# Can one clone all data from Tivo HD with Expander to one disk?



## cwelty111 (Oct 27, 2007)

I have a Tivo HD (TCD652160) with the original 160 gb internal drive and the Tivo-sanctioned 500 gb expander. It has started to reboot frequently, so I want to put a 1 tb hard drive inside to replace the current hard drives. But, of course, I have tons of programming I want to save, much of it copy-protected. So, the big question, can I "clone," copy, duplicate what I have on the two hard drives onto a single, functional new 1 tb drive? If so, is there any guidance out there? I sure can't find it!

(BTW, I have noted frequent reference here to WinMFS. I can find the website (MFSLive.org), but it looks dusty and abandoned. Can't "register to download" and the last post in their forums appears to be October 14, 2011. Any other source?)

Thanks for any help y'all might provide!


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## lessd (Jan 23, 2005)

cwelty111 said:


> I have a Tivo HD (TCD652160) with the original 160 gb internal drive and the Tivo-sanctioned 500 gb expander. It has started to reboot frequently, so I want to put a 1 tb hard drive inside to replace the current hard drives. But, of course, I have tons of programming I want to save, much of it copy-protected. So, the big question, can I "clone," copy, duplicate what I have on the two hard drives onto a single, functional new 1 tb drive? If so, is there any guidance out there? I sure can't find it!
> 
> (BTW, I have noted frequent reference here to WinMFS. I can find the website (MFSLive.org), but it looks dusty and abandoned. Can't "register to download" and the last post in their forums appears to be October 14, 2011. Any other source?)
> 
> Thanks for any help y'all might provide!


You out of luck as only the shows that you can xfer off the TiVo can be saved, after removing the external hard drive most or all shows will be lost, I know of no way to combine an ext and int drive onto another drive, maybe Weeknees can do but I don't think you would want to pay their price.


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## cwelty111 (Oct 27, 2007)

Thanks, Les. Yeah, I thought I was out of luck that way. Oh, well.

Another thought: what if I cloned my "expander" to another eSATA drive and prayed that my internal drive was OK (for the moment). Would my Tivo HD recognize this new drive or would I have to do the WinMFS "marriage" deal? (Still can't find a download for WinMFS...)? Just a thought...


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## lessd (Jan 23, 2005)

cwelty111 said:


> Thanks, Les. Yeah, I thought I was out of luck that way. Oh, well.
> 
> Another thought: what if I cloned my "expander" to another eSATA drive and prayed that my internal drive was OK (for the moment). Would my Tivo HD recognize this new drive or would I have to do the WinMFS "marriage" deal? (Still can't find a download for WinMFS...)? Just a thought...


Now your out of any expertise that I have, never heard of anybody cloning a TiVo external drive as most on this form just upgrade the internal drive so one will know if the only drive goes bad, less power and heat.
Had a neighbor have a problem with the drives in their external drive TiVo, I just put in a new 1Tb internal drive and they were all set (lost many programs). I then tested out both drives and found the external 1Tb drive was the bad drive, when I divorced the drives (TiVo does this for you when you start up a TiVo that had an external drive, now disconnected ) I did find a lot of shows on the internal drive, so I did a copy and expand and saved the shows that were on the internal drive.


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

cwelty111 said:


> Thanks, Les. Yeah, I thought I was out of luck that way. Oh, well.
> 
> Another thought: what if I cloned my "expander" to another eSATA drive and prayed that my internal drive was OK (for the moment). Would my Tivo HD recognize this new drive or would I have to do the WinMFS "marriage" deal? (Still can't find a download for WinMFS...)? Just a thought...


The model of TiVo you have and all the models since have a very short list of Western Digital drive model numbers (of actual drives, not enclosures with drives in them), and when you first attach an external, the TiVo queries the actual drive inside the enclosure to see if the model number is on that list.

I don't know if anyone has ever done a byte for byte copy of an expander to another drive which is not the same raw drive model and gotten the TiVo to accept it or not, or even if they've done it by copying to another drive which is a different model which is still one of the few models on that list.

If any of that is possible, I suspect you'll need a command line utility to do the byte for byte copying, two of which are available on the MFS Live cd v1.4, and that WinMFS will be of no use in this particular instance.

Whether you could attach the TiVo's internal and external drives to a PC running Windows and launch WinMFS and point it at both drives and make a truncated backup (no shows) the way you can with a 2 drive Series 1 or Series 2 is not known to me.

I'll PM or email you about the other matter.


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## cwelty111 (Oct 27, 2007)

Thanks, Les. Thanks, Unitron. By the way, using Kickstart 54, S.T.A.R.T. tests, it is definitely the "expander" drive that is going south.

Yes, I saw, somewhere, the list of WD drives that the Tivo HD looks for. I have not yet investigated if those drives are available as bare drives or even as the 1 tb sanctioned Tivo expander. And, of course, the idea to merge both my drives into one and go merrily on my way is still my most desired possibility.

So, I want to try to do one of these variations, but am now stuck, because, for the life of me, I cannot find active download sites for either WinMFS or MFS Live cd v1.4! I must of had some version of the software when I revived my old Series 2, but that was more than 5 years ago... Can y'all help me here? Perhaps email me a zipped copy of either or both? Let me know if that's possible and whether you need my email address (or maybe you can see it by looking me up?).

Thanks tons for your help! As a recent layoff victim of this cr#**y economy, I have time for a bit of Tivo experimentation...


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## cwelty111 (Oct 27, 2007)

Unitron, thanks for your advice. I am going ahead with some possible fixes. I'll keep you "posted" so that I can get my post count up to 10...


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## cwelty111 (Oct 27, 2007)

So, I took my three hard drives, the original 160 gb internal, the 500 gb WD expander, and my shiny new WD AV-GP 1TB SATA 3Gb/s 3.5" Internal A/V Hard Drive WD10EURS, and hooked 'em up to my PC's SATAs. Made the internal and expander sda and sdb, respectively, and the new drive sdc. Then I took a blind shot at a copy command, using Spike's MFS Live 1.4 and generating the command using his ICG (it lists the Tivo HD and didn't stop me!). The command I used was : backup -qTao - /dev/sda /dev/sdb | restore -s 500 -zpi - /dev/sdc. Typed it and hit enter and it merrily began, saying it would take about 5 1/2 hours.

Well, came back about 5 hours later and the screen was rapidly refreshing, line by line, and apparently not happy about the state of the sectors on my I-already-knew-it-was-going-bad expander drive (hard to read as the lines flew by!). Came back at the 12 hour mark and it was in the same state. Plus, the expander was warmer than the other two drives (all three lined up like dominoes outside my computer case...). So, I mashed a few buttons and it quit and rebooted. Sadly, the 500 gb expander didn't show up--not a good sign.

So, today, I will try something else, assuming the cooled off drive might still allow me to ddrescue, I'll see...


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## lessd (Jan 23, 2005)

cwelty111 said:


> So, I took my three hard drives, the original 160 gb internal, the 500 gb WD expander, and my shiny new WD AV-GP 1TB SATA 3Gb/s 3.5" Internal A/V Hard Drive WD10EURS, and hooked 'em up to my PC's SATAs. Made the internal and expander sda and sdb, respectively, and the new drive sdc. Then I took a blind shot at a copy command, using Spike's MFS Live 1.4 and generating the command using his ICG (it lists the Tivo HD and didn't stop me!). The command I used was : backup -qTao - /dev/sda /dev/sdb | restore -s 500 -zpi - /dev/sdc. Typed it and hit enter and it merrily began, saying it would take about 5 1/2 hours.
> 
> Well, came back about 5 hours later and the screen was rapidly refreshing, line by line, and apparently not happy about the state of the sectors on my I-already-knew-it-was-going-bad expander drive (hard to read as the lines flew by!). Came back at the 12 hour mark and it was in the same state. Plus, the expander was warmer than the other two drives (all three lined up like dominoes outside my computer case...). So, I mashed a few buttons and it quit and rebooted. Sadly, the 500 gb expander didn't show up--not a good sign.
> 
> So, today, I will try something else, assuming the cooled off drive might still allow me to ddrescue, I'll see...


programs are striped across both drives making impossible to save anything except by direct xfer (to a PC) from the TiVo + ext expansion drive, if the ext drive is bad you are not going to get anything, just forget it and upgrade your TiVo with the new drive.


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## cwelty111 (Oct 27, 2007)

So, I moved on to phase 2 where I hoped to recover my external drive and re-hook it to the Tivo HD, which apparently still had a viable internal drive. To recover said drive, I followed Justin's advice at http://www.logicsector.com/tivo/how-to-clone-your-failing-tivo-drive-with-ddrescue/ and made a bootable CD of Ubuntu Rescue Remix, which has a program called ddrescue, which is apparently an improvement to dd_rescue. Hooked up my old external drive and the new 1 tb drive and ran ddrescue. It worked in so far as I could tell from the program output and looking at the directories.

I attached it to my Tivo and, following Justin's advice, did an immediate Kickstart 57 (i.e., MFS disk check/repair) to fix any errors due to missing data after the ddrescue. Well, perhaps owing to the relatively small swap on the original 160 gb Tivo drive, I promptly went into the GSOD loop. Tried many times, but never got any further.

While staring at the cycling Tivo and reading about the GSOD loop on various forums, I discovered the Capacitor Plague. So I looked at my power supply and discovered two bulging little guys. Aha! That's what is causing my GSOD loop! So, I ran around to Radio Shack and Fry's and collected the dozen or so electrolytic capacitors I needed. Put it back together and I still had the same GSOD loop. Oh, well. Phase 3, then, where I will ditch the external drive and at least recover my settings...


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