# Using MFS - a few questions



## True Colors (Oct 19, 2006)

I have a couple of old Series 2 Tivos. Both work fine. But I would like to replace their current small hard drives with larger hard drives(either 250 GB or 500 GB would be fine). I do NOT want to keep any of the old recorded shows.

I am a moderately technical person. I have read the documentation on the MFS website. I have also looked through the old posts on tivo community about this topic. However, I am still a bit unclear about how it works.

I have a Dell PC about 5 years old with Windows XP service pack 3. I have an external burner(CD and DVD).

I have downloaded and installed WINMFS version 9.3f on my PC.

At this point, what are the next couple of steps? I do not have a docking station. So I guess I need to purchase one of those USB to hard drive adapter cables?

I saw this on amazon. Is this what I need to buy?

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0..._m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=1FG4PJ9GMSCNN7BTN5ES

Then after that...... if I remove the current hard drive from the Tivo and I use the adapter to connect the hard drive to the PC then will the HD be automatically recognized by WINMFS? Do I need to adjust the jumpers on the hard drive?

At this point I am stuck.

Any guidance here would be greatly appreciated.

TC


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## mr.unnatural (Feb 2, 2006)

What you surmise is basically correct. The adapter you pointed to appears that it will do the job. WinMFS should recognize the Tivo drive and allow you to create or restore a backup image. If you want to copy the contents over to another drive then you'll probably need two adapters.


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## True Colors (Oct 19, 2006)

Thanks. I went by the local electronics store and bought one of the USB to IDE adapters off the shelf. It looks like a pretty simple deal to use.

Also, I read something about a boot disk. Do I really need a boot disk, in light of the fact that I have Win XP and I am using WINMFS? Or would a boot disk mainly be for the purpose of putting me into a Linux environment?

Also, I read some commentary about using an additional computer to do this. Is that basically a way of keeping your "main" PC from being tied up in this process because it is too time consuming? Or is there more to it than that?

Thanks,

TC


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## mr.unnatural (Feb 2, 2006)

You don't need a boot disk with WinMFS. It's meant to be used in a Windows environment. If you were using one of the older Linux distributions then it would be burned to a CD and is bootable.

Creating or restoring a backup image doesn't take much time (typically about 15-20 minutes, give or take). However, if you're cloning the entire drive then it could take up to 8 hours or more, depending on the size of the original drive.


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## True Colors (Oct 19, 2006)

Okay, I pulled a hard drive out of one of my Tivo's to give this a shot. It is a 500 gig unit that is in a Series 2. I figured I would save a backup copy of this image just in case I need it one day. For what it's worth, before I pulled this drive, I did run a "clear and delete everything" on this Tivo.

The IDE to USB adapter kit includes a power supply for the hard drive. I plugged that in and then I connected the hard drive to my laptop. My laptop did recognize that _something_ was there but it did not assign it a letter. I kind of figured it might turn out that way since I am using Windows and the images on these Tivo drives are Linux based(......aren't they?).

Anyway, I read the WINMFS documentation. It says that no drive letter will be assigned nor will your windows XP be able to recognize anything on the drive. That's cool because WINMFS is supposed to take care of everything for you whether you can see the drive or not.

Well...... unfortunately it's not taking care of everything. When I run the WINMFS application it only gives me two drop down menus "file" and "help"

Looking at the information on the WINMFS website, it indicates that there should be a third drop down menu.........it should be giving me a menu called "tools" but I do not see that.

Just guessing...... but I think that my problem here is based on the fact that WINMFS is not allowing me to select a drive. If that is indeed true then can someone here please straighten me out on what to do?

I have attached a screen shot here so you can see what I am looking at.

So what am I missing here? What do I need to do to backup the image off of this drive?

Thanks,

TC


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## robomeister (Feb 4, 2005)

What version of Windows are you using? I think if you are using Vista or Windows7, you have to run WinMFS in Administrator mode. Also, you should start WinMFS after you attach the drive to the computer, not before.

The simplest way to copy the image to your new drive is to do the following:
1. remove drive from tivo. (done)
2. attach drive to your computer with WinMFS. This can be done either with the USB to IDE adapter, or attached to the IDE cable inside the computer. If you are using the USB adapter, you might have to change the jumper settings on the drive. Usually, the drives in the TiVos are set to Cable Select. The USB adapters I use expect the drives to be set to Cable Select as well, so you might be lucky. Or you can set them to Master.
3. run WinMFS.
4. Make a backup of the drive. You will have to select the drive from the list under File->Select drive, the File->Backup. The resulting backup file will be about 240MB.
5. exit WinMFS.
6. disconnect the drive from the computer. Do this the "safe" way by "stopping" the USB device in software, then physically detaching the USB cable. If you connected the drive to the IDE chain, you will have to shut down the computer.
7. Attach the "new" drive to the computer
8. run WinMFS.
9. Restore the backup from step 4 above to the new drive. You will have to select the drive just like before. If the drive is not brand new, it might be formatted and not be recognized by WinMFS, so you will have to remove the formatting. WinMFS can do this, but you'll have to remove the formatting, then shut down WinMFS, the restart it. you might even have to restart the computer so the new formatting of the drive will be recognized by the computer. You can also use the Windows Computer Manager utility to remove the formatting. Just be sure that you DO NOT have the original Tivo drive attached to the computer when you do this. The Computer Manager utility will try to attach every device to Windows, and this will destroy the TiVo formatting. So be careful using that utility.
10. exit from WinMFS
11. Disconnect the new drive
12. Set the jumpers to Cable select before putting the drive back into the TiVo.
13. Power up the TiVo and enjoy (hopefully)!

That should get you started. Feel free to ask more questions if you have them.

robomeister


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## ggieseke (May 30, 2008)

Try setting the drive jumper to master for WinMFS, then back to cable select for the Series 2.


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