# 4TB Roamio Image community edition



## telemark

*Status: *
Unix: Works
Mac: Works (but most mac's don't have SATA ports which then requires a modern USB-Sata adapter.)
Windows: VHD available...Testing new cloning software...

*Requires*: 
4TB hard drive
Tivo Roamio
Computer with a free Sata or eSata port
USB docks may work, but not recommended
(many older USB docks have bugs that don't go up 4TB)

*UNIX (Linux*/BSD/Mac) Command Line Installers
*The autoinstaller will search for drives for one with a Tivo signature**,
download the image from the Net, and overwrite the drive with the image.

* If needing a liveCD, knoppix has been tested
** If the drive is missing a signature, booting it in a Roamio will add a signature, or you can manually add one with a hex editor [0x1492]

PC / Mac side:
1) Connect Hard Drive to Computer (disconnect other HD's with important data)

2) on PC: Boot from linux CD or USB stick on PC's. 
on Mac: boot normally into OS X. When asked to "Initialize" an unknown drive, just say No / Ignore / Cancel.

3) Open Terminal, by clicking Terminal icon















4) Download Auto Installer, by typing at prompt:
wget "http://tiny.cc/c6r5gxA/autoinstall.pl"
( or wget --no-check-certificate "http://tiny.cc/c6r5gxA/autoinstall.pl" )
Another option is:
curl -L http://tiny.cc/c6r5gxA/autoinstall.pl -o autoinstall.pl

Enable execution by typing:
chmod +x autoinstall.pl

5) Start installer.

On PC Linux or Apple Mac run:
sudo ./autoinstall.pl

This will ask for the account password.

Lots of text will fly by, just follow along a best you can.
The most important thing is to
Check that it chooses the right drive.
(you did already disconnect all your important drives, right?)

It'll ask before making permanent changes, then
when it starts writing...

6) Take a break to let it finish
~20mins on USB2
Less on USB3 or Sata
More on USB1

Alternate 4) Image + Basic Installer:
wget --no-check-certificate "http://tiny.cc/c6r5gxB/4TBr1.tgz"
bypasses safety mechanisms, so know what you're doing or 
don't use..

Tivo Roamio side:
7) Connect drive
8) Turn on Power to Tivo
9) Wait until Guided Setup (takes about 4 mins for first boot)
10) Celebrate and Donate what you think it's worth.

Known limitations:
No data is migrated over (pytivo/kmttg backups should work)
Cable Card will likely need to be re-paired, but in a smaller number of cases, this did not apply 
Not supersized
Found Tivo bug, variance in fsck mount frequency, should be inconsequential

*Donations* here:
paypal or amazon-e-gift-card: marked @ gmail.com
bitcoin:1Hvpf8qV8UJ8SS33QJ6VskggAStQQDnYp6

*Credits and Thank You to
*_jmbach_ - for extensive testing and lots of direction
_ggieske_ - for tricky MFS answers and
_eboydog_ - for initial motivation

*Terms*:
Image and Installer Copyright 2014.
License granted for personal use within a household.
No commercial use or redistribution without prior permission.
No warranty provided.


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## compubob

I do not see a link to download anything and beta test


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## darkstar757

Me either


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## darkstar757

Can you pm me the link?


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## unitron

compubob said:


> I do not see a link to download anything and beta test


Did you see the part where you're supposed to PM him first with some info?


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## telemark

unitron said:


> Did you see the part where you're supposed to PM him first with some info?


I clarified that after they posted, but I PM-ed everyone and never heard back. Is this a new account PM restriction thing?


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## eboydog

telemark said:


> I clarified that after they posted, but I PM-ed everyone and never heard back. Is this a new account PM restriction thing?


Might be, I don't recall the nature of the restriction but I know a couple users who were interested in a few things I listed for sale had to email directly as they weren't able to PM yet.

I might be interested but I down to a single Roamio which is a Pro at 3tb right now but I'm tempted to try your project except I'm missing a 4tb drive, but perhaps in a couple weeks....


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## byeams

I am unable to PM, but would love to test. I have a new Roamio base model (for OTA) and a shiny new WD 4 TB WD40EZRX along with a Windows 7 computer and SATA capability (I think I answered all the questions). Would be happy to test.


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## byeams

And I didn't PM you because I don't have 10 posts yet. Sorry.


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## jmbach

I have tested telemark's image in a Roamio Plus and have not found any operational issues or problems with it yet. It will give you 637 hours of HD. Haven't found any missing gui elements and all the menus appear functional. I have a Motorola MCard and I lost pairing of the cableCARD. (Had to call Charter 3 times before I got someone who could re-pair the cableCARD to the TiVo). You do not have to do a C&DE after you boot the image to sync it to the TiVo, it works with first boot.

Major test not done on the image yet is to try to fill it up completely and see how it performs.

Telemark did a great job in developing this image. :up::up:


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## Heretic

Hi, I tried this upgrade. I powered down my utility computer used to image the drive before I grabbed the pastebin URL of the run, but it all seemed to apply fine.

However, after I put the HD back in the TiVo Roamio, it gets an initial boot screen but soon after it seems to lose HDMI output now. It doesn't come back. I have the original drive, I'm gonna verify it works fine with it.

This is a 4-tuner Roamio. Any suggestions?


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## eboydog

Heretic said:


> Hi, I tried this upgrade. I powered down my utility computer used to image the drive before I grabbed the pastebin URL of the run, but it all seemed to apply fine.
> 
> However, after I put the HD back in the TiVo Roamio, it gets an initial boot screen but soon after it seems to lose HDMI output now. It doesn't come back. I have the original drive, I'm gonna verify it works fine with it.
> 
> This is a 4-tuner Roamio. Any suggestions?


Could it be trying to output a video format your TV can't handle? On the plus and Pro you can press the format button on the front panel however I forget if the basic Roamio has that same function? I can't recall if the basic has any external button function on the box, might try giving a few minutes to come up, press live TV then the clear buttons on the remote then the zoom button to see if the screen resolution changes but it should by default come up in a resolution that works.


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## telemark

What OS did you run the install from? What kind of Hard Drive?

You can always run the install again, it doesn't matter whether you did it before.

There is a moment when a Roamio is booting the screen goes black, but it shouldn't be that way for longer than something like 20 seconds, unless somehow the box froze at that stage.


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## jmbach

Consider checking if the boot partitions are the same for the original image and the 4TB image.


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## Heretic

eboydog said:


> Could it be trying to output a video format your TV can't handle? On the plus and Pro you can press the format button on the front panel however I forget if the basic Roamio has that same function? I can't recall if the basic has any external button function on the box, might try giving a few minutes to come up, press live TV then the clear buttons on the remote then the zoom button to see if the screen resolution changes but it should by default come up in a resolution that works.


I left it there all night, it comes up with an initial TiVo "Welcome" screen and then it loses signal after 10-20 seconds. Left it there all night no change.

Doubtful it is an unsupported resolution, Samsung 8-series TV.


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## Heretic

telemark said:


> What OS did you run the install from? What kind of Hard Drive?
> 
> You can always run the install again, it doesn't matter whether you did it before.
> 
> There is a moment when a Roamio is booting the screen goes black, but it shouldn't be that way for longer than something like 20 seconds, unless somehow the box froze at that stage.


Knoppix 7.2 Boot DVD on an old 2008-Dell Precision Tower.

The harddrive is: WD AV-GP WD40EURX 4TB

I booted the Roamio up before doing the upgrade and played around. There was never more than a half-second flicker switching between 480p and 1080i/p or whatever it went to next. Specifically, as it's booting, when the green light is on and begins to quickly blink back and forth between the green light and the yellowish light next to it, it immediately goes out after that quick sequence (which is typically when you can hit Pause for 2 seconds and hit the kickstart options per a Weakness page I don't have enough posts to link to). But basically right after the moment you can hit pause for 2 seconds to go into kickstart, that's when it loses output signal.

Maybe there are some differences with the smaller Roamio? I'm guessing this was only tested on Plus and Pro versions? I'll run the upgrade on the HD again and make sure I don't lose the Pastebin of the output again.


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## Heretic

jmbach said:


> Consider checking if the boot partitions are the same for the original image and the 4TB image.


Ahhh so, that's interesting. How exactly should I check them? After I ran the utility, I couldn't even display the partition table with like parted or fdisk, it didn't seem to have a valid partition setup. Maybe I needed to do a partprobe first, I forgot to do that first. I'll try again.


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## Heretic

Heretic said:


> Ahhh so, that's interesting. How exactly should I check them? After I ran the utility, I couldn't even display the partition table with like parted or fdisk, it didn't seem to have a valid partition setup. Maybe I needed to do a partprobe first, I forgot to do that first. I'll try again.


I have both original and new HDs plugged into my test computer booted into Knoppix. I am unsure how to check the partition setup to compare:


Code:


[email protected]:~$ parted -l
Error: /dev/sda: unrecognised disk label                                  

Error: /dev/sdb: unrecognised disk label                                  

Warning: Unable to open /dev/sr0 read-write (Read-only file system).  /dev/sr0
has been opened read-only.
Error: /dev/sr0: unrecognised disk label                                  

Error: /dev/zram0: unrecognised disk label                                

Warning: Unable to open /dev/cloop0 read-write (Read-only file system).   
/dev/cloop0 has been opened read-only.
Error: /dev/cloop0: unrecognised disk label                               

[email protected]:~$ fdisk -l

Disk /dev/sda: 4000.8 GB, 4000787030016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 486401 cylinders, total 7814037168 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 4096 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 4096 bytes / 4096 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00000000

Disk /dev/sda doesn't contain a valid partition table

Disk /dev/sdb: 500.1 GB, 500107862016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 60801 cylinders, total 976773168 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00000000

Disk /dev/sdb doesn't contain a valid partition table

I'm pretty new to TiVo upgrading, not sure if there is some TiVo specific command to pull the table.


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## Heretic

Here's the output of the scripts when I run again (removed original HD first):


Code:


[email protected]:~$ wget "http://tiny.cc/c6r5gxA/autoinstall.pl"
--2014-06-18 10:17:52--  http://tiny.cc/c6r5gxA/autoinstall.pl
Resolving tiny.cc (tiny.cc)... 192.241.240.89
Connecting to tiny.cc (tiny.cc)|192.241.240.89|:80... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 301 Moved Permanently
Location: http://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/51278/Tivo/4TB/autoinstall.pl [following]
--2014-06-18 10:17:52--  http://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/51278/Tivo/4TB/autoinstall.pl
Resolving dl.dropboxusercontent.com (dl.dropboxusercontent.com)... 54.243.118.205, 107.21.115.150, 23.21.154.121, ...
Connecting to dl.dropboxusercontent.com (dl.dropboxusercontent.com)|54.243.118.205|:80... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK
Length: 4275 (4.2K) [text/x-perl]
Saving to: `autoinstall.pl'

100%[======================================>] 4,275       --.-K/s   in 0s      

2014-06-18 10:17:52 (278 MB/s) - `autoinstall.pl' saved [4275/4275]

[email protected]:~$ less autoinstall.pl 
[email protected]:~$ chmod +x autoinstall.pl 
[email protected]:~$ ./autoinstall.pl 
ls: cannot access /dev/hd?: No such file or directory
sda:
[    1.784950] sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] 7814037168 512-byte logical blocks: (4.00 TB/3.63 TiB)
[    1.784955] sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] 4096-byte physical blocks
[    1.785062] sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Write Protect is off
[    1.785067] sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Mode Sense: 00 3a 00 00
[    1.785113] sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Write cache: enabled, read cache: enabled, doesn't support DPO or FUA
[    1.796521]  sda: unknown partition table
[    1.796902] sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Attached SCSI disk
4096 bytes received - [ Roamio ] - 

sdc:
0 bytes received - rejected - 

sdd:
0 bytes received - rejected - 

sde:
0 bytes received - rejected - 

sdf:
0 bytes received - rejected - 

sdg:
0 bytes received - rejected - 

sdh:
[    1.540445] sdhci: Secure Digital Host Controller Interface driver
[    1.540447] sdhci: Copyright(c) Pierre Ossman
[    1.540915] sdhci-pltfm: SDHCI platform and OF driver helper
0 bytes received - rejected - 

Target Drive /dev/sda found

Testing /dev/sda
Reading mid sector 488377323
dd if=/dev/sda bs=4096 count=1 skip=488377323 of=/dev/null 
1+0 records in
1+0 records out
4096 bytes (4.1 kB) copied, 0.0198814 s, 206 kB/s
 - PASSED - 
Backing up mid sector 488377323
dd if=/dev/sda bs=4096 count=1 skip=488377323 of=/tmp/dd-test.bin 
1+0 records in
1+0 records out
4096 bytes (4.1 kB) copied, 0.000167767 s, 24.4 MB/s
 - PASSED - 
Writing mid sector 488377323
dd of=/dev/sda bs=4096 count=1 seek=488377323 if=/tmp/dd-test.bin 
1+0 records in
1+0 records out
4096 bytes (4.1 kB) copied, 0.00681929 s, 601 kB/s
 - PASSED - 
Reading last sector 976754645
dd if=/dev/sda bs=4096 count=1 skip=976754645 of=/dev/null 
1+0 records in
1+0 records out
4096 bytes (4.1 kB) copied, 0.000143868 s, 28.5 MB/s
 - PASSED - 
Backing up last sector 976754645
dd if=/dev/sda bs=4096 count=1 skip=976754645 of=/tmp/dd-test.bin 
1+0 records in
1+0 records out
4096 bytes (4.1 kB) copied, 0.000659207 s, 6.2 MB/s
 - PASSED - 
Writing last sector 976754645
dd of=/dev/sda bs=4096 count=1 seek=976754645 if=/tmp/dd-test.bin 
1+0 records in
1+0 records out
4096 bytes (4.1 kB) copied, 1.7071e-05 s, 240 MB/s
 - PASSED - 

Downloading image
--2014-06-18 10:19:10--  http://tiny.cc/y8r5gx
Resolving tiny.cc (tiny.cc)... 192.241.240.89
Connecting to tiny.cc (tiny.cc)|192.241.240.89|:80... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 301 Moved Permanently
Location: http://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/51278/Tivo/4TB/4TBr1.tgz [following]
--2014-06-18 10:19:11--  http://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/51278/Tivo/4TB/4TBr1.tgz
Resolving dl.dropboxusercontent.com (dl.dropboxusercontent.com)... 107.22.234.0, 184.73.187.123, 184.73.202.105, ...
Connecting to dl.dropboxusercontent.com (dl.dropboxusercontent.com)|107.22.234.0|:80... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK
Length: 41443 (40K) [application/x-gtar]
Saving to: `4TBr1.tgz'

100%[======================================>] 41,443      --.-K/s   in 0.04s   

2014-06-18 10:19:11 (1.06 MB/s) - `4TBr1.tgz' saved [41443/41443]

--2014-06-18 10:19:11--  http://tiny.cc/y8r5gxH
Resolving tiny.cc (tiny.cc)... 192.241.240.89
Connecting to tiny.cc (tiny.cc)|192.241.240.89|:80... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 301 Moved Permanently
Location: http://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/51278/Tivo/4TB/HASHES.txt [following]
--2014-06-18 10:19:11--  http://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/51278/Tivo/4TB/HASHES.txt
Resolving dl.dropboxusercontent.com (dl.dropboxusercontent.com)... 184.73.187.123, 184.73.202.105, 184.73.234.37, ...
Connecting to dl.dropboxusercontent.com (dl.dropboxusercontent.com)|184.73.187.123|:80... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK
Length: 135 [text/plain]
Saving to: `HASHES.txt'

100%[======================================>] 135         --.-K/s   in 0s      

2014-06-18 10:19:11 (15.2 MB/s) - `HASHES.txt' saved [135/135]


Locating verifier
/usr/bin/md5sum
Checking hash
3b0b8870d20d329a190423fd152da20d ? 3b0b8870d20d329a190423fd152da20d  /tmp/roamio-img/4TBr1.tgz
 - PASSED - 

Extracting
4TBr1/
4TBr1/README.txt
4TBr1/mid_3900907584.bin.gz
4TBr1/bin/
4TBr1/beg_0.bin.gz
4TBr1/install.sh
4TBr1/INSTALL.txt
4TBr1/end_7814016688.bin.gz
4TBr1/bin/bpatch
4TBr1/bin/random16r1
 - PASSED - 

Viewing License Terms:
Image and Installer, Copyright 2014, telemark of tivocommunity.com
License granted for personal use within a single household.
Commercial use or redistribution prohibited, without prior permission and license.

Image has been tested by some community members, but
NO warranty is provided.
Some support may be found on the forums.

To support future projects:
Financial or Hardware donations encouraged.

Version r1, June 7th, 2014

Proceed to permanently overwrite /dev/sda ( yes / no ) ?
yes
Starting install.sh /dev/sda 4096
Countdown to Erasing /dev/sda
20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0 
16 @ 304
Trying 'gunzip -c end_7814016688.bin.gz | dd bs=4096 seek=976752086 of=/dev/sda'
2560+0 records in
2560+0 records out
10485760 bytes (10 MB) copied, 0.197528 s, 53.1 MB/s
Trying 'gunzip -c mid_3900907584.bin.gz | dd bs=4096 seek=487613448 of=/dev/sda'
1527758+0 records in
1527758+0 records out
6257696768 bytes (6.3 GB) copied, 53.8071 s, 116 MB/s
Trying 'cat    beg_0.bin             | dd bs=4096 seek=0 of=/dev/sda'
8+0 records in
8+0 records out
32768 bytes (33 kB) copied, 0.00876268 s, 3.7 MB/s
No Errors Reported

OK, I just figured out the problem. I reproduced the issue with factory drive. It turned out the HDMI cable went bad, probably when I was pulling it out further to work on the TiVo. Go figure. I plugged it into the HDMI cable on one of the game consoles that I knew worked, and Viola. I put the 4TB back in, and it change resolution. It's at the "Almost there..." screen now.

Problem solved, the 4TB upgrade works great! Thanks guys.


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## telemark

> Maybe there are some differences with the smaller Roamio? I'm guessing this was only tested on Plus and Pro versions?


N, I used the smaller basic Roamio, and jmbach used a Pro, so we have those bases well covered.



Heretic said:


> Here's the output of the scripts when I run again (removed original HD first):


Looks correct.



> OK, I just figured out the problem. I reproduced the issue with factory drive. It turned out the HDMI cable went bad, probably when I was pulling it out further to work on the TiVo. Go figure. I plugged it into the HDMI cable on one of the game consoles that I knew worked, and Viola. I put the 4TB back in, and it change resolution. It's at the "Almost there..." screen now.


Well that's an odd one, I wonder why the 1st screen would come up but not the others. I noticed with the base model, it's so light it's tricky to get the HDMI and eSata cable all the way in.

But glad it was resolved.


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## Heretic

telemark said:


> Well that's an odd one, I wonder why the 1st screen would come up but not the others. I noticed with the base model, it's so light it's tricky to get the HDMI and eSata cable all the way in.


Yea, I reseated the cable several times, and then yanked the nearest HDMI cable from the device it was in. I probably kinked the first HDMI cable or something, they are old cables. I watched it closely where it lost video before, and it was a 480i => 720p switch I believe. Might have been 480p, but I think it was 480i at bootup.

637 hours of HD and all that jazz. Sweet.


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## aaronwt

So will this work with any of the Roamio Models? I have a Roamio Pro and wouldn't mind upgrading to a 4TB Seagate A/V drive.


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## jmbach

aaronwt said:


> So will this work with any of the Roamio Models? I have a Roamio Pro and wouldn't mind upgrading to a 4TB Seagate A/V drive.


Yes it will. It has been tested successfully on a Roamio Basic and a Plus. The only difference between a Pro and a Plus is the hard drive.

The Seagate A/V drive should work in the Pro. I have one in my Premiere. There was a TCF member trying to use a Seagate drive in a Roamio Basic. The unit kept on rebooting. It was thought that the power requirements for the Seagate drive was too much for the Basic's power supply. (The Seagate drives both A/V and non A/V draw about 3.5 watts more than a WDC equivalent)


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## aaronwt

jmbach said:


> Yes it will. It has been tested successfully on a Roamio Basic and a Plus. The only difference between a Pro and a Plus is the hard drive.
> 
> The Seagate A/V drive should work in the Pro. I have one in my Premiere. There was a TCF member trying to use a Seagate drive in a Roamio Basic. The unit kept on rebooting. It was thought that the power requirements for the Seagate drive was too much for the Basic's power supply. (The Seagate drives both A/V and non A/V draw about 3.5 watts more than a WDC equivalent)


 Holy Crap!! I guess the Seagate is out. I see the seagate is listed as drawing 8 watts while the WD drive is listed as drawing only 5.1 watts. I'm surprised there is such a huge difference. So if I do this I will make sure I get the 4TB WD AV-GP drive.

EDIT: Hmmm.. surprisingly the 3TB WD AV-GP drives draw 6 watts. So the 4TB version actually draws less power than the 3TB versions.
Well maybe that is one of the differences with the newest ones(WD40PURX). I'm looking at the specs for the EURX and EURS 3TB drives and the EURS for the 4TB version. I don't see the specs for the WD40PURX model.

EDIT: I found the specs for the 4TB PURX. The Power usage is the same as the 4TB EURS. THE PURX version is 1 dBA louder.


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## nooneuknow

aaronwt said:


> Holy Crap!! I guess the Seagate is out. I see the seagate is listed as drawing 8 watts while the WD drive is listed as drawing only 5.1 watts. I'm surprised there is such a huge difference. So if I do this I will make sure I get the 4TB WD AV-GP drive.
> 
> EDIT: Hmmm.. surprisingly the 3TB WD AV-GP drives draw 6 watts. So the 4TB version actually draws less power than the 3TB versions.
> Well maybe that is one of the differences with the newest ones(WD40PURX). I'm looking at the specs for the EURX and EURS 3TB drives and the EURS for the 4TB version. I don't see the specs for the WD40PURX model.
> 
> EDIT: I found the specs for the 4TB PURX. The Power usage is the same as the 4TB EURS. THE PURX version is 1 dBA louder.


I recall an article about some of the drives using 1TB platters and others using 800GB platters, which might have something to do with the amperage, in this case. I think the differing platter technologies like, perpendicular technology, use differing thickness platters, as well. These differences can make a huge difference in spin-up current, but once spinning most of it would seem to be airflow/drag related (which more platters/heads increases).

The reviews of the Purple drive are hard to make any sense of, right now. It seems WD, across all lines, has been shiping more drives that are DOA, or fail quickly, than good ones, causing reviews on all their drives to tank. The ones with the most reviews take longer for the overall rating to move negatively. I'm not buying any more drives for a while, until this reverses. If I absolutely have to buy a drive, it's not going to be WD, for now.

If you want to be one of the first to try the Purple in a TiVo... Well, somebody has to do it. I just wish it could be without the dark cloud over WD right now.

I wouldn't worry much about the power supply stressing in a Plus/Pro. I can say that my 3TB WD Red NAS drives share the same power profile as the 3TB AV-GP and make my base Roamio wall-warts hot to the touch, if not well ventilated (worries me a bit).

I'm sure you'll keep us posted, so I need not ask...


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## telemark

Within a line, probably total platter mass will explain the power variance, which should translate to number of platters, followed by platter thickness.

Within a manufacturer, newer drives will be more efficient given the same platter mass.



nooneuknow said:


> If you want to be one of the first to try the Purple in a TiVo... Well, somebody has to do it. I just wish it could be without the dark cloud over WD right now.


The 4TB drive on my dev bench is a Purple. So I can say it has no spin up problems and it can boot into guided setup on Roamio Basic and Premiere.

I've been meaning to check whether it can KS 54.


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## nooneuknow

telemark said:


> Within a line, probably total platter mass will explain the power variance, which should translate to number of platters, followed by platter thickness.
> Within a manufacturer, newer drives will be more efficient given the same platter mass.
> The 4TB drive on my dev bench is a Purple. So I can say it has no spin up problems and it can boot into guided setup on Roamio Basic and Premiere.
> 
> *I've been meaning to check whether it can KS 54.*


Pay particular attention to the long/extended scan, and the offline SMART data collection tests.

I never had an upgrade drive work with the TiVo non-SMART tests, but they've always done the SMART-specific ones, and all of them, until my base-Roamios and my 3TB WD Red NAS drives.

My three base-Roamios can only do self-test, short test, and conveyance tests with the Reds. The other two long tests I gave up after 4000+ minutes of running each, one one at a time, trying all three Roamios.

It could be due to a subset of the idle-timer that is specific to WD Red NAS drives, which I have yet to try adjusting/disabling. I know that a run of the usual tool for WD (wdidle3.exe) reported they all were set disabled. Then, later on I find out there's a specific tool for those drives. My WAG is that the time between the TiVo polling the drive's test status my be letting that specific timer time-out, and the tests either stop, or I just never see they have completed for some reason.


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## L David Matheny

nooneuknow said:


> I wouldn't worry much about the power supply stressing in a Plus/Pro. I can say that my 3TB WD Red NAS drives share the same power profile as the 3TB AV-GP and make my base Roamio wall-warts hot to the touch, if not well ventilated (worries me a bit).


FWIW: I upgraded my base Roamio with a 3TB WD AV-GP drive. The unit sits out in the open, as does its wall-wart power supply. The wall-wart runs fairly warm to the touch, but I wouldn't call it "hot", at least not enough to be worrisome.


----------



## Heretic

nooneuknow said:


> I recall an article about some of the drives using 1TB platters and others using 800GB platters, which might have something to do with the amperage, in this case. I think the differing platter technologies like, perpendicular technology, use differing thickness platters, as well. These differences can make a huge difference in spin-up current, but once spinning most of it would seem to be airflow/drag related (which more platters/heads increases).
> 
> The reviews of the Purple drive are hard to make any sense of, right now. It seems WD, across all lines, has been shiping more drives that are DOA, or fail quickly, than good ones, causing reviews on all their drives to tank. The ones with the most reviews take longer for the overall rating to move negatively. I'm not buying any more drives for a while, until this reverses. If I absolutely have to buy a drive, it's not going to be WD, for now.
> 
> If you want to be one of the first to try the Purple in a TiVo... Well, somebody has to do it. I just wish it could be without the dark cloud over WD right now.
> 
> I wouldn't worry much about the power supply stressing in a Plus/Pro. I can say that my 3TB WD Red NAS drives share the same power profile as the 3TB AV-GP and make my base Roamio wall-warts hot to the touch, if not well ventilated (worries me a bit).
> 
> I'm sure you'll keep us posted, so I need not ask...


Hrm, I see there's now a replacement not a month after I bought the WD40EURX in the WD40PURX. I imagine the Purple will work just fine. I've used about 20% of the space in the WD40EURX, so far it's worked well and I'm happy with it. Definitely quiet. I only got the Tuning Adapter working a few days ago actually so now I'm starting to record a lot more.

I would certainly say if it failed. Picture quality on the cable provider is pretty good on some feeds. Definitely feed dependent it seems, but seems there's good potential for image quality. I had gotten the 4-tuner one to fall back to over-the-air, but now I'm regretting not starting with the Plus for the extra tuners. Oh wells!


----------



## nooneuknow

Heretic said:


> Hrm, I see there's now a replacement not a month after I bought the WD40EURX in the WD40PURX.


Is that going by NewEgg's auto-scripting of "newer model available"? I'm seriously believing that to be in error, or an attempt by WD to call attention to their new drive line, by misleading NewEgg.

Unless WD re-words their marketing materials and spec sheets for the Purple PURX drives, I see them more as a drive made for RAID arrays that handle AV exclusively. The Red NAS line has actually been the leader on that front (they are also AV-rated).

Then again, the AV-GP line was used in TiVos for a long time before WD ever changed the marketing and spec sheets to include TV DVR usage. One thing the AV-GP line was NEVER marketed for was use in arrays. They were always intended to be standalone drives.

The Red NAS are marketed for stand-alone and array use, while The Purple seems to not really be marketed for single-drive use (although not specifically stated as "not for use as"). Sometimes the specs say little about usage scenarios, and all there is to go by is the marketing materials.

I got the base-Roamios for OTA fallback capability too. I'm happy with that decision, and just bought more Roamios, giving me the tuners I needed, plus more storage, as well as redundancy and load-balancing.

My testing of the Red NAS outside of TiVo, is showing they start off strong at over 150MB/s max on the inner tracks (low LBAs), but steadily arc down to as low as 60MB/s on the outer tracks (high LBAs). That's with consecutive reads and writes all the way, and only one at a time. I'm not sure that those slower outer tracks are well-suited for 6-tuners of HD, or even 4...

Still doing some testing, and need to get back to it. I have determined (for certain) that the wdidle3.exe tool does NOT stop the Red NAS from parking the heads during inactivity. It will report the idle-timer disabled, but the Reds have their own tool to adjust this, which I'm about to do some testing with.


----------



## aaronwt

nooneuknow said:


> .........................
> 
> My testing of the Red NAS outside of TiVo, is showing they start off strong at over 150MB/s max on the inner tracks (low LBAs), but steadily arc down to as low as 60MB/s on the outer tracks (high LBAs). That's with consecutive reads and writes all the way, and only one at a time. I'm not sure that those slower outer tracks are well-suited for 6-tuners of HD, or even 4...
> ...............................


 60MB/s?!?! That low?!?! That is only 480Mb/s.

Although that is still faster than a TiVo would need. Worst case would be 12 streams at 19Mb/s. Which in reality would never happen. but that would still only be 228Mb/s.

60MB/s just seems awfully slow.

On another note. Will this upgrade also work with 5TB or 6TB drives? Assuming the TiVo can handle the power demands of those drives. I've noticed the prices for the 5TB and 6TB drives have dropped recently. I've seen 6TB drives going for under $300 recently. Although I'm not sure how hot those drives would be since they use six, 1TB platters.

I'm still not sure if I'm going to try this with my Roamio Pro. But I do want to keep my options open if I see a great price on the 4TB and larger drives.


----------



## telemark

aaronwt said:


> On another note. Will this upgrade also work with 5TB or 6TB drives? Assuming the TiVo can handle the power demands of those drives. I've noticed the prices for the 5TB and 6TB drives have dropped recently. I've seen 6TB drives going for under $300 recently. Although I'm not sure how hot those drives would be since they use six, 1TB platters.


5TB & 6TB is being checked out but it's too early to say anything except it does not immediately work.


----------



## Heretic

nooneuknow said:


> Is that going by NewEgg's auto-scripting of "newer model available"? I'm seriously believing that to be in error, or an attempt by WD to call attention to their new drive line, by misleading NewEgg.
> 
> Unless WD re-words their marketing materials and spec sheets for the Purple PURX drives, I see them more as a drive made for RAID arrays that handle AV exclusively. The Red NAS line has actually been the leader on that front (they are also AV-rated).


So I did research the Purple's more. They are an upgraded AV-GP (ie Green) for sure. They have the same aggregate transfer speed and power draw--5.1W @ 4TB loaded--but they appear to have a tweaked firmware or upgraded controller that allows up to 32 simultaneous streams. The drive I purchases, via the ATA7 Streaming command set, can support up to 12 simultaneous streams while the newer Purple drive will sport up to 32 simultaneous steams. This is targetting at more the surveillance market for many cameras.

Overall, doesn't matter for TiVo given you're not gonna hit 12-streams anyway.


----------



## aaronwt

Heretic said:


> So I did research the Purple's more. They are an upgraded AV-GP (ie Green) for sure. They have the same aggregate transfer speed and power draw--5.1W @ 4TB loaded--but they appear to have a tweaked firmware or upgraded controller that allows up to 32 simultaneous streams. The drive I purchases, via the ATA7 Streaming command set, can support up to 12 simultaneous streams while the newer Purple drive will sport up to 32 simultaneous steams. This is targetting at more the surveillance market for many cameras.
> 
> Overall, doesn't matter for TiVo given you're not gonna hit 12-streams anyway.


I thought it could hit twelve read/write streams? How many Minis can be streamed concurrently? Just on the main Roamio Pro/Plus there are seven streams happening concurrently all the time. The six tuners and the one tuner being viewed. Since the content is written to the drive first before being read to be sent to the HDMI out. I know it can be at least three Minis plus streaming/transferring to another TiVo. That is eleven streams right there.

EDIT: Based on this quote from 2013 it looks like it will do 12 streams since this person was streaming to five Minis concurrently. So six tuners all being written to the drive. And then six streams being read, all concurrent.



geekmedic said:


> I have 6 Minis and was streaming simultaneously with 5 of them while live TV was on the Roamio. Not a single problem.
> 
> Haven't tried to do 6 streams. Not sure it's possible since I think the Roamio always needs a tuner active.


Although I'm pretty sure since the last software update I might have issues doing this since the max transfer speeds from my Roamio Pro are so much slower than with the previous software.


----------



## Heretic

aaronwt said:


> I thought it could hit twelve read/write streams? How many Minis can be streamed concurrently? Just on the main Roamio Pro/Plus there are seven streams happening concurrently all the time. The six tuners and the one tuner being viewed. Since the content is written to the drive first before being read to be sent to the HDMI out. I know it can be at least three Minis plus streaming/transferring to another TiVo. That is eleven streams right there.
> 
> EDIT: Based on this quote from 2013 it looks like it will do 12 streams since this person was streaming to five Minis concurrently. So six tuners all being written to the drive. And then six streams being read, all concurrent.


Each active TiVo Mini uses a tuner while streaming content, whether live off the tuner or streaming from disk. You can have 8 total Minis in a single home ie on the same network, pulling from some set of TiVo DVRs but each DVR is limited by its # of tuners. I found this out after getting the ATSC compatible 4-tuner TiVo in case the cable option didn't work out, but yea more tuners are good especially for the Minis. The documentation says:



TiVo Mini FAQ said:


> Q: How many Mini boxes can be supported on one TiVo DVR?
> 
> A: Up to eight TiVo Minis can be supported by one TiVo network containing either TiVo Roamio or Premiere DVRs. One tuner is used each time a TiVo Mini is being used on the network. Therefore, depending on the number of DVRs and tuners you have available, you may not be able to have all eight operating simultaneously.
> TiVo Roamio DVRs allow for dynamic tuner allocation, so the tuner is only used when the Mini needs it and is released back to the DVR for use when the TiVo Mini isn't in use. TiVo Premiere DVRs do NOT support dynamic tuner allocation, so any Mini connected to a Premiere is allocated a constantly dedicated tuner and therefore reduces the tuners available for the Premiere DVR.


So your number of read/write streams are limited by # of tuners ultimately. Because of this, you won't hit the 12 stream limit on the GP-AV line.

Either way, the Purple line should work just fine in TiVos. The power draw is the same, supports same features. It supports more streams at 32 versus 12 in the older line, though they go unused it shouldn't hurt compatibility in any way.


----------



## nooneuknow

Heretic said:


> So I did research the Purple's more. They are an upgraded AV-GP (ie Green) for sure. They have the same aggregate transfer speed and power draw--5.1W @ 4TB loaded--but they appear to have a tweaked firmware or upgraded controller that allows up to 32 simultaneous streams. The drive I purchases, via the ATA7 Streaming command set, can support up to 12 simultaneous streams while the newer Purple drive will sport up to 32 simultaneous steams. This is targetting at more the surveillance market for many cameras.
> 
> Overall, doesn't matter for TiVo given you're not gonna hit 12-streams anyway.


*NOT SO FAST:*

As I always have to keep pointing out, when any drive maker specifies *"streams"* supported on an *AV-drive*, they are specifically stating streams *using the AV Streaming Feature, also known as the "ATA Streaming Command Set" extensions, which TiVo does not utilize.* TiVo utilizes plain data reads and writes. TiVo would have to completely re-invent a new file system, and re-code the software to use it.

When it comes to TiVos (every one ever made), you can not use that "streams" supported number. You must calculate the bandwidth of the stream for each tuner (SD will be lower than HD), and what the standard data transfer rate of the drive is, and if the drive can keep up.

WD calls this unused AV feature "Silkstream" (which they state is backwards compatible with the standard), which is really mostly WD wanting to put their own branding on a standard, like how it is with HDMI-CEC. Seagate has their own name for it, and any other drive maker that makes AV drives likely will brand it as something as their own. It's yet another bastardization of a standard, creating consumer confusion.

*I'll repeat the important part: TiVo does not use the AV streaming feature (ATA Streaming Command Set extensions), which makes the "supported streams" advertised a useless number to draw any conclusions from, for TiVo use.*

I'm just making sure people are clear on this. This is not something I just made up. If TiVo used the AV Streaming Feature, non-AV drives would fail to work at all, in a TiVo. The AV Streaming Feature uses an option in the drive firmware to use different methods of reading, writing, and error-correction (a general lack of error correction on AV reads/writes).

EDIT/ADD: It might seem reasonable to make an assumption that a drive that advertises 32 AV streams, as opposed to 12 AV streams, would have a greater capacity when writing AV streams, while not using the actual AV Streaming Feature, writing AV in standard data (non-AV) mode, as a TiVo does. I wouldn't make that assumption. But, to each their own, and YMMV, etc.

The specs and marketing materials for the WD Purple are still evolving. It wasn't that long ago that the AV-GP marketing data didn't include TV DVR use. It was marketed as a surveillance drive for most of its lifetime. Until the AV-GP is officially EOL designated, I expect WD to continue revising the marketing data. I'm certain the Purple will follow the same pattern of continued additions of what it is marketed for.

The WD Red NAS, prior to NASware 2.0, was a major disappointment, with major incompatibility issues. The NASware 2.0 version, is so different, that the older drives can't be firmware updated to 2.0. However, unless the drives are used in a NAS environment, which somehow tells the drive "you are being used in NAS", the NASware part of the firmware will be inactive, turning off all the NAS optimizations. This is similar to how the the AV-GP operates in standard data mode, unless everything involved supports the AV Streaming Feature, and it is enabled by the host. The Red NAS being an AV drive as well, makes no use of the AV optimizations or the NAS optimizations, in a TiVo.

So, the reality of the Purple, when it comes to use in a TiVo, is that it may not offer any improvements or enhancements (may all be dormant), offering nothing more than being a 24/7/365 drive, limited to the standard performance restraints of a low-power profile 5400RPM drive.

Until WD states how many TB/year the drive is rated for (TB written per year), which is what determines the approximate lifespan of the drive, the Purple could be a step back from other drives. WD doesn't like to publish these numbers. They usually only state them when in negotiations with a large potential corporate client, in order to give WD an edge, if the published specs aren't enough to get a commitment.

I find the rather low initial price of something that is an entirely new product line (or that's what we are supposed to believe), suspiciously low. That has me wondering is if this is a premium drive or a budget drive. At the market-entry pricing, it seems a bit too reasonably priced for me to possibly consider it being a better drive than a Red NAS.

Still, in the end, all of WDs specs and marketing are just far too specific to having the optional-use feature sets in-use. They don't publish the specs for "running like any old 5400RPM, 24/7-use, low power profile, drive" specs. Those are the specs that would matter for TiVo use. For TiVo, the ONLY feature, beyond power profile and 24/7, that I see being very beneficial, and has always been part of AV-GP drive marketing, is PWL (Preemptive Wear Leveling), which sweeps the heads across the entire surface of the platters (beyond the actual data tracks, both inner and outer). 24/7/365 drives need this to keep the head mechanism from wearing the swivel point (bearing) unevenly.

Sorry about the length and repetition of so many things. I need to just move along and get back to my tasks with the WD Red NAS drives that I'm working on (which I hope will clear up a few uncertainties with them). I'll try to come back and pare this post down later.


----------



## aaronwt

Heretic said:


> Each active TiVo Mini uses a tuner while streaming content, whether live off the tuner or streaming from disk. You can have 8 total Minis in a single home ie on the same network, pulling from some set of TiVo DVRs but each DVR is limited by its # of tuners. I found this out after getting the ATSC compatible 4-tuner TiVo in case the cable option didn't work out, but yea more tuners are good especially for the Minis. The documentation says:
> 
> So your number of read/write streams are limited by # of tuners ultimately. Because of this, you won't hit the 12 stream limit on the GP-AV line.
> 
> Either way, the Purple line should work just fine in TiVos. The power draw is the same, supports same features. It supports more streams at 32 versus 12 in the older line, though they go unused it shouldn't hurt compatibility in any way.


That's just it. With six tuners there can be twelve streams. Six write streams and six read streams. And then if you have more devices playing back previously recorded content, each of those would add another stream.


----------



## eboydog

I glad nooneyouknow pointed out that the protocol that the multi stream AV drives isn't utilized by TiVo. 

Also, the given 12-13mbs requirement is a network specification, not a internal hard drive requirement. A standard desktop sata II interface speed of 3gb is more than fast enough to handle 4 or more tuners, simply stated for those who have used non-AV rated drives in their Roamios would have TiVos that couldn't handle more than 2 tuners.

On top of that, this discussion keeps referring to the issue of supporting multiple Stream boxes due to the impact requirment of multi streams being supported by the hard drive but you forget that regardless if you have one or more Stream, your TiVo is always recording and always buffering each tuner and with the Roamio plus and Pro, up to 6 "streams". 

As much as a perfectionist would state the AV rated drives are used in the TiVo, majority of the technical features of these drives are not utilized even in the newest TiVo available. This makes a colorful technical laced conversation but the fact remains the use of AV is more a OEM vendor preference and has little if any technical requirement for such. If the Roamio had PATA drive support, even those older drives would still work fine. TiVo uses AV drives due to their economical postion and availability, not for their multistream ability.


----------



## Heretic

eboydog said:


> As much as a perfectionist would state the AV rated drives are used in the TiVo, majority of the technical features of these drives are not utilized even in the newest TiVo available. This makes a colorful technical laced conversation but the fact remains the use of AV is more a OEM vendor preference and has little if any technical requirement for such. If the Roamio had PATA drive support, even those older drives would still work fine. TiVo uses AV drives due to their economical postion and availability, not for their multistream ability.


Power usage and longevity under 24x7 usage would be the key metrics they would look at, which the AV drives are tailored for. The firmware is likely tweaked for the particular workload regardless of optional command set usage. 4-5W is really low for a 3.5" drive.

Heat and power definitely a bigger deal than performance in this scenario. 6 tuners streaming @ ~3MB/sec isn't a big deal for modern spindles.


----------



## nooneuknow

eboydog said:


> I glad nooneyouknow pointed out that the protocol that the multi stream AV drives isn't utilized by TiVo.
> 
> Also, the given 12-13mbs requirement is a network specification, not a internal hard drive requirement. A standard desktop sata II interface speed of 3gb is more than fast enough to handle 4 or more tuners, simply stated for those who have used non-AV rated drives in their Roamios would have TiVos that couldn't handle more than 2 tuners.
> 
> On top of that, this discussion keeps referring to the issue of supporting multiple Stream boxes due to the impact requirment of multi streams being supported by the hard drive but you forget that regardless if you have one or more Stream, your TiVo is always recording and always buffering each tuner and with the Roamio plus and Pro, up to 6 "streams".
> 
> As much as a perfectionist would state the AV rated drives are used in the TiVo, majority of the technical features of these drives are not utilized even in the newest TiVo available. This makes a colorful technical laced conversation but the fact remains the use of AV is more a OEM vendor preference and has little if any technical requirement for such. If the Roamio had PATA drive support, even those older drives would still work fine. TiVo uses AV drives due to their economical postion and availability, not for their multistream ability.


On the part highlighted in blue: No matter what speed the drive *interface* is capable of, the base Roamios still set it to SATA-I mode, and then selects ATA-133 speed. I've been able to repeatedly verify this in the TiVo logs. I was told by ggieseke that the max any Roamio will communicate with the drive is SATA-I, which tops out at 150MB/s. Others have verified this as well. I've also noted that the average consecutive read/write speeds with any "green" 5400RPM drive are ~150MB/s on inner tracks, and ~133MB/s in the middle tracks. So, anybody buying AV drives for higher interface specs, and/or higher number of AV streams specified using AV Streaming Features, is wasting money, if they pay more for that. I'm quite sure the Purple drives will have no edge over the AV-GP or Red NAS drives, when doing an apples-to-apples comparison, using standard data benchmarks. A 5400RPM platter drive can only do so much, unless those extra AV features that TiVo doesn't use are in the picture.

The part highlighted in red isn't correct, or you just made an error in what you were trying to express. People are using non-AV drives in their 4 & 6 tuner TiVos, and they work. However, I used to have problems with my TiVo HD and Premiere 2TB non-AV drives getting corrupted when near full capacity with 2 tuners.

I'll make an educated guess that those using non-AV drives on 4 & 6 tuner models will get less corruption-free time & less drive life, than those using AV drives, even though the AV streaming feature isn't used. As I said, this is an educated guess, not a declaration of fact.

I tried an experiment on one by setting a HPA on the drive to limit how far out recordings could go towards the slower outer tracks. That non-AV drive lasted for just over 3 years of 24/7/365 operation, without corrupting. When I pulled the power to relocate it, the heads welded themselves to the platters. If it had been an AV drive, it would have had PWL, which could have theoretically kept that from happening by sweeping the heads across the full platter area (going in further than the innermost track, and beyond the outermost track), keeping the head mechanism bearing wearing evenly, and keeping the lubricant spread evenly.

The LBA limiting experiment seemed to prove the slower outer tracks were causing problems, even with 2 tuners. But, I only did that experiment on one Premiere, so replication was not possible. So, this can only be a guess or assumption, without replicating the results under the same parameters.


----------



## nooneuknow

Heretic said:


> Power usage and longevity under 24x7 usage would be the key metrics they would look at, which the AV drives are tailored for. The firmware is likely tweaked for the particular workload regardless of optional command set usage. 4-5W is really low for a 3.5" drive.
> 
> Heat and power definitely a bigger deal than performance in this scenario. 6 tuners streaming @ ~3MB/sec isn't a big deal for modern spindles.


I call BS on tweaking and optimization regardless of optional command sets being disabled. If the drive could tweak and optimize without them, they wouldn't be optional. Don't forget how much AV we do on computers using non-AV drives. Clearly, AV can work (to a point) with any platter drive.

Might an AV drive be better suited to the way TiVos write in long contiguous blocks, even though the AV command set is disabled? So far, I have found no proof of this, but haven't ruled it out. The only optimization I dare to suggest is the lifespan being extended due to PWL, on the AV drives that have it. The only thing I can't verify is if the PWL is independent from the optional modes (can't verify it makes the platter sweeps while not using the AV extensions).

My SD channels are *3.89MB/s* and my HD channels are *11.36MB/s* on the better channels. Some are a fraction lower, but the only channels I have that are significantly lower are music channels, 0.38MB/s SD & 0.67MB/s HD.

Your bandwidth calculations are off, and your interpretation of the WD specs and marketing materials seem off.


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## lessd

On todays Hard drives all you should look for is low power and at least 5400 RPM, they will all work in a TiVo, with the delete folder filled up you are using the total drive very quickly, unless you deleting stuff from the delete folder.
I think you guys are over thinking this hard drive issue, just my option.


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## nooneuknow

lessd said:


> On todays Hard drives all you should look for is low power and at least 5400 RPM, they will all work in a TiVo, with the delete folder filled up you are using the total drive very quickly, unless you deleting stuff from the delete folder.
> I think you guys are over thinking this hard drive issue, just my option.


I use KMTTG, so being so easy to clear my RD folder (Ctrl-A & Del key), I do so. It does seem to make the menus a little zippier, and I notice fewer glitches in recordings.

I've found the speed in which the data in System Information fully populates is a very reliable indicator of anything loading or slowing the drive. There's always a momentary delay for some data to fill, but it gets longer if I don't clear RD.

If said data takes more than 3 seconds to populate, and the TiVo is not busy recording, there's a good chance that there is corruption, and it's time for a KS 57/58. If that doesn't fix it I tend to find sectors erroneously marked as bad.

P.S. Are you trying to balance things out, since I tend to always comment anywhere you bring up the "any low-power profile 5400 RPM drive will do" opinion?


----------



## lessd

nooneuknow said:


> I use KMTTG, so being so easy to clear my RD folder (Ctrl-A & Del key), I do so. It does seem to make the menus a little zippier, and I notice fewer glitches in recordings.
> 
> I've found the speed in which the data in System Information fully populates is a very reliable indicator of anything loading or slowing the drive. There's always a momentary delay for some data to fill, but it gets longer if I don't clear RD.
> 
> If said data takes more than 3 seconds to populate, and the TiVo is not busy recording, there's a good chance that there is corruption, and it's time for a KS 57/58. If that doesn't fix it I tend to find sectors erroneously marked as bad.
> 
> P.S. Are you trying to balance things out, since I tend to always comment anywhere you bring up the "any low-power profile 5400 RPM drive will do" opinion?


I will have to start using KMTTG as I did not know about the quick delete od the DF.
Over the years I have used many different Hard Drives in TiVos and never found any problems (other than the park crap with WD) with any brand, but I do use WD most of the time.
If somebody has had any (more than once) bad experience with any brand of hard drives (not SSD) for TiVo use I would like to know.


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## squint

I put a Samsung HD203WI in my TiVo HD a few years ago. That was an upgrade from a 1 tb Western Digital green non-AV drive. The HD203WI developed a few bad sectors and was replaced by a HD204UI.

The only other drive to have issues was one of the original drives (WD1600) in a secondhand Tivo HD. There were no bad sectors in the first 40% or so of the drive and then there was a wall of bad sectors that caused both the WD diagnostic and HD Tune Pro to quit halfway through the test.


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## nooneuknow

lessd said:


> I will have to start using KMTTG as I did not know about the quick delete od the DF.
> Over the years I have used many different Hard Drives in TiVos and never found any problems (other than the park crap with WD) with any brand, but I do use WD most of the time.
> If somebody has had any (more than once) bad experience with any brand of hard drives (not SSD) for TiVo use I would like to know.


On top of the quick bulk deletion of RD contents (happens instantly on an uncorrupted drive that is operating properly), is the ability to bulk-restore from RD. The latter takes about a second per recovered item, which is still fast.

I once quickly bulk-cleared RD, then used KMTTG to nearly instantly bulk-send all the recordings of a half-full 3TB drive drive to RD. I was then rather quickly able to bulk-recover all of them, clearing-away any KUID flags from recordings, bringing the TiVo ecosystem to a much better state.

Other than watching what in on my TiVo, there are very few operations that I use my TiVo to do anymore. KMTTG is just so much easier, once you get past the minimal learning curve.

I also found that I can run two instances of KMTTG, and put the windows (each one displaying a different TiVo) side-by-side, making it easy to do a great deal of things quickly, in one sitting, rather than spending hours/days running around to multiple TiVos.

I was able to identify a problem drive by comparing the time it took the same number of operations to process between three TiVos. Pulling that drive for testing with a PC proved it was a slower-operating drive (non-acceptable read timings).

I've spent at least 30 hours over a few days digging into non-marketing information on drive technologies and feature set standards. I have a long way to go, and am taking a break to insure I'm retaining what I should be.

So, more to come, if my head doesn't explode first. I'll probably make my own thread for that, to try and stop diluting/congesting other threads.


----------



## lessd

nooneuknow said:


> On top of the quick bulk deletion of RD contents (happens instantly on an uncorrupted drive that is operating properly), is the ability to bulk-restore from RD. The latter takes about a second per recovered item, which is still fast.
> 
> I once quickly bulk-cleared RD, then used KMTTG to nearly instantly bulk-send all the recordings of a half-full 3TB drive drive to RD. I was then rather quickly able to bulk-recover all of them, clearing-away any KUID flags from recordings, bringing the TiVo ecosystem to a much better state.
> 
> Other than watching what in on my TiVo, there are very few operations that I use my TiVo to do anymore. KMTTG is just so much easier, once you get past the minimal learning curve.
> 
> I also found that I can run two instances of KMTTG, and put the windows (each one displaying a different TiVo) side-by-side, making it easy to do a great deal of things quickly, in one sitting, rather than spending hours/days running around to multiple TiVos.
> 
> I was able to identify a problem drive by comparing the time it took the same number of operations to process between three TiVos. Pulling that drive for testing with a PC proved it was a slower-operating drive (non-acceptable read timings).
> 
> I've spent at least 30 hours over a few days digging into non-marketing information on drive technologies and feature set standards. I have a long way to go, and am taking a break to insure I'm retaining what I should be.
> 
> So, more to come, if my head doesn't explode first. I'll probably make my own thread for that, to try and stop diluting/congesting other threads.


To use KMTTG on a Windows 7 desktop computer do I need any other software like TiVo desktop software ??


----------



## jmbach

I just installed it and the only thing you need is 32 bit Java. It does help if you make a shortcut to run it as an administrator. Making javaw.exe to run as administrator did not work well for me when trying to install kmttg service. Plus I did not want it to run as an administrator for all Java programs.


----------



## lessd

jmbach said:


> I just installed it and the only thing you need is 32 bit Java. It does help if you make a shortcut to run it as an administrator. Making javaw.exe to run as administrator did not work well for me when trying to install kmttg service. Plus I did not want it to run as an administrator for all Java programs.


I just installed it also, works great, will have to look at all the options but deleting the delete folder was easy. I had no Java problems


----------



## nooneuknow

lessd said:


> I just installed it also, works great, will have to look at all the options but deleting the delete folder was easy. I had no Java problems


FYI: Besides the program itself, there's a KMTTG service that I have found no need to have running (it's optional), if you aren't looking to automate downloading and processing of recordings. There's also an optional tools package full of codecs and processing tools that can be left-out if you want the smallest footprint.

The best place to ask questions and get advice is here: http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=387725


----------



## jmbach

nooneuknow said:


> FYI: Besides the program itself, there's a KMTTG service that I have found no need to have running (it's optional), if you aren't looking to automate downloading and processing of recordings. There's also an optional tools package full of codecs and processing tools that can be left-out if you want the smallest footprint.
> 
> The best place to ask questions and get advice is here: http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=387725


Thanks for the info and link. The service is what I needed administrative privileges to install, start, stop.


----------



## nooneuknow

jmbach said:


> Thanks for the info and link. The service is what I needed administrative privileges to install, start, stop.


No problem. Something else anybody new/returning-to using KMTTG needs to know is that each TiVo needs to have the Settings & Messages> Settings> Remote, CableCARD, & Devices> Network Remote Control option set to "Allow network-based remote controls", as opposed to the default of "Do not allow", IIRC.

Like many others, I'm cautious of what I'll install, mostly due to how deep some things get their hooks into the Windows ecosystem, and how many startup services they add (Like TiVo Desktop). When I finally tried, it didn't take long for me to realize how much easier it makes things, and that calling it a "replacement or alternative to TD/TDP" just doesn't do it justice. If it could push files to TiVos without relying on PyTiVo, and queue-up TiVo->TiVo transfers, it would be the one true TiVo "Swiss army knife". I still see a lot of people who are not willing to trust it, or just refuse to try it. That's a shame (for them), which I didn't take long to realize myself.

The only issues I have ever had with it were related to some Java updates that crippled it (and some other things requiring Java). Other reported problems are usually due to outdated Java versions, and/or not keeping KMTTG updated (used to require effort, now has check for update function), that network remote setting, TiVo mind/middlemind server issues (or something TiVo breaks with an update), and/or failing to enter the TiVo account login name/password (required for some functions that access TiVo's servers).

Note of caution: KMTTG remembers what TiVo each function tab was last used for, within and between sessions, requiring the user to pay attention to what TiVo is selected when switching between function tabs, or one could apply an operation to the wrong TiVo. I still make this error, which is why I don't allow others in my home to use it. I don't want careless use to mess up my TiVo with an operation they intend for another.

Applying a function to multiple TiVos is as easy as leaving the same function highlighted, selecting another TiVo, and pressing one button to apply the same function.

The functions that help keep this thread-drift partially on-topic are how KMTTG can back up SP lists, which can be restored to any TiVo (in the exact order they are listed, and regardless of having any guide entries), and backup/restore other things. This makes it a must-have tool for those changing a drive (upgrading, or replacing a failed drive).

I applaud telemark and the other members, who made the "4TB Roamio Image community edition" project this thread is for, possible and available. For all the work and effort involved, there's not much on-topic content here. I still see a great deal of posts around the forum stating that 3TB is still the maximum true DIY size, and that weaknees is the only way to get 4TB. The news that this option exists, isn't travelling fast, or far, AFAICT. Perhaps somebody should consider reaching out to the mods/admins to allow signatures with the news and a link to this thread...

OTOH, anything that helps keep this thread fresh in the New Posts list, increases awareness of it.


----------



## eboydog

Is the 4tb image ready for prime time yet? Has the Windows prep been worked out? I'm not a Linux guy but at the worse will a Linux boot CD work at the least ?


----------



## telemark

eboydog said:


> Is the 4tb image ready for prime time yet? Has the Windows prep been worked out? I'm not a Linux guy but at the worse will a Linux boot CD work at the least ?


Image is fine. I have a few downloads, and 0 complaints.

There's a VHD file, that's hypothetically for Windows. But as far as I know nobody has confirmed an imager that's known working with it.

It is known for the dedicated, that iBored, tar, and gzip could be used.

Linux Boot CD's work fine. I've tested knoppix myself.


----------



## jmbach

I created a VHD but the restore process takes hours as it restores the whole 2TB image to the drive. I do not have anything that ignores the zeroed out sectors as that is what most of the image is. Best bet is use the Knoppix CD or in Windows use iBored to write the images to the pertinent areas of the drive. You will be done in less than 10 minutes.


----------



## Donni

I use command 'wget --no-check-certificate "http://tiny.cc/c6r5gxA/autoinstall.pl"' because without command --no-check-certificate, it shows error: the certificate of 'dl.dropboxusercontent.com' is not trusted and error: the certificate of 'dl.dropboxusercontent.com' hasn't got a known issuer.

But each time, I use command chmod +x autoinstall.pl and ./autoinstall.pl, it will show the same error: the certificate of 'dl.dropboxusercontent.com' is not trusted and error: the certificate of 'dl.dropboxusercontent.com' hasn't got a known issuer.
What should I do to solve this problem?


----------



## telemark

Donni said:


> I use command 'wget --no-check-certificate "http://tiny.cc/c6r5gxA/autoinstall.pl"' because without command --no-check-certificate, it shows error: the certificate of 'dl.dropboxusercontent.com' is not trusted and error: the certificate of 'dl.dropboxusercontent.com' hasn't got a known issuer.


Something's causing a HTTP to HTTPS redirect, give me a few minutes to test it.

What OS are you using?


----------



## Donni

telemark said:


> Something's causing a HTTP to HTTPS redirect, give me a few minutes to test it.
> 
> What OS are you using?


Knoppix Live DVD 7.2.0


----------



## telemark

Donni said:


> Knoppix Live DVD 7.2.0


Dropbox must have changed their backend, cause I know I tested that version before.

In any case, I edited the script to skip the internal SSL check, so if you start from the beginning, it should not be a show stopper anymore.

Thank you for reporting it.


----------



## Donni

telemark said:


> Dropbox must have changed their backend, cause I know I tested that version before.
> 
> In any case, I edited the script to skip the internal SSL check, so if you start from the beginning, it should not be a show stopper anymore.
> 
> Thank you for reporting it.


Thank you very for your help. It's working perfectly right now.


----------



## zechman

telemark, *I salute you*. :up: :up: :up:

I just did this last night on a new Roamio Pro, and it was quick, easy, and painless. I'm now showing 637 hours of HD in System Information. 

--Dwayne


----------



## elborak

Agreed. Much thanks to telemark and those who assisted him.

Will be interesting to see if any changes are needed for >4GB drives, now that those are starting to become more available.


----------



## bradleys

I am not really following the process... Will this allow me to do an upgrade and keep all the existing programming and settings, or is this simply a way to allow TiVo to recognize a 4tb drive?

Reading is Fundamental!



> Known limitations:
> No data is migrated over (pytivo/kmttg backups should work)
> Cable Card will likely not be paired
> Not supersized


I am not in a hurry, it would be nice to keep the cablecard configuration and content... Patience...


----------



## mattack

the latter..

My question is -- has anyone done the entire process on a Mac?


----------



## telemark

mattack said:


> My question is -- has anyone done the entire process on a Mac?


Nobody has _reported_ trying. My USB adapters are not the right type so I only could test about half of it on Mac.

If you have a SATA port or compatible USB dock, it should just work. Or worst case can be made to work, if you tell me what it complained about.


----------



## mattack

I guess I should try it.. heh.


----------



## zechman

As far a CableCards go, on FiOS in the Washington DC area I definitely lost the pairing and had to have them re-paired with tech support.

In fact, if I do a "Clear and Delete Everything" on any TiVo (including my HD), the same thing happens. It seems that at some point in guided setup the TiVo does something to erase and/or invalidate the pairing.

--Dwayne


----------



## nooneuknow

zechman said:


> As far a CableCards go, on FiOS in the Washington DC area I definitely lost the pairing and had to have them re-paired with tech support.
> 
> In fact, if I do a "Clear and Delete Everything" on any TiVo (including my HD), the same thing happens. It seems that at some point in guided setup the TiVo does something to erase and/or invalidate the pairing.
> 
> --Dwayne


It's the C&DE that wipes the pairing data, not Guided Setup.

If the drive installed has never been booted before, and/or your cablecard was never paired with the new drive installed, the third (hidden/secure) part of pairing data just won't be there to begin with. It's always been hidden somewhere on the hard drive. But, some speculate the Roamio might have moved it into flash (which still doesn't make it invincible, against a C&DE or drive change).


----------



## squint

My first 4 tb HDD was DOA so I just setup the Roamio Plus with the stock 1 tb HDD and paired the CC. My second 4 tb HDD showed up and my curiousity got the better of me so I used iBored to write the 3 images to it and installed it. The Roamio got to the Guided Setup screen after which I figured it accepted the drive and I pulled the plug. I re-installed the 1 tb drive and found that my CC was no longer paired.


----------



## telemark

I have serious doubts any data gets written to flash, aside from the OS upgrades.
Clarification: That's on Roamio. 
On Premiere there was some data. I suppose it would be interesting to locate all that Premiere data on Roamio.


----------



## nooneuknow

telemark said:


> I have serious doubts any data gets written to flash, aside from the OS upgrades.
> Clarification: That's on Roamio.
> On Premiere there was some data. I suppose it would be interesting to locate all that Premiere data on Roamio.


I've been trying to get the three geniuses (not sarcasm/satire) on here to find it for as long as the Roamio has been on market (although you were not here back then).

Feeling an itch yet?


----------



## telemark

I would suggest taking two equivalent small drives and cloning them. Boot one, invalidate the pairing somehow. Pull them. Binary diff the drives. Decide which bits are interesting, then trace them up* the filesystem to get their path name.

I figure it's going to be in MFS, so you should get an MFS expert. If it's on ext instead, I could handle it.

I thought you were saving something interesting for your uncle.


----------



## nooneuknow

telemark said:


> I would suggest taking two equivalent small drives and cloning them. Boot one, invalidate the pairing somehow. Pull them. Binary diff the drives. Decide which bits are interesting, then trace them up* the filesystem to get their path name.
> 
> I figure it's going to be in MFS, so you should get an MFS expert. If it's on ext instead, I could handle it.
> 
> I thought you were saving something interesting for your uncle.


I've been trying to convince ggieseke to find it (for Roamio, plus Premiere, and check if the two do it differently). I'd love a way to backup and restore just that data. I understand Greg is too busy to do things, often the ones he really wants to do.

My uncle doesn't own a TiVo, and lives in the northeastern Midwest. That makes something like this hard for me to task him with. He speaks the same "language" as you coding guys, and is a Linux Pro, and fluent enough in Windows to work with both. He does every day, in his IT/IS role at a multinational company, as an engineer, programmer, and sysadmin.

What would really help me, is if you could instruct me how to get the TiVo logs without pulling the drives and viewing them raw, or using the TiVo Backdoor view. IIRC, this either requires some soldering inside, or simply using a USB port. This kind of thing is more my "speed". I have no shortage of cables to hack up, and have a spare laptop I could leave attached to a TiVo. This is more for debugging some recent issues, and not for hunting down pairing data. I can make just enough sense of the logs to know if something goes missing that should be there, or if something that shouldn't be there shows up.

If you could just point me to the right web pages, I can usually learn almost anything I want to. Otherwise, I'm not much use to the egghead collective here.


----------



## lessd

squint said:


> My first 4 tb HDD was DOA so I just setup the Roamio Plus with the stock 1 tb HDD and paired the CC. My second 4 tb HDD showed up and my curiousity got the better of me so I used iBored to write the 3 images to it and installed it. The Roamio got to the Guided Setup screen after which I figured it accepted the drive and I pulled the plug. I re-installed the 1 tb drive and found that my CC was no longer paired.


On many cable systems (Comcast CT is one) if a paired cable card is removed from a TiVo and put into another TiVo you will get all the ch. except HBO types and the cable card will not be paired, if you put the cable card back into the original TiVo you just took it from the pairing will be gone, the data will change, therefore something is also written onto the cable card itself, not just the TiVo. Just removing and putting the paired cable card back into the same TiVo will not take the pairing away.


----------



## jmbach

@lsssd what brand CableCARD do you have. I have Motorola and that is the behavior I see. Motorola cards have a Data ID that needs to be paired with on the CableCo side as well. The Cisco/Scientific Atlanta cards don't have that and onle need the Host ID and Unit ID to pair and from readings posts from people with the Cisco/Scientific Atlanta cards I get the feeling that issue does not happen.

@telemark I'll give that a try. Just trying to figure out a way that I don't need to call Charter more than once to pair the card back up. Doing a clone of my drive and doing a C&DE on it will probably change too much information. Probably the easiest would be to let the Roamio create a new image, pair it, store it as a VHD, C&DE it and compare. Put my original drive back in the TiVo and pair it back up again. It looks like I will have to call Charter twice. Oh boy.


----------



## telemark

Hmm, you guys are serious about this.

So I have two 320GB's. I could clone them. Put in the spare drive, swap in a unused CableCard. That's enough to invalidate the old one to the OS?

Then return to the original Hard Drive and original CableCard which is expected to work as before?

My system uses Cisco cards.


----------



## nooneuknow

telemark said:


> Hmm, you guys are serious about this.
> 
> So I have two 320GB's. I could clone them. Put in the spare drive, swap in a unused CableCard. That's enough to invalidate the old one to the OS?
> 
> Then return to the original Hard Drive and original CableCard which is expected to work as before?
> 
> My system uses Cisco cards.


Cisco cards do write some hidden part of the pairing to the drive on anything before the Roamio (and that's probably still true for it).

I'd zero a drive, image it, complete setup without card, then make a VHD.
Then, I'd install and pair a card, then VHD that.
Then, I'd swap the unpaired card in, then VHD that.

I would think that would lead you to where the data is stored. I did verify that (at one point) I could retain pairing with a cloned drive. Then, it seems a cablecard firmware update, and something extra, specific to my market, nukes the pairing, like as-if the card/TiVo detects the drive is not the same one, even if it's the same model, mfg on the same date, like the serial number of the drive is somehow tied into it. I'm the only person on here that reports this. It's been like this for years now. But, it didn't used to be...


----------



## telemark

Ok, there's a dedicated thread now.

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?p=10203804#post10203804


----------



## lessd

jmbach said:


> @lsssd what brand CableCARD do you have. I have Motorola and that is the behavior I see. Motorola cards have a Data ID that needs to be paired with on the CableCo side as well. The Cisco/Scientific Atlanta cards don't have that and onle need the Host ID and Unit ID to pair and from readings posts from people with the Cisco/Scientific Atlanta cards I get the feeling that issue does not happen.


I have a Moto M card, the host ID stays the same on the original TiVo but the data will change if you plug the card into any other TiVo, than back to the original TiVo. If you do this say 3 times you will get 3 different data numbers when plug back into the original TiVo.


----------



## jmbach

That is my experience as well. It also changes when I install a new hard drive in a TiVo with a fresh image. The only way for me not to have to redo the pairing when I am testing new images is pull the cable card out when pull the drive out. I can test all the images I want and then put the original drive in the TiVo along with the CableCARD. When it boots back up, the pairing is saved and I don't lose my premium channels.


----------



## lessd

jmbach said:


> That is my experience as well. It also changes when I install a new hard drive in a TiVo with a fresh image. The only way for me not to have to redo the pairing when I am testing new images is pull the cable card out when pull the drive out. I can test all the images I want and then put the original drive in the TiVo along with the CableCARD. When it boots back up, the pairing is saved and I don't lose my premium channels.


That because you hiding stuff from the cable card, if the cable card only knew what you were doing, bad boy.


----------



## nooneuknow

See the dedicated cablecard thread for my input.

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?p=10205227#post10205227


----------



## mc_hotmail

I grab telemark's 4TBr1.tgz, so darn small and simple. Great stuff :up:. Couple questions:

1) Will this image work for Premiere?
2) How hard is it to create similar images for different size of hard drive?

If telemark is willing, I would love to help creating a generic script and binaries to do a clean wipe of any TiVo of any size -- "The Ultimate TiVo Wipe" 

Thanks

--mc
(can't send PM yet, not sure if I can receive PM).


----------



## jmbach

In its current iteration it will not work on Premiere series. Roamio series create their own images for any size drive up to 3TB. 
A question just popped into my mind since I am not sure about the details on how the Roamio finalizes the image upon first boot. Will there be a problem since the new software for the Roamio has been rewritten with a new interface from the version the community image was developed on.


----------



## telemark

The installer could be described as a binary image writer and is limited by the image compatibility. The image used is currently Roamio model and version agnostic.

Some of the concepts could be applied to Premiere and some effort is underway to apply that. I need to finish a couple tools first before I have proof or disproof of concept.

Regarding different sizes, it's straightforward to make other images for common sizes. 500, 1TB, 2TB, 3TB. Compared to the Roamio's default partition layout, I chose more efficient layouts that reclaim a bit of un-utilized space. It's also possible to make a non-image based formatter for arbitrary but compatible sizes ( < 4TB for now ) but is more effort to code.

The real advantage to using something like that over the default is the ability to alter / make custom allocations. This is also why I originally called this the community (public) edition because I thought of making a developer edition as well, with more Swap and /var to store software (but with reduced recording time).


----------



## bhb2104

I am trying to set up a WD40eurx on a Roamio Plus
I have followed Telemark's instructions but get stuck at this point

Target Drive /dev/sdb found

Testing /dev/sdb
Reading mid sector 488377323
dd if=/dev/sdb bs=4096 count=1 skip=488377323 of=/dev/null 
1+0 records in
1+0 records out
4096 bytes (4.1 kB) copied, 0.000616702 s, 6.6 MB/s
- PASSED - 
Backing up mid sector 488377323
dd if=/dev/sdb bs=4096 count=1 skip=488377323 of=/tmp/dd-test.bin 
1+0 records in
1+0 records out
4096 bytes (4.1 kB) copied, 0.000965596 s, 4.2 MB/s
- PASSED - 
Writing mid sector 488377323
dd of=/dev/sdb bs=4096 count=1 seek=488377323 if=/tmp/dd-test.bin 
1+0 records in
1+0 records out
4096 bytes (4.1 kB) copied, 0.000728211 s, 5.6 MB/s
- PASSED - 
Reading last sector 976754645
dd if=/dev/sdb bs=4096 count=1 skip=976754645 of=/dev/null 
dd: /dev/sdb: cannot skip: Invalid argument
0+0 records in
0+0 records out
0 bytes (0 B) copied, 0.000387416 s, 0.0 kB/s
FAILED - Device is short, check for HPA or not readable

any suggestions - please


----------



## telemark

Could be caused by a couple explanations.

Are you using a USB adapter?
Did you hookup two Tivo drives by chance?

Could you post back the output from these commands:
> hdparm -N /dev/sdb
> dmesg | grep sd
> lsusb


----------



## bhb2104

telemark said:


> Could be caused by a couple explanations.
> 
> Are you using a USB adapter? No
> Did you hookup two Tivo drives by chance? No
> 
> Original Roamio Plus set up with 1 TB WD esata extender
> 
> Could you post back the output from these commands:
> > hdparm -N /dev/sdb
> > dmesg | grep sd
> > lsusb


P55-UD6:/$ sudo hdparm -N /dev/sdb

/dev/sdb:
max sectors = 7814028911/7814037168, HPA is enabled

Thanks


----------



## telemark

bhb2104 said:


> max sectors = 7814028911/7814037168, HPA is enabled


That's not an acceptable setting. Wherever the drive came from, something set it. It needs to be permanently (which means across reboots) disabled.

Background reading:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Host_protected_area

> hdparm -N p7814037168 /dev/sdX

PS. The rest is Ok, you can delete it if you want some privacy.


----------



## bhb2104

telemark said:


> Could be caused by a couple explanations.
> 
> Are you using a USB adapter?
> Did you hookup two Tivo drives by chance?
> 
> Could you post back the output from these commands:
> > hdparm -N /dev/sdb
> > dmesg | grep sd
> > lsusb


When you ask if I'm using a USB adapter - I hooked up the wd drive to direct sata cable but I do have an add on Anker USB 3.0 PCI-E card in my pc.

Thanks again


----------



## telemark

bhb2104 said:


> When you ask if I'm using a USB adapter - I hooked up the wd drive to direct sata cable but I do have an add on Anker USB 3.0 PCI-E card in my pc.
> 
> Thanks again


Ya, I asked that ambiguously.

SATA works consistently.
New USB-to-SATA adapters are suppose to work, but is not 100%.
Old USB-to-SATA adapters are unlikely to work.


----------



## bhb2104

telemark said:


> That's not an acceptable setting. Wherever the drive came from, something set it. It needs to be permanently (which means across reboots) disabled.
> 
> Background reading:
> en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Host_protected_area[/url]
> 
> > hdparm -N p7814037168 /dev/sdX
> 
> PS. The rest is Ok, you can delete it if you want some privacy.


I didn't notice your line of code above - per your suggested wiki reading I downloaded UBCD v531 - ran HDAT2 - removed HPA - set to full capacity and from that point everything ran great - within 45 mins I had 637 HD hours of recording available and was recording my first movie. P.S. didn't have to fuss with the cablecard settigs.

Thanks telemark for all that you contribute to the fourm.


----------



## mc_hotmail

mattack said:


> the latter..
> 
> My question is -- has anyone done the entire process on a Mac?


On my Mac with a SATA to USB adapter, I can run jmfs (MfsLs and MfsLayout), and it recognizes the whole thing. I even tweaked MfsLs.java a bit to make it list files of arbitrary depth instead of the default depth of 1. With fuse-ext2 installed, I can also mount partition 4, 7, 9 and 14, see the kernel, logs and SQLite databases.

However, I have not done any cloning and expansion yet. I am planning to do a 320GB to 500GB clone, followed by expansion with jmfs. I know it's not appropriate for this thread, because these are two Premieres, not Roamio.

In any case, I think Mac should work fine.


----------



## telemark

mc_hotmail said:


> In any case, I think Mac should work fine.


The only difference I've noticed on Mac is one of the block devices ( /dev/rdisk, /dev/disk ) would only support the device's native block size, which is different than Linux which would emulate multiple sizes.


----------



## emerz

Is it just me or is the link no longer valid?

"Sorry, we weren't able to locate that URL. Please double check your link details and try again. Or check back later."


----------



## jmbach

It's not just you. The two links appear not functional at this time.


----------



## telemark

tiny.cc is down... It's not allowing new entries and others links appear non-operational as well. 
It's consistent with their internal database being offline. 

It's easiest to wait it out, and if they don't bring it back by tomorrow, I can migrate to another service.

I can / have added an alternate link for the basic installer which bypasses tiny.cc, for those who can't wait, but it's only usable for those who can use tar/gzip on their own.


----------



## telemark

Checking this morning and they're magically back now.
I haven't changed anything so it was an outage.


----------



## emerz

Sorry, my mistake. Firewall issue on my end.

Thanks!


----------



## telemark

I haven't made any changes since Dropbox forced HTTPS, on 7/27/2014.

That forces a 301, 302, before a 200, but it works in the end so I wanted to minimize changes until I could do a rewrite and comprehensive testing.

I just did a run through and didn't see anything off. I'm not sure what you're experiencing from your description. Maybe post the last few message lines and what OS you're running and I can tell what actually is broken.


----------



## mc_hotmail

telemark said:


> The only difference I've noticed on Mac is one of the block devices ( /dev/rdisk, /dev/disk ) would only support the device's native block size, which is different than Linux which would emulate multiple sizes.


Confirm MfsAdd (expand 320GB backup on a 500GB drive) does not work on Mac:

****
expanding '/dev/disk4'
****
Before --------------------

Size of zones:
Used:	588038008 (280.40G)
Free: 28408280 (13.55G)
Total:	616446288 (293.94G)

Recordable space reported by Tivo: 616457216 (293.95G), approximately 45 HD hours

Expand did not finish successfully. Would you like to retry?

[Y]-Yes, [N]-No, [X]-Exit, -Shutdown and <Enter>:


----------



## emerz

Another success story.

After the .cc outage and issue with my own firewall was resolved, I ran the upgrade against a WD 4TB Red and it ran and completed flawlessly. 15 minutes later, I was booting up to a Guided Menu Screen. 

FIOS pairing for premium channels was lost but was fixed with a quick support chat.

After one day, everything looks good.

Just wanted to note that I never even opened my PC case. I used a USB -> SATA adapter on Knoppix 7.4 Live with no problems.

THANKS telemark (and other contributors) for all of your hard work on this!


----------



## telemark

mc_hotmail said:


> Confirm MfsAdd (expand 320GB backup on a 500GB drive) does not work on Mac:


That's not a very descriptive error message. If you want to try a shot in the dark, run it against /dev/rdiskX instead of /dev/diskX ... Otherwise, gonna need to find the more verbose messages if available.



emerz said:


> I used a USB -> SATA adapter on Knoppix 7.4 Live with no problems.


Cool. Could you add what adapter that is?


----------



## emerz

telemark said:


> Could you add what adapter that is?


One of these:

http://www.vantecusa.com/gl/product/view_detail/471


----------



## jmbach

Was the adapter plugged into a USB2 or USB3 port.


----------



## jmbach

mc_hotmail said:


> Confirm MfsAdd (expand 320GB backup on a 500GB drive) does not work on Mac:
> 
> ****
> expanding '/dev/disk4'
> ****
> Before --------------------
> 
> Size of zones:
> Used:	588038008 (280.40G)
> Free: 28408280 (13.55G)
> Total:	616446288 (293.94G)
> 
> Recordable space reported by Tivo: 616457216 (293.95G), approximately 45 HD hours
> 
> Expand did not finish successfully. Would you like to retry?
> 
> [Y]-Yes, [N]-No, [X]-Exit, -Shutdown and <Enter>:



Try dropping down to the command line and run MFSAdd manually. It may give you more detailed error message.


----------



## emerz

jmbach said:


> Was the adapter plugged into a USB2 or USB3 port.


USB2

(Old Asus Motherboard has no support for USB3)


----------



## nooneuknow

emerz said:


> USB2
> 
> (Old Asus Motherboard has no support for USB3)


Newegg has PC USB3 add-in cards, which cost less than $20 (as little as $12 on-sale). I don't know much about Macs, or if they have an easy and inexpensive way to add USB3.

I love that my old Lenovo laptop has an expresscard/34 slot, which buying a $40 USB3 card took it from outdated, to being able to run any USB3 device at USB3 speeds, at full duplex.

I bought the PCIe v2.0 x1 cards for my Core2Duo machines with PCIe 1.0 slots, and still get half-USB3 speeds, which is still ~5x faster than USB2.

Just trying to help, not trying to drift-off to discussion on this, other than helping those who want/need it to use for drive prepping. USB 3, plus some drive docks (a a single dock), make a great investment.

USB3 with UASP support is supposed to increase raw speed with drives. USB3.1 @ 10GBps, is pegged to come out next year, as well.


----------



## emerz

Thanks for the info nooneuknow,

In the case of prepping a 4TB image, it only takes 2 or 3 minutes to complete, even using USB2.

But for making other backups to an external drive, a USB3 port sure would come in handy. I am planning on doing a MB upgrade soon and it will most likely come with USB3 ports as standard.

I wonder if one of these would duplicate a Tivo drive?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817392063&cm_re=dock_duplicator-_-17-392-063-_-Product


----------



## telemark

Ya those duplicator docks are suppose to just work, nothing special about a Tivo drive there. There are rare reports of duplicator misbehavior, so double check some reviews on the model.

Edit: one report said that one model came with a 3A power supply when 4A was really needed to power some drives.

Bonus, they should clone at a decent speed, much faster than USB2. And then anyone doing the expand step over USB2 would be quick because not much data is shuffled around for that.


----------



## kokishin

Hi Guys,

1st post so I figure I'll get a paddling.

Anyway...

Is there a written procedure for preparing the 4TB HDD for Roamio using a Win 7 machine?

<ASSuming the position>


----------



## telemark

Download a Knoppix Linux Live/Boot image
Burn Linux image to CD/DVD [or USB stick if you know how]
Goto first post of this thread

--

There is a Windows very manual procedure that uses a hex editor like iBored, but everyone who's done it so far has managed it on their own, so if you're not already comfortable using a hex editor, it's safer to use the well tested Linux method.


----------



## kokishin

telemark said:


> Download a Knoppix Linux Live/Boot image
> Burn Linux image to CD/DVD [or USB stick if you know how]
> Goto first post of this thread
> 
> --
> 
> There is a Windows very manual procedure that uses a hex editor like iBored, but everyone who's done it so far has managed it on their own, so if you're not already comfortable using a hex editor, it's safer to use the well tested Linux method.


Thanks. Comfortable with both. Will your image work for HDDs >4TB?


----------



## aaronwt

I was wondering the same thing. With 6TB drives going on sale for under $270, I might consider doing this if it works with a 6TB. And I'm also hoping there are some good sales on the 6TB drives around Black Friday


----------



## jmbach

As it stands, you could put it on larger drives but you will only have 4TB of recording space. Will have to wait for a JMFS version for Roamio or until TiVo fixes 32bit limitations on partition sizes.


----------



## mattack

So looks like the price/TB is about the same for 3 TB & 4 TB drives. I checked earlier pages.. saw some mention of power requirements. Will all hard drives work? e.g. ST4000DM000, and various 3TB ones? (Not sure if I want to just be lazy and do 3 TB or not..)


----------



## jmbach

The power concern is mainly with the Roamio basic. Just about any drive will "work" however there are some good reasons to consider certain drives more ideal. Some of these reasons include warranty length, lower power requirements, MTBF, and operational rating.


----------



## mattack

jmbach said:


> The power concern is mainly with the Roamio basic. Just about any drive will "work" however there are some good reasons to consider certain drives more ideal. Some of these reasons include warranty length, lower power requirements, MTBF, and operational rating.


Yeah, I was checking on warranty.. unfortunately most of the 4 TB ones don't seem to have warranty info at bestbuy.. (I have a piddly $10 GC that expires this weekend -- the ones you get from points, plus a few others that don't expire.. so I think I have about half of a 3 TB or 1/3 of a 4 TB in GCs to use up..)

Of the 3 TB drives, one seems to have 3 year warranty, most have 2 year. Obviously I'd prefer longer.. Still deciding if I'll be lazy or try to eek out the highest storage (so I can be more of a video hoarder, AND record most stuff in HD)


----------



## nooneuknow

mattack said:


> So looks like the price/TB is about the same for 3 TB & 4 TB drives. I checked earlier pages.. saw some mention of power requirements. Will all hard drives work? e.g. ST4000DM000, and various 3TB ones? (Not sure if I want to just be lazy and do 3 TB or not..)


The Seagate ST_000DM00_ series is 7200RPM (the drive formerly known as a Barracuda), and may over-load the Base Roamio power brick, especially on capacities greater than 2TB. This is due to the added platters, and additional static weight, which must not only be spun-up, but will still require greater operational current draw, due to the air drag added by using more platters (and heads). Also, drives that increase platter density using PMR, will have much thicker, and heavier, platters. This can make a drive with the same number of platters, for a greater capacity, require more current.

Some have had success with 2-3TB ST_000DM00_ drives, but some using base Roamios have had to upgrade to a higher current profile power supply to even get the drives to spin up.

I had to switch my TA power bricks around with my Base Roamio wall-warts, using WD Red NAS 3TB WD30EFRX drives, to get an additional 500mA, to prevent weak sector writes, which can be a very real problem if critical sectors are written weakly, and the TLER present in Red and Purple drives doesn't give the TiVo a chance to do something about them. TLER/ERC aside, and related issues, which are caused by this critical to RAID function, also aside, you need to factor in that if you buy a no-frills green 5400-5900RPM external 2TB drive, it will come with a minimum of a 12V 1.5A power supply, with many coming with higher capacity PS than that, just to run the external drive, and the bridge board. The Base Roamio comes with a 12V 2A wall-wart, which has very little wiggle room, for accommodating drives with higher spin-up and/or running current requirements, than the 500GB drive it comes with.

If changing out the Roamio wall-wart, it is important that the power supply you use is rated (UL listed) for use with I.T.E. (Information Technology Equipment) devices. My TA bricks have an additional UL listing/rating for Audio Video accessories. Combined, the two rating insure electrical safety for coax connected devices, and insure against interference.

The 12V 2.5A LiteOn bricks for Cisco STA1520 TAs have the AV listing/rating (while the Base Roamio wart doesn't), and have shielded power cabling, complete with ferrites (while the Base Roamio wart doesn't).

My swap of the two around, on three Base Roamios, has kept the operating temp of the bricks the same, and significantly reduced the operating temp of the warts, bringing them down to the same temps as the bricks. I used an IR heat gun to measure, before and after.

As long as you stay away from drives with TLER/ERC, like any NAS/RAID drive has, you can focus on (less intensive) power requirements. The drive must be able to spin up in stages, to limit the current draw. Enterprise class drives can have their spin up modes set via mfg tools, insuring against overloading, but taking longer to be spun up, and ready. I've seen as many as three current limiting setting on such drives.

It seems fairly safe to assume the Plus/Pro, with their internal power supplies, would have more spare capacity than a Base Roamio wall-wart. I still advise to make sure the drive you choose isn't requiring all of it, even if only at spinup.

Also, regardless of the Seagate ST_000DM00_ drives being considered "green where/when it matters", as the marketing for them states, I'd still avoid 7200RPM drives, even if they call themselves "green".

I've seen 4TB "green" drives that don't have a chance in a Base Roamio, and I'd even doubt would work in a Plus/Pro. Some are only 5400RPM, but don't have current-limiting spin-up modes, making them unlikely to spin up in any TiVo.


----------



## aaronwt

Does Seagate still sell the 5900 rpm drives? I have a bunch of them in my unRAID setups. They used to label them Green drives. The specs were a little better than the other green drives since the rpms were faster than the 5400rpm drives from others.


----------



## mattack

Yes, I still see 5900 RPM drives at Fry's and bestbuy (though bestbuy only through "marketplace", which I think means external sellers).

I have been looking the past few days, as I said I have a GC that's about to expire..

I think I may decide to be lazy and just get the 3 TB drive that has a 3 year warranty. I admit, I think I *once* made use of a drive warranty... but I'd still rather have it than not, and it's very close to the same price as ones that have a lower warranty. (Except for my treadmill, which has totally paid for itself, I'm one who's usually VERY against paying more for a higher warranty.)

PH3300U-1I72 It's 7200 RPM. Maybe I'll change my mind by tomorrow, I'm not sure. They're a couple bucks cheaper at Amazon, so may have to end up getting them to price match. (The drives I've been looking at are NOT available at my local stores..)


----------



## mattack

There's the ST4000DM000 and the STBD4000400. The latter shows 2 year warranty, and is (at BB's price) only $2 more than the former. But the former is $14 less at Amazon.. and that's the one that shows no warranty info.. Weird.

So I may just not bother and just get the 3 TB one.


----------



## nooneuknow

aaronwt said:


> Does Seagate still sell the 5900 rpm drives? I have a bunch of them in my unRAID setups. They used to label them Green drives. The specs were a little better than the other green drives since the rpms were faster than the 5400rpm drives from others.


Yes. AnandTech has done a great many recent reviews and comparisons between different mfg drives, and that extra 500RPM does give Seagate a slight edge in performance, while giving a slight edge to other drives that run at 5400RPM, in operating power requirements (plus the difference in the additional draw to get those at 5900RPM to speed at spinup time).

I have made a mistake in saying "WD Intellipower=5400RPM", in the past. While it is true, Intellipower also means current-limited, staged, spinup. Not all 5400RPM drives stage/limit the spinup current, which can be the line between the drive spinning up, or not, in some TiVos, especially the base Roamio.


----------



## nooneuknow

To be fair, to telemark, the creator and OP of this thread, who likely has notifications turned on for new posts here, regarding his contribution of a free 4TB upgrade path: I think we may be being rude by delving into matters not directly related to "4TB Roamio Image community edition", as the thread is titled.

As much as I like to discuss hard drives, I feel most of the recent discussion belongs elsewhere, if only to prevent diluting the topic the thread was created for.

Any 4TB drive (with the same, or greater, LBA count of common 4TB drives) can be imaged with his contribution. Beyond that, things have drifted to discussion more about what 4TB drive one might want to use, with hopes of functionality, reliability, and longevity, once prepared and installed in a TiVo Roamio.


----------



## telemark

Just got back from vacation. Thanks everyone for filling in.

I don't personally mind the semi-topical technical conversation, but some of the noob's might get lost in the thread if it gets long/goes certain directions. Do whichever you think it's best for them, assuming this a user support thread.

For 6TB or greater support, as jmbach was saying, if/once the Mega's OS changes gets pushed out to Roamio, we should be able to break another barrier. It might not have been strictly necessary for 6TB but does simplify housekeeping and how complex the resulting tool's codebase would be.

One thing useful would be getting to play with (disassemble) someone's Mega, which I assume is only out for reviewers?


----------



## jsquared222

I was foolish enough to think that a 4TB roamio drive was in my future but now I'm not so sure. Here's what I've down so far:

1. Booted Roamio with new 4TB drive in order get a signature 

2. Downloaded the knoppix 7.4.0 DVD image and burned to disc.

3. Connected 4TB drive via sata cable to PC and booted from knoppix DVD


The net result was the Knoppix GUI and me not knowing what to do next. If anyone is patient enough to provide some guidance, I would certainly appreciate it. 

Back in the series 2 days, I could squeak by with mfs tools but this appears to be a different beast.


----------



## emerz

jsquared222 said:


> I was foolish enough to think that a 4TB roamio drive was in my future but now I'm not so sure. Here's what I've down so far:
> 
> 1. Booted Roamio with new 4TB drive in order get a signature
> 
> 2. Downloaded the knoppix 7.4.0 DVD image and burned to disc.
> 
> 3. Connected 4TB drive via sata cable to PC and booted from knoppix DVD
> 
> The net result was the Knoppix GUI and me not knowing what to do next. If anyone is patient enough to provide some guidance, I would certainly appreciate it.
> 
> Back in the series 2 days, I could squeak by with mfs tools but this appears to be a different beast.


Press Ctrl+Alt+F1 to get to a root prompt and run the commands as instructed in the first post of this thread.

At the root prompt first run:

wget "http://tiny.cc/c6r5gxA/autoinstall.pl"

After it finishes:

chmod +x autoinstall.pl

And then:

./autoinstall.pl

And then sit back and let it finish.

telemark has made it so easy a caveman could do it.


----------



## telemark

Don't Panic.

You're right the directions had glossed over how to get to a prompt. 
They've now been amended.

emerz directions sound good too, but might give a different type of window?


----------



## jsquared222

Thank-you emerz and telemark for the responses. I'll give it another try tonight. Fingers crossed.


----------



## jsquared222

emerz said:


> Press Ctrl+Alt+F1 to get to a root prompt and run the commands as instructed in the first post of this thread.
> 
> At the root prompt first run:
> 
> wget "http://tiny.cc/c6r5gxA/autoinstall.pl"
> 
> After it finishes:
> 
> chmod +x autoinstall.pl
> 
> And then:
> 
> ./autoinstall.pl
> 
> And then sit back and let it finish.
> 
> telemark has made it so easy a caveman could do it.


I guess I'm now a caveman.  Thank you emerz for your additional help. It did the trick. Thank you telemark for putting this together and sharing. I'm now sitting on 637 hrs of HD capacity.


----------



## aaronwt

Now I wish I had picked up one of the 4TB drives that Newegg had on sale recently for $130. But I guess I can wait since the new TV season just started. I guess my next window of opportunity will be closer to Thanksgiving or Christmas.


----------



## KenVa

Any update yet on if it is possible to do this with larger drives like 5 or 6 TB?

I record too much and am not good at deleting things I won't get to.


----------



## bradleys

A lot of pages to read through - but from the refreshed first post, I gather there is still no simple process to upgrade using a Windows computer? Linux and MAC have been built out and still waiting on "compatible cloning software"?


----------



## telemark

KenVa said:


> Any update yet on if it is possible to do this with larger drives like 5 or 6 TB?
> 
> I record too much and am not good at deleting things I won't get to.


I'm curious if you (or anyone) has filled up a 4TB already.

Not complaining, but the truth is I'm hesitant to buy a 6TB drive to start this because the 4TB project ran $450 in hardware costs that hasn't been recovered yet, and the 6TB drives cost more but the user base is likely smaller.

So I need to rethink this for the future, but I'll do whatever is the fairest in the end though..

But I'll make an public offer to get this going. The first 1-2 persons to contribute the cost of a (5TB or 6TB) drive+shipping, I'll buy a drive locally and take a crack at this. If it looks like it'll work and after it passes testing, I'll have it shipped to you. If it doesn't work out, I'll return the drive to the store and return the amount paid to the donor.

A basic 6TB wd green drive is $255, no sales tax, shipping should be $10.



bradleys said:


> A lot of pages to read through - but from the refreshed first post, I gather there is still no simple process to upgrade using a Windows computer? Linux and MAC have been built out and still waiting on "compatible cloning software"?


So nobody volunteered to write a smart Windows cloner. I'm not much of a Windows programmer.

You can use an off the shelf Windows cloner, but it would take, I'm guessing, 8 hours to a whole night to finish. It takes however long your computer takes to write 4TB.

There's a couple a ways I could add Windows support, but nobody spoke up that it was really necessary. I heard the opposite, that people were afraid to try the Linux installer, but it was easy once they tried.

Anyone feel free to correct me or add an opinion on this, that I should add a native Windows client as an important feature.


----------



## bradleys

Dang, Telmark! That is a great offer for someone!

I might just consider it - even though I think 6TB is a little over the top...


----------



## bradleys

telemark said:


> So nobody volunteered to write a smart Windows cloner. I'm not a Windows programmer.
> 
> You can use an off the shelf Windows cloner, but it would take, I'm guessing, 8 hours to a whole night to finish. It takes however long your computer takes to write 4TB.
> 
> There's a couple a ways I could add Windows support, but nobody spoke up that it was really necessary. I heard the opposite, that people were afraid to try the Linux installer, but it was easy once they tried.
> 
> Anyone feel free to correct me or add an opinion on this, that I should add a native Windows client as an important feature.


Can I just use a Linux boot disk to command prompt and follow the Linux instructions? If yes, then I see no need for direct windows support.

http://www.ubuntu.com/download/desktop/create-a-usb-stick-on-windows


----------



## telemark

Yes and yes. Most people have used the Knoppix live image.
Any linux live cd with curl and perl and dd should work though.
I'm guessing perl is the rarest one of those three.

I'll add more tested iso's some day and make my own some other day.


----------



## bradleys

telemark said:


> Yes and yes. Most people have used the Knoppix live image.
> Any linux live cd with curl and perl and dd should work though.
> I'm guessing perl is the rarest one of those three.
> 
> I'll add more tested iso's some day and make my own some other day.


Great, thanks!

Just so I get this correct:

1) Take a Virgin 4TB drive, put it in the TiVo and allow it to fully boot up. This will place a TiVo signature on the drive.
2) Create a bootable Knoppix CD / USB drive.
3) boot to Linux command prompt
4) Follow the remaining PC Side instructions on page 1

Will Knoppix provide connections for internet support, or should I bring the autoinstall down locally to the USB boot drive?


----------



## telemark

I'm sure you would realize this but...

My Step 1, was connect Hard Drive to PC.
So your Step 3 is redundant and out of place.
Just skip your #3 and go to your #4 / my #1.

The Knoppix CD's auto-initialize networking so as long as you use DHCP on your network, you won't have to do anything else.


----------



## bradleys

Telmark, I think you give me too much credit... 

That said, I am following you.


----------



## pwlcheng

Now I have a 4 TB drive in my Roamio, few years down the road when I need to retire this 4 TB drive. Can I make a copy to a new 4 TB drive and keep all the movies?


----------



## jmbach

Yes, as long as the drive has no errors on it when you copy it.


----------



## pwlcheng

Thanks for your reply, jmbach. May I ask which program should I use and how to copy a 4 TB drive and preserve all the recordings?


----------



## telemark

Because the two drives are the same size, you can use anything that does sector level, sometimes called byte or bit level cloning.

The sector-to-sector column has to be green in this chart:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_disk_cloning_software

I think all the Tivo cloners also support this mode but you have to select it.


----------



## pwlcheng

Thanks telemark !


----------



## KenVa

telemark said:


> I'm curious if you (or anyone) has filled up a 4TB already.


My 4TB drive is 88% full plus I have several movies and other shows that I copied to my computer before I had a 4 TB drive. I'm sure if I put it all back it would fill it.


----------



## ryanverd

sorry, newb here and a bit confused. I plan on buying my parents the roamio basic (4 tuner). As soon as I get the tivo in the mail, I will be upgrading it, without it ever recording anything. The thing I'm confused about is, do I need to get a roamio image file from the OP or not? Also, I don't need to put in the 500 gb tivo hard drive that is in the roamio I'll get in my pc right? I can just remove it and put it to the side while I put the 4 tb hard drive I'll be using for the roamio in my pc and do the upgrade procedure and then install it into the roamio right? Thank you. I put a 2 tb in my tivo premiere s4 so I kind of know what I'm doing, but it seems the roamio is different in terms of upgrading. I have no idea about image files and needing them, etc.


----------



## telemark

Yes, that is all correct.


----------



## ryanverd

telemark said:


> Yes, that is all correct.


I'm sorry telemark, do I need an image from you in my scenario? Sorry for bugging you


----------



## telemark

The directions includes the downloads.
Just follow the first post, one step at a time.
Try not to worry until something actually goes wrong.


----------



## terryh63

Just wanted to post another success story.

Kubuntu LiveCD, WD AV-GP WD40EURX 4 TB, Roamio basic.

Took about 15minutes from harddrive removal -thru- reconnect to TV.

Thanks! It works great.

Terry


----------



## telemark

Cool, good to hear. There are about 136 installs / 256 downloads to date.

For those who have enjoyed this:
I've added PayPal and BitCoin addresses to the first post now. 
Please donate something if you can. 
This would let me justify the time spent on this (and other Tivo development) to my family.

Total Donations: $265 coming from 13 persons = $20 / donation.
Avg Donations: / 136 tivos = $1.95 / tivo.


----------



## zechman

telemark said:


> I'm curious if you (or anyone) has filled up a 4TB already.


About 3.5 months later, my 4TB Roamio is indeed deleting Suggestions now, and a handful of my oldest recordings have been tossed out.



telemark said:


> So nobody volunteered to write a smart Windows cloner. I'm not much of a Windows programmer.


Well, I'm a reasonably competent Windows programmer. If I can be of help, I'm willing.

--Dwayne


----------



## jmbach

I made a dynamic VHD that can be restored. It is very small. All the pertinent information lies within the 2.2TB limit inherent to the VHD. So one option is to restore only the non zero chunks of the VHD to the appropriate areas of the 4TB drive. This would take minutes. Problem I had was that all the VHD restore programs I had access to wanted to restore the whole 2TB and that takes hours. 

If we let the Roamio try to format the drive first to place the guid in block 0,then we have to start the restore at block 1. If we copy the guid from another Roamio formatted drive, the it can start at block 0 and a program to copy block 0.


----------



## telemark

zechman said:


> About 3.5 months later, my 4TB Roamio is indeed deleting Suggestions now, and a handful of my oldest recordings have been tossed out.


I feel like those who filled it should get some kind of cred. I guess the gold star is the commodity around here. I actually could not fill up a drive during the testing time period. So I'm very glad to hear it actually fills all the way.

*jmbach*: Yes. Though it's easy to generate guid's during download. I was more concerned about intelligent response like whether people might have an HPA set and need to be warned. Not a common thing but it's happened once or so. And I can't think of other examples.

VHD is a good format because it functions as a sparse image. The issue was the common cloners did not have a selective restore mode. The only one I know of is DvrBARS. I'm not sure why that one could not work though. (I can't test that, need a Windows person to tell me why)

I was going to write an installer that uses iBored remote mode, but I was waiting until a couple other projects were done first.

*nooneuknow*: Thanks for the story. You know you're _technically_ wasting electricity if you wouldn't need to run it otherwise. What I do is try to put it in perspective. A/C uses more than anything, if you pull a daily usage graph from your electric company, it becomes obvious. Even ignoring A/C, 60watt light bulbs are useful for hiding most modern electronics that are energy efficient.

I couldn't find a rule that said donations in thread is bad, but if someone complains I'll move it in software like the others do. This was just faster.


----------



## nooneuknow

telemark said:


> I feel like those who filled it should get some kind of cred. I guess the gold star is the commodity around here. I actually could not fill up a drive during the testing time period. So I'm very glad to hear it actually fills all the way.
> 
> *jmbach*: Yes. Though it's easy to generate guid's during download. I was more concerned about intelligent response like whether people might have an HPA set and need to be warned. Not a common thing but it's happened once or so. And I can't think of other examples.
> 
> VHD is a good format because it functions as a sparse image. The issue was the common cloners did not have a selective restore mode. The only one I know of is DvrBARS. I'm not sure why that one could not work though. (I can't test that, need a Windows person to tell me why)
> 
> I was going to write an installer that uses iBored remote mode, but I was waiting until a couple other projects were done first.
> 
> *nooneuknow*: Thanks for the story. You know you're _technically_ wasting electricity if you wouldn't need to run it otherwise. What I do is try to put it in perspective. A/C uses more than anything, if you pull a daily usage graph from your electric company, it becomes obvious. Even ignoring A/C, 60watt light bulbs are useful for hiding most modern electronics that are energy efficient.
> 
> I couldn't find a rule that said donations in thread is bad, but if someone complains I'll move it in software like the others do. This was just faster.


DVRBARS does have a restore mode that only writes the chunks not including all zeroes. I did full backups (including all contents of every sector) of 2TB drives for Premiere and TiVoHD (2TB-ready, plug and play), and can either restore them fully (which also works as a test that every sector can be written) taking as long as a full write test, or use the other restore mode, which takes a matter of minutes. I forget all the actual names for the options. But, the names for the modes you can backup and restore with don't imply all this. It's only really explained by ggieseke within the DVRBARS thread (or other threads he explains what each mode does in). He made at least one alternate version, that skips certain checks, and lets it backup and restore the content of any drive at all (pulled out the checks). One member was having issues with a SSHD, the system drive in their Lenovo, and he had to take a few routines out to allow it to work for them. If you ask him for what you need, and it can be done by modifying his existing program, I think he'd provide what you ask. If he'd have to start over, building a new program, then I'd figure he'd let you know that, and it would be better to then let somebody else take a swing at it.


----------



## jmbach

It has been a while since I played with DvrBARS so I might be off a little here. It does have a quick restore that restores only non zero chunks but only if the image is a TiVo image. Since the Roamio endianess (is that a word?) is different from the rest of the TiVo family, it is not recognized and does not restore. A full restore is different and will write the full image including zeroed sectors.


----------



## ggieseke

jmbach said:


> It has been a while since I played with DvrBARS so I might be off a little here. It does have a quick restore that restores only non zero chunks but only if the image is a TiVo image. Since the Roamio endianess (is that a word?) is different from the rest of the TiVo family, it is not recognized and does not restore. A full restore is different and will write the full image including zeroed sectors.


In both quick and full restore modes, DvrBARS checks the source image and won't 'geek' if it doesn't recognize it as a TiVo image. I'm not sure why I put that in other than it seemed logical at the time. 

I will track down and comment out that code sometime this week. Then the image you already made should work.


----------



## telemark

It sounds logical for a Tivo cloner to expect Tivo images. It's just recent that Tivo images no longer look like Tivo images.

Maybe check but warn on failure?


----------



## ggieseke

telemark said:


> Maybe check but warn on failure?


That's the plan.


----------



## emerz

Looks like Weaknees has finally broken 6TB

http://www.weaknees.com/6tb-specials.php


----------



## jmbach

Kind of figured that would be coming after the 20.4.5 update. With that update a Roamio with format a 6TB drive and boot but it only gives you 250 hours of HD recording space. The MFS structure needs to be tweaked to give it the whole 6TB of recording space.

This should work for the S4 line as well if someone comes up with a formatter for the drive.


----------



## aaronwt

emerz said:


> Looks like Weaknees has finally broken 6TB
> 
> http://www.weaknees.com/6tb-specials.php


 Only $450!?


----------



## telemark

I didn't have enough spare hardware to sign up for priority list so just got 20.4.5 a couple days ago. 
But keeping fingers crossed that's what's been missing.


----------



## emerz

The Weaknees upgrade inculudes "One 6 TB Western Digital AV Line Hard Drive". Is that going to be a purple?


----------



## telemark

emerz said:


> The Weaknees upgrade inculudes "One 6 TB Western Digital AV Line Hard Drive". Is that going to be a purple?


Extremely likely. Last I saw there's no AV Green in 6TB and there have been other WK upgrades that were Purple.


----------



## aaronwt

emerz said:


> The Weaknees upgrade inculudes "One 6 TB Western Digital AV Line Hard Drive". Is that going to be a purple?


This picture at Zatz Not Funny! shows it is the PURX drive.

http://zatznotfunny.com/2014-11/tivo-hard-drive-upgrade/


----------



## emerz

Thanks guys. That is what I thought since I knew the max capacity for the AV-GP is 4TB.

6TB sure would be a nice upgrade! Black Friday sale on 6TB Purple?


----------



## nooneuknow

For those who may be tempted to take WK using the WD Purple as a reason to buy one for DIY, you'd be better off with a Red. They also go to 6TB and are AV drives (support the ATA AV streaming command set extensions), not that it necessarily matters, since TiVo doesn't use them).

Purple rated workload: 60TB/yr
Red rated workload: 120-140TB/yr

Both drives are for NAS (thus have TLER/ERC, which can be a detriment on a non-RAID controller). But, the Purple is designed specifically for motion-activated surveillance, not true 24x7 (unless you count idle time as 24x7). Since TiVo can't do RAID, you can't just add more drives, to meet the TB/yr workload, as WD expects, if you exceed it with one drive. The rating is per drive.

If you can wait to buy, sales on the Red NAS are frequent, often coming very close to the regular price of a Purple. Obviously, WK is going to go with what they can always get for the lowest cost, to increase their margins, and only cares that the drive last as long as the WK warranty.

I've done the math, and 4-tuner TiVos can easily exceed 60TB/yr, unless you don't record in HD. Don't forget that all tuners are always buffering, which still counts towards this, and 6-tuner TiVos insure there's no (logical) way to not exceed the workload rating.

For telemark's sake, and his thread, I won't go into details about what I found out about, through experience, with TLER/ERC drives, used in TiVos (I use WD Red). It seems to take a "perfect storm" of conditions to bite you, which is why I'm trying to just keep it as a footnote to everything else (and have not stopped using Red drives).

ETA: WD still only considers the AV-GP as the proper drive for non-RAID DVR/PVR use. You will not be able to get assistance from them, if you try to, for other drives. While their warranty terms clearly state the warranty is only valid for intended drives for intended use, getting warranty RMAs for other drives has not yet been reported as an issue (which they could start enforcing, and change that, at any time).


----------



## ggieseke

The patched version of DvrBARS (1.0.0.6) is now available using the download link in the original thread. It will prompt you if it doesn't recognize the VHD file as a Series 1 through Series 4 during restores, but you can choose to continue anyway.


----------



## telemark

Thanks ggieseke. Way to spend your holiday. 

I'll add the VHD file to the server if/when jmbach and I have test it.


----------



## lessd

nooneuknow said:


> ETA: WD still only considers the AV-GP as the proper drive for non-RAID DVR/PVR use. You will not be able to get assistance from them, if you try to, for other drives. While their warranty terms clearly state the warranty is only valid for intended drives for intended use, getting warranty RMAs for other drives has not yet been reported as an issue (which they could start enforcing, and change that, at any time).


Unless WD has changed in the last 6 months, you are never are asked how the drive was/is used, just put in the SN and if under warranty say it does not work and do an advanced placement, WD sends out a drive to you with a return shipping label, just put your drive in the same box a ship it back, when they get your return they cr. your credit card. Simple


----------



## telemark

I bought a new USB-Sata converter, over Black Friday, so Mac support has been tested and works with a modern adapter. 
(my old USB-Sata converter still does not work)


----------



## nooneuknow

telemark said:


> I bought a new USB-Sata converter, over Black Friday, so Mac support has been tested and works with a modern adapter.
> (my old USB-Sata converter still does not work)


Can you share any details to help others know what one isn't working for you, and which one is?

If I was checking within Windows, I think such adapters can disclose what bridge chips are used inside, in the device manager. I assume there must be a Linux way to do the same (But, I don't know Linux very well).

There used to be issues with certain SATA-PATA converters, that wouldn't work on the older TiVos, and the chipset info was discovered and posted for what worked, and what didn't. Of course, not all vendors and resellers are big on divulging what's inside, when making a buying decision (like a Black Friday impulse purchase).


----------



## lessd

nooneuknow said:


> I thought I made it clear in my post that the warranty says one thing, but consumer experience has said another.
> 
> We always disagree on this subject matter. Unless you can provide me with proof the warranty doesn't lay it out like I say it does, WD could completely change their lax enforcement of the terms of their warranties, just as TiVo could do with those who upgrade their TiVo drives. Your warranty is the warranty that was in effect at the time of purchase. WD has been not holding customers accountable, or enforcing anything more than the question of "Is it within the warranty period?".
> 
> There is nothing that guarantees the advance RMA process will be active in the future. They could eliminate it at any time they want.
> 
> The sensors and logging capabilities of modern drives blow my mind. All it takes is the right software, to see that unless the logging data is rendered irretrievable, WD can figure out where a drive has been, and what kind of use/abuse it has seen, and when. In the near future, WD could set up a speedy screening system, to quickly read the drive logs. I'm not talking SMART here. I'm talking actual "this event happened at 357 POH, at LBA 62948904, when shock sensor #6 registred excessive G shock event" logging (and that's a simplification of how specific the logging is). That's all in there, and even the consumer can get to it.
> 
> Take advance RMA out of the picture, read the actual warranty terms, and you will see there is nothing stopping them from requiring you to send the bad dive back, first, then your RMA being either finished or rejected.
> 
> Leave advance RMA in, and there is nothing stopping them from keeping the money they charge on your card, should you send them back a drive that doesn't meet the T&C of the warranty, and the added fine print of advance RMA.
> 
> WD would be completely within their rights to bring RMAs as you are familiar with, to a halt. While the PR black-eye that could give them is a deterrent, I'm sure you recall how all the drive manufacturers nearly simultaneously went from 5yr warranties, to 1yr warranties, and if you wanted more, you bought a warranty plan, a while back in time.
> 
> There's always a "bubble" just waiting to burst. If too many RMAs wind up making the current model unsustainable, they will have to do something to reduce the numbers of RMAs done "simply because the drive was in warranty, and the customer requested an RMA". I've abused this lax enforcement myself, sending back drives 3-days short of being out of warranty, "because I could". I tend not to trust modern drives, at the 3yr mark. Why not get a fresh new (or recertified) one, if I can do so. I know I'm not the only one to have done this, but likely the only one to openly say that I have sinned.
> 
> Why am I so adamant about matters like these? If you don't make it clear that your experience is the result of WD not enforcing their own T&C of their warranty qualifications, and you are going to advise based on it, I truly believe everybody also need be aware that the drive they buy today, could be subject to the actual warranty T&C, when they have an issue, in the future.
> 
> The fact of the matter is this: Your always easy-peasy, no hassle, no questions, no cost, WD RMA testimonials, are not the issue. The issue is that if not placed into context, you are promoting gambling, by others, on if things will remain as they are. WD doesn't have to change a single word of their warranty T&C in order to completely make the RMA experience the opposite of what has been being experienced.
> 
> Every time I try to keep things short, it leads to an even longer post, than if I had just posted both sides of a matter, myself, to begin with...


Your statement is true, but we are talking about what, $120 item, if WD gets more stringent on how the drive is used before a warranty replacement can be done, many people will just lie, I sold (at one time) a lot of TiVos on E-Bay, and a very few people, who had buyers remorse, would just lied to get a full refund, I just accepted their lie as would WD as they I or WD can't spent the time or money to go to a home and find out just what happened for this small amount of money (my loss on E-Bay was the shipping cost, about $200 on over $200,000 of sales).


----------



## telemark

nooneuknow said:


> Can you share any details to help others know what one isn't working for you, and which one is?


I'm not sure I should recommend anything cause I was buying the cheapest I could find and hoping for the best. Nonetheless they worked for writing up to 4TB. So if that describes what you're looking for:

USB2 $4+$tax ( + $4 shipping )
http://www.frys.com/product/7526606

USB3 $13+$tax ( + $4 shipping )
http://www.frys.com/product/7996830


----------



## lessd

nooneuknow said:


> <long dramatic sigh>
> 
> I give up (almost). I thought I had balanced my post, adding the ETA portion, just to address the inevitable (this, again).
> 
> Comparing WD enforcing their warranty T&C, to the woes of a lone ebay seller, is an apples to antimatter comparison, IMNSHO.
> 
> The point you seem to miss, is that WD has the ability to (almost) stop people from lying. That's pretty much the whole point (almost).
> 
> WD used to require proof that a drive had failed a test, using their free diagnostics software, before you could get an RMA for it. If you could not provide that proof, such as a printout or email of the test results page, "No RMA for you!". I mean none at all. WD has done their best to insure their T&C gives them the ability to return to such strict enforcement, any time they like.
> 
> You tell me how to quickly (in minimal number of characters) post both sides of the coin, and I'll try to work with you, to avoid these butting of heads situations, in the future. It has to swing both ways, though, as far as portraying enforceable T&C, as well what they (at the time) are not enforcing (and that can change).
> 
> ETA: This is still leaving the matter of how WD will refuse to offer support services (outside RMAs) for a drive used for an application they have not given their blessing for...


Support from WD for a drive used in a non approved way is most likely the same type of support you get from TiVo if you upgrade your drive and the CSR sees that, *no support *, and no warranty return. If the WD diag. returns an error that itself (I think) does not tell WD how the drive was ever used.
I have RMAed about 10 WD drives without problems, and never had to tell them how the drive was used or had to give them a diag. report, but I have had no RMAs in the last two years, so I don't know what problems WD may give me if I needed to RMA a drive now.
I think we are both on the same page, just stated differently.


----------



## telemark

lessd said:


> I think we are both on the same page, just stated differently.


Good then? If not, I'm going to try to scuttle that discussion into some unknown Hard Drive thread.

Only slightly related, maybe when quoting in reply, the quote should ideally be shorter than the reply.


----------



## nooneuknow

telemark said:


> Good then? If not, I'm going to try to scuttle that discussion into some unknown Hard Drive thread.
> 
> Only slightly related, maybe when quoting in reply, the quote should ideally be shorter than the reply.


On the bright side, the full quoting allowed me to pull the posts on my side of the discussion, past my original post on it, and not lose the content, or the context (partial quotes can often skew the context). To (hopefully) keep the admins/mods happy, I used "reason: at OP request".

<back to regular programming>


----------



## NYHeel

Quick question, can Telemark's 4TB tool be used but be adjusted to copy recordings from a 3 TB drive? My 3 TB drive in a Roamio Plus has been filling up and I don't really want to be bothered with managing the my shows list. Are there some commands that can be added to the process that will allow me to copy my 3TB drive data to the 4TB drive while also making the 4 TB usable in a Roamio?


----------



## emerz

NYHeel said:


> Quick question


Quick answer (from post #1)



> Known limitations:
> No data is migrated over (pytivo/kmttg backups should work)


----------



## Fofer

telemark said:


> USB3 $13+$tax ( + $4 shipping )
> http://www.frys.com/product/7996830


Thanks for this, I'll be getting one for TiVo drive prepping on my Mac.



nooneuknow said:


> For those who may be tempted to take WK using the WD Purple as a reason to buy one for DIY, you'd be better off with a Red.


Thank you for this great info, as well. I see Amazon has this Red 4TB drive for $165.  The Green version is $142. After reading your advice, I'm thinking I'd feel better spending the extra $23 for peace of mind.


----------



## gt7610c

FWIW, the WD AV-GP green drives are the ones TiVo uses (for cost, performance, heat, whatever). Here is the 4 TB version: WD40EURX


----------



## nooneuknow

I just wrapped up a two-day long search for *ANY* reference, whatsoever, that the AV-GP in the EURX family has an EOL or "end of life" designation. Aside from the false claims made on TCF, and a few false positives, which closer investigation revealed to be the fault of the search engines, *there was none, whatsoever.*

It exists in sizes up to 4TB, in the EURX AV-GP family, as the previous post addressed, thus it has a place in the 4TB DIY thread discussion.

Newegg doesn't call it EOL, but puts up a banner that says "A newer version of this item is available" & "Click here to find the newer model", which redirects to the PURX Purple drives. This is causing marketplace resellers to also incorrectly make claims the Purple PURX is the newer model, with reports of people paying the price for an AV-GP, and instead getting a Purple (getting fleeced, as the Purple is cheaper to buy, for the reseller, and a profit margin fattener for the likes of Weaknees).

While the WD40EURX AV-GP (now officially renamed WD "AV", losing the "-GP", as part of the product refresh cycle) drives can be bought from all the major resellers. This will likely cause some confusion. http://www.wdc.com/wdproducts/librar...879-800015.pdf

I did find a few references to the EUR*S* ones being EOL designated, as well as many of the even older ones that would obviously be EOL.

This same research located many references to compatibility lists for many DVR/PVR/NVR products, which specify AV-GP drives belong in single drive devices, and should *not* be used in those with RAID capabilities, while the Purple/Red drives are listed as the only acceptable drives for those with RAID capabilities, also stating the AV-GP drives should not be used in them (flat-out stated as incompatible/unsupported).

I hate starting new threads. But, I truly believe this misinformation, started by Newegg, getting unwarranted validation by WK, and leading to false proclamations of EOL status for EURX AV-GP drives, needs to be addressed, in a manner better than playing TCF whack-a-mole, across many threads.


----------



## Fofer

Hmm. For a Roamio DIY upgrade, should I get the Red WD40EFRX over the Green WD40EZRX? I've looked over so many specs and products my eyes are starting to gloss over.


----------



## ggieseke

Fofer said:


> Hmm. For a Roamio DIY upgrade, should I get the Red WD40EFRX over the Green WD40EFRX? I've looked over so many specs and products my eyes are starting to gloss over.


The Greens are E*Z*RX, not EFRX. Personally, I'd probably pick the longer warranty and AV rating (even though it isn't used) on the Reds, but many here would disagree.

Dinking around with wdidle3 to disable Intellipark on the Greens is probably the biggest factor, and if you don't mind doing that it will probably work fine. The current generation of Reds seem to come from the factory with a 300 second default timeout, which shouldn't bother a TiVo during a soft boot.

I have 2 shiny new 2TB Reds and 5 new 6TB Reds that just arrived a few hours ago. I'll check out the timeouts and update this thread with my results even though nothing over 3TB will auto-format in a TiVo.

I miss the EURS line. They just worked like a champ no matter what situation you threw them in...


----------



## Fofer

Oops, corrected, thanks! I'll await your next post/report about the Reds. I may just feel more comfortable spending the extra ~$20 to get the Red, all things considered.


----------



## nooneuknow

I already dumped the specifics of the Reds a few posts back, pros and cons.

I recommend the AV-GP EURX drives for most, for all TiVos (current max size is 4TB).

If you are an IT person, or might want to have a drive that can easily be used in multiple things, the Red EFRX drive is a good choice, as it outperforms AV-GP when not used in a TiVo. I use Reds in my Roamios myself, even though the TLER function bit me on one drive, requiring I lose everything and zero it out on a PC. Now I know not to trust the SMART values when using a Red in a TiVo, and what one acts like when the TLER prevents uncorrectable read errors from being handled properly, when the host controller doesn't support RAID.

Both have a 3yr warranty. If you are likely to ever contact WD for support, other than issuance of an RMA, AV-GP is the way to go for TiVos, for most.

I highly recommend changing out the wall-wart power supply on the base Roamios, to at least 12V 2.5A (for reliability/stability), but not greater than 3.0A (for safety).

Any further discussion, not related to telemark's 4TB DIY tool, should go into this thread: http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=507695


----------



## rickydee

Any chance there will be a DIY for the 6TB drive solution? Or even the 12TB (internal and external) drive that is being offered by WK?


----------



## nooneuknow

rickydee said:


> Any chance there will be a DIY for the 6TB drive solution? Or even the 12TB (internal and external) drive that is being offered by WK?


If you fund the cost of the drives to test it on, there is a chance. See a post a while back from telemark on requests for larger size support, and a more recent post on how much grief he gets from his family for the time and money he spent to get this far.


----------



## nooneuknow

NEWS: WD renames "AV-GP" line of drives to "AV".

There are two WD Product SpecSheet PDFs now.

One PDF is for "AV-GP", which only goes to 3TB.

The second one is for "AV", includes 4TB, which is the new name for the product refresh cycle. They dropped the "-GP".
http://www.wdc.com/wdproducts/library/SpecSheet/ENG/2879-800015.pdf

I guess "AV" sounds sportier that "AV-GP". This is further proof that they are refreshing the line. I doubt it will bring anything good to the discussions here, likely more confusion, than anything.

This seemed just relevant enough to post here, since 4TB is only in the "AV" PDF.


----------



## nooneuknow

I created a thread for "NEWS: WD renames "AV-GP" line of drives to "AV"."
http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=523424

Since it will be old news in time, it seems like a great place to just discuss hard drives, when not specific to the subject "4TB Roamio Image community edition", or the other threads where the OP desires things to be short and on-topic.

*@telemark:* Let me know what posts you would like removed, as I know you like short, to the point, and on-topic (a bit too much for me to continue in this thread).


----------



## rhoelzer

Worked great. $20 donated


----------



## telemark

Just clarifying, I don't mind the debate myself. That's how we learn. But since it's a support thread, it's wasn't the best for those who were stuck when doing their install and couldn't find the relevant info.



rhoelzer said:


> Worked great. $20 donated


Much appreciated!



nooneuknow said:


> I created a thread for "NEWS: WD renames "AV-GP" line of drives to "AV"."
> 
> *@telemark:* Let me know what posts you would like removed, as I know you like short, to the point, and on-topic (a bit too much for me to continue in this thread).


Good to see.
Don't worry about it, It's fine as is.



ggieseke said:


> I have 2 shiny new 2TB Reds and 5 new 6TB Reds that just arrived a few hours ago. I'll check out the timeouts and update this thread with my results even though nothing over 3TB will auto-format in a TiVo.


Find a good deal? Working on the 6TB problem?


----------



## rickydee

Going to go the WK route but still happy to contribute in some way to the cause.


----------



## Dssguy1

I'm donating because I am excited about a 6TB option! Hopefully others will donate some money to keep you going!

$25 Donated

Also, just to clarify, we should be getting the WD Red version 6TB drive?

WD60EFRX


If we see a good deal, should we bite or do you think there is a good chance things won't work out?


----------



## g8m3rtag

I did the update last night, it was really easy, thank you telemark. I do have a few questions though as my output does not display what others have that I have seen.

I booted the drive in Roamio and completed guided setup to the menu. Had 237 hours of recording capacity.

Removed drive, connected to computer, booted Knoppix live CD and ran the commands, the output in Terminal did not look right so I ran the commands again, same output. Put the drive back in the Roamio and completed guided setup once again and had 637 hours of recording capacity so it appears to have worked right but I just want to make sure this isn't something I need to worry about failing. The partition tables are what looks different to me from other outputs I have seen. I used a WD40EFRX.



Code:


[email protected]:~$ wget "http://tiny.cc/c6r5gxA/autoinstall.pl"
--2014-12-06 01:40:00--  http://tiny.cc/c6r5gxA/autoinstall.pl
Resolving tiny.cc (tiny.cc)... 192.241.240.89
Connecting to tiny.cc (tiny.cc)|192.241.240.89|:80... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 301 Moved Permanently
Location: http://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/51278/Tivo/4TB/autoinstall.pl [following]
--2014-12-06 01:40:00--  http://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/51278/Tivo/4TB/autoinstall.pl
Resolving dl.dropboxusercontent.com (dl.dropboxusercontent.com)... 23.21.216.250, 54.235.163.202, 54.225.174.94, ...
Connecting to dl.dropboxusercontent.com (dl.dropboxusercontent.com)|23.21.216.250|:80... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 302 FOUND
Cookie coming from dl.dropboxusercontent.com attempted to set domain to dl.dropboxusercontent.com
Cookie coming from dl.dropboxusercontent.com attempted to set domain to dl.dropboxusercontent.com
Location: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/51278/Tivo/4TB/autoinstall.pl [following]
--2014-12-06 01:40:01--  https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/51278/Tivo/4TB/autoinstall.pl
Connecting to dl.dropboxusercontent.com (dl.dropboxusercontent.com)|23.21.216.250|:443... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK
Length: 4322 (4.2K) [text/x-perl]
Saving to: `autoinstall.pl'

100%[============================================================================================================================>] 4,322       --.-K/s   in 0s      

2014-12-06 01:40:02 (103 MB/s) - `autoinstall.pl' saved [4322/4322]

[email protected]:~$ chmod +x autoinstall.pl
[email protected]:~$ sudo ./autoinstall.pl
ls: cannot access /dev/hd?: No such file or directory
sda:
[    4.728674] UDF-fs: warning (device sda): udf_fill_super: No partition found (2)
[    6.767950] UDF-fs: warning (device sda): udf_fill_super: No partition found (2)
4096 bytes received - [ Roamio ] - 

sdb:
[    6.118745] sd 15:0:0:0: [sdb] 15646720 512-byte logical blocks: (8.01 GB/7.46 GiB)
[    6.122366] sd 15:0:0:0: [sdb] Write Protect is off
[    6.122371] sd 15:0:0:0: [sdb] Mode Sense: 23 00 00 00
[    6.125991] sd 15:0:0:0: [sdb] No Caching mode page found
[    6.125995] sd 15:0:0:0: [sdb] Assuming drive cache: write through
[    6.136627]  sdb: sdb1 sdb2 sdb4
[    6.144867] sd 15:0:0:0: [sdb] Attached SCSI removable disk
[    6.822615] UDF-fs: warning (device sdb): udf_fill_super: No partition found (2)
4096 bytes received - rejected - 

sdc:
0 bytes received - rejected - 

sdd:
0 bytes received - rejected - 

sde:
0 bytes received - rejected - 

sdf:
0 bytes received - rejected - 

sdg:
0 bytes received - rejected - 

sdh:
[    4.690448] sdhci: Secure Digital Host Controller Interface driver
[    4.690450] sdhci: Copyright(c) Pierre Ossman
[    4.690773] sdhci-pltfm: SDHCI platform and OF driver helper
0 bytes received - rejected - 

Target Drive /dev/sda found

Testing /dev/sda
Reading mid sector 488377323
dd if=/dev/sda bs=4096 count=1 skip=488377323 of=/dev/null 
1+0 records in
1+0 records out
4096 bytes (4.1 kB) copied, 0.0183813 s, 223 kB/s
 - PASSED - 
Backing up mid sector 488377323
dd if=/dev/sda bs=4096 count=1 skip=488377323 of=/tmp/dd-test.bin 
1+0 records in
1+0 records out
4096 bytes (4.1 kB) copied, 0.000215479 s, 19.0 MB/s
 - PASSED - 
Writing mid sector 488377323
dd of=/dev/sda bs=4096 count=1 seek=488377323 if=/tmp/dd-test.bin 
1+0 records in
1+0 records out
4096 bytes (4.1 kB) copied, 0.000389254 s, 10.5 MB/s
 - PASSED - 
Reading last sector 976754645
dd if=/dev/sda bs=4096 count=1 skip=976754645 of=/dev/null 
1+0 records in
1+0 records out
4096 bytes (4.1 kB) copied, 0.0045609 s, 898 kB/s
 - PASSED - 
Backing up last sector 976754645
dd if=/dev/sda bs=4096 count=1 skip=976754645 of=/tmp/dd-test.bin 
1+0 records in
1+0 records out
4096 bytes (4.1 kB) copied, 0.00018579 s, 22.0 MB/s
 - PASSED - 
Writing last sector 976754645
dd of=/dev/sda bs=4096 count=1 seek=976754645 if=/tmp/dd-test.bin 
1+0 records in
1+0 records out
4096 bytes (4.1 kB) copied, 0.00327038 s, 1.3 MB/s
 - PASSED - 

Downloading image
--2014-12-06 01:40:39--  http://tiny.cc/y8r5gx
Resolving tiny.cc (tiny.cc)... 192.241.240.89
Connecting to tiny.cc (tiny.cc)|192.241.240.89|:80... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 301 Moved Permanently
Location: http://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/51278/Tivo/4TB/4TBr1.tgz [following]
--2014-12-06 01:40:39--  http://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/51278/Tivo/4TB/4TBr1.tgz
Resolving dl.dropboxusercontent.com (dl.dropboxusercontent.com)... 23.23.244.164, 23.23.205.210, 23.21.160.18, ...
Connecting to dl.dropboxusercontent.com (dl.dropboxusercontent.com)|23.23.244.164|:80... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 302 FOUND
Cookie coming from dl.dropboxusercontent.com attempted to set domain to dl.dropboxusercontent.com
Cookie coming from dl.dropboxusercontent.com attempted to set domain to dl.dropboxusercontent.com
Location: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/51278/Tivo/4TB/4TBr1.tgz [following]
--2014-12-06 01:40:39--  https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/51278/Tivo/4TB/4TBr1.tgz
Connecting to dl.dropboxusercontent.com (dl.dropboxusercontent.com)|23.23.244.164|:443... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK
Length: 41443 (40K) [application/x-gtar]
Saving to: `4TBr1.tgz'

100%[============================================================================================================================>] 41,443      --.-K/s   in 0.03s   

2014-12-06 01:40:40 (1.38 MB/s) - `4TBr1.tgz' saved [41443/41443]

--2014-12-06 01:40:40--  http://tiny.cc/y8r5gxH
Resolving tiny.cc (tiny.cc)... 192.241.240.89
Connecting to tiny.cc (tiny.cc)|192.241.240.89|:80... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 301 Moved Permanently
Location: http://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/51278/Tivo/4TB/HASHES.txt [following]
--2014-12-06 01:40:40--  http://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/51278/Tivo/4TB/HASHES.txt
Resolving dl.dropboxusercontent.com (dl.dropboxusercontent.com)... 23.21.45.60, 23.23.98.72, 23.23.161.172, ...
Connecting to dl.dropboxusercontent.com (dl.dropboxusercontent.com)|23.21.45.60|:80... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 302 FOUND
Cookie coming from dl.dropboxusercontent.com attempted to set domain to dl.dropboxusercontent.com
Cookie coming from dl.dropboxusercontent.com attempted to set domain to dl.dropboxusercontent.com
Location: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/51278/Tivo/4TB/HASHES.txt [following]
--2014-12-06 01:40:40--  https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/51278/Tivo/4TB/HASHES.txt
Connecting to dl.dropboxusercontent.com (dl.dropboxusercontent.com)|23.21.45.60|:443... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK
Length: 135 [text/plain]
Saving to: `HASHES.txt'

100%[============================================================================================================================>] 135         --.-K/s   in 0s      

2014-12-06 01:40:41 (3.47 MB/s) - `HASHES.txt' saved [135/135]


Locating verifier
/usr/bin/md5sum
Checking hash
3b0b8870d20d329a190423fd152da20d ? 3b0b8870d20d329a190423fd152da20d  /tmp/roamio-img/4TBr1.tgz
 - PASSED - 

Extracting
4TBr1/
4TBr1/README.txt
4TBr1/mid_3900907584.bin.gz
4TBr1/bin/
4TBr1/beg_0.bin.gz
4TBr1/install.sh
4TBr1/INSTALL.txt
4TBr1/end_7814016688.bin.gz
4TBr1/bin/bpatch
4TBr1/bin/random16r1
 - PASSED - 

Viewing License Terms:
Image and Installer, Copyright 2014, telemark of tivocommunity.com
License granted for personal use within a single household.
Commercial use or redistribution prohibited, without prior permission and license.

Image has been tested by some community members, but
NO warranty is provided.
Some support may be found on the forums.

To support future projects:
Financial or Hardware donations encouraged.

Version r1, June 7th, 2014

Proceed to permanently overwrite /dev/sda ( yes / no ) ?
yes
Starting install.sh /dev/sda 4096
Countdown to Erasing /dev/sda
20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0 
16 @ 304
Trying 'gunzip -c end_7814016688.bin.gz | dd bs=4096 seek=976752086 of=/dev/sda'
2560+0 records in
2560+0 records out
10485760 bytes (10 MB) copied, 0.217955 s, 48.1 MB/s
Trying 'gunzip -c mid_3900907584.bin.gz | dd bs=4096 seek=487613448 of=/dev/sda'
1527758+0 records in
1527758+0 records out
6257696768 bytes (6.3 GB) copied, 56.0591 s, 112 MB/s
Trying 'cat    beg_0.bin             | dd bs=4096 seek=0 of=/dev/sda'
8+0 records in
8+0 records out
32768 bytes (33 kB) copied, 0.000374798 s, 87.4 MB/s
No Errors Reported
[email protected]:~$ sudo ./autoinstall.pl
ls: cannot access /dev/hd?: No such file or directory
sda:
[    4.728674] UDF-fs: warning (device sda): udf_fill_super: No partition found (2)
[    6.767950] UDF-fs: warning (device sda): udf_fill_super: No partition found (2)
[   85.511455]  sda: unknown partition table
[  180.535360]  sda: unknown partition table
[  236.597189]  sda: unknown partition table
[  236.688509]  sda: unknown partition table
4096 bytes received - [ Roamio ] -


----------



## telemark

g8m3rtag said:


> I did the update last night, it was really easy, thank you telemark. I do have a few questions though as my output does not display what others have that I have seen.


Is that output text from the first (237) or second (637) attempt?

I don't see anything wrong except maybe that it was run twice (probably ok though). And the drive description is missing for some reason. There are a few harmless reasons that could happen and a few alarming reasons as well. It could just be you used a different distro than others.

If you're concerned, you can test the drive on the PC to give peace of mind. Once you're convinced the drive is fully functional, then do the rewrite process again.

The warnings of unknown partition map are expected. Only custom built kernels can understand Tivo partition maps, and I don't know of anyone who uses one for Roamio.
What do you think looks different?


----------



## telemark

nooneuknow said:


> If you fund the cost of the drives to test it on, there is a chance. See a post a while back from telemark on requests for larger size support, and a more recent post on how much grief he gets from his family for the time and money he spent to get this far.


I'm going to have to close that offer now. I've already sucked it up and sunk $1k+ into 6TB drives.



Dssguy1 said:


> I'm donating because I am excited about a 6TB option! Hopefully others will donate some money to keep you going!
> 
> $25 Donated
> 
> Also, just to clarify, we should be getting the WD Red version 6TB drive?
> 
> If we see a good deal, should we bite or do you think there is a good chance things won't work out?


Thank you, that's kind. One clarification, I'm not sure I should request donations for the 6TB like the 4TB cause that didn't really look like it worked out, and so it's not as likely I would release a 6TB image in the same manner.

And I can't even make any concrete decisions/announcements on that until it's actually working.

So I can't really safely make safe suggestions except that someone else has done it before so it's possible somehow. And once I get it working, the first thing I'm going to do is sell the drives I have stocked up. And if I ever make a public imager, it'll be the last thing I get to because it's extra steps.

On the plus side, what I consider reasonable and what WK considers reasonable are totally different.

On drive types, this is my crib sheet.
Green: cheapest yet works, 2 yr warranty
Red: perhaps better built equals longer life, 3 yr warranty
Purple: you like to follow what WK does, 3 yr warranty
AV-GP: you like to follow what Tivo does. but N/A in 6TB, yet is available in 4TB, 3 yr warranty

PS. and then I read the other posts for more details that I can't remember, as demonstrated below.


----------



## nooneuknow

telemark said:


> On the plus side, what I consider reasonable and what WK considers reasonable are totally different.
> 
> On drive types, this is my crib sheet:
> Green: cheapest yet works
> Red: longer warranty, perhaps better built equals longer life
> Purple: AV sounds cool to you, and you like to follow what WK does.


...and unless/until the day comes that we see a WD "AV", formerly known as "AV-GP" drive (the currently EURX drives), larger than 4TB, they won't be on this list. Just to head to head off inquiries on the missing contender.

Might want to specify the green in the list is the EZRX model, and non-AV/AV-GP.

Might want to note the Red is also an AV drive, while the Purple PURX is a cheaper, lower workload (TB/yr) rated, "new product" built from the foundations of the Red EFRX. But, also has a 3yr warranty, although lacking the designated premium Red EFRX support hotline/portal.

While the Purple PURX is a "24x7" drive, WD has supposedly designed it to spend more time with the heads parked, and platters spinning (Idle Mode 3), than any other AV drive. It's primary target market is motion-activated camera environments, where it can quickly handle bursts of many cameras, without losing a single frame in the process of coming out of Idle Mode 3.

While I know you don't want hard drive debate here, I can't help but to say that I see the Purple as being one of the last drives I'd put in a TiVo (if I had to go cheap, or go home, I might just go plain green "EZRX").


----------



## Dssguy1

telemark said:


> Thank you, that's kind. One clarification, I'm not sure I should request donations for the 6TB like the 4TB cause that didn't really look like it worked out, and so it's not as likely I would release a 6TB image in the same manner.


I understand. So I guess look at it as a down payment on a drive I may buy from you in the future if you get 6TB working.


----------



## Fofer

Woo hoo, exciting posts to read! Thanks so much, telemark! Sending you best wishes and encouragement.


----------



## g8m3rtag

telemark said:


> Is that output text from the first (237) or second (637) attempt?
> 
> I don't see anything wrong except maybe that it was run twice (probably ok though). And the drive description is missing for some reason. There are a few harmless reasons that could happen and a few alarming reasons as well. It could just be you used a different distro than others.
> 
> If you're concerned, you can test the drive on the PC to give peace of mind. Once you're convinced the drive is fully functional, then do the rewrite process again.
> 
> The warnings of unknown partition map are expected. Only custom built kernels can understand Tivo partition maps, and I don't know of anyone who uses one for Roamio.
> What do you think looks different?


That output text is from when I ran it through guided setup had 237 hours plugged it into the computer and booted the live cd and ran the commands. I did run it twice to see if the unknown partition tables went away after the image had done its work to the drive. I used the latest official knoppix live cd.

The difference is from post #19 of this thread



Code:


sda:
[    1.784950] sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] 7814037168 512-byte logical blocks: (4.00 TB/3.63 TiB)
[    1.784955] sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] 4096-byte physical blocks
[    1.785062] sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Write Protect is off
[    1.785067] sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Mode Sense: 00 3a 00 00
[    1.785113] sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Write cache: enabled, read cache: enabled, doesn't support DPO or FUA
[    1.796521]  sda: unknown partition table
[    1.796902] sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Attached SCSI disk
4096 bytes received - [ Roamio ] -

It shows 4.00TB and the blocks and everything whereas mine just says unknown partitions. And I bought 2 Roamio plus' and 2 WD40EFRX drives and the output was the same on both drives so the likelihood of it being a drive specific issue seems low? And I did both drives individually I did not connect them both at the same time.


----------



## telemark

Yes, that's right. Typical Linux systems would display that when the drive gets recognized. It could be something harmless. If you want a explanation, I would need to see the output from these two commands:
dmesg
uname -a
The output will be pretty long so it's better to email it to me at the email / paypal address in the first post.


----------



## gt7610c

Add another data point, I used the WD40EURX on a Ubuntu box I had via SATA. Was crazy fast and easy. 637 HD hrs and transferring over shows from the old box as I type. Cheers telemark! Sending you some cash for your efforts, much appreciated!


----------



## melinda

Hi, I have recently bought a Roamio Plus and I also bought a WD 4TB Green SATA III WD40EZRX hard drive to upgrade, but I am getting an error running autoinstall.

I had installed the drive into my roamio.
However, when I connected the drive to my MacBook pro, I got an error from diskutil and prompted me to initialize the hard drive, cancel or eject and was not able to mount it.

I had made the mistake of erasing the hard drive using diskutil.

I then put the drive back in the tivo and started it up so that it would have the tivo signature on the drive again.

I decided to try to run autoinstall.pl (as sudo), but it failed with the following error message below after prompting me if I want to overwrite /dev/rdisk2

Please advise.



Spoiler



Proceed to permanently overwrite /dev/rdisk2 ( yes / no ) ?
yes
Starting install.sh /dev/rdisk2 4096
Countdown to Erasing /dev/rdisk2
20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0 
16 @ 304
Trying 'gunzip -c end_7814016688.bin.gz | dd bs=4096 seek=976752086 of=/dev/rdisk2'
dd: /dev/rdisk2: short write on character device
dd: /dev/rdisk2: Input/output error
2560+0 records in
2559+1 records out
10483712 bytes transferred in 1.121830 secs (9345188 bytes/sec)
- FAILED -

Not sure if this helps but diskutil list results:
/dev/disk0
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: GUID_partition_scheme *251.0 GB disk0
1: EFI EFI 209.7 MB disk0s1
2: Apple_HFS Macintosh HD 250.1 GB disk0s2
3: Apple_Boot Recovery HD 650.0 MB disk0s3
/dev/disk1
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: Apple_partition_scheme *16.0 MB disk1
1: Apple_partition_map 32.3 KB disk1s1
2: Apple_HFS Flash Player 16.0 MB disk1s2
/dev/disk2
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: *4.0 TB disk2
/dev/disk3
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: Apple_partition_scheme *16.0 MB disk3
1: Apple_partition_map 32.3 KB disk3s1
2: Apple_HFS Flash Player 16.0 MB disk3s2


-Melinda


----------



## telemark

melinda said:


> Hi, I have recently bought a Roamio Plus and I also bought a WD 4TB Green SATA III WD40EZRX hard drive to upgrade, but I am getting an error running autoinstall.
> 
> I had installed the drive into my roamio.
> However, when I connected the drive to my MacBook pro, I got an error from diskutil and prompted me to initialize the hard drive, cancel or eject and was not able to mount it.


Sounds like you did everything right. You left out the detail though of how you connected a drive to a MacBook.

Long story short though, you either have an incompatible USB-Sata adapter or the drive has an HPA set.

Figuring out which is going to depend on the missing details, and some research.


----------



## melinda

Hi telemark,

Thanks for the quick response.
The USB-SATA adapter I am using is:
"Mediasonic ProBox HDL-SU3 3.5" SATA Hard Drive Enclosure"
Perhaps I should have used an adapter instead of an enclosure

I tried to run autoinstall.pl using knoppix livecd on my windows vista laptop, but it still failed. However, got a different error message, saying "No space left on device". Please see error below



Spoiler



Proceed to permanently overwrite /dev/sdb ( yes / no ) ?
yes
Starting install.sh /dev/sdb 4096
Countdown to Erasing /dev/sdb
20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0 
16 @ 304
Trying 'gunzip -c end_7814016688.bin.gz | dd bs=4096 seek=976752086 of=/dev/sdb'
dd: writing `/dev/sdb': No space left on device
2560+0 records in
2559+0 records out
10483712 bytes (10 MB) copied, 0.0435897 s, 241 MB/s
- FAILED - 
[email protected]:~$

not sure why it doesn't think there is any space left.
I ran lsblk and got this:
[email protected]:~$ lsblk
NAME MAJ:MIN RM SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINT
sda 8:0 0 298.1G 0 disk 
├─sda1 8:1 0 94.1M 0 part 
├─sda2 8:2 0 10G 0 part 
├─sda3 8:3 0 285.5G 0 part 
├─sda4 8:4 0 1K 0 part 
└─sda5 8:5 0 2.5G 0 part 
sdb 8:16 0 3.7T 0 disk 
sr0 11:0 1 4G 0 rom /mnt-system
zram0 252:0 0 2.9G 0 disk [SWAP]
cloop0 240:0 0 10.1G 1 disk /KNOPPIX


----------



## telemark

The error on Knoppix and on Mac are the same thing by a different name. 
You need to figure out why the device is short.

On Knoppix try:
dmesg | grep sd
hdparm /dev/sdb
hdparm -N /dev/sdb
lsusb
fdisk -l /dev/sdb

The Sata enclosure looks about right. So it's most likely an HPA. If not that leaves the OS drivers.
Also note whether you're using USB3 or USB2 port on the computer.

Edit: also, when doing the drive validation section, it's suppose to check for this and provide a warning. Since it's still proceeding with the install without warning, I should fix that test if you send me the whole log.


----------



## melinda

Hi Telemark,

I did not try the command you posted yet. I will try them tonight.
Hopefully it will fox the problem.
The MacBook pro I got this year, which I think should have USB3 ports.
The Vista laptop, however has USB2 ports
Could I have messed something up when I initialized/erased the drive on my macbook ?
The drive was not mounted without doing it.

Here is the full output from the MacBook Pro (I modified the links because I'm not able to post links since I only have 2 posts)



Spoiler



rdisk0:
4096 bytes received - rejected -

rdisk1:
4096 bytes received - rejected -

rdisk2:
4096 bytes received - [ Roamio ] -

rdisk3:
4096 bytes received - rejected -

Target Drive /dev/rdisk2 found

Testing /dev/rdisk2
Reading mid sector 488377323
dd if=/dev/rdisk2 bs=4096 count=1 skip=488377323 of=/dev/null 
1+0 records in
1+0 records out
4096 bytes transferred in 0.000214 secs (19152585 bytes/sec)
- PASSED - 
Backing up mid sector 488377323
dd if=/dev/rdisk2 bs=4096 count=1 skip=488377323 of=/tmp/dd-test.bin 
1+0 records in
1+0 records out
4096 bytes transferred in 0.000228 secs (17970574 bytes/sec)
- PASSED - 
Writing mid sector 488377323
dd of=/dev/rdisk2 bs=4096 count=1 seek=488377323 if=/tmp/dd-test.bin 
1+0 records in
1+0 records out
4096 bytes transferred in 0.770437 secs (5316 bytes/sec)
- PASSED - 
Reading last sector 976754645
dd if=/dev/rdisk2 bs=4096 count=1 skip=976754645 of=/dev/null 
0+1 records in
0+1 records out
2048 bytes transferred in 0.000207 secs (9896238 bytes/sec)
- PASSED - 
Backing up last sector 976754645
dd if=/dev/rdisk2 bs=4096 count=1 skip=976754645 of=/tmp/dd-test.bin 
0+1 records in
0+1 records out
2048 bytes transferred in 0.000900 secs (2275479 bytes/sec)
- PASSED - 
Writing last sector 976754645
dd of=/dev/rdisk2 bs=4096 count=1 seek=976754645 if=/tmp/dd-test.bin 
0+1 records in
0+1 records out
2048 bytes transferred in 0.000258 secs (7938941 bytes/sec)
- PASSED -

Downloading image
mkdir: /tmp/roamio-img: File exists
--2014-12-09 01:08:02-- tiny.cc/y8r5gx
Resolving tiny.cc... 192.241.240.89
Connecting to tiny.cc|192.241.240.89|:80... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 301 Moved Permanently
Location: dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/51278/Tivo/4TB/4TBr1.tgz
[following]
--2014-12-09 01:08:02-- dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/51278/Tivo/4TB/4TBr1.tgz
Resolving dl.dropboxusercontent.com... 54.204.8.181, 54.204.12.82, 50.16.205.195, ...
Connecting to dl.dropboxusercontent.com|54.204.8.181|:80... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 302 FOUND
Cookie coming from dl.dropboxusercontent.com attempted to set domain to dropbox.com
Cookie coming from dl.dropboxusercontent.com attempted to set domain to dropbox.com
Location: dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/51278/Tivo/4TB/4TBr1.tgz
[following]
--2014-12-09 01:08:02-- dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/51278/Tivo/4TB/4TBr1.tgz
Connecting to dl.dropboxusercontent.com|54.204.8.181|:443... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK
Length: 41443 (40K) [application/x-gtar]
Saving to: '4TBr1.tgz'

100%[============================================================================>] 41,443 --.-K/s in 0.02s

2014-12-09 01:08:03 (1.68 MB/s) - '4TBr1.tgz' saved [41443/41443]

--2014-12-09 01:08:03-- tiny.cc/y8r5gxH
Resolving tiny.cc... 192.241.240.89
Connecting to tiny.cc|192.241.240.89|:80... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 301 Moved Permanently
Location: dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/51278/Tivo/4TB/HASHES.txt
[following]
--2014-12-09 01:08:03-- dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/51278/Tivo/4TB/HASHES.txt
Resolving dl.dropboxusercontent.com... 50.16.207.102, 54.204.12.82, 50.16.205.195, ...
Connecting to dl.dropboxusercontent.com|50.16.207.102|:80... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 302 FOUND
Cookie coming from dl.dropboxusercontent.com attempted to set domain to dropbox.com
Cookie coming from dl.dropboxusercontent.com attempted to set domain to dropbox.com
Location: dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/51278/Tivo/4TB/HASHES.txt
[following]
--2014-12-09 01:08:03-- dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/51278/Tivo/4TB/HASHES.txt
Connecting to dl.dropboxusercontent.com|50.16.207.102|:443... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK
Length: 135 [text/plain]
Saving to: 'HASHES.txt'

100%[============================================================================>] 135 --.-K/s in 0s

2014-12-09 01:08:03 (10.7 MB/s) - 'HASHES.txt' saved [135/135]

Locating verifier
/sbin/md5
Checking hash
3b0b8870d20d329a190423fd152da20d ? MD5 (/tmp/roamio-img/4TBr1.tgz) = 3b0b8870d20d329a190423fd152da20d
- PASSED -

Extracting
x 4TBr1/
x 4TBr1/README.txt
x 4TBr1/mid_3900907584.bin.gz
x 4TBr1/bin/
x 4TBr1/beg_0.bin.gz
x 4TBr1/install.sh
x 4TBr1/INSTALL.txt
x 4TBr1/end_7814016688.bin.gz
x 4TBr1/bin/bpatch
x 4TBr1/bin/random16r1
- PASSED -

Viewing License Terms:
Image and Installer, Copyright 2014, telemark of tivocommunity.com
License granted for personal use within a single household.
Commercial use or redistribution prohibited, without prior permission and license.

Image has been tested by some community members, but
NO warranty is provided.
Some support may be found on the forums.

To support future projects:
Financial or Hardware donations encouraged.

Version r1, June 7th, 2014

Proceed to permanently overwrite /dev/rdisk2 ( yes / no ) ?
yes
Starting install.sh /dev/rdisk2 4096
Countdown to Erasing /dev/rdisk2
20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0 
16 @ 304
Trying 'gunzip -c end_7814016688.bin.gz | dd bs=4096 seek=976752086 of=/dev/rdisk2'
dd: /dev/rdisk2: short write on character device
dd: /dev/rdisk2: Input/output error
2560+0 records in
2559+1 records out
10483712 bytes transferred in 1.131481 secs (9265478 bytes/sec)
- FAILED -


----------



## telemark

Ya, I need the output of those commands. So let's wait for that.

Formatting a drive is harmless though, you just have to start over again. I'll fix the directions on this point.

For large blocks of text, either email them to me, or use HIDE button: 


Spoiler



nothing to see here, move along


----------



## melinda

Sounds good. 
Will send you the output from the commands you posted last night.
I only have 4 posts at the moment, so I can't send email to you from the forum. I will hide if output is too large


----------



## Fofer

telemark said:


> I'm not sure I should recommend anything cause I was buying the cheapest I could find and hoping for the best. Nonetheless they worked for writing up to 4TB. So if that describes what you're looking for:
> 
> USB2 $4+$tax ( + $4 shipping )
> http://www.frys.com/product/7526606
> 
> USB3 $13+$tax ( + $4 shipping )
> http://www.frys.com/product/7996830


Thanks for this, I just ordered the USB3 one in preparation for my own upgrade, I found it a little cheaper on Amazon (free shipping with Prime.)

http://www.amazon.com/Hornettek-Tra...HornetTek+Transporter+Pro+USB+3.0+HDD+Adapter


----------



## Fofer

ggieseke said:


> Dinking around with wdidle3 to disable Intellipark on the Greens is probably the biggest factor, and if you don't mind doing that it will probably work fine.


Thanks for that. I'm ordering my upgrade ingredients now and plan to do the procedure on my Mac. For anyone else following along, I found instructions on how to run wdidle3 from a Mac, here:

http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/tips/Disable_WDGreen_HeadParking.htm


----------



## nooneuknow

WD Red drives have their own tool to adjust Idle Mode 3 timeout.

Just as the wdidle3.exe tool is meant only for use on a short list of hard drives, none of which anybody would use in a TiVo (if they hope to succeed), the WD Red has it's own tool for this, and two versions exist at the moment. One is for 3.5" drives, and the other is for 2.5" drives. The proper tool can be found on WD's website product page for the drive you purchase.

Roamios have yet to have any issue, whatsoever, with the Idle Mode 3 settings, that plagued older TiVos. This matter should be a moot point for the purposes of this thread, since it's all Roamio related.

My usual through writeup:


Spoiler



While I have yet to see a single report of wdidle3.exe bricking a drive, WD didn't leave the users of "plain green" and/or early AV-GP drives much choice, but to use the tool on them. They later started shipping the AV-GP drives set to fully disabled, while some early models, if set to disabled by wdidle3, would rack up an insane number of park counts (believed to be false counts), which can trigger a SMART failure notice/warning, if connected to certain host controllers, and/or tested with certain software. The remedy for this was to not disable the feature, but set it to 300 seconds, far longer than any TiVo would ever leave the drive idle.

If you buy a WD drive, of any type, I recommend checking the product page for that model on WD's website, for any associated tools intended for use on the drive you purchased. If it has a tool for changing the frequency of head parking, I suggest you stick to that tool, if you really feel you must mess with the factory setting.

A few fun facts:

1. Roamios have yet to have any issue, whatsoever, with the Idle Mode 3 settings, that plagued older TiVos. This matter should be a moot point for the purposes of this thread, since it's all Roamio related.

2. WD shipped some early models of the Red drives set to a minimal timeout period, worrying some who were seeing their RAID/NAS boxes rack up frequent head parkings. The worry is that at some point the drive will exceed the rated number, far too soon, and the excess parking can (in fact) cause early drive failure.

3. Rather than simply add the Red to the list of drives to use wdidle3.exe with and/or place a link to it, they made a new tool. When used, it sets the Reds to a 300 second timeout. Disabling parking is not an option with the new tool.

4. I am of the opinion, that if WD felt there were no issues with using the same tool and/or fully disabling parking, they would not have crafted a new tool, when wdidle3.exe seems to "work", for those who have tested it, like I have, with Red drives.

5. WD revisited their decision to use the frequent parking on Red drives, as the factory default, changing it to 300 seconds, not long after they announced Red drives getting NASware 3, and also started shipping the NW 2 drives with the 300 second setting.

6. The tool for Red drives will detect if the drive was shipped with the 300 second setting, and state "no update required", if that is the case.

7. I have been using the 300 second setting, no matter what the drive, the factory default, the tool used, or what I'm going to use the drive for. This has never once been an issue for me, and if a drive should wind up sitting idle for 300 seconds (5 minutes), I'd want it to enter Idle Mode 3 (platters spinning with heads parked off platters, and on the ramps).

8. Use of any WD tool on any WD drive not meant to have the tool used on it, can void the WD warranty (by the letter of the law/WD warranty T&C).

9. WD Purple drives have no WD-approved tool to adjust the same setting (But, I hear wdidle3.exe "works").


----------



## melinda

Hi telemark,

I have run the commands you posted this morning.

Here are the results:



Spoiler



dmesg | grep sd:
[email protected]:~$ dmesg | grep sd
[ 0.859939] sdhci: Secure Digital Host Controller Interface driver
[ 0.859941] sdhci: Copyright(c) Pierre Ossman
[ 0.859967] sdhci-pci 0000:03:09.1: SDHCI controller found [1180:0822] (rev 22)
[ 0.862286] wbsd: Winbond W83L51xD SD/MMC card interface driver
[ 0.862288] wbsd: Copyright(c) Pierre Ossman
[ 0.862501] sdhci-pltfm: SDHCI platform and OF driver helper
[ 1.210640] sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] 625142448 512-byte logical blocks: (320 GB/298 GiB)
[ 1.210700] sd 0:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg0 type 0
[ 1.211176] sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Write Protect is off
[ 1.211187] sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Mode Sense: 00 3a 00 00
[ 1.211325] sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Write cache: enabled, read cache: enabled, doesn't support DPO or FUA
[ 1.252905] sda: sda1 sda2 sda3 sda4 < sda5 >
[ 1.253621] sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Attached SCSI disk
[ 402.275324] sd 5:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg2 type 0
[ 402.275835] sd 5:0:0:0: [sdb] 7814037164 512-byte logical blocks: (4.00 TB/3.63 TiB)
[ 402.277595] sd 5:0:0:0: [sdb] Write Protect is off
[ 402.277599] sd 5:0:0:0: [sdb] Mode Sense: 31 00 00 00
[ 402.278083] sd 5:0:0:0: [sdb] Write cache: enabled, read cache: enabled, doesn't support DPO or FUA
[ 402.298638] sdb: unknown partition table
[ 402.302083] sd 5:0:0:0: [sdb] Attached SCSI disk

-------------------

[email protected]:~$ hdparm /dev/sdb
/dev/sdb:
HDIO_DRIVE_CMD(identify) failed: Bad address
readonly = 0 (off)
readahead = 256 (on)
geometry = 486401/255/63, sectors = 7814037164, start = 0

----------------------

[email protected]:~$ hdparm -N /dev/sdb
/dev/sdb:
HDIO_DRIVE_CMD(identify) failed: Bad address

-------------------------

[email protected]:~$ lsusb
Bus 002 Device 002: ID 2109:0711 
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 007 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 006 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 005 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 001 Device 002: ID 05a9:2640 OmniVision Technologies, Inc. OV2640 Webcam
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 004 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 003 Device 002: ID 0483:2016 SGS Thomson Microelectronics Fingerprint Reader
Bus 003 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub

-----------

[email protected]:~$ fdisk -l /dev/sdb
Disk /dev/sdb: 4000.8 GB, 4000787027968 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 486401 cylinders, total 7814037164 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 4096 bytes / 33553920 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00000000

Disk /dev/sdb doesn't contain a valid partition table


----------



## telemark

@nooneuknow:
Would a Roamio tuned to all non-channels eventually spin down?

@melinda:
Ya, that drive is reporting a size smaller than the image size being written.

Was it new when you got it? Do you have access to a computer with onboard Sata?

Either the enclosure is doing something not right, or the drive size needs a reset. 
In either case you'll have an easier time using a native Sata interface.


----------



## melinda

Hi Telemark,

It looks like the problem was the enclosure all along.
After sending you the results from the commands you posted this morning, 
I connected the same 4TB WD drive to a USB/SATA adapter I borrowed from a friend.
I successfully was able to upgrade the 4tb drive. 

Thanks so much for all your help.


----------



## nooneuknow

telemark said:


> @nooneuknow:
> Would a Roamio tuned to all non-channels eventually spin down?


I tested that exact scenario. Even a 2-tuner TiVo HD with the tuners "parked" on invalid channels would never park the drive, except if anything caused a "warm reboot", intentional, or not. The time that the older units spent reading the PROM, and letting the drive spin w/out activity, was where it would get parked, and there wasn't any ability in the PROM to unpark the drive. Cold boots worked, because the idle timer didn't start until the drive had spun up and reached ready status, which narrowed the window between the HDD being IO Ready and the handoff from the PROM to the HDD.

TiVos do check the drive firmware for the IM3 setting and attempt to change it at every boot. I got this information directly from a TiVo engineer, back in the TiVo HD days, when those with upgraded drives were wanted for inclusion in (things I have an open-ended NDA on).

So, there should be no way for a HDD to park, unless it is sent commands that would cause it to lose the volatile change to the setting (doesn't survive reboots, even if without power loss).

If you have a way to sniff the communications between the drive and TiVo, you should find this TiVo to HDD firmware dance happens on Premieres, once past the PROM to HDD handoff. Last time I looked at a Premiere's logs, the operation of this was logged, but not what firmware register it was checking, and changing, when applicable.

I can't say with 100% certainty that TiVo didn't strip that part out of the Roamio boot sequence, but can say I tried tuner parking my Roamios, with the drives set to the shortest allowable timeout, and have never seen any indication the drives parked. I went as far as checking RAW smart values (Yeah, I've been that OCD about TiVos and HDDs, that much, for that long).

It could be theoretically possible for a fault-condition to cause the drive to park the heads, in which case the TiVo should wind up either locked-up, or rebooting itself.

The only exceptions to all this are the SMART Extended Test and Offline Data Collection option within KS54. There, the TiVo waits 5 minutes to poll the drive's status, and can still end up running those two tests for days, without ever saying it fails to complete (gives the impression it is still running the tests).


----------



## nooneuknow

melinda said:


> Hi Telemark,
> 
> It looks like the problem was the enclosure all along.
> After sending you the results from the commands you posted this morning,
> I connected the same 4TB WD drive to a USB/SATA adapter I borrowed from a friend.
> I successfully was able to upgrade the 4tb drive.
> 
> Thanks so much for all your help.


I have some enclosures that encrypt any drives I put in them (without stating they do so). They definitely would not work for such use, which is sad, since they are USB3. Of course, they were not meant to ever have the drives that came in them ever taken-out, even though it was very easy to do so.

It sounds like your enclosures have a USB<->SATA bridge chip that does encryption, or otherwise marries the drive to it, rendering it unusable, without wiping at least some small part the bridge writes, or something to that effect.

I have some other USB2 enclosures (low-end WD Essentials line), very hard to open, made by WD, also not intended for swapping. But, they don't encrypt, and allow me to do things like what you were trying to do.

Because self-encrypting capable enclosures are a selling-point to many, and not all are clear about if they do/don't, I tend to use USB drive "docks" for any TiVo drive work, not done via direct SATA (the kind with the drives sticking up, exposed, with eject buttons).

Happy to hear you achieved success!


----------



## telemark

I think I'll start an offer to lend out a tested / working USB-Sata adapter.
$10 would cover round trip shipping.
I just see this coming up a lot for others who are not as CLI savvy, and starting them off right will save everyone time.

I'll agree with nooneuknow. Enclosures are more likely (than adapters and docks) to do funny unexpected things due to assuming the drive is never leaving.

@melinda: could you compact the prior debugging output now that we know what it is. And optionally add the model of the adapter that works. Not everyone is as smart & resourceful as you so Congratulations..

@Fofer: I wouldn't expect wdidle kind of utilities to work over USB, but I'd love to be wrong on that.


----------



## nooneuknow

telemark said:


> I think I'll start an offer to lend out a tested / working USB-Sata adapter.
> $10 would cover round trip shipping.
> I just see this coming up a lot for others who are not as CLI savvy, and starting them off right will save everyone time.
> 
> I'll have to agree with nooneuknow. Enclosures are more likely (than adapters and docks) to do funny unexpected things due to assuming the drive is never leaving.
> 
> @melinda: could you compact the prior debugging output now that we know what it is. And optionally add the model of the adapter that works. Not everyone is as smart & resourceful as you so Congratulations..
> 
> @Fofer: I wouldn't expect wdidle kind of utilities to work over USB, but I'd love to be wrong on that.


Don't sound so happy about agreeing with me. 

On wdidle3.exe over USB<->SATA bridges, it has never worked through anything other than a direct drive<->controller connection. That's the part that made having to use wdidle3.exe the point many gave up on DIY, before the Roamio came along, and didn't require anybody to have to do that step. Before, it was that, or buy an AV-GP, where you'd know parking was factory disabled.

The newer tool for the Reds can run within Windows, Linux, and via boot CD, but I can't recall if it works across USB-SATA bridges, or will work with drives that are not Reds.

I still have my suspicions that the newer Red tool can do more than it's stated purpose, if fed the right syntax (or with some code tweaking). But, that's your dept, rather than mine. Drop me an email, if you don't still have the links for the different versions.


----------



## ggieseke

nooneuknow said:


> The newer tool for the Reds can run within Windows, Linux, and via boot CD, but I can't recall if it works across USB-SATA bridges, or will work with drives that are not Reds.


I have never gotten wd5741 to work in a dock (USB or eSATA).


----------



## emerz

I have had no problems running wd5741 against three different Red drives using a USB adapter (Vantec Nexstar adapter).


----------



## telemark

emerz said:


> I have had no problems running wd5741 against three different Red drives using a USB adapter (Vantec Nexstar adapter).


I found like 8 adapters from Vantec. And more docks than I want to count. More details?



noonueknow said:


> Don't sound so happy about agreeing with me.


Sorry, just an expression. Caught it before you posted but after you noticed.


----------



## aaronwt

telemark said:


> I think I'll start an offer to lend out a tested / working USB-Sata adapter.
> $10 would cover round trip shipping.
> I just see this coming up a lot for others who are not as CLI savvy, and starting them off right will save everyone time.
> 
> I'll agree with nooneuknow. Enclosures are more likely (than adapters and docks) to do funny unexpected things due to assuming the drive is never leaving.
> 
> @melinda: could you compact the prior debugging output now that we know what it is. And optionally add the model of the adapter that works. Not everyone is as smart & resourceful as you so Congratulations..
> 
> @Fofer: I wouldn't expect wdidle kind of utilities to work over USB, but I'd love to be wrong on that.


Why not just have a link to where it can be purchased?


----------



## Fofer

telemark already did that, earlier in the thread. Links to a USB 2 version as well as USB 3 version, to purchase from Fry's. I linked to the same models being sold by Amazon.com, just above.

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?p=10336986#post10336986


----------



## Fofer

telemark said:


> @Fofer: I wouldn't expect wdidle kind of utilities to work over USB, but I'd love to be wrong on that.


Good to know, thanks for mentioning that. I'm also doing the upgrade on my Mac (thanks to your efforts) and I wonder how that would affect things. I have no internal optical drive and would be booting from an external CD (or using Parallels VM.)

Anyway, the confirmed-to-be-working USB-Sata adapter and drive are on the way. To keep things simple I ended up just going with the 4TB WD40EURX, so I don't need to fiddle with wdidle (heh) to turn off the idle timeout.

An an aside, AmEx has a deal now through 12/31 that gives me $25 back on a $200 purchase at NewEgg, so I added a Playstation Plus renewal to my order in order to meet the requirement.

Looking forward to putting it all together. Much thanks, again.


----------



## telemark

Fofer said:


> Good to know, thanks for mentioning that. I'm also doing the upgrade on my Mac (thanks to your efforts) and I wonder how that would affect things. I have no internal optical drive and would be booting from an external CD (or using Parallels VM.)


No Linux boot for Mac. Just boot Mac OS, which is close enough to Unix underneath. 
Then load a terminal and go. So no CD's nor Parallels either.


----------



## emerz

telemark said:


> I found like 8 adapters from Vantec. And more docks than I want to count. More details?


VANTEC CB-SATAU3-6 NexStar SATA 6Gbps to USB 3.0 Adapter - 2.5"/3.5"/5.25"/SSDs

I got mine on sale at Newegg a couple of years ago for ~$20.

ETA:

At Newegg: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16812232033

At Vantec: http://www.vantecusa.com/en/product/view_detail/471

While the description says "Works with up to 3TB drives" It is working without issue with 4TB for me (4TB WD Reds, 4TB WD AV). I suspect that Vantec spec'd it at 3TB because that was the largest drive size available when first it released for sale.

I guess I was a bit naive about this. The Vantec has always worked for me and I just assumed other manufacturer's adapters worked as well. I did not realize others were having issues.

For those who care: My personal PC is nothing special, i7 2.6 quad core in an Asus P6T board, Win 7 x64, 12GB, USB2. Also tested with Knoppix for 4TB Roamio upgrade using telemark's script.


----------



## nooneuknow

emerz said:


> VANTEC CB-SATAU3-6 NexStar SATA 6Gbps to USB 3.0 Adapter - 2.5"/3.5"/5.25"/SSDs. I got mine on sale at Newegg a couple of years ago for ~$20.


Link to the actual product on Newegg's website, please? It can be found in your newegg order history. I feel it is best to provide links, if we are going to recommend something, in order to help eliminate human error. Even just a link to the mfg website for it would help. But, ideally, both would be best. I could have posted the links I found, based on your post. But, it really should come from the person who tested it.

All the details matter, such as OS you used, and maybe just a little bit about the type of PC you used it on, and if you were using a 64-bit or 32-bit OS. Don't be shy about the exact drives you used it on, either.

A new thread on the matter is likely to come soon. The parameters/details those discussing the subject split would like to see, are being discussed, in a private group email amongst a few of those passionate about these things.


----------



## Fofer

telemark said:


> No Linux boot for Mac. Just boot Mac OS, which is close enough to Unix underneath.
> Then load a terminal and go. So no CD's nor Parallels either.


Thanks for that, but just to clarify I was talking about if I had to use WDidle3 on my Mac to disable head parking for the drive I bought, and the instructions I found were talking about burning an ISO disk to boot from.

But the recommended drive I ended up choosing doesn't need that so the point is moot. Counting down the days till all the ingredients arrive, and then I will upgrade and set up my new Roamio. Woo hoo!


----------



## telemark

Fofer said:


> Thanks for that, but just to clarify I was talking about if I had to use WDidle3 on my Mac to disable head parking for the drive I bought, and the instructions I found were talking about burning an ISO disk to boot from.


USB on Dos is beyond my expertise. But in theory, once you boot DOS on a mac, it's just like a PC.

On Virtualization, most allow taking over a USB device so again, what works on a PC would work on virtualization.


----------



## jmbach

USB on DOS requires special drivers to load on boot.


----------



## melinda

telemark said:


> @melinda: could you compact the prior debugging output now that we know what it is. And optionally add the model of the adapter that works. Not everyone is as smart & resourceful as you so Congratulations..


@telemark:
I have hidden the large debugging info in my previous posts.
(I'm guessing that is what you mean by compacting the debugging output).
I no longer have the usb/sata adapter, but I can find out the model from my friend and post it here.


----------



## imsai

I tried to install the TCF 4tb image on a HGST Coolspin D5KSAF400 with a Knoppix 7 LiveCD, with no luck.
Any ideas?
I'm fairly new to the forum, but already have 2 S3 OLEDs with 1.7TB onboard each, use pyTivo and readynas archiving, and am working with the new version of kmttg. Hoping for some inspiration.
Drive specs:
Size 4TB
7,814,037,168 sectors
16383/16/63 CHS

Here's what my terminal session said:
<snip>
2014-12-16 20:25:27 (148 MB/s) - `autoinstall.pl' saved [4322/4322]

[email protected]:~$ sudo chmod +x autoinstall.pl
[email protected]:~$ sudo ./autoinstall.pl
ls: cannot access /dev/hd?: No such file or directory
sda:
4096 bytes received - rejected -

sdb:
[ 3.191066] sd 6:0:0:0: [sdb] Attached SCSI removable disk
0 bytes received - rejected -

sdc:
[ 3.193443] sd 6:0:0:1: [sdc] Attached SCSI removable disk
0 bytes received - rejected -

sdd:
[ 3.195318] sd 6:0:0:2: [sdd] Attached SCSI removable disk
0 bytes received - rejected -

sde:
[ 3.196568] sd 6:0:0:3: [sde] Attached SCSI removable disk
0 bytes received - rejected -

sdf:
0 bytes received - rejected -

sdg:
0 bytes received - rejected -

sdh:
[ 1.774265] sdhci: Secure Digital Host Controller Interface driver
[ 1.774266] sdhci: Copyright(c) Pierre Ossman
0 bytes received - rejected -

ERROR: No Target Drive Found.
[email protected]:~$


----------



## telemark

Either the Tivo signature is missing (data on drive)
or the drive itself is missing (not connected, incompatible SATA hardware).

Did you prep the drive by booting it in the Roamio?
If not, do that.

If so, then post the output of:
dmesg | grep sd


----------



## Fofer

Hi, I think I may have a similar issue, hoping you can help me with this upgrade.

I have a MacBook Air (13 inch, mid-2013.) I purchased the USB 3.0 HornetTek Transporter (SATA HDD to USB External Adapter) that telemark confirmed works earlier in this thread, as well as the WD40EURX 4TB drive. The plan was to install the upgraded drive into my brand new (not yet booted) TiVo Roamio Plus. So I first opened up the Roamio Plus and removed the stock drive, and put it on the shelf.

Then, I tried to prep the new WD40EURX drive by booting it in the Roamio. After a minute or so it takes me to a page saying there is a "serious problem with the drive," and that I should press the "Select" button on the remote so the Roamio can format/fix it. (That was to be expected, of course.) I go through with that step, but after a reboot (or some screen flashes) it brings me back to the same page. Is that all I'm supposed to do? Let it try to boot and fail? At this point, I powered off the TiVo by removing the power plug, and removed the WD40EURX drive.

After that, I plugged the drive + adapter into my Mac (and when asked to initialize the volume, I clicked "cancel.") I opened Terminal.app and pasted the command to download autoinstall.pl. After an error displayed, I realized I didn't have wget installed (I guess it's not installed by default in Yosemite) so I followed the instructions found here. Then I ran the wget command, and this time it downloaded autoinstall.pl. I ran the second command to enable execution on that file.

Then I pasted the ./autoinstall.pl command into Terminal, and this time I get this error:



> rdisk0:
> Unable to obtain kernel buffer: Operation not permitted
> usage: sudo dmesg
> 0 bytes received - rejected -
> 
> rdisk1:
> Unable to obtain kernel buffer: Operation not permitted
> usage: sudo dmesg
> 0 bytes received - rejected -
> 
> rdisk2:
> Unable to obtain kernel buffer: Operation not permitted
> usage: sudo dmesg
> 0 bytes received - rejected -
> 
> ERROR: No Target Drive Found.


At that's where I am stuck. I did later confirm the Roamio w/stock drive does boot fine. When it got the the point of getting Guided Setup started, I powered down and removed the stock drive again.

So what's my next step? If the WD40EURX upgrade drive is missing the required prep "signature," and therefore autoinstall.pl isn't recognizing the drive, what else do I need to do besides trying to boot it in the Roamio? How far into booting is that step supposed to actually go? I see the mention in the OP about "manually adding [a signature] with a hex editor [0x1492]" instead, but I'm not sure how to do that, either.

When I paste "dmesg | grep sd" into Terminal.app, I get this:



> Unable to obtain kernel buffer: Operation not permitted
> usage: sudo dmesg


And when I paste "sudo dmesg | grep sd " I get this:



Spoiler



Sandbox: appleeventsd(27) deny file-read-metadata /Library
Sandbox: appleeventsd(27) deny file-read-metadata /Library/Keychains/System.keychain
Sandbox: appleeventsd(27) deny file-read-metadata /Library
Sandbox: appleeventsd(27) deny file-read-metadata /Library
Sandbox: appleeventsd(27) deny file-read-metadata /Library
Sandbox: appleeventsd(27) deny file-read-metadata /Library
Sandbox: appleeventsd(27) deny file-read-metadata /Library
Sandbox: appleeventsd(27) deny file-read-metadata /Library
Sandbox: appleeventsd(27) deny file-read-metadata /Library
Sandbox: appleeventsd(27) deny file-read-metadata /Library
Sandbox: appleeventsd(27) deny file-read-metadata /Library
Sandbox: appleeventsd(27) deny file-read-metadata /Library
Sandbox: appleeventsd(27) deny file-read-metadata /Library
Sandbox: appleeventsd(27) deny file-read-metadata /Library
Sandbox: appleeventsd(27) deny file-read-metadata /Library
Sandbox: appleeventsd(27) deny file-read-metadata /Library
Sandbox: appleeventsd(27) deny file-read-metadata /Library
Sandbox: appleeventsd(27) deny file-read-metadata /Library
Sandbox: appleeventsd(27) deny file-read-metadata /Library
Sandbox: appleeventsd(27) deny file-read-metadata /Library
Sandbox: appleeventsd(27) deny file-read-metadata /Library
Sandbox: appleeventsd(27) deny file-read-metadata /Library
Sandbox: appleeventsd(27) deny file-read-metadata /Library
Sandbox: appleeventsd(27) deny file-read-metadata /Library
Sandbox: appleeventsd(27) deny file-read-metadata /Library
Sandbox: appleeventsd(27) deny file-read-metadata /Library
Sandbox: appleeventsd(27) deny file-read-metadata /Library
Sandbox: appleeventsd(27) deny file-read-metadata /Library
Sandbox: appleeventsd(27) deny file-read-metadata /Library
Sandbox: appleeventsd(27) deny mach-lookup com.apple.ocspd
Sandbox: appleeventsd(27) deny file-read-metadata /Library/Security/Trust Settings/Admin.plist
Sandbox: appleeventsd(27) deny mach-lookup com.apple.ocspd
Sandbox: appleeventsd(27) deny mach-lookup com.apple.ocspd
Sandbox: appleeventsd(27) deny mach-lookup com.apple.ocspd
Sandbox: appleeventsd(27) deny mach-lookup com.apple.ocspd
Sandbox: appleeventsd(27) deny mach-lookup com.apple.ocspd
Sandbox: appleeventsd(27) deny mach-lookup com.apple.ocspd
fsevents: watcher dbfseventsd (pid: 450) - Using /dev/fsevents directly is unsupported. Migrate to FSEventsFramework
Sandbox: appleeventsd(27) deny file-read-metadata /Library
Sandbox: appleeventsd(27) deny file-read-metadata /Library
Sandbox: appleeventsd(27) deny file-read-metadata /Library
Sandbox: appleeventsd(27) deny file-read-metadata /Library
Sandbox: appleeventsd(27) deny file-read-metadata /Library
Sandbox: appleeventsd(27) deny file-read-metadata /Library
Sandbox: appleeventsd(27) deny file-read-metadata /Library
Sandbox: appleeventsd(27) deny file-read-metadata /Library
Sandbox: appleeventsd(27) deny file-read-metadata /Library
Sandbox: appleeventsd(27) deny file-read-metadata /Library
Sandbox: appleeventsd(27) deny file-read-metadata /Library
Sandbox: appleeventsd(27) deny file-read-metadata /Library
Sandbox: appleeventsd(27) deny file-read-metadata /Library
Sandbox: appleeventsd(27) deny file-read-metadata /Library
Sandbox: appleeventsd(27) deny file-read-metadata /Library
Sandbox: appleeventsd(27) deny file-read-metadata /Library
Sandbox: appleeventsd(27) deny file-read-metadata /Library
Sandbox: appleeventsd(27) deny file-read-metadata /Library
Sandbox: appleeventsd(27) deny file-read-metadata /Library
Sandbox: appleeventsd(27) deny file-read-metadata /Library
Sandbox: appleeventsd(27) deny file-read-metadata /Library
Sandbox: appleeventsd(27) deny mach-lookup com.apple.ocspd
Sandbox: appleeventsd(27) deny mach-lookup com.apple.ocspd
Sandbox: appleeventsd(27) deny mach-lookup com.apple.ocspd
Sandbox: appleeventsd(27) deny mach-lookup com.apple.ocspd
Sandbox: appleeventsd(27) deny mach-lookup com.apple.ocspd
Sandbox: appleeventsd(27) deny mach-lookup com.apple.ocspd
Sandbox: appleeventsd(27) deny mach-lookup com.apple.ocspd
PM response took 104 ms (273, callservicesd)
PM response took 264 ms (273, callservicesd)



Any help appreciated. I feel like I am very close but just missing one crucial step. Do I need to install the full Xcode or something?


----------



## telemark

You've done everything right.

It sounds like some new version of OS X changed permissions.

Could you check:
ls -l /dev/rdisk*
ls -l /dev/disk*


----------



## Fofer

Thanks for the speedy reply, telemark.

With the drive and USB adapter plugged in (but the volume not initialized nor mounted by OS X 10.10.1)

*ls -l /dev/rdisk** gives me:



> crw-r----- 1 root operator 1, 0 Dec 22 16:11 /dev/rdisk0
> crw-r----- 1 root operator 1, 1 Dec 22 16:11 /dev/rdisk0s1
> crw-r----- 1 root operator 1, 3 Dec 22 16:11 /dev/rdisk0s2
> crw-r----- 1 root operator 1, 2 Dec 22 16:11 /dev/rdisk0s3
> crw-r----- 1 root operator 1, 4 Dec 22 16:11 /dev/rdisk1
> crw-r----- 1 root operator 1, 5 Dec 22 19:59 /dev/rdisk2


and *ls -l /dev/disk** gives me:



> brw-r----- 1 root operator 1, 0 Dec 22 16:11 /dev/disk0
> brw-r----- 1 root operator 1, 1 Dec 22 16:11 /dev/disk0s1
> brw-r----- 1 root operator 1, 3 Dec 22 16:11 /dev/disk0s2
> brw-r----- 1 root operator 1, 2 Dec 22 16:11 /dev/disk0s3
> brw-r----- 1 root operator 1, 4 Dec 22 16:11 /dev/disk1
> brw-r----- 1 root operator 1, 5 Dec 22 19:59 /dev/disk2


Any clues?


----------



## telemark

Ya, looks like they changed permissions since my version of Mac.
Give me a few hours to do a rewrite.

*Update*:
There's a new autoinstaller.pl posted, and the directions have been slightly modified to match.

Building wget like Fofer did is probably optional if your Mac has curl installed, which comes with some macs.

*Fofer*: Delete the old autoinstall.pl you might have used before, and start from the PC section again. (Don't need to do the Tivo section again).


----------



## Fofer

Thanks so much telemark! It's preparing the drive now. I'll report back a little later with my success story. And a donation for your excellent work is also on the way. I have a lot of appreciation for what you've provided here. Happy holidays!


----------



## Fofer

UPDATE: Success. 

My Roamio Plus now sports up to 637 hours of HD recording space (or 4382 SD hours.) That should be just fine for a very long while :up:

The Roamio is working really well, and the overall responsiveness is noticeably faster than my 2-tuner Premiere it's replacing. I'm also really digging the new Amazon Instant Video (Prime) and VUDU channels (I have a pretty big movie library there.) It's nice to finally have all of this functionality on one box, one TV input. Some channels are giving me a CableCard error screen, so I suspect I'll have to call Time Warner and fight the good fight, getting them to properly pair my M-Card to this new box.

Anyway, this is a great tool and the instructions are pretty straightforward. I'm very happy with the result and glad I was able to follow along with the development. The only sentence I would suggest adding to the instructions, would be on step #5, and that is, to make mention of the "confirmation" required to move ahead. After I started the process I stepped away from the work desk, because the instructions said it would take less than ~20 minutes. And when I came back I saw it was waiting for me to type "YES" to proceed. Had I known about the confirmation step I would have known to step away _after_ typing "YES." 

Other than that, the procedure was relatively quick and painless. The drive was easy to install, take out, reinstall... and my upgraded TiVo is happy. And its original 1TB drive now lives safely on a shelf.

A PayPal donation to show my appreciation to telemark has been sent. Enjoy!


----------



## Fofer

Quick question, and it's simply out of academic curiosity. Does using this tool to upgrade to 4TB preclude users from later on adding a DVR Expander drive, should even more space be desired? (I know that was the case with my previous DIY Premiere upgrade.) Or can a DVR Expander drive be added later on, for a total of 5 TB of space?


----------



## jmbach

Since this keeps the original TiVo partition structure intact,there should not be any impediment to adding an approved DVR expander.


----------



## dmartin5454

I installed the image on my new WD40EURX 4 TB drive, and my Roamio is running great! Thanks telemark for all your hard work! $20 sent via PayPal.


----------



## garberfc

Hello All,

I have my new RED WD 4TB drive attached to my Knoppix 7.4.

When I run the sudo ./autoinstall.pl command I get the following message:
"ERROR: No Target Drive Found"

I ran fdisk /dev/sda and created a Linux partition, but that didn't change anything.

I'm VERY unfamiliar with Unix/Linux.

All help is appreciated!
F


----------



## garberfc

Well, after reading the first post more carefully I figure I'm missing the Roamio / TiVo signature. I haven't received my Roamio yet, so I'll just back off and wait and plug in the new drive when it arrives...


----------



## telemark

That's right.

As a sanity test, autoinstall, checks each device (be it a Hard Drive, CD, or memory card) until it finds a Tivo signature, then checks the size is large enough, and starts writing.

If you're trying to finish it before the Roamio arrives, you can either clone any Tivo image to the drive first, write the Tivo magic numbers to the drive, or use the alternate (basic) installer which does no sanity tests.

Sorry I'm not giving better instructions on this because I don't want others to blindly follow them. PM me if you understand but I overlooked some detail.


----------



## garberfc

He Telemark,
Thanks for the info. 

I have another question. Prior to mounting the new drive in the Roamio, should I remove any partitions I may have created on it?

Thanks in advance,
F


----------



## telemark

garberfc said:


> I have another question. Prior to mounting the new drive in the Roamio, should I remove any partitions I may have created on it?


Roamio's will overwrite/partition/format any and every drive format, 
that it doesn't consider Roamio layout.

In other words, it doesn't matter what's on it, whatever it is, it'll get wiped... Unless it came from a Roamio
(or Roamio image or Roamio formatter).


----------



## MikeekiM

Does this 4TB upgrade process work for the Roamio OTA device (the one that is exclusively available at Best Buy)?


----------



## telemark

MikeekiM said:


> Does this 4TB upgrade process work for the Roamio OTA device (the one that is exclusively available at Best Buy)?


The OTA is basically a Basic minus CableCard slot, so it should work the same.

I'll test in a few days to be double sure.


----------



## MikeekiM

telemark said:


> The OTA is basically a Basic minus CableCard slot, so it should work the same.
> 
> I'll test in a few days to be double sure.


Yea...I might just go with the basic so that I can have CableCard flexibility, and I think they allow lifetime on the basic box (which they don't on the OTA box)...


----------



## TvoGuy

Telemark (and or jmbach)

First off, thank you for all of your efforts, surrounding TiVo upgrades! Secondly, do you know if your 4TB process (link below) will also work with the 6TB drives?

Many Thanks!

tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?p=10120179#post10120179


----------



## Fofer

No, it won't currently work. Telemark posted about this above. He has purchased some 6TB drives and said he's working on it, but the method he's created and shared with us now only works on 4TB drives.

Weaknees is selling prepped 6TB drives for Roamio, at a hefty premium though.


----------



## emerz

Fofer said:


> Weaknees is selling prepped 6TB drives for Roamio, at a hefty premium though.


$149.00 to prep YOUR 6TB drive!


----------



## squint

I think it's in line with the rest of their ridiculous prices.


----------



## TvoGuy

Fofer said:


> No, it won't currently work. Telemark posted about this above. He has purchased some 6TB drives and said he's working on it, but the method he's created and shared with us now only works on 4TB drives.
> 
> Weaknees is selling prepped 6TB drives for Roamio, at a hefty premium though.


Thanks so much! My eyes have gotten crossed, reading through so many of these posts. Hopefully, a 6TB solution will be possible (here). A Plus with a few minis, would be happy.


----------



## paulb7873

I am getting an error on a WD40EZRX saying check for an HPA similar to the guy on page 3. However, I hdparm -N /dev/sda gives me an impout output error and says nothing of an HPA. I also booted up HPAt2 and it says not supported. Any ideas? ill post more shortly.

Thank U


----------



## paulb7873

Hdparm -N /dev/sda 
READ_NATIVE_MAX_ADDRESS_EXT failed: Input/output error


----------



## telemark

paulb7873 said:


> Hdparm -N /dev/sda
> READ_NATIVE_MAX_ADDRESS_EXT failed: Input/output error


A lot of possible things going on here.
The summary we learned from others, is HPA like behavior (short device) either comes from a overzealous USB-Sata adapter, or an overzealous BIOS.
So which one, though not 100%, is usually determined by whether you're using a USB adapter or SATA from the motherboard, respectively.

So how is it the drive connected to the PC? Has it been used anywhere else before?

Try these commands, and post back what you can. There's usually a web browser on many of the CD's.
dmesg | grep sd
ls -l /dev/sda
sudo hdparm -N /dev/sda
lsusb


----------



## paulb7873

thanks for your help I will use the web browser and get some info to you. It is driving me crazy! It was never used except I did buy a WD mybook and remove the drive from it.


----------



## telemark

paulb7873 said:


> I did buy a WD mybook and remove the drive from it.


Oh yes, nobody's talked about doing that before but there's probably an HPA actually set on that drive cause there's all sorts of custom stuff done by that drive case.

If you follow any of the HPA reset guides, it should work out. I know the Linux tools well, but there's Windows tools as well. Either are fine.


----------



## paulb7873

hdparm -N /dev/sda

/dev/sda:
READ_NATIVE_MAX_ADDRESS_EXT failed: Input/output error

ls -l /dev/sda
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 8, 0 Jan 17 08:12 /dev/sda

dmesg | grep sda
[ 181.807600] sda: unknown partition table

Its weird i tried hda2t and it aid there was none? its weird might need a new drive. is there one you recomend i could pick up anther 40erux at best buy or what? weird?


----------



## telemark

Are you using "sudo hdparm ... " ?

The 2nd line, says the permissions, only root has access.
so "sudo" is needed.

Re another drive model, I'd just wait until we know this won't work.


----------



## telemark

Nevermind, I don't get that error with permissions problem.

So how is this drive connected to the PC, right now?

Did you take the drive out of the housing and put it in the PC, direct SATA?


----------



## paulb7873

I did su using knoppix. I have connected it usb and sata. I have changed the bios settings between ahci and ide, used another Linux cd, tried stuff all night.
thnx!


----------



## telemark

Sounds like something more complex than an HPA if hda2t didn't complain.
Assuming you're using the SATA connection.

Try this one:
sudo hdparm --dco-identify /dev/sda

Did the "dmesg | grep sda" only output one line? That's really strange, it should have many more lines than that.


----------



## paulb7873

I switched have a marvell controller and intel. what I did was switch it to the marvell when I ran those commands and yes that was it. I had run it be4 on the intel controller and it gave me more so I will do it again.


----------



## jmbach

What is the motherboard your computer is using.

Also is the drive hooked up directly to the motherboard SATA connection or via an enclosure. I have seen people using enclosures via either eStata or USB have that issue. Using a dock doesn't have this problem.


----------



## paulb7873

yes it is directly connected. I just tried it in another computer with the same problem. I am betting it is because it came out of an external hard drive. I am going to pop it back in and return it. buy another one. I know my local store will have a segate 5900rpm a wd green 4tb (same HD - enclosure), 4tb red, maybe purple. what do u think?


----------



## jmbach

Whichever has the best price. I have used all but the purple. My preference is red because of the warranty.


----------



## telemark

@paulb7873: If you want something working without any more effort, exchange the drive. Ya, different people prefer basic Green, AV-GP, Red, or Purple, for different reasons. What kind of Roamio do you have?

I do find the original question interesting. Should the WD MyBook be a supported drive for this? The only advantage I can think of is it's easy to find in retail stores, and often goes on sale.

The issue appears to be that drive is restricted to be a bit smaller than standard 4TB drives, and the configuration seems to have removed the HPA ATA commands as well, which is normally used to fix it. The options are to have a different image for that sector count, or see if a DCO reset will remove those customizations. If the DCO reset does turn out to work, the drive would no longer work if put back into the case housing.


----------



## paulb7873

on my way to compusa now. Yeah just like you said I saw your guide and the easiest thing was to run to Walmart and get the my book 4tb. They sell externals and its two secs down the road. Takes two seconds to pop it out and I figured if it didn't work I would just pop it back in and return it. I defiantly appreciate the help. I will keep you posted on my new drive and let you know. hopefully have it working in a few hrs. I hope. lol No externals!


----------



## paulb7873

Ok got it! Went 2 best buy instead they only had the 5900RPM Segate Hard Drive. I wanted to go with WD and was hopping to get the same drive that was not working just in the desktop version to see whats up. Worked like a charm! Hopefully this HD is powerfull enough to handle multiple streams. We shall see. It is more quiet then the WD, but both were unnoticeable! I am still not giving up on the external lol. I am doing a secure erase to zero all the sectors and try one last time 4 fun. The secure erase will take a day tho. Pretty interesting but when you have the right drive it couldn't be easier. Thank you for your help!


----------



## aaronwt

The 5900 rpm seagates are easily faster than the WD intellipower drives.


----------



## telemark

@paulb7873: if you post the sector count and sector size of the raw MyBook, I could make a custom image for that drive size, but you'd have to test it yourself otherwise, to see if the Roamio likes it or if it spins down too much.


----------



## eaglek96

I just used your procedure on a 4 TB WD40PURX. So far seems to work perfectly. It tells me I have 640 hours to use which is amazing. When I initially installed the drive it only listed 168 hrs using Roamio's automatic procedure. I was hoping TiVo would have made some secret changes by now, but apparently it's not the case.

I removed the drive from my Roamio then temporarily installed the drive in the secondary SATA port on my computer. I booted into Knoppix, and ran the command. I think it took less than 2 minutes to run completely, and reported "no errors".

The drive is installed in a Roamio Plus running 20.4.5c-USA-6.848-INIT. I'll report back if there seems to be anything wrong. I'd love to make a donation to your cause if you're still accepting.


----------



## telemark

Thanks for the update. When it's too quiet for too long, you start to wonder if it's broken.

Donations are always welcome too. There's paypal, amazon-giftcard and bitcoin addresses in the first post.

So far it has all gone to offset development hardware purchases.


----------



## NocturnalBarFlyr

Upgraded my TCD846500 Roamio to 4TB (WD40EURX) using Knoppix 7.4.2 and a eSATA dock. Now I have 638 HD hrs capacity with software 20.4.6-USA-6-846-INIT. $25 Paypal donation sent...DIY sure beats the $349.99 price elsewhere. Thanks!


----------



## sammydottee

I tried on 2 Mac tower machines and same error:

16 @ 304
Trying 'gunzip -c end_7814016688.bin.gz |dd bs=4096 seek=976752086 of=/dev/disk1'
dd: /dev/disk1: end of device
1+0 records in
0+0 records out
0 bytes transferred in 0.000030 secs (o bytes/sec)
- FAILED -


----------



## telemark

sammydottee said:


> I tried on 2 Mac tower machines and same error


Email me the full log, by copy and paste. Don't retype it.
What version of OS X are you running, and how is the drive connected, SATA or USB or Firewire?


----------



## sammydottee

Email with the failure file was sent to you. The OS is version 10.10.2


----------



## telemark

Yup got it. So you left out the detail of how it's connected.

But whatever you're using, it's not allowing access to the last sector. Or your hard drive is not 4TB.

Where is the drive from, what kind, and how are you connecting it to a Mac?


----------



## sammydottee

Drive is WD 4TB WD40EZrX
Connected to 13" Retina with a Coolmax USB3 adapter with a 12V power brick.
The Mac towers that were used before had OS 10.10 The error codes were identical except for the timing of "transferred in 0.000030"


----------



## telemark

I would suggest using the Tower's SATA ports.
And if that's fails, you know it's the drive.


----------



## sammydottee

I did that already. I used the SATA port on two tower units.
So you are saying that my drive is bad then.


----------



## telemark

sammydottee said:


> I did that already. I used the SATA port on two tower units.
> So you are saying that my drive is bad then.


What's the byte count under About This Mac -> More Info -> SATA ?
Also under Disk Utility?

Or better just run in terminal:
diskutil info /dev/disk1

Is the drive brand new, retail, never put into another system?

Also, looking at the log you sent me, it's from the MacBook via USB. I need the log from the Mac Tower via SATA as well.


----------



## sammydottee

Yes, as far as I know it is brand new, never been used.


----------



## telemark

The drive is short:
4 000 753 476 096 / 512 =
7813971633

Either something you stuck it in before set an HPA on it, or it came out of a external drive case, or something else I never heard of before.

If it's just an HPA, everyone has had success in resetting it using the right utility. I'm not sure what utility that is on Mac. I'll have to research this.

Update: After much search, I found no tool that could do this on Mac, and a mailing list post which says the API doesn't allow this as of 2009.
You'll need to use another OS, either Linux or Dos/Win to reset the HPA.


----------



## sammydottee

I have just bought a 6TB so hopefully, I will get better luck.


----------



## Fofer

sammydottee said:


> I have just bought a 6TB so hopefully, I will get better luck.


FYI, as explained above, telemark's tool currently only works on drives up to 4 TB in size.


----------



## sammydottee

Will I be able to run a 6TB like a 4TB?


----------



## sammydottee

Yep, I get 637 Hrs on a 6TB. I will see if i can get the other 4TB replaced.


----------



## telemark

It may not be "bad" but needs a setting reset.

But yes, you can run the 6TB with the image until you get another 4TB and then copy it back to the 4TB when you get it replaced. It might take a while to do that copy.


----------



## don544

Seagate Backup Plus 5TB USB 3.0 Desktop External Hard Drive STDT5000100 at newegg for 139 works also after removal from case, on sale with the promo code.


----------



## don544

squint said:


> I think it's in line with the rest of their ridiculous prices.


And yet they continue to support this site where they have been getting slammed for years and years. Profit is what supports this and unless someone wants to start a paid forum will continue to do so.
Kudos to all of those who contribute only looking for a donation or an ataboy buy that will not keep this site up.


----------



## sammydottee

What would be a good utility to use to reset HPA on a Win7 PC with 64bit?



telemark said:


> It may not be "bad" but needs a setting reset.
> 
> But yes, you can run the 6TB with the image until you get another 4TB and then copy it back to the 4TB when you get it replaced. It might take a while to do that copy.


----------



## telemark

Built into some versions of Windows is diskpart.exe
There are reports saying that the "clean" command will remove an HPA.
There is no way to recover data after such a command so double make sure you found the right disk.

Since you don't know how it got there, we don't know if it's HPA or DCO, so you might consider this one:
http://www.hdat2.com/
Requires a boot-floppy or boot-CD.


----------



## sammydottee

I cannot use Diskpart.exe to repair the drive because in Win7 mode, the PC does not show the the Tivo drive.


----------



## telemark

sammydottee said:


> I cannot use Diskpart.exe to repair the drive because in Win7 mode, the PC does not show the the Tivo drive.


I don't have a Windows PC to demonstrate it, but the documentation indicates it doesn't care about the drive format. The only other incompatibility would be it wouldn't be able to pass the command over USB.

Example:
diskpart > list disk > select disk X > clean > exit

Warning: Again, you'll wipe your data if you don't select the correct disk #


----------



## HerbE

Tried using hd from WD 4tb My Book and had same results as paulb7873. Worked on it for 3 days, no positive results. Purchased internal seagate and was online with 638 hrs in about 30-40 minutes. 

Donation sent.....thanks Herb Edmonds


----------



## jmbach

Drives from enclosures may have a HPA (Host Protected Area) or DCO (Device Configuration Overlay) that will decrease the overall sector counts of the drives. They can be used but the drives have to be reset as telemark stated.


----------



## HerbE

jmbach said:


> Drives from enclosures may have a HPA (Host Protected Area) or DCO (Device Configuration Overlay) that will decrease the overall sector counts of the drives. They can be used but the drives have to be reset as telemark stated.


This drive would not allow reset......used different tools and none would work.

Herb


----------



## jmbach

Which ones did you use?


----------



## telemark

I have a MyBook 4TB onhand. I'll take a look at the issue once I figure out how to open it undamaged.


----------



## sammydottee

I am cleaning up the 4TB drive with HDAT2 running in a Mac tower. It is at 30% after 4 hours.


----------



## telemark

sammydottee said:


> I am cleaning up the 4TB drive with HDAT2 running in a Mac tower. It is at 30% after 4 hours.


You just need to reset the sector count. Under HDAT2, they call it Set Max Address. It's suppose to be 7,814,037,168 sectors at full capacity (or 4000787030016 bytes).

If the HPA reset doesn't work, then you need to check the DCO. You might want to just take a photo of this screen:









So we know what's going on, so we can advise properly.


----------



## sammydottee

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/attachment.php?attachmentid=22527&stc=1&d=1424820301


----------



## jmbach

Is that the full screen? 
How is it connected to your computer. (USB, SATA, eStata, using a dock or enclosure)


----------



## telemark

I second jmbach's questions: What does the whole screen look like, How is it connected? 
Additionally, how are you running Dos on a Mac?
Intriguing though.

Edit: could you type that 4TB's S/N into the warranty check:
http://wdsupport.wdc.com/warranty/warrantycheck.asp?countryobjid=268435457&rnd=08355371

The drive is pretty unusual already so I suspect it has an unusual story that we're missing out on.


----------



## telemark

And never mind.

I opened a WD 4TB Mybook. Found a WD40EZRX.
Reports:
7813971633 512-byte logical blocks: (4.00 TB/3.63 TiB)
WDC WD40EZRX-00SPEB0 80.00A80
> hdparm -N /dev/sdb
READ_NATIVE_MAX_ADDRESS_EXT failed: Input/output error

Looking up the S/N, WDC.com says:
WDBFJK0040HBK-NESN 4 TB My Book

No more mystery. But general warning, don't buy a MyBook for this until noticed otherwise. 
It won't work.


----------



## jmbach

telemark said:


> And never mind.
> 
> I opened a WD 4TB Mybook. Found a WD40EZRX.
> Reports:
> 7813971633 512-byte logical blocks: (4.00 TB/3.63 TiB)
> WDC WD40EZRX-00SPEB0 80.00A80
> > hdparm -N /dev/sdb
> READ_NATIVE_MAX_ADDRESS_EXT failed: Input/output error
> 
> Looking up the S/N, WDC.com says:
> WDBFJK0040HBK-NESN 4 TB My Book
> 
> No more mystery. But general warning, don't buy a MyBook for this until noticed otherwise.
> It won't work.


Could this be one of WD's self encrypting drive and that is the reason the USER size is slightly smaller. If it is, is there a way of turning it off through a WD utility?


----------



## sammydottee

Yes, it is the full screen.
The drive is connected to one of the SATA bus of the Mac tower computer. It seems to boot up with the HDAP2 lite iso disc w/o any problems.



telemark said:


> I second jmbach's questions: What does the whole screen look like, How is it connected?
> Additionally, how are you running Dos on a Mac?
> Intriguing though.
> 
> Edit: could you type that 4TB's S/N into the warranty check:
> http://wdsupport.wdc.com/warranty/warrantycheck.asp?countryobjid=268435457&rnd=08355371
> 
> The drive is pretty unusual already so I suspect it has an unusual story that we're missing out on.


----------



## sammydottee

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/attachment.php?attachmentid=22529&stc=1&d=1424887420

Results using HDAT2 on drive.

But it still failed with the script so I am giving up on the drive.

Actually the drive came out of a MyBook.

WDBFJK0040HBK-NESN
4 TB My Book


----------



## jmbach

Consider trying WD Security from WDC website to see if there is a setting to disable / remove encryption.


----------



## telemark

jmbach said:


> Consider trying WD Security from WDC website to see if there is a setting to disable / remove encryption.


I don't mind making a smaller image for this drive if it's otherwise a good mechanism, price, and availability. I guess we won't know whether Roamio likes it until after it's done though.

Stepping back, if people are going to be shelling external USB drives, maybe there's an easier model. I can find each of these in B&M stores:
WD MyBook [sata:7813971633 | usb:7813969920]
Seagate Expansion | BackupPlus [ usb:7814037160 ]
Toshiba Canvio [7200rpm]
Samsung D3 [ usb:7814037160 ]
HGST Touro [ usb:7814035448 ]

A sector count over the USB connection might be enough to green light / reject a model.


----------



## jmbach

We need to see if the drive will even work if the image fits when connected to the Roamio.


----------



## HerbE

jmbach..
Out of desperation during my episode I put the drive in Roamio and let it boot, then went through the whole tivo setup procedure. Seemed to work but only showed 200 somewhat hours of hd recording time. Then I went back to wasting time with the upgrade until desperation turned to defeat. That's when I decided to go buy an internal drive. On the plus side I now have a drive big enough to do all my backups....
Herb


----------



## jmbach

Roamios can boot large drives now but it does not do something correct to let you have the whole drive for recording and you get an abbreviated recording space. Hopefully that will be corrected in some future release.


----------



## don544

telemark said:


> I think I'll start an offer to lend out a tested / working USB-Sata adapter.
> $10 would cover round trip shipping.
> I just see this coming up a lot for others who are not as CLI savvy, and starting them off right will save everyone time.
> 
> I'll agree with nooneuknow. Enclosures are more likely (than adapters and docks) to do funny unexpected things due to assuming the drive is never leaving.
> 
> @melinda: could you compact the prior debugging output now that we know what it is. And optionally add the model of the adapter that works. Not everyone is as smart & resourceful as you so Congratulations..
> 
> @Fofer: I wouldn't expect wdidle kind of utilities to work over USB, but I'd love to be wrong on that.


Some could start a sticky or thread labeled adapters that work, search brings up a ton


----------



## don544

telemark said:


> I don't mind making a smaller image for this drive if it's otherwise a good mechanism, price, and availability. I guess we won't know whether Roamio likes it until after it's done though.
> 
> Stepping back, if people are going to be shelling external USB drives, maybe there's an easier model. I can find each of these in B&M stores:
> WD MyBook [sata:7813971633 | usb:7813969920]
> Seagate Expansion | BackupPlus [ usb:7814037160 ]
> Toshiba Canvio [7200rpm]
> Samsung D3 [ usb:7814037160 ]
> HGST Touro [ usb:7814035448 ]
> 
> A sector count over the USB connection might be enough to green light / reject a model.


Western Digital WD Green WD30EZRX 3TB IntelliPower 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive Bare Drive - OEM $90 with code at newegg
Seagate Expansion 5TB USB 3.0 Desktop External Hard Drive STBV5000100 regularly on sale for $ with code for the last month and at $150 today


----------



## telemark

don544 said:


> Western Digital WD Green WD30EZRX 3TB IntelliPower 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive Bare Drive - OEM $90 with code at newegg
> Seagate Expansion 5TB USB 3.0 Desktop External Hard Drive STBV5000100 regularly on sale for $ with code for the last month and at $150 today


I think 3TB drive sales belong in the another thread. And 5TB deals belong in the non-existant >4TB thread.

USB adapter quality has gotten a lot better in the last year, so there are many options now.


----------



## gespears

Are we able to do this with a 5 or 6 TB drive?


----------



## Fofer

gespears said:


> Are we able to do this with a 5 or 6 TB drive?


Yes, but it'll only present 4TB of usable space for the TiVo to use. (At least using the current version of telemark's tool, that is...)


----------



## gespears

Fofer said:


> Yes, but it'll only present 4TB of usable space for the TiVo to use. (At least using the current version of telemark's tool, that is...)


That's interesting. Telemark, any plans to extend your tool to handle 5 and 6 TB drives or should I just get a 4 TB and move on?

BTW, Thank you and everybody else that helped with all the work on the 4 TB expansion.


----------



## telemark

gespears said:


> That's interesting. Telemark, any plans to extend your tool to handle 5 and 6 TB drives or should I just get a 4 TB and move on?


I think if you prefer 6TB, wait it out. There's some momentum going now.
If you prefer 4TB, no point in waiting.


----------



## sammydottee

The WDC 6TB, that I tried to modify following the instructions, showed 4TB of usable space Tivo. But I cannot record anything on it. Tivo does not indicate why it does not record.


----------



## gespears

telemark said:


> I think if you prefer 6TB, wait it out. There's some momentum going now.
> If you prefer 4TB, no point in waiting.


Thanks Telemark. I'll hang out for a while and see what happens.


----------



## philhu

telemark said:


> I think if you prefer 6TB, wait it out. There's some momentum going now.
> If you prefer 4TB, no point in waiting.


Are we talking a month, 6 months, just curious.

Thanks!


----------



## telemark

sammydottee said:


> The WDC 6TB, that I tried to modify following the instructions, showed 4TB of usable space Tivo. But I cannot record anything on it. Tivo does not indicate why it does not record.


I think you're better off buying a 4TB drive that everyone else buys.



philhu said:


> Are we talking a month, 6 months, just curious.


I was waiting to hear back if a new method was going to work, and it doesn't seem to, so I'm going back to the old way. Gonna need to figure out how long to test it. Should be less than a month.


----------



## gespears

telemark said:


> I was waiting to hear back if a new method was going to work, and it doesn't seem to, so I'm going back to the old way. Gonna need to figure out how long to test it. Should be less than a month.


Thank you very much Telemark for all your hard work. Sorry the new way didn't work out. That's a bummer.


----------



## HoosontheTeevo

Hello- New Tivo Roamio Plus owner here. Thanks for the help.

I have connected a DVR expander (that I used with my verizon dvr) to my Roamio plus - so I guess I have 2TB of storage. I am loving the 6 tuners and am rapidly filling up the storage space.

I would like to change the stock Roamio Plus 1TB and upgrade to a 4TB as instructed in this thread by Telemark in the first post. (or go to 6TB if that solution comes out in the near future).

What is the best way to harvest all the recordings that I want to save - to then copy them back onto the new 4TB drive when it goes in - KMTTG or Tivo Desktop (i have the old version)? 

Is there any way to remove the hard drive and the external expander and do a direct copy/clone to the new drive that might be faster? The movies I've copied to my desktop pc over the ethernet via kmttg seem slow.

I assume the dvr expander external drive is sharing the recordings so there is no way to separately copy over the contents of it or of the internal drive - their intermixed?

Is there any way to first 'empty' the dvr expander - so I'm just dealing with the internal drive to remove and copy the contents of.

Thanks for any thoughts.


----------



## telemark

for HoosontheTeevo: I'm not working on migration any time soon, but there could be other people who are.

TS transfers tend to be faster than PS transfers. That might be one thing to check if you think it's running too slow.

The only other thing I can think of besides using transfers is, combining the internal+external onto a new internal drive. Is that 1TB+1TB=2TB ?

If you're lucky you can reuse the expander for 3TB total. I'm not aware of anyone trying it, so it's 50/50 chance that it would even work that way. Seems like a lot of work for just 1TB more, in case you have to migrate again later.

I'll let others chime in, lots of people play with the things you're asking about more than I do.


----------



## HoosontheTeevo

thanks. and sorry but TS and PS transfers? - not sure what that stands for? (probably something obvious).

however I accomplish the show transfer - I would then like to use the dvr expander along with the new internal 4TB hard drive that I upgrade according to this thread and your instructions. Is there any need to wipe/reformat the dvr expander before adding it to the 4TB disk when I get that installed?

though in reading other posts and thinking about it - does adding the 1TB expander to the new 4TB internal just increase the chances for problems down the road - with the shared recordings and all.

thanks again.


----------



## telemark

TS is TransportStream
PS is ProgramStream
There should be an option in KMTTG somewhere for one or the other. TS should be faster and compatible if you're just loading it back into a Tivo.

A wipe of the first 64 sectors of an expander whenever re-purposing would be prudent, but is probably overly cautious.

I guess one way to put it, if you can do without the expander, do without it. If can't, then the risk might be worth it. Only you can decide how valuable preserving your recordings is, vs the convenience of having 1TB more of recordings.

You could also leave the expander on the shelf until you fill up completely whichever new internal drive you end up getting.


----------



## HoosontheTeevo

Thanks for your time/thoughts Telemark. I think I'm going to try to 'get off of the expander'. i don't think i'm getting all of it's space anyway. i hope to move up to the 4TB internal. I'll let you know.


----------



## cow736

Wow says I last visited in 2007. My old Tivo 2 analog doesn't work w/ ATSC so I got a good deal from TiVO on a Roamio HD. Want to pop in a 5TB since they're $125 give or take. If it's still too much trouble I guess a 4TB will do. 

Any progress yet if this can be done? I can be a test subject since I have no recordings or season passes starting brand new.


----------



## MrSinatra

hi all,

so I am considering getting a plus instead of a pro, and then sticking in a 4TB drive. I understand I need to prep it first.

I am pretty good on windows, and less so on mac. I have a usb to sata adapter, but I don't know if it goes up to 4TB, how would I test that?

here is the drive I am considering:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822149569

http://www.toshiba.com/us/accessories/Storage/Hard-Drive-Replacements-and-Upgrades/4TB/PH3400U-1I72

any reason it wouldn't work? meaning, how sensitive is drive selection?

should I try the mac way in the first post first? I have to say I find the instructions somewhat confusing, as there seem to be multiple options and steps in some of the numbered instructions.

idc if I get every last second of the drive, I just want to get most of the 4TB usable, and have the drive installed before I ever first power up a roamio.


----------



## telemark

What's the Make/Model of the USB-Sata adapter? If it's not a case, and is recently made, it's probably Ok.

That Toshiba drive is 7200. I don't know that it won't work. But fewer people have been using those types of drives. Is there a 5400 drive you're considering as well?


----------



## MrSinatra

telemark said:


> What's the Make/Model of the USB-Sata adapter? If it's not a case, and is recently made, it's probably Ok.


its not the newest:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16812156102

but I have no idea if it will handle 4TB or not. I want to buy a new one anyway, but I don't know how to tell if a new one will do 4TB either.



telemark said:


> That Toshiba drive is 7200. I don't know that it won't work. But fewer people have been using those types of drives. Is there a 5400 drive you're considering as well?


there wasn't, but are you saying that the Tivo WANTS the drive to be slower? that's counterintuitive to what I thought, which is the faster the drive, bigger the cache, etc, the better off you would be. 6 shows recording simultaneously while playing a 7th seems to demand speed, but perhaps I don't understand how it all works?


----------



## jmbach

I have a Thermaltake USB2/eSata that is rated up to 3TB but I have had no issue with 4TB or 6TB drives. 

Higher speeds mean more heat and increase power load on the power supply. 5400 or 5900 rpm drives are plenty fast enough and it is what comes with the TiVo.


----------



## nooneuknow

MrSinatra said:


> here is the drive I am considering:
> 
> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822149569
> 
> http://www.toshiba.com/us/accessories/Storage/Hard-Drive-Replacements-and-Upgrades/4TB/PH3400U-1I72
> 
> any reason it wouldn't work? meaning, how sensitive is drive selection?
> 
> should I try the mac way in the first post first? I have to say I find the instructions somewhat confusing, as there seem to be multiple options and steps in some of the numbered instructions.


From another thread you are crossposting in:



nooneuknow said:


> Apparently nobody else has clicked on this link, or there would be alarms blaring, and flashing red lights, from all informed members involved here.
> 
> Here's the tried, tested, and most recommended hard drive product line you could buy (and the drive TiVo uses most, the WD AV Green EURX):
> 
> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822236602
> 
> Ignore the Newegg clickbait link, claiming there is a "newer version" available. It's NOT true. If you don't want to take my word for it, ask WD directly, and also ask if WD Purple PURX use in a TiVo is supported, so you can hear it from WD, that it is not (even though they "work").
> 
> TiVo sometimes uses a Seagate line of "green" (low power requirement) 5900RPM AV drives, with similar characteristics. But, they are almost never on sale, and tend to cost a lot more than WD drives (and use more power, which is not in unlimited supply in a TiVo). <snip>


If you want to go for the best experience, and the least hassle, please consider just going with the WD AV Green EURX drives, like the majority of people here do (and for good reasons).

The Hard Drive Upgrade Info thread for Roamio, is the place for research and questions, not requiring placement in the 4TB thread.

Only post/reply I will make here on this.


----------



## imsai

I can't think of a >5400 RPM drive in the >4TB range that would not provide a heat risk to itself, the power supply if internal, and the Tivo hardware itself. Since the Roamio is the result of a move from a metal case with plastic front to basically a plastic case with metal EM shield/reinforcement, It's just not a tolerant environment for overheating. I live in the Southwest in an a mostly un-A/C'ed house, so it's a big deal for me. I'm still considering reboxing/casemodding my Roamio to a metalized and/or heat-sinked box at end-of-warranty. Maybe put it in an old Tivo box just to freak friends.

I have had very good luck with the Hitachi GST H3IK40003254SP (0S03359) 4TB 5400 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" internal HD.

Since I was going with base model Roamio, the heat profile, spinup energy and wattage were really important ([email protected] powers it all). I also wanted a drive that was vibration-tolerant, and would handle UPS transitions well.

Hitachi seems to have a *way* better overall lifespan in a server/raid/iSCSI/AV/surveillance (constant-up) environment, not just their server models but mid- to high-end consumer drives being put in constant-use arrays of various kinds. Several companies in the server/cloud/ISP biz have put out like reports.

None of the Seagates passed scrutiny, and I got a heckuva deal on the HGST when WDs were showing up OOS or [email protected]%+ more. I also wouldn't be violating the warranty on a WD drive by making necessary mods to spindown settings, since the HGST drives were already set correctly. 

I wasn't that impressed with what I was seeing from Fujitsu or Samsung for constant-on energy use, thermal characteristics and heat/vibration/EM tolerance.

I run mostly WD Reds and Samsungs in my raid applications, but have not been impressed with the quality control in the (4+)TB drive segment for WDs, Seagates, or Samsungs, with the exception of the "old" WD Green EURX. I hear it's "getting better", but my next raid purchase is likely to be HGSTs.

The Hitchi is a bit noisier on seeks (not completely, utterly silent), but not unless you listen closely and up close. Can't hear it when the TV, HTPC, or amp is on, it has to be an empty house at early AM to hear it at all, and usually only when I'm streaming backups from the Tivo while it's recording.

Hope this helps give you some tools to make a smart choice for your 4TB Roamio.


----------



## telemark

If someone has the $$$ to burn, the Helium filled drives are 7200rpm and lower heat than 5400 drives.


----------



## kuyper

imsai said:


> I have had very good luck with the Hitachi GST H3IK40003254SP (0S03359) 4TB 5400 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" internal HD.
> 
> Since I was going with base model Roamio, the heat profile, spinup energy and wattage were really important ([email protected] powers it all). I also wanted a drive that was vibration-tolerant, and would handle UPS transitions well.
> 
> Hitachi seems to have a *way* better overall lifespan in a server/raid/iSCSI/AV/surveillance (constant-up) environment, not just their server models but mid- to high-end consumer drives being put in constant-use arrays of various kinds. Several companies in the server/cloud/ISP biz have put out like reports.


Imsai, you're 100% spot-on with those HGST drives. I have 5 of them in my FreeNAS filer and they're phenomenal. As close as you'll get to Enterprise grade for $150, so thanks for confirming that you had success as that's exactly what I was planning on installing in mine!

:up:
Kuyper


----------



## zerdian1

Telemark,
thanks 
and to think I used to do this (in my sleep) for a living for NASA in the days of the Moon Landings.
now at 70 I just like plug and play stuff



telemark said:


> *Status: *
> Unix: Works
> Mac: Works (but most mac's don't have SATA ports which then requires a modern USB-Sata adapter.)
> Windows: VHD available...Testing new cloning software...
> 
> *Requires*:
> 4TB hard drive
> Tivo Roamio
> Computer with a free Sata or eSata port
> USB docks may work, but not recommended
> (many older USB docks have bugs that don't go up 4TB)
> 
> *UNIX (Linux*/BSD/Mac) Command Line Installers
> *The autoinstaller will search for drives for one with a Tivo signature**,
> download the image from the Net, and overwrite the drive with the image.
> 
> * If needing a liveCD, knoppix has been tested
> ** If the drive is missing a signature, booting it in a Roamio will add a signature, or you can manually add one with a hex editor [0x1492]
> 
> PC / Mac side:
> 1) Connect Hard Drive to Computer (disconnect other HD's with important data)
> 
> 2) on PC: Boot from linux CD or USB stick on PC's.
> on Mac: boot normally into OS X. When asked to "Initialize" an unknown drive, just say No / Ignore / Cancel.
> 
> 3) Open Terminal, by clicking Terminal icon
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 4) Download Auto Installer, by typing at prompt:
> wget "http://tiny.cc/c6r5gxA/autoinstall.pl"
> ( or wget --no-check-certificate "http://tiny.cc/c6r5gxA/autoinstall.pl" )
> Another option is:
> curl -L http://tiny.cc/c6r5gxA/autoinstall.pl -o autoinstall.pl
> 
> Enable execution by typing:
> chmod +x autoinstall.pl
> 
> 5) Start installer.
> 
> On PC Linux or Apple Mac run:
> sudo ./autoinstall.pl
> 
> This will ask for the account password.
> 
> Lots of text will fly by, just follow along a best you can.
> The most important thing is to
> Check that it chooses the right drive.
> (you did already disconnect all your important drives, right?)
> 
> It'll ask before making permanent changes, then
> when it starts writing...
> 
> 6) Take a break to let it finish
> ~20mins on USB2
> Less on USB3 or Sata
> More on USB1
> 
> Alternate 4) Image + Basic Installer:
> wget --no-check-certificate "http://tiny.cc/c6r5gxB/4TBr1.tgz"
> bypasses safety mechanisms, so know what you're doing or
> don't use..
> 
> Tivo Roamio side:
> 7) Connect drive
> 8) Turn on Power to Tivo
> 9) Wait until Guided Setup (takes about 4 mins for first boot)
> 10) Celebrate and Donate what you think it's worth.
> 
> Known limitations:
> No data is migrated over (pytivo/kmttg backups should work)
> Cable Card will likely need to be re-paired, but in a smaller number of cases, this did not apply
> Not supersized
> Found Tivo bug, variance in fsck mount frequency, should be inconsequential
> 
> *Donations* here:
> paypal or amazon-e-gift-card: marked @ gmail.com
> bitcoin:1Hvpf8qV8UJ8SS33QJ6VskggAStQQDnYp6
> 
> *Credits and Thank You to
> *_jmbach_ - for extensive testing and lots of direction
> _ggieske_ - for tricky MFS answers and
> _eboydog_ - for initial motivation
> 
> *Terms*:
> Image and Installer Copyright 2014.
> License granted for personal use within a household.
> No commercial use or redistribution without prior permission.
> No warranty provided.


----------



## hankbates

Using WD40EURX, purchased as new other from eBay.
Had a little difficulty finding the terminal on knoppix, but found it was just a matter with screen resolution.
I thought I was going to have problems when I couldn't connect to the web page with the primary address, just had to tell it not to look for certificate, as you showed.
Thanks, Telemark!


----------



## sequestre

I just ordered a refurb Roamio Plus from Tivo and 4TB WD Green HD from Amazon and looking forward to installing Telemark's mod. Already received the HD and should have the Tivo in a couple days. I've read this entire thread and my juices are flowing to jump in and do the swap. 

Tivo says the unit will come with "Argon 6". Is this the OS version?


----------



## telemark

Thanks for the interest.

Argon is the internal codename for Roamio.
6 is probably for Pro/+


----------



## sequestre

telemark said:


> Thanks for the interest.
> 
> Argon is the internal codename for Roamio.
> 6 is probably for Pro/+


Interesting that they put this info on the invoice.

My last Tivo experience was in 2008 at which time I converted to Mythbuntu and finally Windows Media Center (to support DRM and cable card). With Microsoft abandoning MCE, I decided to give Tivo a new look and was very impressed with what I saw in the Roamio.

When I started comparing the Plus and the Pro I noticed that the only difference seems to be the size of the drive and that research is what led me to your thread here. I'll actually come out ahead of the Pro with more storage for less money thanks to you.

One question I still have though: (from what I have read) it seems to be possible to add an external eSata drive even after dropping in the 4TB to get even more storage. Is this correct?
Is there a size limitation for the external?

I remember reading a post from someone stating it must be an approved external drive so I take it that I just can't buy my own enclosure and stick another 4TB drive in it?

Does anybody know a link to "approved" Tivo external drives? Thanks!


----------



## sequestre

Well I think I located the answer to at least one of my questions about the size of the external drive. (I'd post the link but not allowed to yet)

Has anyone actually used one of the 1TB expanders with the 4TB mod successfully?
(if not I'd be willing to volunteer)

Thanks again for all the great help given here!


----------



## jmbach

MFSTools 3.2 is suppose to add any external drive. Currently you will have to compile it from source. If you want a 6TB drive, you will need to use MFSR.


----------



## telemark

Official expanders that are eSATA just work up to 1TB.

Non-official expanders generally don't work, but MFSTools might be able to enable them. If you're really interested in larger than 1TB externals you can join/ask in that thread.

If you want more storage than 4TB, you could look into MFS-R which supports 6TB internals.


----------



## sequestre

telemark said:


> Official expanders that are eSATA just work up to 1TB.
> 
> Non-official expanders generally don't work, but MFSTools might be able to enable them. If you're really interested in larger than 1TB externals you can join/ask in that thread.
> 
> If you want more storage than 4TB, you could look into MFS-R which supports 6TB internals.


Thanks for the info. I'll stick with the "tried and tested" Telemark mod for now.
The Tivo should arrive today and with any luck I'll have the 4TB drive up and running by evening. (fingers and toes crossed)

I'll then add the external 1 TB and that should last me a good while.

Thanks again!


----------



## mattack

You realize that if you add the 1 TB external, then if EITHER drive goes, you lose all of your shows on BOTH drives, right?

(I realize this is *somewhat* of a simplification..)


----------



## sequestre

mattack said:


> You realize that if you add the 1 TB external, then if EITHER drive goes, you lose all of your shows on BOTH drives, right?
> 
> (I realize this is *somewhat* of a simplification..)


Understood.
Such is life.
Thanks.


----------



## sequestre

Tivo Plus arrived today.
Popped the 1TB out and booted up the new 4TB to establish signature. 
Moved 4TB to my PC and booted OpenSuse live cd to run the script.
Everything went smoothly. 
Donation sent.
Thanks again!


----------



## telemark

sequestre said:


> booted OpenSuse live cd to run the script.


That might be a CD nobody's tried before. Thanks for the tip and the tip.


----------



## sequestre

telemark said:


> That might be a CD nobody's tried before. Thanks for the tip and the tip.


Well, my celebration was a little premature. ........

Today I picked up the m-card and TWC could not get it to pair in the Tivo. After going through a lot of troubleshooting and another m-card, the consensus is that the Tivo box has a tuner issue and I'll need to send it back to Tivo. Which means that the original 1TB drive is going back in the unit before I return it.

I think the lesson I learned here to pass along to others is to verify the equipment before making the mod.

Question for the geniuses here: Should I restripe the 4TB drive or do you think it is OK (as is) to use in the next box?


----------



## telemark

sequestre said:


> Question for the geniuses here: Should I restripe the 4TB drive or do you think it is OK (as is) to use in the next box?


You can just run the Linux CD part. The drive's already tied to the prior Tivo, but it's in Roamio format already so the installer will find it and overwrite it making it untied / empty.


----------



## ggieseke

I'd wipe at least the first few sectors and start over from scratch when you get the new box. Otherwise, you'll have to run C&DE and that takes forever on a big drive.

Edit: Oops, telemark beat me to the punch with a better answer.


----------



## sequestre

telemark said:


> You can just run the Linux CD part. The drive's already tied to the prior Tivo, but it's in Roamio format already so the installer will find it and overwrite it making it untied / empty.


10-4
I usually have pretty good luck with refurbs but I guess that's the chance you take to save the bucks.
($150 for the Plus and $350 for the lifetime service)


----------



## sequestre

ggieseke said:


> I'd wipe at least the first few sectors and start over from scratch when you get the new box. Otherwise, you'll have to run C&DE and that takes forever on a big drive.
> 
> Edit: Oops, telemark beat me to the punch with a better answer.


Thanks!


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## jmbach

It could be the TiVo but I bet it is a TWC issue. I have been told many times it was my unit or the card by Charter and even had a truck roll. In the end, calling back enough times and going up through the different tier support I eventually find some one knowledgeable. Usually the culprit is that the person does not disassociate the card from its prior pairing and tries to input the new information. Unfortunately this does not take and the pairing fails.


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## sequestre

jmbach said:


> It could be the TiVo but I bet it is a TWC issue. I have been told many times it was my unit or the card by Charter and even had a truck roll. In the end, calling back enough times and going up through the different tier support I eventually find some one knowledgeable.


I can relate...
I had a similar experience with Charter when we lived in the Atlanta area.

It all comes down to the quality of customer service and how good your tech support team is.

I am an engineering manager and I am blessed to have a great team of support engineers that work for me. We deal with customers on a daily basis and we also deal with vendors to help us maintain all of our equipment in the plant. Many times we deal with multiple vendors on a single issue because their respective equipment work together very much like Tivo and TWC.

My experience this weekend has given me some new ideas to take with me when I return to work on Monday on how we can improve our CS.

Anyway, back on topic:
Tivo is (reluctantly) sending me another unit and we shall see who prevails in the finger pointing game. I have to say that over the years TWC's "cable card special support team" has never let me down. They have taught me a lot about how to read the Cisco diagnostic screens when I was setting up Ceton InfiniTV tuners for Windows Media Center.


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## mattack

sequestre said:


> Understood.
> Such is life.
> Thanks.


I brought it up in your case especially since adding a 1 TB to a 4 TB is only adding around 25% ("around" since you don't have the OS overhead that is probably on the internal) more space but doubling your risk of losing it all.

If it were 2 4 TBs, I could see risking it..


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## sequestre

Sure, I understand what you are saying. Its just not that big of a deal to me if I loose the programs. I don't keep them that long anyway but I do record a lot of different programs. The Ceton InfiniTV 6 can do 12 shows at once and I frequently max them out. If I were really worried about loosing the data I would build a Windows Media Center with mirrored system drives and a RAID 6 disc array for the shows. It would be cool if the Tivo external could handle bigger drives. I don't really understand why Tivo has issues with large drives. Oh well, that's for a different forum.


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## sequestre

Replacement Tivo Plus arrived today and there is now no doubt that the first one had a tuner issue. This one breezed through the setup and TWC had the Cablecard paired in a jiffy. I love a happy ending!


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## larrymg2

telemark said:


> Thanks for the interest.
> 
> Argon is the internal codename for Roamio.
> 6 is probably for Pro/+


Forgive my ignorance. I don't where to download the mfsr file to format my new drive. Any assistance is most appreciated


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## telemark

MFSR is for new 4TB - 6TB drives going into a Roamio. Has its own thread.
http://tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=528428

This thread is for new 4TB drives going into a Roamio. Instructions in the first post.
http://tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=517860


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## volgroth

Looks like the link for the .pl is no longer active.


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## russdog

Well, here I sit with my new WD Red 4TB... but the links to the auto-installer in the OP return a 404 error. 

Can somebody post a copy? (Pretty please?)


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## jmbach

russdog said:


> Well, here I sit with my new WD Red 4TB... but the links to the auto-installer in the OP return a 404 error.
> 
> Can somebody post a copy? (Pretty please?)


The current way of upgrading your Roamio is to allow the Roamio to auto format the drive and once you get to the initial screen to choose your country, pull the drive and use MFSR to correct the drive layout to use the whole drive. The link is a couple of posts above.


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## russdog

jmbach said:


> The current way of upgrading your Roamio is to allow the Roamio to auto format the drive and once you get to the initial screen to choose your country, pull the drive and use MFSR to correct the drive layout to use the who drive. The link is a couple of posts above.


Gee, that was easy 

Thanks a bunch... (I should do a better job of reading what's right under my nose)...


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