through all the hoops. By saying "just a few posts back", I wasn't trying to be rude, just telling you where to find it.
> 
> Sean.


Thanks. Yea, I saw that, but was looking for some clarification on if you can mfsadd twice on a single Tivo. That's basically what I'm trying to do...

I guess worst case, I'll have to restore back to the original backup image... I'll give it a shot this weekend...


----------



## johnvv

Question on mfsbackup and BlessTiVo behavior. Also need to know how to reformat or delete linux partitions on upgrade drives.

Recently started work on upgrading my HR10-250 to 2 x 300GB Seagate drives. All was going well until the drive motor of the B drive died after testing mfsrestore and marrying the drives (per the tivo.upgrade-instructions for my scenario). Got a replacement Seagate for the failed one, andnow have good copy of the A drive but a virgin B drive. Re-blessing the new B led to the GSOD and the HR10-250 could not recover. So, I decided to re-start from the beginning of the instructions to ensure clean copies and configs for each drive.

Couple of questions:

1. Does the command:

mfsbackup - Tao - /dev/hdb | mfsrestore -zi - /dev/hdc 

completely delete all info on /dev/hdc? Or, if there is an extra partition on drive, from when A + B we married prior to B failing, will it still be there after the copy is complete? 

2. If the the command in #1 (above) does not wipe the target, how do I do that to get the new A drive ready and clean (i.e. reset it) prior to starting a new copy of the original A drive (per #1).

3. The command:

BlessTiVo /dev/hdd

appears to add three partitions to the target B drive. If an attemtped marry of this drive has failed, will re-blessing it 'reset' the partition and drive info for a subsequent marrying attempt? If not, what needs to be done to reset it to a virgin bare drive for the BlessTiVo command to work and the new marrying to be successful?

Finally, I've run BlessTivo on a drive a 300GB drive that had a copy of the original A drive. The 'bless' reprteed 279GB available. Previous blessing of another 300GB drive that did not have a copy of A on it only reported 127 GB. Why the difference? Again, both these blessing occured prior to ever running an mfsadd on either drive.

Thanks for any help.


----------



## FlopShot

Has anyone been able to get a wireless network connection running on an HR10-250 running 3.1.5f? I was running a Cat5 to the HDTivo via a Netgear FA120 but I just moved into a new house and the HDTivo is nowhere near my network router. I tried using the 2.4.20 kernel backport method to load the wireless drivers for that kernel and it royally screwed up my unit, I had to re-image it from scratch. I previously had my HDVR2 running wireless on a Belkin F5D6050 but I will purchase whatever wireless adaptor I need for the HR10-250. I searched this forum (and the other one too) and it doesn't seem like anyone has found a foolproof method yet. Anyone out here have any luck?


----------



## bfdhe

FlopShot said:


> Has anyone been able to get a wireless network connection running on an HR10-250 running 3.1.5f?


Since the HR10-250 cannot do wireless, I use the supported Linksys USB200M and plug it into a Dlink Wireless Bridge (DWL-G810).

This gives me wireless on my HR10-250. As a matter of fact, all 4 of my TiVos are connected the same way.


----------



## sbarrier

With the latest price drop, I'm about ready to take the HD TIVO plunge. I'd like to add a second drive and have just begun reading about what steps to perform.

I've read the weaknees upgrade instructions 3x and just want to make sure that I have it correct. (I want to add a new 300GB drive to the HD TIVO w/o a backup).

*Simplified Instructions*
1. Install 300GB hdd in PC
2. Boot of off Weaknees Boot CD
3. run "BlessTiVo /dev/hda"
4. Install 300GB hdd in HD TIVO

This should give me ~ 550GB (250GB from original drive + 300GB from newly "blessed" drive). Is that it? Seems to be fairly easy as long as you follow the instructions carefully? If I'm upgrading a new unit, is there any reason to make a backup?

Also, in the post directly above mine, someone mentions connecting the HD TIVO via wireless NIC. Why would you do this? Can you share the files off of it?

Thanks,

Shon


----------



## weaknees

That's basically right. Just be careful since you're upgrading without a backup.


----------



## FlopShot

bfdhe said:


> Since the HR10-250 cannot do wireless, I use the supported Linksys USB200M and plug it into a Dlink Wireless Bridge (DWL-G810).
> 
> This gives me wireless on my HR10-250. As a matter of fact, all 4 of my TiVos are connected the same way.


I was trying to do this without a bridge but I think I might have to go that route. Someone in the other forum got wireless working on an HR10-250, but he had to manipulate the kernel all over the place, which is how I screwed up my machine trying to mimic him. UBid.com has a Motorola 802.11g bridge for just $54 so it's not worth my hassle messing with the kernel anymore. Thanks.


----------



## Vivid

With help from the guys from the HD Tivo section I think my HD in my HR10-250 is dying and I need to swap it out. I can get a 320 gb hd for $120, if I do a direct copy of my current HD onto a new HD will it work ok? Or should I follow the steps in the Weaknees interactive upgrade site? thanks, I'm looking for the easiest way to replace a dying HD with out using D* credits to get anew Hr250 when MPEG 4 is not far a way...


----------



## weaknees

Not sure what kind of direct copy you'd use, but our instructions are basically that, but they make it simple and potentially much faster. If you are considering something like Norton Ghost, don't bother, it won't work.


----------



## Vivid

thanks weakness. One qu about the HDs, is there an optimal speed, cache for the drives? I am looking at a maxtor maxline plusII 5400rpm and 2mb cache and althought I want to be a cheap as possible but I don't want to run into a bunch of problems just to save $20.


----------



## weaknees

Basically, speed and cache don't matter here. Most TiVos over the years have shipped with 5400 RPM drives, and while the HR10-250 shipped with 7200 RPM drives, we have used dual 5400s (and single) without any problems. The limiting factor is really the motherboard and not the speed of the drives. As far as the cache, moving this much data through the drive constantly pretty much renders the cache useless.

So save the money, and you should be fine.


----------



## Vivid

thanks a million


----------



## Deftones17

So how hard is it to upgrade one of these units. I've got one coming tomorrow, and I am considering upgrading it.

I'm not computer expert, but I've added hard drives, disk drives and ram to my existing system(s) before.

I'd rather not pay to have it done (sorry weaknees  ) but I'd rather not screw up my new machine. I think the only real part that worries me is the software side. I've always been good with hardware, just not software.


----------



## weaknees

No problem here - just be careful to make a backup, don't boot into XP or newer Windows with your TiVo drive connected, and read carefully. 

And if you have a problem, post here and you're sure to get some help quickly.


----------



## Deftones17

I guess I forgot to add a question mark. How hard is it? With someone with a workable knowledge of computers, that is.


----------



## aaronwt

You could always buy your own drives, send them to be upgraded and buy the bracket and additional fan and they will be sent back with the instructions. This is what I did through Weaknees. It took me 25 minutes for the install on my first unit since I was being extra careful. My second HdTiVo took me less than 10 minutes for the upgrade.


----------



## weaknees

Well, we do it every day, so it seems easy to us. If you've booted into Linux or even used DOS a bit, the CLI should be familiar. We like to think our instructions make it pretty easy to walk-through. Based on the number of people who use the site and the number who ask questions here and directly by email, we think it must not be too hard.


----------



## dtebbe

weaknees said:


> We do it all the time. Our 83 hour units use one Seagate and one WD drive (the drive that came in the unit) and our 103 hour units use two Seagate 400 GB drives.
> 
> Michael


Michael,
Is there any problem with replacing the stock 250gb drive with a single 400gb drive? If not, I assume you just follow the standard backup and restore process?

TIA
DT


----------



## weaknees

Yup - a single 400 works just fine.


----------



## dtebbe

weaknees said:


> Yup - a single 400 works just fine.


And sorry for the stupid question, but I prep is no different that when I upgraded my R10 drive to a single 300gb?

1. Make backup image
2. Restore backup image to 400gb drive
3. test backup image in Tivo (should still show 250gb capacity)
4. expand drive using mfsadd
5. install & enjoy

For some reason I was thinking you could not go bigger than 300gb, not sure why..

DT


----------



## weaknees

We don't think there's any reason to test before expansion - that step doesn't ever seem to be one that can cause problems. Our info here has the details:

http://www.upgrade-instructions.com

Just be sure to use the "-r 4" switch so that you'll get the 400 GB drive working properly.


----------



## Robdec

Can some one help me out with a quick question. All I want to do is add a 250GB drive to my HR10-250. I have see two ways of doing it. 

1) Weaknees says put both drives in a PC and boot off the cd and after doing some basic stuff ( backup etc. ) run " mfsadd -r 4 -x /dev/hdX /dev/hdZ "

2) Then I have seen others that just say put the new drive in the PC boot off the cd then run " BlessTiVo /dev/hdc" and put it in the tivo as a slave and be done. 

Whats the correct way if there is one or do they both work.. Thanks


----------



## dtebbe

weaknees said:


> We don't think there's any reason to test before expansion - that step doesn't ever seem to be one that can cause problems. Our info here has the details:
> 
> http://www.upgrade-instructions.com
> 
> Just be sure to use the "-r 4" switch so that you'll get the 400 GB drive working properly.


thanks so much for the tips, I really appreciate it. I had used another ISO before, but since your directions are so specific I will definately use your ISO and instructions. Hopefully all will go well.

Is there any advantage to doing the backup before the reciever gets activated? I have a "Professional installer" coming out to "install" this unit tomorrow, and somehow I think he is going to insist on activating it before he leaves.

Thanks again, you guys are the best!
DT


----------



## slocko

hi guys. any one know of any sales on 250 or 300 drives? will be hooking up my 2nd HD tivo soon and want to upgrade it before I schedule any recordings on it.


----------



## weaknees

dtebbe-

It really doesn't matter, but you might wait until after the unit gets "installed" just on the off chance that if you work on it beforehand and have a problem, then your install gets scuttled.


----------



## dtebbe

weaknees said:


> dtebbe-
> 
> It really doesn't matter, but you might wait until after the unit gets "installed" just on the off chance that if you work on it beforehand and have a problem, then your install gets scuttled.


I just wanted to thank you for your tips. I installed the single 400gb drive today using your image and instructions with no problems. Reported capacity after upgrade was 50hrs HD, 337 hrs SD.

Thanks again, you guys have awesome service!

DT


----------



## jello25944

Here's what I did. I just wanted to add a 200gig drive to my existing 250gig drive. I took the new drive to my PC at work, but the CD told me that I couldn't do BlessTiVo on the new drive in the hda position, and I couldnt put in in the hdb position without a master... So I took out my original drive and took it to work with me. I put the original drive as the master at hda, and the new drive as slave at hdb. I just typed in "BlessTiVo /dev/hdb" and it was done within 3 seconds. I put the drives into my HD Tivo, and it shows like, 57 hours HD, so it reflects 450 gigs. Super easy. Just dont forget to type in BlessTiVo, with the capital B, T, and V.



Robdec said:


> Can some one help me out with a quick question. All I want to do is add a 250GB drive to my HR10-250. I have see two ways of doing it.
> 
> 1) Weaknees says put both drives in a PC and boot off the cd and after doing some basic stuff ( backup etc. ) run " mfsadd -r 4 -x /dev/hdX /dev/hdZ "
> 
> 2) Then I have seen others that just say put the new drive in the PC boot off the cd then run " BlessTiVo /dev/hdc" and put it in the tivo as a slave and be done.
> 
> Whats the correct way if there is one or do they both work.. Thanks


----------



## gsnethen

My HR10-250 started hanging, recording partial shows and responding extremely slowly (many minutes) to remote control input.

I suspected a bad drive, so I pulled it out to make a backup using the PTVupgrade's large disk version of mfstool. When my PC booted with the TiVo drive, my BIOS warned me that the SMART hardware on the TiVo drive indicated it was failing. Theory confirmed.

Unfortunately, when I attempt a backup, mfstool hangs on the line "Scanning source drive. Please wait a moment." and the drive activity light eventually changes from steady on to flashing -- (probably indicating read errors and retries?)

Does anyone have a backed up image of an HR10-250 that they are willing to share with me? I'm legally licensed to use the software and I'm an active paying subscriber to TiVo's service. I just want to repair the damage myself at minimum cost and delay.

If you need proof of my ownership, I'd be happy to send you photos or verify the directory contents on the TiVo's drive (which I can still mount).

Thanks!

---Gary


----------



## boiler11

You can buy one here (link) for $20.


----------



## gsnethen

boiler11 said:


> You can buy one here (link) for $20.


Thanks for the link! I'll keep it as an avenue of last resort.

It concerns me that some companies (including TiVo, I must assume) are profiting off of distributing duplicate copies of software to existing users, while those same users are being actively prevented from exchanging the software they've already paid for in order to repair their own drives when they fail.

I'm sad to say that TiVo has lost several points on my consumer satisfaction scale today. Given that I paid $1000 for my TiVo, it certainly doesn't seem worth whatever share of the $20 they get (if any).

---Gary


----------



## gsnethen

gsnethen said:


> Thanks for the link! I'll keep it as an avenue of last resort.
> 
> It concerns me that some companies (including TiVo, I must assume) are profiting off of distributing duplicate copies of software to existing users, while those same users are being actively prevented from exchanging the software they've already paid for in order to repair their own drives when they fail.
> 
> ---Gary


Hmm... I just read InstantCake's licensing agreement:

"InstantCake software is released and distributed under the GNU General Public License, you are free to copy, modify and redistribute it in accordance with the GPL. ..."

Are there copies of the HR10-250 (HDTV 3.1.5f) version of InstantCake available for download? Can anyone give me a pointer to one?

---Gary


----------



## Richard Chalk

gsnethen said:


> My HR10-250 started hanging, recording partial shows and responding extremely slowly (many minutes) to remote control input.
> 
> I suspected a bad drive, so I pulled it out to make a backup using the PTVupgrade's large disk version of mfstool. When my PC booted with the TiVo drive, my BIOS warned me that the SMART hardware on the TiVo drive indicated it was failing. Theory confirmed.
> 
> Unfortunately, when I attempt a backup, mfstool hangs on the line "Scanning source drive. Please wait a moment." and the drive activity light eventually changes from steady on to flashing -- (probably indicating read errors and retries?)
> 
> Does anyone have a backed up image of an HR10-250 that they are willing to share with me? I'm legally licensed to use the software and I'm an active paying subscriber to TiVo's service. I just want to repair the damage myself at minimum cost and delay.
> 
> If you need proof of my ownership, I'd be happy to send you photos or verify the directory contents on the TiVo's drive (which I can still mount).
> 
> Thanks!
> 
> ---Gary


I have a backup copy from a recent machine which I will send you for the cost of postage, but I will not be home until Sept 7 or 8, so you will have to wait a few days.

Please note that if you use an image from a different machine, you have to do a "clear and delete everything" before the unit will work correctly.

Mine is a Version E, but you will be able to update once you are up-and-running.

Please let me know by PM if you want it, and your mailing address


----------



## alexcue

weaknees said:


> dtebbe-
> 
> It really doesn't matter, but you might wait until after the unit gets "installed" just on the off chance that if you work on it beforehand and have a problem, then your install gets scuttled.


Thanks for your guide and advice. I waited a day till trying the update on the off chance i may have a bum unit. I did notice "hiccups" (a pause with black screen of about 3 to 8 seconds) occur while recording Prison Break last night on FoxHD. It would occur every few minutes but stopped after about 45 minutes into the show. What's interesting is i was recording Joey in HD at the same time and it was fine. This was the first time i had seen this, and the only time. I've read other threads on the issue, but i'm hoping it's not a sign of a bad hard drive. I kept watching it late last night and it did not reproduce itself. I checked the recordings it made early this morning and they are all fine.

So i went ahead and did a backup and added thru your excellent directions a Maxtor QV 300GB drive. Since i do these backups on an office computer that still runs Win98, I'll have to check it when i get home in a few hours.

Was very quick and painless. The hardest part? it was not the computer part but putting the bracket into the HR10 correctly!


----------



## jkast

I have my weaknees bracket and twinbreeze as well as a new hard drive.

Have read through the instructions on the Tivo.upgrade-instructions.com site several times.

Have downloaded the boot cd image from http://www.weaknees.com/weaknees_lba_boot_cd.iso
to my desktop.

I have both DVD+R and CD-RW media at home, but not a CD-R. The drive writes to both.

1 Can I actually build a boot drive from either of these media? (I tried both but when the power up sequence -- which is looking for a cd boot -- gets there it does not find a bootable device.)?

2 Can I just drag and drop the .iso image on the device in my computer using XP? (Seems to write something, but does not boot with either media)?

3 I have an older release of Nero which I used to format the CD-RW media and then proceed to burn the CD-RW drive with the .iso file -- no joy. I specified the write data file option in Nero.

4 I used the same software to burn the DVD+R again selecting "data" as opposed to video or music or whatever..... Again the media is not recognized as bootable by the bios when it searches the optical drive...

I assume I am doing things wrong... could just be not having a cd-r disk, but clearly need help....


----------



## azitnay

You can't simply burn the ISO as a file to a data disc. You need to burn it as an image.

Your Nero software should do the trick... Look for "Burn Image" or the like on the File menu.

Drew


----------



## jkast

Thanks. I got a bootable weaknees_lba_boot_cd.iso image on cd and can successfully (I think) boot into Linux. (I get the Welcome to the WeaKnees Custom Boot CD! /Includes Large Drive Support ... message.)

Do I need to format (FAT) the drive I am planning to add?

Even though the system is booting from the CD drive, I get the message that it is attempting and failing to mount the CD drive multiple times (Trying to mount the CD-ROM, try 1 and so on).

I also get a message "[email protected] warning: checktime reached, running e2fsck is recommended" followed by "Mounted root (ext2 filesystem)" and Welcome to the rescue disk" Then come the trying to mount messages and "No CD-ROM found"

Then sh-2.05b#

When I type in the "mfsadd -r 4 -x /dev/hda /dev/hdb" I get the message "sh: mfsadd: command not found"

Hope someone can point me to the next thing to do....


----------



## jkast

Well, I switched to another computer and Voila! everything worked....

I now have the original WD 250 gb drive and a new Deskstar 500gb drive for an estimated 97 hours of HD recording time. Everything appears to be working very well.

Thank you so much TivoCommunity and WeaKnees!!!! I am delighted.


----------



## Richard Chalk

weaknees said:


> We use custom tools here to perform the dual 300 GB drive upgrades, but we'll outline some steps that should do the trick at home. We've tested this method only a bit, but it shares enough with our custom method that we're pretty certain it'll result in a stable upgrade.
> 
> The key is that mfstool won't work with partitions larger than 256 GB. So here's a D-I-Y method for making smaller partitions:
> 
> 1 - Put the HR10-250 image on the 300 GB drive, without expansion. To do this, make a backup and restore the backup to the 300 GB drive under a newer Linux kernel (2.4.18 or newer). Make sure to use only "-zi" as the switch so that you don't expand the image to fill the drive:
> 
> mfstool -zi /tivo.bak /dev/hdX
> 
> 2 - Bless the second 300 GB drive in "noswap" under an OLDER Linux Kernel - the standard boot CD is fine for this. This will create a 127 GB partition on the drive.
> 
> BlessTiVo /dev/hdY
> 
> 3 - "Marry" the two drives by booting them in the HR10-250. You should be able to verify the extra hours in System Information (I don't have the exact number on me, but HD hours should be in the forties).
> 
> 4 - Attach both drives back to the PC and boot in a NEWER kernel. Then run:
> 
> mfsadd -x /dev/hdX /dev/hdY
> 
> This will force partitions using the extra space on each drive - and neither drive will have more than (or even close to) 256 GB of space left to partition out.
> 
> 5 - Put them back in the TiVo and verify the hours.
> 
> That should do it!
> 
> Michael


I have used this procedure on an HR10-250 HD DirecTiVo, and the machine is working, but I don't see any mention of a Swap File setting.
Should there be a -s127 in this command line? Actually, I used MFSRestore. Is that different from MFSTool?
Thanks.


----------



## mvita

I thinking about adding a 400gb drive to my stock HR10-250 (keeping the original 250gb drive in place). I'm considering doing the upgrade myself using the WeaKnees upgrade kit. One concern I have is that I've seen references to potential swap space issues when adding hard drive capacity. Is this something I need to be concerned about with this upgrade? I don't see any mention of futzing with swap space in the instructions.


----------



## Andrew_S

Yes, you need to run the tpip command to initialize the swap space correctly. Unfortunately, tpip is not included on the weaknees boot cd.

See this...


----------



## mvita

Andrew, 

Thanks for the info.... Is there an recommended alternate boot CD I can download and use which does include the tpip command? (PTVupgrade CD?)

I'm a little confused about what "tpip" does... does tpip actually add more swap space? Does this extra swap space reside on the original drive or the new one? Is it possible to add swap space when adding a second drive and not lose recordings already present on my original A drive?


----------



## Andrew_S

Those are all very good questions, not sure I know the answers but I'll take a shot...

1. I don't know of an alternate boot cd. I replaced my 250 with a 400. I used the weaknees guide and cd, then booted into an actual linux install and ran the tpip command.

2. tpip doesn't add swap space, it just initializes swap partitions over 127 mb.

3. Using the weaknees guide, it doesn't appear you can add swap space when adding an addtional drive. You would need to backup your existing drive somewhere else, then restore the backup image to the 250 & 400 gb drives. Which as you can tell, is quite a bit of work. And that explains why I replaced my 250 with the 400 and didn't add a 2nd drive.

Maybe someone else can offer additional assistance without creating more headaches for you.


----------



## J Finch57

My daughters have filled the 250GB drive in 6 weeks and I'm ready to upgrade. Just curious, has anyone tried the Hitachi 500GB drive. Are there limitations to how far you can go? I'm looking at replacing the factory drive with a single 400 or 500, then adding a second down the line. Is that possible, or should I do it at the same time?


----------



## Andrew_S

J Finch57 said:


> My daughters have filled the 250GB drive in 6 weeks and I'm ready to upgrade. Just curious, has anyone tried the Hitachi 500GB drive. Are there limitations to how far you can go? I'm looking at replacing the factory drive with a single 400 or 500, then adding a second down the line. Is that possible, or should I do it at the same time?


I upgraded to a single 400gb Seagate, but if I was going to go dual I would have done it at the same time. Simply because it's easier to do it all at once.

If you plan ahead though, you can replace the 250 with a 500gb than add another drive later. When you create the swap partition, make sure you create it large enough for the final size. That is, if your replacing with a 400gb but intend to go to 800gb in the future, then create a 400mb swap partition. That way, when you add the new drive you won't have to backup to a third drive, then restore to the existing and the new drive.


----------



## mvita

Upon further review, I think that rather than just adding a second 400GB drive to my (stock) HR10-250, I'm going to bite the bullet and put two brand new drives in. So I've got a 300GB and a 400GB disk on order to serve as the new A and B drives. I plan to back up my original factory 250GB, and just put it on the shelf in case of emergency.

The other goal is that I want to preserve (copy) my existing recordings onto the new disk(s).

Basic question: since I'll have 700GB of total disk space after the upgrade, from what I gather, this means I should ideally allocate at least 350MB of swap space, is that right?

After reading some of the many threads on this topic, here's the mfstools and tpip commands I *think* I need to run to copy/expand my original A drive to the new A+B drives, and also initialize the swap properly... could some kind soul please sanity check these commands for me?

*mfsbackup -Tao - /dev/hdc | mfsrestore -s 350 -r 4 -xzpi - /dev/hda /dev/hdb

tpip -1 -s /dev/hda * _ (assuming tpip v1.2 is being used)_

where:hda = my new A drive (300GB)
hdb = my new B drive (400GB)
hdc = my original A drive (250GB)​​​Is this right?

My specific concerns/questions are:

1) the "-s 350" argument to mfsrestore  should give me the proper 350MB of swap, correct?
2) is the "-r 4" argument to mfsrestore  proper in this situation?
3) Is the correct argument to tpip  just the new A drive device ("/dev/hda")? (i.e., the new B drive is not involved at all in this tpip  operation?)

Thanks in advance....


----------



## bfdhe

Follow the instructions here and you will be fine:

http://tivo.upgrade-instructions.com/index.php


----------



## mvita

I've looked at those weaknees instructions previously, but they don't seem to address the swap space issue...


----------



## LarryInAz

mvita said:


> I've looked at those weaknees instructions previously, but they don't seem to address the swap space issue...


How recently did you look at them? I do believe they have added the various switches depending upon hard drive size.


----------



## mvita

Just now. 

The page I got after answering the initial questions (model HR10-250, replace with two drives, save recordings) didn't have any mention of issues with large drive sizes, per se. The key command given on the page was as follows:

*mfsbackup -Tao - /dev/hdX (/dev/hdY) | mfsrestore -s 127 -r 4 -xzpi - /dev/hdZ (/dev/hdZZ)*​This would appear to create a 127MB swap partition, which I gather from reading elsewhere in this forum is insufficient to avoid potential GSOD problems down the road if you're going to have >250GB of total disk space after the upgrade.

There's also no mention there of using tpip.


----------



## Andrew_S

mvita, everything looks good from here. I think you're correct on the switches that need to be used and the tpip command.


----------



## juskie

Ok, I've looking at backing up my Direct TV HR10-250, and have searched here and other websites and have obtained lots of information, but I am having some trouble.

When using the mfsrestore command does the drive that you are restoring the image to need to be already partitioned and formated? If so with what format? I can't seem to find that info here or on Hinsdale's How to guide.

If not, then how does a 250 gb drive get formatted in 10-25 minutes using the mfsrestore command?


----------



## weaknees

Nope - the new drive doesn't need to be formatted at all. Mfstool does all of that as part of the restore.

It doesn't zero out the drive, it just sets up the partitions.


----------



## mvita

So I started the upgrade of my HR10-250 tonight, and I ran into a problem... I first did a backup of my original factory A drive using:

*mfsbackup -f 9999 -6so /mnt/dos/tivo.bak /dev/hdc * 

This all went fine, no errors. Then, I decided to restore the backup to one of my new drives to test it, as recommended in the Hinsdale guide. I used the following command to restore:

*mfsrestore -s 127 -bzpi /mnt/dos/tivo.bak /dev/hdb*

The restore operation proceeded OK for quite a while, then I started to get a crapload of errors of the form:

*mfs_read_inode: Inode XXXXXX corrupt, trying backup
mfs_read_inode: Inode XXXXXX backup corrupt, giving up*

What's going on? Is my DOS partition (where the backup file was placed) bad? Or is there something wrong with the new drive that was being restored to?


----------



## mvita

Just to follow up on my own post above: I think my problem with the "corrupt inodes" error was due to bad arguments to "mfsrestore". I had *-bzpi * where I should have had *-zxpi*. I made another backup of my factory drive and restored it directly to my two new drives using *-zxpi * and now everything is peachy. I also used the *-s 400 -r 4* arguments to mfsrestore to create a large swap, and initialized it with tpip. I now have my HR10-250 up and running with the two new drives (320GB+400GB=93 hours of HD). The only change I ended up making from the original plan was that I had to give up on preserving my existing recordings; I initially tried this option, but it ran 7+ hours overnight and was only about 20% complete! Ah well, I guess the upside is now I have even more space available...


----------



## dmiraclejr

Mvita, 

Did you check to make sure the larger swap initalized for sure? If so, what commands did you use and did the swap take? 

I have an active thread going right now trying to solve the problem of not getting any info from the log on the A drive when I use the "grep" command. I've had no responses in about a day and may end up having to put the drives back in and just hope that the larger swap file took? 

Thanks, 

Donnie


----------



## shortkidd

I have my HR10-250 and just ordered the bracket the add a second hard drive. The directions look easy enough to understand to replace the original hard drive with a new one and then add a second drive as long as I add the appropriate amount of swap. 

I have not seen any documentation on adding a network adapter to the HR10-250. I was under the impression I could add a network adapter using the USB 2.0 ports. Is that the case? Does anyone have any links to a FAQ or instructions on this?

Thanks for your help.

Shortkidd


----------



## mvita

Donnie: you might try checking /var/log/Okernel in addition to /var/log/kernel. From what I gather, the "kernel" log file is kept pretty small, and new messages are moved fairly quickly to "Okernel". Here's what I got on my system:

bash-2.02# grep -i swap Okernel
Jan 2 00:00:15 (none) kernel: Activating swap partitions
Jan 2 00:00:15 (none) kernel: Adding Swap: 409592k swap-space (priority -1)
Jan 2 00:00:16 (none) kernel: Starting kswapd
Sep 16 16:39:51 (none) kernel: Activating swap partitions
Sep 16 16:39:51 (none) kernel: Adding Swap: 409592k swap-space (priority -1)
Sep 16 16:47:47 (none) kernel: Starting kswapd
Sep 16 16:47:47 (none) kernel: Activating swap partitions
Sep 16 16:47:47 (none) kernel: Adding Swap: 409592k swap-space (priority -1)​
which I think looks right (409592k == 400MB).


----------



## mvita

Shortkidd, it is indeed possible to add a USB network adapter to the HDTiVo, though it requires that you modify the TiVo's OS somewhat. I got this working after I did my disk upgrade. I believe discussion of this sort of topic is frowned upon here, but here's a couple links to guides on other sites that can get you started:

Guide #1

Guide #2


----------



## shortkidd

mvita,

thanks sir for directing me to the correct place. i had just seen those sites right before you responded.

thanks for your help.

cheers,
shortkidd


----------



## dmiraclejr

Mvita, 

Thanks for the help but I still get no output to the screen. The computer still goes right back to the "Weaknees#" prompt. No errors, no words of any kind. Just right back to the prompt. 

I'm so close to being finished with the upgrade but yet I feel so far away still. I'm just trying to see with my own eyes that the swap file is right and all the trouble I went to was worth it. 

Thanks, 

Donnie


----------



## hr10-250

hello,

I need help. I've followed the hinsdale guide and I thought I did it correctly. The problem I'm having is after adding a second 250g drive my tivo still reports only 30 hours of HD capacity. I know the mfsadd completed without error. I'll go back and read somemore but I was hoping someone here could help.

thanks


----------



## hr10-250

Okay.
My reasoning is that I must have done mfsadd wrong so I tried again. mfsadd comes back with success 300 hours added, but, when I try mfsinfo /dev/hdb I get mfsvol_read_data: Input/ouput error

Is my drive bad?


----------



## HomeUser

If you added a 'B' drive then mfsinfo needs to know where both drives are something like mfsinfo /dev/hdb */dev/hdc*


----------



## hr10-250

The original tivo drive was hda and the second drive is hdb.

I tried mfsinfo /dev/hda and mfsinfo /dev/hdb. The second drive, hdb, came back with the error.

[edit]
I remember that I did a blesstivo on the new drive. After reading more I'm not sure I should have done that. ...that is, mfsadd will format it.

Could this be the problem? If so, what can I do about it?

thanks
[/edit]


----------



## HomeUser

Include both drives with the 'A' drive first "*mfsinfo /dev/hda /dev/hdb*"

using blesstivo on the new drive should not be a problem mfsadd wipes it.


----------



## Matt L

OK, I finally got busy on this project, now I need some help.

At this point I have purchased 2 Seagate HD's, a 300g, and a 200g.

I successfully copied my old 250g Hd to the new drives, expanded the cache to 250m, verified with tpip. All in all it took 23 hours...

I successfully booted into the new drives, showed total of 63 hour in HD

I've pulled the drives out and have been beating my head against the wall to install the 3.1.5 kernel with killhdinitrd installed from the upgraded PPTV iso disk.

I discovered that the boot disk does not mount the CDROM after repeated attempts, used the command:

mount -o ro -t iso9660 /dev/hdd /cdrom

My setup is: HDA Tivo 300g A drive, HDB tivo 200g B drive, HDC drive 4.3g FAT 32 drive, HDD HP DVD ROM

I've mounted the HDC1 partition, and have used the following command:

cp /CDROM/s2_kernels/3.1.5/vmlinux.px.gz /tmp

gunzip vmlinux.px.gz 

My boot partition is 3 since I'm on the F software. Issued the following command from the /tmp directory

dd if=vmlinux.px of=/dev/hdd3 

Get the message :


1+1 records in
1+1 records out

After some time, then umount and reboot. I pull the drives and reinstall them in the tivo but I get caught in the "welcome" boot loop, unit reboots as soon as the red light comes on when I should go to " almost there".

Any suggestions???

(NOTE: I did back up the original kernel prior to doing anything...)


----------



## scottym

Matt L said:


> OK, I finally got busy on this project, now I need some help.
> 
> At this point I have purchased 2 Seagate HD's, a 300g, and a 200g.
> 
> I successfully copied my old 250g Hd to the new drives, expanded the cache to 250m, verified with tpip. All in all it took 23 hours...
> 
> I successfully booted into the new drives, showed total of 63 hour in HD
> 
> I've pulled the drives out and have been beating my head against the wall to install the 3.1.5 kernel with killhdinitrd installed from the upgraded PPTV iso disk.
> 
> I discovered that the boot disk does not mount the CDROM after repeated attempts, used the command:
> 
> mount -o ro -t iso9660 /dev/hdd /cdrom
> 
> My setup is: HDA Tivo 300g A drive, HDB tivo 200g B drive, HDC drive 4.3g FAT 32 drive, HDD HP DVD ROM
> 
> I've mounted the HDC1 partition, and have used the following command:
> 
> cp /CDROM/s2_kernels/3.1.5/vmlinux.px.gz /tmp
> 
> gunzip vmlinux.px.gz
> 
> My boot partition is 3 since I'm on the F software. Issued the following command from the /tmp directory
> 
> dd if=vmlinux.px of=/dev/hdd3
> 
> Get the message :
> 
> 1+1 records in
> 1+1 records out
> 
> After some time, then umount and reboot. I pull the drives and reinstall them in the tivo but I get caught in the "welcome" boot loop, unit reboots as soon as the red light comes on when I should go to " almost there".
> 
> Any suggestions???
> 
> (NOTE: I did back up the original kernel prior to doing anything...)


Perhaps you have a scsi cdrom /dev/sdx, I mount my cdrom without options and type specification, simply mount /dev/hdc /cdrom and it works fine.

Also don't know what you mean by "F" s/w but the proper way to check the boot partition is with bootpage -b /dev/hdx. This command gives you the active fs partition so subtract 1.

If your looking for a virgin kernel, try ftp://tivokernel:[email protected] IIRC.


----------



## scottym

Oops I recalled incorrectly, you can find a virgin 3.1.5 kernel 2.4.20 at ftp://tivok:[email protected] .


----------



## scottym

Matt L said:


> I successfully booted into the new drives, showed total of 63 hour in HD


I missed this part. If your seeing only 63 hours after doing the mfsrestore -x then there is a good chance you were not using a cdrom bootdisk that supports LBA48.

I'm curious, what exactly were the commands you used to backup and restore?


----------



## boiler11

scottym said:


> I missed this part. If your seeing only 63 hours after doing the mfsrestore -x then there is a good chance you were not using a cdrom bootdisk that supports LBA48.
> 
> I'm curious, what exactly were the commands you used to backup and restore?


63 hours HD is correct for 500 GB. They don't really condone hacking talk on this board. You should probably ask your question in the yahoo hdtivo group or at deal database.


----------



## mercurial

That depends on what you're calling "hacking" if you're just talking about adding drive space, that is not against the rules.


----------



## boiler11

mercurial said:


> That depends on what you're calling "hacking" if you're just talking about adding drive space, that is not against the rules.


Yes, but Matt L is asking about more than adding drive space. I'm all for hacking the unit, I'm just saying that Matt probably isn't going to get the advice he needs here.


----------



## Matt L

Sorry, I just posted at all three boards I go to, didn't even think about the rules here.


----------



## scottym

boiler11 said:


> Yes, but Matt L is asking about more than adding drive space. I'm all for hacking the unit, I'm just saying that Matt probably isn't going to get the advice he needs here.


So, what are you saying. First you say this is an inappropriate question to ask on this thread. Then you change your mind and say he isn't going to get the answer he needs from this thread. Okay, I made a mistake by suggesting his drive capacity was low, but at least I'm trying to help the guy. I can accept criticism for giving bad advice but don't impugn this forum. What's your problem?


----------



## boiler11

scottym said:


> So, what are you saying. First you say this is an inappropriate question to ask on this thread. Then you change your mind and say he isn't going to get the answer he needs from this thread. Okay, I made a mistake by suggesting his drive capacity was low, but at least I'm trying to help the guy. I can accept criticism for giving bad advice but don't impugn this forum. What's your problem?


Dude, relax. I wasn't trying to be rude to either you or Matt L. I was just stating a fact that 63 hours HD is correct for 500 GB. How did I attack you by saying that? 

Also, I would be more than happy to help Matt with his problem. I'm just suggesting that the discussion be moved to a forum that allows that discussion. I have my TiVo hacked and I actively help people in the yahoo hdtivo group.


----------



## aaronwt

Why do I have 64 hours for my units? They are MAxtor drives that were configured by Weaknees.


----------



## Nomarian

It was noted before that if you get 500GB of drive space, that is equal to about 64 hours of HD content. That is correct. Normally, it would show about 32 hours of HD content.



aaronwt said:


> Why do I have 64 hours for my units? They are MAxtor drives that were configured by Weaknees.


----------



## weaknees

aaronwt said:


> Why do I have 64 hours for my units? They are MAxtor drives that were configured by Weaknees.


Different drives show different amounts of hours at the same capacity. We likely made our screenshots from using dual Western Digital 250s - the drives that came in the units. Maxtors are generally slightly larger than WDs.


----------



## boiler11

boiler11 said:


> 63 hours HD is correct for 500 GB. They don't really condone hacking talk on this board. You should probably ask your question in the yahoo hdtivo group or at deal database.


My choice of words was probably not the best here. I was trying to keep it short and sweet. Let me restate this to remove confusion and so people don't think I'm trying to be a jerk. This is what I should have said:

[better wording]

scottym,

63 hours of HD is about right for 500 GB of disk space. Perhaps you read that as 63 hours of standard def. and that's why you thought it seemed off?

Matt L,

I don't believe the moderators of this forum will allow us to discuss your problem here. We will be happy to try help you if you post this question on the hdtivo yahoo group.

[/better wording]

I have two Maxtor model 6Y250P0 drives in mine and it shows:

"Variable, up to 64 HD or 427 SD hours"


----------



## tivoupgrade

boiler11 said:


> Yes, but Matt L is asking about more than adding drive space. I'm all for hacking the unit, I'm just saying that Matt probably isn't going to get the advice he needs here.


This may not be the appropriate thread for it, however there is nothing wrong with discussing the majority of hacks on TiVo Community. That is exactly what the Upgrade Center and the Underground are for.

The only types of hacks that are not permitted to be discussed on these forums are those associated with theft-of-service or video extraction.


----------



## boiler11

tivoupgrade said:


> This may not be the appropriate thread for it, however there is nothing wrong with discussing the majority of hacks on TiVo Community. That is exactly what the Upgrade Center and the Underground are for.
> 
> The only types of hacks that are not permitted to be discussed on these forums are those associated with theft-of-service or video extraction.


I sit corrected. I apologize. I'm used to seeing:

"(Note: No hacking talk please in this area.)"

for the "HDTV TiVo Powered PVRs" forum. I'm also used to seeing people refer to deal database as the "other forum" here because it's a dirty word. I extrapolated that to the entire board.


----------



## tivoupgrade

boiler11 said:


> I sit corrected. I apologize. I'm used to seeing:
> 
> "(Note: No hacking talk please in this area.)"
> 
> for the "HDTV TiVo Powered PVRs" forum. I'm also used to seeing people refer to deal database as the "other forum" here because it's a dirty word. I extrapolated that to the entire board.


Certainly understandable. Also to clarify on the issue of the 'dirty word' -I've never been absolutely certain why the moderators tend to block links to DDB however, I know that the underlying concern is more related to any potential liability associated with encouraging folks to do things that are 'illegal' with respect to the DMCA. It is certainly understandable, as the stakes here are high.

With that said, there are definitely more appropriate places to discuss networking, kernel replacements, and other cool things beyond the scope of this thread; then again, the sbuejct is "HR10-250 Upgrade Thread" and there are lots of ways, other than capacity, to upgrade an HR10-250. I'd look in "the underground" for more discussions, however...


----------



## daemon452

is there any way to download the information from the HR10-250 onto a Computer without taking it apart


----------



## azitnay

I doubt you'll get very far if you're unwilling to crack the case.

Drew


----------



## jshorr

Is there a limit to the size of the drive you can add with BlessTiVo to a stock unit? Do you need to enter any special switches into BlessTiVo?


----------



## weaknees

We've tried it with 400 GB drives, and even 500 GB drives, and it doesn't seem to be a problem. Just be sure that you are in the 20 kernel and the reported size is in the right ballpark.


----------



## jshorr

weaknees said:


> We've tried it with 400 GB drives, and even 500 GB drives, and it doesn't seem to be a problem. Just be sure that you are in the 20 kernel and the reported size is in the right ballpark.


I greatly appreciate the response, and I hate to sound dumb, but could you clarify what you mean by "in the 20 kernel." Thanks.


----------



## Jason T

I apologize for posting this - I've gone through SOME of this thread, but not all. I've also seen this question asked a couple of times and not answered, so here goes.

All I am doing is adding a second 250 gig drive to a HD TiVo that already has a 250 in it. The big question seems to be on the swap file. Can I just bless the new 250, or do I have to do something to increase the swap? I'm not even sure, now that I think of it, how I can increase the swap, since you can only do that to bigger drive (if I understand it correctly).

Any assistance would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.


Jason T


----------



## vurbano

daemon452 said:


> is there any way to download the information from the HR10-250 onto a Computer without taking it apart


The case comes right off, no seals to break .....nothing. Theres no way Directv would ever know youve been in the case as long as you slapped the original drive and cables back into it when the upgrade rolls out.


----------



## tivoupgrade

vurbano said:


> I purchased 2- 250 GB Maxtor Maxline Plus II drives from Buy.com
> These are what PTV states they use for their 250 upgrade, not the quickview ones:
> 
> "Currently, all kits are based upon Maxtor drives. 21 hour and 40 hour add-on kits are based upon 120GB and 300GB Maxtor QuickView Drives, 33 hour add-on drive kit is based upon the MaXLine Plus II ultra-reliable 250GB hard drive. " http://www.ptvupgrade.com/resellers/9thTee/HDD2A-preorder.html


Actually, that information needs to be updated; we are also using Quickview 250GB drives, but also use Seagate 250, 300, and 400GB drives.


----------



## vurbano

So much for researching the Ptv site to use the exact parts PTV is using..... Ugh


----------



## boiler11

vurbano said:


> So much for researching the Ptv site to use the exact parts PTV is using..... Ugh


It doesn't really matter. Any disk will work.


----------



## vurbano

Are there specific instructions for adding 2 - 250 Gb drives and the PTVnet hacks for USB2.0 if you have version F software on the HDtivo?


----------



## tivoboy

What is the current best software to use for upgrading an HDTIVO, HR10-250 TIVO? I haven't done this in about three years.


----------



## azitnay

Either the PTVupgrade or WeaKnees boot CD's will do just fine.

The PTVupgrade CD might be more ideal, since it includes a version of tpip in case you need it.

Drew


----------



## dsmturbo

The HR10-250 is not really hackable, am I correct? IE: software upgrade etc.

But as I understand, I can hack to enable larger drive and networking/no call home etc.?


----------



## tivoboy

thanks all, upgrade went just as easilly as in the past. Added 250GB WD, making HD capacity 64 hours. Don't know why I was thinking it was going to be 70?

what is normal for a 250 GB drive add?


----------



## Anubys

tivoboy said:


> thanks all, upgrade went just as easilly as in the past. Added 250GB WD, making HD capacity 64 hours. Don't know why I was thinking it was going to be 70?
> 
> what is normal for a 250 GB drive add?


63 hours is normal.


----------



## Jason T

Gonna answer my own question, just in case it helps anyone else.

I got the impression from further readings that a bigger swap SHOULD be done if you're adding a second 250 gig drive, but that most people aren't because it's just easier. The Maxtor 250 gig drive I purchased ended up coming out to about a gig more than the Western Digital 250 that was in the TiVo. So I went ahead and did a full copy of the WD to the Maxtor (took about 8 hours), and during the copy I expanded the swap file to 250. This just meant using the -s 250 switch with mfsrestore, and then running tpip afterwards. 

I have no idea if this was necessary, but I feel a little better in having done it this way instead of just blessing the new drive. I'm guessing that I would not have been able to expand the swap if my Maxtor 250 had ended up being a bit smaller.


----------



## tivoboy

Has anyone had the experience of the image quality degrading, AFTER an upgrade?

I know, I know, it should have no effect at all on the image quality, it is digital, but maybe it was just some bad signals I have been getting?


----------



## vurbano

tivoboy said:


> Has anyone had the experience of the image quality degrading, AFTER an upgrade?
> 
> I know, I know, it should have no effect at all on the image quality, it is digital, but maybe it was just some bad signals I have been getting?


If you do a total upgrade, 2 drives you may have to reset your output resolutions in the setup menus. But in general degraded resolution is due to Dierctv's crappy downrezzing to 1280x1080i at reduced bitrates. AKA HDLITE.


----------



## azitnay

dsmturbo said:


> The HR10-250 is not really hackable, am I correct? IE: software upgrade etc.
> 
> But as I understand, I can hack to enable larger drive and networking/no call home etc.?


The HR10-250 is just as hackable as any other Series2 DirecTV unit AFAIK (except the R10, which isn't as hackable)... But since 6.x hasn't (yet?) been released for it, that might limit what you're able to do. See the TiVo Underground forum for more details.

Drew


----------



## mercurial

Ok.. So I started the process of replacing my (probably) failing HR10-250 drive with dual 250's at around 11a this morning. I used the command:

New A on primary master, new B on primary slave.
Old drive on secondary slave, CD-ROM boot on secondary master.



> mfsbackup -Tao - /dev/hdd | mfsrestore -s 127 -r 4 -xzpi - /dev/hdz /dev/hdb


It seemed to be fine and reported a 231557MB image to be backedup/restored. The process chugged along and "finshed" around 6p. It reported the following:



> Backup done!
> 
> Cleaning up restore. Please wait a moment.
> Adding pair /dev/hda14-/dev/hda15
> New estimated standalone size: 283 hours (2 more)
> Adding pair /dev/hdb2-/dev/hdb3
> New estimated standlone size: 583 hours (300 more)


It's now sat there for a little over 2 hours with that on the screen and the HD line running. Is that normal?


----------



## dsmturbo

azitnay said:


> The HR10-250 is just as hackable as any other Series2 DirecTV unit AFAIK (except the R10, which isn't as hackable)... But since 6.x hasn't (yet?) been released for it, that might limit what you're able to do. See the TiVo Underground forum for more details.
> 
> Drew


Where should I be looking for some pointers on way to do a few hacks? All I really need is networking and fakecall etc.


----------



## muadib

I've finally had time to upgrade my HR10-250. I'm using 2 Seagate 300gb drives, and at first thought I had a dead IDE channel, because my PC couldn't see the drives. I thought I was up the creek, but then read one of the drives. Turns out I had to set them for cable select, and not master, slave like I set them, because the IDE controller in my PC was ata133.

Now here's my question. How do I set them when I put them into the Tivo?


----------



## dsmturbo

I believe you can set them to Cable Select or Master/Slave in Tivo..but I could be wrong.

muadib, did you apply and hacks like Fakecall/networking ? I have to get started doing mine


----------



## muadib

No, I didn't do any of the hacks. My Tivo has a phone line, and I don't have a ethernet connection in that room. Could I go wireless? Can you tell me why would I want it on my network anyway?


----------



## azitnay

mercurial said:


> It's now sat there for a little over 2 hours with that on the screen and the HD line running. Is that normal?


It didn't return to the prompt after adding the second pair? That's odd if so; don't think I've ever seen that step take more than a few seconds.

You could see if the drive pair boots up anyway... If not, I guess you could try a restore to just the single drive (without -x) at first, and then mfsadd the second drive after, to see if you have more luck with that.

Drew


----------



## azitnay

dsmturbo said:


> Where should I be looking for some pointers on way to do a few hacks? All I really need is networking and fakecall etc.


You might try asking over at the TiVo Underground forum.

Drew


----------



## mercurial

azitnay said:


> It didn't return to the prompt after adding the second pair? That's odd if so; don't think I've ever seen that step take more than a few seconds.
> 
> You could see if the drive pair boots up anyway... If not, I guess you could try a restore to just the single drive (without -x) at first, and then mfsadd the second drive after, to see if you have more luck with that.
> 
> Drew


It never returned, I left it overnight. So the next morning I just did a backup/restore without saving recordings and it failed adding the second drive (don't recall the error). So I just did a good old mfsadd and it passed successfully. Unfortunately, when I went to reassemble it, the power splitter that came with my bracket had a bad pin the popped out so I won't know if it *really* worked until the replacement arrives (cause I'm an idiot and through out all my spare splitters about a year ago when I moved since I hadn't needed one in ages).


----------



## muadib

Ok, I've upgraded my unit, but things didn't go as planned. One of my drives was bad, so I added a 300GB drive to the original drive. However, when I get my replacement drive back, I want to replace the original drive. I haven't seen a procedure on how to do that on the HR10-250. Can it be done?


----------



## azitnay

It's not clear (at least to me) what you're asking... Can you spell it out a little clearer?

Drew


----------



## mercurial

Grumble, grumble... Ok.. After the replacement power splitter arrived and I got the HR10-250 back up and running, the second drive isn't recognized. I tried re-doing the add, deleting the partitions on it and then doing the add again. Not joy. The original drive has comletely given up the ghost now, so I managed to get a backup image off the new Master drive and I restored it back to it as if it was a one drive system and the HR10-250 is up and running. I'm going to get the new slave drive replaced and try it again.

Quite annoying.


----------



## muadib

azitnay said:


> It's not clear (at least to me) what you're asking... Can you spell it out a little clearer?
> 
> Drew


OK, I'll give it another shot. My initial plan was to replace the 250GB drive with 2 300GB drives. After much testing, I found out that one of the 300GB drives was bad. I ended up adding the good 300GB drive to the original 250GB drive. I didn't do a backup though, because I didn't have a fat partitioned drive in my PC.

I sent the bad drive off for repair, and once I get it back I would like to put it in the Tivo, having it replace the 250GB drive. How would I do it now that I have a 2 drive Tivo?

Thanks!


----------



## weaknees

You could "dd" the 250 to the new 300, then mfsadd the extra space.


----------



## bigcat400

I tried to do the full backup (clone) of the original tivo drive to replace it with a new drive with the command below. The clone appears to be working ok. However, at the end of the restore there was a message that I dont know what it means.

mfsbackup -Tao - /dev/hdd | mfsrestore -s 127 -r 4 -xzpi - /dev/hda

Restore done!
Not enough extra space to expand on A drive.

I am thinking that this may have something to do with asking it to increase the swap space to 127, but I am not sure. My original drive was pretty full of recordings, perhaps this would explain this? Both drives are 250GB.

I am planning on using mfsadd to add a second drive once it arrives later this week. Does it make sense to proceed with this? How do I take care of the above issue?

Thanks


----------



## weaknees

Both drives are 250 GB, so there's no space (or need) to expand the partitions to cover more space. That's all. It's right, given the situation.


----------



## tivoupgrade

bigcat400 said:


> I tried to do the full backup (clone) of the original tivo drive to replace it with a new drive with the command below. The clone appears to be working ok. However, at the end of the restore there was a message that I dont know what it means.
> 
> mfsbackup -Tao - /dev/hdd | mfsrestore -s 127 -r 4 -xzpi - /dev/hda
> 
> Restore done!
> Not enough extra space to expand on A drive.
> 
> I am thinking that this may have something to do with asking it to increase the swap space to 127, but I am not sure. My original drive was pretty full of recordings, perhaps this would explain this? Both drives are 250GB.
> 
> I am planning on using mfsadd to add a second drive once it arrives later this week. Does it make sense to proceed with this? How do I take care of the above issue?
> 
> Thanks


Most likely, it was the -x that hurt you. Consider dropping the -r4, as well, it won't make a difference, either (in this case). If you still have a problem, its because your new 250GB is slightly smaller than the old one.


----------



## ncsercs

Read this thread and did a lot of research but I'm more confused than ever.

I have an HR10-250 with a bad HD, a virgin image from a friend on a FAT32 HD, a Seagate 300GB drive, and a PTVupgrade LBA48 version 4 free utility CD.

I've upgraded TiVo's before but not a HD tiVo.

What command(s) do I need to restore this image to the 300GB Seagate and how long will the restore run?

Thanks!


----------



## jsvette56

I made a backup when I upgraded my first HR10-250 and wonder if I should creat a backup of the 2nd unit. Or can one backup serve both units in the event I have a disk failure? I just had a disk failure from first unit and fortunately had the backup.


----------



## Diana Collins

ncsercs said:


> Read this thread and did a lot of research but I'm more confused than ever.
> 
> I have an HR10-250 with a bad HD, a virgin image from a friend on a FAT32 HD, a Seagate 300GB drive, and a PTVupgrade LBA48 version 4 free utility CD.
> 
> I've upgraded TiVo's before but not a HD tiVo.
> 
> What command(s) do I need to restore this image to the 300GB Seagate and how long will the restore run?
> 
> Thanks!


mfsrestore -s 127 -xzpi /<path to image file> /dev/hdX

Where hdX is the target 300GB drive.


----------



## ncsercs

Dan Collins said:


> mfsrestore -s 127 -xzpi /<path to image file> /dev/hdX
> 
> Where hdX is the target 300GB drive.


Dan,

That was the first thing I tried.

It ran for 4 hrs before I killed it. It seemed to have hung up around 25% complete.

I know the image and drives are good.

It it supposed to be this slow? How long does it normally take?

Thanks, Nick


----------



## ncsercs

Someone has to have an answer for this..........


----------



## dwynne

Bad drive or some hardware issue with the PC you are using, I would say. A "virgin image" should not take long at all to restore, since I assume it is just the OS and no programs/video.

Dennis


----------



## Jasper

Be sure the drive that has the backup on it is on a seperate IDE channel than the destination drive. As in, one on the primary, one on the secondary....


----------



## dwynne

Any problems running a pair of 400gb drives in the same HDTivo? Anything to watch out for? Looks like I have to make sure I make a larger swap file?

I put a pair of 250gb drives in my first HDTivo without much trouble and I am wanting to upgrade the 2nd one now and I am thinking of just going to 800gb this time. How many hours of HD can I fit in 800gb  ?

Thanks!
Dennis


----------



## btwyx

dwynne said:


> How many hours of HD can I fit in 800gb  ?


Weaknees say its 103 hours http://www.weaknees.com/tivo/hr_10_103.php. They'll also do you a dual 500, and you get 130 hours with your 1TB of disk. http://www.weaknees.com/tivo/hr_10_130.php


----------



## rlinsurf

Hi, There--

Well, this is certainly a massive thread. I was actually thinking of starting a new one to ask my question, as I'm sure it's a PITA to read through 59 pages dating back nearly two years (People!) and all... but in keeping with the community, I'll add my post here, and if any moderators want to split it out into a new thread -- THANK YOU GOD!!!

Ahem... I digress.

Ok. What I'm looking for is the step by step to backup (clone) my original HR10-250 drive so I can save all the HD programs on it. I'm happy to break open, smash, torch completely or otherwise extract said drive from case.

What say you?

All My Best,
Jeffrey


----------



## tivoupgrade

rlinsurf said:


> Hi, There--
> 
> Well, this is certainly a massive thread. I was actually thinking of starting a new one to ask my question, as I'm sure it's a PITA to read through 59 pages dating back nearly two years (People!) and all... but in keeping with the community, I'll add my post here, and if any moderators want to split it out into a new thread -- THANK YOU GOD!!!
> 
> Ahem... I digress.
> 
> Ok. What I'm looking for is the step by step to backup (clone) my original HR10-250 drive so I can save all the HD programs on it. I'm happy to break open, smash, torch completely or otherwise extract said drive from case.
> 
> What say you?
> 
> All My Best,
> Jeffrey


The very first post of the thread pretty much says it all... ;-)


----------



## dwynne

tivoupgrade said:


> The very first post of the thread pretty much says it all... ;-)


I would agree. Use the link in the message to go to the upgrade instructions web page, put in the Tivo model and what you want to do (replace 1 drive with 1 larger drive and save all settings and recordings) and it will tell you the command.

The only thing left to do is remove the drive and install them in a PC and that is simple - 5 torx screws on the back of the case to open it, 2 more to pull drive and bracket out.

Dennis


----------



## rlinsurf

Heh. NM.


----------



## pheroy

Hi folks. I was referred to this thread from the reference in one of the Tivo upgrade guides. I'm trying to upgrade my HR10-250 by adding a new 300GB drive. Following the guidelines in Hinsdale's guide I first tried to copy my existing "A" drive to another 250GB drive via the command _dd if=/dev/hdc of=/dev/hdd bs=1024k_ . I'm getting worried, b/c the drive activity light is still going nearly 14 hours later and the command has never terminated. It can't be taking this long. The target drive was originally used in Windows, and I used Partition Magic to delete the partition so it had none when the dd command was started.

I also realized when going through the document that I may have made a critical error early on when trying to get the MFS Tools ISO CD to boot -- my boot sequence didn't have CD-ROM before the HD, so it went into Windows. Could this have corrupted my TIvo drive and lead to the copy never finishing?

I appreciate any help here!


----------



## dwynne

Step #1 of working on a windoze PC and doing Tivo drives should always be to unplug the windoze boot drive. If you do that, then there is 0 chance of booting into windoze and messing up something.

AFAIK, booting into windows will hose your Tivo drive so it will no longer boot properly in the Tivo - it does not scramble the drive where it will not copy.

I would think on a drive used in another OS you would need to run Fdisk /MBR on it (while booted from a boot floppy) before you started to use it in a Tivo - IF you are using mfsbackup | mfsrestore - with dd it should take care of wiping out everything for you.

Most likely you put the drives in a machine with non-standard IDE chips and the boot CD does not know how to do DMA on your box. I have a similar machine (Dell tower "server" with 3 IDE channels - 6 IDE deviced today) that has the same problem. It will work for Tivo drive stuff, but it takes HOURS to get the job done. To copy a 250gb drive to a new drive pair can take 40 hours or so in this box. Recently I recycled an old cast off Celeron PC into a "Tivo drive special" and though it is much slower than the Dell and has far less memory, it can copy a 250gb drive in 3-4 hours - since it has a recognized IDE chipset and the boot CD can do DMA. After you boot from the CD you can scroll back and see if the DMA is on for the configuration or not, there is also a HUGE difference in screen update speed if you have working DMA.

The other possibility is that you source drive has many bad spots, and that is causing the slow copy - which may "never end". 

All that said, if you allowed it to boot fully into XP or 2k it will have "fingerprinted" the original drive and it will no longer boot in your Tivo - and any dd copies you make of it may not boot either. You may have to do a mfsbackup | mfsresore to pull the info off the old drive onto the new.

I wonder if someone has written a utility to fix this without having to do any extra work - it seems to happen a lot?

It the dd seems to still be making progress then it could be just doing port IO and not DMA, so just leave it and maybe in a day or two it will be completed.

Dennis


----------



## azitnay

There is certainly a utility to fix the booting problem -- MakeTiVoBootable. It may or may not be on whatever boot CD you're using already; if not, I'm sure a search will turn it up.

Drew


----------



## bigcat400

you could also try the dd command without the "bs=1024k" option, or just "bs=1024" (without the "k"). In my system, "bs=1024" is the only thing that creates reliable copies. Any other thing either hangs or corrupts the data. Dont know why.



pheroy said:


> Hi folks. I was referred to this thread from the reference in one of the Tivo upgrade guides. I'm trying to upgrade my HR10-250 by adding a new 300GB drive. Following the guidelines in Hinsdale's guide I first tried to copy my existing "A" drive to another 250GB drive via the command _dd if=/dev/hdc of=/dev/hdd bs=1024k_ . I'm getting worried, b/c the drive activity light is still going nearly 14 hours later and the command has never terminated. It can't be taking this long. The target drive was originally used in Windows, and I used Partition Magic to delete the partition so it had none when the dd command was started.
> 
> I also realized when going through the document that I may have made a critical error early on when trying to get the MFS Tools ISO CD to boot -- my boot sequence didn't have CD-ROM before the HD, so it went into Windows. Could this have corrupted my TIvo drive and lead to the copy never finishing?
> 
> I appreciate any help here!


----------



## dwynne

bigcat400 said:


> you could also try the dd command without the "bs=1024k" option, or just "bs=1024" (without the "k"). In my system, "bs=1024" is the only thing that creates reliable copies. Any other thing either hangs or corrupts the data. Dont know why.


The bs parameter on the dd command controls the blocksize on the copy and 1024 would just be 1k - or two disk blocks - while 1024k would be 1mb. I have not heard of using a large bs parameter causing a problem, but reading and writing only 1k at a time (VS 1mb) should make the copy a lot slower.

Dennis


----------



## pheroy

Well, I eventually gave up on the dd and powered down. Not surprisingly, the HD-Tivo won't boot now. I'm *really* glad I waited to do this until I got a second one! (Did the Newegg deal.) I did download MakeTivoBootable b/c it wasn't on the weaknees CD image I used. How do I make us of that, though - put it on a floppy? Or is there an easy way to add it to the ISO and burn to another bootable CD?


----------



## azitnay

Putting it on a floppy is a fine way to do it... I don't know if it'll have execute permissions once you mount the floppy, though, so you might want to copy it to /tmp or somewhere first and then chmod a+rx it.

Drew


----------



## dwynne

mount -t auto /dev/fd0 /mnt/floppy

or

mount -t vfat /dev/fd0 /mnt/floppy

(assuming the dir floppy exists under /mnt).

Then you can run it from the floppy by excuting /mnt/floppy/file_name

Do "chmod 777 /mnt/floppy/file_name" if it does not want to run.

Be sure to do "umount /mnt/floppy" (note no n after the u, so it is not unmount, but umount) when you are done with it.

Dennis


----------



## pheroy

Thanks for the help, guys.

Update: over lunch (the joy of working from home  ) I started to take out the HD-Tivo drive again to take a swing with MakeTiVoBootable... and noticed that the IDE connector was not seated in the drive. Short story, it's fine, everything works. I actually wonder now why it didn't cause a problem to have booted into WinXP?

So the DMA support may be the culprit behind the original problem of the 15-hour-and-going copy. I notice when linux starts up the following references to DMA:

PCI_IDE: unknown IDE controller on PCI bus 00 device 30, VID=10de, DID=0053
PCI_IDE: chipset revision 162
PCI_IDE: not 100% native mode: will probe irqs later
ide0: BM-DMA at 0xe000-0xe007, BIOS settings hda: DMA, hdb: DMA
ide1: BM-DMA at 0xe008-0xe00F, BIOS settings hdc: DMA, hdd: DMA


which pattern repeats for 2 similar blocks on ide2, 3, 4, 5 and then:


ide0 at 0x1f0-0x1f7, 0x3f6 on irq 14
ide1 at 0x170-0x177, 0x376 on irq 15


Nothing else referencing IDE or DMA that I can see. hdc is the original Tivo drive, hdd is the spare 250GB. (Which does now show a partition table that matches the Tivo drive, which got me excited for a second until I realized that doesn't mean the data all got copied.)

The system is based on a DFI NF4 Infinity (nvidia nforce4 chipset) motherboard.


----------



## dwynne

I can look at my box tonight and see what it says - on the one that does DMA. What you are posting is similar to what my Dell "does not play well with LINUX boot CD" shows and it is S-L-O-W doing dd or mfsbackup|mfsrestore operations.

Do you have another old system you can use for this? Does not have to be anything fancy - an old Celeron, PIII, maybe even a PII. Does not need much memory, just a pair of IDE channels that can be properly ID'd by the boot CD. Even if it could only do UDMA 33 or something it would be faster than port IO.

If you have no other PC to try, then MAYBE if you disabled the on board IDE ports and dropped in something like the Promise Ultra 100 TX2 controller ($28 delivered from NewEgg) it would work for you. I say MAYBE since I have not tried this controller with the boot CD, but I think it uses a standard chip.

Drivers for your mobo in LINUX probably exist someplace, but getting them integrated into the boot CD might be a chore.

Dennis


----------



## pheroy

dwynne said:


> Do you have another old system you can use for this? Does not have to be anything fancy - an old Celeron, PIII, maybe even a PII. Does not need much memory, just a pair of IDE channels that can be properly ID'd by the boot CD. Even if it could only do UDMA 33 or something it would be faster than port IO.


Hmm, I do have an older Dell 4400 (P4 1.8 Ghz vintage) system that I am getting ready to prepare for giving away, so I guess I can try booting it on the weaknees CD and see what it says. At least Dell started using somewhat more standard parts just before this model so I guess there might be a chance the IDE controller it has is supported.


----------



## pheroy

Well, I'm still not quite sure about the older Dell's IDE config, I can't see anything in the linux bootup that is obviously different than my other system in terms of IDE messages. But since it's not my sweet new dual core box I don't mind letting it be dedicated for a couple of days to copying a drive, so I went ahead and put the 2 drives in the Dell and restarted the dd. One potential benefit of the Dell is that with the other 2 drives installed it physically doesn't have room for the drive with Windows, so I had to remove that entirely. 

I suppose _eventually_ the drive will be copied!


----------



## kemac

using the command "hdparm" will tell you if you have DMA enabled for a particular drive. 

the output of 'hdparm /dev/hdX' will return you all the drive options including DMA for a particular drive, you will see DMA set to "1". of course you must substitute X with the proper linux drive letter.

Using the following command will set DMA if your IDE controller is supported by the Linux kernel you booted from else you will get an error response.

hdparm -d1 /dev/hdX

Good luck!


----------



## pheroy

pheroy said:


> I suppose _eventually_ the drive will be copied!


Well, it must have had the DMA support after all. That was not too bad, just an hour or two. (Not sure exactly when it finished.)

Just finished checking it out -- boots up fine, recordings there, looks good! Now for the REAL stuff. Thanks all for the help!


----------



## dwynne

Glad you got it working. You might want to hang onto the old PC just for working on Tivos - since it is just fine for that 

I booted my box and looked at what it said.

You hold down the shift key and hit page up a few times until you get where it is detecting the IDE stuf. You will have something like ICH2 followed by the 2 IDE channels and it will have something like HDA: DMA HDB: PIO HDC: DMA HDC: DMA 

where DMA is the desired DMA setting and PIO is the slow port IO. If your drives are all DMA you are to go, if nothing is connected or maybe the CD drive you might see PIO - but you don't care.

Also, on the line where it detects the disk size you will have HDC the size in bytes, kb, etc the CHS size the ", UDMA (100)" (or 33 or 66, etc) this tell you the DMA speed for this drive.

I have had 0 luck with hdparm, by the way. It is not included on the boot CD I usually use and if I track it down and try to force DMA on (in my non-standard box), it does not work anyway.

Dennis


----------



## Paul_PDX

Just a note Fry's has the Seagate 300GB Barracuda 7200.8 drives for $69 after Seagate rebates this weekend.

As soon as my bracket arrives 600GB here I come...


----------



## Carlton Bale

I've read through this and other threads, and still don't feel that I completely understand if BlessTiVo is required or not for a large dual-drive upgrade. I'm upgrading from the standard 250GB drive to 400GB +500GB drives; I want to keep recordings.

The instructions at http://tivo.upgrade-instructions.com/ show I should use:



Code:


mfsbackup -Tao - /dev/hdX | mfsrestore -s 127 -r 4 -xzpi - /dev/hdZ /dev/hdZZ

However, I've read in this thread that there are problems when using a second large drive. Wouldn't this be true for mfsrestore with the -x option (expand) or just with mfsadd when going from one drive to two? If it is an issue using mfsrestor to expand to two large drives, then wouldn't I need to use the following two commands instead?



Code:


mfsbackup -Tao - /dev/hdX | mfsrestore -s 127 -r 4 -xzpi - /dev/hdZ 

BlessTiVo /dev/hdZZ

Thanks for any feedback!


----------



## dwynne

I recently upgraded one of mine from the OEM 250gb to twin 400gb drives and I used the instructions at http://tivo.upgrade-instructions.com/ . I don't have my notes in front of me, but it appears to be the same as what you typed.

I did the other one (250gb -> 2x new 250gb drives) a year or so back and used the same one step command.

Both have been working just fine ever since - except for a reboot on the 2x250gb a couple of weeks back that appears to be unrelated to the drive upgrade.

I would just use the command as shown, put your OEM drive in a safe place, and enjoy.

Dennis


----------



## Carlton Bale

Thanks for the response, Dennis. Unfortunately, I've tried it both ways with no success. I get MFS errors when I try to span multiple drives with mfstool (corrupt headers error message from mfstool info /dev/hdc /dev/hdd). When I restore to just one drive and then run BlessTiVo on the second drive, it is not recognized or added to the first drive one I put it back in the tivo.

So just can't figure out how to get 2 400 GB drives working in my tivo. I've tried every variation I know and two different PCs. Any ideas what the heck I'm doing wrong?


----------



## dwynne

I have my notes in front of me now, and the command you show for one drive to two new ones is what I used.

Several things to check:

What boot CD are you using? Do you have the latest version? After booting, did you hold down shift and hit page up to be sure the drive sizes for all three drives are correctly reported? How did you have your drives attached?

I put my CD-ROM on primary IDE jumpered for "master", this made it /dev/hda . I jumpered the OEM 250gb as slave on put in on the primary IDE, this made it /dev/hdb . I jumpered one 400gb as master and one as slave and connected them both the the secondary IDE port. This made them /dev/hdc and /dev/hdd .

So this made the command to back it all up onto the two new drives:

mfsbackup -Tao - /dev/hdb | mfsrestore -s 127 -r 4 -xzpi - /dev/hdc /dev/hdd

Note no space between the - and the CAPITAL T, but there is a space after the - and before /dev. Also the pipe symbol before the mfsrestore is shift + \ . A space after -r before the 4, and as space after the -s, but no space in ixzpi .

If all the drive sizes show correct, and you hooked it up as I did, and used the command I did, then it should work. If not, then one of your drives may be bad.

What you could try is doing the single drive 250->400 (leave off the /dev/hdd) and see if that works. If it seems to, then put that drive in the Tivo (temporary) and see if it boots, has all your stuff, and test view some recordings. If that works OK, then you might try the same single drive 250->400 with your OTHER drive, if it works in the PC, then put it in the Tivo and try it out. If both the drives seem OK when done 1:1, then there must be something wrong with the master/slave jumpers or something else strange is going on.

Dennis


----------



## Carlton Bale

Dennis, thanks for your response and for making me think through everything. Here are some more details on what I've done:

I'm using the latest PtvUpgrade Free CD and it does appear to be burned properly. 
I ran a full-scan diagnostic on both of the new drives using Seagate SeaTools and both reported to be OK. 
I've done the backup/restore to both of the individual disks and they both worked fine as single-drive upgrades, I just can't get them to combine as a two-drive unit.
The drives are being reported as the correct size and I did get full capacity from them when installed as single drives.
Here is the command and error message I get using the suggested mfsrestore and then msfinfo (250GB -> 500GB + 400GB):







The one thing I have not yet tried is putting the two new drives on different IDE channels. I've been putting both of them on the secondary channel. Maybe splitting them up will help.

Another thing I haven't tried is doing an mfsrestore to one drive than then expanding afterwards:


Code:


mfsbackup -Tao - /dev/hda | mfsrestore -s 127 -zpi - /dev/hdc
mfsadd -r 4 -x /dev/hdc /dev/hdd

At least I know why BlessTiVo didn't work -- I'd already expanded the primary drive and that disables BlessTivo. So my third option is to *mfsrestore* to the A drive and not expand, do a *BlessTiVo* on the second drive, then an *mfsadd* on the primary drive. Hopefully something will work. . .


----------



## dwynne

Well, the sizes seem right to me and the command looks right, up until the errors.

I had both of my new drives on the same IDE channel, so that should not matter I would not think.

Have you tried making the 500gb drive the slave and the 400gb drive the master - and making the 400gb drive the "primary" Tivo drive. In other words, change the jumpers on the two new drives and use the same command. See if the system is happier with the smaller drive being the "main" drive?

You said you tried two different PCs, right? Then I would try to get a 3rd drive (of any size) and see if it will work in combination with one of the ones you have. You are using an 80 pin UDMA cable, right? Like one that comes in a retail drive kit? Tried a different cable, just in case?

Your OEM drive is good, right? I mean there were no issues with it when you removed it from the Tivo - and the single drive copies work (boot in the Tivo OK)?

I am about out of ideas, other than to try a 3rd drive. You could also try copying the OEM->500+400 but do not specify to copy the recordings. Just for grins to see if that still gets an error or not.

I assume you tried your new drive pair in the Tivo after the copy (even with errors) and it would not boot?

On a football note, I was not happy to see the Colts let James go to the Cards  

Dennis


----------



## Carlton Bale

I finally got it working! Thanks Dennis for your help. First of all, a summary of what didn't work:

Different cables
Swapping 400GB as TiVo drive A, 500GB as drive B (and vice versa)
Switching to a different PC
Changing from cable select to jumpers (and vice versa)
Running mfsrestore / mfsadd without the "-r 4" option
Having the new 500GB and 400GB drives on the same IDE channel
So you may be able to guess what did make it work. First of all, having the 500GB drive as hda on my PC and the 400GB drive as hdd made a huge difference. Either there is something weird with the motherboard or the Linux boot CD has a hard time with two very big drives on the same IDE channel. Doing an mfs restore before (dos = hda, 500GB drive = hdc, 400GB drive hdd) was much slower than when I switched the 500GB drive to hda and the dos to hdc. There was some type of a conflict and was causing the errors.

Also, I used the hinsdale instructions some of the time, and they do not include the -r 4 switch for mfstool. This is a huge oversite as it is required to address two drives when they are over about ~260GB.

I still have to do a complete show transfer from the original 250GB TiVo drive, but I'm confident it will work. So, here the exact command that worked for me when I restored from my DOS backup image. 


Code:


mfsrestore -s 127 -r 4 -xzpi /mnt/dos/tivo.bak /dev/hda /dev/hdd

The entire restore took 2 minutes, 50 seconds. Previously, when both big drives were on the same IDE channel, it took about 8 minutes (this is when I also got the mfs_load_volume_header bad checksum, volume header corrupt, and segmentation corrupt errors with mfsinfo.)

But finally, some disappointment to dampen my TiVo success. Edgerrin James leaves the Colts. Wasn't the increase in the salary cap supposed to allow the Colts to re-sign him? Guess not. Now they will have an even better chance at defending their first-game-of-the-playoffs loosing streak, but I'm hoping they will prove me wrong. . .


----------



## dwynne

Glad you got it working!

I have not tried a 500gb drive yet, but as I mentioned mine was fine with both 400gb drives on the same IDE channel, with the OEM drive on the other along with the CD-ROM. Must be something with that drive or PC or something.

Another thought, my CD-ROM drive (DVD, actually) is capable of UDMA at high speed like a hard drive. If you put two devices on the same IDE channel with different capabilities, the channel will slow down to match the slowest. I wonder if something like that was causing yours to be slow as well?

As I mentioned before, a Dell server box I was using has 3 IDE channels and the LINUX boot CD could not figure out how to do DMA on it at all. So the copies would work, but would take a couple of days to run  A discarded Celeron PC I now use has standard IDE chipsets so the LINUX boot can do DMA and it is much, much faster.

Shows you what I know - the year they drafted James I was all excited when Ricky "toke" Williams slippe down to the Colts in the draft and was mighty mad when the Colts took James (and though they should have kept Kaulk as well). They clearly made the correct choice, so fingers crossed they will do so again.

Dennis


----------



## PJO1966

I posted the following problem in another thread:



> I've been having reboot issues with my HD TiVo. Most of the time it reboots in the middle of a recording. Last night it rebooted at some point, but I don't have any partial recordings. I think that's the first time it ever rebooted while it wasn't recording a Season Pass. When I first got it I had drive issues and had someone replace it with 2 Maxtor 300GB drives. I was wondering if there were any local LA peeps who might be willing to take a look at the drives. I am trying to avoid doing a Clear & Delete All because I have three pages of recordings I'd rather not lose. I cleared the Thumb settings and suggestions, but apparently that was not enough. I don't trust my minimal computer skills to attempt anything on my own.


And got the following response:



Thom said:


> You should make a copy of the Powermax utility diskette from the Maxtor website, then run this utility on your Tivo hard drives (while they are connected to your desktop computer).
> 
> It sounds like your Tivo is simply encountering bad spots on the hard drive. The Powermax utility can repair (swap spare good sectors for bad ones) these bad spots.


I've never done anything like this. Can someone give me an idea of where to start? How do I hook up the drives to my PC? I'm a complete noob when it comes to stuff like this.

Thread found here.


----------



## Anubys

doesn't seem like anyone is jumping in to help you...I'm not very tech savvy, but I have done what you want to do...let me see if I can help you... 

1. If you don't have your hard drive instructions, go to the web site and find the jumper settings for your hard drive (you might need to set it from master to slave, depending on the drive). 

2. Download the diagnostic utility on a diskette (I think you have to make it a bootable diskette). If you don't have a floppy drive, you will have some extra steps. Download the utility to your hard drive. Do steps 3 and 4 only if you don't have a floppy drive. 

3. Follow the directions on creating the CD, you probably need to make it an ISO CD (I think that's the term). if you have a CD burner, you have some software that will do that for you (for example, Nero). This makes it a bootable CD to run the diagnostics. Only do this step if the instructions tell you that you need to make it a bootable CD. 

4. If you need to make it a bootable CD, make sure you go into your configuration (which you do by clicking F2, I think, at the right moment when your PC is booting) and change the boot sequence to CD first, then your hard drive. This will make the PC look for the bootable CD before it loads windows from the hard drive. 

5. turn off and then open your PC and look for your hard drive, if you have only one hard drive (normal), you will find a cable (grey/blue) connected to it, it will have a black connection to connect a second hard drive on the cable itself...you will also have a power cord to connect the tivo drive...make sure your tivo drive is a slave (if it's not already) by moving the jumper to the correct slot.

If your PC doesn't have the extra cables and power cord for a second drive (you bought a piece of ****, then), you can disconnect your PC hard drive and connect the Tivo HD in its place (you don't have to secure the HD in the same spot, just leave it hanging). Since the diskette or the CD are bootable, you don't need your PC hard drive for anything. But I prefer to put the Tivo HD as the secondary drive and keep my PC HD connected. Since you have 2 Tivo drives, it might be easier to do them both at the same time...

6. leave the PC open and reboot...the CD will boot and recognize the two drives...run the diagnostic utility on your drive (you can run it on both, if you wish!). 

7. once done, turn the PC off, disconnect the tivo drive, put the jumpers to the old setting, and put it back in the Tivo. 

if you do it once, you'll feel silly for how easy it is and how much you worried about it...


----------



## Carlton Bale

Anubys: Great how-to! Below are my edits to make it a little simpler. . . 

PJO1966: Be aware that this will not fix your problem, it will only tell you if you have a failed drive and if you need to replace it.

1. If you don't have your hard drive instructions, go to the web site and find the jumper settings for your hard drive (you might need to set it from master to slave, depending on the drive). But you probably will not need to do this if you follow the steps below. . .

2. Download the diagnostic utility (can be Maxtor, Seagate, Western Digital, etc. They all check hard drives). It should auto-create a bootable floppy diskette. If you don't have a floppy drive, you will have some extra steps. Download the utility to your hard drive. Do steps 3 only if you don't have a floppy drive.

3. Download the ISO file (*.iso), which is a CD image, and use Nero to burn the CD in ISO mode. Nero is the best program for this because it is fairly ease to do. Open the Nero Burning ROM program, click cancel to get out of the auto-start pop-up menu, and go to the "file" menu and then open, and and select the ISO you downloaded.

4. (moved below)

5. turn off and then open your PC and look for your hard drive, you will find a wide, flat IDE cable (usually grey) connected to it. It may be connected to two hard drives. Disconnect the cable from all hard drives in your PC and attach it to your TiVo drive. If it is attached to your CD drive, leave it connected, but usually a second cable is attached to your CD drive. (This way, you don't have to worry with the PC booting to Windows and messing up your TiVo drive and you don't have to mess with jumpers.) An IDE cable has two connectors. You can use either connector.

You don't have to secure the HD in the same PC, just leave it hanging). Since the diskette or the CD are bootable, you don't need your PC hard drive for anything.

6. leave the PC open and reboot...the CD will boot and recognize the Tivo drive...run the diagnostic utility on your drive.

6a. (was 4) If the PC did not boot to the floppy or CD, make sure you configure your BIOS (which you do by clicking DEL, F1, or F2 - it will say on the screen when the computer first boots) and change the "boot sequence" to CD first, then your hard drive. This will make the PC look for the bootable CD or floppy before it loads windows from the hard drive. This will be somewhere in the menus on screen in the BIOS setup.

7. Run a full scan diagnostic on the TiVo drive and look for errors. If you had errors, well, this is bad. Your hard drive is failing and you will need to replace it. Otherwise, it could just be a fluke in TiVo operation. Once done running the diagnostic, turn the PC off, disconnect the tivo drive, and put it back in the Tivo.


----------



## Anubys

Carlton's instructions are much better than mine...her did forget one thing: 

8. Put your PC back the way it was! 

  

seriously, I didn't find anything wrong with my hard drives (I assume this is an HD-Tivo)...I did a clear & delete and that fixed my problem (I did lose the network logos)...and of course I had to re-do my SPs (which is not that easy because some shows don't show up so you have to do a wish list for them)... 

so if it's not your hard drives, you might want to clear all your old recordings, clean up your SPs and turn off Tivo suggestions...and if that doesn't work, a C&D is your next step... 

assuming, of course, you eliminate simple things (bad cables, power supply...etc.)... 

good luck!


----------



## PJO1966

Wow! That's really comprehensive (not to mention a little intimidating!). Thanks guys.


----------



## videoi

OK, I've been trying to upgrade my HR10-250 for a few days now. Originally, I had the WD250 drive (original) and an upgraded 300 GB Maxtor. The Maxtor died. I had (sitting in the wings) a 300GB Seagate and a 400GB Seagate, so I figured I'd just replace both drives.

I started with the HR10-250 image from the InstantCake CD, and ran the following command. Note that
hda: new 300GB Drive - to be used as master
hdb: new 400GB Drive - to be used as slave
IMAGE: image file from instantcake CD

mfsrestore -s 400 -r 4 -xzpi IMAGE /dev/hda /dev/hdb
tpip --swapped -s /dev/hda

This resulted in getting "corrupted checksum" errors when running MFSINFO.

So, I had read somewhere here on the forums that the larger swap really wasn't needed - so I tried:

mfsrestore -s 127 -r 4 -xzpi IMAGE /dev/hda /dev/hdb

This appeared to work; mfsinfo reported the correct info. Put the drives into my DirecTiVo and now it's stuck on the 'powering up' screen.

Help!! Any thoughts on what I'm doing wrong?

Thanks

Ira


----------



## dwynne

Make sure your drives are jumpered for master and slave - not cable select, and make sure you had them so jumpered when you put the image on. If you did not, then re-do the image with them jumpered properly.

If that is not it, then jumper the 400gb for master and the 300gb for slave and try that. Someone else reported a problem here that was solved by changing the drive order.

Dennis


----------



## videoi

They are jumpered for master & slave. I'll try switching the drives to make the 400 the master and see...

Sounds like there's no issue with the commands I'm using...

Ira


----------



## dwynne

videoi said:


> Sounds like there's no issue with the commands I'm using...


I have not used an Instant Cake CD, so I can't attest to the command being proper.

I assume your OEM drive failed and you have no backup? If it is still working, then you can put it in your PC and copy it to the two new drives either with or without the recordings.

Another thought - if you booted into XP or Win2k with the Tivo drives attached the OS could have "Fingerprinted" them and this will prevent them from working properly in a Tivo. If you think this might have happened, re-copying the data will not fix it. As was pointed out in this thread earlier, you need to run the program "MakeTiVoBootable" to remove the Windoze fingerprint and let the drive work in your Tivo.

Dennis


----------



## tivoupgrade

videoi -

Why type any commands at all? The InstantCake CD is designed to boot and run just by answering a few questions - ie, so you can avoid going the manual route?

Is it because you are attempting to backup your existing drive to a new one? Or are you restoring from a backup file other than the one on the InstantCake CD? If that is the case, then you are using the InstantCake CD just as a regular boot CD and whatever instructions you are referencing should apply.

I guess my biggest question is why are you using the InstantCake CD in this way at all?


----------



## Carlton Bale

videoi:

I had this exact same problem. There is a compatibility problem between the IDE drivers on the Linux boot CD and the chipsets on some motherboards. For what ever reason, two larges drives (larger than 250GB) on the same IDE channel causes problems. So, you should attach your drives to different channels (if you don't want to change the jumpers, the user *hda and hdd*, or *hdb and hdc*).

Here is the exact sequence I used:


Code:


mfsrestore -s 127 -r 4 -zpi IMAGE /dev/hda
mfsadd -r 4 -x /dev/hda /dev/hdd

Notice that the swap size is 127MB and that I did not expand the image during the mfsrestore (didn't use the -x), but rather during the mfsadd. I had problems when: 1) drives on same channel, 2) didn't use -r 4, 3) expanded over both drives during mfsrestore, 4) had two drives larger than 250GB on the same IDE.

Good luck!


----------



## videoi

Turns out that my mfsrestore command (listed above) actually worked. When I put the drives back in the Tivo, the IDE cable in the tivo came loose. Reseated the IDE cable and all is good.

Now, my remaining question is regarding the swap space. When I used '-s 400' to mfsrestore, I got a checksum error from mfsinfo, so I used '-s 127'. This worked, but am I going to run into problems later? Approaches?


----------



## Carlton Bale

The reason you got errors with the larger swap size, I'm guessing, is because you used the PTVupgrade CD. Although it has support for LBA48 access of large drives, it includes an older version of TPIP (v1.1), which can't write the correct headers for swap files larger than 127MB for LBA48 kernels. More info is in this post. Basically, it is not a fully LBA48-compliant CD and should be updated.

As far as needing a larger swap partition, the "1MB swap for every 2GB of drive space" rule-of-thumb is based on Series 1 units. In this post, Dirac forced a GSOD with 2 400GB drives and 127MB of swap and it completed with no problems. So, current information suggests that more than 127MB of swap is not required for anything less than 800GB (and probably for anything less than 1TB) of drive space.

You can either feel better knowing that you really don't need a larger swap or user a newer version of TPIP (v1.2) to initialize a larger swap partition after you re-image.


----------



## dwynne

videoi said:


> so I used '-s 127'. This worked, but am I going to run into problems later?


What Carlton said 

From the research I did before I upgraded my 2nd HD Tivo to 800gb the 127mb swap is supposed to be enough - and/or if you ever need it the drive(s) are probably hosed anyway so having more may get one booted one more time or something.

My original HD Tivo has been running fine with that size swap space and 500gb of disks for a long time.

So I would not worry.

Dennis


----------



## FullHouseTiVo

Is anyone offering a RAID box to build up these super capacity TiVos?

It seems like you would need a special case to handle these super size requirements!

Full House TiVo


----------



## uscpsycho

Hello!

I'm trying to upgrade a TiVo for the first time - upgrading from the original drive to two 300GB drives and keeping my programs. I followed the weaknees directions to the letter, but my upgrade is failing.

I get through making the .bak file without a hitch. Then the trouble starts. Here is what's going on...

I've got the original TiVo drive in hda, my CD-ROM in hdc and my new drives in hdb & hdd. I boot with the weaknees boot CD and the size of my drives shows up correctly. Then I enter the following command:

mfsbackup -Tao - /dev/hda | mfsrestore -s 127 -r 4 -xzpi - /dev/hdb /dev/hdd

After multiple failures I tried these:

mfsbackup -Tao - /dev/hda | mfsrestore -s 127 -r 4 -xzpi - /dev/hdb
mfsbackup -Tao - /dev/hda | mfsrestore -s 127 -r 4 -xzpi - /dev/hdd

I get the same error.

Here is the output I get every time I try to run backup/restore:

/dev/hda10: Success
mfs_load_volume_header: mfsvol_read_data: Input/output error
mfsbackup: Backup failed to startup. Make sure you specified the right
devices, and that the drives are not locked.
Restore filed: -: Success


Any idea what the heck is going on here and what I can do about it? I ran disk utilities to make sure both hdb and hdd are unlocked, so that is not the problem. These are also brand new disks so it's improbable they are both bad. I formatted both of them to FAT32 and I know at least one of them (the one I used to create the .bak file) is accessible from Windows, so that one's not toast. And I never had a problem with the OEM drive so I doubt that is the problem.

When I formatted the drives with the disk utilities it said that DDO was applied to the disks because they were so large. Could that be my problem?

Also, wheen booting from the CD, I get this error several times during the startup:
kmod: failed to exec /sbin/modprobe -s -k nls_iso8859-1, errno = 2

If anyone can shed some light on this I would really appreciate it! I've been at this for a few days now and I have searched for answers all over the place. I'm not getting anywhere.

Thank you thank you thank you!


----------



## dwynne

I would try putting the OEM drive back in the Tivo and making sure it still works. I would not bother with a backup file since you are keeping your OEM drive. Just put it on a shelf in case you ever need it.

It it does not work/boot then you may need to use the MakeTivoBootable program to fix it. http://www.upl.cs.wisc.edu/~will/tivo/

If the drive still works OK in the Tivo - boots, records, plays back old recordings, etc then try it again. Make sure you jumper the drives for master or slave - don't use cable select. Try changing things up - put the CD in as master on the primary IDE (hda) and the OEM drive as slave (hdb) and copy to a single drive that is master on the secondard (hdc) and see if that works. If so, then re-do the command with the 2nd drive connected as slave on the secondary IDE (hdd) and see if that works. If the OEM->dual drives fails but the OEM->single works, try re-arranging your drives (swap the OEM to slave on secondary = hdd and the 2nd new drive to slave on primary = hdb).

Make sure you have good cables - 80 bin UDMA type - for all drive connections.

Are you sure the sizes show up correctly in the BIOS of the PC? Are you sure they show up correctly in the LINUX boot - scroll back and be sure?

Try it in another PC - I have heard or seen several issues that are PC related. The limited set of drivers on the boot CD may not work properly on every IDE chip set and PC. Normally the older the better - so a cast off older PC can make a perfect Tivo "workstation" while a new, top of the line box may not work at all.

Dennis


----------



## uscpsycho

dwynne said:


> I would try putting the OEM drive back in the Tivo and making sure it still works.
> 
> It it does not work/boot then you may need to use the MakeTivoBootable program to fix it. http://www.upl.cs.wisc.edu/~will/tivo/


I tried to boot my TiVo from the OEM drive and much to my surprise (AND CHAGRIN!) it won't boot. I just get a message that says "Welcome. Powering up..."

I am 100% certain that I did not boot into Windows with the OEM TiVo drive connected. However, I may have had it connected when running some of the HDD utilities that boot from floppy/CD-ROM. Could that hose my drive?????

If possible I'd like to avoid running MakeTivoBootable. Any way to start with a virgin HDD from an instantcake image, and then copy my encrypted programs from the non-booting drive to the new drive? I would really hate to lose all my programs!!!

If that's not possible I'll give MakeTivoBootable a try. But I'd appreciate some guidance. There's a lot of info about MakeTivoBootable online, but the HR10-250 seems to be unlike other TiVo's, so I'd like to get pointers here (searching for MakeTivoBootable on this thread doesn't help at all).

MakeTivoBootable has lots of command line parameters, I'm guessing I shouldn't use any of them to do a basic HDD recovery?

The readme says "HINT: You can (and should) backup your existing block 0 with dd before you use this program. You can also direct output to a file and verify that it looks good before you dd that to the hard drive (You can even use dd's swab option)."

I am not the target audience for this readme file. I'm at a loss when it comes to this linux stuff. If I really "should" do the dd, how do I do it?

Thanks again for any help you can give me. You guys rock! I'm frustrated and annoyed by the situation and by the thought that I may have permanently lost me programs.


----------



## dwynne

What I would do is try to copy from the old drive to a new one (or the pair) and ignore the recordings. See if that will work, then at least you know you will not be without a Tivo should disaster strike. It should not take long to copy then try the drives.

If you go back to the online instructions and tell it not to keep the recordings, you should end up with a command line like this:

mfsbackup -f 9999 -so - /dev/hdX (/dev/hdY) | mfsrestore -s 127 -r 4 -xzpi - /dev/hdZ (/dev/hdZZ)

Try that and see if that will work, if it does then you have that going for you at least. Then if you try the maketivobootable and something goes horribly wrong you can use the drive (pair of drives) to make it work again.

What did you set the jumper at when you put the OEM drive back in the Tivo? IIRC it comes set at cable select, doesn't it? If you have it set wrong it might not boot up. If the drive will not boot and can't be copied, you may have lost your recordings in any case.

You can try copying using dd from the old drive to a new one just to get a backup of it. From the Hinsdale how-to:

_*dd if=/dev/hdc of=/dev/hdb bs=1024k

(If that command eventually returns an error, try using the following command instead

dd conv=noerror,sync if=/dev/hdc of=/dev/hdb bs=1024k * _

NOTE: this assumes the old drive is hdc and the new one is hdb, make it that way or adjust the command to match the way you have your drives attached.

If there are errors on the disk they will show up on the dd, then you can try to get around them with the noerror,sync options. You can dd from a smaller to a larger drive w/o a problem, but the Tivo will not see the extra space unless you do more. So you could use the dd as a test of your old drive. If you get it copied OK to one of the new ones, then try to boot it into your Tivo and see if it works.

Dennis


----------



## uscpsycho

dwynne said:


> What I would do is try to copy from the old drive to a new one (or the pair) and ignore the recordings. See if that will work, then at least you know you will not be without a Tivo should disaster strike. It should not take long to copy then try the drives.
> 
> If you go back to the online instructions and tell it not to keep the recordings, you should end up with a command line like this:
> 
> mfsbackup -f 9999 -so - /dev/hdX (/dev/hdY) | mfsrestore -s 127 -r 4 -xzpi - /dev/hdZ (/dev/hdZZ)
> 
> ...
> 
> You can try copying using dd from the old drive to a new one just to get a backup of it. From the Hinsdale how-to:
> 
> _*dd if=/dev/hdc of=/dev/hdb bs=1024k
> 
> (If that command eventually returns an error, try using the following command instead
> 
> dd conv=noerror,sync if=/dev/hdc of=/dev/hdb bs=1024k * _
> 
> If there are errors on the disk they will show up on the dd, then you can try to get around them with the noerror,sync options. You can dd from a smaller to a larger drive w/o a problem, but the Tivo will not see the extra space unless you do more. So you could use the dd as a test of your old drive. If you get it copied OK to one of the new ones, then try to boot it into your Tivo and see if it works.


The mfsbackup/mfsrestore command you recommended did not work. So I've got dd in progress, but dd of the OEM 250gb drive is going to take forever, won't it? Based on other people's results this could take days to complete on a drive of this size. No?

I've already received errors (all appear related to OEM drive). So should I abort the dd and run it with the noerror & sync options?

The errors I've received all look like this:
hda: dma_intr: status=0x51 { DriveReady SeekComplete Error }
hda: dma_intr: error=0x40 { UncorrectableError }, LBAsect=nnnnnnnnn, high=12, w=nnnnnnn, sector=nnnnnnnnn
end_request: I/O error, dev 03:00 (hda), sector nnnnnnnnn​
I'm not sure how dd'ing the non-booting OEM drive is going to help me. Is there a possibility that the copy of the OEM will boot even if the OEM doesn't? If not, what is the advantage of having a spare copy of the non-booting OEM drive?

If I run MTB on the OEM drive and it fails can't I just load an instantcake image onto one of my new drives and start Tivo'ing from scratch? If I have to resort to that, hopefully I'll be able to restore the .bak file I made to recover my wishlists and such.

Thoughts?

Can anyone recommend the ideal MTB command in this situation? This sounds like it has worked for several people. Will this work on a HR10-250?
http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-v...4&&#post1699504

*Thank you so much for your help!* I don't feel quite as lost with a botched TiVo on my first upgrade attempt.


----------



## dwynne

uscpsycho said:


> The mfsbackup/mfsrestore command you recommended did not work. So I've got dd in progress, but dd of the OEM 250gb drive is going to take forever, won't it? Based on other people's results this could take days to complete on a drive of this size. No?
> 
> I've already received errors (all appear related to OEM drive). So should I abort the dd and run it with the noerror & sync options?
> 
> The errors I've received all look like this:
> hda: dma_intr: status=0x51 { DriveReady SeekComplete Error }
> hda: dma_intr: error=0x40 { UncorrectableError }, LBAsect=nnnnnnnnn, high=12, w=nnnnnnn, sector=nnnnnnnnn
> end_request: I/O error, dev 03:00 (hda), sector nnnnnnnnn​
> I'm not sure how dd'ing the non-booting OEM drive is going to help me. Is there a possibility that the copy of the OEM will boot even if the OEM doesn't? If not, what is the advantage of having a spare copy of the non-booting OEM drive?
> 
> If I run MTB on the OEM drive and it fails can't I just load an instantcake image onto one of my new drives and start Tivo'ing from scratch? If I have to resort to that, hopefully I'll be able to restore the .bak file I made to recover my wishlists and such.


If you have DMA active it should only take a few hours. If there are lots of errors, it does take "forever". In the instructions it tells you to scroll back to verify disc size and to check the DMA is correct. I can attest to no DMA being on = 2 days or so waiting for it to copy. If there are lots of errors, I would stop and re-run with the extra options - and double check the DMA. I think on a proper machine my 250 OEM -> twin 400 drive copy took "overnight". So the dd might finish is 5-8 hours or so????? If there are just tons of errors then the resulting copy - no matter the parameters - probably will be no good and it will take a long time to complete.

Doing the dd does two things: it tells us if your PC can read your drive w/o errors (and the answer the that is no) and it gets you a copy of the drive and recordings to play with. We don't know where the errors are on the disc, it might be possible to "fix" it by getting it copied. Say the errors were in the swap area, then it might not boot on the bad drive but a copy of it should. You were also leary of use the maketivobootable command on your OEM drive, so having a copy means you could play with the copy and still leave your OEM drive alone.

Yes, if all else is lost you can buy an instant cake disc or find a HR10-250 image someplace and install that and start over.

Dennis


----------



## uscpsycho

dwynne said:


> If you have DMA active it should only take a few hours. If there are lots of errors, it does take "forever". In the instructions it tells you to scroll back to verify disc size and to check the DMA is correct. I can attest to no DMA being on = 2 days or so waiting for it to copy. If there are lots of errors, I would stop and re-run with the extra options - and double check the DMA. I think on a proper machine my 250 OEM -> twin 400 drive copy took "overnight". So the dd might finish is 5-8 hours or so????? If there are just tons of errors then the resulting copy - no matter the parameters - probably will be no good and it will take a long time to complete.
> 
> Doing the dd does two things: it tells us if your PC can read your drive w/o errors (and the answer the that is no) and it gets you a copy of the drive and recordings to play with. We don't know where the errors are on the disc, it might be possible to "fix" it by getting it copied. Say the errors were in the swap area, then it might not boot on the bad drive but a copy of it should. You were also leary of use the maketivobootable command on your OEM drive, so having a copy means you could play with the copy and still leave your OEM drive alone.
> 
> Yes, if all else is lost you can buy an instant cake disc or find a HR10-250 image someplace and install that and start over.
> 
> Dennis


OK - So the dd was complete in just about three hours and, as far as I can tell, had three errors. I must have been reading reports from people with MAJOR problems on their hard drive for it to take sooooo long. So I plugged the cloned drive into the TiVo and didn't have any success.

When I first started with this upgrade process I followed the weaknees directions and used mfstools to make a .bak file. As I understand it, I believe I can use the .bak file to restore everything but the recorded programs (and I assume they are intact). So hopefully I can restore the .bak file and get things back the way they were when I made the backup.

Does that sound right or am I way off base?

I don't know if I should try running MTB before restoring the .bak, or try restoring the .bak before running MTB. I'm leaning towards restoring the .bak first. Sound right?

Thank you!


----------



## azitnay

Once you restore the .bak, I doubt your recordings will still work -- it recreates all the MFS partitions, and I can't see how it would recreate them in such a perfect fashion that the recordings could still be located in their old spots on the drive. But I could be wrong, I guess.

You could try the various kickstart options (on both the old and the newly dd'ed drive), but I wouldn't get your hopes up.

Other than that, you might be out of options.

Drew


----------



## dwynne

Try running MTB on your copy of the drive and see what happens, nothing to lose.

If the bak file is good, then I would have thought that part copied over to a new drive would result in a drive that at least boots up. If the bak contains "everythng except the recordings" and it worked, then that part of the OEM drive must have been OK (or it got errors and you didn't see them).

If the MTB on the new drive (copied with dd) does not work, then try restoring the bak file to it?

If that works and results in a bootable, working Tivo then you are getting someplace - but without your recordings.

Dennis


----------



## jpeckinp

Does anybody know if the 250GB drive that WeakNees offers is the same drive that comes in the unit? 

I'm curious because I just ordered a backup 250GB from them and they sell the Maxtor drive at that size and I believe when I had my tivo open that was what the drive in there said it was.


----------



## uscpsycho

azitnay said:


> Once you restore the .bak, I doubt your recordings will still work -- it recreates all the MFS partitions, and I can't see how it would recreate them in such a perfect fashion that the recordings could still be located in their old spots on the drive. But I could be wrong, I guess.
> 
> You could try the various kickstart options (on both the old and the newly dd'ed drive), but I wouldn't get your hopes up.
> 
> Other than that, you might be out of options.
> 
> Drew


Like I said in the other thread, you were right, my recorded shows didn't survive the recovery. The state of my TiVo raises a couple of new issues.

Since I ran dd to copy from a 250GB drive to a 300GB drive, have I lost access to the extra 50GB on the new drive? If so, any way to free it up?

With my playlist all messed up how is the TiVo calculating free space on the hard drive? I have lots of shows in the playlist but the TiVo tells me that most of them haven't been recorded. So will it calculate available space based on the unit's belief that these shows weren't actually recorded? Or will it calculate available space based on the fact that there are many hours of programs listed in my playlist, even if they aren't watchable?

Now whenever I start recording a show or add something to my playlist the "Please Wait" icon is displayed for a VERY long time - often over 30 seconds or so. I suspect this is being caused by heavy disk fragmentation. Think this eventually clear itself up?

Thanks again Drew!!!


----------



## uscpsycho

jpeckinp said:


> Does anybody know if the 250GB drive that WeakNees offers is the same drive that comes in the unit?
> 
> I'm curious because I just ordered a backup 250GB from them and they sell the Maxtor drive at that size and I believe when I had my tivo open that was what the drive in there said it was.


My OEM drive is Western Digital. But it shouldn't make any difference if you get a Maxtor from Weaknees. The data on the drive is what's important, not the name on the drive.


----------



## azitnay

uscpsycho said:


> Since I ran dd to copy from a 250GB drive to a 300GB drive, have I lost access to the extra 50GB on the new drive? If so, any way to free it up?


You should simply be able to run:

mfsadd x -r 4 /dev/hdX

(where hdX is the TiVo drive) to expand to fill the drive.



uscpsycho said:


> With my playlist all messed up how is the TiVo calculating free space on the hard drive? I have lots of shows in the playlist but the TiVo tells me that most of them haven't been recorded. So will it calculate available space based on the unit's belief that these shows weren't actually recorded? Or will it calculate available space based on the fact that there are many hours of programs listed in my playlist, even if they aren't watchable?


I don't really know the answer to this, but once you delete the offending recordings they certainly shouldn't affect anything any more.



uscpsycho said:


> Now whenever I start recording a show or add something to my playlist the "Please Wait" icon is displayed for a VERY long time - often over 30 seconds or so. I suspect this is being caused by heavy disk fragmentation. Think this eventually clear itself up?


Sounds suspicious to me... I'd remove as many recordings as you can (especially the non-working ones), and see if it clears itself up.

Drew


----------



## dwynne

jpeckinp said:


> Does anybody know if the 250GB drive that WeakNees offers is the same drive that comes in the unit?
> 
> I'm curious because I just ordered a backup 250GB from them and they sell the Maxtor drive at that size and I believe when I had my tivo open that was what the drive in there said it was.


AFAIK all the HD Tivos come with 250gb WD drives. I have had TERRIBLE luck with "normal" store-puchased Maxtor drives in Tivos (and PCs too) and refuse to buy any more of them. The ones some places sell for Tivo use are SUPPOSED to be better for the purpose, but I have not wanted to pay the extra high price and risk putting another Maxtor in my Tivos. But hey, maybe that is just me 

The only time the drive maker matters if you are trying to dd copy a drive and the new one is smaller than the old one. There may be 4 makers of "250gb" drives but the ACTUAL size on all 4 may be different. dd from a larger one to a smaller one will not work.

If you are doing mfsbackup/,mfsrestore then it matters not at all - nor does it matter for the brand of a 2nd drive.

Dennis


----------



## dwynne

uscpsycho said:


> Now whenever I start recording a show or add something to my playlist the "Please Wait" icon is displayed for a VERY long time - often over 30 seconds or so. I suspect this is being caused by heavy disk fragmentation. Think this eventually clear itself up?


This can be normal if you have lots of shows in the playlist and/or you recently rebooted the box. Having BAD recordings in the playlist probably just makes it a ton worse.

You could now backup/restore this drive to your other new drive but ignore the recordings. That would get you a single 300gb drive, then mfsadd this drive to THAT one to get a 600gb system with no recordings. Or fix the issues on this drive, expand it to 300gb with mfsadd, then mfsadd the 2nd drive to get to 600gb.

Dennis


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## plumech

I was experiencing intermittent lock up in my 15 month old hr10-250 so I decided to replace my oem wd 250 drive with a maxtor quick view 500. I used weeknees boot cd and their instructions to back up and restore to the new drive. Everything went fine and the boot cd finished showing 300 more hours as it is supposed to. I set the jumper to master and installed the new maxtor and it now hangs in the almost there screen indefinitely. I removed the maxtor and reinstalled the oem wd drive and it booted up fine. Am I to assume the formatting of the maxtor didn't work properly even though the result of the boot disc showed it finished the program ok. I don't know where to go next other then having to delete all my saved programs and start fresh with make tivo bootable disc. Any suggestions would be appreciated. thanks


----------



## dwynne

Was the new drive ever in a windoze PC or did you get it new and just do the Tivo copy on it? Just wondering, if XP or Win2k ever "Saw" it that would keep it from booting in your Tivo unless you use MTB to fix it.

I assume you got no errors with the mfsbackup|mfsrestore ?

Dennis


----------



## plumech

I had a long list of errors while running off the boot cd but it still completed the task. Do the errors mean bad sectors or something. I just thought if it booted ok from the oem drive then it would boot the same way from the copy. Also, the drive was fresh from maxtor and never saw a windows pc.


----------



## dwynne

You could try the MTB on the new drive and see what happens. If that does not work, you may have to try to dd copy the old try to the new - with the error option on. See if that makes the drive work in the Tivo, if so you can expand it later to fill your new drive.

Dennis


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## plumech

I need to find the MTB procedure and I am not familer with the dd copy route but I will attempt to research it. I am scanning the original drive for errors right now and its not showing any, go figure. Thanks for the help.


----------



## dwynne

You don't have to research far, I posted the link to the MakeTivoBootable program just yesterday and in one message I posted the dd command, I think. You just have to make sure you have the proper drive designation for YOUR set up - and double check it before you hit enter.

Dennis


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## uscpsycho

dwynne said:


> Try running MTB on your copy of the drive and see what happens, nothing to lose.


I'm trying to run MTB but I can't seem to.

I boot to Linux from a CD, I mount the drive with the MTB file (hda) and I can see the file when I run ls. But I get this error when I try to run MTB:
*maketivobootable: command not found*

I'm no Linux expert, but shouldn't I be able to run MTB if I can see the MTB file in ls?

This is what I am entering (MTB is in root of hda and TiVo drive is in hdc):
mount /dev/hda1 /mnt 
cd /mnt
maketivobootable -d /dev/hdc --pk 3 --ak 6 --bp root=/dev/hda4​
Shouldn't that work?

I downloaded MTB in Windows, burned it to a CD in Windows and copied it to a Windows-formatted hard drive in Windows. This is a stupid question, but since MTB is a Linux application is there any possiblity the MTB file is corrupt from handling it in Windows? Are there any issues with running a Linux application that is on a Windows-formatted hard drive (it's FAT32)?

I'm following the directions here http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-v...ge=2&pp=30&highlight=MakeTivoBootable+hr10250, but it hardly matters since I can't even run the program.

Any thoughts?


----------



## HomeUser

try ./maketivobootable or /mnt/maketivobootable Linux does not by default have the current directory in the executable path


----------



## Carlton Bale

Also, check your new drive using mfsinfo. It will tell you if there are any errors with the creation of the new drive. Also, if you didn't use the "-r 4" switch for mfsrestore, it will not work properly on large drives.


----------



## uscpsycho

HomeUser said:


> try ./maketivobootable or /mnt/maketivobootable Linux does not by default have the current directory in the executable path


./maketivobootable worked but I have no idea if it actually did anything to my drive. It just asked me to confirm (y/n) that I want to modify hdc. After I entered yes I didn't get any kind of confirmation or error message. Unfortunately, the drive was not bootable, so I just have to assume MTB did it's thing but it didn't make _my _TiVo bootable.

So here's the status of my TiVo recovery project.

1) I tried mfsrestore but that didn't work.

2) I copied my original TiVo drive using dd if=/dev/hdc of=/dev/hdb bs=1024k and recovered my .bak file onto it and the TiVo works OK (not perfect) but most of the prerecorded shows are gone. Season Passes, etc. are all OK.

3) I made a second backup copy using dd conv=noerror,sync if=/dev/hdc of=/dev/hdb bs=1024k. I ran MTB on this drive in hopes that my programs would be saved. A) First I tried MakeTiVoBootable -d /dev/hdX --pk 3 --ak 6 --bp root=/dev/hda4 which didn't work. B) Then I tried MakeTiVoBootable -d /dev/hdX --pk 6 --ak 3 --bp root=/dev/hda7 and that didn't work either.

Should I have made a fresh copy of the TiVo drive before running MTB for a second time?

Any chance MTB would work better on a newly copied drive using dd WITHOUT the sync & noerror options?

Any chance restoring .bak to a newly copied drive using dd WITH the sync & noerror options would work better (more recordings recovered)?

Thanks to you all for your continued help. Hopefully these posts will be helping people for a long time to come!


----------



## uscpsycho

My recovered TiVo is behaving oddly. Normally pressing the Live TV button switches between tuners. And pressing most buttons gives a "ping" sound.

Well, pressing the Live TV button brings up the program guide instead of switching between tuners. And on some channels when I bring up the program guid and move around, I get ping sounds with every keypress, but on other channels pressing buttons on the remote makes no sound at all.

These oddities seem to come and go when I reboot the TiVo. Sometimes everything works as it should and sometimes I have these weird operational quirks.

Anyone ever experienced this or heard of it?


----------



## btwyx

uscpsycho said:


> Well, pressing the Live TV button brings up the program guide instead of switching between tuners.


That's the reboot detect feature, the behaviour will revert to swapping tuners once you've visited DirecTV central. (Ie press the DirecTV button.)


----------



## tivoROCKSme

I have a couple of quick questions. Will the HR10-250 support and recognize the new 500GB IDE hard drives that are now available? Can I put in two of them and have one terrabyte of storage in my HDTIVO using the methods posted here? 
Second, will the hacked HR10-250 interface and play shows already recorded on my HDVR2?


----------



## weaknees

Yes, you can use two 500 GB drives to get one Terabyte of space in the HR10-250. We've been selling this configuration for five months now - and it's very stable.


----------



## uscpsycho

After many hours of effort, I finally have my TiVo hacked with Zipper and the enhancement script.

Now the TiVo system sounds (when you press buttons) are silent on HD channels and heard on SD channels. Is this normal?

I don't know if it was like this before I started messing with it. Before I just assumed everything worked normally. Now anomalies like this make me wonder if something is wrong.


----------



## baritony

That may be dependant on whether you have the Digital Dolby option activated within your "setup" menu.
I dont get the Tivo sounds from my HD viewing because of that and my Stereo reciever automatically switches its input source. Once Im out of the 5.1 DD signal, the Tivo sounds work.

Hope this helps


----------



## Cheezmo

It was like that before. When the channel has Dolby Digital sound (all HD and some premium) the Tivo doesn't do its sound effects.


----------



## obi1

Are you now running HDMI, and were running component?

Is your 250 audio settings on Dolby Digital or not?

Are you running thru your TV speakers or thru an outside amp and pre-amp(or both). I happen to run both as when watching news or 60 minutes, I find no need to dim the lights in the neighborhood by turning on anything besides the TV and its speakers.

By the way this all works extremely well, using only one MX 600 RF remote to control everything,, 4 Tivo's(2 hd and 2 sd), Mitz TV, Parasound C1 and Amp, D* receiver(r-20), DVD and antenna rotator. ALL other remotes are stored away.

In my case, if I am running thru HDMI and thru TV speakers and set to dolby digital, I will have Tivo beep on non dolby digital broadcast, but will have none on dolby digital broadcast,,,,as a matter of fact I get no audio at all on dolby digital broadcast.

If I set 250 at non dolby digital, I get audio ok for everything.

If I am running thru my Parasound, and thru HDMI and thru dolby digital, I get sound everywhere, but no Tivo beep.

If I am running thru component input and thru TV speakers, I get sound audio and beep always on tv speakers, whether 250 is at dolby digital or not.

If I run my Comcast DVR into component or HDMI, all is always well, TV speakers or Parasound speakers. Dolby Digital is the output. In fact I have the Comcast unit hooked up as HDMI and component at same time(cannot do this with 250). 250 disables component(and analog) if HDMI is used. Also disables analog video if component is used. Also no RF output which really is stupid and a pain(I like to distribute output thruout my home--I keep an rca sd and Sony t60 to be able to do this). Also while I am at it, why no RF remotes for Tivo's. This is really cheap.

I have reported this "bug" in the 250 to Mitz, Tivo, D*, various forums to no successful outcome. 

My DVD player is fine thru Parasound or thru Mitz speakers whether dolby digital or not.

My D* newer standalone receiver for local channels in HD(5 lnb dish) is fine thru Parasound or thru Mitz. 

I believe problem is inherant to my 250. I have a 2nd 250 running component, that I will switch to HDMI to see if problem still occurs. However, my 1st 250 that has the issue, was a replacement unit(the classic HDMI problem) and the original unit had the same condition. This is why I never even have tried to duplicate with this 2nd unit.



Hope this is all clear, but probably is not. Play around with different methods of operation and settings and see what you got. I doubt that you issue is related to your upgrade process.


----------



## Arcady

There are not any tivo sounds on any 5.1 audio programming, including most HD channels.


----------



## btwyx

btwyx said:


> Weaknees say its 103 hours http://www.weaknees.com/tivo/hr_10_103.php. They'll also do you a dual 500, and you get 130 hours with your 1TB of disk. http://www.weaknees.com/tivo/hr_10_130.php


Things move fast. I posted that in January, now they're offering a dual 750GB unit. http://www.weaknees.com/tivo/hr-10-200.php

200 hours of HD?!?!?


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## slocko

how does that work? will it be a leased unit?



btwyx said:


> Things move fast. I posted that in January, now they're offering a dual 750GB unit. http://www.weaknees.com/tivo/hr-10-200.php
> 
> 200 hours of HD?!?!?


----------



## weaknees

You can decide whether it's leased or purchase. DirecTV will assume it's a lease by default. If you want it to be a purchase so that you own the unit outright, that's fine, you just need to make that specifically clear to them when you call them to activate it.

The downside of owning, for the curious, is that DirecTV won't do a free install under that circumstance.


----------



## DaveC56

I plan to upgrade my DirecTivo HR10-250 in two steps. I plan to use MFSTools to copy all my settings/recordings. I am initially upgrading from the factory installed WD 250GB drive to a Maxtor QuickView 400GB drive using the command below:

mfsbackup -Tao - /dev/hda | mfsrestore -s 350 -r 4 -xzpi - /dev/hdb

Then use tpip -s /dev/hdx

Later on can I add a second 300GB hard drive several weeks later using the command below?

mfsadd -r 4 -x /dev/hdX /dev/hdZ 

Also, should I increase the swap size space to 350MB considering that I'll add a 300GB second hard drive for a total recording capacity of 700MB?

Is this possible? If not, do I need to perform the two drive upgrade at the same time?

Thanks,
Dave


----------



## txn88

How about those of us on a Mac?

It runs native Linux.....

But will it screw up the sectors when we hook an Original drive to it?

Anyone have any suggestions, or help for hacking a networked Tivo drive for the 10-250 on a Mac?


----------



## dwynne

If the LINUX boot CD will talk to your hardware and see your drive(s) then it should work fine.

I would test boot the CD without doing anything else and make sure all is well. If so, power off and disconnect completely your hard drive(s) then connect up the Tivo drive and your new drive(s) and to the upgrade. As with us windoze folks, if your drives are not connected then it can't boot the OS and nothing you do Tivo-wise will harm your OS.

If the boot CD will not work, then even a lonely mac head must know SOMEONE with a windoze PC that would help them do this  

Dennis


----------



## slocko

do these bootable cds have drivers to recognize usb hard drive enclosures?


----------



## dwynne

slocko said:


> do these bootable cds have drivers to recognize usb hard drive enclosures?


I don't know, I have never booted them with an external drive connected. The only reason to use any other drive is for a backup. With the cost of 250gb drives being so cheap, I would just skip that step. Copy the OEM 250 to your new drive(s) and put the OEM drive on the shelf as a backup.

Dennis


----------



## slocko

i'm asking cause I only have laptops so the only way for me to bless a drive would be with an external hard drive enclosure.


----------



## dwynne

slocko said:


> i'm asking cause I only have laptops so the only way for me to bless a drive would be with an external hard drive enclosure.


The CD is free to download, burn a copy and test it - I guess.

Surely you have an access to a PC - a friend, relative, etc? It does not take much of a PC and in fact make work a lot better on an older PC.

Dennis


----------



## slocko

not really  i am in a big believer i optimizing space so i got rid of all my regular pcs about a year ago and just use laptops. 

one of these days i'll test it out.


----------



## coaster100

probably a stupid question...but what would happen if i loaded 6.2 on my 10-250?


----------



## FredericLS

I have an HR10-250 with two 400GB Seagates. When I did IC last year, it was at 3.15E and I believe I got 250GB + 400GB. I now want to do an upgrade. I think I can copy (MFSTOOLS?) EVERYTHING to a new 750GB SEAGATE, even though it may take forever. I then want to add (BLESS?) a second 750GB Seagate. Following that I want to add (FORCE?) networking. Does anybody know of anything I have forgotton or some issue that I may encounter? Suggestions?


----------



## DarthOverlord

coaster100 said:


> probably a stupid question...but what would happen if i loaded 6.2 on my 10-250?


You definitely would not have HDTV or HDMI capabilities. Probably have a non functioning Tivo box.


----------



## AbMagFab

Been tested for quite a while over on the other forum. It doesn't work.


----------



## poopsie

I have a quick question-I have a 200 Gig HD that I want to backup to. Then use the 250 that came with the HD tivo to apply hacks. Is it OK to just backup to another drive and use the original drive. If the original drive image craps out can I still recover the image from the 200 gig? Or can I even use a smaller drive to do this?


----------



## azitnay

Assuming you're not talking about backing up recordings, the backup image you create should be well under 1GB.

Drew


----------



## tomthumb

help! 
trying to add a larger drive to my hr10-250
pulled the drive and put it in my pc
original tivo drive as primary master
dvd drive as secondary master
new drive secondary slave
(everything showed up fine in the bios read)
i've got the most recent mfs tools with large disk support
load up mfs tools via cd
i'm used to the drives showing up as "hda, hdb, hdc, etc", this time they were
hde, hdf, hdg
drive size was read correctly (250gb and 320gb)
got towards the end of the linux boot up and here's the lines that stuck out...
ds:no socket drivers loaded!
RAMDISK: compressed image at block0
EXT2-fx warning: checktime reaches, running e2fsck is recommended
VFS:mounted root (Ext2 filesystem)
Welcome to rescue disc
Trying to mount CDRom, try 1
Trying to mount CDRom, try 2
Trying to mount CDRom, try 3
Trying to mount CDRom, try 4
Trying to mount CDRom, try 5
No CDRom found
sh-2.05b#


xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
what's happenning here? 
I've added drives to tivo before using the same pc, no problems in the past
I tried moving the drives around (slave/master/primary/secondary) with no change 
Any thoughts?
Thanks in advance


----------



## tomthumb

i'm good. figured it out...
i had a pci card to add hard drives. taking that off the motherboard got things sorted out.
guess even without drives attached to it - during the linux boot it was allocating drive slots to it and got things out of whack.
yay!


----------



## mboland

OTA recording work after cancelling D*?

I own my HR10-250 and was wondering if it will be a dead box if I leave D*. Can I still use the OTA tuning/DVR features if I have D* cancel my subscription or will that completely disable all features of the receiver? Im willing to do mods or anything to keep the OTA HD DVR functions of this box if I leave D*.


----------



## dr_mal

mboland said:


> OTA recording work after cancelling D*?
> 
> I own my HR10-250 and was wondering if it will be a dead box if I leave D*. Can I still use the OTA tuning/DVR features if I have D* cancel my subscription or will that completely disable all features of the receiver? Im willing to do mods or anything to keep the OTA HD DVR functions of this box if I leave D*.


Without a subscription to the DVR service through D*, it's a playback-only device.

AFAIK, D* still requires Total Choice before they'll sell you the DVR service.


----------



## BOBCAT

Hi, 
Some time ago I upgraded my HR10-250 from the 250GB to a 320 GB. Is there any way that I can upgrade from the 320GB drive to a 400GB drive so I can save my recordings? or do I have to use my original drive and loose them. 
Thanks for the help.
Al


----------



## dwynne

You can re-upgrade your single 320gb to something larger - no need to put the OEM drive back in. Copying with records takes a long time, just be sure the PC you use is supported with DMA in the LINUX boot CD or it will take a LONG time to copy (days).

I think I would not bother to go from a 320gb to a 400gb, I would get a 500gb or larger - or go to a pair of drives using one of the twin drive brackets on the market.

Dennis


----------



## BOBCAT

Hi Dennis,
In the past I was told that after doing an upgrade from an original drive to a larger one and running the expand program so TiVo sees the larger drive, you can't upgrade from that drive to a larger drive as you can't expand the drive again. That is why I asked if anyone knows if there is a way around this problem.
I wanted to make this clear as your post doesn't mention this.
Al


----------



## BOBCAT

Can Anyone answer my last post?


----------



## BOBCAT

bump


----------



## BOBCAT

bump


----------



## weaknees

Just make a backup. That will reduce the image back to one set of storage partitions. Then you can restore from backup to whatever you've got. You just can't keep your recordings, but your settings will be copied over.


----------



## RightHere

dwynne said:


> You can re-upgrade your single 320gb to something larger - no need to put the OEM drive back in. Copying with records takes a long time, just be sure the PC you use is supported with DMA in the LINUX boot CD or it will take a LONG time to copy (days).


I read a lot of posts before attempting the upgrade myself, but somehow I missed this one  . I'm upgrading from a 250gb drive to a 500gb. After about 17 hours, it's only 50% complete    .

Weaknees - Please consider adding this critical info to your instructions. It would also be helpful if somone could list all of the chipsets that support DMA w/ this cd. I have an intel chipset in a dell 400sc that obviously isn't supported. Thanks!


----------



## RightHere

Grrrr...my computer just ate the reply. 

Shorter version: 
After 36+ hours on the upgrade, I put the new drive in the Tivo and it hung on the "almost there, just a few more seconds" screen.

Reading this thread, I saw that I apparently have to change to a larger swap file during the upgrade process, then run some other tool after it's done to fully prepare the drive for the tivo. Is this an absolute requirement, or does it seem more likely that my original drive just had too many issues and won't be able to do a successful copy?

As for my HD speed issues, I'm seeing something that's slightly different from the online instructions from Weaknees. I see some PCI_IDE lines that clearly state that my 2 HD's and one DVD drive all support DMA. But when looking at the hda/hdb/hdc lines that are in the online docs, neither HD reports that it supports DMA, but the DVD drive does (says UDMA(33)). All of these drives are running off the same controller, so I see now that this version of Linux DOES have support for that chipset. But I don't understand why the device running on the secondary channel (DVD) has UDMA support while the 2 devices running on the primary channel (both HD's) do not.

Any suggestions? I've tried the PTV free CD as well as the Weaknees CD and they both show the same output for the HD. So I assume they both use the same IDE drivers.


----------



## RightHere

After more reading, I saw some info about an "hdparm" command that could turn DMA access on. I booted off a PTV CD and confirmed that it was NOT enabled for my HD's. It didn't matter if I used the primary channel or the secondary channel.

So now I'm trying to run the mfsbackup/restore commands from within the PTV CD. It's been sitting at "Scanning source drive. Please wait a moment." plus a flashing cursor for more than an hour. I saw conflicting info in various threads here. Some said it should return something in about an hour. Others said it takes 8+ hours.

I'm hoping this time it works correctly. If you think I'm screwing something up, please chime in now


----------



## vertigo235

I don't need anything faster than ATA100 do I?

Looking at this drive http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822148139


----------



## slydog75

vertigo235 said:


> I don't need anything faster than ATA100 do I?
> 
> Looking at this drive http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822148139


That one would work fine, but you're only gaining 70gb over the stock drive, which is only like another 8 or 9 hours. If you're going through the trouble I'd recommend going with at least 400 gigs.

Edit: Unless of course you're adding a second drive.. in which case ignore this post.


----------



## vertigo235

slydog75 said:


> That one would work fine, but you're only gaining 70gb over the stock drive, which is only like another 8 or 9 hours. If you're going through the trouble I'd recommend going with at least 400 gigs.
> 
> Edit: Unless of course you're adding a second drive.. in which case ignore this post.


Yes I would be adding a second drive 

This isn't my first upgrade, I just wanted ot make sure that the HD content doesn't require more speed. I didn't want to just assume it didn't even though I'm 99% sure that any ATA drive would work.


----------



## vertigo235

Also I don't see the point in 400GB when they seem to be 2x as much as a 320GB drive.


----------



## slydog75

vertigo235 said:


> Also I don't see the point in 400GB when they seem to be 2x as much as a 320GB drive.


As a second drive, yes, 400GB doesn't make sense when you can get 320 for less than half.


----------



## vertigo235

OK So I added my 320gb drive with just using mfsadd, now I'm feeling like I should re-do everything and increase swap size before I start filling up tivo with the new season. So where can I get a CD with mfstools and tpid allready compiled?


----------



## vertigo235

Can i just run tpid from TiVo via telnet once the drives are installed back?


----------



## exsurferx

Hi all... I have been reading through this thread for hours and I just do not feel comfortable that my particular question is 100% answered... please forgive me if I missed some things.

Here I go (and thanks to all in advance!):

I have a HR10-250, just a year old, with the 250GB "A" drive and a 160GB "B" drive. I have in my possession a new 750GB Seagate drive just waiting to enter the TiVo. I would like to do the following:

From Hinsdale How To...

*From: Any Dual Drive TiVo 
To: New A or New B Drive (replacing only one or the other) *

(Slow option  preserves setup, season passes, etc. and recordings)

Issue this command:

dd if=/dev/hdb of=/dev/hdc bs=1024k

Then (assuming the copy worked)...

Issue the following command to expand/marry the existing A drive and the new upgrade B:

mfsadd x /dev/hda /dev/hdc

In the collective experience here, will this work? Will I see the entire 750GB capacit or will I have to issue some sort of expand command(s)? Should I use MFS Tools 2.0 for this?

1TB... here I come... I hope...

Thanks!


----------



## jkast

EXSURFERX:

I replaced the 250 gb A drive with a 750gb new A drive while keeping a 500gb B drive last weekend. Close to what you plan. It worked and I kept all my recordings.

You should change the mfsadd command to:

mfsadd -r 4 -x /dev/hda /dev/hdc

The "-r 4" parameters on mfsadd increase the blocksize and make your tivo slightly faster while decreasing the RAM needed to run but consuming a little more disk space.... A good tradeoff with large disks.

You can see what I did in the following thread, 4th post.

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=311662


----------



## exsurferx

*Thanks Jim*... I am going to get started this evening.

My 160GB drive which might be half full with data will copy to my 750GB. Have any idea how long I will have to wait for the data transfer to complete?

*Thanks again!* :up: :up: :up:


----------



## jkast

Exsurferx,

Took about 2 hours for mine, but I think it varies greatly depending on the PC you have it in. Good luck, let us all know how it comes out...


----------



## exsurferx

*WOO HOO!!!*

That was easy!

The hardest part was the waiting while not hearing much drive activity at all and wondering if anything was really happening. Just over 2 hours to copy. TiVo fired right up and has been running great so far. Whew...

Thanks again Jim. I did use the "-r 4" parameter.

Now I can record as much HD football as I want (130 Hours)!!! 

Time to sleep!


----------



## Bratman

I know this is a hopeless plea..

But does anyone have a base backup I can use to repair a HR10-250.

I have a new hard-drive, but mfsbackup just stalls and eventually the drive goes off-line..

Msg me off-line thanks..

Shane.


----------



## willbhome

Try this thread:
http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=62430


----------



## HDVRFAN

I've upgraded, rebuilt, replaced hardrives on my Sony T-60 before so I'm not a total newbie to this but this my first try with my HD box. Ok to get to the questions.

From reading these posts I think I realize why I am getting the GSOD after adding a 300GB second drive to my HR10-250. The Hinsdale upgrade giude didn't mention the need to use the "-r 4" switch when running the mfsadd command. At least hopefully this is my problem. My question is if I re-run the mfsadd command with the "-r 4" parameter should that fix it or do I need to restore the backuped base image to the original drive and start all over again? Also when you are just adding a large second drive do you need to worry about changing the swap size?

Thanks for your help


----------



## HDVRFAN

I tried running the mfsadd again with the new "-r 4" switch and it didn't fix the problem. I then did a restore to a blank 300gb drive and Tivo booted up fine. Tried restore to original drive which restored fine but got a message expanding the swap failed. Tried the mfsadd again with original 250 gb drive (A) and 300 gb (B) using all the command switches advised. The results said that I had increased my hours the appropiate amount but when when I put everything back in the tivo and booted up the system info screen still only shows the 30hours HD 300hours SD?!? 

I've been at this for several days and I'm close to giving up. Not to mention that the weakness bracket I bough includes this fan that makes the tivo hum and vibrate at a level that I don't think I can live with. A single 500gb drive upgrade is probably a smarter choice. The double drive setup has not gone as smoothly as advertised. Anyone...anyone...Buhler? 

Why is the mfsadd not working?


----------



## dwynne

I am confused as to what you did. I have used the twin breeze brackets w/o a problem in a couple of HD Tivos as well.

What I did in both cases:

1) Pulled the OEM drive
2) Set my PC up with the OEM drive and a pair of new drives (2x250gb in one case and 2x400 in the other)
3) I followed the how-to instructions on going from a single new drive to dual drives in one step
4) I went and watched TV while the copy did its thing
5) I put the new drives in the HD Tivo and it booted up and worked
6) I stored the OEM drive away in case I need it for something down the road.

The how-to can be found many places on the web and in this thread. I usually use the ones here .

Going through the selections for an HDTivo replacing one drive with two new ones and saving all the settings and recordings the command line is:

mfsbackup -Tao - /dev/hdX | mfsrestore -s 127 -r 4 -xzpi - /dev/hdZ /dev/hdZZ

You have to look in the instructions to figure out which drive is which depending on how you connect them - but hdX is the OEM drive and hdZ is the master new drive and hdZZ is the slave new drive.

Dennis


----------



## HDVRFAN

Thanks for the response Dennis.

I didn't even care about the recordings so I did the basic image only backup. That worked fine.

I just wanted to add a 300gb B drive ran the mfsadd command it seemed to work fine but upon boot-up got GSOD reboot loop.

Then I read the threads and realized Hinsdale instructions which I used left out the -r 4 swith which is needed for larger drives. Put the drives back into the PC tried to re-run the mfsadd with -r 4, got a succesful message upgrade time.

Put drives back into tivo. GSOD!!!

I read somewhere GSOD could be bad drive or power supply wanted to eliminate that possibilitly. Took 300gb orginally planned as B drive and ran restore of image onto it as a solo A drive. Tivo booted fine.

Decided to do a restore of image onto original 250 gb A drive and then try the mfsadd with 300gb B drive. All messages succesful. Put drives back into Tivo everything booted fine. Went to system info screen only reporting 30 hrs HD 300 SD?!? Gave up for the night at 1:00 am.

Just decided today to go to a larger (750 gb) single drive since restore is the only thing that seems to work reliably. Two drives is too much hassle. Also weakness bracket fan is too noisy and vibrating. I have to get rid of it. Not to mention the pins in the power splitter in the weakness kit are loose and easily push out when inserting tivo factory power clip.

FYI if anyone reads this thread today 9/22 CompUSA has a deal that expires today on the new Seagate 750gb drive. $329 plus tax (order online, for in store pick-up only) minus $50 rebate. My total after rebate will be about $300. Most other offers on the web are around $450. 

Also if anyone wants a weakness backet kit with fan and accesories you can have mine for half of whatever they want for it. Send me a message and it yours.


----------



## wmldwilly

I feel like sharing my experience with this process also. I embarked upon the task of copying my existing HR10-250 drive to a new 500gb drive. Fry's had the Deskstar 500g / 7200 / 16mb buffer on serious sale (129.00 after rebates) so I dove in. I've been gearing up to do this for a few weeks now, reading up and searching, assembling how-tos and of course the 75939375 posts that give corrections to the howtos .

I have a post out there that details my first problem, but at the moment it seems to have gone away and the tivo is booting fine with my expanded capacity. Whew! Anyway, I did the following:

1) prepare bootable cd.
2) pull drive, add to pc in ide positions reccomened.
3) create small backup on fat32 disk
4) restore small backup to new 500g drive
5) forget to run/not know I needed to do the tpip thing (like 98% of upgraders it seems...)
6) put the drive back in the HR10-250 w/ jumpers back to master,
7) observe reboot loop.
8) put drive back in PC, leaving it set for master after removing fat32 disk used earlier
9) run tpip.

Here's where I'm totally crapped out:

I do:
#tpip -1 -s /dev/hda

and it replies:
#initializing swap partition (version 0) @ <very long number>, Size = 127 MiB

Put it back in the tivo, still boot-loops.

I'm a little confused at why the -1 option still yields the (version 0) message. Looking closer at tpip's useage it mentions --mkswap and --swaptype={0,1}. Upon trying:

#tpip --mkswap --swaptype=1 /dev/hda

I get:
the same message as before, but with (Version 1) in there.

Put it back in the tivo, and still boot-looping.

I have basic linux experience (did a LOT of installing/tinkering with LinuxPPC on G3s way back when...) but admit I was a bit stumped at how to get a thorough look at what partitions were actually on the device, and what they were used for. I say that because it sort of acted like there wasn't any swap partition at all. The basic 'mfsinfo' command turned up a few partitions, none of which clearly detailed which was which. At least I didn't see a partition that was around the 127mb size that it seems the mfsrestore should be creating....or NOT creating, as many long convoluted threads talk about. 

Since there's LOTS of talk for years now about how mfstools 2.0 is brain damaged with respect to swap partitions, I did my best with tpip with my limited knowledge (read: just enough to be dangerous) but never got an actual "restored from small backup with no expansion and no shows" image that did anything other than boot-loop. I began wondering if the dd copy route was the right way to go but decided against it because of the numerous reccomendations to stick to mfstools and expand the swap partition.

Finally, I blew all that off and decided to proceed to the full copy/expansion from the old 250g drive to the new 500g drive. I was doing it under the impression that I would end up in the same place - an error free restore with a wonked swap partition that would boot-loop the tivo. The command I issued (from the apparently outdated hindsale guide)was:

# mfsbackup -Tao - dev/hdc | mfsrestore -r 4 -s 250 -xzpi - /dev/hda

...and off it went. Whirring away copying/restoring for about 6 hours (we had quite a few HD shows and an HD movie or two stored on the drive).

When it was all over (the next morning) I was again following up on various "what's wrong with the swap partition" threads and noticed a bit of talk about how "-r 4" should actually be "-r4" and I figured I was hosed again. There it was right there in the command line from last nite - I had used -r <space> 4. At this point I am still mystified about the swap partition thing, but decided to try it in the tivo anyway. I fully expected it to boot-loop or do some other nasty unpleasant thing, but LO AND BEHOLD...it booted, aquired info from the sat, and came to life. Shows intact, new recording capacity listed, and seemingly back to normal. For what it's worth, the hindsale guide of course doesn't mention the -r switch at all, and the Weaknees "interactive" guide spells it out with the space, or "-r 4".

So here I am - a new fat HD tivo drive, and I'm moving on to the zipper. 

I do have a comment or two though:

I have searched my ever lovin' arse off on this issue. One thing I notice is that there seems to be a consensus that the Hindsale guide is out of date, MFStools 2.0 is slightly broken, tpip for some reason has multiple commands that may or may not do the same thing but do or don't work for various people (i.e. -s versus -mkswap, and using a dash versus using a double dash...). This info isn't very new - this has all been going on for years if I'm to judge by the age of the posts and threads my search after search after search turns up, some going back to 2002. Is there SOMEWHERE, a new improved updated for 2006 guide, along with new improved bug-fixed versions of mfsrestore and tpip and all that? It seems like the apparently uuber frustrating to some basic questions like "I did what the guide said but it didn't work..." would be really well served by being pointed to a thoroughly modern upgrade-and-expand-your-drive guide. Just a thought. If there is one, please point ME at it because I never found one in a search and I've read hundreds of posts on these issues.

On to the zipper!

WM


----------



## wmldwilly

Following up on my own post...and asking a question:

I've successfully zippered the drive I talked about above. I have 63 HD hours or 470 SD hours now, and all my shows survived, I can telnet in, I get lots of new stuff in the system information screen, and it all seems to be working fine. However, I'm getting nervous about the swap partition thing. As detailed in my other posts I had the same roadbumps many before me have had with the whole larger swap space/use tpip thing, but I have to say that on my final attempt I did nothing more than follow the "copy and expand" instructions in the Hindsale guide (with the addition of the -r 4 switch), and it did exactly that - it copied the drive, expanded the partitions so I have the full new recording capacity of the 500gb drive, and it boots and plays shows and is generally happy. Note *I did nothing special with tpip or any other tool* after the process.

So...this leaves me asking: What if I dont' have a swap partition at all??? May I please have a quick specific instruction from someone to check to see if I do? Running "bootpage -p /dev/hda" on the tivo yields: "root=/dev/hda4 dsscon=true console=2,115200 upgradesoftware=false. 

Seems all fine, but it doesn't tell me about partitions. Would someone please take pity on my brain cramp and hit me with what command to run and what to look for to verify I have a real, actual swap partition?

Thank you in advance, 

WM


----------



## slocko

soon you will find that 63 hours of HD is not enough  

I thought I was set at 80 hours of HD and yet it's still not enough!!!!!


----------



## Freightdog

wmldwilly, my understanding is:

-r4 is for a large cluster size, needed on larger drives. 
Since you had a space between the r and the 4, you would not have the proper cluster size. Could cause a problem later?

-s250 won't properly prepare the swap partition. Anything larger than -s127 will require the tpip thing. 

One thing I know from reading the threads is that the swap is needed for tivo to repair any file system issues it encounters. Some folks say 127 is plenty, other say larger.

I'm not up on linux (old VMS guy), so can't help on other commands yet.


----------



## wmldwilly

Freightdog said:


> wmldwilly, my understanding is:
> 
> -r4 is for a large cluster size, needed on larger drives.
> Since you had a space between the r and the 4, you would not have the proper cluster size. Could cause a problem later?
> 
> -s250 won't properly prepare the swap partition. Anything larger than -s127 will require the tpip thing.
> 
> One thing I know from reading the threads is that the swap is needed for tivo to repair any file system issues it encounters. Some folks say 127 is plenty, other say larger.
> 
> I'm not up on linux (old VMS guy), so can't help on other commands yet.


Thanks for the info. Unfortunately this leaves me wondering if my drive has a) the wrong cluster size, and b) a swap partition of unknown size with unknown useability.

May I please appeal to the gods of tivo-ana around here for a suggestion or two?

#1) I'm fairly convinced there's a swap partition there that's not properly formatted, even though tpip sure didn't cure the problem on the first "small install" test that hindsale sends you thru. Should I pull the drive and do this all over again?

#2) Aside from the cluster size which I'd imagine can only be fixed when the drive is formatted/prepped for use in the early part of the process, is there any way to verify or fix the partition thing while the drive is IN the tivo from the bash command line?

All suggestions are much appreciated.

WM


----------



## wmldwilly

dwynne said:


> Going through the selections for an HDTivo replacing one drive with two new ones and saving all the settings and recordings the command line is:
> 
> mfsbackup -Tao - /dev/hdX | mfsrestore -s 127 -r 4 -xzpi - /dev/hdZ /dev/hdZZ


Aha! there it is again - "-r <space> 4" and not "-r4" The confusion over this is adding to my nervousness that I've got a working tivo drive that's a ticking time bomb waiting to fail because of a) too small a cluster size and b) a swap partition that's a friggin' mystery after the vagueries of tpip.

Grrrr.


----------



## wmldwilly

Okay, cat /var/log/kernel | grep swap gives me:

Oct 7 03:53:51 (none) kernel: Starting kswapd 
Oct 7 03:53:51 (none) kernel: Activating swap partitions 
Oct 7 03:53:51 (none) kernel: Unable to find swap-space signature 
Oct 7 03:53:51 (none) kernel: swapon: /dev/hda8: Invalid argument

So, I have a swap problem. Any suggestions that can be done from the command line, or do I have to pull the drive again and try tpip?

The big question about trying tpip is that the drive is already in service after zippering and is working well. But if it ever needs to recover...i'm hozed.

Help!


----------



## wmldwilly

I feel like I'm talking to myself. Well, I kinda am, aren't I? 

I searched. Oh did I search. What I found was instructions to try this simple bit of commands:

mkswap /dev/hda8
swapon -a

And WooT!!!! Now in the kernel boot log I get:

Jan 2 00:00:16 (none) kernel: Activating swap partitions 
Jan 2 00:00:16 (none) kernel: Adding Swap: 255992k swap-space (priority -1)

Whew! Somebody who knows more than most of us would please comment, I'd feel better and resist the urge to go to Fry's and buy *another* 500gb drive and do this all over again (except for the cluster size problem).

Also, tell me what this means: In my tribulations of bouncing the stock drive with the shows to the new drive, I came up against the MFS-tools 2.0 bugs with respect to swap partitions. Lots of the documentation says that if you try for a swap space larger than 127 you'll get nothing. In true "open source style" nobody really elaborates on what "nothing" means (open source rule #1: if you don't already know, I can't explain it to you...) - No hda8 at all? an hda8 of the size you requested but with no format? It seems to me that you get a swap partition of the size you requested, but no format so it can't be brought up as swap at boot. Otherwise I wouldn't have been able to simply give it a the right header for swap (mkswap) at the command line while the tivo was already running.

I'm continuing to talk to myself to enlighten others who might feel as lost as I did, but took little comfort in the wide array of partial explanations out there - most of them dated almost 2 years ago.

</rant>

wm

two side notes:

1) I only see "Starting kswapd" after a full power cycle. does it stay running across soft reboots?

2) the kernel log entries are dated "Jan 2 00:00:xx" for the first bit of booting. Then suddenly it knows what time it is again.


----------



## ethan

i'm planning on upgrading my HR10-250 this weekend with a single, larger A drive. it's been 4 or 5 years since my last TiVo upgrade, so i thought i'd take the "easy" route and use the weaKnees instructions.

i had planned to use the following command, as directed by the guide:


Code:


mfsbackup -Tao - /dev/hdX | mfsrestore -s 127 -r 4 -xzpi - /dev/hdZ

however, previous posts here have mentioned there should be no space between the "-r" and the "4". should i use the following instead?


Code:


mfsbackup -Tao - /dev/hdX | mfsrestore -s 127 -r4 -xzpi - /dev/hdZ


----------



## smu1997

I tried using the download Boot CD image of MFSTool 2.0 here with WeaKnees Large Kernel Support:. I was unable to boot the CD and kept getting an "Trying to mount the CD-ROM, try 1". I read that this has to do with some kind of IDE controller setting my drives to /dev/hde & /dev/hdf instead of /dev/hda & /dev/hdb. 
So I attempted to use the "LBA48 Boot CD iso from PTVupgrade" to booted my PC from the CD. I issued the command mfsadd -r 4 -x /dev/hde /dev/hdf. It did something for a couple of minutes and then a moment later it showed an approximation of the amount of recording hours resulting from the upgrade. 
I inserted the drives back into my Tivo but my hours have not changed. What am I doing wrong?

Thanks


----------



## dennya

Okay, I have a Weaknees bracket and a 400GB drive to add as a second drive. I was all set to do this, but now the discussions here have me worried. Lots of folks with problems, and they're unanswered.

So the quick question is:
Do the current Weaknees instructions for adding a second drive to the HR10-250 work properly? No changes needed to the command lines, etc? Would love to hear from someone who did this successfully.

And is it -r 4 or -r4 on mfstools? I'm seeing both here.


----------



## boiler_man

> So the quick question is:
> Do the current Weaknees instructions for adding a second drive to the HR10-250 work properly? No changes needed to the command lines, etc? Would love to hear from someone who did this successfully.


I just upgraded mine yesterday and used the interactive gude exactly as it is written and it worked without a problem. I wanted to keep my recordings and it took 7 hrs to copy. I went fromt the oringinal 250 gb to a 320gb and a 120 gb. Everything seems fine and all my recordings are there. It did seem like it took a little longer to boot up than it has before.

Good Luck


----------



## dwynne

I used the interactive instructions when I did my two upgrades and both are working fine.

I would STRONGLY recommend purchasing a 2nd drive of some size and replacing the OEM 250gb with a pair of drives. If something goes wrong, being able to fix it by re-installing the OEM drive is worth it. And you can use it to re-do the upgrade if you need to. A 250gb drive is cheap these days, or get a 2nd 400gb drive for a lot of space.

Dennis


----------



## btwyx

dwynne said:


> I would STRONGLY recommend purchasing a 2nd drive of some size and replacing the OEM 250gb with a pair of drives. If something goes wrong, being able to fix it by re-installing the OEM drive is worth it.


I totally agree. You can put the drive back and see if any problems go away, then you know your upgrade has a problem (or not). Also when one of my drives gave up earlier this year, I could swap in the old drive and be up and running again inside of a day. Getting the drives fixed took a few days, and I could be watching some really important stuff in the meantime. (Like several games in the World Cup.)


----------



## Lord Vader

Well, I finally was able to stop my old man's and upgrade his HR10-250. I still have telnet access, so it looks like his connection is OK (he's using an FA120). However, the 30-second skip no longer works by default. I entered in the command to enable it, but I KNOW that when the unit reboots every Sunday and Wednesday night, he'll be calling me the next day screaming about the 30-second skip not working. So, to avoid his blaming ME for his troubles, I tried to look for a way to enable it permanently so that when the unit reboots, it'll always be activate.

I couldn't find the answer to this. Can someone point me in the right direction?

Edited to add: Thanks to you-know-who. All's well that ends well.


----------



## dennya

boiler_man said:


> I just upgraded mine yesterday and used the interactive gude exactly as it is written and it worked without a problem. I wanted to keep my recordings and it took 7 hrs to copy. I went fromt the oringinal 250 gb to a 320gb and a 120 gb. Everything seems fine and all my recordings are there. It did seem like it took a little longer to boot up than it has before.


Thanks, Boiler_man. That makes me feel more confident.

I realized I have a 300GB drive I pulled from my main system when I upgraded (had to swap to a SATA drive), so I'll copy the 250 to that and keep the original as a backup. Much safer.

Now I just have to figure out how to manage the instructions when my PC has only one IDE connector, which means I can't connect both drives and the CD-ROM simultaneously. Wonder if the boot disc will work with my old Maxtor IDE card.


----------



## kimbray

All, Here is my situation. I have a 10-250 that has a 300GB second drive. This drive has CRASHED and is making a lot of noise. I removed power from it and now I want to be able to test if it boots up correctly with just the original drive in the unit. Will I be able to power up the unit and get it going just by removing power to the second hard drive? Second question, I had the connection on the unit connected to my TV HDMI but my test TV to see if the 10-250 works after making changes is a composite connection. I cannot get video to show on the screen.. Suggestions? THANKS!


----------



## dwynne

You took the original drive and "married" it to the 300gb drive and now the add in drive has crashed? AFAIK it will no longer work on the original drive alone once you have added a 2nd drive. You will need to obtain an image of a blank drive (if you did not make one when adding the 2nd drive) and restore it to the original drive in order to get your HDTivo working again.

I always tell folks to replace the OEM drive and set it on a shelf for times like these.

Dennis


----------



## TonyM

dwynne said:


> You took the original drive and "married" it to the 300gb drive and now the add in drive has crashed? AFAIK it will no longer work on the original drive alone once you have added a 2nd drive. You will need to obtain an image of a blank drive (if you did not make one when adding the 2nd drive) and restore it to the original drive in order to get your HDTivo working again.
> 
> I always tell folks to replace the OEM drive and set it on a shelf for times like these.
> 
> Dennis


Unless things have changed, there should be a command to divorce the married drives.

About 2 years ago or so I had to do that with my old SA Sony Tivo. Went to sell it and wanted to keep the extra drive I had added. Searching here should provide the procedure.


----------



## SlammanDan

kimbray said:


> All, Here is my situation. I have a 10-250 that has a 300GB second drive. This drive has CRASHED and is making a lot of noise. I removed power from it and now I want to be able to test if it boots up correctly with just the original drive in the unit. Will I be able to power up the unit and get it going just by removing power to the second hard drive? Second question, I had the connection on the unit connected to my TV HDMI but my test TV to see if the 10-250 works after making changes is a composite connection. I cannot get video to show on the screen.. Suggestions? THANKS!


I also have a 10-250, had it for over 2 years and hard drive crashed. I have not modified it at all, and did not save software. Is there anywhere I could find the software necessary to install a new hard drive without having the original?


----------



## jhays

Try:

http://www.weaknees.com/hughes-hr10-250.php#replace

or:

http://www.ptvupgrade.com/db/upgrade


----------



## azitnay

Or if you only want the software image and don't want to pay a premium for an entire new hard drive with the software preinstalled:

http://www.ptvupgrade.com/products/instantcake/

Drew


----------



## SlammanDan

I purchased the ICAKE software and it worked GREAT!!! 

Thanks Dan


----------



## vdubuclet

Background: trying to add 400 GB to HR10-250, using the original drive as primary A and expanding to 400GB. Tivo A set to HDC, 400 GB on HDD

Hinsdale guide which I have used many times says to use 
mfsadd -x /dev/hdc /dev/hdb 
I tried this and got stuck on the powering up screen. 

I restored my image (which I verified does work) and then tried this command
Mfsadd r 4 x /dev/hdc /dev/hdd

Still got stuck on the powering up screen. Jumper on Tivo A drive is set to master with slave (middle pins). Jumper on seagate 400GB is off (slave). Any suggestions?


----------



## weaknees

The second one is what you need with drives that size. And I assume there was a "-" before that "x" in there, otherwise you would have gotten an error.

So you tried the image alone, before expansion, and it booted? Are you sure the IDE cable is installed in the right direction - blue to the motherboard?


----------



## vdubuclet

weaknees said:


> The second one is what you need with drives that size. And I assume there was a "-" before that "x" in there, otherwise you would have gotten an error.
> 
> So you tried the image alone, before expansion, and it booted? Are you sure the IDE cable is installed in the right direction - blue to the motherboard?


There was a "-" before the "x" sorry for the typo. IDE cable may not be in the correct direction, I did not think it mattered. I will check at lunch time.


----------



## weaknees

In some cases, it does matter. In any event, it's an easy thing to check . . .


----------



## vdubuclet

Well I flipped the IDE cable and the Tivo booted. Tivo said I had a hardware error and needed to reboot. I ran guided setup again, Tivo is working but it says by capacity is 30HD/200SD. 

Pulled the drive again and used the blesstivo command and this worked
83 HD 483 SD, just wonder why the mfsadd command did not work


----------



## kkluba

Can you guys check my plan here? I'm getting a larger drive for my HDTivo and want to make it go as smoothly as possible. I have version 6.3a and it works fine for me. This will be done in a PC with a CDRom and the original 250gb drive from the HR10-250 and the new drive (Seagate DB35 big drive). The new drive will never have been used in a Windows box or any for that matter. My goal is to copy over my existing drive and recordings and put the orginal 250gb drive on a shelf for safe keeping. I will have the new drive on the 2nd IDE channel and the original on the 1st. My drives will be as follows:

HDA-Orig.250
HDB-(none)
HDC-CDROM
HDD-New DB35

Here are the steps:

1. Boot from LBA48 CD.
2. Run hdparm -d1 /dev/hda and hdparm -d1 /dev/hdd (DMA enabled is faster, no?)
3. Run mfsbackup -Tao - /dev/hda | mfsrestore -s 360 -r 4 -xzpi - /dev/hdd 
4. Run tpip -s /dev/hdd
5. Set jumpers and install new drive back in HR10.

Is that it? I know I need to check drive size first and make sure all is seen and unlock if necessary. 

What about swap? Should I increase the swap?
I'm taking this up to 500gb and eventually adding a second drive and going to 1TB. 

Anything I'm missing here?

thanks,


----------



## spike2k5

kkluba said:


> Can you guys check my plan here? I'm getting a larger drive for my HDTivo and want to make it go as smoothly as possible. I have version 6.3a and it works fine for me. This will be done in a PC with a CDRom and the original 250gb drive from the HR10-250 and the new drive (Seagate DB35 big drive). The new drive will never have been used in a Windows box or any for that matter. My goal is to copy over my existing drive and recordings and put the orginal 250gb drive on a shelf for safe keeping. I will have the new drive on the 2nd IDE channel and the original on the 1st. My drives will be as follows:
> 
> HDA-Orig.250
> HDB-(none)
> HDC-CDROM
> HDD-New DB35
> 
> Here are the steps:
> 
> 1. Boot from LBA48 CD.
> 2. Run hdparm -d1 /dev/hda and hdparm -d1 /dev/hdd (DMA enabled is faster, no?)
> 3. Run mfsbackup -Tao - /dev/hda | mfsrestore -s 360 -r 4 -xzpi - /dev/hdd
> 4. Run tpip -s /dev/hdd
> 5. Set jumpers and install new drive back in HR10.
> 
> Is that it? I know I need to check drive size first and make sure all is seen and unlock if necessary.
> 
> What about swap? Should I increase the swap?
> I'm taking this up to 750gb and eventually adding a second drive and going to 1.5TB.
> 
> Anything I'm missing here?
> 
> thanks,


Your plan looks good. 
Make sure you grab the latest bootcd from either Weakness.com or mine (mfslive.org).

Mine has the LBA48 support, alternate root/boot partition size fix and linux swap signature fix greater than 127MB and add -q so do backup -qTao ....
So your display will look good.

I heard latest Weakness.com cd has those fixes too.

Also, if you use those two cds, you don't have to run tpip (swap v1 signature fix)


----------



## kkluba

Spike,

Thanks for the help. Just so I'm clear with your bootcd or the latest from Weaknees (which I have) I would run this command:

Run mfsbackup -q -Tao - /dev/hda | mfsrestore -s 360 -r 4 -xzpi - /dev/hdd 

Would I not need to do the tpip -s /dev/hdd command then?


----------



## spike2k5

kkluba said:


> Spike,
> 
> Thanks for the help. Just so I'm clear with your bootcd or the latest from Weaknees (which I have) I would run this command:
> 
> Run mfsbackup -q -Tao - /dev/hda | mfsrestore -s 360 -r 4 -xzpi - /dev/hdd
> 
> Would I not need to do the tpip -s /dev/hdd command then?


With mine you do

backup -qTao - /dev/hda | restore -s 360 -r 4 -xzpi - /dev/hdd

no need to run tpip (test many times and it gets activated)

with latest weakness's cd w/ SATA support do

mfsbackup -qTao - /dev/hda | mfsrestore -s 360 -r 4 -xzpi - /dev/hdd

(have not tested if swap gets activated so will let you know after I test it)

To test if dma in on you can do

hdparm -d /dev/hda
hdparm -d /dev/hdd

W/ dma on and hard drives on different ide channels (which you have done)
it should take around 2hrs to do full copy from 250GB. Mine took 1hr 40 min w/ half full last time w/ celeron 2.9GHZ processor w/ 1GB of ram.
My cd shows ETA status but I don't think Weakness's does.


----------



## dwynne

The "live" free boot CD will do the job just fine. It will also keep your backup (not active) kernel and root partitions the proper size. There is a bug in most/all the other versions of mfstools that on restore it shrinks the non-active kernel and root partitions to 1/2 the normal size. Not a big deal, until D* sends out a new software load. Then IN SOME CASES the upgrade can fail leaving you with a non-workings Tivo. In some cases you could pull the drive and fix this, but in my case I could not so I had to images my OEM drive to a new drive and lose my recordings.

Compare the hdx3, hdx4, hdx6, and hdx7 partition sizes on the source and target drives after you are done to be sure they are the same sizes on both. The versions of other free boot CDs I had shrunk the non-active partitions - so I used the "live" CD this last time - just in case.

Dennis


----------



## kkluba

Spike and Dennis - many thanks!

Now I'm ready.


----------



## kkluba

One other question I thought of.. Do the Seagate DB35 drives require any special setup for acoustic management or other features? Or is it all automatic?

thanks again,


----------



## spike2k5

kkluba said:


> One other question I thought of.. Do the Seagate DB35 drives require any special setup for acoustic management or other features? Or is it all automatic?
> 
> thanks again,


According to Seagate DB35 site, it's setup as quiet mode at the factory. 
Seagate turned off AAM support from their firmware while back due to Patent issues I read somewhere.


----------



## kkluba

Thanks again..


----------



## kkluba

The upgrade is going as planned (10% done). One question - there were a whole bunch of these:

hdc: dma_intr: error=0x84 { DriveStatusError BadCRC } and 
hdc: dma_intr: error=0x51 { DriveReady SeekComplete }.

hdc=new target drive

Are these normal? They preceeded the big restore process that is going on right now and appears to be going fine.


----------



## kkluba

Nevermind the above. The 250 copied to the 750 in 3 hours flat. It's up and running without issue.

I plan to add another 750 after I see the new one run for a few days ok. Is all I have to do is run this command?

mfsadd -x -r 4 /dev/hda /dev/hdd

hda is my existing 750 and hdd is the one to be added.

I'll wait a month or two to see if 6.3b comes out before I add networking and all the goodies. 

BTW - Spike - Your MFSTools build worked like a charm. I made the swap 340mb, hope that's enough.


----------



## videoi

Gang -

My HR10-250 starting having problems (coincidentally, around the time of the 6.3 software - but it appears to be drive-related). I had a bunch of recordings on there that I hadn't watched yet (last season of Deadwood!), so I'm trying to save the recordings.

I tried dd_rescue - it appeared to hang.

I tried Spinrite - (level 4) - seemed to be going ok for 37 hours, then has just been sitting at 82% complete for the last 12 hours (saying 6 hrs remaining) - so that appears to be hung.

I did successfully run DD from the old disk to the new disk - but I'm guessing if there are bad areas on the old disk, that's not going to do me much good.

Any other suggestions that I can try in order to salvage the recordings?

Note: The disk in question is a Seagate 300GB [st3300831a] drive. I have a 2nd drive in the Tivo, a Seagate 400GB, which appears to be fine. I was going to move to a Samsung 400GB drive (I've had good luck with the samsung's in the past).

Thanks in advance

Ira


----------



## videoi

Anyone? Any suggestions?


----------



## Lord Vader

Anyone? Bueler? Anyone?


----------



## chazzz

Hi folks,
I too just started having issues with my H10-250. It's freezing up on a daily basis and I have to reboot. My box is still under warranty but I'm sure I'll be replaced with an H20 and I don't want one.

I want to follow the instructions to try and copy over to a new drive. How big is the risk of my warranty being void? If it doesn't work I would just put the old drive back in...but will they be able to tell?


----------



## dwynne

The warranty is only a year, is your box/drive failing so soon? Unlike the old standalone Tivos with the "special foil" seal to indicate tampering no HR10-250 I have seen has anything to detect you have opened the case.

So I would replace the single 250gb drive with a single 400gb or 500gb drive - whatever you can find the best deal on. If you are lucky the drive is in good enough shape you can copy it all over shows, passes, etc. Put your OEM drive on the shelf and if you have any issues with the box other than the drive, but the OEM drive back in THEN send it off for repair.

Dennis


----------



## chazzz

dwynne said:


> The warranty is only a year, is your box/drive failing so soon? Unlike the old standalone Tivos with the "special foil" seal to indicate tampering no HR10-250 I have seen has anything to detect you have opened the case.
> 
> So I would replace the single 250gb drive with a single 400gb or 500gb drive - whatever you can find the best deal on. If you are lucky the drive is in good enough shape you can copy it all over shows, passes, etc. Put your OEM drive on the shelf and if you have any issues with the box other than the drive, but the OEM drive back in THEN send it off for repair.
> 
> Dennis


Thanks Dennis.

My box has been in use since March of this year, and I'm surprised it's failing too.

I did catch it in the act last night. I was copying stuff off to DVD, and on the recording I saw it reboot itself 3 times within 10 minutes for no apparent reason. The recording had stopped playing and it had gone back to live TV. It went from live TV to "Welcome, Powering Up" with no warning. First and second time it rebooted to live TV and picked back up. Third time it froze, and that is how I found it today. I guess it could be a couple of things, bad software or bad hardware. Hopefully it's the hardware and I can just get a new drive. If there's something wrong with the software then I guess I am going to have to have it restored for me. Does anyone have any experience with this kind of rebooting, if so what was the cause?

I have everything I need burned off to DVD so I'm not worried about reformatting. I think I am going to give that a shot and start clean. I will follow your advice and try with a new hard drive. Thanks again.


----------



## flippper

I've been having problems with my HR10-250, 15 months old (out of warranty) ever since the power started failing here in the Pacific Northwest due to the recent storms.

A system reset and delete everything didn't fix it initially, but it seems happy now for the past 12 hours. Previously, it would run for 1+ hour then freeze. Tech support says it may be a hard drive problem, so a little google searching and I ended up here.

But, tech support did say that software 6.3b is on the satellite feed, and with other reports of sudden problems since 6.3a was downloaded I suspect they shipped us a few bugs in that version that is causing the system to reboot or freeze.


----------



## Klips

My lockups started when I was upgraded to 6.3a.

I'm now on 6.3b and was hoping that it would stop.

Well it has not. It is still locking up.

So do I have a bad hard drive or just bad code????


----------



## tchyde

Attempted to Zipper the HR10-250 ... but at the tail end of the install the script says "WIRELESS currently not supported for the HR10-250" ?? ... WTF ?!?!

Anyone sucessfully do a Zipper install with "wireless" on the HR10-250?

I gave up and was able to InstantCake and expand a new 750 GB drive no problem.

If in fact the HR10-250 cannot support wireless (even with a wireless bridge) ... it's BS that none of the sites (DVRupgrade/Zipper) point this out.


----------



## mvita

The HR10-250 can support wireless, at least with a wireless bridge... I recently upgraded to 6.3b on my HR10-250 (hacked "by hand", not using the Zipper), and I've got wireless networking working well using a combination of a D-Link DWL-G820 802.11g wireless bridge and a Netgear FA120 USB Ethernet adapter. Prior to the 6.3b upgrade (i.e. 3.1.5f), I ran wireless on the same unit using the FA120 and a D-Link DWL-810 wireless bridge (a slower 802.11b unit). (For some bizarre reason I could never explain, I could never get the DWL-G820 working with the HR10-250 when it was running 3.1.5f). 

FWIW, I'm getting pretty good transfer rates (upwards of 2MB/sec) with the FA120/DWL-G820 combo with 6.3b... and there's nothing really exotic in my networking setup (i.e. I'm using the standard USB drivers, etc.) I can't see any reason you shouldn't be able to get the same sort of setup working with a Zippered unit.


----------



## tchyde

Will try that ... thanks


----------



## toms111la

I recently upgraded my H10-250 from a 250 and 300 HD to two 500's. I wanted to keep all of my recordings and could not find a way to hook up all 4 drives and a CDROM to a PC. I therefore used the DD Copy method mentioned in "Hinsdale how to" to copy each of the old drives individually to each of the new drives one at a time. I then tested the two new drives in the H10 and all looked fine and the number of hours reported had not changed (as expected). I then put the two new drives back into the PC and used the expand command (mfsadd -r 4 -x /dev/hdc /dev/hdb). I then put both drives back into the H10 and everything still worked ok but the unit is only reporting available HDTV hours of 103. I had 69 available before (with a 250 and 300) so I expected something like 125. I tried putting the two drives back into the PC and expanding the drives again but got a message that there is nothing to expand. The best I can tell, I think I am getting all of the space but I am not 100% sure. Any ideas??


----------



## dwynne

My guess is that your 250->250+300 expansion will not allow you to go to dual 500's and get all the space.

Do you still have your OEM 250, or is that what you had in the Tivo? I purchased and extra drive and kept mine "on the shelf" in case I need it again. 

If you have the OEM drive available, plug it, a CD, and the dual 500s in and go from the 250->1,000. Plug that into the Tivo and check the space.

If you don't have the drive available, you could try taking something like the "instant cake" CD to create a new image on the twin 500s (just for a test) and see how much capacity it shows. A dual 500gb should be 144-146 hours, I think. 103 is what you get with a pair of 400gb drives, I think.

Dennis


----------



## toms111la

dwynne said:


> My guess is that your 250->250+300 expansion will not allow you to go to dual 500's and get all the space.
> 
> Do you still have your OEM 250, or is that what you had in the Tivo? I purchased and extra drive and kept mine "on the shelf" in case I need it again.
> 
> If you have the OEM drive available, plug it, a CD, and the dual 500s in and go from the 250->1,000. Plug that into the Tivo and check the space.
> 
> If you don't have the drive available, you could try taking something like the "instant cake" CD to create a new image on the twin 500s (just for a test) and see how much capacity it shows. A dual 500gb should be 144-146 hours, I think. 103 is what you get with a pair of 400gb drives, I think.
> 
> Dennis


It seems to me that the amount being reported is also what I would have had I only upgraded one of my two drives. I don't have the OEM 250 as I originally added the 300 and did not keep the 250. I am thinking that if I added only one drive at a time it probably would have worked ok.


----------



## kmd_mlc

Hello,

I have been using this forum for a few years. Always impressed with the information found here.

I have an HR10-250 that is hangs during boot - get to 'almost there. just a few minutes more' but never completes. From what I have seen here in the forum, this is a good sign that I am in need of a new drive. Fortunately I have a drive. Unfortunately, I do not have an image and cannot get one from the existing drive.

Can anyone send me a PM to direct me to an HR10-250 image?

Thanks,
Kd


----------



## azitnay

If you can't find one, you can always try pulling one from the current drive, and seeing if it works.

Drew


----------



## cr33p

toms111la said:


> It seems to me that the amount being reported is also what I would have had I only upgraded one of my two drives. I don't have the OEM 250 as I originally added the 300 and did not keep the 250. I am thinking that if I added only one drive at a time it probably would have worked ok.


Dump your hinsdales direction and go download mfslives cd from mfslive.org, they have a command generator that will help you out .you may find yourself needing the beta cd that will allow you to expand the root partion if yours has shrunk. PM if you need some help or need a new image.


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## kmd_mlc

As usual, this forum was very helpful. My HR10-250 if working again.

Thanks for all the help!!!

Kevin


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## xrob

Hey all,

I have a stock HR10-250 which is slowly, but surely giving up the ghost. I'm getting very jittery live playback (although the recordings being made are much better for some reason) and I've been thinking about doing an upgrade. I've started to sift through the hundreds of posts and pages to be found and want to make sure I'm doing this with the most current software, images, etc.

Can anyone point me to a current set of instructions for replacing/upgrading the HDs in one of these units? I've seen everything from full hacking (for network connectivity and ftp access) to simply putting in a larger HD.

I am a mac user (fairly proficient with the command line and I know my way around a PC fairly well so I am hoping I can knock this out without too much help) but can get access to a PC if needed. I know these topics have been covered dozens of times (even in this thread), but it would be great to get some current info. Anyone who can offer some assistance, I would greatly appreciate it. I am not at all interested in "upgrading" to DirecTV's Tivo replacement. That would be pure crap.

Thanks for reading,

Rob


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## Da Goon

The latest sw for an HR10 is 6.3d. You can get an image included in a bootable linux cd from www.dvrupgrade.com , called InstantCake for $20. Or you could use mfslive to copy your current image to a new disk, provided your current drive isn't too far gone yet. www.mfslive.org


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## xrob

Thanks for the info.

One quick question. If my optical audio port is no longer working and I am getting an occurring message to "please insert my access card," are these problems that would be attributed to the software (or hard drive dying) or is this a box hardware failure? I don't want to waste time trying to save a unit that is already on the way out. Anyone have any experience with these types of problems?

Thanks again,

Rob


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## hjscm

Well i am glad i saw this post. i am in kinda the same boat. i was wondering if there is a step by step to upgrade. i have a hr10-250 i bought from weakness with 750gigs of storage. i want to network it and extract the video to my computer. i have a pc and a mac. more comfortable on the pc but i can go either way.
thanks


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## sk33t3r

Video extraction discussion is a NONO on this site.


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## dturturro

I've tried searching for Tivowebplus and all I'm getting are posts telling people they should use it, but not how. I zippered my drive to 6.2b, but I entered the wrong IP address info and I want to fix it. Anyone have a post that covers Tivowebplus?


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## Da Goon

dturturro said:


> I've tried searching for Tivowebplus and all I'm getting are posts telling people they should use it, but not how. I zippered my drive to 6.2b, but I entered the wrong IP address info and I want to fix it. Anyone have a post that covers Tivowebplus?


To use TWP, pull up an internet browser and connect to the ip address you assigned to your tivo. I don't quite understand how you plan on editing your network params if you're needing to "fix it". Don't you have bash? If you don't have telnet access, good luck getting into TWP. If you do have bash, why not just edit it there?


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## tspringett

Hello, I'm planning on getting a hr10-250, so that I can get the over the air hd stuff on the tivo. Nothing worse than live tv. I have a non HD DirecTV Tivo currently and want to simply move the current content on the standard DirecTV Tivo to a new larger drive and use that as the primary on the hr10-250. I could go dual drive, but just trying to keep it simple. What path should I take in this upgrade? Last time I did an upgrade was about 2 years ago, so lots has changed.

Thanks

T.


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## dwynne

You can't move scrambled/protected content from one Tivo to another. If your old Tivo has been hacked to record "unprotected" then you could do this for the recordings made after the hack.

Dennis


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## tspringett

So, the programs on my existing tivo will not be able to move to the new tivo? The wife is not going to like that answer. Was thinking I could do something at the very least like add it as a second drive. 

So then my only option is to upgrade to a larger drive. Is the easiest route then to purchase a large drive and use the instantcake type utility?

T.


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## Carlton Bale

You can still play recordings off a deactivated TiVo. Just use your old TiVo to watch the old stuff, and your new TiVo to watch the new stuff.

You don't need to purchase InstantCake to switch to a larger drive, but it is the easiest method for newbies.


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## tspringett

Yup, I guess that is an option. Quick question, then another, if you have two Tivos hooked up, won't the remote control both? So when I'm watching the old one, the new one would be mimicking the commands? 

I've upgraded the two Tivos I've had previously, so am pretty sure I can upgrade the hr10-250 using a non $$ option. I've used the Hinsdale instructions, is that still good or is there a better option?

Thanks for all the feedback

T.


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## Carlton Bale

You can set each TiVo to respond to a specific remote. You basically change the remote address for each remote, then go to the service menu for each and use the remote, and that will change the remote address for that TiVo (block the IR port of the other TiVo.) It's in the manual.


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## toms111la

tspringett said:


> I've upgraded the two Tivos I've had previously, so am pretty sure I can upgrade the hr10-250 using a non $$ option. I've used the Hinsdale instructions, is that still good or is there a better option?


I highly recomend the instructions and utilities found at http://www.mfslive.com/


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## phox_mulder

I tried searching, but didn't come up with much.

I have the original drive and I added a 500g drive so I now have 2 drives in my HR10-250.

It's been flaky lately, and making odd noises at times.

I think I'm overtaxing the power supply and want to go back to one drive, albeit bigger than the 2 I have now combined.

I have a lot of unwatched programs that I want to watch and watch in HD so dubbing off to a VHS or DVD isn't a good option.

Is there a way to combine two drives onto a new bigger drive and keep the programs intact?


phox


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## Carlton Bale

Yes, there is, but it's not easy. You basically have to backup your shows and then restore them to a new drive created from a fresh image. I've done it, but it takes time and space. You don't have to decrypt the shows or anything like that, they will only play back on the original TiVo. You just have to pull shows off of one drive to a temporary location, create the new drive, and restore them back that drive. Here are the details: http://dvrpedia.com/Backup_Shows_TiVo_Drive_PC


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## phox_mulder

That isn't going to work with my current computer setup.
The original TiVo HD is bigger than the HD in my computer.

I'd have to get a huge drive to put the shows on temporarily along with the drive that would be going in the TiVo.

Couple that with my knowlege of Linux.

I might have to look into this more though.
It's better than losing everything I have on there should either drive or the power supply fail.



phox


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## fasTLane

Carlton Bale said:


> Yes, there is, but it's not easy. You basically have to backup your shows and then restore them to a new drive created from a fresh image. I've done it, but it takes time and space. You don't have to decrypt the shows or anything like that, they will only play back on the original TiVo. You just have to pull shows off of one drive to a temporary location, create the new drive, and restore them back that drive. Here are the details: http://dvrpedia.com/Backup_Shows_TiVo_Drive_PC


Interesting. Is it then possible to relocate these saved shows to a larger drive but with a rollback software version, say from 6.x back to 3.1 ?


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## hauntedsoul

Just a question.....can you take a hard drive from a hr10-250 and just stick it in a hr20? will it get mpeg4 than? I mean the tivo hard drive


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## gigageek2

I have dutifully read (or at least skimmed) all 1959 posts on this thread and I can't quite figure out if I can do what I want. About 3 years ago, I upgraded my HR10-250 with 2x250GB drives (kept original drive on a shelf; added two new drives). I think I may have used MFSTools, but it was 3 years ago and my memory is just not that good. 

I now wish to upgrade this unit to 2x500GB drives (and keep my recordings), but I saw some discussion near post #1515 on this thread about a possible 257GB partition limit. 

1. Is it possible to upgrade the unit to 2x500GB drives while retaining all of my recordings?
2. How?


TIA,
Greg


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## Carlton Bale

I think you can just do the linux DD command to copy from your old A drive to the new A drive, then the old B drive to the new B drive. Then do an mfs_add to expand the 250 GB partitions on the new drives to fill all available space (500 GB on each drive).

There is really nothing special about the HR10-250. This applies to all Series 2 TiVos.


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## aclem

I upgraded my HR 10-250 from an original stock drive to a 500GB Seagate using Weaknees instructions, and did not save any programming. The new drive takes a long time to boot and then I have a message "insert valid access card". I thought maybe something internal came loose when installing the new drive, but the access card is recognized with the old drive if I reinstall it. 

Any suggestions? 

carolyn


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## weaknees

That's pretty strange. Usually, an access card message means that you have a bad power supply, but I'm not sure why the drive change would mean the power supply behaves differently.

See our HR10 troubleshooting info here:

http://www.weaknees.com/hr10-repair-troubleshooting.php


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## Carlton Bale

If you don't mind losing your season passes and recordings, do a Clear and Delete all and see if that helps.


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## aclem

Clear and Delete took care of it. Thanks. The upgrade was much easier than I expected and my 10 year old loved taking apart the DVR and the computer.


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## aclem

Ok, I'm back after calling DirecTV to get service re-activated on the receiver, the same error message returned. "Insert valid access card receiver id = xxxxxxx". My guess is that everytime DirecTV downloads something new to my receiver I'm going to get this message and have to do a clear and delete. Is there any way to take care of this problem permanently?


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## kyleohme

Hello, 

I am not new to playing with the Tivo - I love it! 

I do have an issue that my HR10-250 has stopped and I have not had a chance to do a backup of the base image. Would anyone be so kind to let me know if you have a backup?

I have backups for my series 1, 2 but never got around to upgrading this tivo .. 

it now sits on the wonderful "starting up" and I miss my HD.


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## kyleohme

Hello, 

I am not new to playing with the Tivo - I love it! 

I do have an issue that my HR10-250 has stopped and I have not had a chance to do a backup of the base image. Would anyone be so kind to let me know if you have a backup?

I have backups for my series 1, 2 but never got around to upgrading this tivo .. 

it now sits on the wonderful "starting up" and I miss my HD.


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## dwynne

I am sure you can find an image around someplace, but I think I would just buy the "Instant Cake" download image from this page and get it going. I would get 3.1.5f and put the "hack" to so it does not need to phone at all. A lot of folks I know, including me, with 6.x software on their HR10-250 boxes have a lot of trouble with reboots and lockups. With 3.1.5f it is bullet-proof - but you don't get folders and don't have the new DST fix. Other than that it works fine.

Dennis


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## Lord Vader

Why not just buy the 6.3e Instantcake? Much faster than 3.1.5f!


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## dwynne

Lord Vader said:


> Why not just buy the 6.3e Instantcake? Much faster than 3.1.5f!


Because on some boxes 6.x blows major chunkage. The HD Tivo I have on that load locks up and reboots all the time. Put in a new drive, same thing. The box locked on 3.1.5f is steady as a rock. If I ever get everything watched off the 6.3 it is getting wiped and taken back to 3.1.5f.

Dennis


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## fasTLane

Same here. OTA navigating is a pain with 6.3... I can handle slower guides fine.


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## Lord Vader

Strange. Other than the reboots on 6.3a, I've never had a problem with 6.3x. I'm at 6.3e now and it took that just fine.


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## gambling

About 3 weeks ago I purchased a PVRnet upgrade disk for my DirecTv HD10-250 with a 400MB drive. I finally have installed it and it works great.
But I noticed that I have lost my HD Local stations (9.1, 9.2, etc.)

A little digging around the net, and I see from PVRblog that 
a) DirecTv is moving to a MPEG4 standard
b) The local stations on the west coast (where I am) were the first to move
c) They will migrate all their HD content to it
d) The Tivo does not support it
e) DirecTv announced an new HD20 box that does
f) They also announced they are going to replace all the 10-250's with the HD20 for free or close to it.


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## slocko

the hr10-250 can record from Off the air antennas. If you are lucky, you can buy one of those tv antennas and you will be close enough to the stations for the antenna to receive them. the hr10-250 can include those ota channels right into your channel line up on the tivo interface.

of course, this will only work until they go digitial.


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## mattdb

slocko said:


> the hr10-250 can record from Off the air antennas. If you are lucky, you can buy one of those tv antennas and you will be close enough to the stations for the antenna to receive them. the hr10-250 can include those ota channels right into your channel line up on the tivo interface.
> 
> of course, this will only work until they go digitial.


The Hr10-250 only receives digital if memory serves. It has an ATSC tuner which only takes in digital, so if you can get it on antenna, then you are good.


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## slocko

ahh okay, wasn't sure if the digital transition would have affected it.


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## Lord Vader

gambling said:


> About 3 weeks ago I purchased a PVRnet upgrade disk for my DirecTv HD10-250 with a 400MB drive. I finally have installed it and it works great.
> But I noticed that I have lost my HD Local stations (9.1, 9.2, etc.)
> 
> A little digging around the net, and I see from PVRblog that
> a) DirecTv is moving to a MPEG4 standard
> b) The local stations on the west coast (where I am) were the first to move
> c) They will migrate all their HD content to it
> d) The Tivo does not support it
> *e) DirecTv announced an new HD20 box that does*
> f) They also announced they are going to replace all the 10-250's with the HD20 for free or close to it.


The new DirecTV/TIVO HD box won't be out until at least early 2010, if not later.


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## dwynne

gambling said:


> About 3 weeks ago I purchased a PVRnet upgrade disk for my DirecTv HD10-250 with a 400MB drive. I finally have installed it and it works great.
> But I noticed that I have lost my HD Local stations (9.1, 9.2, etc.)
> 
> A little digging around the net, and I see from PVRblog that
> a) DirecTv is moving to a MPEG4 standard
> b) The local stations on the west coast (where I am) were the first to move
> c) They will migrate all their HD content to it
> d) The Tivo does not support it
> e) DirecTv announced an new HD20 box that does
> f) They also announced they are going to replace all the 10-250's with the HD20 for free or close to it.


I assume you had the locals before you swapped out the drive? So you must already know the HR10-250 DTivo gets locals from over the air only and not via sat. So if it worked before it should work now. You just need to do guided set up again and/or choose the "select local area" option for OTA signals, or if all that does not work you need to re-scan for OTA signals. If none of that worked, you probably knocked the push on coax connectors off the tuner "Cans" inside the DTivo when you were replacing the drive.

None of that other stuff you posted has any meaning for you getting OTA channels via an antenna.

If you were one of the few getting "local" feeds via the sat in HD in MPEG2 (channels in the 80's) that were for folks in 2 markets or lived where they had NO local channels, then those channels COULD have gone away now. I don't have access to them, so I could not tell you. But in any case, tuning 9.1 should be an OTA channel.

Dennis


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