# Secondary TiVo drives



## EdwPowers (Apr 15, 2002)

I have upgraded my Sony Series 1 lifetime to a TiVoHD under the current offer. I have no real use for my Series 1 now except that I will continue to use it in another room since I am getting a free year of service on it.

I have a quick question about secondary drives in various models of TiVo. Will the second drive from my Sony Series 1 work in a TiVo Series 2 as a second drive without any modification? I am referring to a single tuner Series 2 and not a DT.


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## dwit (May 5, 2004)

Not without modification(I think).

In other words, the additional drive will need to be prepared for use as the 2nd drive in the new unit. This will entail connecting the drive to a computer and preparing the drive with software and procedures at mfslive.org.

I believe you will even need to have the original drive in the S2 connected to the computer also. I think this is referred to as "marrying" the 2 drives.

Instant Cake software from dvrupgrade may be able to do this also, but I'm not sure.

I'm sure you will get more informative repsonses soon.

ps; Doesn't look like Instant Cake will do it. Will have to use mfslive.org.


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## rbtravis (Aug 9, 2005)

EdwPowers said:


> I have upgraded my Sony Series 1 lifetime to a TiVoHD under the current offer. I have no real use for my Series 1 now except that I will continue to use it in another room since I am getting a free year of service on it.
> 
> I have a quick question about secondary drives in various models of TiVo. Will the second drive from my Sony Series 1 work in a TiVo Series 2 as a second drive without any modification? I am referring to a single tuner Series 2 and not a DT.


Go to www.mfslive.org and download MFSlive-1.3b.iso and burn it to a CD. Then use mfsadd to combine the first drive with the second drive. you will loose all recordings on the second drive but will be able to use the storage space.
mfsadd -x -r 4 /dev/hdc /dev/hdd (make sure to put one space before each /dev) good luck.


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## EdwPowers (Apr 15, 2002)

Darn! I was hoping that it would be easier than that. I normally use Weaknees for my TiVo drives so I don't have to do this type of stuff myself.

I knew the drives had to be "married" but I was hoping that once married that it didn't matter wheter the primary drive was Series 1 or Series 2.

Is it true that I need both drives in the PC to marry them? Sorry dwit. You didn't seem sure on this point. 

Will the primary drive be harmed in any way? I don't care that I would lose everything on the secondary drive.

Can MFSAdd run from the PC hard drive? I know that I would have to take the .iso and make a CD but will it work if I copy the program to the PC hard drive. If I have to put both TiVo drives in my PC, I won't have a CD player. My PC has SATA hard drives with only one IDE controller. Would a typical laptop have an available IDE controller plug?

Thanks


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## rbtravis (Aug 9, 2005)

You have to have a desktop PC. A laptop will not work. you need both a primary and secondary channel. Your C(boot) drive is set to primary channel Master, your CD should be set to primary channel Slave. Your secondary channel master should be the Tivo drive you want to save HDC, and your secondary Slave should be the TiVo drive you want to add HDD. HDC drive jumpers should be set to Master, HDD drive jumpers should be set to Slave. On the secondary cable the middle connector is for the slave and the end connector is the master. The blue connector plugs in the motherboard. the grey connector is for the slave drive and the black connector is for the master drive. Again you need too use a standard PC with two channels the primary is normally the blue connector on the motherboard, the secondary channel is normally the black connector on the motherboard. Again you need to use a motherboard that has both a primary and secondary IDE( Integrated Drive Electronics) channels good luck. Do not use a laptop.


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## EdwPowers (Apr 15, 2002)

Thanks for the info, but this just isn't going to work for me. Like I said above, I only have one IDE channel. Since my hard drives connect through SATA, Dell thought one IDE was enough. I can go use some on else's machine though. I am comfortable moving drives around, I was just getting too lazy to do it. That is why I normally buy my upgrades from Weaknees.

A couple more questions along these lines.

When I pull the secondary drive out of the Series 1, will the unit continue to function normally with just the primary drive? I guess I might have to do a "delete everything and reload", oor whatever that is called.

Will the secondary drive that used to be in the Series 2 still work if I put it back in without doing anything to it? I had replaced the two drives in the Series 2 with one bigger drive. I've now had second thoughts and want to put in another secondary drive trying to use what I already have.


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## rbtravis (Aug 9, 2005)

EdwPowers said:


> Thanks for the info, but this just isn't going to work for me. Like I said above, I only have one IDE channel. Since my hard drives connect through SATA, Dell thought one IDE was enough. I can go use some on else's machine though. I am comfortable moving drives around, I was just getting too lazy to do it. That is why I normally buy my upgrades from Weaknees.
> 
> A couple more questions along these lines.
> 
> ...


 You are going to run into the cabling problem again. the software is the CD at MFSlive.org you have to divorce the drive that you married previously. The secondary drive will only work if you marry it to the new drive. Sorry to be the bearer of bad tidings. To do what you want to do you need two IDE channels.


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