DirecTV HD DVR HR10-250 Upgrade Thread

[Runch Machine]

I have Hinsdales instructions. Are you saying to do a backup with both drives connected as the instructions show using this comand: mfsbackup -f 9999 -6so /mnt/dos/tivo.bak /dev/hdc /dev/hdb ? It says that this creates a divorced single drive image. When I do the restore, I am worried about the swap space. Do I need to do anything about swap space or will it be the same? What is the difference between -bzpi and -zi?

[weaknees]

The "-bzpi" and the "-zi" are the same here for these purposes.

That backup file that this creates should be fine to restore to the two new drives. Or you can restore the backup image you made earlier.

Michael

[flapbreaker]

Michael, (aka weaknees)

Any sign of the twinbreeze brackets this week? Just wondering since I have one on order.

[weaknees]

They've been sighted off the port bow!

[aaronwt]

WooHoo! I got emails saying that both my orders for the TwinBreeze bracket has shipped! I guess it won't do me any good though until I get my drives back next week from being configured.

[dr_mal]

Me too! Woo hoo!

[LarryInAz]

Originally posted by dr_mal
Me too! Woo hoo!

Me three - YabaDabaDooo :up: :up: :up:

[DeputyTIVO]

Originally posted by LarryInAz
Me three - YabaDabaDooo :up: :up: :up:

My bracket is en route too (or four I guess!!)

[mikemav]

I'll enter and sign-in as a FedEx rabid tracker as well. Can't wait for that bracket.

Now a quick question. I already have a mfsbackup of my hard drive. If I add the second drive and bless it when my bracket arrives, and then something bad happens, can I restore (without recordings, of course) from the backup I already have even though it was from my TiVo before I added the second drive? I'm hoping the backup would still be valid, and then even if worst case, both HD died, I would replace the A drive, mfsrestore from my previous backup, then add a second drive and bless it?

[AbMagFab]

Yes, although I would suggest you test a restore from your backup to be sure. For example, take your new drive, do a mfsrestore, put that in the primary slot (disconnect the current one), and boot up.

If you need to use it later, you'll need to mfsrestore to A, and probably re-BlessTivo B (although I'm not sure about the latter).

[mikemav]

Originally posted by AbMagFab
Yes, although I would suggest you test a restore from your backup to be sure. For example, take your new drive, do a mfsrestore, put that in the primary slot (disconnect the current one), and boot up.

If you need to use it later, you'll need to mfsrestore to A, and probably re-BlessTivo B (although I'm not sure about the latter).

Yeah, when I made the backup I restored it to my spare 250GB drive and tried it in the tivo, so I know it works. I burned that image on CD for safe keeping. When the bracket arrives, I will format that spare drive and bless it for use as my B drive.

BTW, I think the 400GB drives may be more available and hopefully cheaper in the near future. My contact at LaCie tells me they announced a 1.6TB version of their BiggerDisk external hard drive. The only way to get 1.6TB in that form factor is four 400GB drives. So hopefully this means they are starting to get closer to an everyday product.

[LarryInAz]

For those needing a large drive for upgrading Fry's has a Hitachi branded 250gb hard drive for $79.99 after rebates. At this rate they'll be giving them away in the next year. :p

[AbMagFab]

Got a link for that drive? I can't find it on-line...

[such]

Though it's showing it at $109 for me after a $140 rebate.http://shop4.outpost.com/product/3983238

[LarryInAz]

Originally posted by AbMagFab
Got a link for that drive? I can't find it on-line...

The sales price is in the Friday 7/16 Fry's 8 page advertisement in the Phoenix newspaper. If it might help for price matching I'd be happy to post a scan of the ad later this morning. Alot of times I see this info on Slickdeals.net (http://www.slickdeals.net) or Techbargains.com (http://www.techbargains.com) .

[AbMagFab]

Originally posted by LarryInAz
The sales price is in the Friday 7/16 Fry's 8 page advertisement in the Phoenix newspaper. If it might help for price matching I'd be happy to post a scan of the ad later this morning. Alot of times I see this info on Slickdeals.net (http://www.slickdeals.net) or Techbargains.com (http://www.techbargains.com) .

I'd love to see a scan of it. Both for price match, and a bet with a friend of mine as to when the fir <$99 250's will show up.

[LarryInAz]

Originally posted by AbMagFab
I'd love to see a scan of it. Both for price match, and a bet with a friend of mine as to when the fir <$99 250's will show up.

Hope this (http://us.f2.yahoofs.com/bc/3fbc3652_10936/bc/My+Documents/Fry%27s+Ad+July+16+2004.jpg?bfmw_9ABN1T6Vgbx) helps...

[AbMagFab]

Link isn't working (and it's very long and strange looking).

[mikemav]

Originally posted by AbMagFab
Link isn't working (and it's very long and strange looking).

You guys should try ******* (not enough posts here to show links)
... for that kind of thing. Makes things much easier to refer people to.

[dr_mal]

It works just fine, unless the board administrators ban t i n y u r l. A bunch of asterisks do nobody any good :(

(it's not a post count thing -- you only need 5 posts to show links... the problem is people were using t i n y u r l to bypass the ban on other, banned URLs)

[dswallow]

Originally posted by mikemav
You guys should try www.*******.com for that kind of thing. Makes things much easier to refer people to. www.tinyurl.com is a censored term here because such redirectors can be used to get to sites you're not supposed to mention here.

[mikemav]

Originally posted by dr_mal
It works just fine, unless the board administrators ban t i n y u r l. A bunch of asterisks do nobody any good :(

yeah, I was just trying to edit my post. you would think 350+ posts at AVS forum would translate over here w/ same user name. Spammer I am not! Anyway, that's what I was trying to say. I love that little web utility.

Originally posted by dswallow
www.tinyurl.com is a censored term here because such redirectors can be used to get to sites you're not supposed to mention here.
Oh, that explains it even more. I mean, I know I only have 25 post here, but that now makes more sense.

[LarryInAz]

Originally posted by AbMagFab
Link isn't working (and it's very long and strange looking).

Sorry, worked fin on my end. However here (http://*******.com/6rlgq) is the *******'ized version of it. Hope this works for you.

[AbMagFab]

/sigh, still doesn't work.


I'll PM you with my e-mail address?

[gr8reb8]

Try this link. (http://ads.myoc.com/interactive-ads/ocr/images/pdf/0006259075-01.pdf)

[LarryInAz]

I'll try one more time. Hopefully this link (http://homepage.mac.com/larryinaz/.cv/larryinaz/Public/FrysAd071604.jpg-link.jpg) works.

[aaronwt]

Are the Hitachi drives any good?

[dswallow]

Originally posted by aaronwt
Are te Hitachi drives any good?
Many people have cold feet with Hitachi drives (formerly IBM) because of some problems which occurred with controller chips used in a very large number of drives IBM made before selling the division to Hitachi.

Till that debacle, IBM drives were my personal favorite over other brands. Now, I still can't bring myself to allow Hitachi drives to be purchased for anything we build. My choice has little to do with whether Hitachi drives made now are any good; it's more a gut reaction to the pain I went through ebfore. :)

[AustinJerry]

I have received from PTVUpgrade what I think is the "improved, Version 2" bracket for my HR10-250. However, the parts don't match the picture of the parts in the installation instructions. Specifically, there are no "C-clips" as shown in the parts picture. I'm having trouble installing the bracket when the parts don't match the instructions. Are there upgraded instructions? I searched this formidable (but extremely useful) thread, but couldn't find others having the same problem.

Jerry

[weaknees]

I haven't seen any of these other than the pictures, but they have started an entire thread on the subject here:

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=182986

Hope the answers are there!

Michael

[AustinJerry]

Thanks for the link, Michael. However, in step 7 the picture shows a C-clip which is not included in my bracket kit. I have sent a message to PTVUpgrade tech support for clarification.

Jerry

[Cheezmo]

I just got my Weaknees twinbreeze installed (after running with the top off for a few weeks).

The installation was pretty smooth, complicated a bit by the fact that I had installed the A/B drives on the opposite IDE connectors previously and first tried to avoid disconnecting them. Doesn't work that way ;)

After all is done it is running about 40-42C which is 10C below what the single drive one was (and where my two drive's stacked with the cover on loosely was). So, I'm definitely happy about the cooler internal temperature.

By the way, I've been running one of the 250Gb Hitachi drives mentioned above as my master (I backed up and saved the original) along with the Weaknees 300Gb add on and haven't had any problems.

[LarryInAz]

Originally posted by Cheezmo
I just got my Weaknees twinbreeze installed (after running with the top off for a few weeks).


I'm jealous - I'm in Arizona and my Twinbreeze won't get here until Monday.
According to the tracking info it was sent out on the 15th and arrived in Phx Friday afternoon but too late for it to be delivered to me same day. :down:

Seriously though, I'm glad to hear the backet and your extra drive is working well for you. I've always been very happy with the Twinbreeze brackets in my standalone and then D* TiVo boxes. ;)

[dr_mal]

Monday -- bah! Mine won't be here until Tuesday :(

[LarryInAz]

Originally posted by dr_mal
Monday -- bah! Mine won't be here until Tuesday :(

Thanks Doc - I feel better now that you put it in perspective. ;)

[tivoupgrade]

Originally posted by AustinJerry
I have received from PTVupgrade what I think is the "improved, Version 2" bracket for my HR10-250. However, the parts don't match the picture of the parts in the installation instructions. Specifically, there are no "C-clips" as shown in the parts picture. I'm having trouble installing the bracket when the parts don't match the instructions. Are there upgraded instructions? I searched this formidable (but extremely useful) thread, but couldn't find others having the same problem.

Jerry

Jerry,

It sounds like the hardware kit you received is from the first version of the brackets we've been shipping. There are a few more pieces in the older version of the mounting kit, however it is just as stable and secure and the new mounting kit, which does have less pieces and is a bit easier to install.

Here is a link to the instructions for your version of the bracket:

http://www.ptvupgrade.com/installation/pdf/hr10-250-add.pdf

Thanks,
Lou

[pdoyle]

Back on June 1, Michael (of WeekKnees Fame) said that they had reliably gotten dual 300s to work. Does anyone have any idea how? Did I miss it?Has Michael listed the utilites/steps involved? Michael - you there?

Thanks,
Pat

[gem]

I can verify that the dual 300 configuration is working. I had WeaKnees (great bunch of guys) install their new HR10-250 bracket with 2 new 300 Maxtor drives. Kept the original 250 as backup.
Results:

77 Hours HD / 514 Hours SD
Run quieter that original.
Runs cooler 4 to 5 degrees.

Thanks to Michael, Jeff and the crew and WeaKnees.

[slocko]

can anyone point me to a good deal on a 250-300 drive.

just got email that my bracket has shipped!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Anubys]

Originally posted by slocko
can anyone point me to a good deal on a 250-300 drive.

just got email that my bracket has shipped!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I don't know if I can post link or not, so I won't.

Go to CompUSA and look for a 250GB, 7200RPM internal hard drive. It's not listed as a Maxtor, but it's a maxtor. It's ATA/133, which is perfect for HD-Tivo. it's $129.

I read in another forum of someone finding a Hitachi for $90, but some people are skeptical of its quality.

[slocko]

thxs!!!!!!!!!!!!!! will pick one up today.

[JohnTivo]

Originally posted by gem
I can verify that the dual 300 configuration is working. I had WeaKnees (great bunch of guys) install their new HR10-250 bracket with 2 new 300 Maxtor drives. Kept the original 250 as backup.
Results:

77 Hours HD / 514 Hours SD
Run quieter that original.
Runs cooler 4 to 5 degrees.

Thanks to Michael, Jeff and the crew and WeaKnees.

Does the normal procedure for adding two new 300 gig drives work? Or do they have to manipulate the partitions some how?

[dstroot]

When I go to Compusa the drive is 179 not 129?

[aaronwt]

They were on sale a 2 weeks ago at $129 in the store. The store I went to had a stack of Maxtor boxes instead of the Compusa labeled boxes. The same drive in either one.

[weaknees]

We use custom tools here to perform the dual 300 GB drive upgrades, but we'll outline some steps that should do the trick at home. We've tested this method only a bit, but it shares enough with our custom method that we're pretty certain it'll result in a stable upgrade.

The key is that mfstool won't work with partitions larger than 256 GB. So here's a D-I-Y method for making smaller partitions:

1 - Put the HR10-250 image on the 300 GB drive, without expansion. To do this, make a backup and restore the backup to the 300 GB drive under a newer Linux kernel (2.4.18 or newer). Make sure to use only "-zi" as the switch so that you don't expand the image to fill the drive:

mfstool -zi /tivo.bak /dev/hdX

2 - Bless the second 300 GB drive in "noswap" under an OLDER Linux Kernel - the standard boot CD is fine for this. This will create a 127 GB partition on the drive.

BlessTiVo /dev/hdY

3 - "Marry" the two drives by booting them in the HR10-250. You should be able to verify the extra hours in System Information (I don't have the exact number on me, but HD hours should be in the forties).

4 - Attach both drives back to the PC and boot in a NEWER kernel. Then run:

mfsadd -x /dev/hdX /dev/hdY

This will force partitions using the extra space on each drive - and neither drive will have more than (or even close to) 256 GB of space left to partition out.

5 - Put them back in the TiVo and verify the hours.

That should do it!

Michael

[Anubys]

Originally posted by dstroot
When I go to Compusa the drive is 179 not 129?

This sale has come and gone a couple of times. If you can wait, it sounds like a great deal...I have not been able to find a better deal. I didn't want to buy a generic but then someone on this forum said it was a Maxtor.

Sure enough, when I bought it, it was a Maxtor :up:

It was out of stock when I was ready to buy, so I saved it to my wish list and then bought it later. When I posted that it was available earlier, I could swear it was up there for $129. Maybe you just missed the window, maybe I just didn't pay enough attention.

I know it's far away and patience has never been a virtue of most people on this thread :D but labor day will sure get you some great sales...

not to rub it in, but my twinbreeze will be at my house on Thursday :p so I should double my recording hours for the weekend!

[pdoyle]

Michael,
Thanks for the reply! I have 2 questions though. In step 1 you mention using mfstool to copy the 250GB to the new 300GB drive. Is it OK to do this using "dd" instead? Yesterday, I booted using the big_disk iso and made a copy to my 300GB drive. I let it run all night. All I can say for sure is that it took more than 5 hours and less than 12! ;-) Anyway, if this method of making the copy is OK, I wil proceed to step to using an old iso.

I still have an old Kazymyr cd that I used for my old DirecTiVo upgrade 2 years ago which is iso linux 1,62. I assume that this will be OK for step 2 - BlessTiVo. Correct?

Thanks again,
Pat

[weaknees]

pdoyle-

Yes - the 'dd' would work fine in this case.

Your CD should be OK - just boot in "noswap" and try it.

Michael

[JohnTivo]

Michael,

What if I'm using two 400 gig drives? Sounds like that procedure will not work as the second drive would have just over 256 gigs left.

[weaknees]

You are certainly close - and maybe under the magic number. A 300 GB drive formats to 279 GB, so a 400 GB drive might make it under 383 GB (127 + 256). That's the easiest thing to try. Otherwise you have to get fancy and maybe bless a 160 in the new kernel, then 'dd' that to a 400 and marry, then 'mfsadd' from there.

Michael

[slocko]

i bought one this afternoon from the website with store pickup for $129.00. I can't wait.

Originally posted by dstroot
When I go to Compusa the drive is 179 not 129?

[pbolya]

Originally posted by weaknees
We use custom tools here to perform the dual 300 GB drive upgrades, but we'll outline some steps that should do the trick at home. We've tested this method only a bit, but it shares enough with our custom method that we're pretty certain it'll result in a stable upgrade.

The key is that mfstool won't work with partitions larger than 256 GB. So here's a D-I-Y method for making smaller partitions:

1 - mfstool -zi /tivo.bak /dev/hdX
2 - BlessTiVo /dev/hdY
3 - "Marry" the two drives.
4 - mfsadd -x /dev/hdX /dev/hdY

This will force partitions using the extra space on each drive - and neither drive will have more than (or even close to) 256 GB of space left to partition out.

5 - Put them back in the TiVo and verify the hours.

That should do it!

Michael Weaknees,
so this procedure works with drives up to 383 GB. Would it work with the 400 GB's (just loose 34GB) ? Any other tricks we can do to make 2 x 400GB work ?

If there is no way to do the dual 400GB than there is no point in waiting for a better price/availability on those. I can upgrade to dual 250GB (already has a Maxtor 250GB ready to go and I just got your bracket - thanks). One thing is sure: 600GB will not be enough in the long run and the extra 14h I get vs. the 500GB will not make a huge difference. So I either upgrade to 2x400GB ($900) or even 2x500GB (when becames available) or I buy another HR10-250 and put another 250GB in it to get 4x250=1T (~$1130). That way I have 140h HD which I can work with (currently have 242h SAT T-60 which I keep maxing out).

[pbolya]

Originally posted by pbolya
Weaknees,
so this procedure works with drives up to 383 GB. Would it work with the 400 GB's (just loose 34GB) ? Any other tricks we can do to make 2 x 400GB work ?

If there is no way to do the dual 400GB than there is no point in waiting for a better price/availability on those. I can upgrade to dual 250GB (already has a Maxtor 250GB ready to go and I just got your bracket - thanks). One thing is sure: 600GB will not be enough in the long run and the extra 14h I get vs. the 500GB will not make a huge difference. So I either upgrade to 2x400GB ($900) or even 2x500GB (when becames available) or I buy another HR10-250 and put another 250GB in it to get 4x250=1T (~$1130). That way I have 140h HD which I can work with (currently have 242h SAT T-60 which I keep maxing out). Weaknees,
Never mind. I just had to work so I did not have chance to send out my question for a long time. I now read your previous reply.

I did not consider in the deci GB and the bin GB ratio. The 400GB is actually 372.5GB confortably below the 383 limit.

So a 500GB (or 466GB in bin GB) theoratically can be achived by dd or backup/restore the 233GB to a 466GB drive, blessing a 233GB in the new kernal and marry the two. Then DD the 233GB to the 466GB and use MFSadd to create a 233GB partition on both of the drives (just below the 256GB limit). Is that right ?

[weaknees]

In theory, that should all work. We haven't tried it obviously, but that all sounds right. I don't know where you'd fine a 233 GB drive, but you can cross that bridge when you find the 500 GB drive.

Michael

[levytv]

i received my weakness fattened hd machine and hooked it up. all went well all tests succeeded till i tried to record and got a 'problem found' message. it said error 51. i tried resetting and no luck. the buffer works the off air works the directv works but the machine will not record till the hardware problem is resolved. anyone else experience this? thanks.

[weaknees]

That certainly shouldn't have happened, but all you need to do is a "Clear and delete everything" and it'll take a few minutes and work properly after a re-setup.

Please email us at info@weaknees.com with your info and we'll try to figure out what's going on.

Michael

[levytv]

thanks for the quick reply

[levytv]

its all good now. thanks for the help.

[Anubys]

Weaknees: I know I'm just having a bad day, but I cannot find the instructions for installing the twinbreeze for the HR10-250 on your web site. the link for the kit instructions does not have a link to that model.

I know it's there somewhere but I just can't find it. Can you please direct me?

I'm scheduled to receive the kit on Thursday and I like to do my homework!

[pbolya]

Originally posted by weaknees
In theory, that should all work. We haven't tried it obviously, but that all sounds right. I don't know where you'd fine a 233 GB drive, but you can cross that bridge when you find the 500 GB drive.

Michael Weaknees,
the 233GB drive is the 250GB drive. I just switched to binary GB in the entire note otherwise the numbers would not have add up right. So theoratically this procedure would work for a 1,024 GB or 1,100 GB (deci) but most likely there will be no 550GB disk so realisticly 1 TB (deci) is the limit.

[weaknees]

Originally posted by pbolya
Weaknees,
the 233GB drive is the 250GB drive. I just switched to binary GB in the entire note otherwise the numbers would not have add up right. So theoratically this procedure would work for a 1,024 GB or 1,100 GB (deci) but most likely there will be no 550GB disk so realisticly 1 TB (deci) is the limit.

Way ahead of me! Nice idea since you've already got that drive.

Michael

[pbolya]

Originally posted by weaknees
Way ahead of me! Nice idea since you've already got that drive.

Michael All I need now is two 500GB drives :rolleyes:

[leftcoastdave]

Michael,

I installed the Weaknees 300GB upgrade with Twinbreeze bracket yesterday and everything went as expected. The ambient temp inside the box is 41 degrees and the second drive is recognized and shows 70 hours of HD capacity in the unit.

I did notice one thing that I wanted to ask about .. this morning when I walked by the entertainment center I heard what sounded like excessive fan noise coming from the upgraded 10-250. I then decided the sound could also be as a result of the second hard file. Clearly this sound of either air movement or of a spinning disk was not present before the upgrade.

Can you tell me if this increase in "noise level" is common with upgraded units or if I have a noisier than normal muffin fan or hardfile?

Thanks.

Dave

[weaknees]

We haven't seen excess noise as a result of the upgrades. The fan is right in the middle of the unit, so that really muffles its sound. In addition, the material of the bracket absorbs and dampens sound.

If you are hearing noise, it could be a few different things. Check that all screws on the fan and drives are evenly tightened (not too tight, just even). Also check to see if any wires might be resting on fan blades.

Michael

[leftcoastdave]

Originally posted by weaknees
We haven't seen excess noise as a result of the upgrades. The fan is right in the middle of the unit, so that really muffles its sound. In addition, the material of the bracket absorbs and dampens sound.

If you are hearing noise, it could be a few different things. Check that all screws on the fan and drives are evenly tightened (not too tight, just even). Also check to see if any wires might be resting on fan blades.

Michael


Michael,

Thanks for getting back to me.

Firstly, I would not describe the noise as "excessive". The sound is clearly discernible from a distance of six to eight feet from the unit but I would not characterize it as loud. In fact I did not even notice it when I first put the unit into service because the sound was masked by the A/V gear which was on at the time. I first noticed the sound when I walked into our media room the next morning when none of the audio equipment was on.

What I am hearing is definitely the sound of air flow. It is not the sound of something making contact with the fan blades nor is it like a bearing noise one hears when a hard drive spins down. In fact, the closest thing it resembles is the noise one hears from the air movement device (call it a fan or a blower depending upon your computer background) in a PC. You have to listen carefully to discern the sound from other sounds in the room, but once detected, it pretty clear where is is coming from.

I went back and verified that the fan is installed in the correct position and that there are no cables obstructing the air flow. I made minor adjustments to the self tapping screws to see if that made a difference and it did not. The fan assembly is securely attached to the Twinbreeze bracket which does provide a dampening effect.

I conclude what I am hearing is probably normal for a unit with two fans operating within. When I have the TV volume or the A/V receiver volume at the normal listening level, I do not hear the air movement, but when the audio equipment if off, I can hear the sound of the fan pushing air. The temperature inside the unit this morning read 43 degrees C.

Now that I have determined the fan asssembly is indeed installed correctly, I am not certain there is anything more for you to do.

Thanks.

Dave

[aaronwt]

I haven't modified my units yet, but i can hear them in a quiet room. I have the HD-TiVos stacked and an SD unit on the other side of my HD-Monitor. I have always been able to hear the fans or the hard drives in a quiet room. As soon as the A/C comes on, I can no longer hear it over the sound of the heat pump and I defiitley can't hear it when watching a program.

[weaknees]

Originally posted by Anubys
Weaknees: I know I'm just having a bad day, but I cannot find the instructions for installing the twinbreeze for the HR10-250 on your web site. the link for the kit instructions does not have a link to that model.

I know it's there somewhere but I just can't find it. Can you please direct me?

I'm scheduled to receive the kit on Thursday and I like to do my homework!

We just posted them:

http://www.weaknees.com/instructions/twinbreeze_hd.pdf

Michael

[Mark Lopez]

I installed a second 250GB drive using the weaknees bracket today and it went perfect. 63hrs HD 425 SD :)

[aaronwt]

SWEET! I'll be doing one HD-TiVo tomorrow night. I'll wait a few days for the second one so I can get my season passes transferred and watch my remaining shows.
THANKS.

[pdoyle]

Michael (a.k..a. Weeknees) YOU ARE THE MAN!!!!!
I just completed an upgrade using your instructions on the prior page to upgrade to twin 300's! It worked perfectly! Thank you so much.

My HD recording time is now 77 hours!

Pat

[dr_mal]

Another success story (63 HD hours), but my TiVo sounds like it's infested with crickets. It's busy recording stuff tonight, but sometime over the next few days, I'll try to see I can make any adjustments. The sound is rather bothersome at the moment :(

[Mark Lopez]

Originally posted by dr_mal
...but my TiVo sounds like it's infested with crickets.

Hard drive or fan noise? I started with a Maxtor 250GB drive, but it was sort of noisy with the seeks and amset does not work on it (reports drive does not support it). So I got a WD drive instead and it is very quiet.

[dr_mal]

Originally posted by Mark Lopez
Hard drive or fan noise? I started with a Maxtor 250GB drive, but it was sort of noisy with the seeks and amset does not work on it (reports drive does not support it). So I got a WD drive instead and it is very quiet.
Pretty sure it's the new fan. The original drive wasn't noisy at all, and the 2nd drive I added was so quiet when I was BlessTiVoing it, I almost wasn't sure it was even running.

[weaknees]

Originally posted by dr_mal
Pretty sure it's the new fan. The original drive wasn't noisy at all, and the 2nd drive I added was so quiet when I was BlessTiVoing it, I almost wasn't sure it was even running.
The TwinBreeze fan really should be very quiet--much quieter than the factory fan. We'd be happy to send you a replacement--just send us an email.

Originally posted by pdoyle
Michael (a.k..a. Weeknees) YOU ARE THE MAN!!!!!
I just completed an upgrade using your instructions on the prior page to upgrade to twin 300's! It worked perfectly! Thank you so much.
My HD recording time is now 77 hours!


Glad to hear it!

[pbolya]

Michael (weaknees),
If I upgrade to 2 x 250GB now with blesstivo-ing the second drive and a year from now I buy 2 x 500GB disks I just need to DD the 250's to the 500's and use MFSADD to add the remaining space to a new partition (<256GB) right? Or would blesstivo work better in this scenario ? If this would work theoretically than there is no reason for me to wait any longer with my upgrade. Just do the upgrade to 500GB now and wait for the 500GB disk's to come out and drop in price for the ultimate 1TB upgrade. If you do not think it will work I probably will wait for the 400GB's to be more readily available and buy 2 early september.

[weaknees]

pbolya-

In theory, that should work. I don't see anything wrong with that plan at all.

Michael

[Anubys]

Originally posted by weaknees
We just posted them:

http://www.weaknees.com/instructions/twinbreeze_hd.pdf

Michael

Thank you for the instructions. I printed them and went through them. Very detailed and easy to read and follow. Just a great job. Thank you! :up:

60 Hours of HD should hold me over until 500 GB hard drives are available and under $200 :)

[Darin]

Everyone I see is talking about upgrading to 2 x XXXGB drives... is there an issue with mis-matched sized drives when upgrading the HR10-250? Can you not add a 300 or 400GB drive to the existing 250? If that does cause a problem, I'm sure there's mention of it in this thread, but it's huge, and I'm lazy. ;)

[weaknees]

Originally posted by Darin
Everyone I see is talking about upgrading to 2 x XXXGB drives... is there an issue with mis-matched sized drives when upgrading the HR10-250? Can you not add a 300 or 400GB drive to the existing 250? If that does cause a problem, I'm sure there's mention of it in this thread, but it's huge, and I'm lazy. ;)

No problem at all. We've added a lot of 300 GB drives to the stock 250s, and we've also added 160 GB drives. Mismatched drive sizes are fine, but the A drive needs to be 250 GB or larger.

Michael

[aaronwt]

For almost the price of two 400GB drives, I can get another HD-TiVo. I think I'll wait. Four 250GB drives at $130 each was a good deal for my HD-TiVos. I think it will be a while until the 400 GB drives reach a price point close to that.

[Mark Lopez]

Originally posted by Darin
Everyone I see is talking about upgrading to 2 x XXXGB drives... is there an issue with mis-matched sized drives when upgrading the HR10-250? Can you not add a 300 or 400GB drive to the existing 250?

I went with adding a 250GB because of the price. The 300GB is still too much of a price jump over a 250GB to make it worth it for the 7 extra hours.

[dr_mal]

I had an extra 250GB laying around from an attempt at an HTPC-based HD OTA PVR. At the time I built that system, 250GBs had just hit the consumer market and were the biggest you could get.

[flapbreaker]

I just added my 2nd drive that I prepared a few months back. I used the new weaknees twinbreeze bracket. It installed without a hitch. Looks real good. I love the added fan since my Tivo is in an enclosed cabinet. My internal temp went from 50 deg down to 46. Thats a real plus considering there are now 2 HD's cramed in there. Since the fan blows air at the top of the Tivo I believe the temp reading is accurate. If it blew down to the MB I would wonder if it wasn't blowing directly on the sensor and giving a false sence of temp. Just my opinion. Thanks Weaknees!

[buckeye1010]

Just got my Weaknees bracket yesterday. Installed without a hitch! I've had the drives stacked on top of each other for a couple of weeks, with the case cover off. I was getting temps at 50-51. So far, my closed-case with two drives (orginal 250 + 300), with twinbreeze temps are all under 42! Happy camper, here. (well, except for my T-60 which went into endless reboots last week - but that's another story).

[Darin]

Originally posted by flapbreaker
My internal temp went from 50 deg down to 46. ... Since the fan blows air at the top of the Tivo I believe the temp reading is accurate. If it blew down to the MB I would wonder if it wasn't blowing directly on the sensor and giving a false sence of temp.
Just to nit-pick, I'd expect that the fan IS causing air movement that is making the sensor give a false reading. Adding an internal fan that just blows air around is not going to reduce the heat load within the unit. There's still the same amount of air circulating in/out of the unit from the main fan. In fact, there should be MORE heat load inside, due to the added drive. That's not so say that the fan doesn't help - the additional circulation can provide better heat exchange between the individual components, and the air within the cabinet. But the sensor is not going to give any meaningful indication of that, unless it is embedded in the component that you are worried about.

[pdoyle]

I decided to go the route to install 2, 300GB drives because, well.... I could! It just happens to be yearly bonus time at the office and my wallet was talking to me. As I looked at the drives on the shelf @ Fry's I heard "Go ahead, get those 300GB BadBoys!" I crumbled under the pressure.

But now, I've got 77Hours of HD capacity! ;-)
Live is good. Now it's time to go offer a sacrifice to the TiVo Gods.

Pat

[mercurial]

Originally posted by pdoyle
But now, I've got 77Hours of HD capacity! ;-)
Live is good. Now it's time to go offer a sacrifice to the TiVo Gods.


No, *LIVE* is bad, that's why we all have TiVos... ;)

[slocko]

are these instrunctions the easiest way to add a 2nd 250 drive?

12. Remove the newly created hdtivo primary drive. Move jumper to "primary master w/slave present"

13. Install brand new 250Gb (or larger) drive in secondary master (hdc). Leave jumper on "cable-select"

14. Boot up ptv's lb48cd

15. Prepare the drive to be used as secondary in the HDTivo using the following command (this should take less than 10 seconds)
BlessTiVo /dev/hdc

16. Type reboot and when machine has rebooted and stopped at the first prompt on CD, turn off pc.

17. Remove the newly created hdtivo secondary drive. Move jumper to "slave".

this will be my first ever attempt to mess with a pvr. i have changed drives in pcs before.

[dr_mal]

I know this thread is kind of long, but...

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?postid=2052740#post2052740

If you can change a drive in a PC, you'll have no problems with this upgrade. Good luck!

[Mark Lopez]

Originally posted by slocko
are these instrunctions the easiest way to add a 2nd 250 drive?

12. Remove the newly created hdtivo primary drive. Move jumper to "primary master w/slave present"

13. Install brand new 250Gb (or larger) drive in secondary master (hdc). Leave jumper on "cable-select"

14. Boot up ptv's lb48cd

15. Prepare the drive to be used as secondary in the HDTivo using the following command (this should take less than 10 seconds)
BlessTiVo /dev/hdc

16. Type reboot and when machine has rebooted and stopped at the first prompt on CD, turn off pc.

17. Remove the newly created hdtivo secondary drive. Move jumper to "slave".

this will be my first ever attempt to mess with a pvr. i have changed drives in pcs before.

Yep. However, I would recommend making the backup described in the prior steps though. You never know when you may need it.

[flapbreaker]

Originally posted by Mark Lopez
Yep. However, I would recommend making the backup described in the prior steps though. You never know when you may need it.


And test the backup. Just because it says it's successful doesn't mean anything. My first backup was succefull but wouldn't restore. My second attempt worked great. Just an FYI

[flapbreaker]

Originally posted by Darin
Just to nit-pick, I'd expect that the fan IS causing air movement that is making the sensor give a false reading. Adding an internal fan that just blows air around is not going to reduce the heat load within the unit. There's still the same amount of air circulating in/out of the unit from the main fan. In fact, there should be MORE heat load inside, due to the added drive. That's not so say that the fan doesn't help - the additional circulation can provide better heat exchange between the individual components, and the air within the cabinet. But the sensor is not going to give any meaningful indication of that, unless it is embedded in the component that you are worried about.

This could be a whole topic unto itself but the fact that the Temp didn't go up speaks volumes to me anyways.

[slocko]

worst comes to worst, aren't there virgin hr10-250 images i can just put on a new drive and be back in business?

or is the backup because there is a chance that adding the 2nd drive will cause Tivo to trash the orginal drive that will not be leaving the Tivo?

problem with backup is where will i store it? i don't have the space for a 250 image and i don't want to spend another $130 just to have a safety blanket.

[weaknees]

Originally posted by slocko
problem with backup is where will i store it? i don't have the space for a 250 image and i don't want to spend another $130 just to have a safety blanket.

You can try to find images online, but it's pretty tough at this point. We can always do a reformat for you if the need arises.

But just to be clear - the backup ends up being about 200 MB - not even close to the size of the original drive. You could burn it to a CD and stick it under your mattress.

Michael

[Bill Milford]

Sounds like we should fix BlessTiVo to not create a partition larger than the maximum MFS size. That would add one line to the code.

I sure hope that weeknees' custom tools are not based on BlessTiVo since any changes made to that must be re-released due to GPL.

Too bad tiger never GPL'ed mfstools or we could fix them too.

[Mark Lopez]

Originally posted by slocko
worst comes to worst, aren't there virgin hr10-250 images i can just put on a new drive and be back in business?

or is the backup because there is a chance that adding the 2nd drive will cause Tivo to trash the orginal drive that will not be leaving the Tivo?

problem with backup is where will i store it? i don't have the space for a 250 image and i don't want to spend another $130 just to have a safety blanket.

I'm sure you could find one, it may just take some time. I probably wouldn't wait until you need it to go looking though. :)

There is always the chance that something could go horribly wrong rendering your original drive unusable.

Backups take very little space. My virgin HD TiVo backup was around 115MB

[tivoupgrade]

Originally posted by Bill Milford
Sounds like we should fix BlessTiVo to not create a partition larger than the maximum MFS size. That would add one line to the code.

I sure hope that weeknees' custom tools are not based on BlessTiVo since any changes made to that must be re-released due to GPL.

Too bad tiger never GPL'ed mfstools or we could fix them too.


mfstools has been gpl'ed:

http://sourceforge.net/projects/mfstools/

[flapbreaker]

Originally posted by slocko
worst comes to worst, aren't there virgin hr10-250 images i can just put on a new drive and be back in business?

or is the backup because there is a chance that adding the 2nd drive will cause Tivo to trash the orginal drive that will not be leaving the Tivo?

problem with backup is where will i store it? i don't have the space for a 250 image and i don't want to spend another $130 just to have a safety blanket.

Just create a small FAT32 partition on your system drive or any drive for that matter. And backup to that. You don't need more than a 2GB partition.

A couple tips:

Don't boot to windows with the Tivo drive in (very easy to do) it will ruin your day.

Keep the Original Tivo drive on a seperate IDE channel than the backup drive. I wasted about 10 hours due to this problem.

Good luck. And I wouldn't trust files I got off the Internet to save your butt.

[weaknees]

Originally posted by Bill Milford
Sounds like we should fix BlessTiVo to not create a partition larger than the maximum MFS size. That would add one line to the code.

I sure hope that weeknees' custom tools are not based on BlessTiVo since any changes made to that must be re-released due to GPL.

Too bad tiger never GPL'ed mfstools or we could fix them too.

The problem isn't the maximum MFS size - the problem is the maximum mfstool size, as far as we can tell.

And, no, our tools aren't based on BlessTiVo - but we do use that as-is in certain situations.

Michael

[Mark Lopez]

Question - Can a virgin (virgin=never powered up) backup be restored to another HD TiVo without having to do a 'clear and delete everything'?

[weaknees]

No - it's already serialized from the factory.

Michael

[Mark Lopez]

Originally posted by weaknees
No - it's already serialized from the factory.


Thanks. Guess I'll make a backup of my second unit too then since I wouldn't want to loose logos if I need to do a restore using my existing backup.

[LarryInAz]

Is there any difference between using mfsadd or blesstivo to simply add an additional drive in the HR10-250?

If I already have an image on a CD and just want to add the 2nd drive for the recording "elbow room" does it make a difference as to which utility is used?

[weaknees]

There are differences under the hood, but nothing too major, except that BlessTiVo doesn't have the 256 GB limit of mfsadd.

Michael

[LarryInAz]

Originally posted by weaknees
There are differences under the hood, but nothing too major, except that BlessTiVo doesn't have the 256 GB limit of mfsadd.

Michael

So if I use the mfsadd option do I simply put the two drives in my pc [as an example original TiVo A Primary Master (changing the jumper to Master w/ slave) and the new 250gb as Primary Slave] do I boot up from the LBA48 CD in noswap mode and run this command?

mfsadd -x /dev/hda /dev/hdb

It will then tell me what the new recording time is and then I "3-finger" salute to shutdown, pull the drives, mount them on my Twinbreeze rack and enjoy?

BTW Michael the new bracket looks and feels great...

[weaknees]

That's all exactly right - you should see an incorrect report of something like 600 hours.

Glad you like the bracket!

Michael

[aaronwt]

I got the first pair of drives in, but the seeks from the hard drive seem excesssively loud. It's a maxtor Diamondmax plus 9 drive. Don't these drives come with AM set to the quiet mode? Or is the HD-TiVo doing something and it will be quiet after things are downloaded?

[aaronwt]

If acoustic management isn't enabled, would I be able to remove both drives from the HD-TiVo and connect them to the PC, enable AM, then put them back in the HD-TiVo without causing any problems or loosing any data? The AM program is booted from a dos disc.

[DeputyTIVO]

Originally posted by aaronwt
... would I be able to remove both drives from the HD-TiVo and connect them to the PC, enable AM, then put them back in the HD-TiVo without causing any problems or loosing any data?

Yes ... if Amset is compatible with your drive, it is non-destructive.

[LarryInAz]

I installed the new drive and bracket as I described in my earlier post however after my unit boots up and I get into System Information the Recording Capacity still shows the same numbers.
"Variable, up to 30 HD or 200 SD hours". After having run the mfsadd command it said it expanded the capacity an estimated 302 hours for approximately 582 total hours. So why is the System Info not reflecting this? :confused:

[aaronwt]

OK. The Acoustic Management was the problem. All the drives were set to performance.(they were all brands new drives) I set them to QUIET and now, it IS Quiet. I can barely hear the hard drives. It's like it was with the WD. I wish I would have known this earlier. I really didn't want to mess with it again. Well at least now I know. I went ahead and set my other two drives on quiet. I won't be installing those in my second HD-tiVo until later this week. thanks for the quick responses.

[aaronwt]

Originally posted by aaronwt
OK. The Acoustic Management was the problem. All the drives were set to performance.(they were all brands new drives) I set them to QUIET and now, it IS Quiet. I can barely hear the hard drives. It's like it was with the WD. I wish I would have known this earlier. I really didn't want to mess with it again. Well at least now I know. I went ahead and set my other two drives on quiet. I won't be installing those in my second HD-tiVo until later this week. thanks for the quick responses.

This is so much better. It is such a huge difference in the sound output. Without background noise I have to put my ear within 2 feet to hear anything. Before I could hear it 20 feet away with background noise.

[pdoyle]

Originally posted by weaknees
No - it's already serialized from the factory.

Michael

Michael,
I have never really though about this but does this mean that you cannot take a drive out of a TiVo and put it into another TiVo? Say, for example, you have an HR10-250 and your HDMI port fails. You call DirectTV and they send a replacement unit. Can the drives then be swapped and you send back the old unit to DirectTV with the new drive in it and keep the new unit with the old drive (and you saved shows)? If this "cannot be done" - what happens if you do it?

Pat

[dswallow]

Originally posted by pdoyle
Michael,
I have never really though about this but does this mean that you cannot take a drive out of a TiVo and put it into another TiVo? Say, for example, you have an HR10-250 and your HDMI port fails. You call DirectTV and they send a replacement unit. Can the drives then be swapped and you send back the old unit to DirectTV with the new drive in it and keep the new unit with the old drive (and you saved shows)? If this "cannot be done" - what happens if you do it?
No recorded shows will be playable. You'll have to do a Clear & Delete Everything before you can record anything new.

[weaknees]

Originally posted by LarryInAz
I installed the new drive and bracket as I described in my earlier post however after my unit boots up and I get into System Information the Recording Capacity still shows the same numbers.
"Variable, up to 30 HD or 200 SD hours". After having run the mfsadd command it said it expanded the capacity an estimated 302 hours for approximately 582 total hours. So why is the System Info not reflecting this? :confused:

Pretty strange - this is what was happening with Pioneers and Toshibas.

I would just try mfsadd again and see what happens - I seem to remember seeing situations where mfsadd didn't really take on the first try.

Also, you can try blessing, but before you do that, you should try to boot with just the A drive to be sure the drives aren't married.

Michael

[aaronwt]

I'm curious why my first upgrade machine shows 64 HD hours. I thought that two 250GB drives gave you 63 hours. Not that I'm complaining. I'm sure I'll use that extra hour.

[weaknees]

Where did you see the 63 hour number? If it's from WD drives and you have Maxtors, that explains the different.

Michael

[LarryInAz]

Originally posted by weaknees
Pretty strange - this is what was happening with Pioneers and Toshibas.

I would just try mfsadd again and see what happens - I seem to remember seeing situations where mfsadd didn't really take on the first try.

Also, you can try blessing, but before you do that, you should try to boot with just the A drive to be sure the drives aren't married.

Michael

I opened the case and pulled the power plug and IDE cable from the new B drive, reconnected the unit and it just sits on the "Welcome. Powering up..." screen. Does this indicate that the drives did marry?
Assuming this is the case you would suggest I pull both drives and do the MFSADD again? If so it will have to wait until this afternoon because I am getting ready to leave for work. :(

[weaknees]

Originally posted by LarryInAz
I opened the case and pulled the power plug and IDE cable from the new B drive, reconnected the unit and it just sits on the "Welcome. Powering up..." screen. Does this indicate that the drives did marry?
Assuming this is the case you would suggest I pull both drives and do the MFSADD again? If so it will have to wait until this afternoon because I am getting ready to leave for work. :(

That's all pretty unusual - especially since you saw mfsadd report the increase in hours.

Did you make a backup? At this point, starting with that might be the safest option.

Michael

[LarryInAz]

Originally posted by weaknees
That's all pretty unusual - especially since you saw mfsadd report the increase in hours.

Did you make a backup? At this point, starting with that might be the safest option.

Michael

I do have a backup but not of my programs [I'd hate to lose all my HD TiVo'd Bikini Destinations] :D
Seriously though before I create a fresh drive from the backup do you think it would hurt anything if I put the 2 drives back in my PC and rerun MFSADD?

Assuming that's what I do and the same issue occurs then would the next option be to try and marry the drives with Blesstivo or simply create the fresh drive from my backup cd, test it and then marry the two drives again?

[dr_mal]

I'm no expert, so don't take my word without confirmation, but I don't think you'll lose your recordings if you restore your backup to the original TiVo drive. IIRC, backups include an index of recorded shows, but not the shows themselves. Since the TiVo hasn't recorded anything new, the restored index should still point to the saved shows on your original drive.

[Robert S]

That only works on very early TiVo's original drives.

Although the -p optimisation creates a similar layout to the original A drives on 13-partition TiVoes, it's not quite the same, so the partitions don't line up and you lose the recordings.

Once you've upgraded and you're on an A drive created by MFS Tools, as long as you use the same options, the partitions will line up and you should be able to reimage without losing recordings.

[weaknees]

Another thought here - when you tried to boot without the B drive, did you move the jumper on the A drive back to Master (far right) as opposed to Master with Slave? That might account for the lack of boot in that situation.

Michael

[LarryInAz]

Originally posted by weaknees
Another thought here - when you tried to boot without the B drive, did you move the jumper on the A drive back to Master (far right) as opposed to Master with Slave? That might account for the lack of boot in that situation.

Michael

Aha! You are correct I left the jumper in Master w/ Slave position. When I move it to the far right pins it boots fine. So I'm assuming your first theory about the MFSADD not "sticking" is correct.
Would you think if I pull the two drives and boot from the LBA48 MFSTools disk and run MFSADD again like my earlier post would make any difference? If not would it be safe to instead use the BlessTiVo utility instead?
What was the issue and solution on the Pioneer w/ TiVo units that you mentioned had similar issues?

Thanks for your assistance..

[dr_mal]

Originally posted by Robert S
Once you've upgraded and you're on an A drive created by MFS Tools, as long as you use the same options, the partitions will line up and you should be able to reimage without losing recordings.
Ah, I think that's the scenario I'd experienced. Thanks for chiming in Robert :up:

[dr_mal]

Originally posted by LarryInAz
Aha! You are correct I left the jumper in Master w/ Slave position. When I move it to the far right pins it boots fine. So I'm assuming your first theory about the MFSADD not "sticking" is correct.
Would you think if I pull the two drives and boot from the LBA48 MFSTools disk and run MFSADD again like my earlier post would make any difference? If not would it be safe to instead use the BlessTiVo utility instead?
What was the issue and solution on the Pioneer w/ TiVo units that you mentioned had similar issues?

Thanks for your assistance..
Why not just use BlessTiVo? That's the procedure I used to add a 2nd 250GB drive. No need to pull the master drive from the TiVo -- just put the new drive into your PC, BlessTiVo it, and when the TiVo boots, it'll marry the drives.

[weaknees]

Originally posted by LarryInAz
Aha! You are correct I left the jumper in Master w/ Slave position. When I move it to the far right pins it boots fine. So I'm assuming your first theory about the MFSADD not "sticking" is correct.
Would you think if I pull the two drives and boot from the LBA48 MFSTools disk and run MFSADD again like my earlier post would make any difference? If not would it be safe to instead use the BlessTiVo utility instead?
What was the issue and solution on the Pioneer w/ TiVo units that you mentioned had similar issues?

Thanks for your assistance..

As dr_mal suggested, BlessTiVo is probably the easiest way to proceed here. You can try mfsadd again; hard to know what will happen.

The other units just simply aren't upgradable yet with certain version of the software.

And I should correct my earlier post - the far right position is Cable Select, not Master.

Michael

[LarryInAz]

Originally posted by dr_mal
Why not just use BlessTiVo? That's the procedure I used to add a 2nd 250GB drive. No need to pull the master drive from the TiVo -- just put the new drive into your PC, BlessTiVo it, and when the TiVo boots, it'll marry the drives.

That's probably what I'll do now that I know the two drives never "married" - my earlier concern was if they did marry but did not "cohabitate" was if I did MFSADD again would it cause any harm?
I'm not adverse to using BlessTiVo that's how I upgraded my first Series 1 standalone back in '99. However my two DirecTiVo units upgraded great with the MFSADD and I was hoping it would work the same way for the HD TiVo.

At the very least I'm more than curious as to why the MFSADD appeared to work reporting increased SD recording time in the PC but when installed in the TiVo unit it was like I had not done anything. With the many HD TiVo users that might be upgrading I suspect I won't be the only person that has this issue so maybe we can find a "fix" for them. :confused:

[LarryInAz]

I have downloaded the 1.36mb compressed BlessTiVo (http://www.tivofaq.com/hack/tivoboot_v3.zip) file and it looks "empty". After the download completes on my laptop running WinXp I attempt to open the zipped file and there is nothing there. I have tried downloading it a couple of times from the link in this thread as well as going direct to the TiVoFAQ websight.

Is it me or is the file "broken" or :confused:

[dr_mal]

If you have the ptvUpgrade boot disk for large disks, BlessTiVo will already be on that image. This post has a link: http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?postid=2046838#post2046838

[LarryInAz]

Originally posted by dr_mal
If you have the ptvUpgrade boot disk for large disks, BlessTiVo will already be on that image. This post has a link: http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?postid=2046838#post2046838

Thanks Doc - that is the same disk image I used to create my bootable cd and ran MFSADD. I didn't know it also has the BlessTiVo file on it. However has anyone else downloaded the BlessTiVo (http://www.tivofaq.com/hack/tivoboot_v3.zip) file to see if there is something wrong with it?

[aaronwt]

I see 4 files after unzipping.

[flapbreaker]

Originally posted by LarryInAz
Thanks Doc - that is the same disk image I used to create my bootable cd and ran MFSADD. I didn't know it also has the BlessTiVo file on it. However has anyone else downloaded the BlessTiVo (http://www.tivofaq.com/hack/tivoboot_v3.zip) file to see if there is something wrong with it?


Yes, I have downloaded it and I couldn't get it to unzip. It seemed like the zipped folder was empty or something. I just used the blesstivo commands from the ptvugrade boot Cd.

[LarryInAz]

Thanks flap [if that is your real name] :D that's the same result I had.
FWIW, I was trying to unzip using WinXp's builtin Zipper. I notice Aaron is using PKzip. I don't have that installed on my work machine. I'll try it at home and see if I get a different result with the same file.

Thanks again to the group for your help and feedback.

I'll report when I get home this afternoon and run BlessTiVo from the large disk tools CD. Fingers are crossed hoping this will resolve the marriage problems though I'm still curious about this. Michael had mentioned a similar MFSADD issue occured in the Pioneer + TiVo machine. Was using BlessTiVo also the fix for this or :confused:

[weaknees]

BlessTiVo actually does work with Pioneers (some) but the problem is that the unit can't hold two drives.

I really don't think you are having that exact problem - I think you may have just had mfsadd failure for some reason. Blessing should be fine.

Michael

[LarryInAz]

BlessTiVo did the job and I now have "Variable, up to 63 HD or 426 SD hours". :up: :up: :up:

[pbolya]

Michael,
I have your bracket and I am not waiting anymore for special deals. I have one Maxtor 250GB drive ($129). I am planning to backup my HDTiVo and restore it to a Maxtor 250GB just to check the backup. After that I would like to use that Maxtor drive as my B drive with my original drive as the A drive. As I recall from my non HD upgrades (my last upgrade was 1.5 years ago) that I did not need to reformat the restored drive in order to use it as a B drive. Back than I used MFSADD of course and that seamed to wipe out whatever was on that drive. If I just put this drive in my PC and use BlessTivo would that delete whatever is on that drive? would I be able to DD it later to a 500GB and blesstivo it again to expand it to 500GB?

Thanks,
Peter

[aaronwt]

Make sure you set the acoustic managemnt on the Maxtor to quiet. It comes set to performance which makes it extremely loud.

[weaknees]

That's all right - mfsadd and BlessTiVo will overwrite anything on the drives in those circumstances.

Michael

[pbolya]

Originally posted by aaronwt
Make sure you set the acoustic managemnt on the Maxtor to quiet. It comes set to performance which makes it extremely loud. aaronwt,
My drive is also a Diamondmax plus 9 drive. There is nothing in the book about setting the Maxtor to quite mode. Is this on the CD somwhere (got MAXBlast3)?

[dropper]

Will this work for you?

AMSET Utility (http://maxtor.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/maxtor.cfg/php/enduser/olh_adp.php?p_faqid=1200)

Keith

[pbolya]

Originally posted by dropper
Will this work for you?

AMSET Utility (http://maxtor.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/maxtor.cfg/php/enduser/olh_adp.php?p_faqid=1200)

Keith Thanks,
This will work.

[mikemav]

Originally posted by dropper
Will this work for you?

AMSET Utility (http://maxtor.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/maxtor.cfg/php/enduser/olh_adp.php?p_faqid=1200)

Keith

Do you people suggest Quiet or Fast (as opposed to Off, which has no acoustic management) ? Also, can I do this to other Maxtor drives I have on my PCs that already have data? It does not format or lose data does it?

[tivoupgrade]

Originally posted by mikemav
Do you people suggest Quiet or Fast (as opposed to Off, which has no acoustic management) ? Also, can I do this to other Maxtor drives I have on my PCs that already have data? It does not format or lose data does it?

AMSET is non-destructive to data. On some Maxtor drives (MAXLINE II) it can make a noticible difference when set to "quiet" mode. It will not affect your DVR performance when set to "quiet" as opposed to "fast."

[pbolya]

tivoupgrade (or anybody who knows),
I booted into the PTV's CD but I have 3 questions:

- Which linux should I chose VMLINUZ or VMLNODMA ?
- How do I page up to see if the disks are recognized at full capacity and on what device.
- Would the HR10-250 upgrade instructions (Backup, Restore, BlessTivo) and the PTV's large disk CD work to add a B drive to a Sony series 2 SVL3000 Tivo? I will need to upgrade my friends new Tivo next week.

Thanks in advance,
Peter

[weaknees]

I can answer the second two:

-to page up, use Shift-Pgup
-the instructions will work, but you should NOT do this with drives larger than 120s since they won't work properly in that machine.

Michael

[pbolya]

Originally posted by weaknees
I can answer the second two:

-to page up, use Shift-Pgup
-the instructions will work, but you should NOT do this with drives larger than 120s since they won't work properly in that machine.

Michael Thanks Michael,
I am trying to use Shift-PguP but it does not want to page. We are putting in a 120GB disk so I guess it will be ok. But thanks for the warning. I did put in a 160GB in my Sony SAT-T60 to get 242h (using the old limited Kernal of course).

[pbolya]

Got Shift-PGup to work. It just doesn't work on the numeric keypad. I have to use Shift-Function-Up. My bad.

[pbolya]

I flipped a coin at it was heads so I went with VMLINUZ. The backup (mfsbackup -f 9999 -1so /mnt/dos/HR10-250.BAK /dev/hdc) is only going for 11 and a 1/2 minutes but it only done 1%. At this rate the backup will take over 19 hours ! Is this normal ? Do I need to do anything to be in noswap mode (I think that is the default isn't it)?

[dennya]

Best buy has a Maxtor 250GB drive ("L01P250") on sale for $149 this week. Anyone using that drive in an HR10-250?

[weaknees]

Originally posted by pbolya
I flipped a coin at it was heads so I went with VMLINUZ. The backup (mfsbackup -f 9999 -1so /mnt/dos/HR10-250.BAK /dev/hdc) is only going for 11 and a 1/2 minutes but it only done 1%. At this rate the backup will take over 19 hours ! Is this normal ? Do I need to do anything to be in noswap mode (I think that is the default isn't it)?

You should maybe try the other kernel - that's WAY too long.

[pbolya]

Originally posted by weaknees
You should maybe try the other kernel - that's WAY too long. It actually failed after 16 minutes. It said "Failed backup ..... Successful" now that is confusing. I am currently trying it again and if it fails again (got about 8 minutes to go) then I will try the other kernal.

Can anybody who used this kernal tell me what they did?

Thanks,
Peter

[pbolya]

Originally posted by pbolya
It actually failed after 16 minutes. It said "Failed backup ..... Successful" now that is confusing. I am currently trying it again and if it fails again (got about 8 minutes to go) then I will try the other kernal.

Can anybody who used this kernal tell me what they did?

Thanks,
Peter VMLINUZ failed both time and now I see that it failed after the backup file reached 2GB. Looks like it backing up the whole disk. I now tried with VMLNODMA and the backup completed in 14 minutes resulting a 234MB file. I am gonna do the restore now.

[tivoupgrade]

Originally posted by pbolya
tivoupgrade (or anybody who knows),
I booted into the PTV's CD but I have 3 questions:

- Which linux should I chose VMLINUZ or VMLNODMA ?
- How do I page up to see if the disks are recognized at full capacity and on what device.
- Would the HR10-250 upgrade instructions (Backup, Restore, BlessTivo) and the PTV's large disk CD work to add a B drive to a Sony series 2 SVL3000 Tivo? I will need to upgrade my friends new Tivo next week.

Thanks in advance,
Peter

Just hit <return> and yes, you can use BlessTiVo and MFStools as documented in a variety of places. Don't use the LBA48 CD to Bless drives for any units that do not include LBA48 support or units on which you can't use CopyKern (Series1 units) to replace the kernel. So, NO, don't use it for the SVR-3000 (you can use our Universal Boot CD, or any of the freely distributed CD's booted "noswap" for that one.

[pbolya]

Originally posted by tivoupgrade
Just hit <return> and yes, you can use BlessTiVo and MFStools as documented in a variety of places. Don't use the LBA48 CD to Bless drives for any units that do not include LBA48 support or units on which you can't use CopyKern (Series1 units) to replace the kernel. So, NO, don't use it for the SVR-3000 (you can use our Universal Boot CD, or any of the freely distributed CD's booted "noswap" for that one. Thanks. I tried to press enter but it just kept repeating the Boot prompt. I tried it now that I put all the disks back and voila it works. It must have been my fat finger. In any way when I typed VMLINUZ it kept creating a one on one backup failing after reaching 2GB. When I typed vmlnodma it worked fine. I now now that I should have type neither.

Thanks,
Peter

[pbolya]

Michael,
Another success story. The TwinBreeze rocks. DirectTv could not have designed it better even if they design the TiVo around the bracket. It is so easy to instal and still rock solid. My original tempriture was 56c before the upgrade now it is between 46c and 50c. My SAT-T60 heats up to 66c next to it as usual. I do not even know why is it still running after all these years. It should have been melted by now.

The backup took 14 minutes and the restore took 11:30 minutes. BlessTivo was of course instantaneous. The backup is 234MB. TiVo reporting 63hd 426SD. By the way the Maxtor was 1GB larger than the stock WD.

I did set the Maxtor to Quite mode (thanks aaronwt and dropper) and when I put it into the TiVo to test the backup I could not hear a thing (I could hear a couple of seeks for the first 5 seconds but it was virtually silent after that).

Now the next step is to run my tests before the fall TV schedule (or the Olympics) starts. First I will fill the TiVo with 400+ hours of SD shows and see how responsive it will be when I have 50 pages of shows recorded. My SAT-T60 is so slow (over 200h filled) that sometimes I call home and ask my wife to bring the List up so I can watch it when I get home.

Sorry that I took over this thread tonight.

[mikemav]

Originally posted by pbolya


Now the next step is to run my tests before the fall TV schedule (or the Olympics) starts. First I will fill the TiVo with 400+ hours of SD shows and see how responsive it will be when I have 50 pages of shows recorded. My SAT-T60 is so slow (over 200h filled) that sometimes I call home and ask my wife to bring the List up so I can watch it when I get home.



Speaking of "how responsive", I was wondering if anyone has looked into upgrading memory in the HD Tivo? I have heard from an inside source that they probably should have put in more memory and it may get very slow with a lot of SD content (more pages of Now Playing.)

[aaronwt]

Originally posted by dennya
Best buy has a Maxtor 250GB drive ("L01P250") on sale for $149 this week. Anyone using that drive in an HR10-250?

That should be the Ultra series retail hard drive kit with the Diamond max plus 9 drive. I bought 4 of those. I installed the first two drives Wednesday and everything is working perfectly so far. I'll get the other two installed in a few days. As soon as I finish watching a couple of shows I still have on the WD drive. All 4 of my drives came with Acoustic Management set to performance, which makes the hard drive very loud. Make sure you set the AM to Quiet before installation in the HD-TiVo.

[dennya]

Thanks, Aaron.

Though now I see a 300GB (yipes!) Maxtor drive at NewEgg, so that's tempting me. Should up the HD time to 36 hours on that drive! There are gripes in the reviews on the site that it's loud, but I'm wondering if they just didn't turn on the acoustic management...

Anyone tried the a 300?

[RC3105]

mwave.com had 200G wd drives for $88 last week - nice & quiet (no rebate crapola either)

edit: newegg's great, I buy a lot of refurb from them & never have a prob when something dies, but dual wd 200's for $23 more than the cost of that mxt 250 is hard to pass up... ;)

[AbMagFab]

Originally posted by mikemav
Speaking of "how responsive", I was wondering if anyone has looked into upgrading memory in the HD Tivo? I have heard from an inside source that they probably should have put in more memory and it may get very slow with a lot of SD content (more pages of Now Playing.)

They did something on the HD Tivo so the Now Playing list seems to pop up right away and fills as it goes (where on the older Tivo's it seemed to wait until the entire list was populated before showing it).

I have an SD Tivo with ~240 hours, and my HD Tivo has 500GB and 20+ pages of recordings. The HD Tivo pops up the NP list right away, the SD Tivo takes 10-30 seconds to pop up the first time.

[RC3105]

bout darn time!!! sounds like a good reason to run the hd sw release on hdvr2 & such

[LarryInAz]

Maybe it's my imagination but has anyone else that's added a 2nd drive to their HD TiVo noticed the unit seems to be faster?

[JohnTivo]

Originally posted by dennya
Thanks, Aaron.

Though now I see a 300GB (yipes!) Maxtor drive at NewEgg, so that's tempting me. Should up the HD time to 36 hours on that drive! There are gripes in the reviews on the site that it's loud, but I'm wondering if they just didn't turn on the acoustic management...

Anyone tried the a 300?
Yes, I'm running my unit with the Maxtor 300 GB drive. No issues thus far, and temps are down slightly.

[tivolovit]

Originally posted by dennya
Best buy has a Maxtor 250GB drive ("L01P250") on sale for $149 this week. Anyone using that drive in an HR10-250?

I have used dozens of them in HD TiVos...no problems. I have been buying them on sale at multiple places over the past couple of months. Watch for price matching and rebate opportunities. You can pick them up for ~$129 no rebates at places when there is a good sale, with rebates or PM sometimes better.

Regards,

[pbolya]

Originally posted by dennya
Thanks, Aaron.

Though now I see a 300GB (yipes!) Maxtor drive at NewEgg, so that's tempting me. Should up the HD time to 36 hours on that drive! There are gripes in the reviews on the site that it's loud, but I'm wondering if they just didn't turn on the acoustic management...

Anyone tried the a 300? I recorded about 16 hours SD so far with the Maxtor 250 drive (well it is probably recorded it on the stock WD) and I can tell you that Aeron is right on the money after I set it to Quite mode it is the most silent hard drive I ever saw. It does make a huge difference.

As for the 300GB it is probably the same but when you can get the 250GB for $129 you have to buy the 300GB for $150 to get the same rate. If you buy a 300GB for $300 that is twice the price. If you buy a 250GB you have a 63 hours for $129 (2 $/h) If you buy 2 300GB for $300 each you have a 76 hours for $600 (8 $/h). If you buy just one 300GB it will be 70 hours for $300 (4 $/h). Buying one 400GB is cheaper than the 2 x $300 as it will result in 83 hours for $430 (5 $/h). However it is still very rare it is Hitachi and it is crossing uncharted teritoty for upgrade.

If money is not a problem though go for it. Every hour counts.

[pbolya]

Originally posted by mikemav
Speaking of "how responsive", I was wondering if anyone has looked into upgrading memory in the HD Tivo? I have heard from an inside source that they probably should have put in more memory and it may get very slow with a lot of SD content (more pages of Now Playing.) mikemav,
The HR10-250 is already way slower (before upgrade) than even the series 1's in a lot of area. For example responding to remote functions, bringing guide up, changing channels or tunners etc.. Of course it is recording 2 HD streams most of the time instead of 2 SD. However when I set both tunner on an SD channel I can not see any difference in performance. I am looking forward to the result of my 400+ SD recording test. If it is faster after 200h than my T60 than it is already ahead of the curb. I think it will die before I will get to 400h but than again maybe it will suprise me. We will see within 2 weeks. Seting up ~400 recordings and trying to manage my shows between 400 dummy recordings will suck though.

[pbolya]

Originally posted by AbMagFab
They did something on the HD Tivo so the Now Playing list seems to pop up right away and fills as it goes (where on the older Tivo's it seemed to wait until the entire list was populated before showing it).

I have an SD Tivo with ~240 hours, and my HD Tivo has 500GB and 20+ pages of recordings. The HD Tivo pops up the NP list right away, the SD Tivo takes 10-30 seconds to pop up the first time. That is a great news. I never undestood why they never fixed that. It is the most anoying feature on upgraded TiVo's. If they would fix that for the T60 the rest of the performance issues wouldn't even matter.

So I assume when I finnaly record 400+ hours SD I will still have relatively good performance. We shall see.

By the way the HR10-250 is the first TiVo with 200h SD from the factory so they probably did not bother even looking at this as an this issue before (can not blame them).

[weldon]

Originally posted by pbolya
Seting up ~400 recordings and trying to manage my shows between 400 dummy recordings will suck though.
Does the S-O-R-T code work on the new HR10-250? It might help quite a bit to sort by title to find things in that huge list. It will still be a pain, but much easier to make sure you don't miss something when sorting by record date.

For those that aren't familiar with SORT... When in the Now Playing list, enter the following sequence of key presses - Slow, Zero, Record, Thumbs Up. This will enable the sorting function which is indicated by a banner at the bottom of the NP list (which says to push "display" to set sorting options). You can press 1 to sort normally (by date), 2 to sort by expiration, and 3 to sort alphabetically.

I know this works on Series 1 with 3.x software and I think it also works with Series 2. I'm not sure about the HR10-250, but I assume that it also works on that model.

[dr_mal]

SORT works on the HR10-250.

pbolya -- nice new avatar :up: Much more clear than the old one.

[dr_mal]

Originally posted by pbolya
I am looking forward to the result of my 400+ SD recording test. If it is faster after 200h than my T60 than it is already ahead of the curb.
Have you considered putting a CacheCard in your SAT-T60? The performance on my upgraded SAT-T60 was dramatically improved with the CacheCard.

[pbolya]

Originally posted by weldon
Does the S-O-R-T code work on the new HR10-250? It might help quite a bit to sort by title to find things in that huge list. It will still be a pain, but much easier to make sure you don't miss something when sorting by record date.

For those that aren't familiar with SORT... When in the Now Playing list, enter the following sequence of key presses - Slow, Zero, Record, Thumbs Up. This will enable the sorting function which is indicated by a banner at the bottom of the NP list (which says to push "display" to set sorting options). You can press 1 to sort normally (by date), 2 to sort by expiration, and 3 to sort alphabetically.

I know this works on Series 1 with 3.x software and I think it also works with Series 2. I'm not sure about the HR10-250, but I assume that it also works on that model. It still works. In general the HR10-250 uses the same software than the series 2's (with changes to handle HD and very little performance related differences - more like bug fixes) they did not remove any functionality (they havn't added any either).

[tivolovit]

The Maxtor 250GB drives are $129.00 at outpost.com now and they have the 300GB drives for $239.00 (5400RPM 2MB Cache) for a long time they were $234.00. This is less attractive to me than those that don't live in CA or TX (maybe other states too) because we have Fry's B&M stores (affiliated with Outpost.com) in our states and have to pay tax AND shipping.


Just thought someone might want to know;) ,

[pbolya]

Originally posted by tivolovit
The Maxtor 250GB drives are $129.00 at outpost.com now and they have the 300GB drives for $239.00 (5400RPM 2MB Cache) for a long time they were $234.00. This is less attractive to me than those that don't live in CA or TX (maybe other states too) because we have Fry's B&M stores (affiliated with Outpost.com) in our states and have to pay tax AND shipping.


Just thought someone might want to know;) , Still a $110 diference for 50GB more. For $20 more you can get another 250GB.

[pbolya]

Originally posted by dr_mal
Have you considered putting a CacheCard in your SAT-T60? The performance on my upgraded SAT-T60 was dramatically improved with the CacheCard. I thought about it a couple of times but now that I have an HR10-250 my SAT-T60 will only be secondary. I assume I will use the HR10-250 most of the time. I already watching some of the backlog from HD reruns. E.g. I have a whole season of Las Vegas and NAVI NCIS recorded on the SAT-T60. But instead of watching them in order from the begining in SD I tend to watch the replays in HD on the HR10-250.

[pbolya]

I almost had a nervous breakdown. My upgrade to 63 hours worked perfectly last night but 3 hours ago I lost the HDMI feed. It came back a couple of time but the slightest push on the top cover made the picture disappear and all I saw is the digital snow. I took the cover off and I did some testing and this is what I found out:

- At the end of the HDMI card there is a gold colored pin standing strait up with the to banded toward the front of the unit. The pin has a hole on the middle where the HDMI card can can fit in it. My guess is that this pin should secure the card to the motherboard. When the bracket is in place the fan touches the pin and pushes it toward the card. It may be a coincidence but when the pin touches the card then the slightest push on the casing makes the picture disappear. When I push the pin back a little disconnect the HDMI cord and reconnect it the picture comes back. When the pin does not touch the card gentle push on anywhere on the casing (I guess this moves the motherboard slightly hence the HDMI card and the pin) does not result in lose of picture.

Finally I ended up bending the top of the pin backward slightly so it does not touch the bracket fan's housing and added a broken plastic toy peace (I got two sons so I have a plenty of those) that fits perfectly between the pin and the HDMI card/board. I put the TiVo together and it seams to work now.

I do not think that Weknees bracket has anything to do with the problem as I had signs of problems before the upgrade too. Although the picture never disappeared before a lot of time when I turn the TiVo on there is no picture until I change channel or go to menu or list. Of course it does not help that there is so little space between the fan and the card. I still think that the bracket is fantastic and if I ever get a new HR10-250 the bracket will be the first thing I will order.

Did anybody have issues with the HDMI card/pin ? I am attaching a before and after picture of my fix. Anybody knows what that pin is for (my guess is hold the card down but that again why does it have issues when it touches the card).

Let me close with a conspiracy theory: Could it be that the reason they still making new TiVo's without logos because they are randomly setting up TiVo's to test and than they do a clear and delete everything before they ship it to the customer which removes logos ?

[aaronwt]

I didn't look very closely at it when I had it open. I'll take a closer look when I do my 2nd one next week. I looked at my pictures I took but none of them show that vantage point.

[pbolya]

Originally posted by aaronwt
I didn't look very closely at it when I had it open. I'll take a closer look when I do my 2nd one next week. I looked at my pictures I took but none of them show that vantage point. Thanks

[tivolovit]

Originally posted by pbolya
Still a $110 difference for 50GB more. For $20 more you can get another 250GB.

I was just posting this mostly for informational purposes for those looking for good prices on drives to upgrade units...HOWEVER....

You do bring up a valid point, but sometimes we are left with few options. While it may be less expensive to buy another 250GB for only $20 more you cannot put three drives in one HD-TiVo. The cost of purchasing ANOTHER HD-TiVo is more than the cost of upgrading to dual 300s. But either way you are still spending a good amount of money.

To me it looks like dual 250s is the reasonable way to go right now unless someone finds a REALLY good price on 300+GB drives, or a REALLY good deal on a second (THIRD, FOURTH, etc) HD-TiVo.

[tlrowley]

We upgraded our HD-TiVo this afternoon - dual 250s. The operation was a complete success - the patient lived!

Thanks so much to everyone who contributed to the process - this really is an invaluable resource.

Tracey

[mikemav]

Me too. Thanks Weaknees! The bracket is great. Instructions were very clear. 500GB HD TiVo, now that rocks! It is also 4-5 degrees cooler now than before. Love the additional fan, even if it is partially a false reading. It can't hurt, and it sure makes me feel better considering my voided warranty.

[pbolya]

Originally posted by mikemav
Me too. Thanks Weaknees! The bracket is great. Instructions were very clear. 500GB HD TiVo, now that rocks! It is also 4-5 degrees cooler now than before. Love the additional fan, even if it is partially a false reading. It can't hurt, and it sure makes me feel better considering my voided warranty. I agree. The extra fan rocks. It doesn't matter what the reading is. The main thing is that with the two drives covering the space it could get really hot under the disks. The fan sucks the hot air out from underneath the drive and more than repairs the obstructed airflow without adding any audible noise. Before the upgrade the shelf below the HR10-250 got really hot (so as the T60 still does) now the self is warm at most even with two drives. Even the top seams cooler.

Thanks again Michael. It was money well spent.

[pbolya]

Originally posted by tivolovit
I was just posting this mostly for informational purposes for those looking for good prices on drives to upgrade units...HOWEVER....

You do bring up a valid point, but sometimes we are left with few options. While it may be less expensive to buy another 250GB for only $20 more you cannot put three drives in one HD-TiVo. The cost of purchasing ANOTHER HD-TiVo is more than the cost of upgrading to dual 300s. But either way you are still spending a good amount of money.

To me it looks like dual 250s is the reasonable way to go right now unless someone finds a REALLY good price on 300+GB drives, or a REALLY good deal on a second (THIRD, FOURTH, etc) HD-TiVo. 13 hours extra for almost $600? If 13 extra hours would make that much of difference to pay $470+ extra I would recommend to buy 1 x 400GB for $430 and gain 20h more for $170 less.

Unfortunately 63 hours will not be enough for me but 76 hours would not be enough either. I am left with waiting for the 500GB's or buying another TiVo. Maybe the price will drop in a couple of month/years and than I can by another one. 126h sounds much better although I have a 242h and 228h and maxed both of those out. Buying another Tivo sounds logical enough but than you pay an extra $5-$10 every month which adds up to hundreds of dollars over the years.

Maybe people who upgrade to 600GB can sell there original drives to people who are trying to get good deals on 250GB's.

[kyee]

Originally posted by pbolya

Did anybody have issues with the HDMI card/pin ? I am attaching a before and after picture of my fix. Anybody knows what that pin is for (my guess is hold the card down but that again why does it have issues when it touches the card).

pbolya - I have this exact same problem. I installed the TwinBreeze bracket yesterday, and as soon as I booted up the Tivo, the video seemed off somehow. It looked similar to what happens when you're using component video cables, and you have two of the cables on the wrong color output. Then after a few minutes, I lost the HDMI feed altogether. The component outs still work fine.

I tried what you did, and wedged a plastic piece in between the gold/metal piece and the HDMI card. The video came back, but it was the garbled off-color version that came back. I'm trying a few other things with that metal piece and hopefully something will work. I'm going crazy over this! I don't want to have to resort to just using the component outs.

kevin

[kyee]

Well waddaya know, that funky little trick worked. My HDMI output is back on! However, this time I left everything connected and turned on as I was putting the cover back on. As I started tightening the first screw, which was on the middle of the cover, the sound crackled, and the video went screwey again. The hell with this, I said, and just decided to leave the screws off the case lid. It's in an equipment rack anyway, so there shouldn't be a problem leaving the screws off. Kind of a hokey solution, but if it works, that's all that matters to me. Case closed.

[aaronwt]

Looks like I'll need to open my unit back up to see if I have the same problem. but I won't need the HDMI until I get a new HD monitor this Winter so maybe it can wait. I'll just be on the lookout for it when I upgrade my second unit.

[dwynne]

Originally posted by weaknees
Michael

I got my TwinBreeze bracket last week, thanks!

Whoever is shipping them needs to spend a few pennies on packing material, however. The box was pretty crushed - the items inside appear OK but there was NO packing material - just the bracket, fan (wrapped in bubble wrap), and a bag of hardware rattling around in the otherwise empty box.

I have had 0 luck with Maxtors in my Tivos, so I am waiting for another sale on a different drive before I get to use the bracket - but hopefully it is all there and undamaged from lack of packing.

Dennis

[tivolovit]

Originally posted by dwynne
I have had 0 luck with Maxtors in my Tivos, so I am waiting for another sale on a different drive before I get to use the bracket - but hopefully it is all there and undamaged from lack of packing.

Dennis

Western Digital 250GB 7200RPM 8MB Cache (#3620115) drives are on sale online at Fry's/Outpost right now for $149.99 and have a $30 MIR (total $119.99+TAX if applicable+shipping). If you have a local B&M Fry's they are on sale for $139.99 and still have the $30 MIR (total of $109.99+TAX). A good NON-MAXTOR solution for you;) .

Good luck,

[aaronwt]

Are these the same model that have been failing in the HD-TiVo? Or is that model different?

[aaronwt]

I just finished upgrading my second HD-TiVo. It's doing the Clear and Delete now. I didn't see anything wrong with my clip on the HDMI card. Although I could see how I could have been able too hit it with the bracket if I wasn't looking. Hopefully my First upgrade was fine, because I don't plan on opening the unit again unless I have too. I won't need the HDMi until I get a new monitor, so I'll worry about it then.

Thanks Weaknees! The Upgrades are Excellent!


Originally posted by pbolya
I almost had a nervous breakdown. My upgrade to 63 hours worked perfectly last night but 3 hours ago I lost the HDMI feed. It came back a couple of time but the slightest push on the top cover made the picture disappear and all I saw is the digital snow. I took the cover off and I did some testing and this is what I found out:

- At the end of the HDMI card there is a gold colored pin standing strait up with the to banded toward the front of the unit. The pin has a hole on the middle where the HDMI card can can fit in it. My guess is that this pin should secure the card to the motherboard. When the bracket is in place the fan touches the pin and pushes it toward the card. It may be a coincidence but when the pin touches the card then the slightest push on the casing makes the picture disappear. When I push the pin back a little disconnect the HDMI cord and reconnect it the picture comes back. When the pin does not touch the card gentle push on anywhere on the casing (I guess this moves the motherboard slightly hence the HDMI card and the pin) does not result in lose of picture.

Finally I ended up bending the top of the pin backward slightly so it does not touch the bracket fan's housing and added a broken plastic toy peace (I got two sons so I have a plenty of those) that fits perfectly between the pin and the HDMI card/board. I put the TiVo together and it seams to work now.

I do not think that Weknees bracket has anything to do with the problem as I had signs of problems before the upgrade too. Although the picture never disappeared before a lot of time when I turn the TiVo on there is no picture until I change channel or go to menu or list. Of course it does not help that there is so little space between the fan and the card. I still think that the bracket is fantastic and if I ever get a new HR10-250 the bracket will be the first thing I will order.

Did anybody have issues with the HDMI card/pin ? I am attaching a before and after picture of my fix. Anybody knows what that pin is for (my guess is hold the card down but that again why does it have issues when it touches the card).

Let me close with a conspiracy theory: Could it be that the reason they still making new TiVo's without logos because they are randomly setting up TiVo's to test and than they do a clear and delete everything before they ship it to the customer which removes logos ?

[kyee]

Originally posted by aaronwt
I just finished upgrading my second HD-TiVo. It's doing the Clear and Delete now. I didn't see anything wrong with my clip on the HDMI card. Although I could see how I could have been able too hit it with the bracket if I wasn't looking. Hopefully my First upgrade was fine, because I don't plan on opening the unit again unless I have too. I won't need the HDMi until I get a new monitor, so I'll worry about it then.



I didn't hit my HDMI clip either, but it wouldn't work after the install. You won't know if your HDMI output works or not till you actually try it.

[dennya]

Geeze. So if you discover your HDMI is hosed, is there a way to get the Tivo back to factory condition after the upgrade so you can get it serviced?

[AbMagFab]

Sure, undo the physical things you did, and restore the original backup you made to the original HD.

[aaronwt]

Originally posted by dennya
Geeze. So if you discover your HDMI is hosed, is there a way to get the Tivo back to factory condition after the upgrade so you can get it serviced?

I would just put the original WD drive back in the HD-TiVo. And take out the two Maxtor drives I installed and remove the bracket. This is why I got 2 new drives for each unit, just in case I need a warranty return in the future.

[pbolya]

Originally posted by aaronwt
I just finished upgrading my second HD-TiVo. It's doing the Clear and Delete now. I didn't see anything wrong with my clip on the HDMI card. Although I could see how I could have been able too hit it with the bracket if I wasn't looking. Hopefully my First upgrade was fine, because I don't plan on opening the unit again unless I have too. I won't need the HDMi until I get a new monitor, so I'll worry about it then.

Thanks Weaknees! The Upgrades are Excellent! Aaron,
Did the pin in your TiVo touched the HDMI card or it was facing streight up? After you installed the bracket did the fan housing touched the pin (and maybe even pushed it ever so slightly) ? Answers to these questions would enable me to figgure out how the pin is suppose to be. I did not hit the pin but it was definately touching the bracket when I positioned the bracket over the right holes.

[pbolya]

Originally posted by kyee
Well waddaya know, that funky little trick worked. My HDMI output is back on! However, this time I left everything connected and turned on as I was putting the cover back on. As I started tightening the first screw, which was on the middle of the cover, the sound crackled, and the video went screwey again. The hell with this, I said, and just decided to leave the screws off the case lid. It's in an equipment rack anyway, so there shouldn't be a problem leaving the screws off. Kind of a hokey solution, but if it works, that's all that matters to me. Case closed. Kyee,
Case closed or is it? Can you say that the "case closed" when the case is still missing the screws? In any way I had the same thing. I "fixed the problem" and proudly put the TiVo back on the shelf connecting all the cables only to find out that no picture. So I opened it up running and played with fire as I tried out a couple of things. It was weird. When I "fixed it" and put the cover on the slightest push on the top cover made the picture disappear. And not just in one point. Almost anywhere. Than I took the top of and found out that even a slight downward push on the back wall of the TiVo made the picture disappear. Than I "played" around the card and found that separating the pin and the card stops the problem from reoccurring when the case get's handled. When I touched the card and pushed it down very gently that's when I saw the picture discoloration you where mentioning so obviously I stopped doing that right away. I was able to put all the screws back on now without losing the picture but I was also contemplating not to put the screws back on earlier.

I am sorry that you have the same problem but happy that you where able to fix it too. Also I am aware that from now on the picture could disappear at any times and over time we might not be able to fix it without servicing our TiVo. This is just how these kind of problems are. But until then I will record and watch every show in HD like there is no tomorrow.

[Anubys]

I upgraded my HD-Tivo yesterday and it was a success. Here are some observations:

1. Thanks Pbolya for the warning about the gold pin. This and the "white ribbon" were the two things I went directly to. The gold pin was already resting on the HDMI card. I have my TV set using the HDMI/DVI cable so I know it was working with the gold pin touching the card. Even being careful, I still bumped into that darn pin twice. I was only able to watch TV for an hour, but it seems to be working fine.

2. My temp ranged from 41 to 44 before the upgrade. So I'm not worried about overheating. I did use the twinbreeze with the extra fan, so I'm REALLY not worried about the heat :D

3. I used a 250 GB drive. the difference in cost between 250 GB and 300 GB was just too great for the incremental increase in recording capacity. When 500 GB drives are cheap, I will upgrade to 1 TB anyway. So since this upgrade is only for a year or so (I hope), it just didn't make sense to fork over all that money for the extra 7 hours.

4. The TwinBreeze instructions were great. It was hard to find a spot to put all the power cables and close the lid and the fan was a little in the way of the IDE cable. Otherwise, it was a smooth operation all the way.

[aaronwt]

Originally posted by pbolya
Aaron,
Did the pin in your TiVo touched the HDMI card or it was facing streight up? After you installed the bracket did the fan housing touched the pin (and maybe even pushed it ever so slightly) ? Answers to these questions would enable me to figgure out how the pin is suppose to be. I did not hit the pin but it was definately touching the bracket when I positioned the bracket over the right holes.

The bracket was not touching the pin when postitioned over the right holes. It was about 1/4 inch away from the bracket. I may have hit this pin on my first modification because I had put the bracket in and removed it several times. The second upgrade I knew exactly what I was doing and only had to place the bracket once, and it never came close to touching it since I looked at it periodically. I might decide to open up the 1st upgraded unit later this week. Although if I had thought about it, I should have opened it up last night while I was upgrading my second unit. Now my second unit is on top of the first which makes it a pain to access. Plus I wouldn't mind going back in and cleaning up how I ran the power cable. I got it just right on the second one but my first unit I made a mess with the cables and basically bundled them together.

[pbolya]

Originally posted by aaronwt
The bracket was not touching the pin when postitioned over the right holes. It was about 1/4 inch away from the bracket. I may have hit this pin on my first modification because I had put the bracket in and removed it several times. The second upgrade I knew exactly what I was doing and only had to place the bracket once, and it never came close to touching it since I looked at it periodically. I might decide to open up the 1st upgraded unit later this week. Although if I had thought about it, I should have opened it up last night while I was upgrading my second unit. Now my second unit is on top of the first which makes it a pain to access. Plus I wouldn't mind going back in and cleaning up how I ran the power cable. I got it just right on the second one but my first unit I made a mess with the cables and basically bundled them together. Aaron,
In my TiVo the bracket touched the pin if I put it in the right spot. I was contenplating putting the crew in the holes one closer to the front but than the bracket wouldn't sit straight. I straightened out the top of the pin a little bit istead but still I be damed if there is more space than 1/16th inch difference between the pin and the bracket.

[Anubys]

Originally posted by pbolya
Aaron,
In my TiVo the bracket touched the pin if I put it in the right spot. I was contenplating putting the crew in the holes one closer to the front but than the bracket wouldn't sit straight. I straightened out the top of the pin a little bit istead but still I be damed if there is more space than 1/16th inch difference between the pin and the bracket.

This is very strange. In my unit, I had a very different experience:

1. the gold pin was touching the HDMI card, it actually snapped back to it when I accidentally pulled it away.

2. the twinbreeze bracket was a good half inch away from the gold pin when I positioned the bracket correctly (the holes lined up per Weaknees instructions).

can the insides be different like that? mine was made in Mexico (don't know where it was made, but it does not say made in the USA, so I'm assuming Mexico) and was manufactured in the middle of June.

[pbolya]

Originally posted by Anubys
This is very strange. In my unit, I had a very different experience:

1. the gold pin was touching the HDMI card, it actually snapped back to it when I accidentally pulled it away.

2. the twinbreeze bracket was a good half inch away from the gold pin when I positioned the bracket correctly (the holes lined up per Weaknees instructions).

can the insides be different like that? mine was made in Mexico (don't know where it was made, but it does not say made in the USA, so I'm assuming Mexico) and was manufactured in the middle of June. Manufactured April in the USA. I wonder if the logos are missing due to there testing of the HDMI fix and a consecutive clear and delete. But of course this is just a conspiracy theory.

[aaronwt]

My second one was made in Mexico and my first one was made in USA. (1/4 inch was a guess since I forgot to take after pictures)Sounds like I really need to check the USA one. Also was everyone able to pull the coax cable off the splitter like in the instructions. On both of mine I had to remove it from the tuner. It felt as if something had been applied to the splitter end to prevent the cable from sliding off. I tried pulling it, but didn't want to exert too much force on it. It worked out fine removing the cable from the tuner end.

Clear and delete will remove logos so even if the image had them initially, you have to do clear and delete since the drives are in a different system. Hopefully we'll have that software update soon. It's weird looking at the now playing list without the logos.

[Anubys]

I didn't have trouble with the coax cable...I twisted it a little back and forth...but I didn't feel it was any different from any old RCA cable ...maybe a little deeper than normal...

for what it's worth I also have logos...

[aaronwt]

Originally posted by Anubys
I didn't have trouble with the coax cable...I twisted it a little back and forth...but I didn't feel it was any different from any old RCA cable ...maybe a little deeper than normal...

for what it's worth I also have logos...

You only added one drive? Or you made a copy of the original drive in your HD-TiVo?
My boxes both had logos but I had weakness configure my drives, and replaced my original, so a clear and delete has to be performed since the drives are being put in a different system than the image came from.

[Anubys]

oh yeah, I didn't touch the original. I didn't want to lose the logos!

I just added a second drive...I'll replace both when I can put two 500 GB in there...

[Anubys]

I've had a very busy couple of days so I have not been able to watch a lot of TV :eek:

But in the two days since I added a 250 GB drive to my HD-Tivo, I've noticed a strange clicking sound coming from the second hard drive. The sound is there as I'm playing a show and increases in speed when I press fast forward. I know it's only from the second HD because shows I recorded before the upgrade don't make the sound.

It's almost the sound a HD makes when it's defragmenting. The noise was quite loud on the first day, and not as loud yesterday. I hope it will be gone today (I'm a statistician, so I'm big on trends!)...

Any idea if this is a portent of trouble ahead?

[aejanis]

Originally posted by Anubys
I've had a very busy couple of days so I have not been able to watch a lot of TV :eek:

But in the two days since I added a 250 GB drive to my HD-Tivo, I've noticed a strange clicking sound coming from the second hard drive. The sound is there as I'm playing a show and increases in speed when I press fast forward. I know it's only from the second HD because shows I recorded before the upgrade don't make the sound.

It's almost the sound a HD makes when it's defragmenting. The noise was quite loud on the first day, and not as loud yesterday. I hope it will be gone today (I'm a statistician, so I'm big on trends!)...

Any idea if this is a portent of trouble ahead?

Might be that you need to turn on the acoustic management. If it is a Maxtor drive "out of the box" it will be noisy.

[Anubys]

Originally posted by aejanis
Might be that you need to turn on the acoustic management. If it is a Maxtor drive "out of the box" it will be noisy.

Cool. it is a maxtor drive. If that's all it is, I can deal with that...I was just afraid that the drive is failing. I foolishly do not have the box it came in, so it might be hard to return it.

[pbolya]

Originally posted by Anubys
Cool. it is a maxtor drive. If that's all it is, I can deal with that...I was just afraid that the drive is failing. I foolishly do not have the box it came in, so it might be hard to return it. Anubys, I had the same thing and turned the acustic management to quite and now it is much more quite than the stock WD. I do not ever hear anything anymore (see previous posts).

[Anubys]

Originally posted by pbolya
Anubys, I had the same thing and turned the acustic management to quite and now it is much more quite than the stock WD. I do not ever hear anything anymore (see previous posts).

whew...I'm feeling much better now...I didn't want to go through a big round of returning the drive, getting another one...etc.

Thanks for giving me some peace of mind ! :up:

[JohnTivo]

Anubys,

It's probably the acoustic management, but IF it is a bad drive, I hope you made an image of your original drive now that you've married the two drives.

[Anubys]

Originally posted by JohnTivo
Anubys,

It's probably the acoustic management, but IF it is a bad drive, I hope you made an image of your original drive now that you've married the two drives.

Yikes.

Well, that peace of mind lasted a good half hour :p

serenity now. serenity now. serenity now. :D

[mikemav]

Originally posted by JohnTivo
Anubys,

It's probably the acoustic management, but IF it is a bad drive, I hope you made an image of your original drive now that you've married the two drives.

If the B drive was to fail down the line, is there a way to save the recordings on the A drive? I have a mfsbackup of the factory drive (not a full dd), but now that the factory drive is married to #2, is there a way to recover what is on a good A drive should B fail? What happens if I DD the A drive? How about restore from my backup image to a fresh drive, then somehow move over my recordings from the current working A to the fresh drive (which will not be married to anything.) Does it work that way? No problems, knock on wood; I'm just curious.

[weaknees]

Recordings are spread across both drives, and the TiVo won't even boot without seeing both. If you lose the B drive, you lose everything.

Michael

[JohnTivo]

Originally posted by Anubys
Yikes.

Well, that peace of mind lasted a good half hour :p

serenity now. serenity now. serenity now. :D

Sorry about that! :)

If the drive does fail, it is possible to get an image from someone else... so don't worry about it too much.

[JohnTivo]

For those in the LA area, Fry's is running an ad today for 250GB drives priced at $119.99. No rebate required. No mention of brand or warranty though.

[RF_Eng]

I am on my way there right now. There is a limit of 1 per customer so I will have to do the buy/exit/re-enter procedure.

[aaronwt]

I just ordered one online for 119.99 plus shipping. I guess I'll find out shortly if they actually ship it for that price.

[Darin]

Outpost had it at that price for a while, then went to $129, and today it's back to 119 (limit one). I ordered one too... just can't resist that.

http://shop1.outpost.com/product/3700356/

[tivolovit]

Originally posted by JohnTivo
For those in the LA area, Fry's is running an ad today for 250GB drives priced at $119.99. No rebate required. No mention of brand or warranty though.

It is a Maxtor drive, model #L01P250.

Online and at B&M stores.

[Darin]

Ugh, well the HD I ordered through Outpost is showing backordered... hope this isn't something that stays eternally backordered until they cancel it. :(

[pbolya]

My upgraded TiVo (63h-Stock 250GB WD and Maxtor 250GB set to Quiet mode) passed my first test with well above expectations. I filled it up with 17hours oh HD and 265h of SD material (using VH1 and HBO for the SD) for over 30 pages in the list. Amazingly it took only 7 seconds to page through the 30+ pages with most of the time the list wasn't even viewable yet before going to the next one. It is not just that the TiVo did not slow down a bit but it even seamed to be faster than before the upgrade (which sounds pretty unbelievable). The list took 1 second (or even less) to display. Schedule new shows or delete shows from the list was extremely fast and the TiVo guide was pretty fast too (less then a second per page). The D* guide takes about 3 seconds per page to draw but that one was sluggish from day one (I even remember 4-5 seconds at times before the upgrade).

Overall I am extremely impressed and concluded that when available upgrading to 1TB most likely will not be a performance issue.

[aaronwt]

Originally posted by Darin
Ugh, well the HD I ordered through Outpost is showing backordered... hope this isn't something that stays eternally backordered until they cancel it. :(

Mine is showing backordered also. If I knew it was going to be backordered, I wouldn't have chose overnight shipping.

[RC3105]

HR10-250 software ONLY exploit

don't need a prom mod to get bash anymore

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&q=bounty+treocentral+site+tivo

spread the word & pass the hat :D

edit: there ya go, tcf is so picky about censoring links sometimes. the google search finds a ddb thread, which links to the thread with the hd-tivo sw exploit

[leftcoastdave]

Originally posted by RC3105
HR10-250 software ONLY exploit

don't need a prom mod to get bash anymore

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=ISO-8859-1&q=bounty+treocentral+site%3A************.com&btnI=Search

spread the word & pass the hat :D

Huh?

[JohnTivo]

There is no exploit yet... the whole point of the tread is to encourage someone to find an exploit...

[jerrymc]

Originally posted by JohnTivo
There is no exploit yet... the whole point of the tread is to encourage someone to find an exploit...

There IS an exploit. If you read further, the thread points out another thread which explains that an exploit exists. The point of that thread is to generate sufficient "bounty" to encourage the "exploiters" to publish it.

[dstroot]

I have two HD Tivos, one is stock and one I added another 250gig drive (Western Digital) to bump it to 63 hrs of HD recording. The one I added capacity to seems to have a lot more "hiccups" where the picture or sound goes out/pixelates for a brief period and then comes back - couple times an hour I'd say.

It's a new unit and is still loading guide data probably as well. OK so here's the question - does writing data across two drives, with two tuners, etc increase or cause the "hiccups" I'm seeing? Anyone else notice that upgraded machines don't run as smoothly as non-upgraded ones?

[JohnTivo]

Jerrymc,

I should have looked at the thread since Saturday before I posted today...

dstroot,

I would guess your original WD drive is failing... you should not be seeing hiccups because you added a second drive.

[pbolya]

Originally posted by dstroot
I have two HD Tivos, one is stock and one I added another 250gig drive (Western Digital) to bump it to 63 hrs of HD recording. The one I added capacity to seems to have a lot more "hiccups" where the picture or sound goes out/pixelates for a brief period and then comes back - couple times an hour I'd say.

It's a new unit and is still loading guide data probably as well. OK so here's the question - does writing data across two drives, with two tuners, etc increase or cause the "hiccups" I'm seeing? Anyone else notice that upgraded machines don't run as smoothly as non-upgraded ones? dstroot,
I just filled up my 63 hours with 300h mainly SD content and everything seemed faster than before the upgrade :confused: . Now I deleted all of those shows (it was a pain sorting out what is test data and what is actual regular recordings without having the LOGOS :mad: ) and it seems a little bit slower again. The bottom line is it seems to be faster when it is actually using the new drive (Maxtor 250 changed to Quiet mode from performance!) than the stock WD.

Pixelating usually relates to antenna issues. Try both Satellite and OTA channels. If the OTA pixelates on one of the TiVo but not on the other try switching the 2 TiVo. If it starts pixelating on the other one instead on the one it previously pixelating than it is the cables or the splitter (some splitters have less signal loss on some outputs than others).

If it is still the upgraded TiVo than open it up and check if your OTA cables are secure. The only reason why the upgraded TiVo would start pixelating if you would bump some of the vital organs of the TiVo during the upgrade or did not connect the cables securely.

[dstroot]

pbolya - you might be right. I did have to shove the antenna lines out of the way to fit the new drive and bracket. I'll have to watch more carefully since I thought I was seeing the same thing on the Sat channels (where the upgrade wouldn't have done anything.

[Darin]

The other thing to keep in mind is that DirecTV was having some problems the other day. Showtime had a lot of pixelization Saturday.

[DocNo]

Originally posted by llogan
This is what I'd envisioned....x number of Tivos...all Turbonet modified running TivoNet, using mySQL as the backend (hosted on a pc) and create logic and a front-end to support managing your recording list and tuners from one location. Would allow PocketPC/Palm based control of menus and their related functions.

There is already an open source solution that supports multiple tuners in one box, and then displays the video remotely - the cheapest remote video station is a modded Xbox. The nice thing about this is you don't have to run cable all over the house for multiple tuners like with a multiple Tivo solution.

I can't remember the name of the project, but it looked pretty good - I fear that is a direction I will be going if Tivo doesn't get more aggressive :(

I don't mind paying for the convenience of a pre-made solution like Tivo, but I'm just about ready to trade that for the flexability of a homebrew solution :(

[aaronwt]

I see Outpost shipped my Maxtor 250GB hard drive and it should arrive today. I meant to cancel my order yesterday but forgot. This is gettung out of hand for me. I swore I wouldn't buy anymore ide drives. I think 6 Terabytes is more than enough storage for me especially since I'm not using my HiPix cards like I used to. If I count the drives in all my TiVos I have over 7.5 Terabytes of storage available although I still have to sell my 3 series 1 DTiVos.

[Darin]

Originally posted by Mark Lopez
I started with a Maxtor 250GB drive, but it was sort of noisy with the seeks and amset does not work on it (reports drive does not support it).
Mark, which drive model do you have? Several other people in this thread have reported using amset on a 250GB maxtor drive. Mine is being delivered tomorrow (along with my bracket - YAY), and I'm really hoping to be able to use amset. I've read the maxtors have rather loud seeks without using the acoustic management.

For what it's worth, the one I'm getting is this one: http://shop.outpost.com/product/3700356

[Anubys]

Originally posted by Darin
Mark, which drive model do you have? Several other people in this thread have reported using amset on a 250GB maxtor drive. Mine is being delivered tomorrow (along with my bracket - YAY), and I'm really hoping to be able to use amset. I've read the maxtors have rather loud seeks without using the acoustic management.

For what it's worth, the one I'm getting is this one: http://shop.outpost.com/product/3700356

Darin, did you buy this drive?

the Maxtor I got from CompUSA and put into my HD-Tivo is driving me crazy...it makes a clicking sound when it's recording or playing...loud enough sometimes to hear it over the show...I'm thinking of replacing it with the one you've got here but I want to make sure that it will work and is a quiet one!

[dswallow]

Originally posted by Anubys
the Maxtor I got from CompUSA and put into my HD-Tivo is driving me crazy...it makes a clicking sound when it's recording or playing...loud enough sometimes to hear it over the show...I'm thinking of replacing it with the one you've got here but I want to make sure that it will work and is a quiet one!
Have you run amset on it yet?

[Anubys]

Originally posted by dswallow
Have you run amset on it yet?

way over my head...don't know what amset is :(

I sent it to PTVupgrade and they sent it back to me. I just received an e-mail from them saying that they did set it for acoustic management. I assume they know what they are doing.

I can replace a HD or memory, drive...etc. in my PC...but once you guys start talking linux, I run and hide under my desk :)

[dswallow]

Originally posted by Anubys
way over my head...don't know what amset is :(

I sent it to PTVupgrade and they sent it back to me. I just received an e-mail from them saying that they did set it for acoustic management. I assume they know what they are doing.

I can replace a HD or memory, drive...etc. in my PC...but once you guys start talking linux, I run and hide under my desk :)
amset is a utility Maxtor provides that lets you set the acoustical management options on the drives; it's run from a bootable DOS diskette.

Here's info on the utility from Maxtor: http://maxtor.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/maxtor.cfg/php/enduser/olh_adp.php?p_faqid=1200

Here's a place you can get a DOS boot disk image: http://bootdisk.com (I generally use the Dr DOS version for this sort of thing)

You'd need to remove the disk, connect it to your PC and boot from the diskette and run the utility. Just make sure you don't boot into Windows with the TiVo hard drive connected. If you're up to it, it couldn't hurt to confirm the acoustic management was configured properly.

[Anubys]

Excellent. Thanks Doug!

I'll try it. I'm not sure it will work. the noise I'm getting is a clicking sound, not a "loud" hard drive...it sounds more like a bigger problem...but it's worth a shot...

Thanks again for the advice :up:

[Darin]

But to answer your question, yes, I did buy that drive. Both it and my bracket are being delivered tomorrow, so with any luck I may have time to install them tomorrow night (I'm already out of space :( ). I'll let you know how it goes.

[Mark Lopez]

Originally posted by Darin
Mark, which drive model do you have? Several other people in this thread have reported using amset on a 250GB maxtor drive.

It was the MaXLine II 5A250J0 (it's a 5400 rpm drive).

[Darin]

Thanks Mark... at least that's not the one I got, so hopefully amset will work on mine.

[weldon]

The clicking noise is indicative of the "performance" setting on the Maxtor drive. Follow Doug's instructions to make sure it is set to "quiet" mode.

[Anubys]

Originally posted by weldon
The clicking noise is indicative of the "performance" setting on the Maxtor drive. Follow Doug's instructions to make sure it is set to "quiet" mode.

that's good to hear. PTVupgrade assures me that they turned on the acoustic management. I guess I'll need check to make sure!

I'd rather find out that the problem is AM and not a drive failure...of course, once I find out that it's AM, I'll be pissed at PTVupgrade ;)

[Darin]

It's possible that they turned it on, just didn't turn it on to what you want. There are typically three settings: AM on in quiet mode, AM on in performance mode, and AM off. The COULD have turned on AM, but turned it on in performance mode. That would be quieter than having AM turned off, but not as quiet as quiet mode.

[pbolya]

Originally posted by Darin
It's possible that they turned it on, just didn't turn it on to what you want. There are typically three settings: AM on in quiet mode, AM on in performance mode, and AM off. The COULD have turned on AM, but turned it on in performance mode. That would be quieter than having AM turned off, but not as quiet as quiet mode. I bought mine at CompUSA and it was set to AM Performance. I heard the same noises as you described and I turned it to AM Quiet with the same procedure as Doug describes and I can not even hear it anymore. As for the performance difference: if you look up my post a couple of days ago you see that it still seams to be faster than the stock WD drive.

Regards,
Peter

[Anubys]

It was almost too easy. The whole thing took about 30 minutes. I downloaded DrDos and the amset, created the two discs, took out the hard drive from the HD-Tivo, plugged it into the PC, ran the amset, put everything back and was up and running with no trouble. My only regret is that I didn't check to see what the drive was set to by PTVupgrade.

I only got to watch an hour of a movie (it was the Mighty Ducks -- in my defense, I had never seen it and it was in HD). Here are my observations:

1. The noise is GONE. I was half an hour into the movie when I made the switch. The noise before the switch was unbearable. After the switch, quiet as can be :)

2. I had 3 or 4 audio/video drop-outs. The screen just went blank for half a second and the audio went as well. I also had 2 instances of some pixelation (again, very brief). Since it's only one movie that I tested, I can't tell if this is a performance issue with the HD or something was wrong with HBO the night the movie aired. Try as I might, I don't remember if I had the same experience with the movie before running the amset.

3. Just for Pbolya, I measured the distance between the twinbreeze and the HDMI gold pin, just about 2/3 of an inch...so there was plenty of room. Maybe the newer models have a smaller HDMI card (?)

4. Not very happy with PTVupgrade. Their e-mail responses were quick, but were not at all helpful.

5. Very happy with the help I got from your guys :up: :up: :up:

you guys are awesome...thanks Doug, Pbolya, Weldon, and Darin (I hope I didn't leave anyone out!)...if you ever need help with statistics, I'm your man!

[tivoupgrade]

Originally posted by Anubys

4. Not very happy with PTVupgrade. Their e-mail responses were quick, but were not at all helpful.



Not sure what the source of this comment is; we responded to all of your emails with same content and observations provided in this thread.... we did provide the service to you as contracted and our scripts do set acoustic management on for add-on drives for these units.

[pbolya]

Originally posted by Anubys
3. Just for Pbolya, I measured the distance between the twinbreeze and the HDMI gold pin, just about 2/3 of an inch...so there was plenty of room. Maybe the newer models have a smaller HDMI card (?) 2/3 of an inch ? I had to straighten the top of the pin so I can get a 1/16th separation! I wonder if mine is one of the units that needed to be fixed due to the HDMI issue and they did a clear and delete to set it back and that is why I do not have the logos :confused: By the way it looks like the plastic separator worked as I had no problem with the picture ever since.

For the pixalations try to rewind the show to the same points where it pixelated before. If it does it at the same places again and again then it was recorded that way and has nothing to do with the unit/drive getting slower (especially if it was recorded before the upgrade).