# 8TB Premiere



## jmbach

For those that are interested in maxing their Premiere, RussMuscle and I developed a procedure with a new tool that can be used to expand your premiere to 8TB. No intermediate drive is necessary.

First pick up the latest MFSTools from the post here.

Then follow the following procedure. sdX is your source drive and sdY is your 8TB drive. You can use fdisk -l or lsblk -o name,size command to look at the sizes of the attached drives to determine which is the source and which is the 8TB.

1) mfscopy -aiM 4000 /dev/sdX /dev/sdY or mfscopy -aim 2000 /dev/sdX /dev/sdY
This step does 2 things for us. First it copies and expands the source image to the 8TB drive limiting the expansion to about 4TB in size. Second it rearranges the original partition layout from 1,13,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,14,10,12,11 to 1,11,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,14,10,12,13. The reason for this will be apparent later. Boot the drive in the TiVo to make sure the image connects to the TiVo servers and updates correctly.

2) mfsadd -xM 6000 /dev/sdY
This adds a new partition pair 15 (application) and 16 (media) to the image which adds another 2TB of recording space. Now the Premiere only allows for 15 partitions on the internal drive. So if you put the drive as is into the TiVo it will divorce off partition 16 leaving you with only the application partition that describes the extra 2TB recording space which now does not exist. When the TiVo tries to access this space, it will error out. This is why we need to to the next step.

3) apmfix /dev/sdY
The main purpose of this step is to coalesce partition 15 and 16 into partition 15. It also does some other manipulation of the APM and house keeping chores.

4) Boot the 8TB drive in the TiVo and allow it to divorce the now non existent partition 16 if it asks. Once it boots up fully, you will need to connect it back to the computer for the next step.

5) 8TBprep /dev/sdY
The main purpose of this step is to make room for another expansion. Since mfscopy rearranged the partition layout when it copied, it placed partition 12 and 13 in such a way we can coalesce 12 and 13 in 12. Then we can rename partition 15 to partition 13 and now we are back to having 14 partitions. This allows us to add another partition 15.

6) Boot the 8TB drive in the TiVo and allow it to divorce the now non existent partition 15 if it asks. Once it boots up fully, you will need to connect it back to the computer for the next two steps.

7) mfsadd -x /dev/sdY

8) apmfix /dev/sdY

9) Boot the 8TB drive in the TiVo and allow it to divorce the now non existent partition 16 if it asks. Once it boots up fully, you now will enjoy 8TB of recording space.


----------



## ThAbtO

Curious to see what MFSTools INFO will show.


----------



## RussMuscle

Here is the mfstools info...


----------



## Cybernut

Awesome, jmbach!! Kudos to you for continuing to push the boundary of tivo DIY upgrades. Also thanks to new member RussMuscle.

Couple questions - can I use the same process on a Tivo Roamio? I just bought myself an used TCD846500 (Roamio HD 500GB) model. If not, I can certainly use this on my old Premiere 4 model, that I upgraded to 4TB with jmbach's help back in Jan 2014.

Also, can this method be used on a source drive that is 4TB? (I suspect, yes). If so, can the source drive contain recordings and the recordings migrated automatically to the expanded 8TB drive? (I suspect, no)

And one other question - any recommended 8TB drives? Looks like WD has not released any green 8TB, so Red (NAS) drives are the only option. Although, I suspect, the drive inside their 8TB My Book (model# WDBBGB0080HBK-NESN) is likely a green drive that they don't sell in retail. I'm inclined to think so because I have their 4TB My Book, and running hdparm info on it revealed it was the same model# as their retail 4TB green drive.


----------



## RussMuscle

I don't know bout the Roamio. 

I used the WD Gold 8TB Datacenter Hard Disk - WD8002FRYZ for the Premiere.


----------



## jmbach

Cybernut said:


> Awesome, jmbach!! Kudos to you for continuing to push the boundary of tivo DIY upgrades. Also thanks to new member RussMuscle.
> 
> Couple questions - can I use the same process on a Tivo Roamio? I just bought myself an used TCD846500 (Roamio HD 500GB) model. If not, I can certainly use this on my old Premiere 4 model, that I upgraded to 4TB with jmbach's help back in Jan 2014.
> 
> Also, can this method be used on a source drive that is 4TB? (I suspect, yes). If so, can the source drive contain recordings and the recordings migrated automatically to the expanded 8TB drive? (I suspect, no)
> 
> And one other question - any recommended 8TB drives? Looks like WD has not released any green 8TB, so Red (NAS) drives are the only option. Although, I suspect, the drive inside their 8TB My Book (model# WDBBGB0080HBK-NESN) is likely a green drive that they don't sell in retail. I'm inclined to think so because I have their 4TB My Book, and running hdparm info on it revealed it was the same model# as their retail 4TB green drive.


This will not work on a Roamio. If you have a Roamio that is new to you, use MFSR to expand it up to 8TB before you have any recordings on it. You will lose any recordings if you run MFSR on that image.

If a Roamio sees anything over 14 partitions, it reformats the drive. It does no divorce as Premieres do.

If that 4TB Premiere image is the one we heavily customized, MFSTools 3.2 should work on it. Do the commands as in the procedure outlined in post 1. It will copy all the recordings if you run the command as posted.

The 8TB WD Red drives (not red pro) work well in the Roamios and should work well in the Premieres.


----------



## Cybernut

jmbach said:


> This will not work on a Roamio. If you have a Roamio that is new to you, use MFSR to expand it up to 8TB before you have any recordings on it. You will lose any recordings if you run MFSR on that image.
> 
> If a Roamio sees anything over 14 partitions, it reformats the drive. It does no divorce as Premieres do.
> 
> If that 4TB Premiere image is the one we heavily customized, MFSTools 3.2 should work on it. Do the commands as in the procedure outlined in post 1. It will copy all the recordings if you run the command as posted.
> 
> The 8TB WD Red drives (not red pro) work well in the Roamios and should work well in the Premieres.


Perfect! Thanks a lot, jmbach!! Yes, my Roamio is new and will have no recordings - and I did not realize the MFSR can do it all the way up to 8TB for Roamios. So I realize now you devised this method for Premieres. And yes, it is the same one we heavily customized (and it has survived recordings from my original 1Tb drive to my 3TB upgrade and then to my 4TB upgrade - some of those recordings are still on it  ). In any event, if I lose the recordings during my upgrade from 4TB to 8TB Premiere, not a biggie...I'll just switch back to using the 4TB drive (since I'll only be reading from the 4TB drive, everything on it should remain intact and work fine if I plunk the 4TB back in).

This helps me plan out my upgrades. If the 8TB drive cannot be upgraded from my 4TB Premiere, then I will re-use that 8TB drive for my new Roamio that will be arriving any day now. So I will only order one 8TB drive first. If the Premiere upgrade does work (with recordings), then I will order a second 8TB drive for the Roamio upgrade.

Thanks for the drive recommendation!


----------



## ggieseke

On Roamios and Bolts the partition table uses 4K (Roamio) or zero byte (Bolt) placeholder partitions for the partitions that are actually on flash memory, and I assume that the flash memory does the same thing. In any case, you can't add (or remove) any partitions. If you do, it reformats the drive.


----------



## Cybernut

jmbach said:


> 1) mfscopy -aiM 4000 /dev/sdX /dev/sdY or mfscopy -aim 2000 /dev/sdX /dev/sdY
> This step does 2 things for us. First it copies and expands the source image to the 8TB drive limiting the expansion to about 4TB in size. Second it rearranges the original partition layout from 1,13,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,14,10,12,11 to 1,11,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,14,10,12,13. The reason for this will be apparent later.


jmbach - So I have a 4TB Premiere (with recordings) that I am expanding to an 8TB. In step 1 I am not clear which command I should be executing...is it -aiM 4000 or -aiM 2000? I am not sure if those numbers (4000/2000) correspond to 4TB and 2TB source drives, or if they are for something else. A slightly more detailed instruction for this step would be very helpful for figuring out which one I need to run (or if it doesn't matter).


----------



## jmbach

Cybernut said:


> jmbach - So I have a 4TB Premiere (with recordings) that I am expanding to an 8TB. In step 1 I am not clear which command I should be executing...is it -aiM 4000 or -aiM 2000? I am not sure if those numbers (4000/2000) correspond to 4TB and 2TB source drives, or if they are for something else. A slightly more detailed instruction for this step would be very helpful for figuring out which one I need to run (or if it doesn't matter).


Either command will work. M 4000 limits the total expansion to about 4TB in size on the 8TB drive while m 2000 limits the size of the two media partitions to about 2TB each on the 8TB. The end result is about the same an approximately 4TB image on the 8TB drive.

To be clear the difference between the two commands is not only the size but a 'M' and 'm' which has different meanings.


----------



## Cybernut

Aah, yeah, I somehow missed the small case difference between M & m. And thanks as always for your genuine concern to helping folks out here with such a speedy and expounded response. I am truly grateful for your and ggieseke's contributions to this place.


----------



## Cybernut

Finally, got it done this morning!

Spent first several days trying to work with the VM image (tried both VirtualBox & VMWare Wkstn), but kept failing at midway during the first step (drive copy) as the drive writes could not keep up with the drive reads. I suspected all along that because I pass USB 3.0 to the VM, I knew there's a performance hit. But I kept trying for several days and it even reached around 26% done a couple times (that's about 10-12 hours) but then gave the eventual write synch error. Finally, I gave up and dusted off my old laptop and used the Live CD (was avoiding the live CD option initially because it would have tied up my main laptop for a couple days).

Thanks jmbach and RussMuscle for perfecting the steps (building on jmbach's original Premiere upgrade process for 4 and 6TB drives). Smooth upgrade, including my existing recordings.


----------



## dvrBruce

Hello everyone! I am a new TCF member as you can see. "Long time listener, First time caller" as they say on the radio talk shows.

I've had Tivo since I bought some Series 2 units in 2005. I upgraded the hard drives in those units with knowledge gained in whole or in part from TCF. But I don't think I got a login then or at least I don't remember it. I still actively use one of the Series 2 units with a digital tuning adapter so I have gotten excellent lifespan from the upgrade drive.

In 2010 and 2011 I picked up a couple of Premiere XL(TCD748000) units on upgrade offers from Tivo if I recall correctly. The hard drive has died in one of the Premieres. It is a WD10EVVS 1TB. DataLifeGuard recognizes the drive but the quick test just hangs, and it was making some cringe worthy noises, therefore it is trash.

So I have rediscovered TCF and I would like to take this moment in my long-winded first post to express my sincere thanks to the developers and pioneers who make these upgrades possible for the rest of us. With an extra helping of thanks to jmbach and RussMuscle for this technique.

I have read 100s of posts on many threads trying to be well informed and not be a noob asking the same old questions. So finally let me get on with the questions.

1) How many installations are out there (including 6TB as the process is similar)? Does anyone have any cautionary tales to make me rethink an 8TB upgrade?

2) Are the units holding up to the increased power requirements and heat of the large capacity drives? From various threads the consensus seems like the WD RED 8TB (WD80EFZX) is the drive to get. The power specs are a bit higher that the original WD10EVVS 1TB, but less that the WD Gold RussMuscle used. One thing that is concerning is the peak 12V, 1.79A while the power supply is labeled 12V, 1.16A. However, a spec sheet I found on the original drive gave 12V, 1.67A so maybe nothing to worry about.

3) Has the partition rearragement caused any issues with performance or OS updates?

4) What about the 4k alignment issues discussed in the MFSR tread? Does MSFTools 3.2 do anything about alignment? If not has it proved to be much of an issue?

5) My understanding is I can use the image from my working Premiere XL(TCD748000) to set up a disk for my dead one(same model), but I need to do a Clear and Delete eveything. Do I initiate that or does it do it automatically? Do I still need to do that if I drop the -a on the mfscopy in step 1? Are there any other steps to take because I copied the image from the other device?

6) What kind of Cable Card issues am I looking at? I have Comcast and an MCard in each Premiere. (Side Note: Has everyone seen the Funny Or Die - Comcast video? Seems spot on to me!)

Thank you if you read all the way down to here. Sorry for blathering on so long. I am hoping one long post is less annoying than many short ones!


----------



## jmbach

dvrBruce said:


> Hello everyone! I am a new TCF member as you can see. "Long time listener, First time caller" as they say on the radio talk shows.
> 
> I've had Tivo since I bought some Series 2 units in 2005. I upgraded the hard drives in those units with knowledge gained in whole or in part from TCF. But I don't think I got a login then or at least I don't remember it. I still actively use one of the Series 2 units with a digital tuning adapter so I have gotten excellent lifespan from the upgrade drive.
> 
> In 2010 and 2011 I picked up a couple of Premiere XL(TCD748000) units on upgrade offers from Tivo if I recall correctly. The hard drive has died in one of the Premieres. It is a WD10EVVS 1TB. DataLifeGuard recognizes the drive but the quick test just hangs, and it was making some cringe worthy noises, therefore it is trash.
> 
> So I have rediscovered TCF and I would like to take this moment in my long-winded first post to express my sincere thanks to the developers and pioneers who make these upgrades possible for the rest of us. With an extra helping of thanks to jmbach and RussMuscle for this technique.
> 
> I have read 100s of posts on many threads trying to be well informed and not be a noob asking the same old questions. So finally let me get on with the questions.
> 
> 1) How many installations are out there (including 6TB as the process is similar)? Does anyone have any cautionary tales to make me rethink an 8TB upgrade?
> 
> 2) Are the units holding up to the increased power requirements and heat of the large capacity drives? From various threads the consensus seems like the WD RED 8TB (WD80EFZX) is the drive to get. The power specs are a bit higher that the original WD10EVVS 1TB, but less that the WD Gold RussMuscle used. One thing that is concerning is the peak 12V, 1.79A while the power supply is labeled 12V, 1.16A. However, a spec sheet I found on the original drive gave 12V, 1.67A so maybe nothing to worry about.
> 
> 3) Has the partition rearragement caused any issues with performance or OS updates?
> 
> 4) What about the 4k alignment issues discussed in the MFSR tread? Does MSFTools 3.2 do anything about alignment? If not has it proved to be much of an issue?
> 
> 5) My understanding is I can use the image from my working Premiere XL(TCD748000) to set up a disk for my dead one(same model), but I need to do a Clear and Delete eveything. Do I initiate that or does it do it automatically? Do I still need to do that if I drop the -a on the mfscopy in step 1? Are there any other steps to take because I copied the image from the other device?
> 
> 6) What kind of Cable Card issues am I looking at? I have Comcast and an MCard in each Premiere. (Side Note: Has everyone seen the Funny Or Die - Comcast video? Seems spot on to me!)
> 
> Thank you if you read all the way down to here. Sorry for blathering on so long. I am hoping one long post is less annoying than many short ones!


1) I know of at least 3 without issue to date. Problem is that people are more than likely to report issues than successes. Consequently hard t get a count.

2)Sofar the WD Red drives (not Pro) have been used successfully in multiple different series of TiVos without incidence.

3) Nothing definite in the performance side and no problems with OS upgrades as of yet.

4) MFSTools does no 4k alignment. In theory 4k alignment should improve performance and longevity. Unfortunately these outcomes are difficult to measure to give them meaning.

5) Yes you have to do a clear and delete everything if you use your working TiVo image to fix the broken TiVo. You can either let it boot and go through the menu start one or you can wait until the kickstart portal opens while it is booting up and hit the pause key followed by 76543210. I would use the command mfscopy -i /dev/sdX /dev/sdY where sdX is your source and sdY is your target drive.

6) Don't know as I have Charter and an M-card. I do know that M-cards require the data ID and host ID to be paired. Comcast is supposed to have an online pairing portal that you may be able to re-pair the cableCARD.


----------



## dvrBruce

Thanks for the response.

I have decided to take the plunge. I will add my experiences to the thread for others to consider.

I am actually going to upgrade both of the Premieres. I ordered a 4TB and 8TB WD Red from NewEgg. They don't have to charge me taxes and I got a price match to Amazon on the 4TB ($121.35) and an upgrade to fast shipping for free. I like NewEgg!

After reading so many posts I am having a little trouble remembering some details. I remember some recommendations for full read, write, read testing of drives. Did that just apply to old drives being reused or is it recommended for new drives too?


----------



## jmbach

Recommended for all drives going into TiVos. It is not perfect but it is a way to qwell out the more immediate lemons.


----------



## ggieseke

I test the heck out of EVERY drive (new, used, whatever) before putting it in a TiVo. Without RAID or even an easy way to back up all of your recordings, you need to trust it.


----------



## ClearToLand

dvrBruce said:


> ...I am actually going to upgrade both of the Premieres. I ordered a *4TB and 8TB WD Red* from NewEgg... ...I remember some recommendations for *full read, write, read testing of drives. Did that just apply to old drives being reused or is it recommended for new drives too?*





jmbach said:


> *Recommended for all drives going into TiVos.* It is not perfect but it is a way to qwell out the more immediate lemons.





ggieseke said:


> *I test the heck out of EVERY drive (new, used, whatever) before putting it in a TiVo...*


@dvrBruce ,

*GOOGLE "Hiren's Boot CD"*, burn it to a CD (or if you know how, load it onto a flash drive; *GOOGLE: "Yumi"*) and run *Western Digital Data Lifeguard Diagnostics*. [IIRC, you also could d/l a version from WDC and run it from within Windows, but I have a spare PC dedicated to these tasks and thus only the 'tested' HDD is spinning. You don't want to accidentally 'Write Zeros' to your Boot Drive.  THAT would ruin your day.]

Recommended for *ALL* HDDs for *ALL* applications, TiVo and PC. I run 'Extended' (Read all sectors), 'Write Zeros' (Write all sectors), 'Extended' (Read all sectors) on every (WDC) HDD I buy (There are other utilities for testing non-WDC HDDs). 3TB Reds take ~5.5 hours, 4TB Reds ~7 hours for EACH operation - i.e. total ~21 hours for a 4TB. So, not counting the periods when the test finishes and you're not there to start the next one, it usually takes me two days per HDD.

I also run *MemTest86+* (for a week!) on new RAM, first each stick individually, then all of them together. When I put a TiVo (or PC) into service, I don't want any surprises (that I can avoid at least).



ggieseke said:


> ...Without RAID or even *an easy way to back up all of your recordings*, you need to trust it.


*kmttg* and *pyTiVo Desktop* are easy ways to back up your non-premium channel recordings (but you already knew that  ). Currently, I transfer shows to a logical partition on my main (aka ONLY right now) PC and then periodically I move them to an External USB HDD. RAID (and a dedicated 'Media' PC) is next on my ToDo List, but I won't be running it (RAID) 24x7. Just periodically to backup the External USB HDD(s). The majority of my saved shows right now are just 'overflow' from my 500GB Roamio Basic that I haven't had the time to watch yet because I've been spending the majority of my time setting up several PCs, new and old, desktop and laptop, with Win7 HP and Pro.


----------



## ms602

Will this process work for drives larger than 8TB? 10TB is widely available now (although expensive), and 12TB is in limited supply from some vendors. Not that I need that much space, just wondering what's feasible right now. I notice that Weaknees sells a 10TB replacement drive for the Premiere, so it has to be feasible somehow, but they don't answer questions about how to prep a drive for use, of course.


----------



## jmbach

ms602 said:


> Will this process work for drives larger than 8TB? 10TB is widely available now (although expensive), and 12TB is in limited supply from some vendors. Not that I need that much space, just wondering what's feasible right now. I notice that Weaknees sells a 10TB replacement drive for the Premiere, so it has to be feasible somehow, but they don't answer questions about how to prep a drive for use, of course.


A similar process could be derived to get up to 10TB but no further as a community method for circumventing the 2TB MFS partition limit has not been found yet. If Weaknees has found a way, then the community will eventually and then any drive could be used without limitation.
However, what we will find is that the larger the drive gets, we will start introducing inefficiencies.
With this method to produce an 8TB image, an inefficiency was introduced because the MFS App partitions are not all located next to each other in the center of the drive. To produce a 10TB that will be even worse. Will we notice the inefficiencies, probably not. No one has complained about this inefficiency that was introduced back when TiVos were first expanded.
Now if Weaknees found a way that circumvented the 2TB limit, then that inefficiency goes away because you can keep the original layout of the MFS partitions which keeps the App partitions together and in the center of the drive. However after a certain size, a new inefficiency is introduced as larger drives tend to have larger cluster sizes which wastes space when the whole cluster is not used for recordings.

Sent from my SM-G950U1 using Tapatalk


----------



## ms602

jmbach said:


> A similar process could be derived to get up to 10TB but no further as a community method for circumventing the 2TB MFS partition limit has not been found yet. If Weaknees has found a way, then the community will eventually and then any drive could be used without limitation.
> However, what we will find is that the larger the drive gets, we will start introducing inefficiencies.
> With this method to produce an 8TB image, an inefficiency was introduced because the MFS App partitions are not all located next to each other in the center of the drive. To produce a 10TB that will be even worse. Will we notice the inefficiencies, probably not. No one has complained about this inefficiency that was introduced back when TiVos were first expanded.
> Now if Weaknees found a way that circumvented the 2TB limit, then that inefficiency goes away because you can keep the original layout of the MFS partitions which keeps the App partitions together and in the center of the drive. However after a certain size, a new inefficiency is introduced as larger drives tend to have larger cluster sizes which wastes space when the whole cluster is not used for recordings.
> 
> Sent from my SM-G950U1 using Tapatalk


Understood, thanks for the detailed explanation!


----------



## Technogod

I am trying to upgrade my 6TB premiere to 8TB premiere. I receive the message in the attached screenshot.


----------



## jmbach

Can you post a mfsinfo screenshot of your 6 TB drive?

My first thought is for you to copy a byte for byte your 6 TB image to your 8 TB drive and then start at the 8 TB prep stage 


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk


----------



## Technogod

I've attached the screenshot.


----------



## jmbach

Technogod said:


> I've attached the screenshot.


Was the 6 TB drive made with MFSTools 3.2? If it was, then all you should need to do is either clone the 6 TB to your 8 TB drive or copy it with dd to your 8 TB drive and the start at step 5 with your 8 TB drive connected to your computer.

Sent from my SM-G950U1 using Tapatalk


----------



## Technogod

Yes, I used MFSTools 3.2. Could you please tell me the proper command line I need to use for dd?


----------



## jmbach

dd if=/dev/sdX of=/dev/sdY bs=4096

Where sdX is the source drive and sdY is the target drive. (replace X, Y with the appropriate a, b, c,....) 

Sent from my SM-G950U1 using Tapatalk


----------



## Technogod

Thanks, I'll add that to my notes. I used Active Disk Image to clone the drive. It took 58 hours for a 6TB drive. If you know a faster way please let me know. I started at step 5. After reboot TiVo thought it had external storage. Selected clear and three thumbs down. TiVo rebooted successfully. Performed steps 7 and 8. TiVo booted but no additional space. I included a screenshot of steps 7 and 8.


----------



## jmbach

Technogod said:


> Thanks, I'll add that to my notes. I used Active Disk Image to clone the drive. It took 58 hours for a 6TB drive. If you know a faster way please let me know. I started at step 5. After reboot TiVo thought it had external storage. Selected clear and three thumbs down. TiVo rebooted successfully. Performed steps 7 and 8. TiVo booted but no additional space. I included a screenshot of steps 7 and 8.


So the problem is that mfsadd did not add the pair of partitions as expected. Can you post a screenshot of the mfsinfo of that drive.


----------



## Technogod

I've attached the screenshot.


----------



## jmbach

Technogod said:


> I've attached the screenshot.


Try running mfsadd command again and see if it expands. If it does not expand, then send me a PM

Sent from my SM-G950U1 using Tapatalk


----------



## Technogod

In step one I capitalized the M when trying to run mfscopy -aim 2000 /dev/sdX /dev/sdY. After running the proper command it is now running. I'll keep you updated.


----------



## jmbach

Technogod said:


> In step one I capitalized the M when trying to run mfscopy -aim 2000 /dev/sdX /dev/sdY. After running the proper command it is now running. I'll keep you updated.


We can probably make that work but will probably need a modified set of tools as you will probably end up with a total of 18 partitions. The tools included on the ISO will not complete on an image with that many partitions. Will need to modify the toolset. However I will need to see the actual outcome of the copy process before proceeding.

Sent from my SM-G950U1 using Tapatalk


----------



## tasi

Any guidance on doing this for Roamio? 4TB to 8TB or 10TB?

I assume I would use MFSTOOLS to copy to the new drive, but how would I have the Roamio recognize the expanded drive/space?

Thanks for any help.


----------



## ms602

tasi said:


> Any guidance on doing this for Roamio? 4TB to 8TB or 10TB?
> 
> I assume I would use MFSTOOLS to copy to the new drive, but how would I have the Roamio recognize the expanded drive/space?
> 
> Thanks for any help.


Naw, it's a different process for the Roamio. Reason I know this, is that I just installed an 8TB western digital surveillance drive to a Roamio last month. There may be something posted here on the process, but I'm too lazy to search for it. Ross Walker covers how to add a 4-8TB drive to a Roamio on his famous site. I'm not sure if the procedure will work with a 10TB drive, as far as I understand, the community has only figured out how to get up to 8TB to work on TiVo units. It has to be feasible though, since Weaknees sells 10TB drives for both Premiere and Roamio, but they don't really share their technical methods.

If you aren't familiar with Ross Walker's site, here's what you're looking for..
A Guide to Upgrading Your Tivo Bolt, Tivo Premiere, Tivo Roamio, Tivo Roamio OTA, Tivo HD, Tivo Series 3 or Tivo Series 2 (Easily upgrade your Tivo Bolt, Roamio or Premiere to 300 Hours+ HD Capacity) - Also includes instructions on how to fix a broken Tivo.


----------



## tasi

ms602 said:


> Naw, it's a different process for the Roamio. Reason I know this, is that I just installed an 8TB western digital surveillance drive to a Roamio last month. There may be something posted here on the process, but I'm too lazy to search for it. Ross Walker covers how to add a 4-8TB drive to a Roamio on his famous site. I'm not sure if the procedure will work with a 10TB drive, as far as I understand, the community has only figured out how to get up to 8TB to work on TiVo units. It has to be feasible though, since Weaknees sells 10TB drives for both Premiere and Roamio, but they don't really share their technical methods.
> 
> If you aren't familiar with Ross Walker's site, here's what you're looking for..
> A Guide to Upgrading Your Tivo Bolt, Tivo Premiere, Tivo Roamio, Tivo Roamio OTA, Tivo HD, Tivo Series 3 or Tivo Series 2 (Easily upgrade your Tivo Bolt, Roamio or Premiere to 300 Hours+ HD Capacity) - Also includes instructions on how to fix a broken Tivo.


Thanks for the quick response ms602.

I did go over Ross' site and a few others and a bunch of threads, but I'm still unclear on the procedure in order to keep my existing recordings and settings.

Do I just use MFSTools or dd copy to copy the 4TB to the 8TB, and then let TiVo expand it? Or are there more detailed steps.

Or do I have to format the 8TB drive first using MFSR, then copy the 4TB over using MFSTools? But if I do that, doesn't MFSTools just overwrite the drive, making the MFSR step pointless?

Thanks again for the quick response.


----------



## ggieseke

On Bolts it doesn't work AFAIK. You can copy and expand a Roamio up to 4TB with MFSTools, but for larger drives you have to start over from scratch with MFSR. The current limit even then is still 8TB, but I have a few untested ideas about that and the 8TB wall may soon crumble.


----------



## jmbach

tasi said:


> Thanks for the quick response ms602.
> 
> I did go over Ross' site and a few others and a bunch of threads, but I'm still unclear on the procedure in order to keep my existing recordings and settings.
> 
> Do I just use MFSTools or dd copy to copy the 4TB to the 8TB, and then let TiVo expand it? Or are there more detailed steps.
> 
> Or do I have to format the 8TB drive first using MFSR, then copy the 4TB over using MFSTools? But if I do that, doesn't MFSTools just overwrite the drive, making the MFSR step pointless?
> 
> Thanks again for the quick response.


The only way to upgrade a drive on a Bolt is to use a program like kmttg to copy the the recordings to a computer then use MFSR to create the new drive and then copy the recordings back. The same process for Roamios over 4TB. You can use MFSTools 3.2 to copy up to a 4TB drive max.

Sent from my SM-G950U1 using Tapatalk


----------



## tasi

jmbach said:


> The only way to upgrade a drive on a Bolt is to use a program like kmttg to copy the the recordings to a computer then use MFSR to create the new drive and then copy the recordings back. The same process for Roamios over 4TB. You can use MFSTools 3.2 to copy up to a 4TB drive max.
> 
> Sent from my SM-G950U1 using Tapatalk


Thanks jmbach, that's what I needed to know. I have a failing 4tb drive in my Roamio and thought I might upgrade instead of just replace. Looks like replacing is the way to go.


----------



## ms602

tasi said:


> Thanks for the quick response ms602.
> 
> I did go over Ross' site and a few others and a bunch of threads, but I'm still unclear on the procedure in order to keep my existing recordings and settings.
> 
> Do I just use MFSTools or dd copy to copy the 4TB to the 8TB, and then let TiVo expand it? Or are there more detailed steps.
> 
> Or do I have to format the 8TB drive first using MFSR, then copy the 4TB over using MFSTools? But if I do that, doesn't MFSTools just overwrite the drive, making the MFSR step pointless?
> 
> Thanks again for the quick response.


If you're concerned about saving recordings and settings, I would setup KMTTG to back those up to a computer. KMTTG won't allow you to put the recordings back, but certainly the most important settings, it's what I use on my Premiere. There's some other TiVo transfer tool that I read about that's supposed to allow you to do both, transfer content off and restore it back to the TiVo. But I forget what that is. From what I recall, it was a Windows only tool, so when I hear Windows, I generally just ignore it, seeing that I don't use Microsoft Windows.

Anyone senior -- What's the TiVo content transfer tool that works 2-way? To and from a TiVo?


----------



## ms602

tasi said:


> Thanks jmbach, that's what I needed to know. I have a failing 4tb drive in my Roamio and thought I might upgrade instead of just replace. Looks like replacing is the way to go.


What I'm suggesting is that you copy all your content off the old drive to computer, then go through Ross Walker's guide to setup a brand new blank drive from scratch, then transfer all your content and settings from the computer to the new drive. Maybe someone can chime in here on what this Windows transfer program is.. Because I strictly use KMTTG myself..

Someone senior -- What's the program that allows 2 way transfer of content?


----------



## ThAbtO

ms602 said:


> What I'm suggesting is that you copy all your content off the old drive to computer, then go through Ross Walker's guide to setup a brand new blank drive from scratch, then transfer all your content and settings from the computer to the new drive. Maybe someone can chime in here on what this Windows transfer program is.. Because I strictly use KMTTG myself..
> 
> Someone senior -- What's the program that allows 2 way transfer of content?


PyTivo / Desktop, and the now unsupported Tivo Desktop.


----------



## gary80920

Happy New Year everyone!

I have stock Premiere XL4 (TCD758250) with the 2tB hard drive. I'm looking to upgrade the hard drive to something larger perhaps 6 or 8tB.

Are these instructions applicable? Or, do I need to look elsewhere.

Thanks,
Gary


----------



## jmbach

gary80920 said:


> Happy New Year everyone!
> 
> I have stock Premiere XL4 (TCD758250) with the 2tB hard drive. I'm looking to upgrade the hard drive to something larger perhaps 6 or 8tB.
> 
> Are these instructions applicable? Or, do I need to look elsewhere.
> 
> Thanks,
> Gary


These will work. The 6TB would be less steps and a slightly different mfsadd command. The 6 TB Premiere thread will have that info.

Sent from my SM-G950U1 using Tapatalk


----------



## ms602

gary80920 said:


> Happy New Year everyone!
> 
> I have stock Premiere XL4 (TCD758250) with the 2tB hard drive. I'm looking to upgrade the hard drive to something larger perhaps 6 or 8tB.
> 
> Are these instructions applicable? Or, do I need to look elsewhere.
> 
> Thanks,
> Gary


Gary, you have the right forum listing if you want to format an 8TB drive. Just go to the very first post in this thread for the step by step instructions on drive preparation.


----------



## Sparky1234

gary80920 said:


> Happy New Year everyone!
> 
> I have stock Premiere XL4 (TCD758250) with the 2tB hard drive. I'm looking to upgrade the hard drive to something larger perhaps 6 or 8tB.
> 
> Are these instructions applicable? Or, do I need to look elsewhere.
> 
> Thanks,
> Gary


Post back results. Considering an 8TB upgrade too.


----------



## gary80920

Hi,

I will be upgrading to a 6tB drive as the cost for an 8tB drive is not worth it.

Regards!


----------



## DocNo

gary80920 said:


> I will be upgrading to a 6tB drive as the cost for an 8tB drive is not worth it.


bensbargains.net has routine alerts for Best Buy with WD 8TB Easystores for under $200. If you "shuck" the hard drive from the enclosure they turn out to be Red drives. Way overkill for Tivo. The next time they come up (seems to be every 3-4 weeks, just missed the last window) I'm picking another one up and the 6TB Seagate SMR piece of crap is coming out of my Bolt an I'll just set the WD Red on the shelf next to the Bolt. Power it with it's own 12v power supply and run a SATA cable from the bolt over to the WD Red. I don't care if the drive is not in case - the bolt is in a cabinet out of site. And even it wasn't it still wouldn't be the geekiest thing in my AV center


----------



## kpeters59

From Bens Bargains:

My Book 8Tb Desktop Hard Drive With Password Protection And Auto Backup Software - Newegg.com

-KP


----------



## DocNo

8TB drives at BestBuy are back. Time for more shucking!

https://www.bestbuy.com/site/wd-eas...-3-0-hard-drive-black/5792401.p?skuId=5792401


----------



## ms602

I bought one of the 8TB Western Digital My Book drives from Amazon. They were on sale for $155 with free shipping when I checked out 3 days ago, for one with a slightly damaged outer box, which is certainly a lot cheaper than Western Digital sells a red bare drive.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01LQQHLGC/

I have the drive removed from external case, and am ready to proceed with setup, but I need a little advice and guidance. So here are the details..

I have the 320GB TiVo Premiere DVR (TCD746320) and I previously replaced the 320GB drive with a 1TB Western Digital Green drive. Reason I did that is because the original 320GB drive failed, and was completely unresponsive. I got advice from ggieseke on how to setup a new drive using a virtual drive image (VHD format) and the DvrBars software. I no longer have the original 320GB drive, and even if I did, because of whatever mechanical malfunction it had, it wouldn't be useful. So what I need to do is setup this new 8TB Western Digital drive from a VHD image rather than copy the 1TB drive. I assume this would be preferred, since the 1TB drive was altered from original TiVo configuration anyway during the setup.

Help! Need a clean TCD746320 image.
Dvr Backup And Restore Software for Windows (DvrBARS)

So this is my question -- What are the steps to setup an 8TB drive for use on the Premiere without doing a drive-to-drive copy, but using a VHD image (TCD746320.vhd) instead?

Thanks in advance!


----------



## ggieseke

I just got a new 746320 image thanks to TCF member Allen King that's already running 20.7.4.RC42, so you could (hopefully) copy that image and expand it to 4TB directly with MFSTools 3.2 and a virtual machine using something like VMware or VirtualBox. Expanding that to 8TB will probably take advice from @jmbach. Otherwise you will need an intermediate drive of at least 320GB.

You would be the first person to test this image and I need a few more hours to complete the upload, so let me know how it goes if you decide to go down that road.


----------



## jmbach

ms602 said:


> I bought one of the 8TB Western Digital My Book drives from Amazon. They were on sale for $155 with free shipping when I checked out 3 days ago, for one with a slightly damaged outer box, which is certainly a lot cheaper than Western Digital sells a red bare drive.
> 
> http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01LQQHLGC/
> 
> I have the drive removed from external case, and am ready to proceed with setup, but I need a little advice and guidance. So here are the details..
> 
> I have the 320GB TiVo Premiere DVR (TCD746320) and I previously replaced the 320GB drive with a 1TB Western Digital Green drive. Reason I did that is because the original 320GB drive failed, and was completely unresponsive. I got advice from ggieseke on how to setup a new drive using a virtual drive image (VHD format) and the DvrBars software. I no longer have the original 320GB drive, and even if I did, because of whatever mechanical malfunction it had, it wouldn't be useful. So what I need to do is setup this new 8TB Western Digital drive from a VHD image rather than copy the 1TB drive. I assume this would be preferred, since the 1TB drive was altered from original TiVo configuration anyway during the setup.
> 
> Help! Need a clean TCD746320 image.
> Dvr Backup And Restore Software for Windows (DvrBARS)
> 
> So this is my question -- What are the steps to setup an 8TB drive for use on the Premiere without doing a drive-to-drive copy, but using a VHD image (TCD746320.vhd) instead?
> 
> Thanks in advance!


Well if that 1TB image is fully functional and updated, there is no reason to use one of ggieseke's images. Just follow the 8TB instructions and you get to keep your recordings.

Otherwise, get ggieseke's newest image he offered you. Restore it to that 1 TB since you are not going to to keep the recordings anyway. You might need to let it boot in your TiVo first before MFSTools can see and use it. You can try without booting it if you like. Just follow the 8TB instructions once that image is on a hard drive.

The easiest way to avoid doing a drive to drive copy is using something like VMware or VirtualBox to mount the ISO of MFSTools, the VHD from ggieseke, and the physical hard drive you want the image on. From there you can just flow the 8TB instructions.

Again the only issue is that sometimes MFSTools does not fully recognize an image that has not been married to a TiVo. In that case you have to do that first before you can follow the 8TB instructions.


----------



## ms602

jmbach said:


> Well if that 1TB image is fully functional and updated, there is no reason to use one of ggieseke's images. Just follow the 8TB instructions and you get to keep your recordings.
> 
> Otherwise, get ggieseke's newest image he offered you. Restore it to that 1 TB since you are not going to to keep the recordings anyway. You might need to let it boot in your TiVo first before MFSTools can see and use it. You can try without booting it if you like. Just follow the 8TB instructions once that image is on a hard drive.
> 
> The easiest way to avoid doing a drive to drive copy is using something like VMware or VirtualBox to mount the ISO of MFSTools, the VHD from ggieseke, and the physical hard drive you want the image on. From there you can just flow the 8TB instructions.
> 
> Again the only issue is that sometimes MFSTools does not fully recognize an image that has not been married to a TiVo. In that case you have to do that first before you can follow the 8TB instructions.


Well I do have a spare 320GB drive. I could restore ggieseke's image to a 320GB drive, then go through the 8TB copy procedure. That would effectively appear to be starting from a genuine TiVo hard drive. I am just hesitant to copy the 1TB drive over because I was advised by ggieseke that the partitions were altered from what TiVo intended in order to expand the storage capacity from 320GB to 1TB. I just want to make sure this works and that it results in stability. The first time I prepped the 1TB drive (like a year ago) I had all sorts of glitches happening afterward. I was talking to TiVo tech support after that, and they told me the DVR software indicated that an external drive was attached when there was not. In order to resolve the rough operation, I completely zeroed the 1TB drive and performed the operation a second time, of course TiVo customer support offered no guidance and actually ridiculed me for having changed out the hard drive myself. Reformatting with zeros and doing it over seemed to work, the DVR has worked 100% reliably since then, but I know these steps ya'll recommend are hacks, and may not perfectly duplicate what the TiVo OS expects. Anyway, I'll try that -- writing the image to a 320GB drive then copying and expanding to 8TB. I'll let ya know if there are any hangups, but I don't see why that wouldn't work without problem. Thanks for the guidance as always!


----------



## jmbach

ms602 said:


> Well I do have a spare 320GB drive. I could restore ggieseke's image to a 320GB drive, then go through the 8TB copy procedure. That would effectively appear to be starting from a genuine TiVo hard drive. I am just hesitant to copy the 1TB drive over because I was advised by ggieseke that the partitions were altered from what TiVo intended in order to expand the storage capacity from 320GB to 1TB. I just want to make sure this works and that it results in stability. The first time I prepped the 1TB drive (like a year ago) I had all sorts of glitches happening afterward. I was talking to TiVo tech support after that, and they told me the DVR software indicated that an external drive was attached when there was not. In order to resolve the rough operation, I completely zeroed the 1TB drive and performed the operation a second time, of course TiVo customer support offered no guidance and actually ridiculed me for having changed out the hard drive myself. Reformatting with zeros and doing it over seemed to work, the DVR has worked 100% reliably since then, but I know these steps ya'll recommend are hacks, and may not perfectly duplicate what the TiVo OS expects. Anyway, I'll try that -- writing the image to a 320GB drive then copying and expanding to 8TB. I'll let ya know if there are any hangups, but I don't see why that wouldn't work without problem. Thanks for the guidance as always!


MFSTools can take a drive that has been previously expanded by JMFS and when it copies (and expands) it will essentially convert it to a standard TiVo layout. So use your 1TB.


----------



## ms602

Well, I just got an e-mail from TiVo:

"Enjoy our Summer Breeze Sale of a Lifetime. Save $450! For a limited time only, replace Product Lifetime Service on your current qualifying TiVo DVR with a new All-in-service plan for just $99 when you purchase a new TiVo BOLT VOX. A savings of $450! Must use TSN from list below as promo code. Offer ends August 7, 2018. Supplies limited."

I've been waiting for this opportunity for a year. So I was getting ready to upgrade my Premiere, but now I'm going to get a Bolt instead. I'm going to try and setup the 3.5" 8TB with the Bolt. Either as external connected to eSATA, or external connected to internal SATA. I see that it's possible from another forum posting..

Recommended eSATA Enclosures?


----------



## ThAbtO

ms602 said:


> Well, I just got an e-mail from TiVo:
> 
> "Enjoy our Summer Breeze Sale of a Lifetime. Save $450! For a limited time only, replace Product Lifetime Service on your current qualifying TiVo DVR with a new All-in-service plan for just $99 when you purchase a new TiVo BOLT VOX. A savings of $450! Must use TSN from list below as promo code. Offer ends August 7, 2018. Supplies limited."
> 
> I've been waiting for this opportunity for a year. So I was getting ready to upgrade my Premiere, but now I'm going to get a Bolt instead. I'm going to try and setup the 3.5" 8TB with the Bolt. Either as external connected to eSATA, or external connected to internal SATA. I see that it's possible from another forum posting..
> 
> Recommended eSATA Enclosures?


You may find that MFSTools does not work properly to expand Bolts >4TB.

You must use MSFR.


----------



## jmbach

You can use MFSTools to add any size external drive to any TiVo including the Bolt. The key is to limit the partition size to 2TiB when you are expanding. Internally, the limit is 4TB for up to Roamio. The version for the Bolt is not publically available yet. Waiting on enough people to test it on Bolts before it is released.


----------



## ms602

I've been checking around to see everything involved and decided to do something different.

8TB is very nice, but really, I don't need that much space, and it's going to be a major hassle to do an external drive chained to the Bolt. I'd have to get a new drive enclosure that supports eSATA, plus I'd have to get an eSATA to SATA cable to connect to the Bolt internal interface, and cut some sort of hole in the Bolt case to allow the cable to extrude. Either that, or figure out how to get the Bolt to recognize the drive from the eSATA port, and I don't think anyone has had success on doing that yet, as it's hit or miss without a genuine WD DVR expander. So I'm going to just return the WD MyBook back to Amazon (I'm still within 30 days) and buy a 2.5 drive (Seagate Barracuda 5TB notebook drive) instead. Not as much space, but I don't need that much more, and it'll be way more convenient to easily move when needed. I hear what ya'll say about using MSFR, going to follow Ross Walker's upgrade guide. I'd post how it goes, but this isn't the right thread, but I don't anticipate any problems. Just the same, thought anyone might be interested to hear that the summer lifetime transfer is up for offer again.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01LQQHLGC/
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B01M0AADIX/
A Guide to Upgrading Your Tivo Bolt, Tivo Premiere, Tivo Roamio, Tivo Roamio OTA, Tivo HD, Tivo Series 3 or Tivo Series 2 (Easily upgrade your Tivo Bolt, Roamio or Premiere to 300 Hours+ HD Capacity) - Also includes instructions on how to fix a broken Tivo.


----------



## jmbach

ms602 said:


> I've been checking around to see everything involved and decided to do something different.
> 
> 8TB is very nice, but really, I don't need that much space, and it's going to be a major hassle to do an external drive chained to the Bolt. I'd have to get a new drive enclosure that supports eSATA, plus I'd have to get an eSATA to SATA cable to connect to the Bolt internal interface, and cut some sort of hole in the Bolt case to allow the cable to extrude. Either that, or figure out how to get the Bolt to recognize the drive from the eSATA port, and I don't think anyone has had success on doing that yet, as it's hit or miss without a genuine WD DVR expander. So I'm going to just return the WD MyBook back to Amazon (I'm still within 30 days) and buy a 2.5 drive (Seagate Barracuda 5TB notebook drive) instead. Not as much space, but I don't need that much more, and it'll be way more convenient to easily move when needed. I hear what ya'll say about using MSFR, going to follow Ross Walker's upgrade guide. I'd post how it goes, but this isn't the right thread, but I don't anticipate any problems. Just the same, thought anyone might be interested to hear that the summer lifetime transfer is up for offer again.
> 
> http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01LQQHLGC/
> http://www.amazon.com/dp/B01M0AADIX/
> A Guide to Upgrading Your Tivo Bolt, Tivo Premiere, Tivo Roamio, Tivo Roamio OTA, Tivo HD, Tivo Series 3 or Tivo Series 2 (Easily upgrade your Tivo Bolt, Roamio or Premiere to 300 Hours+ HD Capacity) - Also includes instructions on how to fix a broken Tivo.


Well FWIW, I have my 3TB Bolt plus attached to an 8TB external drive. Just have to have both drives hooked to your computer when you run MFSTools to expand the Bolt.


----------



## ms602

Th


jmbach said:


> Well FWIW, I have my 3TB Bolt plus attached to an 8TB external drive. Just have to have both drives hooked to your computer when you run MFSTools to expand the Bolt.


That's good to know -- that an external drive will work with the Bolt reliably, thanks for the heads up. I'm still going with the internal drive though, got everything ordered at this point. In the future, I'd really like to switch to SSD rather than have a mechanical hard drive, but it's simply not cost effective at the moment. $2000 for 2TB is just a little bit expensive. The writing is definitely on the wall though. SSD has overcome it's re-write reliability issues, and even Western Digital is admitting that SSD is how it's going to be.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00L0LF4S6/

Western Digital to Close HDD Plant, Increase SSD Production - ExtremeTech
Western Digital wonders why enterprise isn't keen on its solid-state drives


----------



## jmbach

ms602 said:


> Th
> 
> That's good to know -- that an external drive will work with the Bolt reliably, thanks for the heads up. I'm still going with the internal drive though, got everything ordered at this point. In the future, I'd really like to switch to SSD rather than have a mechanical hard drive, but it's simply not cost effective at the moment. $2000 for 2TB is just a little bit expensive. The writing is definitely on the wall though. SSD has overcome it's re-write reliability issues, and even Western Digital is admitting that SSD is how it's going to be.
> 
> http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00L0LF4S6/
> 
> Western Digital to Close HDD Plant, Increase SSD Production - ExtremeTech
> Western Digital wonders why enterprise isn't keen on its solid-state drives


You can get a 2TB SSD from BB for about $500. Still expensive.


----------



## ms602

jmbach said:


> You can get a 2TB SSD from BB for about $500. Still expensive.


Yes, the SSD prices are indeed going in the right direction. $500 for 2TB is still much higher than the $140 I just paid for a 5TB seagate notebook drive. Maybe in a few more years..


----------



## HerronScott

ms602 said:


> So I'm going to just return the WD MyBook back to Amazon (I'm still within 30 days) and buy a 2.5 drive (Seagate Barracuda 5TB notebook drive) instead.


SMR drives have been known to fail in Bolts after a while and are not recommended (and I believe all the Seagate larger ones are SMR). There are threads on this in the Bolt forum here.

Scott


----------



## ms602

HerronScott said:


> SMR drives have been known to fail in Bolts after a while and are not recommended (and I believe all the Seagate larger ones are SMR). There are threads on this in the Bolt forum here.
> 
> Scott


Thanks for the heads up Scott. You might have saved me a lot of time, pain, and headaches and I truly appreciate that. I was unaware of the SMR problem. I looked at a few of the posts by people who have had reliability issues. I cancelled the Seagate 5TB order, as that drive definitely uses SMR for it's recording method, and it seems quite wise to avoid SMR. What I've found written in the forums, is that Seagate is rumored to have added SMR sometime around the end of 2016 or possibly early 2017. Users have reported that Seagate drives manufactured in early 2016 and earlier were before the company decided to begin using SMR. I think it's telling that TiVo doesn't sell a Bolt with a higher capacity than 3TB/2.5, because Seagate is the only option for larger capacity, and clearly they are having widespread reliability issues perhaps in part to the SMR implementation.

I located an Amazon Marketplace seller who is offering older factory refurbished Seagate 4TB/2.5 drives. I spoke with the seller and confirmed that the one they are going to send me was made in DEC2015. I think that's the best I can do aside from settle on a 3TB option. If this doesn't last a lifetime, I won't be heartbroken. I just need to get through a year of use, then hopefully SSD prices will have fallen to a reasonable level, and the prices seem to be heading that way..

Thanks again for the input!

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01C4VZO7G/
http://www.seagate.com/www-content/.../spinpoint-m-series/en-us/docs/100772113e.pdf
4TB 2.5" drive for Bolt


----------



## DocNo

Best thing to do with the Bolt - get an external power supply and just run a SATA cable outside the bolt case to a 3.5" hard drive. The aforementioned WD Red 8TB is a great drive with the bolt. Do not use the ESATA port - nothing but pain and frustration with that thing.


----------



## Technogod

I was unsuccessful in performing my 6TB to 8TB TiVo Premiere upgrade. Can I add an external hard drive to my 6TB TiVo Premiere? If so, what is the maximum size hard drive?


----------



## ThAbtO

External hard drives are not recommended.


----------



## jmbach

Technogod said:


> I was unsuccessful in performing my 6TB to 8TB TiVo Premiere upgrade. Can I add an external hard drive to my 6TB TiVo Premiere? If so, what is the maximum size hard drive?


What kind of problems did you encounter


----------



## DocNo

ThAbtO said:


> External hard drives are not recommended.


Bah - rules are for chumps. My drive has been running fine for over a year now.


----------



## ThAbtO

DocNo said:


> Bah - rules are for chumps. My drive has been running fine for over a year now.


If you are using a single drive, that is fine. but when it comes to dual drive setup, failure in anything between the drives, equipment, power, etc and your recordings may be gone.


----------



## Bender Rodriguez

Can I consolidate my existing internal drive and my external drive on my Premier to a new 8TB internal drive?


----------



## ThAbtO

Bender Rodriguez said:


> Can I consolidate my existing internal drive and my external drive on my Premier to a new 8TB internal drive?


Short answer, no.
Long answer, yes, but it takes alot of work, download all non-copy-protected shows off that Tivo to another tivo or PC. Divorce the external drive. Reboot to make sure it works right without it. Backup and restore to a new 8TB drive with MFSTools. BUT, when all else fails, you would need to use a DVRBars image and expand with MFSTools.


----------



## jmbach

Bender Rodriguez said:


> Can I consolidate my existing internal drive and my external drive on my Premier to a new 8TB internal drive?


Maybe. What is the current size of your internal and external drive?


----------



## DocNo

ThAbtO said:


> If you are using a single drive, that is fine. but when it comes to dual drive setup, failure in anything between the drives, equipment, power, etc and your recordings may be gone.


Why would anyone screw with dual drives in this day and age with 8TB drives? Even if you could go bigger than 8TB my Tivo (even the bolt!) would slow down worse than my Series 2 were. At some point things can get a bit silly...

EDIT: And if it wasn't clear, I wasn't advocating adding a drive to the Bolt (doesn't support it anyway) but getting a longer internal SATA cable and just run it out the back of the case to a full size external 3.5" hard drive powered with an external .power supply.

One Tivo, one hard drive

Best source for power supplies to run a drive caseless is from the USB to SATA drive kits that also come with external power supplies. I got a couple on sale for $12 or $14 on Newegg a few years back and wish I would have bought a dozen of 'em. Those power supplies are crazy convenient for all kinds of things.


----------



## wlexx

Hi, 
Looking to upgrade the original stock 2TB HD in a Premiere XL4/Elite to a 10TB (e.g. WD Red WD100EFAX). 
Searching through the threads, not seeing much specific to 10TB. Looking for the latest instructions/Experience with the 10TB drive.
Thanks.


----------



## jmbach

wlexx said:


> Hi,
> Looking to upgrade the original stock 2TB HD in a Premiere XL4/Elite to a 10TB (e.g. WD Red WD100EFAX).
> Searching through the threads, not seeing much specific to 10TB. Looking for the latest instructions/Experience with the 10TB drive.
> Thanks.


The most you are going to get from a single drive Premiere is 8 TB. If you are wanting more recording space than that, then you will need a 2 drive system.


----------



## wlexx

jmbach said:


> The most you are going to get from a single drive Premiere is 8 TB. If you are wanting more recording space than that, then you will need a 2 drive system.


Thanks @jmbach. I guess I'll just use the 10TB drive as an 8 TB as there's currently only a $10 difference on Newegg between the two hard drives.


----------



## wlexx

wlexx said:


> Thanks @jmbach. I guess I'll just use the 10TB drive as an 8 TB as there's currently only a $10 difference on Newegg between the two hard drives.


@jmbach So I started down this road and things went smoothly up to step 7 where it seems like I should have specified the size (instead of just mfsadd -x /dev/sdY) since I have a drive larger than 8TB. Step 8 failed as incomplete with the error "*Actual size 6949961728 bytes but should not exceed 4294967295. The MFS media partition needs to shrink by at least 2654994433 bytes. Unable to coalesce. Processing of drive is incomplete*"

Is there any way to back out of this one step and delete this larger volume (15 and 16 or is just 16?) re-run step 7 and 8 without starting all over?


----------



## jmbach

wlexx said:


> @jmbach So I started down this road and things went smoothly up to step 7 where it seems like I should have specified the size (instead of just mfsadd -x /dev/sdY) since I have a drive larger than 8TB. Step 8 failed as incomplete with the error "*Actual size 6949961728 bytes but should not exceed 4294967295. The MFS media partition needs to shrink by at least 2654994433 bytes. Unable to coalesce. Processing of drive is incomplete*"
> 
> Is there any way to back out of this one step and delete this larger volume (15 and 16 or is just 16?) re-run step 7 and 8 without starting all over?


You are correct in that you should of specified the drive size.

We should be able to correct this. Let me think on the easiest way to do this.


----------



## jmbach

Run the next step and tell me what ot states.


----------



## wlexx

jmbach said:


> Run the next step and tell me what ot states.


Here is what I get when I ran Steps 7 and 8:


----------



## jmbach

wlexx said:


> Here is what I get when I ran Steps 7 and 8:


You apparently are not accepting PMs.

In short, you will need to edit the APM on the drive back to 14 partitions, allow the TiVo to divorce the added partitions, and the try again but this time add the -m 2000 switch to the mfsadd command.


----------



## jmbach

I take that back. Use the switch -M 8000.


----------



## wlexx

jmbach said:


> I take that back. Use the switch -M 8000.


Not sure about the PMs as I dont see any alerts? Is there a minimum number of posts to light that up or something? Havent really posted much before... or Popup blocker.. All my other settings in the forum are at their defaults.

What is the command to edit the APM back to 14?


----------



## ThAbtO

PMs are known as conversations here.


----------



## wlexx

ThAbtO said:


> PMs are known as conversations here.


Yep, finally figured it out... We're conversing along


----------



## wlexx

Here to report Success!

Thanks to @jmbach , I ran the right step to fix the issue and here is a summary:

As noted previously, I had a 10TB WD Red drive which I wanted to expand from the stock 2TB Tivo Premiere XL drive. Learnt later that the XL would only support a max 8TB and given the small price difference, rather than exchange it, I figured that I'd just use the drive as an 8TB drive.
As I discovered later, following the steps in post #1 with a larger than expected drive will run into issues at Step 7 as that will create a partition larger than what apmfix can manage to coalesce.

Tried a couple things with jmbach's help via partition edit, but ran into a boot loop that KS 58 couldn't resolve when the Tivo tried to divorce the extra-large partition.

I restarted the copy process again from the source disk, (taking advantage of holiday travel to be far away from the impatience of hours of waiting) and ran through the steps again from the top.

The step that fixed it was modifying Step 7 to use the command _mfsadd -x*M 8000* /dev/sdY_ to limit the size for mfsadd to 8TB.

Completed the steps successfully after that, and the drive has been running fine in the Tivo all day today showing a total of 1378 HD hours ( and over a year of SD hours ).

Will continue testing the new larger drive over the next few days.


----------



## barrese

Hey guys. I have a XL4 with a 4TB hard drive I want to upgrade to 8TB. I used MFSTools 3.2 to upgrade the 4TB from a previous 2TB upgrade I had done (from the original drive way back when). It's been a couple of years since I've used MFSTools.

Could someone kindly let me know if I need to start at step 1 of the original post or somewhere else.

Thanks.


----------



## jmbach

barrese said:


> Hey guys. I have a XL4 with a 4TB hard drive I want to upgrade to 8TB. I used MFSTools 3.2 to upgrade the 4TB from a previous 2TB upgrade I had done (from the original drive way back when). It's been a couple of years since I've used MFSTools.
> 
> Could someone kindly let me know if I need to start at step 1 of the original post or somewhere else.
> 
> Thanks.


Your step one would be to clone thev4TB to the 8TB drive via any method you choose.

Before you do that, run the 8TB through a complete diagnostic read and write. This will make sure all the flaky sectors are remapped.


----------



## barrese

jmbach said:


> Your step one would be to clone thev4TB to the 8TB drive via any method you choose.
> 
> Before you do that, run the 8TB through a complete diagnostic read and write. This will make sure all the flaky sectors are remapped.


And then proceed with all the other above steps or start at step 5? Or is that all I need to do?

Thx


----------



## jmbach

barrese said:


> And then proceed with all the other above steps or start at step 5? Or is that all I need to do?
> 
> Thx


Then proceed with all the other steps starting at step 2. Only your step one has changed.


----------



## barrese

jmbach said:


> Then proceed with all the other steps starting at step 2. Only your step one has changed.


OK. thanks.


----------



## barrese

Is it ok to use a windows based program for the cloning? I thought for some reason Tivo drives couldn't be in a windows environment or something bad would happen to them. Is that an old thing?

Sorry, been awhile since I've done this.


----------



## jmbach

barrese said:


> Is it ok to use a windows based program for the cloning? I thought for some reason Tivo drives couldn't be in a windows environment or something bad would happen to them. Is that an old thing?
> 
> Sorry, been awhile since I've done this.


As long as it clones it is fine. I use HDD raw drive copy in windows. Just don't let windows initialize the drive.


----------



## barrese

jmbach said:


> As long as it clones it is fine. I use HDD raw drive copy in windows. Just don't let windows initialize the drive.


Ok. Checked the drive and then used HDD raw to clone the 4TB drive to the 8TB one (Both WD Red). Did step 2, no issues. Did step 3 and got this error about the partition size. Not sure what to do from here.


----------



## jmbach

Looks like then you will have to have to start with step one as written as your original image is slightly less than 4TB in size causing the second step to create a partition too large.


----------



## lucho

After we do step #2, we put the HD on the tivo to error out or we don't have to.
There is an if statement there. is it optional before we proceed to step #3 ?.
-Luis


----------



## jmbach

lucho said:


> After we do step #2, we put the HD on the tivo to error out or we don't have to.
> There is an if statement there. is it optional before we proceed to step #3 ?.
> -Luis


If you put it in the TiVo after step 2 the TiVo will error out. We do not want it to error out. Which is why the next step needs to be performed prior to putting the drive in the TiVo.


----------



## pshovest

I really appreciate the time an effort you guys have put into this upgrade tool and am looking forward to more storage capacity.
I'm upgrading a 2TB drive in my Premiere TCD758250 to 8TB. I can boot to the Linux DVD and I've been able to identify my drives with the parted -l command. However, shortly after I begin typing the mfscopy command, another command/function begins to run and doesn't want to stop. I've seen it go to "device number 27" before I force it to stop with esc/enter/exit/enter. Any idea what I'm doing wrong?
Thanks.

Never mind.....Wifey says ...._*Why don't you unplug the mouse?*_.... Hanging my head in SHAME!!!.


----------



## pshovest

Just wanted to report a successful upgrade to 8TB using a WD80EZAZ drive.
Copy command took ~9 hours to move 1.3TB of video.
I found the parted -l command easier to use than the fdisk -l when identifying drives. fdisk caused screen to scroll by putting drive id off the page.
Unplug the mouse to avoid issues in my earlier post.
Cable card setup worked without any intervention.
As a burn in test, I've simultaneously recorded (4) shows, while watching a fifth and forcing a netconnect.
Time to upgrade the other unit.
Thanks to all who who put this procedure together.


----------



## ms602

Hello, can someone send me the image for a clean install on the TiVo Premiere? Thanks!


----------



## ThAbtO

You need to specify what model as there are about 5 models of Premiere.


----------



## ms602

It's the one with lowest drive capacity.. which is why I want to upgrade it..

*TCD746320*



ThAbtO said:


> You need to specify what model as there are about 5 models of Premiere.


----------



## ggieseke

ms602 said:


> It's the one with lowest drive capacity.. which is why I want to upgrade it..
> 
> *TCD746320*


Sent.


----------



## xylker

pshovest said:


> I found the parted -l command easier to use than the fdisk -l when identifying drives. fdisk caused screen to scroll by putting drive id off the page.


You can always use whatever command and pipe it to more to have pagination enabled.
Looks like this: fdisk -l | more
Then hit q (to quit) or spacebar (to see the next page)


----------



## rab5

I wanted to express my thanks to all in the community! I just completed my second successful upgrade of my old Premiere 4 - this time to a WD80EFAX (Red) 8TB drive. The first upgrade a few years ago was to a WD20EZRX 2TB drive. I used MFSTools booted from a USB drive and followed jmbach's excellent instructions. The transfer of the 99% full 2TB drive took about 7.5 hours. The worst part was all the shifting of the drive back and forth between the PC and the TiVo. I'm an old UNIX guy so the command line stuff was easy. Thanks, all!


----------



## Rxpert

Quoting: "For those that are interested in maxing their Premiere, RussMuscle and I developed a procedure with a new tool that can be used to expand your premiere to 8TB. No intermediate drive is necessary."

THANK YOU! I'm one of those people who feels like a fish out of water, when I'm NOT working within a graphical interface environment. However, your step by step instructions enabled me to accomplish what I previously thought was impossible. I'm still in awe of your development of the MFSTools' commands that gave my Series 4 Premier a whopping 8 TB recording capacity on my Premiere . . . And it's working flawlessly. I am very grateful for your post.
A couple of notable bits of info in this upgrade process are hardware related. I bought and shucked a WD Easystore external HDD on sale. I know full-well that the old, helium-filled, cool-running, WD80EZAZ, "red" drives are no longer inside these products. Instead, WD now uses air-filled data-center drives, labeled: WD80EDAZ. And YES, they generate quite a bit of heat. So, I tried adding a very small additional fan inside the TiVo, powering it by splicing into the existing fan's wires. That process failed miserably, possibly triggering some kind of a "fault" sensor because it prevented the TiVo from booting up. It just stopped after lighting up all the lights on the front panel. I then ordered a box of 20 low-profile, brass heatsinks from Amazon, and attached several of them directly onto the HDD with double-sided, adhesive thermal tape. I was careful to position these heatsinks so as not to cover up any of the HDD's "breathing holes" and not to make contact with any circuitry to avoid short circuits. Since the Premier does not go into "sleep mode" like my Roamios, working with the only reasonably priced WD HDDs, now requires measures to dissipate their excessive heat. The air-filled WD80EDAZ can generate readings of up to ~200 degrees F (~90 degrees Celcius) and the previously available WD80EZAZ helium-filled, "red" drives could run all-day at ~90 degrees F (~30 degrees Celcius.) On the plus side, the WD80EDAZ, data-center drives are quicker than the "reds" and are designed to be more durable under heavy use. I expect my upgraded Premier to work well for at least another five years. We'll see. Thanks again for your work.


----------



## fotoryder

I am preparing to upgrade my Premier TCD746 with 1 TB drive to a WD 4TB Red drive. The existing drive is getting flakey, with random second or 2 to blue screens during playback. 
I've downloaded both DVRBARS and MFSTools 3.2.2. 
assuning the drive is still operable, will I be able to clone and expand the 1 TB drive to the 4TB drive using DVRBARS, or will I also have to use MFSTools?

Thanks for responses.


----------



## jmbach

fotoryder said:


> I am preparing to upgrade my Premier TCD746 with 1 TB drive to a WD 4TB Red drive. The existing drive is getting flakey, with random second or 2 to blue screens during playback.
> I've downloaded both DVRBARS and MFSTools 3.2.2.
> assuning the drive is still operable, will I be able to clone and expand the 1 TB drive to the 4TB drive using DVRBARS, or will I also have to use MFSTools?
> 
> Thanks for responses.


You can just use mfscopy to copy and expand at the same time. If the drive is too flakey, it may not work and you will have to try to recover the drive before copying.

Sent from my SM-G988U using Tapatalk


----------



## fotoryder

I'm still working through my HDD upgrade. I've scanned the new drive and just taken the cover off the Tivo to begin the disk clone process. It turns out my Premier is actually a Premier XL, model TCD748. It was manufactured in August of 2016, and the old HD is a Western Digital 10EURXn 1 TB drive, manufactured in November 2013. 
Now to start the clone process....


----------



## lesrhorer

Does anyone have a clean image for a Premiere XL4 TCD758250? I just bought one online and I want to upgrade to 6T using a WD60EZAZ.


----------



## lesrhorer

xylker said:


> You can always use whatever command and pipe it to more to have pagination enabled.
> Looks like this: fdisk -l | more
> Then hit q (to quit) or spacebar (to see the next page)


Or better yet, fdisk -l | less

Then use the up and down arrow keys.


----------



## ggieseke

lesrhorer said:


> Does anyone have a clean image for a Premiere XL4 TCD758250? I just bought one online and I want to upgrade to 6T using a WD60EZAZ.


Sent.


----------



## tommage1

fotoryder said:


> I'm still working through my HDD upgrade. I've scanned the new drive and just taken the cover off the Tivo to begin the disk clone process. It turns out my Premier is actually a Premier XL, model TCD748. It was manufactured in August of 2016, and the old HD is a Western Digital 10EURXn 1 TB drive, manufactured in November 2013.
> Now to start the clone process....


You mention 4TB WD red. I hope it is not the EFAX model. That one is SMR and will probably not work (though I would be interested to know if it is EFAX and does work, not sure if the EFAX SMRs work on TE3, thety DEFINITELY do not on TE4). If it does not hopefully you can return it or exchange for an EFRX model which is CMR and will work.


----------



## lesrhorer

ggieseke said:


> Sent.


Thanks!


----------



## STP

tommage1 said:


> You mention 4TB WD red. I hope it is not the EFAX model. That one is SMR and will probably not work (though I would be interested to know if it is EFAX and does work, not sure if the EFAX SMRs work on TE3, thety DEFINITELY do not on TE4). If it does not hopefully you can return it or exchange for an EFRX model which is CMR and will work.


So.... upgraded to 6TB EFAX Jan of this year and the drive hiccuped maybe three times in the last month (video/menus stuttering) and as of yesterday never recovered after trying a KS57 - endlessly looping. Restarted and tried KS58, then KS54 and they all looped endlessly too with GSOD's (at least six hours for each). Wasn't aware of SMR issue at the time, had read something earlier this month and 'felt it my bones' when the TiVo died. 2020, pfffft!

During the Jan upgrade, used KMTTG to download both 'Channels' and 'Season Passes', so that's a plus. Would like to see about recovering just a handful of recordings off the EFAX. Tried 'bootsectorfix' but it came back with '..already specified. No need to modify...'.

Have spent many hours searching here for a 'repair/recovery' scenario for a drive that has previously been upgraded, but am not finding any - maybe I'm looking at this the wrong way. FWIW, able to see drive via MFS Tools 3.2, but other than typical 'copy/expanding' commands, can't find what else it may offer in terms of this scenario.

Am thinking of another 6TB (EFRX this time) but would also consider a 3TB just to let TiVo build the system back on its own (Roamio TCD848000). I'm 99% sure the EFAX is DOA and unreadable, so I'm not under any illusion, but as a last ditch I'd appreciate any thoughts on reasonable paths forward - kudos to all who have contributed, of course.


----------



## jmbach

STP said:


> So.... upgraded to 6TB EFAX Jan of this year and the drive hiccuped maybe three times in the last month (video/menus stuttering) and as of yesterday never recovered after trying a KS57 - endlessly looping. Restarted and tried KS58, then KS54 and they all looped endlessly too with GSOD's (at least six hours for each). Wasn't aware of SMR issue at the time, had read something earlier this month and 'felt it my bones' when the TiVo died. 2020, pfffft!
> 
> During the Jan upgrade, used KMTTG to download both 'Channels' and 'Season Passes', so that's a plus. Would like to see about recovering just a handful of recordings off the EFAX. Tried 'bootsectorfix' but it came back with '..already specified. No need to modify...'.
> 
> Have spent many hours searching here for a 'repair/recovery' scenario for a drive that has previously been upgraded, but am not finding any - maybe I'm looking at this the wrong way. FWIW, able to see drive via MFS Tools 3.2, but other than typical 'copy/expanding' commands, can't find what else it may offer in terms of this scenario.
> 
> Am thinking of another 6TB (EFRX this time) but would also consider a 3TB just to let TiVo build the system back on its own (Roamio TCD848000). I'm 99% sure the EFAX is DOA and unreadable, so I'm not under any illusion, but as a last ditch I'd appreciate any thoughts on reasonable paths forward - kudos to all who have contributed, of course.


Are unable to boot up anymore? This is a premiere thread and it looks like you are using a Roamio or later TiVo. This should be in a different thread if that is the case.

If you cannot boot, did that start before or after you ran a KS command?

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk


----------



## STP

I'm game to re-post in a Roamio section but thought the SMR part might be relevant here; any advice on where/how to get there I'd defer to.

It started to severely glitch/hang-up so I restarted the unit from within TiVo and it got stuck on the updating screen - no GSOD though. On the subsequent restart, I began what was described above.


----------



## tommage1

STP said:


> Am thinking of another 6TB (EFRX this time) but would also consider a 3TB just to let TiVo build the system back on its own (Roamio TCD848000). I'm 99% sure the EFAX is DOA and unreadable, so I'm not under any illusion, but as a last ditch I'd appreciate any thoughts on reasonable paths forward - kudos to all who have contributed, of course


Well the EFAX has a 3 year warranty. If you purchased new you should be able to get a replacement. Now, since WD changed those EFAX reds to SMR without informing customers you might be able to get them to replace it with an EFRX. But DO NOT tell them you were using in a Tivo, they would say since a red it is designed for NAS. Maybe tell them you were using in a NAS and it died. When returning I would totally blank/format it (maybe write zeroes) so they won't know what you were using it for. It IS their fault for not informing customers they changed to SMR (CMR would have worked in the Tivo and that is what you were expecting when you bought it) but don't give them a loophole to try to get out of it by mentioning Tivo. Even then they should replace with a EFAX simply because of the 3 year warranty, just might get an EFRX if you say it was used in a NAS (or don't say what it was used in period).

Oh the warranty, if you bought new from authorized WD seller and have receipt warranty starts with purchase date. If you bought from a non authorized seller or even used it STILL has warranty, but from the manufacturing date on the drive. So you should be able to get a replacement no matter what, if you play your cards right perhaps an EFRX, at minimum another EFAX (assuming manufacturing date on drive is less than 3 years ago.)


----------



## ThAbtO

tommage1 said:


> Well the EFAX has a 3 year warranty. If you purchased new you should be able to get a replacement.


There is no guarantee that WD will ship back the same model drive, only the same size.


----------



## tommage1

ThAbtO said:


> There is no guarantee that WD will ship back the same model drive, only the same size.


I would hope they would NOT ship the same model drive since the EFAX is SMR. However I think they would have to ship a Red, any Red other than 2-6TB EFAX should be CMR. Bottom line, they owe this person a 6TB drive, a Red, and since he was expecting a CMR drive when purchasing they should ship him a CMR drive. WORST case should be getting another EFAX.


----------



## jmbach

STP said:


> I'm game to re-post in a Roamio section but thought the SMR part might be relevant here; any advice on where/how to get there I'd defer to.
> 
> It started to severely glitch/hang-up so I restarted the unit from within TiVo and it got stuck on the updating screen - no GSOD though. On the subsequent restart, I began what was described above.


I would first try cloning the drive to a non SMR drive and then see if that drive will boot in the Roamio.

Sent from my SM-G988U using Tapatalk


----------



## lesrhorer

I am attempting to upgrade a new (to me) premiere to 6T. I have not yet received the unit, so I can't double-check the work, yet, but this doesn't look correct, to me. I am no stranger to Linux or to TiVos, although this is the first time I have upgraded a Premiere. I started with a blank drive and a clean image I got from ggieseke and used DvrBARS to copy the image to the drive. I then started with Step 2 of the procedure on the first page of this thread: `mfsadd -xM 6000 /dev/sdb`

That seemed to complete just fine. Then I entered: `apmfix /dev/sdb`

Things now seem a bit squirrely:










I ran mfsinfo:

































Should I delete partitions 14 - 16 and start again? What purpose does partition 14 serve? Since it is in the middle of the drive, I am not sure deleting it will do much. Should I just re-size partition 16 manually? Is there an option in mfstools to prune a partition so apmfix can do its magic?


----------



## ThAbtO

lesrhorer said:


> mfsadd -xM 6000 /dev/sdb


I think it should be 4000. Post #1 says 6000 since its for a 8TB drive and you are using a 6TB.


----------



## lesrhorer

Yeah, I wondered about that, plus I didn't really red step 1 well enough. MFSadd is expecting a different partition order. I am going to start over and use an intermediate drive.


----------



## jmbach

What you should do is restore the image from ggeseike on a spare drive and then copy it to your 6TB drive using mfscopy -M 4000. Then use mfsadd.


----------



## fotoryder

I finally got my Premier XL 652 upgraded to the 4TB drive. The upgrade went smoothly, I just had to upgrade my USB/SATA device. The old one wouldn't recognize the 4TB capacity of the new drive. 
Once I got the new USB/SATA converter, I booted my laptop from the MFSTools CD, and restored/expanded from the 1TB drive in the old USB/SATA device to the 4TB drive in the new USB/SATA. The restore took 9 or 10 hours, but when I booted the Tivo it started up smoothly (once I reopened the case and plugged in the HDD cable). I believe it only showed 5xx HD hours capacity immediately after booting, but I rebooted the Tivo and when I checked it the next day, it reported about 640 hours HD recording capacity.

Since I still have the 1 TB original Tivo HDD, I'll run the 4TB WD EFAX drive and see how well it runs. I can always do another restore/expansion if the SMR recording issue pops up.

I'm not sure if the screen blanking issue id the old drive, or an issue with the incoming cable signal. Now that I've been using the Series 3 Tivo HD, I see the same screen blanking on that box, too. I've been using Tivos since the Series 2 days, and I hate watching live TV and having to sit through all of those commercials. I love the 30 second skip, and have used it since I got my first Series 2 box.


----------



## ThAbtO

fotoryder said:


> Now that I've been using the Series 3 Tivo HD, I see the same screen blanking on that box, too.


Sounds like its the TV issue, not Tivo issue. Unless you have more than 1 resolution set in the Tivo. That would cause blanking whenever the resolution changes (Channel changing with different resolutions in LiveTV, Recordings)


----------



## lesrhorer

jmbach said:


> What you should do is restore the image from ggeseike on a spare drive and then copy it to your 6TB drive using mfscopy -M 4000. Then use mfsadd.


That is what I just saiid and did. I am waiting for the TiVo to arrive.


----------



## jmbach

lesrhorer said:


> That is what I just saiid and did. I am waiting for the TiVo to arrive.


If that is what you did the first time, apmfix would have completed without warnings.

If you redid it, what does mfsinfo say about the drive now.

Sent from my SM-G988U using Tapatalk


----------



## ThAbtO

fotoryder said:


> I finally got my Premier XL 652 upgraded to the 4TB drive.


Looks like you got things mixed up here. A Premiere is a Series 4 and a 652 is a Series 3. Premieres start with 7xx


----------



## fotoryder

ThAbtO said:


> Looks like you got things mixed up here. A Premiere is a Series 4 and a 652 is a Series 3. Premieres start with 7xx


You're right. My Premier XL is a 752, and my Series 3 is the 652.

The screen blanking issue (1 to 3 seconds of blue screen, audio normally continues) occurs at random times in the middle of watching recorded shows. Since it occurs on both Tivos, I am looking at it a an issue with the incoming signal, but I really need to watch cable input directly to TV to localize it.
I have a simple home theater setup. Virtually all of my TV viewing is TV input routed to/recorded by Tivo, then output through the A/V receiver to the TV and speakers. Also have VCR and DVD player connected through A/V Receiver. I use a Harmony 650 remote to control the works, so normally a single button starts things up and then once I put the Tivo in Standby Mode another button shuts everything done. For 99% of my usage, the Harmony remote controls all devices.


----------



## ThAbtO

fotoryder said:


> My Premier XL is a 752


I think its still mixed up as there is not a 752 either. The PXL is TCD748000 (back label), in System Information, the first 3 numbers of the Tivo Service number, the last 3 numbers of the Software version.
P4XL is TCD758000, P4 is TCD750500, P is TCD746320/TCD746500.
P4 is 4 tuner,cable only, P is 2 tuner, cable and/or OTA.


----------



## ggieseke

jmbach said:


> What you should do is restore the image from ggeseike on a spare drive and then copy it to your 6TB drive using mfscopy -M 4000. Then use mfsadd.


I have 4TB images for all Premiere models. They were created with mfscopy, so that would let @lesrhorer skip the intermediate drive step and go straight to mfsadd for the last 2TB.


----------



## lesrhorer

jmbach said:


> If that is what you did the first time,


Not the first time, the second.



jmbach said:


> apmfix would have completed without warnings.


I suspect not. As I said, I am waiting for he TiVo to arrive. From reading the post, I infer it will delete the large extra partition, allowing for MFS partitions to be created and merged. If not, then there is an issue.



jmbach said:


> If you redid it, what does mfsinfo say about the drive now.


This is the clean image:










This is the copied image using `mfscopy -aim 2000 /dev/sdb /dev/sda`:










I presume booting the 6T drive in the TiVo will divorce the Extra partition. Otherwise, I would expect apmfix after mfsadd to give the same error.


----------



## lesrhorer

ggieseke said:


> I have 4TB images for all Premiere models. They were created with mfscopy, so that would let @lesrhorer skip the intermediate drive step and go straight to mfsadd for the last 2TB.


Hmm. When I tried that, I got the above error at the apmfix step. Should I have done `mfsadd -xM 4000 /dev/sdb` or perhaps `mfsadd -xM 2000 /dev/sdb`?

I note the partition order on the restored drive is 1, 13, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 14, 10, 12, 11, which the first post claims is the default arrangement for the Premiere, while the copied layout is 1, 11, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 14, 10, 12, 13, 15, which is what the first post claims is needed (sans partition 15) for mfsadd and aimfix to work properly.


----------



## jmbach

lesrhorer said:


> Not the first time, the second.
> 
> I suspect not. As I said, I am waiting for he TiVo to arrive. From reading the post, I infer it will delete the large extra partition, allowing for MFS partitions to be created and merged. If not, then there is an issue.
> 
> This is the clean image:
> 
> View attachment 53323
> 
> 
> This is the copied image using `mfscopy -aim 2000 /dev/sdb /dev/sda`:
> 
> View attachment 53324
> 
> 
> I presume booting the 6T drive in the TiVo will divorce the Extra partition. Otherwise, I would expect apmfix after mfsadd to give the same error.





lesrhorer said:


> Hmm. When I tried that, I got the above error at the apmfix step. Should I have done `mfsadd -xM 4000 /dev/sdb` or perhaps `mfsadd -xM 2000 /dev/sdb`?
> 
> I note the partition order on the restored drive is 1, 13, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 14, 10, 12, 11, which the first post claims is the default arrangement for the Premiere, while the copied layout is 1, 11, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 14, 10, 12, 13, 15, which is what the first post claims is needed (sans partition 15) for mfsadd and aimfix to work properly.


Lets get a couple things straight.
The order of the partitions is only needed when expanding to 8 TB. For your 6TB expansion it makes no difference.
The Apple_Free Extra partition is ignored by the TiVo OS and will not be divorced.
mfsadd will replace the Apple_Free partition with a pair of MFS partitions giving you a total of 16 partitions. The premiere only recognizes 15 partitions. 
Since you have a 4TB image on your 6TB drive, you can run mfasdd without the size constraint since the residual free drive space is less than 2 TB.
apmfix will coalesce partitions 15 and 16 into partition 15 so that the premiere will keep the newly added recording space and not divorce it.


----------



## lesrhorer

OK, well I ran `mfsadd -x /dev/sda` and then `apmfix /dev/sda`. Both completed without errors, and I am showing 15 partitions, the last one being a combined application / media region. The total of the media regions is 5.58 TiB, all of which looks good. I just received the TiVo, so I will mount the drive a little later and see what happens.


----------



## lesrhorer

There was a little oddness when I turned up the TiVo. I commissioned the unit, and everything seemed fine. The CATV company came out with a CableCard, and after a few issues, the unit paired properly. When I shut it down, however, the unit would not come back up. It kept cycling through the Starting Up screen. I tried a KS 54, but the lights flashed in a rather weird way, and the test was never performed. It did, however, boot up. Then after a while, the unit shut down. I did another KS 54 (with weird flashing) but it was as if I had done a Clear & Delete. The few recordings I had downloaded were gone, as were the channel settings, CC settings, etc. The next time I booted it, I had to perform a KS 54 again, but this time the settings remained. I tried a KS 56, "just in case", but it didn't work. A couple of subsequent rebooots worked fine. I am a bit afraid to reboot it, now, because I have transferred about 2TB of recordings onto the unit.


----------



## jmbach

lesrhorer said:


> There was a little oddness when I turned up the TiVo. I commissioned the unit, and everything seemed fine. The CATV company came out with a CableCard, and after a few issues, the unit paired properly. When I shut it down, however, the unit would not come back up. It kept cycling through the Starting Up screen. I tried a KS 54, but the lights flashed in a rather weird way, and the test was never performed. It did, however, boot up. Then after a while, the unit shut down. I did another KS 54 (with weird flashing) but it was as if I had done a Clear & Delete. The few recordings I had downloaded were gone, as were the channel settings, CC settings, etc. The next time I booted it, I had to perform a KS 54 again, but this time the settings remained. I tried a KS 56, "just in case", but it didn't work. A couple of subsequent rebooots worked fine. I am a bit afraid to reboot it, now, because I have transferred about 2TB of recordings onto the unit.


The last time I has a KS 54 work in a Tivoli was in my series 2.

If you try anything use KS 57 or KS 58.

Just to verify, you did run the drive through a complete read and write diagnostic before putting it into service.

Sent from my SM-G988U using Tapatalk


----------



## lesrhorer

External to the TiVo, yes. As I said, I wasn't able to get the internal check to work.


----------



## jmbach

lesrhorer said:


> External to the TiVo, yes. As I said, I wasn't able to get the internal check to work.


I have never had a KS 54 work. Especially in anything that had a drive expanded.

Sent from my SM-G988U using Tapatalk


----------



## lesrhorer

Oof! Complete failure! Today, the TiVo locked up again, and after restarting, every single recording was lost. I had transferred about 2T of programs back to the new DVR I had saved on one of my servers. I rather needed the space, so after transferring the videos and confirming the videos seemed OK, I deleted them, from my server. Ouch. I had noticed yesterday the unit was autonomously deleting quite a few videos because it claimed to need more space. This with more than 4T free space. Now it won't even record a single scheduled program, because it thinks it has no free space. I can record a "live" show by pressing the <Record> button, but scheduled shows don't get recorded.


----------



## jmbach

lesrhorer said:


> Oof! Complete failure! Today, the TiVo locked up again, and after restarting, every single recording was lost. I had transferred about 2T of programs back to the new DVR I had saved on one of my servers. I rather needed the space, so after transferring the videos and confirming the videos seemed OK, I deleted them, from my server. Ouch. I had noticed yesterday the unit was autonomously deleting quite a few videos because it claimed to need more space. This with more than 4T free space. Now it won't even record a single scheduled program, because it thinks it has no free space. I can record a "live" show by pressing the <Record> button, but scheduled shows don't get recorded.


Some things to consider to recover from this.

If you have not yet run a LS 57 and 58 on the unit, please give it a try.

Run a full read diagnostic on the drive to make sure no bad spots cropped up since installation.

Consider using an external power supply on the drive and a different SATA cable to connect to the TiVo. There might be a reason why the original owner got rid of the unit.

Sent from my SM-G988U using Tapatalk


----------



## lesrhorer

The only KS that seems to do anything at all is KS 58, and it definitely does not produce a GSOD. Drive issues are exceedingly unlikely. How / why would it delete all the recordings, but leave the configuration, including Wishlists and Season Passes, intact? Why does the System Info repoprt over 900 HD hours free, but Tivoapp thinks the drive is nearly full? It is pretty implausible a few randomly bad sectors could produce such singular results. Th SATA cable is even less suspect in this regard. It is not impossible, of course, but these issues do not appear to be random in nature. I wish I could produce a GSOD, because an MFS corruption is a very likely candidate.


----------



## jmbach

I agree that corruption of the MFS is likely the cause. Do you not think that those random bad sectors can cause MFS corruption? KS 57/58 may be able to fix it. The other two suggestions are things that can cause the corruption. The MFS system is not very robust. 

The best way to prevent issues with copying and expanding the drive is to do a copy and then put it in the TiVo to check operational status and if it passes everything, then expand it.


----------



## lesrhorer

As I said before, none of the KS codes (that includes KS 57) do anything whatsoever, and KS 58 does not make any difference. It is supposed to produce a GSOD, but it does not. It just jumps into the startup code, announces it is performing an upgrade, and reboots after about a minute.

Edit: I confirmed that every reboot empties the show list, but has no effect on Season Passes, Wishlists, etc. I am making a copy of the drive using DvrBARS right now, but it is slow going.


----------



## ggieseke

If the drive isn't "married" to the motherboard every reboot will delete the recordings. The space issue is probably caused by a known bug in newer versions of ffmpeg when you transfer recordings back to the TiVo with pyTivo.

Working Details of "Going Away Soon" & Space Needed Deletes


----------



## HerronScott

ggieseke said:


> If the drive isn't "married" to the motherboard every reboot will delete the recordings.


I was going to post the same thing that it needed a C&DE (which might also hang it and need either KS57 or the other KS that does a full reset).

Scott


----------



## lesrhorer

ggieseke said:


> If the drive isn't "married" to the motherboard every reboot will delete the recordings. The space issue is probably caused by a known bug in newer versions of ffmpeg when you transfer recordings back to the TiVo with pyTivo.


1. How would the drive not be married to the motherboard? I went through guided setup. Otherwise, there would be no schedule.
2. The system is not using a particularly new version of ffmpeg
3. I have not had any issues of this sort on any of my other six TiVos in the last 20 years. All but one are expanded.
4. This happens to *ALL* videos, not just transferred videos. Every recording it makes or transfers is eventually deleted because the TiVo thinks it is out of space. It generally does so after the recording is made or transferred, although often immediately so.

After the backup completes, I will test the drive, copy the backup to a new drive, and try a C&D.

.


----------



## HerronScott

lesrhorer said:


> 1. How would the drive not be married to the motherboard? I went through guided setup. Otherwise, there would be no schedule.
> 2. The system is not using a particularly new version of ffmpeg
> 3. I have not had any issues of this sort on any of my other six TiVos in the last 20 years. All but one are expanded.
> 4. This happens to *ALL* videos, not just transferred videos. Every recording it makes or transfers is eventually deleted because the TiVo thinks it is out of space. It generally does so after the recording is made or transferred, although often immediately so.


No idea how this occurs but others have reported it recently (in the past year?) with the exact same symptoms that all recorded shows are deleted after a reboot/power cycle.

Scott


----------



## HerronScott

lesrhorer said:


> After the backup completes, I will test the drive, copy the backup to a new drive, and try a C&D.


Was it successful?

Scott


----------



## lesrhorer

It appears to have been. I tried repeating the guided setup, but that did not help. I then did a C&D, but it hung. I let it run over night. 'Still hung. I did a KS58, to no effect. Then I did a KS57, and after rebooting, I finally got a GSOD. After about 20 minutes, the GSOD cleared, and then I was able to do a new guided setup and pair the CableCards again. Now I can reboot the TiVo without losing programs. I used KMTTG to restore the Season Passes and Wishlists. So far, everything seems OK. We shall see over the next few days.


----------



## HerronScott

lesrhorer said:


> 1. How would the drive not be married to the motherboard? I went through guided setup. Otherwise, there would be no schedule.


I meant to mention that guided setup does not marry a drive. Only a C&DE does that and as you discovered, there is a current bug where that can hang a TiVo which then needs a KS57 to resolve.

Scott


----------



## lesrhorer

OK, well, I reproduced the issue. I took a different TiVo and a different hard drive, but both the same model, and performed the exact same procedures, all using the same base image and the same commands. I took the clean image I got from ggieseke and used DvrBARS to restore to the 6T drive. Using mfsadd on this drive produced a partition that was to large for apmfix to handle. So then I backed up and did an mfscopy from an intermediate drive created by DvrBARS from the same image. From there I used mfsadd and apmfix to create the new drive. After going through the configuration procedure on the TiVo, any reboot causes any shows on the TiVo to evaporate. I just performed a C&Dm and will wait an hour or so before performing a KS57.


----------



## lesrhorer

ggieseke said:


> I have 4TB images for all Premiere models. They were created with mfscopy, so that would let @lesrhorer skip the intermediate drive step and go straight to mfsadd for the last 2TB.


I may be a little confused, here. The image I got from you produces 2T drive with 4T free when restored using DvrBARS, which is why I needed the intermediate drive and mfscopy. Can you clarify?


----------



## jmbach

lesrhorer said:


> I may be a little confused, here. The image I got from you produces 2T drive with 4T free when restored using DvrBARS, which is why I needed the intermediate drive and mfscopy. Can you clarify?


ggieseke has images that he made that have different recording spaces from 1 TB to 4 TB. If you got is 4 TB image then you could do a restore directly to your large drive and skip the intermediate drive step. That step was used for you to create a 4 TB image on your large drive from any size image you currently had.

Sent from my SM-G988U using Tapatalk


----------



## ggieseke

lesrhorer said:


> I may be a little confused, here. The image I got from you produces 2T drive with 4T free when restored using DvrBARS, which is why I needed the intermediate drive and mfscopy. Can you clarify?


4TB image sent.


----------



## tommage1

HerronScott said:


> I meant to mention that guided setup does not marry a drive. Only a C&DE does that and as you discovered, there is a current bug where that can hang a TiVo which then needs a KS57 to resolve.
> 
> Scott


Yes. Tivo screwed up C&DE but I think the kickstart 76543210 may work (to marry the drive). Have not tried myself though.


----------



## jeffsinsfo

As documented in the Roamio 10TB upgrade thread, I've been struggling to get that box working properly again. At my wit's end, I resigned myself to use one of my 8TB drives for a Premiere upgrade instead. Followed all of the instructions in this thread and everything seems fine except...

Try as I might, I couldn't get Comcast's website to pair the cable card with the Premiere again. I ended up having to call customer service and wait on hold for about 40 minutes, but I did eventually reach a very pleasant person who understood what I needed and had the card paired in about 5 minutes. I vaguely recall having to call when I swapped the card from the Premiere to the Roamio 5 years ago, so maybe their system just isn't set up to allow customers to swap a card from one device to another without speaking with someone on their end.


----------



## jeffsinsfo

One other thing I would like to ask about the Premiere: This was the first time I ever opened it since I had not upgraded it previously. I noticed that the network card looks like a mess -- stuff that looks like marshmallow surrounding various parts. I couldn't tell if this was by design and nothing to be concerned about or if some parts are failing. The largest amount of this white goop appears next to a square white block, so I at first thought that perhaps that part had burst. But looking around I noticed similar good in a few other areas with no indication it flowed there from somewhere else, so perhaps this stuff is just some sort of insulation or adhesive.


----------



## tommage1

jeffsinsfo said:


> One other thing I would like to ask about the Premiere: This was the first time I ever opened it since I had not upgraded it previously. I noticed that the network card looks like a mess -- stuff that looks like marshmallow surrounding various parts. I couldn't tell if this was by design and nothing to be concerned about or if some parts are failing. The largest amount of this white goop appears next to a square white block, so I at first thought that perhaps that part had burst. But looking around I noticed similar good in a few other areas with no indication it flowed there from somewhere else, so perhaps this stuff is just some sort of insulation or adhesive.


I've seen that before, usually on internal power supplies. I think it is what you say but hopefully someone knows exactly what it is.

Since your post about the rebooting I went back and restarted my project of trying to get my rebooting when connected to the net drives working again. Have been deleting a lot, still not working though (have the 8TB down to about 96% with nothing in "recently deleted" folder.) I have been using my process to transfer recordings to other Tivos though, it's working well. Just make sure both are up to date and can see each other, then disconnect the internet at the router.


----------



## jmbach

jeffsinsfo said:


> One other thing I would like to ask about the Premiere: This was the first time I ever opened it since I had not upgraded it previously. I noticed that the network card looks like a mess -- stuff that looks like marshmallow surrounding various parts. I couldn't tell if this was by design and nothing to be concerned about or if some parts are failing. The largest amount of this white goop appears next to a square white block, so I at first thought that perhaps that part had burst. But looking around I noticed similar good in a few other areas with no indication it flowed there from somewhere else, so perhaps this stuff is just some sort of insulation or adhesive.


Post a picture. Many times the components are glued in place to make it easier to solder them on the board.

Sent from my SM-G988U using Tapatalk


----------



## jeffsinsfo

My upgraded Premiere is working fine apart from oddities I am noticing with the guide data,which I cannot imagine are related to the hard drive upgrade since the connections are all successful.

As to taking a photo of the marshmallow-looking stuff, I'll do that if I need to open the case again. I'm a little reluctant to touch the Premiere again at this point lest something else gets messed up.


----------



## ycct

Thank you for this excellent guide and all the work necessary to make this work !

I was able to upgrade my Premiere XL (which has remarkably been running pretty much 24/7 since 2010 on the original WD10EVVS 1TB drive, constantly recording "suggestions", without any issues) without major issues using a brand new WD80EFAX (WD Red Plus) 8TB drive (supposedly a CMR drive?)

The setup I used was to boot a VirtualBox VM in a Windows 10 host using the MFSTools 3.32-devel live ISO, and use an old Vantec NexStar USB 3.0 dual drive dock (NST-D400SU3) that I had laying around to mount both drives. To make this work, the USB controller in the VM settings in VirtualBox needs to be set to USB 3.0, and then the Vantec USB mass storage device added in the device filters.

MFSTools booted in the VM and automatically detected both drives as /dev/sdb and /dev/sdc. I then took a complete image of the original Tivo drive using dd, and saved it to my NAS as a backup in case something went wrong.

After this I just followed the instructions in the first post, and everything went exactly as expected (the initial mfscopy took about 10 hours) - now the Tivo shows 11000+ SD hours capacity.

I did get a USB kernel error a few times during both the dd process and the mfscopy - something like "usb xxx: reset SuperSpeed USB device number x using xhci-hcd" - which was a bit worrying. Not sure if this was caused by a flaky USB connection, or some VirtualBox USB driver issues. I am hoping the process was able to recover from this error and the image/copy was not corrupted as a result - so far everything looks ok, but I guess time will tell. I am saving the original Tivo drive in case I have to repeat the process again, perhaps with the disks attached directly to my motherboard SATA controller.

Thanks again to everyone who made this possible ! Hopefully I will get another 10 years out of this new drive as well


----------



## ThAbtO

Ignore the SD hours, you need to reference the HD hours. SD hours is less accurate.


----------



## ycct

HD hours total says 1284 which I assume is right for a 8TB drive.


----------



## WVZR1

ycct said:


> HD hours total says 1284 which I assume is right for a 8TB drive.


I have 1281 HD in my system information for a 8TB Roamio.


----------



## gabrielstern

tommage1 said:


> Yes. Tivo screwed up C&DE but I think the kickstart 76543210 may work (to marry the drive). Have not tried myself though.


Yes cd and e is the only way to marry the drive to the motherboard in premiers and series 4.

In my case I have images from ggieseke that worked great.

But now I am creating my own factory fresh images using dvr barz and saving them to my computer so if I ever have a hard drive crash in my series 4,

I will not have to go through the marrying to the motherboard each time.

One other note, I have discovered that, if you take the original factory image from a series 4 and expand it using jmmfs first to either a 1tb or 2tb drive and supersize the image in that program after copying and expanding,then back up the image using dvr barz, then use the jmmfs created drive as the source drive using mffstools 3.2 for copying and expanding, the images come out cleaner and better in mffs tools.

Yes jmmfs is an old program but it is a good program, for creating good and improved source images in a much simpler way versus trying to supersize in mffs tools 3.2.

The only downside is jmfs only works on drives up to 2.45 tbs. But excellent for cleaning up factory series 4 images, and creating better source images that make mffs tools work even better.


----------



## gabrielstern

Perfect worked like a charm now I have a 6 tb premier drive and an 8tb premier drive.

I used a brand new 8tb wd purple drive with the purz model but I noticed this drive runs hot even when attached to my computer, so I may have to install a fan on top and put drive on top of the case in my premier as I do not think the exhaust fan in the back will be enough to keep drive cool, the efax models seemed to have the same issue except they only ran hot, when attached to romio and bolt models.


----------



## gabrielstern

gabrielstern said:


> Perfect worked like a charm now I have a 6 tb premier drive and an 8tb premier drive.
> 
> I used a brand new 8tb wd purple drive with the purz model but I noticed this drive runs hot even when attached to my computer, so I may have to install a fan on top and put drive on top of the case in my premier as I do not think the exhaust fan in the back will be enough to keep drive cool, the efax models seemed to have the same issue except they only ran hot, when attached to romio and bolt models.


The other drives I have tested including the wd efax models do not run hot at all when attached to a computer via USB or a premier.


----------

