# Series 3 upgrade (replace drive)



## Alphi (Dec 11, 2004)

Over the weekend, I tried to upgrade my old Series 3 (the original one - not a TiVo HD), using WinMFS on a Win 7 machine to do a MFSCOPY from the original drive to a 1 TB one.

The copy seemed to work as expected (including asking if I wanted to expand the drive - presumably MFSSUPERSIZE).

But when I put the drive in the Tivo (taking the original out), it just reboots over and over again.

Any ideas or suggestions what I can do to troubleshoot?


Here are more details (in case they're relevant): I'm upgrading to a WD10EURX drive that's a new drive. I'd originally had a WD10EURX (or EURS - I don't recall now) in there, and in the last month that drive failed so I put the original back in, and had the vendor who sold me the original 1 TB drive send a replacement under warrantee.

The original drive was doing the same as this one (with the TiVo rebooting constantly), and with the original drive works. I admit, I didn't do any other checking on the old drive to confirm that it really was defective, and I no longer have that drive to check.

Also, when I first attempted this transfer (using WinMFS), I tried it on a Windows 10 pc here, and after a few hiccups, thought that it worked, only to have the TiVo rebooting issue I mentioned above. That was when I decided to dig a Win 7 machine out of mothballs and try that one, only to have the same ultimate result.

Should I look for a way to "low level" format the drive first? Should I have not done the "expand" on the drive?


One other thing - I'm also planning to upgrade my Roamio one of these days, so I probably should get over my hesitation to use MFSTools, and I could try using that to copy the data for the Series 3 too.


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## jmbach (Jan 1, 2009)

I think I would check the capacitors of the power supply of your TiVo first.


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

Alphi said:


> Over the weekend, I tried to upgrade my old Series 3 (the original one - not a TiVo HD), using WinMFS on a Win 7 machine to do a MFSCOPY from the original drive to a 1 TB one.
> 
> The copy seemed to work as expected (including asking if I wanted to expand the drive - presumably MFSSUPERSIZE).
> 
> ...


When WinMFS copies a TiVo drive to another, larger drive or restores a .tbk file image to a drive larger than the factory installed drive for that model, it eventually finishes after the progress indicator bar looks frozen for a while, and tells you it's done, and says you have extra space and asks if you want to expand (this has nothing to do with Supersizing). You should tell it NO.

Then you check the target drive with

mfsinfo

and see if everything looks okay, including the existence of an Apple Free partition at the end of the drive which is the size of the difference in size of the stock drive and the one to which WinMFS just wrote.

Then you expand into that space with

mfsadd

(This is also true for the MFS Live cd--you shouldn't include the

-x

option with the copy or restore command, instead let it finish, check the drive with

mfsinfo /dev/whatever-the-target-drive-is

and, since that version of

mfsinfo

doesn't do the partition map, with

pdisk -l /dev/whatever-the-target-drive-is

and then you expand with

mfsadd -x /dev/whatever-the-target-drive-is

)

I don't know why this is necessary, but sometimes doing the expansion as part of the copy or restore doesn't work and you have to go back and do it all over again. If you do it as a separate process, it always, at least so far in my experience, does work.

Supersizing is a separate WinMFS command which can be done at any time which limits the space the TiVo sets aside for the stuff it records in the middle of the night when the guide says "Teleworld Paid Program".

Apparently it sets aside a percentage of whatever size drive is used, and Supersizing restricts it to whatever that percentage of the original drive would have been instead of letting it claim extra space because it's now X% of Z when it was previously X% of Y.

The version of MFS Tools used in the MFS Live cd (created by spike, who also created WinMFS, but who seems to have dropped off of the face of the Earth) cannot work with any TiVo newer than the 3 Series 3 models (this is also true for WinMFS), but there's a new version of MFS Tools (3.2, I think) about which I know nothing, but there's a thread about it around here somewhere.

(that thing after pdisk is a lower case L, not an upper case i)


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## Alphi (Dec 11, 2004)

Okay, I went through the steps that unitron mentioned, and I'm still getting the constant rebooting issue.

Originally, I assumed it wasn't the power supply, as with the original hard drive in it works, and with the new one in it doesn't.

Of course, it's quite possible that the new drive draws more power than the old one.


That said, I don't see anything wrong with the power supply itself (no bulging or discolored capacitors), so I'm trying to figure out my next steps.

I'm thinking the only things left are:

1) try the WinMFS copy again, but this time don't even attempt the MFSAdd (I don't need the extra space that badly), and try that

2) look into replacing the power supply

The problem with that one is that I don't know 100% sure that it's the problem, and would rather not waste too much money if that's the case.

Note: I checked Weaknees for the power supply, and it looks like it'll cost me ultimately $130 if it works, or $60-80 if it doesn't and I have to send it back (to cover shipping costs/return shipping costs/restocking fee), so if there's any way I can better determine that it's the power supply, that'd be great.

For the record: I am no stranger to using a multimeter (or a soldering iron) to check things, I just don't know what exactly to check. I'm even tempted to just start replacing the capacitors myself and see if that fixes it.

I've even toyed with the idea of finding a Series 3 on eBay to part out.

Other suggestions?


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## jmbach (Jan 1, 2009)

For a test, you can power the drive separately via an external source. If it boots up then you know it is the power supply. 
You can replace the capacitors yourself for about $15.


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

Alphi said:


> Okay, I went through the steps that unitron mentioned, and I'm still getting the constant rebooting issue.
> 
> Originally, I assumed it wasn't the power supply, as with the original hard drive in it works, and with the new one in it doesn't.
> 
> ...


Do you have any recordings you're trying to save?

If not, download this image

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/49887720/648_11mGS.tbk

and use WinMFS to restore it to that new drive, telling it NO when it offers to expand, and test that in your 648.


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## Alphi (Dec 11, 2004)

jmbach said:


> For a test, you can power the drive separately via an external source. If it boots up then you know it is the power supply.
> You can replace the capacitors yourself for about $15.


That's the thing - it boots up just fine if I have the original (250Gb) drive in, just not with the 1Tb one in, which was what at first made me suspect it was the drive more than the power supply.



unitron said:


> Do you have any recordings you're trying to save?
> 
> If not, download this image
> 
> ...


That gives me an idea. Yes, to answer your question, I do have recordings/season passes I'd like to safe (if possible), but there's no reason why I can't create the clean image as per your suggestion and try that, just to see if it works. If it does, then I know it's NOT the power supply, but an issue with the transfer process.

Thanks!


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

Alphi said:


> That's the thing - it boots up just fine if I have the original (250Gb) drive in, just not with the 1Tb one in, which was what at first made me suspect it was the drive more than the power supply.
> 
> That gives me an idea. Yes, to answer your question, I do have recordings/season passes I'd like to safe (if possible), but there's no reason why I can't create the clean image as per your suggestion and try that, just to see if it works. If it does, then I know it's NOT the power supply, but an issue with the transfer process.
> 
> Thanks!


If you have stuff you want to save on a particular drive, use some other 1TB or larger drive to test that image.


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## jmbach (Jan 1, 2009)

Alphi said:


> That's the thing - it boots up just fine if I have the original (250Gb) drive in, just not with the 1Tb one in, which was what at first made me suspect it was the drive more than the power supply.


The 1TB power requirements are more than the 250GB and could be causing the problem you are facing. If the 1TB does not work when attached to a computer, then the drive would be more suspect.

Alternatively, one TCF member has found that some of the newer drives are coming with settings incompatible with the operating inside a TiVo. Changing those settings makes the drive work in a TiVo.


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