# Rescuing my Premiere



## Shad (Dec 28, 2010)

My Premiere died last week with a GSOD. I have a ton of 2tb drives lying around, so I attempted to hook up the drive and back it up.. JMFS wouldn't even see it as a tivo disk. I couldn't find anyone locally who'd let me borrow their unit for an afternoon to make a copy of their disk, so I ended up ordering one from weaknees. I just ordered the smallest available since I have a spare larger drive already in the closet. The replacement drive came today, and I was able to copy it to the 2TB drive, expand it, and supersize it. My question is this, are all my season passes gone? If I fire my tivo up with this new drive, will all my season passes go the way of the dodo? If I log in to tivo.com right now, I can see them all in the season pass manager. Can I move them to one of my other tivos and then move them back? What are my options here?

Thanks,

Shad


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## Arcady (Oct 14, 2004)

Move them to another TiVo just to be safe. Boot up the box and run setup, etc. If you name the box with the same name, the passes might come back down, but sometimes they don't. I've had weird results. You can try re-ordering them on the SPM and sometimes that triggers them to show up again, but sometimes I have to delete them from SPM and then move them back from another box.


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## Shad (Dec 28, 2010)

I just noticed that after expanding and supersizing the new disk, the tivo system info page still only shows 45 hours of HD recording available despite the report on the expansion saying it has 350.. What gives?


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## lpwcomp (May 6, 2002)

Shad said:


> I just noticed that after expanding and supersizing the new disk, the tivo system info page still only shows 45 hours of HD recording available despite the report on the expansion saying it has 350.. What gives?


350 is too high for the number of HD hours even for a 2TB drive and a bit low for the number of SD hours on a stock 320GB drive so I suspect something went wrong in the copy/expand process. It's possible that weaknees has done something to screw it up. I wouldn't put it past them. It's possible they did so deliberately. It's also possible that, if you install the weaKnees drive in the TiVo and let it go through guided setup and system update, then do the copy and expand, it might work.


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## Shad (Dec 28, 2010)

I did notice that it it unlinked an external drive the first time it booted.. I thought that was weird...


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## lpwcomp (May 6, 2002)

Shad said:


> I did notice that it it unlinked an external drive the first time it booted.. I thought that was weird...


Sounds like weaKnees sent you a drive setup for an external.

You might try taking this 2TB drive and using JMFS to copy and expand from it to another 2TB drive now that it has been divorced from the external.

Edit: This may not work if it has already added the additional partition so you may have to install the 320 and let it divorce itself and redo the the copy/expand. You might also want to do a C&DE on the 320.


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## steve614 (May 1, 2006)

Shad said:


> ... I ended up ordering one from weaknees. I just ordered the smallest available since I have a spare larger drive already in the closet. The replacement drive came today, and I was able to copy it to the 2TB drive, expand it, and supersize it.
> Shad





Shad said:


> I did notice that it it unlinked an external drive the first time it booted.. I thought that was weird...


I suspect the drive you got from weaknees is the culprit.
Either it was set up to expect an external drive upon initial boot, or it has extra partitions on it already.
When you copied and expanded that to the 2TB drive, you added yet another partition that the Tivo thought was a (non-existant) external drive.

Put the drive you got from weaknees in the Tivo and see if it complains about not having an external.
If it does, go through the steps to divorce the (non-existant) external and make sure the Tivo fully boots up.
You might as well go through guided setup and get that out of the way.

Once you do that, try copying again to the 2TB.


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## Shad (Dec 28, 2010)

So here's a strange thing.. I installed the weaknees drive in my tivo and booted it up, ran through the initial setup, downloaded the fall update... Copied it to the new drive, but did not expand it or supersize it, moved the new drive in the to premier and it worked just fine, reported 48 hours.. Moved the disk back over to my pc and expanded it, then moved it back. On boot up I get the external drive missing notice and still only 48 hours recording capacity.. WTF?


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## steve614 (May 1, 2006)

I think Weaknees is doing something to their hard drives that prevents futher expansion.
Specifically, they may already have the maximum number of partitions the Tivo can use on the drive.
When you go to expand, you are adding one more partition which makes the Tivo upset.

If you have a way to look at the partition map, someone should be able to tell if this is the case or not.


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## Shad (Dec 28, 2010)

Any suggestions on a partition app to use.. I've gone through 3 so far and they all say that the disk is unallocated..


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## Shad (Dec 28, 2010)

I have also sent an email to weaknees..


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## Shad (Dec 28, 2010)

OK, I just found the mfslayout script on the jmfs disk.. There are 15 partitions on the disk with the last one that's only 64mb named "Extra". I suspect that is the culprit. On the drive that I expanded, there are 16 partitions with a 1.53T MFS partition named "MFS media region 2".. 

So I bet you are right.. I need to kill that "Extra" partition. Now looking for the tools to do that.


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## ggieseke (May 30, 2008)

I don't THINK there are any tools to do that, but if you send me a PM with your email address I can probably write one for you tomorrow morning.


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## Shad (Dec 28, 2010)

So I heard back from Weaknees.. They of course deny making it so that copies fail, and offer no support on JMFS.. i'm looking in the local classifieds to see if I can score a deal on a premier and then i'll just sell off one of my HDs. Just a little upset I wasted $130 at weaknees at this point.


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

Shad said:


> OK, I just found the mfslayout script on the jmfs disk.. There are 15 partitions on the disk with the last one that's only 64mb named "Extra". I suspect that is the culprit. On the drive that I expanded, there are 16 partitions with a 1.53T MFS partition named "MFS media region 2"..
> 
> So I bet you are right.. I need to kill that "Extra" partition. Now looking for the tools to do that.


Could you post the entire partition table of that WK Premiere replacement drive?


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## Shad (Dec 28, 2010)

screen shots attached.


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## retiredqwest (Sep 7, 2010)

That drive from WK is not a stock drive. It is their own concoction.....
Stock TP 320G has 14 partitions.

Disk '/dev/sda'
------------------
1 : start= 1, size= 63 ( 31.50K), type='Apple_partition_map', name='Apple'
13: start= 64, size= 343828320 (163.95G), type='MFS' , name='MFS media region 2'
2 : start= 343828384, size= 1 (512.00b), type='Image' , name='Bootstrap 1'
3 : start= 343828385, size= 16384 ( 8.00M), type='Image' , name='Kernel 1'
4 : start= 343844769, size= 524288 (256.00M), type='Ext2' , name='Root 1'
5 : start= 344369057, size= 1 (512.00b), type='Image' , name='Bootstrap 2'
6 : start= 344369058, size= 16384 ( 8.00M), type='Image' , name='Kernel 2'
7 : start= 344385442, size= 524288 (256.00M), type='Ext2' , name='Root 2'
8 : start= 344909730, size= 262144 (128.00M), type='Swap' , name='Linux swap'
9 : start= 345171874, size= 1048576 (512.00M), type='Ext2' , name='/var'
14: start= 346220450, size= 6291456 ( 3.00G), type='Ext2' , name='SQLite'
10: start= 352511906, size= 1638400 (800.00M), type='MFS' , name='MFS application region'
12: start= 354150306, size= 1638400 (800.00M), type='MFS' , name='MFS application region 2'
11: start= 355788706, size= 269353742 (128.44G), type='MFS' , name='MFS media region'
------------------
Unallocated space: 0 (0.00b)

Zones Logical
------------------
[0] /dev/sda10 start= 1121, size= 1 (512.00b), end= 1121 NODE descriptor
[0] /dev/sda10 start= 1122, size= 524288 (256.00M), end= 525409 NODE data
[1] /dev/sda10 start= 525410, size= 10 ( 5.00K), end= 525419 MEDIA descriptor
[2] /dev/sda10 start= 525420, size= 130 ( 65.00K), end= 525549 APP descriptor
[2] /dev/sda10 start= 525550, size= 1112704 (543.31M), end= 1638253 APP data
[2] /dev/sda10 start= 1638258, size= 130 ( 65.00K), end= 1638387 APP descriptor backup
[1] /dev/sda10 start= 1638388, size= 10 ( 5.00K), end= 1638397 MEDIA descriptor backup
[0] /dev/sda10 start= 1638398, size= 1 (512.00b), end= 1638398 NODE descriptor backup
[1] /dev/sda11 start= 1638400, size= 269352960 (128.44G), end= 270991359 MEDIA data
[3] /dev/sda12 start= 270991360, size= 1 (512.00b), end= 270991360 NODE descriptor
[3] /dev/sda12 start= 270991361, size= 524288 (256.00M), end= 271515648 NODE data
[4] /dev/sda12 start= 271515649, size= 18 ( 9.00K), end= 271515666 MEDIA descriptor
[5] /dev/sda12 start= 271515667, size= 130 ( 65.00K), end= 271515796 APP descriptor
[5] /dev/sda12 start= 271515797, size= 1113808 (543.85M), end= 272629604 APP data
[5] /dev/sda12 start= 272629611, size= 130 ( 65.00K), end= 272629740 APP descriptor backup
[4] /dev/sda12 start= 272629741, size= 18 ( 9.00K), end= 272629758 MEDIA descriptor backup
[3] /dev/sda12 start= 272629759, size= 1 (512.00b), end= 272629759 NODE descriptor backup
[4] /dev/sda13 start= 272629760, size= 343818240 (163.95G), end= 616447999 MEDIA data
------------------

Zones Physical
------------------
[4] /dev/sda13 start= 64, size= 343818240 (163.95G), end= 343818303 MEDIA data
[0] /dev/sda10 start= 352513027, size= 1 (512.00b), end= 352513027 NODE descriptor
[0] /dev/sda10 start= 352513028, size= 524288 (256.00M), end= 353037315 NODE data
[1] /dev/sda10 start= 353037316, size= 10 ( 5.00K), end= 353037325 MEDIA descriptor
[2] /dev/sda10 start= 353037326, size= 130 ( 65.00K), end= 353037455 APP descriptor
[2] /dev/sda10 start= 353037456, size= 1112704 (543.31M), end= 354150159 APP data
[2] /dev/sda10 start= 354150164, size= 130 ( 65.00K), end= 354150293 APP descriptor backup
[1] /dev/sda10 start= 354150294, size= 10 ( 5.00K), end= 354150303 MEDIA descriptor backup
[0] /dev/sda10 start= 354150304, size=  1 (512.00b), end= 354150304 NODE descriptor backup
[3] /dev/sda12 start= 354150306, size= 1 (512.00b), end= 354150306 NODE descriptor
[3] /dev/sda12 start= 354150307, size= 524288 (256.00M), end= 354674594 NODE data
[4] /dev/sda12 start= 354674595, size= 18 ( 9.00K), end= 354674612 MEDIA descriptor
[5] /dev/sda12 start= 354674613, size= 130 ( 65.00K), end= 354674742 APP descriptor
[5] /dev/sda12 start= 354674743, size= 1113808 (543.85M), end= 355788550 APP data
[5] /dev/sda12 start= 355788557, size= 130 ( 65.00K), end= 355788686 APP descriptor backup
[4] /dev/sda12 start= 355788687, size= 18 ( 9.00K), end= 355788704 MEDIA descriptor backup
[3] /dev/sda12 start= 355788705, size= 1 (512.00b), end= 355788705 NODE descriptor backup
[1] /dev/sda11 start= 355788706, size= 269352960 (128.44G), end= 625141665 MEDIA data
------------------

Size of zones:
Used:	544042592 (259.42G)
Free:	72403696 (34.52G)
Total:	616446288 (293.94G)

Recordable space reported by Tivo: (293.95G), approximately 45 HD hours

This came from a drive just before I did a copy and expand back in Winter 2010. So the used and free numbers won't match what you have.


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

I wonder why Weaknees doesn't use the "optimized" partition layout that puts one of the media partions near the front of the drive.


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## retiredqwest (Sep 7, 2010)

unitron said:


> I wonder why Weaknees doesn't use the "optimized" partition layout that puts one of the media partions near the front of the drive.


Yule hafta ask them.....

I have a partition map for a 1TB THD from WK, the stock drive has 13 partitions.... The WK adds:

14 MFS New MFS Application [email protected] ( 512.0K)
15 MFS New MFS Media [email protected] ( 782.5G)
16 Apple_Free Extra [email protected]( 11.2M)

No copy and expand with that one. Course they are there to make money.... but, adding the Apple_Free Extra is what they do for some reason.


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## lpwcomp (May 6, 2002)

retiredqwest said:


> Yule hafta ask them.....
> 
> I have a partition map for a 1TB THD from WK, the stock drive has 13 partitions.... The WK adds:
> 
> ...


WinMFS does the same thing. Part of the problem is using a Apple partition map. It doesn't like actual free space. All space is allocated to a partition. Any leftover is put in an "Apple_Free" partition.

To the OP - what you might try is redo the copy, do not expand yet, use iBored to edit the partition map and remove the "Apple_Free" partition (instructions are in part of this post (sort of)). In your case, it will be Partition 15 rather than 16. Ignore all the references to WinMFS. Then use JMFS to expand.

You might want to see if it will boot in the TiVo after removing the "Apple_Free" partition but before expanding.


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

lpwcomp said:


> WinMFS does the same thing. Part of the problem is using a Apple partition map. It doesn't like actual free space. All space is allocated to a partition. Any leftover is put in an "Apple_Free" partition.
> 
> To the OP - what you might try is redo the copy, do not expand yet, use iBored to edit the partition map and remove the "Apple_Free" partition (instructions are in part of this post (sort of)). In your case, it will be Partition 15 rather than 16. Ignore all the references to WinMFS. Then use JMFS to expand.
> 
> You might want to see if it will boot in the TiVo after removing the "Apple_Free" partition but before expanding.


Assuming the previous poster is talking about a 1TB replacement from Weaknees for the original 160GB from an S3 HD, it's been my experience that using the MFS Live cd, v1.4, does leave an Apple Free partition at the end when copying the 160GB to a 1TB, but that WinMFS does not, hence my "middleman" technique of using WinMFS to copy and exand to a 1TB (including in my case embiggening the swap partition), and then using jmfs to copy that to a 2TB and expand by adding that single MFS Media partition, which itself will be a shade under 1TB.


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## lpwcomp (May 6, 2002)

unitron said:


> Assuming the previous poster is talking about a 1TB replacement from Weaknees for the original 160GB from an S3 HD, it's been my experience that using the MFS Live cd, v1.4, does leave an Apple Free partition at the end when copying the 160GB to a 1TB, but that WinMFS does not, hence my "middleman" technique of using WinMFS to copy and exand to a 1TB (including in my case embiggening the swap partition), and then using jmfs to copy that to a 2TB and expand by adding that single MFS Media partition, which itself will be a shade under 1TB.


I thought WinMFS did the same thing unless you specify a larger swap size.

In any the case, the _*original*_ poster has a 320GB drive from weaKnees, so it appears they are using a tool at least similar to MFSlive to install an image to a drive that was slightly larger than the source drive.


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

lpwcomp said:


> I thought WinMFS did the same thing unless you specify a larger swap size.
> 
> In any the case, the _*original*_ poster has a 320GB drive from weaKnees, so it appears they are using a tool at least similar to MFSlive to install an image to a drive that was slightly larger than the source drive.


retiredqwest said 1TB THD, which I took to mean S3 HD, which comes from the factory with a 160GB.

Maybe he just meant TiVo Hard Drive.

Anyway, I didn't spend forever experimenting, because I wanted to get the 2TB S3 HD up and running, but with MFS Live, I tried a bunch of different larger swap partition sizes and it always left some extra at the end of the 1TB.

When I tried it with WinMFS, it didn't, so I took yes for an answer.

When I get a 1TB temporarily freed up again, I'll play with it some more.


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## lpwcomp (May 6, 2002)

unitron said:


> retiredqwest said 1TB THD, which I took to mean S3 HD, which comes from the factory with a 160GB.


He's not the OP, Shad is.


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## Shad (Dec 28, 2010)

lpwcomp said:


> WinMFS does the same thing. Part of the problem is using a Apple partition map. It doesn't like actual free space. All space is allocated to a partition. Any leftover is put in an "Apple_Free" partition.
> 
> To the OP - what you might try is redo the copy, do not expand yet, use iBored to edit the partition map and remove the "Apple_Free" partition (instructions are in part of this post (sort of)). In your case, it will be Partition 15 rather than 16. Ignore all the references to WinMFS. Then use JMFS to expand.
> 
> You might want to see if it will boot in the TiVo after removing the "Apple_Free" partition but before expanding.


Success!!! Thank you so much for pointing me to that post. After manually editing the partition map, I was able to expand then supersize a test disk (I have 3 spare 2tb drives in my cabinet). I now have 318 HD hours. Whoo Hoo.. Now I'm going to do this to the 2tb drive that's been in the tivo recording for the last couple days. Update to come in an hour or so when that is done..


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## Shad (Dec 28, 2010)

Main tivo drive upgraded.. 318 hours recording.. Watching the news now while SVU records on the other tuner. The motherboard on my mediaserver PC died in the process. It was an older piece of crap anyway.. I don't know if WK makes their drives like that on purpose, but if that is the case, it's downright ******-baggery... 
Thanks again for all your help!


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## lpwcomp (May 6, 2002)

Shad said:


> Main tivo drive upgraded.. 318 hours recording.. Watching the news now while SVU records on the other tuner. The motherboard on my mediaserver PC died in the process. It was an older piece of crap anyway.. I don't know if WK makes their drives like that on purpose, but if that is the case, it's downright ******-baggery...
> Thanks again for all your help!


Excellent!


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## steve614 (May 1, 2006)

Shad said:


> I don't know if WK makes their drives like that on purpose, but if that is the case, it's downright ******-baggery...


I'm undecided. I would like to give them the benefit of doubt because the method they use to create their hard drives might automatically create that extra partition.
On the business side of things, it doesn't surprise me. If I sold Tivo hard drives for profit, I would also 'try' to make it impossible to copy my hard drives and have them work.


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## retiredqwest (Sep 7, 2010)

retiredqwest said:


> Yule hafta ask them.....
> 
> I have a partition map for a 1TB THD from WK, the stock drive has 13 partitions.... The WK adds:
> 
> ...


I was referring to the Tivo 652 series, that WK adds apple_free extra to that as well.

I have several maps for the 652 using WINmfs and there is no apple_free extra partition on them.

Getting back to the original thread... I can't help but feel that was some sort of code in the apple_free extra partition that when he copied and expanded to the 2TB that had 16 partitions; it should have booted up and not asked to divorce an external.

But, Shad is happy..... end of this thread......


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## lpwcomp (May 6, 2002)

steve614 said:


> I'm undecided. I would like to give them the benefit of doubt because the method they use to create their hard drives might automatically create that extra partition.
> On the business side of things, it doesn't surprise me. If I sold Tivo hard drives for profit, I would also 'try' to make it impossible to copy my hard drives and have them work.


By the time he came here it was too late, but if I were in the OPs situation, I would just buy a Premiere off of ebay or craigslist.


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

lpwcomp said:


> He's not the OP, Shad is.


Which is why I said previous poster and did not say original poster.


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

lpwcomp said:


> By the time he came here it was too late, but if I were in the OPs situation, I would just buy a Premiere off of ebay or craigslist.


True dat.

For ~$50 you get a drive with the right image and a spare power supply, case, front panel, et cetera.


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## lpwcomp (May 6, 2002)

unitron said:


> Which is why I said previous poster and did not say original poster.


I think the misunderstanding arose because you quoted my entire post, most of which was to the OP.


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

lpwcomp said:


> I think the misunderstanding arose because you quoted my entire post, most of which was to the OP.


Then my apologies for creating unneccessary confusion.

The neccessary confusion around here is bad enough. 

And I think Weaknees probably uses their own "secret sauce" version of MFS Tools, from which spike developed MFS Live, so it probably shares some of the inherited quirks/limitations.


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