DirecTV HD DVR HR10-250 Upgrade Thread

[Dan Collins]

Read this thread and did a lot of research but I'm more confused than ever.

I have an HR10-250 with a bad HD, a virgin image from a friend on a FAT32 HD, a Seagate 300GB drive, and a PTVupgrade LBA48 version 4 free utility CD.

I've upgraded TiVo's before but not a HD tiVo.

What command(s) do I need to restore this image to the 300GB Seagate and how long will the restore run?

Thanks!mfsrestore -s 127 -xzpi /<path to image file> /dev/hdX

Where hdX is the target 300GB drive.

[ncsercs]

mfsrestore -s 127 -xzpi /<path to image file> /dev/hdX

Where hdX is the target 300GB drive.

Dan,

That was the first thing I tried.

It ran for 4 hrs before I killed it. It seemed to have hung up around 25% complete.

I know the image and drives are good.

It it supposed to be this slow? How long does it normally take?

Thanks, Nick

[ncsercs]

Someone has to have an answer for this..........

[dwynne]

Bad drive or some hardware issue with the PC you are using, I would say. A "virgin image" should not take long at all to restore, since I assume it is just the OS and no programs/video.

Dennis

[Jasper]

Be sure the drive that has the backup on it is on a seperate IDE channel than the destination drive. As in, one on the primary, one on the secondary....

[dwynne]

Any problems running a pair of 400gb drives in the same HDTivo? Anything to watch out for? Looks like I have to make sure I make a larger swap file?

I put a pair of 250gb drives in my first HDTivo without much trouble and I am wanting to upgrade the 2nd one now and I am thinking of just going to 800gb this time. How many hours of HD can I fit in 800gb :) ?

Thanks!
Dennis

[btwyx]

How many hours of HD can I fit in 800gb :) ?Weaknees say its 103 hours http://www.weaknees.com/tivo/hr_10_103.php. They'll also do you a dual 500, and you get 130 hours with your 1TB of disk. http://www.weaknees.com/tivo/hr_10_130.php

[rlinsurf]

Hi, There--

Well, this is certainly a massive thread. I was actually thinking of starting a new one to ask my question, as I'm sure it's a PITA to read through 59 pages dating back nearly two years (People!) and all... but in keeping with the community, I'll add my post here, and if any moderators want to split it out into a new thread -- THANK YOU GOD!!!

Ahem... I digress.

Ok. What I'm looking for is the step by step to backup (clone) my original HR10-250 drive so I can save all the HD programs on it. I'm happy to break open, smash, torch completely or otherwise extract said drive from case.

What say you?

All My Best,
Jeffrey

[tivoupgrade]

Hi, There--

Well, this is certainly a massive thread. I was actually thinking of starting a new one to ask my question, as I'm sure it's a PITA to read through 59 pages dating back nearly two years (People!) and all... but in keeping with the community, I'll add my post here, and if any moderators want to split it out into a new thread -- THANK YOU GOD!!!

Ahem... I digress.

Ok. What I'm looking for is the step by step to backup (clone) my original HR10-250 drive so I can save all the HD programs on it. I'm happy to break open, smash, torch completely or otherwise extract said drive from case.

What say you?

All My Best,
Jeffrey

The very first post of the thread (http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?p=1896712&&#post1896712) pretty much says it all... ;-)

[dwynne]

The very first post of the thread (http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?p=1896712&&#post1896712) pretty much says it all... ;-)

I would agree. Use the link in the message to go to the upgrade instructions web page, put in the Tivo model and what you want to do (replace 1 drive with 1 larger drive and save all settings and recordings) and it will tell you the command.

The only thing left to do is remove the drive and install them in a PC and that is simple - 5 torx screws on the back of the case to open it, 2 more to pull drive and bracket out.

Dennis

[rlinsurf]

Heh. NM.

[pheroy]

Hi folks. I was referred to this thread from the reference in one of the Tivo upgrade guides. I'm trying to upgrade my HR10-250 by adding a new 300GB drive. Following the guidelines in Hinsdale's guide (http://www.newreleasesvideo.com/hinsdale-how-to/index9.html) I first tried to copy my existing "A" drive to another 250GB drive via the command dd if=/dev/hdc of=/dev/hdd bs=1024k . I'm getting worried, b/c the drive activity light is still going nearly 14 hours later and the command has never terminated. It can't be taking this long. The target drive was originally used in Windows, and I used Partition Magic to delete the partition so it had none when the dd command was started.

I also realized when going through the document that I may have made a critical error early on when trying to get the MFS Tools ISO CD to boot -- my boot sequence didn't have CD-ROM before the HD, so it went into Windows. Could this have corrupted my TIvo drive and lead to the copy never finishing?

I appreciate any help here!

[dwynne]

Step #1 of working on a windoze PC and doing Tivo drives should always be to unplug the windoze boot drive. If you do that, then there is 0 chance of booting into windoze and messing up something.

AFAIK, booting into windows will hose your Tivo drive so it will no longer boot properly in the Tivo - it does not scramble the drive where it will not copy.

I would think on a drive used in another OS you would need to run Fdisk /MBR on it (while booted from a boot floppy) before you started to use it in a Tivo - IF you are using mfsbackup | mfsrestore - with dd it should take care of wiping out everything for you.

Most likely you put the drives in a machine with non-standard IDE chips and the boot CD does not know how to do DMA on your box. I have a similar machine (Dell tower "server" with 3 IDE channels - 6 IDE deviced today) that has the same problem. It will work for Tivo drive stuff, but it takes HOURS to get the job done. To copy a 250gb drive to a new drive pair can take 40 hours or so in this box. Recently I recycled an old cast off Celeron PC into a "Tivo drive special" and though it is much slower than the Dell and has far less memory, it can copy a 250gb drive in 3-4 hours - since it has a recognized IDE chipset and the boot CD can do DMA. After you boot from the CD you can scroll back and see if the DMA is on for the configuration or not, there is also a HUGE difference in screen update speed if you have working DMA.

The other possibility is that you source drive has many bad spots, and that is causing the slow copy - which may "never end".

All that said, if you allowed it to boot fully into XP or 2k it will have "fingerprinted" the original drive and it will no longer boot in your Tivo - and any dd copies you make of it may not boot either. You may have to do a mfsbackup | mfsresore to pull the info off the old drive onto the new.

I wonder if someone has written a utility to fix this without having to do any extra work - it seems to happen a lot?

It the dd seems to still be making progress then it could be just doing port IO and not DMA, so just leave it and maybe in a day or two it will be completed.

Dennis

[azitnay]

There is certainly a utility to fix the booting problem -- MakeTiVoBootable. It may or may not be on whatever boot CD you're using already; if not, I'm sure a search will turn it up.

Drew

[bigcat400]

you could also try the dd command without the "bs=1024k" option, or just "bs=1024" (without the "k"). In my system, "bs=1024" is the only thing that creates reliable copies. Any other thing either hangs or corrupts the data. Dont know why.

Hi folks. I was referred to this thread from the reference in one of the Tivo upgrade guides. I'm trying to upgrade my HR10-250 by adding a new 300GB drive. Following the guidelines in Hinsdale's guide (http://www.newreleasesvideo.com/hinsdale-how-to/index9.html) I first tried to copy my existing "A" drive to another 250GB drive via the command dd if=/dev/hdc of=/dev/hdd bs=1024k . I'm getting worried, b/c the drive activity light is still going nearly 14 hours later and the command has never terminated. It can't be taking this long. The target drive was originally used in Windows, and I used Partition Magic to delete the partition so it had none when the dd command was started.

I also realized when going through the document that I may have made a critical error early on when trying to get the MFS Tools ISO CD to boot -- my boot sequence didn't have CD-ROM before the HD, so it went into Windows. Could this have corrupted my TIvo drive and lead to the copy never finishing?

I appreciate any help here!

[dwynne]

you could also try the dd command without the "bs=1024k" option, or just "bs=1024" (without the "k"). In my system, "bs=1024" is the only thing that creates reliable copies. Any other thing either hangs or corrupts the data. Dont know why.

The bs parameter on the dd command controls the blocksize on the copy and 1024 would just be 1k - or two disk blocks - while 1024k would be 1mb. I have not heard of using a large bs parameter causing a problem, but reading and writing only 1k at a time (VS 1mb) should make the copy a lot slower.

Dennis

[pheroy]

Well, I eventually gave up on the dd and powered down. Not surprisingly, the HD-Tivo won't boot now. I'm really glad I waited to do this until I got a second one! (Did the Newegg deal.) I did download MakeTivoBootable b/c it wasn't on the weaknees CD image I used. How do I make us of that, though - put it on a floppy? Or is there an easy way to add it to the ISO and burn to another bootable CD?

[azitnay]

Putting it on a floppy is a fine way to do it... I don't know if it'll have execute permissions once you mount the floppy, though, so you might want to copy it to /tmp or somewhere first and then chmod a+rx it.

Drew

[dwynne]

mount -t auto /dev/fd0 /mnt/floppy

or

mount -t vfat /dev/fd0 /mnt/floppy

(assuming the dir floppy exists under /mnt).

Then you can run it from the floppy by excuting /mnt/floppy/file_name

Do "chmod 777 /mnt/floppy/file_name" if it does not want to run.

Be sure to do "umount /mnt/floppy" (note no n after the u, so it is not unmount, but umount) when you are done with it.

Dennis

[pheroy]

Thanks for the help, guys.

Update: over lunch (the joy of working from home :D ) I started to take out the HD-Tivo drive again to take a swing with MakeTiVoBootable... and noticed that the IDE connector was not seated in the drive. Short story, it's fine, everything works. I actually wonder now why it didn't cause a problem to have booted into WinXP?

So the DMA support may be the culprit behind the original problem of the 15-hour-and-going copy. I notice when linux starts up the following references to DMA:

PCI_IDE: unknown IDE controller on PCI bus 00 device 30, VID=10de, DID=0053
PCI_IDE: chipset revision 162
PCI_IDE: not 100% native mode: will probe irqs later
ide0: BM-DMA at 0xe000-0xe007, BIOS settings hda: DMA, hdb: DMA
ide1: BM-DMA at 0xe008-0xe00F, BIOS settings hdc: DMA, hdd: DMA


which pattern repeats for 2 similar blocks on ide2, 3, 4, 5 and then:


ide0 at 0x1f0-0x1f7, 0x3f6 on irq 14
ide1 at 0x170-0x177, 0x376 on irq 15


Nothing else referencing IDE or DMA that I can see. hdc is the original Tivo drive, hdd is the spare 250GB. (Which does now show a partition table that matches the Tivo drive, which got me excited for a second until I realized that doesn't mean the data all got copied.)

The system is based on a DFI NF4 Infinity (nvidia nforce4 chipset) motherboard.

[dwynne]

I can look at my box tonight and see what it says - on the one that does DMA. What you are posting is similar to what my Dell "does not play well with LINUX boot CD" shows and it is S-L-O-W doing dd or mfsbackup|mfsrestore operations.

Do you have another old system you can use for this? Does not have to be anything fancy - an old Celeron, PIII, maybe even a PII. Does not need much memory, just a pair of IDE channels that can be properly ID'd by the boot CD. Even if it could only do UDMA 33 or something it would be faster than port IO.

If you have no other PC to try, then MAYBE if you disabled the on board IDE ports and dropped in something like the Promise Ultra 100 TX2 controller ($28 delivered from NewEgg) it would work for you. I say MAYBE since I have not tried this controller with the boot CD, but I think it uses a standard chip.

Drivers for your mobo in LINUX probably exist someplace, but getting them integrated into the boot CD might be a chore.

Dennis

[pheroy]

Do you have another old system you can use for this? Does not have to be anything fancy - an old Celeron, PIII, maybe even a PII. Does not need much memory, just a pair of IDE channels that can be properly ID'd by the boot CD. Even if it could only do UDMA 33 or something it would be faster than port IO.


Hmm, I do have an older Dell 4400 (P4 1.8 Ghz vintage) system that I am getting ready to prepare for giving away, so I guess I can try booting it on the weaknees CD and see what it says. At least Dell started using somewhat more standard parts just before this model so I guess there might be a chance the IDE controller it has is supported.

[pheroy]

Well, I'm still not quite sure about the older Dell's IDE config, I can't see anything in the linux bootup that is obviously different than my other system in terms of IDE messages. But since it's not my sweet new dual core box I don't mind letting it be dedicated for a couple of days to copying a drive, so I went ahead and put the 2 drives in the Dell and restarted the dd. One potential benefit of the Dell is that with the other 2 drives installed it physically doesn't have room for the drive with Windows, so I had to remove that entirely. :p

I suppose eventually the drive will be copied!

[kemac]

using the command "hdparm" will tell you if you have DMA enabled for a particular drive.

the output of 'hdparm /dev/hdX' will return you all the drive options including DMA for a particular drive, you will see DMA set to "1". of course you must substitute X with the proper linux drive letter.

Using the following command will set DMA if your IDE controller is supported by the Linux kernel you booted from else you will get an error response.

hdparm -d1 /dev/hdX

Good luck!

[pheroy]

I suppose eventually the drive will be copied!

Well, it must have had the DMA support after all. That was not too bad, just an hour or two. (Not sure exactly when it finished.)

Just finished checking it out -- boots up fine, recordings there, looks good! Now for the REAL stuff. Thanks all for the help!

[dwynne]

Glad you got it working. You might want to hang onto the old PC just for working on Tivos - since it is just fine for that :D

I booted my box and looked at what it said.

You hold down the shift key and hit page up a few times until you get where it is detecting the IDE stuf. You will have something like ICH2 followed by the 2 IDE channels and it will have something like HDA: DMA HDB: PIO HDC: DMA HDC: DMA

where DMA is the desired DMA setting and PIO is the slow port IO. If your drives are all DMA you are to go, if nothing is connected or maybe the CD drive you might see PIO - but you don't care.

Also, on the line where it detects the disk size you will have HDC the size in bytes, kb, etc the CHS size the ", UDMA (100)" (or 33 or 66, etc) this tell you the DMA speed for this drive.

I have had 0 luck with hdparm, by the way. It is not included on the boot CD I usually use and if I track it down and try to force DMA on (in my non-standard box), it does not work anyway.

Dennis

[Paul_PDX]

Just a note Fry's has the Seagate 300GB Barracuda 7200.8 drives for $69 after Seagate rebates this weekend.

As soon as my bracket arrives 600GB here I come...

[Carlton Bale]

I've read through this and other threads, and still don't feel that I completely understand if BlessTiVo is required or not for a large dual-drive upgrade. I'm upgrading from the standard 250GB drive to 400GB +500GB drives; I want to keep recordings.

The instructions at http://tivo.upgrade-instructions.com/ show I should use:

mfsbackup -Tao - /dev/hdX | mfsrestore -s 127 -r 4 -xzpi - /dev/hdZ /dev/hdZZ

However, I've read in this thread that there are problems when using a second large drive. Wouldn't this be true for mfsrestore with the -x option (expand) or just with mfsadd when going from one drive to two? If it is an issue using mfsrestor to expand to two large drives, then wouldn't I need to use the following two commands instead?


mfsbackup -Tao - /dev/hdX | mfsrestore -s 127 -r 4 -xzpi - /dev/hdZ

BlessTiVo /dev/hdZZ

Thanks for any feedback!

[dwynne]

I recently upgraded one of mine from the OEM 250gb to twin 400gb drives and I used the instructions at http://tivo.upgrade-instructions.com/ . I don't have my notes in front of me, but it appears to be the same as what you typed.

I did the other one (250gb -> 2x new 250gb drives) a year or so back and used the same one step command.

Both have been working just fine ever since - except for a reboot on the 2x250gb a couple of weeks back that appears to be unrelated to the drive upgrade.

I would just use the command as shown, put your OEM drive in a safe place, and enjoy.

Dennis

[Carlton Bale]

Thanks for the response, Dennis. Unfortunately, I've tried it both ways with no success. I get MFS errors when I try to span multiple drives with mfstool (corrupt headers error message from mfstool info /dev/hdc /dev/hdd). When I restore to just one drive and then run BlessTiVo on the second drive, it is not recognized or added to the first drive one I put it back in the tivo.

So just can't figure out how to get 2 400 GB drives working in my tivo. I've tried every variation I know and two different PCs. Any ideas what the heck I'm doing wrong?

[dwynne]

I have my notes in front of me now, and the command you show for one drive to two new ones is what I used.

Several things to check:

What boot CD are you using? Do you have the latest version? After booting, did you hold down shift and hit page up to be sure the drive sizes for all three drives are correctly reported? How did you have your drives attached?

I put my CD-ROM on primary IDE jumpered for "master", this made it /dev/hda . I jumpered the OEM 250gb as slave on put in on the primary IDE, this made it /dev/hdb . I jumpered one 400gb as master and one as slave and connected them both the the secondary IDE port. This made them /dev/hdc and /dev/hdd .

So this made the command to back it all up onto the two new drives:

mfsbackup -Tao - /dev/hdb | mfsrestore -s 127 -r 4 -xzpi - /dev/hdc /dev/hdd

Note no space between the - and the CAPITAL T, but there is a space after the - and before /dev. Also the pipe symbol before the mfsrestore is shift + \ . A space after -r before the 4, and as space after the -s, but no space in ixzpi .

If all the drive sizes show correct, and you hooked it up as I did, and used the command I did, then it should work. If not, then one of your drives may be bad.

What you could try is doing the single drive 250->400 (leave off the /dev/hdd) and see if that works. If it seems to, then put that drive in the Tivo (temporary) and see if it boots, has all your stuff, and test view some recordings. If that works OK, then you might try the same single drive 250->400 with your OTHER drive, if it works in the PC, then put it in the Tivo and try it out. If both the drives seem OK when done 1:1, then there must be something wrong with the master/slave jumpers or something else strange is going on.

Dennis

[Carlton Bale]

Dennis, thanks for your response and for making me think through everything. Here are some more details on what I've done:

I'm using the latest PtvUpgrade Free CD and it does appear to be burned properly.
I ran a full-scan diagnostic on both of the new drives using Seagate SeaTools and both reported to be OK.
I've done the backup/restore to both of the individual disks and they both worked fine as single-drive upgrades, I just can't get them to combine as a two-drive unit.
The drives are being reported as the correct size and I did get full capacity from them when installed as single drives.
Here is the command and error message I get using the suggested mfsrestore and then msfinfo (250GB -> 500GB + 400GB):
http://www.carltonbale.com/hosted/tivo_upgrade.jpg

The one thing I have not yet tried is putting the two new drives on different IDE channels. I've been putting both of them on the secondary channel. Maybe splitting them up will help.

Another thing I haven't tried is doing an mfsrestore to one drive than then expanding afterwards:
mfsbackup -Tao - /dev/hda | mfsrestore -s 127 -zpi - /dev/hdc
mfsadd -r 4 -x /dev/hdc /dev/hdd
At least I know why BlessTiVo didn't work -- I'd already expanded the primary drive and that disables BlessTivo. So my third option is to mfsrestore to the A drive and not expand, do a BlessTiVo on the second drive, then an mfsadd on the primary drive. Hopefully something will work. . .

[dwynne]

Well, the sizes seem right to me and the command looks right, up until the errors.

I had both of my new drives on the same IDE channel, so that should not matter I would not think.

Have you tried making the 500gb drive the slave and the 400gb drive the master - and making the 400gb drive the "primary" Tivo drive. In other words, change the jumpers on the two new drives and use the same command. See if the system is happier with the smaller drive being the "main" drive?

You said you tried two different PCs, right? Then I would try to get a 3rd drive (of any size) and see if it will work in combination with one of the ones you have. You are using an 80 pin UDMA cable, right? Like one that comes in a retail drive kit? Tried a different cable, just in case?

Your OEM drive is good, right? I mean there were no issues with it when you removed it from the Tivo - and the single drive copies work (boot in the Tivo OK)?

I am about out of ideas, other than to try a 3rd drive. You could also try copying the OEM->500+400 but do not specify to copy the recordings. Just for grins to see if that still gets an error or not.

I assume you tried your new drive pair in the Tivo after the copy (even with errors) and it would not boot?

On a football note, I was not happy to see the Colts let James go to the Cards :mad:

Dennis

[Carlton Bale]

I finally got it working! Thanks Dennis for your help. First of all, a summary of what didn't work:

Different cables
Swapping 400GB as TiVo drive A, 500GB as drive B (and vice versa)
Switching to a different PC
Changing from cable select to jumpers (and vice versa)
Running mfsrestore / mfsadd without the "-r 4" option
Having the new 500GB and 400GB drives on the same IDE channel
So you may be able to guess what did make it work. First of all, having the 500GB drive as hda on my PC and the 400GB drive as hdd made a huge difference. Either there is something weird with the motherboard or the Linux boot CD has a hard time with two very big drives on the same IDE channel. Doing an mfs restore before (dos = hda, 500GB drive = hdc, 400GB drive hdd) was much slower than when I switched the 500GB drive to hda and the dos to hdc. There was some type of a conflict and was causing the errors.

Also, I used the hinsdale instructions some of the time, and they do not include the -r 4 switch for mfstool. This is a huge oversite as it is required to address two drives when they are over about ~260GB.

I still have to do a complete show transfer from the original 250GB TiVo drive, but I'm confident it will work. So, here the exact command that worked for me when I restored from my DOS backup image.
mfsrestore -s 127 -r 4 -xzpi /mnt/dos/tivo.bak /dev/hda /dev/hdd
The entire restore took 2 minutes, 50 seconds. Previously, when both big drives were on the same IDE channel, it took about 8 minutes (this is when I also got the mfs_load_volume_header bad checksum, volume header corrupt, and segmentation corrupt errors with mfsinfo.)

But finally, some disappointment to dampen my TiVo success. Edgerrin James leaves the Colts. Wasn't the increase in the salary cap supposed to allow the Colts to re-sign him? Guess not. Now they will have an even better chance at defending their first-game-of-the-playoffs loosing streak, but I'm hoping they will prove me wrong. . .

[dwynne]

Glad you got it working!

I have not tried a 500gb drive yet, but as I mentioned mine was fine with both 400gb drives on the same IDE channel, with the OEM drive on the other along with the CD-ROM. Must be something with that drive or PC or something.

Another thought, my CD-ROM drive (DVD, actually) is capable of UDMA at high speed like a hard drive. If you put two devices on the same IDE channel with different capabilities, the channel will slow down to match the slowest. I wonder if something like that was causing yours to be slow as well?

As I mentioned before, a Dell server box I was using has 3 IDE channels and the LINUX boot CD could not figure out how to do DMA on it at all. So the copies would work, but would take a couple of days to run :eek: A discarded Celeron PC I now use has standard IDE chipsets so the LINUX boot can do DMA and it is much, much faster.

Shows you what I know - the year they drafted James I was all excited when Ricky "toke" Williams slippe down to the Colts in the draft and was mighty mad when the Colts took James (and though they should have kept Kaulk as well). They clearly made the correct choice, so fingers crossed they will do so again.

Dennis

[PJO1966]

I posted the following problem in another thread:

I've been having reboot issues with my HD TiVo. Most of the time it reboots in the middle of a recording. Last night it rebooted at some point, but I don't have any partial recordings. I think that's the first time it ever rebooted while it wasn't recording a Season Pass. When I first got it I had drive issues and had someone replace it with 2 Maxtor 300GB drives. I was wondering if there were any local LA peeps who might be willing to take a look at the drives. I am trying to avoid doing a Clear & Delete All because I have three pages of recordings I'd rather not lose. I cleared the Thumb settings and suggestions, but apparently that was not enough. I don't trust my minimal computer skills to attempt anything on my own.

And got the following response:

You should make a copy of the Powermax utility diskette from the Maxtor website, then run this utility on your Tivo hard drives (while they are connected to your desktop computer).

It sounds like your Tivo is simply encountering bad spots on the hard drive. The Powermax utility can repair (swap spare good sectors for bad ones) these bad spots.

I've never done anything like this. Can someone give me an idea of where to start? How do I hook up the drives to my PC? I'm a complete noob when it comes to stuff like this.




Thread found here. (http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?p=3777605&&#post3777605)

[Anubys]

doesn't seem like anyone is jumping in to help you...I'm not very tech savvy, but I have done what you want to do...let me see if I can help you...

1. If you don't have your hard drive instructions, go to the web site and find the jumper settings for your hard drive (you might need to set it from master to slave, depending on the drive).

2. Download the diagnostic utility on a diskette (I think you have to make it a bootable diskette). If you don't have a floppy drive, you will have some extra steps. Download the utility to your hard drive. Do steps 3 and 4 only if you don't have a floppy drive.

3. Follow the directions on creating the CD, you probably need to make it an ISO CD (I think that's the term). if you have a CD burner, you have some software that will do that for you (for example, Nero). This makes it a bootable CD to run the diagnostics. Only do this step if the instructions tell you that you need to make it a bootable CD.

4. If you need to make it a bootable CD, make sure you go into your configuration (which you do by clicking F2, I think, at the right moment when your PC is booting) and change the boot sequence to CD first, then your hard drive. This will make the PC look for the bootable CD before it loads windows from the hard drive.

5. turn off and then open your PC and look for your hard drive, if you have only one hard drive (normal), you will find a cable (grey/blue) connected to it, it will have a black connection to connect a second hard drive on the cable itself...you will also have a power cord to connect the tivo drive...make sure your tivo drive is a slave (if it's not already) by moving the jumper to the correct slot.

If your PC doesn't have the extra cables and power cord for a second drive (you bought a piece of ****, then), you can disconnect your PC hard drive and connect the Tivo HD in its place (you don't have to secure the HD in the same spot, just leave it hanging). Since the diskette or the CD are bootable, you don't need your PC hard drive for anything. But I prefer to put the Tivo HD as the secondary drive and keep my PC HD connected. Since you have 2 Tivo drives, it might be easier to do them both at the same time...

6. leave the PC open and reboot...the CD will boot and recognize the two drives...run the diagnostic utility on your drive (you can run it on both, if you wish!).

7. once done, turn the PC off, disconnect the tivo drive, put the jumpers to the old setting, and put it back in the Tivo.

if you do it once, you'll feel silly for how easy it is and how much you worried about it...

[Carlton Bale]

Anubys: Great how-to! Below are my edits to make it a little simpler. . .

PJO1966: Be aware that this will not fix your problem, it will only tell you if you have a failed drive and if you need to replace it.

1. If you don't have your hard drive instructions, go to the web site and find the jumper settings for your hard drive (you might need to set it from master to slave, depending on the drive). But you probably will not need to do this if you follow the steps below. . .

2. Download the diagnostic utility (can be Maxtor, Seagate, Western Digital, etc. They all check hard drives). It should auto-create a bootable floppy diskette. If you don't have a floppy drive, you will have some extra steps. Download the utility to your hard drive. Do steps 3 only if you don't have a floppy drive.

3. Download the ISO file (*.iso), which is a CD image, and use Nero to burn the CD in ISO mode. Nero is the best program for this because it is fairly ease to do. Open the Nero Burning ROM program, click cancel to get out of the auto-start pop-up menu, and go to the "file" menu and then open, and and select the ISO you downloaded.

4. (moved below)

5. turn off and then open your PC and look for your hard drive, you will find a wide, flat IDE cable (usually grey) connected to it. It may be connected to two hard drives. Disconnect the cable from all hard drives in your PC and attach it to your TiVo drive. If it is attached to your CD drive, leave it connected, but usually a second cable is attached to your CD drive. (This way, you don't have to worry with the PC booting to Windows and messing up your TiVo drive and you don't have to mess with jumpers.) An IDE cable has two connectors. You can use either connector.

You don't have to secure the HD in the same PC, just leave it hanging). Since the diskette or the CD are bootable, you don't need your PC hard drive for anything.

6. leave the PC open and reboot...the CD will boot and recognize the Tivo drive...run the diagnostic utility on your drive.

6a. (was 4) If the PC did not boot to the floppy or CD, make sure you configure your BIOS (which you do by clicking DEL, F1, or F2 - it will say on the screen when the computer first boots) and change the "boot sequence" to CD first, then your hard drive. This will make the PC look for the bootable CD or floppy before it loads windows from the hard drive. This will be somewhere in the menus on screen in the BIOS setup.

7. Run a full scan diagnostic on the TiVo drive and look for errors. If you had errors, well, this is bad. Your hard drive is failing and you will need to replace it. Otherwise, it could just be a fluke in TiVo operation. Once done running the diagnostic, turn the PC off, disconnect the tivo drive, and put it back in the Tivo.

[Anubys]

Carlton's instructions are much better than mine...her did forget one thing:

8. Put your PC back the way it was!

;) :D

seriously, I didn't find anything wrong with my hard drives (I assume this is an HD-Tivo)...I did a clear & delete and that fixed my problem (I did lose the network logos)...and of course I had to re-do my SPs (which is not that easy because some shows don't show up so you have to do a wish list for them)...

so if it's not your hard drives, you might want to clear all your old recordings, clean up your SPs and turn off Tivo suggestions...and if that doesn't work, a C&D is your next step...

assuming, of course, you eliminate simple things (bad cables, power supply...etc.)...

good luck!

[PJO1966]

Wow! That's really comprehensive (not to mention a little intimidating!). Thanks guys.

[videoi]

OK, I've been trying to upgrade my HR10-250 for a few days now. Originally, I had the WD250 drive (original) and an upgraded 300 GB Maxtor. The Maxtor died. I had (sitting in the wings) a 300GB Seagate and a 400GB Seagate, so I figured I'd just replace both drives.

I started with the HR10-250 image from the InstantCake CD, and ran the following command. Note that
hda: new 300GB Drive - to be used as master
hdb: new 400GB Drive - to be used as slave
IMAGE: image file from instantcake CD

mfsrestore -s 400 -r 4 -xzpi IMAGE /dev/hda /dev/hdb
tpip --swapped -s /dev/hda

This resulted in getting "corrupted checksum" errors when running MFSINFO.

So, I had read somewhere here on the forums that the larger swap really wasn't needed - so I tried:

mfsrestore -s 127 -r 4 -xzpi IMAGE /dev/hda /dev/hdb

This appeared to work; mfsinfo reported the correct info. Put the drives into my DirecTiVo and now it's stuck on the 'powering up' screen.

Help!! Any thoughts on what I'm doing wrong?

Thanks

Ira

[dwynne]

Make sure your drives are jumpered for master and slave - not cable select, and make sure you had them so jumpered when you put the image on. If you did not, then re-do the image with them jumpered properly.

If that is not it, then jumper the 400gb for master and the 300gb for slave and try that. Someone else reported a problem here that was solved by changing the drive order.

Dennis

[videoi]

They are jumpered for master & slave. I'll try switching the drives to make the 400 the master and see...

Sounds like there's no issue with the commands I'm using...

Ira

[dwynne]

Sounds like there's no issue with the commands I'm using...



I have not used an Instant Cake CD, so I can't attest to the command being proper.

I assume your OEM drive failed and you have no backup? If it is still working, then you can put it in your PC and copy it to the two new drives either with or without the recordings.

Another thought - if you booted into XP or Win2k with the Tivo drives attached the OS could have "Fingerprinted" them and this will prevent them from working properly in a Tivo. If you think this might have happened, re-copying the data will not fix it. As was pointed out in this thread earlier, you need to run the program "MakeTiVoBootable" to remove the Windoze fingerprint and let the drive work in your Tivo.

Dennis

[tivoupgrade]

videoi -

Why type any commands at all? The InstantCake CD is designed to boot and run just by answering a few questions - ie, so you can avoid going the manual route?

Is it because you are attempting to backup your existing drive to a new one? Or are you restoring from a backup file other than the one on the InstantCake CD? If that is the case, then you are using the InstantCake CD just as a regular boot CD and whatever instructions you are referencing should apply.

I guess my biggest question is why are you using the InstantCake CD in this way at all?

[Carlton Bale]

videoi:

I had this exact same problem. There is a compatibility problem between the IDE drivers on the Linux boot CD and the chipsets on some motherboards. For what ever reason, two larges drives (larger than 250GB) on the same IDE channel causes problems. So, you should attach your drives to different channels (if you don't want to change the jumpers, the user hda and hdd, or hdb and hdc).

Here is the exact sequence I used:
mfsrestore -s 127 -r 4 -zpi IMAGE /dev/hda
mfsadd -r 4 -x /dev/hda /dev/hdd

Notice that the swap size is 127MB and that I did not expand the image during the mfsrestore (didn't use the -x), but rather during the mfsadd. I had problems when: 1) drives on same channel, 2) didn't use -r 4, 3) expanded over both drives during mfsrestore, 4) had two drives larger than 250GB on the same IDE.

Good luck!

[videoi]

Turns out that my mfsrestore command (listed above) actually worked. When I put the drives back in the Tivo, the IDE cable in the tivo came loose. Reseated the IDE cable and all is good.

Now, my remaining question is regarding the swap space. When I used '-s 400' to mfsrestore, I got a checksum error from mfsinfo, so I used '-s 127'. This worked, but am I going to run into problems later? Approaches?

[Carlton Bale]

The reason you got errors with the larger swap size, I'm guessing, is because you used the PTVupgrade CD. Although it has support for LBA48 access of large drives, it includes an older version of TPIP (v1.1), which can't write the correct headers for swap files larger than 127MB for LBA48 kernels. More info is in this post (http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?p=2937565&&#post2937565). Basically, it is not a fully LBA48-compliant CD and should be updated.

As far as needing a larger swap partition, the "1MB swap for every 2GB of drive space" rule-of-thumb is based on Series 1 units. In this post (http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?p=3598732&&#post3598732), Dirac (http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/member.php?u=32986) forced a GSOD with 2 400GB drives and 127MB of swap and it completed with no problems. So, current information suggests that more than 127MB of swap is not required for anything less than 800GB (and probably for anything less than 1TB) of drive space.

You can either feel better knowing that you really don't need a larger swap or user a newer version of TPIP (v1.2) to initialize a larger swap partition after you re-image.

[dwynne]

so I used '-s 127'. This worked, but am I going to run into problems later?

What Carlton said :D

From the research I did before I upgraded my 2nd HD Tivo to 800gb the 127mb swap is supposed to be enough - and/or if you ever need it the drive(s) are probably hosed anyway so having more may get one booted one more time or something.

My original HD Tivo has been running fine with that size swap space and 500gb of disks for a long time.

So I would not worry.

Dennis

[FullHouseTiVo]

Is anyone offering a RAID box to build up these super capacity TiVos?

It seems like you would need a special case to handle these super size requirements!

Full House TiVo

[uscpsycho]

Hello!

I'm trying to upgrade a TiVo for the first time - upgrading from the original drive to two 300GB drives and keeping my programs. I followed the weaknees directions to the letter, but my upgrade is failing.

I get through making the .bak file without a hitch. Then the trouble starts. Here is what's going on...

I've got the original TiVo drive in hda, my CD-ROM in hdc and my new drives in hdb & hdd. I boot with the weaknees boot CD and the size of my drives shows up correctly. Then I enter the following command:

mfsbackup -Tao - /dev/hda | mfsrestore -s 127 -r 4 -xzpi - /dev/hdb /dev/hdd

After multiple failures I tried these:

mfsbackup -Tao - /dev/hda | mfsrestore -s 127 -r 4 -xzpi - /dev/hdb
mfsbackup -Tao - /dev/hda | mfsrestore -s 127 -r 4 -xzpi - /dev/hdd

I get the same error.

Here is the output I get every time I try to run backup/restore:

/dev/hda10: Success
mfs_load_volume_header: mfsvol_read_data: Input/output error
mfsbackup: Backup failed to startup. Make sure you specified the right
devices, and that the drives are not locked.
Restore filed: -: Success


Any idea what the heck is going on here and what I can do about it? I ran disk utilities to make sure both hdb and hdd are unlocked, so that is not the problem. These are also brand new disks so it's improbable they are both bad. I formatted both of them to FAT32 and I know at least one of them (the one I used to create the .bak file) is accessible from Windows, so that one's not toast. And I never had a problem with the OEM drive so I doubt that is the problem.

When I formatted the drives with the disk utilities it said that DDO was applied to the disks because they were so large. Could that be my problem?

Also, wheen booting from the CD, I get this error several times during the startup:
kmod: failed to exec /sbin/modprobe -s -k nls_iso8859-1, errno = 2

If anyone can shed some light on this I would really appreciate it! I've been at this for a few days now and I have searched for answers all over the place. I'm not getting anywhere.

Thank you thank you thank you!

[dwynne]

I would try putting the OEM drive back in the Tivo and making sure it still works. I would not bother with a backup file since you are keeping your OEM drive. Just put it on a shelf in case you ever need it.

It it does not work/boot then you may need to use the MakeTivoBootable program to fix it. http://www.upl.cs.wisc.edu/%7Ewill/tivo/

If the drive still works OK in the Tivo - boots, records, plays back old recordings, etc then try it again. Make sure you jumper the drives for master or slave - don't use cable select. Try changing things up - put the CD in as master on the primary IDE (hda) and the OEM drive as slave (hdb) and copy to a single drive that is master on the secondard (hdc) and see if that works. If so, then re-do the command with the 2nd drive connected as slave on the secondary IDE (hdd) and see if that works. If the OEM->dual drives fails but the OEM->single works, try re-arranging your drives (swap the OEM to slave on secondary = hdd and the 2nd new drive to slave on primary = hdb).

Make sure you have good cables - 80 bin UDMA type - for all drive connections.

Are you sure the sizes show up correctly in the BIOS of the PC? Are you sure they show up correctly in the LINUX boot - scroll back and be sure?

Try it in another PC - I have heard or seen several issues that are PC related. The limited set of drivers on the boot CD may not work properly on every IDE chip set and PC. Normally the older the better - so a cast off older PC can make a perfect Tivo "workstation" while a new, top of the line box may not work at all.

Dennis

[uscpsycho]

I would try putting the OEM drive back in the Tivo and making sure it still works.

It it does not work/boot then you may need to use the MakeTivoBootable program to fix it. http://www.upl.cs.wisc.edu/%7Ewill/tivo/

I tried to boot my TiVo from the OEM drive and much to my surprise (AND CHAGRIN!) it won't boot. I just get a message that says "Welcome. Powering up..."

I am 100% certain that I did not boot into Windows with the OEM TiVo drive connected. However, I may have had it connected when running some of the HDD utilities that boot from floppy/CD-ROM. Could that hose my drive?????

If possible I'd like to avoid running MakeTivoBootable. Any way to start with a virgin HDD from an instantcake image, and then copy my encrypted programs from the non-booting drive to the new drive? I would really hate to lose all my programs!!!

If that's not possible I'll give MakeTivoBootable a try. But I'd appreciate some guidance. There's a lot of info about MakeTivoBootable online, but the HR10-250 seems to be unlike other TiVo's, so I'd like to get pointers here (searching for MakeTivoBootable on this thread doesn't help at all).

MakeTivoBootable has lots of command line parameters, I'm guessing I shouldn't use any of them to do a basic HDD recovery?

The readme says "HINT: You can (and should) backup your existing block 0 with dd before you use this program. You can also direct output to a file and verify that it looks good before you dd that to the hard drive (You can even use dd's swab option)."

I am not the target audience for this readme file. I'm at a loss when it comes to this linux stuff. If I really "should" do the dd, how do I do it?

Thanks again for any help you can give me. You guys rock! I'm frustrated and annoyed by the situation and by the thought that I may have permanently lost me programs.

[dwynne]

What I would do is try to copy from the old drive to a new one (or the pair) and ignore the recordings. See if that will work, then at least you know you will not be without a Tivo should disaster strike. It should not take long to copy then try the drives.

If you go back to the online instructions and tell it not to keep the recordings, you should end up with a command line like this:

mfsbackup -f 9999 -so - /dev/hdX (/dev/hdY) | mfsrestore -s 127 -r 4 -xzpi - /dev/hdZ (/dev/hdZZ)

Try that and see if that will work, if it does then you have that going for you at least. Then if you try the maketivobootable and something goes horribly wrong you can use the drive (pair of drives) to make it work again.

What did you set the jumper at when you put the OEM drive back in the Tivo? IIRC it comes set at cable select, doesn't it? If you have it set wrong it might not boot up. If the drive will not boot and can't be copied, you may have lost your recordings in any case.

You can try copying using dd from the old drive to a new one just to get a backup of it. From the Hinsdale how-to:

dd if=/dev/hdc of=/dev/hdb bs=1024k


(If that command eventually returns an error, try using the following command instead:)


dd conv=noerror,sync if=/dev/hdc of=/dev/hdb bs=1024k

NOTE: this assumes the old drive is hdc and the new one is hdb, make it that way or adjust the command to match the way you have your drives attached.

If there are errors on the disk they will show up on the dd, then you can try to get around them with the noerror,sync options. You can dd from a smaller to a larger drive w/o a problem, but the Tivo will not see the extra space unless you do more. So you could use the dd as a test of your old drive. If you get it copied OK to one of the new ones, then try to boot it into your Tivo and see if it works.

Dennis

[uscpsycho]

What I would do is try to copy from the old drive to a new one (or the pair) and ignore the recordings. See if that will work, then at least you know you will not be without a Tivo should disaster strike. It should not take long to copy then try the drives.

If you go back to the online instructions and tell it not to keep the recordings, you should end up with a command line like this:

mfsbackup -f 9999 -so - /dev/hdX (/dev/hdY) | mfsrestore -s 127 -r 4 -xzpi - /dev/hdZ (/dev/hdZZ)

...

You can try copying using dd from the old drive to a new one just to get a backup of it. From the Hinsdale how-to:

dd if=/dev/hdc of=/dev/hdb bs=1024k


(If that command eventually returns an error, try using the following command instead:)


dd conv=noerror,sync if=/dev/hdc of=/dev/hdb bs=1024k

If there are errors on the disk they will show up on the dd, then you can try to get around them with the noerror,sync options. You can dd from a smaller to a larger drive w/o a problem, but the Tivo will not see the extra space unless you do more. So you could use the dd as a test of your old drive. If you get it copied OK to one of the new ones, then try to boot it into your Tivo and see if it works.

The mfsbackup/mfsrestore command you recommended did not work. So I've got dd in progress, but dd of the OEM 250gb drive is going to take forever, won't it? Based on other people's results this could take days to complete on a drive of this size. No?

I've already received errors (all appear related to OEM drive). So should I abort the dd and run it with the noerror & sync options?

The errors I've received all look like this:
hda: dma_intr: status=0x51 { DriveReady SeekComplete Error }
hda: dma_intr: error=0x40 { UncorrectableError }, LBAsect=nnnnnnnnn, high=12, w=nnnnnnn, sector=nnnnnnnnn
end_request: I/O error, dev 03:00 (hda), sector nnnnnnnnn

I'm not sure how dd'ing the non-booting OEM drive is going to help me. Is there a possibility that the copy of the OEM will boot even if the OEM doesn't? If not, what is the advantage of having a spare copy of the non-booting OEM drive?

If I run MTB on the OEM drive and it fails can't I just load an instantcake image onto one of my new drives and start Tivo'ing from scratch? If I have to resort to that, hopefully I'll be able to restore the .bak file I made to recover my wishlists and such.

Thoughts?

Can anyone recommend the ideal MTB command in this situation? This sounds like it has worked for several people. Will this work on a HR10-250?
http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-v...4&&#post1699504

Thank you so much for your help! I don't feel quite as lost with a botched TiVo on my first upgrade attempt.

[dwynne]

The mfsbackup/mfsrestore command you recommended did not work. So I've got dd in progress, but dd of the OEM 250gb drive is going to take forever, won't it? Based on other people's results this could take days to complete on a drive of this size. No?

I've already received errors (all appear related to OEM drive). So should I abort the dd and run it with the noerror & sync options?

The errors I've received all look like this:
hda: dma_intr: status=0x51 { DriveReady SeekComplete Error }
hda: dma_intr: error=0x40 { UncorrectableError }, LBAsect=nnnnnnnnn, high=12, w=nnnnnnn, sector=nnnnnnnnn
end_request: I/O error, dev 03:00 (hda), sector nnnnnnnnn

I'm not sure how dd'ing the non-booting OEM drive is going to help me. Is there a possibility that the copy of the OEM will boot even if the OEM doesn't? If not, what is the advantage of having a spare copy of the non-booting OEM drive?

If I run MTB on the OEM drive and it fails can't I just load an instantcake image onto one of my new drives and start Tivo'ing from scratch? If I have to resort to that, hopefully I'll be able to restore the .bak file I made to recover my wishlists and such.


If you have DMA active it should only take a few hours. If there are lots of errors, it does take "forever". In the instructions it tells you to scroll back to verify disc size and to check the DMA is correct. I can attest to no DMA being on = 2 days or so waiting for it to copy. If there are lots of errors, I would stop and re-run with the extra options - and double check the DMA. I think on a proper machine my 250 OEM -> twin 400 drive copy took "overnight". So the dd might finish is 5-8 hours or so????? If there are just tons of errors then the resulting copy - no matter the parameters - probably will be no good and it will take a long time to complete.

Doing the dd does two things: it tells us if your PC can read your drive w/o errors (and the answer the that is no) and it gets you a copy of the drive and recordings to play with. We don't know where the errors are on the disc, it might be possible to "fix" it by getting it copied. Say the errors were in the swap area, then it might not boot on the bad drive but a copy of it should. You were also leary of use the maketivobootable command on your OEM drive, so having a copy means you could play with the copy and still leave your OEM drive alone.

Yes, if all else is lost you can buy an instant cake disc or find a HR10-250 image someplace and install that and start over.

Dennis

[uscpsycho]

If you have DMA active it should only take a few hours. If there are lots of errors, it does take "forever". In the instructions it tells you to scroll back to verify disc size and to check the DMA is correct. I can attest to no DMA being on = 2 days or so waiting for it to copy. If there are lots of errors, I would stop and re-run with the extra options - and double check the DMA. I think on a proper machine my 250 OEM -> twin 400 drive copy took "overnight". So the dd might finish is 5-8 hours or so????? If there are just tons of errors then the resulting copy - no matter the parameters - probably will be no good and it will take a long time to complete.

Doing the dd does two things: it tells us if your PC can read your drive w/o errors (and the answer the that is no) and it gets you a copy of the drive and recordings to play with. We don't know where the errors are on the disc, it might be possible to "fix" it by getting it copied. Say the errors were in the swap area, then it might not boot on the bad drive but a copy of it should. You were also leary of use the maketivobootable command on your OEM drive, so having a copy means you could play with the copy and still leave your OEM drive alone.

Yes, if all else is lost you can buy an instant cake disc or find a HR10-250 image someplace and install that and start over.

Dennis

OK - So the dd was complete in just about three hours and, as far as I can tell, had three errors. I must have been reading reports from people with MAJOR problems on their hard drive for it to take sooooo long. So I plugged the cloned drive into the TiVo and didn't have any success.

When I first started with this upgrade process I followed the weaknees directions and used mfstools to make a .bak file. As I understand it, I believe I can use the .bak file to restore everything but the recorded programs (and I assume they are intact). So hopefully I can restore the .bak file and get things back the way they were when I made the backup.

Does that sound right or am I way off base?

I don't know if I should try running MTB before restoring the .bak, or try restoring the .bak before running MTB. I'm leaning towards restoring the .bak first. Sound right?

Thank you!

[azitnay]

Once you restore the .bak, I doubt your recordings will still work -- it recreates all the MFS partitions, and I can't see how it would recreate them in such a perfect fashion that the recordings could still be located in their old spots on the drive. But I could be wrong, I guess.

You could try the various kickstart (http://alt.org/wiki/index.php/TivoDiagnostics) options (on both the old and the newly dd'ed drive), but I wouldn't get your hopes up.

Other than that, you might be out of options.

Drew

[dwynne]

Try running MTB on your copy of the drive and see what happens, nothing to lose.

If the bak file is good, then I would have thought that part copied over to a new drive would result in a drive that at least boots up. If the bak contains "everythng except the recordings" and it worked, then that part of the OEM drive must have been OK (or it got errors and you didn't see them).

If the MTB on the new drive (copied with dd) does not work, then try restoring the bak file to it?

If that works and results in a bootable, working Tivo then you are getting someplace - but without your recordings.

Dennis

[jpeckinp]

Does anybody know if the 250GB drive that WeakNees offers is the same drive that comes in the unit?

I'm curious because I just ordered a backup 250GB from them and they sell the Maxtor drive at that size and I believe when I had my tivo open that was what the drive in there said it was.

[uscpsycho]

Once you restore the .bak, I doubt your recordings will still work -- it recreates all the MFS partitions, and I can't see how it would recreate them in such a perfect fashion that the recordings could still be located in their old spots on the drive. But I could be wrong, I guess.

You could try the various kickstart (http://alt.org/wiki/index.php/TivoDiagnostics) options (on both the old and the newly dd'ed drive), but I wouldn't get your hopes up.

Other than that, you might be out of options.

Drew

Like I said in the other thread, you were right, my recorded shows didn't survive the recovery. The state of my TiVo raises a couple of new issues.

Since I ran dd to copy from a 250GB drive to a 300GB drive, have I lost access to the extra 50GB on the new drive? If so, any way to free it up?

With my playlist all messed up how is the TiVo calculating free space on the hard drive? I have lots of shows in the playlist but the TiVo tells me that most of them haven't been recorded. So will it calculate available space based on the unit's belief that these shows weren't actually recorded? Or will it calculate available space based on the fact that there are many hours of programs listed in my playlist, even if they aren't watchable?

Now whenever I start recording a show or add something to my playlist the "Please Wait" icon is displayed for a VERY long time - often over 30 seconds or so. I suspect this is being caused by heavy disk fragmentation. Think this eventually clear itself up?

Thanks again Drew!!!

[uscpsycho]

Does anybody know if the 250GB drive that WeakNees offers is the same drive that comes in the unit?

I'm curious because I just ordered a backup 250GB from them and they sell the Maxtor drive at that size and I believe when I had my tivo open that was what the drive in there said it was.

My OEM drive is Western Digital. But it shouldn't make any difference if you get a Maxtor from Weaknees. The data on the drive is what's important, not the name on the drive.

[azitnay]

Since I ran dd to copy from a 250GB drive to a 300GB drive, have I lost access to the extra 50GB on the new drive? If so, any way to free it up?

You should simply be able to run:

mfsadd x -r 4 /dev/hdX

(where hdX is the TiVo drive) to expand to fill the drive.

With my playlist all messed up how is the TiVo calculating free space on the hard drive? I have lots of shows in the playlist but the TiVo tells me that most of them haven't been recorded. So will it calculate available space based on the unit's belief that these shows weren't actually recorded? Or will it calculate available space based on the fact that there are many hours of programs listed in my playlist, even if they aren't watchable?

I don't really know the answer to this, but once you delete the offending recordings they certainly shouldn't affect anything any more.

Now whenever I start recording a show or add something to my playlist the "Please Wait" icon is displayed for a VERY long time - often over 30 seconds or so. I suspect this is being caused by heavy disk fragmentation. Think this eventually clear itself up?

Sounds suspicious to me... I'd remove as many recordings as you can (especially the non-working ones), and see if it clears itself up.

Drew

[dwynne]

Does anybody know if the 250GB drive that WeakNees offers is the same drive that comes in the unit?

I'm curious because I just ordered a backup 250GB from them and they sell the Maxtor drive at that size and I believe when I had my tivo open that was what the drive in there said it was.

AFAIK all the HD Tivos come with 250gb WD drives. I have had TERRIBLE luck with "normal" store-puchased Maxtor drives in Tivos (and PCs too) and refuse to buy any more of them. The ones some places sell for Tivo use are SUPPOSED to be better for the purpose, but I have not wanted to pay the extra high price and risk putting another Maxtor in my Tivos. But hey, maybe that is just me :confused:

The only time the drive maker matters if you are trying to dd copy a drive and the new one is smaller than the old one. There may be 4 makers of "250gb" drives but the ACTUAL size on all 4 may be different. dd from a larger one to a smaller one will not work.

If you are doing mfsbackup/,mfsrestore then it matters not at all - nor does it matter for the brand of a 2nd drive.

Dennis

[dwynne]

Now whenever I start recording a show or add something to my playlist the "Please Wait" icon is displayed for a VERY long time - often over 30 seconds or so. I suspect this is being caused by heavy disk fragmentation. Think this eventually clear itself up?


This can be normal if you have lots of shows in the playlist and/or you recently rebooted the box. Having BAD recordings in the playlist probably just makes it a ton worse.

You could now backup/restore this drive to your other new drive but ignore the recordings. That would get you a single 300gb drive, then mfsadd this drive to THAT one to get a 600gb system with no recordings. Or fix the issues on this drive, expand it to 300gb with mfsadd, then mfsadd the 2nd drive to get to 600gb.

Dennis

[plumech]

I was experiencing intermittent lock up in my 15 month old hr10-250 so I decided to replace my oem wd 250 drive with a maxtor quick view 500. I used weeknees boot cd and their instructions to back up and restore to the new drive. Everything went fine and the boot cd finished showing 300 more hours as it is supposed to. I set the jumper to master and installed the new maxtor and it now hangs in the almost there screen indefinitely. I removed the maxtor and reinstalled the oem wd drive and it booted up fine. Am I to assume the formatting of the maxtor didn't work properly even though the result of the boot disc showed it finished the program ok. I don't know where to go next other then having to delete all my saved programs and start fresh with make tivo bootable disc. Any suggestions would be appreciated. thanks

[dwynne]

Was the new drive ever in a windoze PC or did you get it new and just do the Tivo copy on it? Just wondering, if XP or Win2k ever "Saw" it that would keep it from booting in your Tivo unless you use MTB to fix it.

I assume you got no errors with the mfsbackup|mfsrestore ?

Dennis

[plumech]

I had a long list of errors while running off the boot cd but it still completed the task. Do the errors mean bad sectors or something. I just thought if it booted ok from the oem drive then it would boot the same way from the copy. Also, the drive was fresh from maxtor and never saw a windows pc.

[dwynne]

You could try the MTB on the new drive and see what happens. If that does not work, you may have to try to dd copy the old try to the new - with the error option on. See if that makes the drive work in the Tivo, if so you can expand it later to fill your new drive.

Dennis

[plumech]

I need to find the MTB procedure and I am not familer with the dd copy route but I will attempt to research it. I am scanning the original drive for errors right now and its not showing any, go figure. Thanks for the help.

[dwynne]

You don't have to research far, I posted the link to the MakeTivoBootable program just yesterday and in one message I posted the dd command, I think. You just have to make sure you have the proper drive designation for YOUR set up - and double check it before you hit enter.

Dennis

[uscpsycho]

Try running MTB on your copy of the drive and see what happens, nothing to lose.

I'm trying to run MTB but I can't seem to.

I boot to Linux from a CD, I mount the drive with the MTB file (hda) and I can see the file when I run ls. But I get this error when I try to run MTB:
maketivobootable: command not found

I'm no Linux expert, but shouldn't I be able to run MTB if I can see the MTB file in ls?

This is what I am entering (MTB is in root of hda and TiVo drive is in hdc):
mount /dev/hda1 /mnt
cd /mnt
maketivobootable -d /dev/hdc --pk 3 --ak 6 --bp root=/dev/hda4

Shouldn't that work?

I downloaded MTB in Windows, burned it to a CD in Windows and copied it to a Windows-formatted hard drive in Windows. This is a stupid question, but since MTB is a Linux application is there any possiblity the MTB file is corrupt from handling it in Windows? Are there any issues with running a Linux application that is on a Windows-formatted hard drive (it's FAT32)?

I'm following the directions here http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=117404&page=2&pp=30&highlight=MakeTivoBootable+hr10250, but it hardly matters since I can't even run the program.

Any thoughts?

[HomeUser]

try ./maketivobootable or /mnt/maketivobootable Linux does not by default have the current directory in the executable path

[Carlton Bale]

Also, check your new drive using mfsinfo. It will tell you if there are any errors with the creation of the new drive. Also, if you didn't use the "-r 4" switch for mfsrestore, it will not work properly on large drives.

[uscpsycho]

try ./maketivobootable or /mnt/maketivobootable Linux does not by default have the current directory in the executable path

./maketivobootable worked but I have no idea if it actually did anything to my drive. It just asked me to confirm (y/n) that I want to modify hdc. After I entered yes I didn't get any kind of confirmation or error message. Unfortunately, the drive was not bootable, so I just have to assume MTB did it's thing but it didn't make my TiVo bootable.

So here's the status of my TiVo recovery project.

1) I tried mfsrestore but that didn't work.

2) I copied my original TiVo drive using dd if=/dev/hdc of=/dev/hdb bs=1024k and recovered my .bak file onto it and the TiVo works OK (not perfect) but most of the prerecorded shows are gone. Season Passes, etc. are all OK.

3) I made a second backup copy using dd conv=noerror,sync if=/dev/hdc of=/dev/hdb bs=1024k. I ran MTB on this drive in hopes that my programs would be saved. A) First I tried MakeTiVoBootable -d /dev/hdX --pk 3 --ak 6 --bp root=/dev/hda4 which didn't work. B) Then I tried MakeTiVoBootable -d /dev/hdX --pk 6 --ak 3 --bp root=/dev/hda7 and that didn't work either.

Should I have made a fresh copy of the TiVo drive before running MTB for a second time?

Any chance MTB would work better on a newly copied drive using dd WITHOUT the sync & noerror options?

Any chance restoring .bak to a newly copied drive using dd WITH the sync & noerror options would work better (more recordings recovered)?

Thanks to you all for your continued help. Hopefully these posts will be helping people for a long time to come!

[uscpsycho]

My recovered TiVo is behaving oddly. Normally pressing the Live TV button switches between tuners. And pressing most buttons gives a "ping" sound.

Well, pressing the Live TV button brings up the program guide instead of switching between tuners. And on some channels when I bring up the program guid and move around, I get ping sounds with every keypress, but on other channels pressing buttons on the remote makes no sound at all.

These oddities seem to come and go when I reboot the TiVo. Sometimes everything works as it should and sometimes I have these weird operational quirks.

Anyone ever experienced this or heard of it?

[btwyx]

Well, pressing the Live TV button brings up the program guide instead of switching between tuners. That's the reboot detect feature, the behaviour will revert to swapping tuners once you've visited DirecTV central. (Ie press the DirecTV button.)

[tivoROCKSme]

I have a couple of quick questions. Will the HR10-250 support and recognize the new 500GB IDE hard drives that are now available? Can I put in two of them and have one terrabyte of storage in my HDTIVO using the methods posted here?
Second, will the hacked HR10-250 interface and play shows already recorded on my HDVR2?

[weaknees]

Yes, you can use two 500 GB drives to get one Terabyte of space in the HR10-250. We've been selling this configuration for five months now - and it's very stable.

[uscpsycho]

After many hours of effort, I finally have my TiVo hacked with Zipper and the enhancement script.

Now the TiVo system sounds (when you press buttons) are silent on HD channels and heard on SD channels. Is this normal?

I don't know if it was like this before I started messing with it. Before I just assumed everything worked normally. Now anomalies like this make me wonder if something is wrong.

[baritony]

That may be dependant on whether you have the Digital Dolby option activated within your "setup" menu.
I dont get the Tivo sounds from my HD viewing because of that and my Stereo reciever automatically switches its input source. Once Im out of the 5.1 DD signal, the Tivo sounds work.

Hope this helps

[Cheezmo]

It was like that before. When the channel has Dolby Digital sound (all HD and some premium) the Tivo doesn't do its sound effects.

[obi1]

Are you now running HDMI, and were running component?

Is your 250 audio settings on Dolby Digital or not?

Are you running thru your TV speakers or thru an outside amp and pre-amp(or both). I happen to run both as when watching news or 60 minutes, I find no need to dim the lights in the neighborhood by turning on anything besides the TV and its speakers.

By the way this all works extremely well, using only one MX 600 RF remote to control everything,, 4 Tivo's(2 hd and 2 sd), Mitz TV, Parasound C1 and Amp, D* receiver(r-20), DVD and antenna rotator. ALL other remotes are stored away.

In my case, if I am running thru HDMI and thru TV speakers and set to dolby digital, I will have Tivo beep on non dolby digital broadcast, but will have none on dolby digital broadcast,,,,as a matter of fact I get no audio at all on dolby digital broadcast.

If I set 250 at non dolby digital, I get audio ok for everything.

If I am running thru my Parasound, and thru HDMI and thru dolby digital, I get sound everywhere, but no Tivo beep.

If I am running thru component input and thru TV speakers, I get sound audio and beep always on tv speakers, whether 250 is at dolby digital or not.

If I run my Comcast DVR into component or HDMI, all is always well, TV speakers or Parasound speakers. Dolby Digital is the output. In fact I have the Comcast unit hooked up as HDMI and component at same time(cannot do this with 250). 250 disables component(and analog) if HDMI is used. Also disables analog video if component is used. Also no RF output which really is stupid and a pain(I like to distribute output thruout my home--I keep an rca sd and Sony t60 to be able to do this). Also while I am at it, why no RF remotes for Tivo's. This is really cheap.

I have reported this "bug" in the 250 to Mitz, Tivo, D*, various forums to no successful outcome.

My DVD player is fine thru Parasound or thru Mitz speakers whether dolby digital or not.

My D* newer standalone receiver for local channels in HD(5 lnb dish) is fine thru Parasound or thru Mitz.

I believe problem is inherant to my 250. I have a 2nd 250 running component, that I will switch to HDMI to see if problem still occurs. However, my 1st 250 that has the issue, was a replacement unit(the classic HDMI problem) and the original unit had the same condition. This is why I never even have tried to duplicate with this 2nd unit.



Hope this is all clear, but probably is not. Play around with different methods of operation and settings and see what you got. I doubt that you issue is related to your upgrade process.

[Arcady]

There are not any tivo sounds on any 5.1 audio programming, including most HD channels.

[btwyx]

Weaknees say its 103 hours http://www.weaknees.com/tivo/hr_10_103.php. They'll also do you a dual 500, and you get 130 hours with your 1TB of disk. http://www.weaknees.com/tivo/hr_10_130.phpThings move fast. I posted that in January, now they're offering a dual 750GB unit. http://www.weaknees.com/tivo/hr-10-200.php

200 hours of HD?!?!?

[slocko]

how does that work? will it be a leased unit?

Things move fast. I posted that in January, now they're offering a dual 750GB unit. http://www.weaknees.com/tivo/hr-10-200.php

200 hours of HD?!?!?

[weaknees]

You can decide whether it's leased or purchase. DirecTV will assume it's a lease by default. If you want it to be a purchase so that you own the unit outright, that's fine, you just need to make that specifically clear to them when you call them to activate it.

The downside of owning, for the curious, is that DirecTV won't do a free install under that circumstance.

[DaveC56]

I plan to upgrade my DirecTivo HR10-250 in two steps. I plan to use MFSTools to copy all my settings/recordings. I am initially upgrading from the factory installed WD 250GB drive to a Maxtor QuickView 400GB drive using the command below:

mfsbackup -Tao - /dev/hda | mfsrestore -s 350 -r 4 -xzpi - /dev/hdb

Then use tpip -s /dev/hdx

Later on can I add a second 300GB hard drive several weeks later using the command below?

mfsadd -r 4 -x /dev/hdX /dev/hdZ

Also, should I increase the swap size space to 350MB considering that I'll add a 300GB second hard drive for a total recording capacity of 700MB?

Is this possible? If not, do I need to perform the two drive upgrade at the same time?

Thanks,
Dave

[txn88@comcast.ne]

How about those of us on a Mac?

It runs native Linux.....

But will it screw up the sectors when we hook an Original drive to it?

Anyone have any suggestions, or help for hacking a networked Tivo drive for the 10-250 on a Mac?

:cool:

[dwynne]

If the LINUX boot CD will talk to your hardware and see your drive(s) then it should work fine.

I would test boot the CD without doing anything else and make sure all is well. If so, power off and disconnect completely your hard drive(s) then connect up the Tivo drive and your new drive(s) and to the upgrade. As with us windoze folks, if your drives are not connected then it can't boot the OS and nothing you do Tivo-wise will harm your OS.

If the boot CD will not work, then even a lonely mac head must know SOMEONE with a windoze PC that would help them do this :rolleyes:

Dennis

[slocko]

do these bootable cds have drivers to recognize usb hard drive enclosures?

[dwynne]

do these bootable cds have drivers to recognize usb hard drive enclosures?

I don't know, I have never booted them with an external drive connected. The only reason to use any other drive is for a backup. With the cost of 250gb drives being so cheap, I would just skip that step. Copy the OEM 250 to your new drive(s) and put the OEM drive on the shelf as a backup.

Dennis

[slocko]

i'm asking cause I only have laptops so the only way for me to bless a drive would be with an external hard drive enclosure.

[dwynne]

i'm asking cause I only have laptops so the only way for me to bless a drive would be with an external hard drive enclosure.

The CD is free to download, burn a copy and test it - I guess.

Surely you have an access to a PC - a friend, relative, etc? It does not take much of a PC and in fact make work a lot better on an older PC.

Dennis

[slocko]

not really :) i am in a big believer i optimizing space so i got rid of all my regular pcs about a year ago and just use laptops.

one of these days i'll test it out.

[coaster100]

probably a stupid question...but what would happen if i loaded 6.2 on my 10-250?

[FredericLS]

I have an HR10-250 with two 400GB Seagates. When I did IC last year, it was at 3.15E and I believe I got 250GB + 400GB. I now want to do an upgrade. I think I can copy (MFSTOOLS?) EVERYTHING to a new 750GB SEAGATE, even though it may take forever. I then want to add (BLESS?) a second 750GB Seagate. Following that I want to add (FORCE?) networking. Does anybody know of anything I have forgotton or some issue that I may encounter? Suggestions?

[DarthOverlord]

probably a stupid question...but what would happen if i loaded 6.2 on my 10-250?

You definitely would not have HDTV or HDMI capabilities. Probably have a non functioning Tivo box.

[AbMagFab]

Been tested for quite a while over on the other forum. It doesn't work.

[poopsie]

I have a quick question-I have a 200 Gig HD that I want to backup to. Then use the 250 that came with the HD tivo to apply hacks. Is it OK to just backup to another drive and use the original drive. If the original drive image craps out can I still recover the image from the 200 gig? Or can I even use a smaller drive to do this?

[azitnay]

Assuming you're not talking about backing up recordings, the backup image you create should be well under 1GB.

Drew

[tomthumb]

help! :-)
trying to add a larger drive to my hr10-250
pulled the drive and put it in my pc
original tivo drive as primary master
dvd drive as secondary master
new drive secondary slave
(everything showed up fine in the bios read)
i've got the most recent mfs tools with large disk support
load up mfs tools via cd
i'm used to the drives showing up as "hda, hdb, hdc, etc", this time they were
hde, hdf, hdg
drive size was read correctly (250gb and 320gb)
got towards the end of the linux boot up and here's the lines that stuck out...
ds:no socket drivers loaded!
RAMDISK: compressed image at block0
EXT2-fx warning: checktime reaches, running e2fsck is recommended
VFS:mounted root (Ext2 filesystem)
Welcome to rescue disc
Trying to mount CDRom, try 1
Trying to mount CDRom, try 2
Trying to mount CDRom, try 3
Trying to mount CDRom, try 4
Trying to mount CDRom, try 5
No CDRom found
sh-2.05b#


xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
what's happenning here?
I've added drives to tivo before using the same pc, no problems in the past
I tried moving the drives around (slave/master/primary/secondary) with no change
Any thoughts?
Thanks in advance

[tomthumb]

i'm good. figured it out...
i had a pci card to add hard drives. taking that off the motherboard got things sorted out.
guess even without drives attached to it - during the linux boot it was allocating drive slots to it and got things out of whack.
yay!

[mboland]

OTA recording work after cancelling D*?

I own my HR10-250 and was wondering if it will be a dead box if I leave D*. Can I still use the OTA tuning/DVR features if I have D* cancel my subscription or will that completely disable all features of the receiver? I’m willing to do mods or anything to keep the OTA HD DVR functions of this box if I leave D*.

[dr_mal]

OTA recording work after cancelling D*?

I own my HR10-250 and was wondering if it will be a dead box if I leave D*. Can I still use the OTA tuning/DVR features if I have D* cancel my subscription or will that completely disable all features of the receiver? I’m willing to do mods or anything to keep the OTA HD DVR functions of this box if I leave D*.
Without a subscription to the DVR service through D*, it's a playback-only device.

AFAIK, D* still requires Total Choice before they'll sell you the DVR service.

[BOBCAT]

Hi,
Some time ago I upgraded my HR10-250 from the 250GB to a 320 GB. Is there any way that I can upgrade from the 320GB drive to a 400GB drive so I can save my recordings? or do I have to use my original drive and loose them.
Thanks for the help.
Al

[dwynne]

You can re-upgrade your single 320gb to something larger - no need to put the OEM drive back in. Copying with records takes a long time, just be sure the PC you use is supported with DMA in the LINUX boot CD or it will take a LONG time to copy (days).

I think I would not bother to go from a 320gb to a 400gb, I would get a 500gb or larger - or go to a pair of drives using one of the twin drive brackets on the market.

Dennis

[BOBCAT]

Hi Dennis,
In the past I was told that after doing an upgrade from an original drive to a larger one and running the expand program so TiVo sees the larger drive, you can't upgrade from that drive to a larger drive as you can't expand the drive again. That is why I asked if anyone knows if there is a way around this problem.
I wanted to make this clear as your post doesn't mention this.
Al

[BOBCAT]

Can Anyone answer my last post?

[BOBCAT]

bump

[BOBCAT]

bump

[weaknees]

Just make a backup. That will reduce the image back to one set of storage partitions. Then you can restore from backup to whatever you've got. You just can't keep your recordings, but your settings will be copied over.

[RightHere]

You can re-upgrade your single 320gb to something larger - no need to put the OEM drive back in. Copying with records takes a long time, just be sure the PC you use is supported with DMA in the LINUX boot CD or it will take a LONG time to copy (days).I read a lot of posts before attempting the upgrade myself, but somehow I missed this one :( . I'm upgrading from a 250gb drive to a 500gb. After about 17 hours, it's only 50% complete :( :mad: :( .

Weaknees - Please consider adding this critical info to your instructions. It would also be helpful if somone could list all of the chipsets that support DMA w/ this cd. I have an intel chipset in a dell 400sc that obviously isn't supported. Thanks!

[RightHere]

Grrrr...my computer just ate the reply. :mad:

Shorter version:
After 36+ hours on the upgrade, I put the new drive in the Tivo and it hung on the "almost there, just a few more seconds" screen.

Reading this thread (http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=292161&highlight=a+few+more+seconds), I saw that I apparently have to change to a larger swap file during the upgrade process, then run some other tool after it's done to fully prepare the drive for the tivo. Is this an absolute requirement, or does it seem more likely that my original drive just had too many issues and won't be able to do a successful copy?

As for my HD speed issues, I'm seeing something that's slightly different from the online instructions from Weaknees. I see some PCI_IDE lines that clearly state that my 2 HD's and one DVD drive all support DMA. But when looking at the hda/hdb/hdc lines that are in the online docs, neither HD reports that it supports DMA, but the DVD drive does (says UDMA(33)). All of these drives are running off the same controller, so I see now that this version of Linux DOES have support for that chipset. But I don't understand why the device running on the secondary channel (DVD) has UDMA support while the 2 devices running on the primary channel (both HD's) do not.

Any suggestions? I've tried the PTV free CD as well as the Weaknees CD and they both show the same output for the HD. So I assume they both use the same IDE drivers.

[RightHere]

After more reading, I saw some info about an "hdparm" command that could turn DMA access on. I booted off a PTV CD and confirmed that it was NOT enabled for my HD's. It didn't matter if I used the primary channel or the secondary channel.

So now I'm trying to run the mfsbackup/restore commands from within the PTV CD. It's been sitting at "Scanning source drive. Please wait a moment." plus a flashing cursor for more than an hour. I saw conflicting info in various threads here. Some said it should return something in about an hour. Others said it takes 8+ hours.

I'm hoping this time it works correctly. If you think I'm screwing something up, please chime in now :)

[vertigo235]

I don't need anything faster than ATA100 do I?

Looking at this drive http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822148139

[slydog75]

I don't need anything faster than ATA100 do I?

Looking at this drive http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822148139

That one would work fine, but you're only gaining 70gb over the stock drive, which is only like another 8 or 9 hours. If you're going through the trouble I'd recommend going with at least 400 gigs.

Edit: Unless of course you're adding a second drive.. in which case ignore this post. :rolleyes:

[vertigo235]

That one would work fine, but you're only gaining 70gb over the stock drive, which is only like another 8 or 9 hours. If you're going through the trouble I'd recommend going with at least 400 gigs.

Edit: Unless of course you're adding a second drive.. in which case ignore this post. :rolleyes:

Yes I would be adding a second drive ;)

This isn't my first upgrade, I just wanted ot make sure that the HD content doesn't require more speed. I didn't want to just assume it didn't even though I'm 99% sure that any ATA drive would work.

[vertigo235]

Also I don't see the point in 400GB when they seem to be 2x as much as a 320GB drive.

[slydog75]

Also I don't see the point in 400GB when they seem to be 2x as much as a 320GB drive.

As a second drive, yes, 400GB doesn't make sense when you can get 320 for less than half.

[vertigo235]

OK So I added my 320gb drive with just using mfsadd, now I'm feeling like I should re-do everything and increase swap size before I start filling up tivo with the new season. So where can I get a CD with mfstools and tpid allready compiled?

[vertigo235]

Can i just run tpid from TiVo via telnet once the drives are installed back?

[exsurferx]

Hi all... I have been reading through this thread for hours and I just do not feel comfortable that my particular question is 100% answered... please forgive me if I missed some things.

Here I go (and thanks to all in advance!):

I have a HR10-250, just a year old, with the 250GB "A" drive and a 160GB "B" drive. I have in my possession a new 750GB Seagate drive just waiting to enter the TiVo. I would like to do the following:

From Hinsdale How To...

From: Any Dual Drive TiVo
To: New A or New B Drive (replacing only one or the other)

(Slow option – preserves setup, season passes, etc. and recordings)

Issue this command:

dd if=/dev/hdb of=/dev/hdc bs=1024k

Then (assuming the copy worked)...

Issue the following command to expand/marry the existing A drive and the new upgrade B:

mfsadd –x /dev/hda /dev/hdc

In the collective experience here, will this work? Will I see the entire 750GB capacit or will I have to issue some sort of expand command(s)? Should I use MFS Tools 2.0 for this?

1TB... here I come... I hope...

Thanks!

[jkast]

EXSURFERX:

I replaced the 250 gb A drive with a 750gb new A drive while keeping a 500gb B drive last weekend. Close to what you plan. It worked and I kept all my recordings.

You should change the mfsadd command to:

mfsadd -r 4 -x /dev/hda /dev/hdc

The "-r 4" parameters on mfsadd increase the blocksize and make your tivo slightly faster while decreasing the RAM needed to run but consuming a little more disk space.... A good tradeoff with large disks.


You can see what I did in the following thread, 4th post.

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=311662

[exsurferx]

Thanks Jim... I am going to get started this evening.

My 160GB drive which might be half full with data will copy to my 750GB. Have any idea how long I will have to wait for the data transfer to complete?

Thanks again! :up: :up: :up:

[jkast]

Exsurferx,

Took about 2 hours for mine, but I think it varies greatly depending on the PC you have it in. Good luck, let us all know how it comes out...

[exsurferx]

WOO HOO!!!

That was easy!

The hardest part was the waiting while not hearing much drive activity at all and wondering if anything was really happening. Just over 2 hours to copy. TiVo fired right up and has been running great so far. Whew...

Thanks again Jim. I did use the "-r 4" parameter.

Now I can record as much HD football as I want (130 Hours)!!! :cool:

Time to sleep!

[Bratman]

I know this is a hopeless plea..

But does anyone have a base backup I can use to repair a HR10-250.

I have a new hard-drive, but mfsbackup just stalls and eventually the drive goes off-line..

Msg me off-line thanks..

Shane.

[willbhome]

Try this thread:
http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=62430

[HDVRFAN]

I've upgraded, rebuilt, replaced hardrives on my Sony T-60 before so I'm not a total newbie to this but this my first try with my HD box. Ok to get to the questions.

From reading these posts I think I realize why I am getting the GSOD after adding a 300GB second drive to my HR10-250. The Hinsdale upgrade giude didn't mention the need to use the "-r 4" switch when running the mfsadd command. At least hopefully this is my problem. My question is if I re-run the mfsadd command with the "-r 4" parameter should that fix it or do I need to restore the backuped base image to the original drive and start all over again? Also when you are just adding a large second drive do you need to worry about changing the swap size?

Thanks for your help

[HDVRFAN]

I tried running the mfsadd again with the new "-r 4" switch and it didn't fix the problem. I then did a restore to a blank 300gb drive and Tivo booted up fine. Tried restore to original drive which restored fine but got a message expanding the swap failed. Tried the mfsadd again with original 250 gb drive (A) and 300 gb (B) using all the command switches advised. The results said that I had increased my hours the appropiate amount but when when I put everything back in the tivo and booted up the system info screen still only shows the 30hours HD 300hours SD?!?

I've been at this for several days and I'm close to giving up. Not to mention that the weakness bracket I bough includes this fan that makes the tivo hum and vibrate at a level that I don't think I can live with. A single 500gb drive upgrade is probably a smarter choice. The double drive setup has not gone as smoothly as advertised. Anyone...anyone...Buhler? :confused:

Why is the mfsadd not working?

[dwynne]

I am confused as to what you did. I have used the twin breeze brackets w/o a problem in a couple of HD Tivos as well.

What I did in both cases:

1) Pulled the OEM drive
2) Set my PC up with the OEM drive and a pair of new drives (2x250gb in one case and 2x400 in the other)
3) I followed the how-to instructions on going from a single new drive to dual drives in one step
4) I went and watched TV while the copy did its thing
5) I put the new drives in the HD Tivo and it booted up and worked
6) I stored the OEM drive away in case I need it for something down the road.

The how-to can be found many places on the web and in this thread. I usually use the ones here . (http://tivo.upgrade-instructions.com/index.php)

Going through the selections for an HDTivo replacing one drive with two new ones and saving all the settings and recordings the command line is:

mfsbackup -Tao - /dev/hdX | mfsrestore -s 127 -r 4 -xzpi - /dev/hdZ /dev/hdZZ

You have to look in the instructions to figure out which drive is which depending on how you connect them - but hdX is the OEM drive and hdZ is the master new drive and hdZZ is the slave new drive.

Dennis

[HDVRFAN]

Thanks for the response Dennis.

I didn't even care about the recordings so I did the basic image only backup. That worked fine.

I just wanted to add a 300gb B drive ran the mfsadd command it seemed to work fine but upon boot-up got GSOD reboot loop.

Then I read the threads and realized Hinsdale instructions which I used left out the -r 4 swith which is needed for larger drives. Put the drives back into the PC tried to re-run the mfsadd with -r 4, got a succesful message upgrade time.

Put drives back into tivo. GSOD!!!

I read somewhere GSOD could be bad drive or power supply wanted to eliminate that possibilitly. Took 300gb orginally planned as B drive and ran restore of image onto it as a solo A drive. Tivo booted fine.

Decided to do a restore of image onto original 250 gb A drive and then try the mfsadd with 300gb B drive. All messages succesful. Put drives back into Tivo everything booted fine. Went to system info screen only reporting 30 hrs HD 300 SD?!? Gave up for the night at 1:00 am.

Just decided today to go to a larger (750 gb) single drive since restore is the only thing that seems to work reliably. Two drives is too much hassle. Also weakness bracket fan is too noisy and vibrating. I have to get rid of it. Not to mention the pins in the power splitter in the weakness kit are loose and easily push out when inserting tivo factory power clip.

FYI if anyone reads this thread today 9/22 CompUSA has a deal that expires today on the new Seagate 750gb drive. $329 plus tax (order online, for in store pick-up only) minus $50 rebate. My total after rebate will be about $300. Most other offers on the web are around $450.

Also if anyone wants a weakness backet kit with fan and accesories you can have mine for half of whatever they want for it. Send me a message and it yours.

[wmldwilly]

I feel like sharing my experience with this process also. I embarked upon the task of copying my existing HR10-250 drive to a new 500gb drive. Fry's had the Deskstar 500g / 7200 / 16mb buffer on serious sale (129.00 after rebates) so I dove in. I've been gearing up to do this for a few weeks now, reading up and searching, assembling how-tos and of course the 75939375 posts that give corrections to the howtos :-).

I have a post out there that details my first problem, but at the moment it seems to have gone away and the tivo is booting fine with my expanded capacity. Whew! Anyway, I did the following:


1) prepare bootable cd.
2) pull drive, add to pc in ide positions reccomened.
3) create small backup on fat32 disk
4) restore small backup to new 500g drive
5) forget to run/not know I needed to do the tpip thing (like 98% of upgraders it seems...)
6) put the drive back in the HR10-250 w/ jumpers back to master,
7) observe reboot loop.
8) put drive back in PC, leaving it set for master after removing fat32 disk used earlier
9) run tpip.

Here's where I'm totally crapped out:

I do:
#tpip -1 -s /dev/hda

and it replies:
#initializing swap partition (version 0) @ <very long number>, Size = 127 MiB

Put it back in the tivo, still boot-loops.

I'm a little confused at why the -1 option still yields the (version 0) message. Looking closer at tpip's useage it mentions --mkswap and --swaptype={0,1}. Upon trying:

#tpip --mkswap --swaptype=1 /dev/hda

I get:
the same message as before, but with (Version 1) in there.

Put it back in the tivo, and still boot-looping.

I have basic linux experience (did a LOT of installing/tinkering with LinuxPPC on G3s way back when...) but admit I was a bit stumped at how to get a thorough look at what partitions were actually on the device, and what they were used for. I say that because it sort of acted like there wasn't any swap partition at all. The basic 'mfsinfo' command turned up a few partitions, none of which clearly detailed which was which. At least I didn't see a partition that was around the 127mb size that it seems the mfsrestore should be creating....or NOT creating, as many long convoluted threads talk about. :P

Since there's LOTS of talk for years now about how mfstools 2.0 is brain damaged with respect to swap partitions, I did my best with tpip with my limited knowledge (read: just enough to be dangerous) but never got an actual "restored from small backup with no expansion and no shows" image that did anything other than boot-loop. I began wondering if the dd copy route was the right way to go but decided against it because of the numerous reccomendations to stick to mfstools and expand the swap partition.

Finally, I blew all that off and decided to proceed to the full copy/expansion from the old 250g drive to the new 500g drive. I was doing it under the impression that I would end up in the same place - an error free restore with a wonked swap partition that would boot-loop the tivo. The command I issued (from the apparently outdated hindsale guide)was:

# mfsbackup -Tao - dev/hdc | mfsrestore -r 4 -s 250 -xzpi - /dev/hda

...and off it went. Whirring away copying/restoring for about 6 hours (we had quite a few HD shows and an HD movie or two stored on the drive).

When it was all over (the next morning) I was again following up on various "what's wrong with the swap partition" threads and noticed a bit of talk about how "-r 4" should actually be "-r4" and I figured I was hosed again. There it was right there in the command line from last nite - I had used -r <space> 4. At this point I am still mystified about the swap partition thing, but decided to try it in the tivo anyway. I fully expected it to boot-loop or do some other nasty unpleasant thing, but LO AND BEHOLD...it booted, aquired info from the sat, and came to life. Shows intact, new recording capacity listed, and seemingly back to normal. For what it's worth, the hindsale guide of course doesn't mention the -r switch at all, and the Weaknees "interactive" guide spells it out with the space, or "-r 4".

So here I am - a new fat HD tivo drive, and I'm moving on to the zipper. :)

I do have a comment or two though:

I have searched my ever lovin' arse off on this issue. One thing I notice is that there seems to be a consensus that the Hindsale guide is out of date, MFStools 2.0 is slightly broken, tpip for some reason has multiple commands that may or may not do the same thing but do or don't work for various people (i.e. -s versus -mkswap, and using a dash versus using a double dash...). This info isn't very new - this has all been going on for years if I'm to judge by the age of the posts and threads my search after search after search turns up, some going back to 2002. Is there SOMEWHERE, a new improved updated for 2006 guide, along with new improved bug-fixed versions of mfsrestore and tpip and all that? It seems like the apparently uuber frustrating to some basic questions like "I did what the guide said but it didn't work..." would be really well served by being pointed to a thoroughly modern upgrade-and-expand-your-drive guide. Just a thought. If there is one, please point ME at it because I never found one in a search and I've read hundreds of posts on these issues.

On to the zipper!

WM

[wmldwilly]

Following up on my own post...and asking a question:

I've successfully zippered the drive I talked about above. I have 63 HD hours or 470 SD hours now, and all my shows survived, I can telnet in, I get lots of new stuff in the system information screen, and it all seems to be working fine. However, I'm getting nervous about the swap partition thing. As detailed in my other posts I had the same roadbumps many before me have had with the whole larger swap space/use tpip thing, but I have to say that on my final attempt I did nothing more than follow the "copy and expand" instructions in the Hindsale guide (with the addition of the -r 4 switch), and it did exactly that - it copied the drive, expanded the partitions so I have the full new recording capacity of the 500gb drive, and it boots and plays shows and is generally happy. Note *I did nothing special with tpip or any other tool* after the process.

So...this leaves me asking: What if I dont' have a swap partition at all??? May I please have a quick specific instruction from someone to check to see if I do? Running "bootpage -p /dev/hda" on the tivo yields: "root=/dev/hda4 dsscon=true console=2,115200 upgradesoftware=false.

Seems all fine, but it doesn't tell me about partitions. Would someone please take pity on my brain cramp and hit me with what command to run and what to look for to verify I have a real, actual swap partition?

Thank you in advance,

WM

[slocko]

soon you will find that 63 hours of HD is not enough :)

I thought I was set at 80 hours of HD and yet it's still not enough!!!!!

[Freightdog]

wmldwilly, my understanding is:

-r4 is for a large cluster size, needed on larger drives.
Since you had a space between the r and the 4, you would not have the proper cluster size. Could cause a problem later?

-s250 won't properly prepare the swap partition. Anything larger than -s127 will require the tpip thing.

One thing I know from reading the threads is that the swap is needed for tivo to repair any file system issues it encounters. Some folks say 127 is plenty, other say larger.

I'm not up on linux (old VMS guy), so can't help on other commands yet.

[wmldwilly]

wmldwilly, my understanding is:

-r4 is for a large cluster size, needed on larger drives.
Since you had a space between the r and the 4, you would not have the proper cluster size. Could cause a problem later?

-s250 won't properly prepare the swap partition. Anything larger than -s127 will require the tpip thing.

One thing I know from reading the threads is that the swap is needed for tivo to repair any file system issues it encounters. Some folks say 127 is plenty, other say larger.

I'm not up on linux (old VMS guy), so can't help on other commands yet.

Thanks for the info. Unfortunately this leaves me wondering if my drive has a) the wrong cluster size, and b) a swap partition of unknown size with unknown useability.

May I please appeal to the gods of tivo-ana around here for a suggestion or two?

#1) I'm fairly convinced there's a swap partition there that's not properly formatted, even though tpip sure didn't cure the problem on the first "small install" test that hindsale sends you thru. Should I pull the drive and do this all over again?

#2) Aside from the cluster size which I'd imagine can only be fixed when the drive is formatted/prepped for use in the early part of the process, is there any way to verify or fix the partition thing while the drive is IN the tivo from the bash command line?

All suggestions are much appreciated.

WM

[wmldwilly]

Going through the selections for an HDTivo replacing one drive with two new ones and saving all the settings and recordings the command line is:

mfsbackup -Tao - /dev/hdX | mfsrestore -s 127 -r 4 -xzpi - /dev/hdZ /dev/hdZZ



Aha! there it is again - "-r <space> 4" and not "-r4" The confusion over this is adding to my nervousness that I've got a working tivo drive that's a ticking time bomb waiting to fail because of a) too small a cluster size and b) a swap partition that's a friggin' mystery after the vagueries of tpip.

Grrrr.

[wmldwilly]

Okay, cat /var/log/kernel | grep swap gives me:

Oct 7 03:53:51 (none) kernel: Starting kswapd
Oct 7 03:53:51 (none) kernel: Activating swap partitions
Oct 7 03:53:51 (none) kernel: Unable to find swap-space signature
Oct 7 03:53:51 (none) kernel: swapon: /dev/hda8: Invalid argument

So, I have a swap problem. Any suggestions that can be done from the command line, or do I have to pull the drive again and try tpip?

The big question about trying tpip is that the drive is already in service after zippering and is working well. But if it ever needs to recover...i'm hozed.

Help! :eek:

[wmldwilly]

I feel like I'm talking to myself. Well, I kinda am, aren't I? :)

I searched. Oh did I search. What I found was instructions to try this simple bit of commands:

mkswap /dev/hda8
swapon -a

And WooT!!!! Now in the kernel boot log I get:

Jan 2 00:00:16 (none) kernel: Activating swap partitions
Jan 2 00:00:16 (none) kernel: Adding Swap: 255992k swap-space (priority -1)

Whew! Somebody who knows more than most of us would please comment, I'd feel better and resist the urge to go to Fry's and buy *another* 500gb drive and do this all over again (except for the cluster size problem).

Also, tell me what this means: In my tribulations of bouncing the stock drive with the shows to the new drive, I came up against the MFS-tools 2.0 bugs with respect to swap partitions. Lots of the documentation says that if you try for a swap space larger than 127 you'll get nothing. In true "open source style" nobody really elaborates on what "nothing" means (open source rule #1: if you don't already know, I can't explain it to you...) - No hda8 at all? an hda8 of the size you requested but with no format? It seems to me that you get a swap partition of the size you requested, but no format so it can't be brought up as swap at boot. Otherwise I wouldn't have been able to simply give it a the right header for swap (mkswap) at the command line while the tivo was already running.

I'm continuing to talk to myself to enlighten others who might feel as lost as I did, but took little comfort in the wide array of partial explanations out there - most of them dated almost 2 years ago.

</rant>

wm

two side notes:

1) I only see "Starting kswapd" after a full power cycle. does it stay running across soft reboots?

2) the kernel log entries are dated "Jan 2 00:00:xx" for the first bit of booting. Then suddenly it knows what time it is again. :)

[ethan]

i'm planning on upgrading my HR10-250 this weekend with a single, larger A drive. it's been 4 or 5 years since my last TiVo upgrade, so i thought i'd take the "easy" route and use the weaKnees instructions.

i had planned to use the following command, as directed by the guide:
mfsbackup -Tao - /dev/hdX | mfsrestore -s 127 -r 4 -xzpi - /dev/hdZ
however, previous posts here have mentioned there should be no space between the "-r" and the "4". should i use the following instead?
mfsbackup -Tao - /dev/hdX | mfsrestore -s 127 -r4 -xzpi - /dev/hdZ

[smu1997]

I tried using the download Boot CD image of MFSTool 2.0 here with WeaKnees Large Kernel Support:. I was unable to boot the CD and kept getting an "Trying to mount the CD-ROM, try 1". I read that this has to do with some kind of IDE controller setting my drives to /dev/hde & /dev/hdf instead of /dev/hda & /dev/hdb.
So I attempted to use the "LBA48 Boot CD iso from PTVupgrade" to booted my PC from the CD. I issued the command mfsadd -r 4 -x /dev/hde /dev/hdf. It did something for a couple of minutes and then a moment later it showed an approximation of the amount of recording hours resulting from the upgrade.
I inserted the drives back into my Tivo but my hours have not changed. What am I doing wrong?

Thanks

[dennya]

Okay, I have a Weaknees bracket and a 400GB drive to add as a second drive. I was all set to do this, but now the discussions here have me worried. Lots of folks with problems, and they're unanswered.

So the quick question is:
Do the current Weaknees instructions for adding a second drive to the HR10-250 work properly? No changes needed to the command lines, etc? Would love to hear from someone who did this successfully.

And is it -r 4 or -r4 on mfstools? I'm seeing both here.

[boiler_man]

So the quick question is:
Do the current Weaknees instructions for adding a second drive to the HR10-250 work properly? No changes needed to the command lines, etc? Would love to hear from someone who did this successfully.

I just upgraded mine yesterday and used the interactive gude exactly as it is written and it worked without a problem. I wanted to keep my recordings and it took 7 hrs to copy. I went fromt the oringinal 250 gb to a 320gb and a 120 gb. Everything seems fine and all my recordings are there. It did seem like it took a little longer to boot up than it has before.

Good Luck

[dwynne]

I used the interactive instructions when I did my two upgrades and both are working fine.

I would STRONGLY recommend purchasing a 2nd drive of some size and replacing the OEM 250gb with a pair of drives. If something goes wrong, being able to fix it by re-installing the OEM drive is worth it. And you can use it to re-do the upgrade if you need to. A 250gb drive is cheap these days, or get a 2nd 400gb drive for a lot of space.

Dennis

[btwyx]

I would STRONGLY recommend purchasing a 2nd drive of some size and replacing the OEM 250gb with a pair of drives. If something goes wrong, being able to fix it by re-installing the OEM drive is worth it. I totally agree. You can put the drive back and see if any problems go away, then you know your upgrade has a problem (or not). Also when one of my drives gave up earlier this year, I could swap in the old drive and be up and running again inside of a day. Getting the drives fixed took a few days, and I could be watching some really important stuff in the meantime. (Like several games in the World Cup.)

[Lord Vader]

Well, I finally was able to stop my old man's and upgrade his HR10-250. I still have telnet access, so it looks like his connection is OK (he's using an FA120). However, the 30-second skip no longer works by default. I entered in the command to enable it, but I KNOW that when the unit reboots every Sunday and Wednesday night, he'll be calling me the next day screaming about the 30-second skip not working. So, to avoid his blaming ME for his troubles, I tried to look for a way to enable it permanently so that when the unit reboots, it'll always be activate.

I couldn't find the answer to this. Can someone point me in the right direction?

Edited to add: Thanks to you-know-who. All's well that ends well.

[dennya]

I just upgraded mine yesterday and used the interactive gude exactly as it is written and it worked without a problem. I wanted to keep my recordings and it took 7 hrs to copy. I went fromt the oringinal 250 gb to a 320gb and a 120 gb. Everything seems fine and all my recordings are there. It did seem like it took a little longer to boot up than it has before.
Thanks, Boiler_man. That makes me feel more confident.

I realized I have a 300GB drive I pulled from my main system when I upgraded (had to swap to a SATA drive), so I'll copy the 250 to that and keep the original as a backup. Much safer.

Now I just have to figure out how to manage the instructions when my PC has only one IDE connector, which means I can't connect both drives and the CD-ROM simultaneously. Wonder if the boot disc will work with my old Maxtor IDE card.

[kimbray]

All, Here is my situation. I have a 10-250 that has a 300GB second drive. This drive has CRASHED and is making a lot of noise. I removed power from it and now I want to be able to test if it boots up correctly with just the original drive in the unit. Will I be able to power up the unit and get it going just by removing power to the second hard drive? Second question, I had the connection on the unit connected to my TV HDMI but my test TV to see if the 10-250 works after making changes is a composite connection. I cannot get video to show on the screen.. Suggestions? THANKS!

[dwynne]

You took the original drive and "married" it to the 300gb drive and now the add in drive has crashed? AFAIK it will no longer work on the original drive alone once you have added a 2nd drive. You will need to obtain an image of a blank drive (if you did not make one when adding the 2nd drive) and restore it to the original drive in order to get your HDTivo working again.

I always tell folks to replace the OEM drive and set it on a shelf for times like these.

Dennis

[TonyM]

You took the original drive and "married" it to the 300gb drive and now the add in drive has crashed? AFAIK it will no longer work on the original drive alone once you have added a 2nd drive. You will need to obtain an image of a blank drive (if you did not make one when adding the 2nd drive) and restore it to the original drive in order to get your HDTivo working again.

I always tell folks to replace the OEM drive and set it on a shelf for times like these.

Dennis

Unless things have changed, there should be a command to divorce the married drives.

About 2 years ago or so I had to do that with my old SA Sony Tivo. Went to sell it and wanted to keep the extra drive I had added. Searching here should provide the procedure.

[SlammanDan]

All, Here is my situation. I have a 10-250 that has a 300GB second drive. This drive has CRASHED and is making a lot of noise. I removed power from it and now I want to be able to test if it boots up correctly with just the original drive in the unit. Will I be able to power up the unit and get it going just by removing power to the second hard drive? Second question, I had the connection on the unit connected to my TV HDMI but my test TV to see if the 10-250 works after making changes is a composite connection. I cannot get video to show on the screen.. Suggestions? THANKS!


I also have a 10-250, had it for over 2 years and hard drive crashed. I have not modified it at all, and did not save software. Is there anywhere I could find the software necessary to install a new hard drive without having the original?

[jhays]

Try:

http://www.weaknees.com/hughes-hr10-250.php#replace

or:

http://www.ptvupgrade.com/db/upgrade

[azitnay]

Or if you only want the software image and don't want to pay a premium for an entire new hard drive with the software preinstalled:

http://www.ptvupgrade.com/products/instantcake/

Drew

[SlammanDan]

I purchased the ICAKE software and it worked GREAT!!!

Thanks Dan

[vdubuclet]

Background: trying to add 400 GB to HR10-250, using the original drive as primary A and expanding to 400GB. Tivo A set to HDC, 400 GB on HDD

Hinsdale guide which I have used many times says to use
mfsadd -x /dev/hdc /dev/hdb
I tried this and got stuck on the powering up screen.

I restored my image (which I verified does work) and then tried this command
Mfsadd –r 4 x /dev/hdc /dev/hdd

Still got stuck on the powering up screen. Jumper on Tivo A drive is set to master with slave (middle pins). Jumper on seagate 400GB is off (slave). Any suggestions?

[weaknees]

The second one is what you need with drives that size. And I assume there was a "-" before that "x" in there, otherwise you would have gotten an error.

So you tried the image alone, before expansion, and it booted? Are you sure the IDE cable is installed in the right direction - blue to the motherboard?

[vdubuclet]

The second one is what you need with drives that size. And I assume there was a "-" before that "x" in there, otherwise you would have gotten an error.

So you tried the image alone, before expansion, and it booted? Are you sure the IDE cable is installed in the right direction - blue to the motherboard?


There was a "-" before the "x" sorry for the typo. IDE cable may not be in the correct direction, I did not think it mattered. I will check at lunch time.

[weaknees]

In some cases, it does matter. In any event, it's an easy thing to check . . .

[vdubuclet]

Well I flipped the IDE cable and the Tivo booted. Tivo said I had a hardware error and needed to reboot. I ran guided setup again, Tivo is working but it says by capacity is 30HD/200SD.

Pulled the drive again and used the blesstivo command and this worked
83 HD 483 SD, just wonder why the mfsadd command did not work

[kkluba]

Can you guys check my plan here? I'm getting a larger drive for my HDTivo and want to make it go as smoothly as possible. I have version 6.3a and it works fine for me. This will be done in a PC with a CDRom and the original 250gb drive from the HR10-250 and the new drive (Seagate DB35 big drive). The new drive will never have been used in a Windows box or any for that matter. My goal is to copy over my existing drive and recordings and put the orginal 250gb drive on a shelf for safe keeping. I will have the new drive on the 2nd IDE channel and the original on the 1st. My drives will be as follows:

HDA-Orig.250
HDB-(none)
HDC-CDROM
HDD-New DB35

Here are the steps:

1. Boot from LBA48 CD.
2. Run hdparm -d1 /dev/hda and hdparm -d1 /dev/hdd (DMA enabled is faster, no?)
3. Run mfsbackup -Tao - /dev/hda | mfsrestore -s 360 -r 4 -xzpi - /dev/hdd
4. Run tpip -s /dev/hdd
5. Set jumpers and install new drive back in HR10.

Is that it? I know I need to check drive size first and make sure all is seen and unlock if necessary.

What about swap? Should I increase the swap?
I'm taking this up to 500gb and eventually adding a second drive and going to 1TB.

Anything I'm missing here?

thanks,

[spike2k5]

Can you guys check my plan here? I'm getting a larger drive for my HDTivo and want to make it go as smoothly as possible. I have version 6.3a and it works fine for me. This will be done in a PC with a CDRom and the original 250gb drive from the HR10-250 and the new drive (Seagate DB35 big drive). The new drive will never have been used in a Windows box or any for that matter. My goal is to copy over my existing drive and recordings and put the orginal 250gb drive on a shelf for safe keeping. I will have the new drive on the 2nd IDE channel and the original on the 1st. My drives will be as follows:

HDA-Orig.250
HDB-(none)
HDC-CDROM
HDD-New DB35

Here are the steps:

1. Boot from LBA48 CD.
2. Run hdparm -d1 /dev/hda and hdparm -d1 /dev/hdd (DMA enabled is faster, no?)
3. Run mfsbackup -Tao - /dev/hda | mfsrestore -s 360 -r 4 -xzpi - /dev/hdd
4. Run tpip -s /dev/hdd
5. Set jumpers and install new drive back in HR10.

Is that it? I know I need to check drive size first and make sure all is seen and unlock if necessary.

What about swap? Should I increase the swap?
I'm taking this up to 750gb and eventually adding a second drive and going to 1.5TB.

Anything I'm missing here?

thanks,

Your plan looks good.
Make sure you grab the latest bootcd from either Weakness.com or mine (mfslive.org).

Mine has the LBA48 support, alternate root/boot partition size fix and linux swap signature fix greater than 127MB and add -q so do backup -qTao ....
So your display will look good.

I heard latest Weakness.com cd has those fixes too.

Also, if you use those two cds, you don't have to run tpip (swap v1 signature fix)

[kkluba]

Spike,

Thanks for the help. Just so I'm clear with your bootcd or the latest from Weaknees (which I have) I would run this command:

Run mfsbackup -q -Tao - /dev/hda | mfsrestore -s 360 -r 4 -xzpi - /dev/hdd

Would I not need to do the tpip -s /dev/hdd command then?

[spike2k5]

Spike,

Thanks for the help. Just so I'm clear with your bootcd or the latest from Weaknees (which I have) I would run this command:

Run mfsbackup -q -Tao - /dev/hda | mfsrestore -s 360 -r 4 -xzpi - /dev/hdd

Would I not need to do the tpip -s /dev/hdd command then?

With mine you do

backup -qTao - /dev/hda | restore -s 360 -r 4 -xzpi - /dev/hdd

no need to run tpip (test many times and it gets activated)

with latest weakness's cd w/ SATA support do

mfsbackup -qTao - /dev/hda | mfsrestore -s 360 -r 4 -xzpi - /dev/hdd

(have not tested if swap gets activated so will let you know after I test it)

To test if dma in on you can do

hdparm -d /dev/hda
hdparm -d /dev/hdd

W/ dma on and hard drives on different ide channels (which you have done)
it should take around 2hrs to do full copy from 250GB. Mine took 1hr 40 min w/ half full last time w/ celeron 2.9GHZ processor w/ 1GB of ram.
My cd shows ETA status but I don't think Weakness's does.

[dwynne]

The "live" free boot CD will do the job just fine. It will also keep your backup (not active) kernel and root partitions the proper size. There is a bug in most/all the other versions of mfstools that on restore it shrinks the non-active kernel and root partitions to 1/2 the normal size. Not a big deal, until D* sends out a new software load. Then IN SOME CASES the upgrade can fail leaving you with a non-workings Tivo. In some cases you could pull the drive and fix this, but in my case I could not so I had to images my OEM drive to a new drive and lose my recordings.

Compare the hdx3, hdx4, hdx6, and hdx7 partition sizes on the source and target drives after you are done to be sure they are the same sizes on both. The versions of other free boot CDs I had shrunk the non-active partitions - so I used the "live" CD this last time - just in case.

Dennis

[kkluba]

Spike and Dennis - many thanks!

Now I'm ready.

[kkluba]

One other question I thought of.. Do the Seagate DB35 drives require any special setup for acoustic management or other features? Or is it all automatic?

thanks again,

[spike2k5]

One other question I thought of.. Do the Seagate DB35 drives require any special setup for acoustic management or other features? Or is it all automatic?

thanks again,

According to Seagate DB35 site, it's setup as quiet mode at the factory.
Seagate turned off AAM support from their firmware while back due to Patent issues I read somewhere.

[kkluba]

Thanks again..

[kkluba]

The upgrade is going as planned (10% done). One question - there were a whole bunch of these:

hdc: dma_intr: error=0x84 { DriveStatusError BadCRC } and
hdc: dma_intr: error=0x51 { DriveReady SeekComplete }.

hdc=new target drive

Are these normal? They preceeded the big restore process that is going on right now and appears to be going fine.

[kkluba]

Nevermind the above. The 250 copied to the 750 in 3 hours flat. It's up and running without issue.

I plan to add another 750 after I see the new one run for a few days ok. Is all I have to do is run this command?

mfsadd -x -r 4 /dev/hda /dev/hdd

hda is my existing 750 and hdd is the one to be added.

I'll wait a month or two to see if 6.3b comes out before I add networking and all the goodies.

BTW - Spike - Your MFSTools build worked like a charm. I made the swap 340mb, hope that's enough.

[videoi]

Gang -

My HR10-250 starting having problems (coincidentally, around the time of the 6.3 software - but it appears to be drive-related). I had a bunch of recordings on there that I hadn't watched yet (last season of Deadwood!), so I'm trying to save the recordings.

I tried dd_rescue - it appeared to hang.

I tried Spinrite - (level 4) - seemed to be going ok for 37 hours, then has just been sitting at 82% complete for the last 12 hours (saying 6 hrs remaining) - so that appears to be hung.

I did successfully run DD from the old disk to the new disk - but I'm guessing if there are bad areas on the old disk, that's not going to do me much good.

Any other suggestions that I can try in order to salvage the recordings?

Note: The disk in question is a Seagate 300GB [st3300831a] drive. I have a 2nd drive in the Tivo, a Seagate 400GB, which appears to be fine. I was going to move to a Samsung 400GB drive (I've had good luck with the samsung's in the past).

Thanks in advance

Ira

[videoi]

Anyone? Any suggestions?

[Lord Vader]

Anyone? Bueler? Anyone?

[chazzz]

Hi folks,
I too just started having issues with my H10-250. It's freezing up on a daily basis and I have to reboot. My box is still under warranty but I'm sure I'll be replaced with an H20 and I don't want one.

I want to follow the instructions to try and copy over to a new drive. How big is the risk of my warranty being void? If it doesn't work I would just put the old drive back in...but will they be able to tell?

[dwynne]

The warranty is only a year, is your box/drive failing so soon? Unlike the old standalone Tivos with the "special foil" seal to indicate tampering no HR10-250 I have seen has anything to detect you have opened the case.

So I would replace the single 250gb drive with a single 400gb or 500gb drive - whatever you can find the best deal on. If you are lucky the drive is in good enough shape you can copy it all over shows, passes, etc. Put your OEM drive on the shelf and if you have any issues with the box other than the drive, but the OEM drive back in THEN send it off for repair.

Dennis

[chazzz]

The warranty is only a year, is your box/drive failing so soon? Unlike the old standalone Tivos with the "special foil" seal to indicate tampering no HR10-250 I have seen has anything to detect you have opened the case.

So I would replace the single 250gb drive with a single 400gb or 500gb drive - whatever you can find the best deal on. If you are lucky the drive is in good enough shape you can copy it all over shows, passes, etc. Put your OEM drive on the shelf and if you have any issues with the box other than the drive, but the OEM drive back in THEN send it off for repair.

Dennis

Thanks Dennis.

My box has been in use since March of this year, and I'm surprised it's failing too.

I did catch it in the act last night. I was copying stuff off to DVD, and on the recording I saw it reboot itself 3 times within 10 minutes for no apparent reason. The recording had stopped playing and it had gone back to live TV. It went from live TV to "Welcome, Powering Up" with no warning. First and second time it rebooted to live TV and picked back up. Third time it froze, and that is how I found it today. I guess it could be a couple of things, bad software or bad hardware. Hopefully it's the hardware and I can just get a new drive. If there's something wrong with the software then I guess I am going to have to have it restored for me. Does anyone have any experience with this kind of rebooting, if so what was the cause?

I have everything I need burned off to DVD so I'm not worried about reformatting. I think I am going to give that a shot and start clean. I will follow your advice and try with a new hard drive. Thanks again.

[flippper]

I've been having problems with my HR10-250, 15 months old (out of warranty) ever since the power started failing here in the Pacific Northwest due to the recent storms.

A system reset and delete everything didn't fix it initially, but it seems happy now for the past 12 hours. Previously, it would run for 1+ hour then freeze. Tech support says it may be a hard drive problem, so a little google searching and I ended up here.

But, tech support did say that software 6.3b is on the satellite feed, and with other reports of sudden problems since 6.3a was downloaded I suspect they shipped us a few bugs in that version that is causing the system to reboot or freeze.

[Klips]

My lockups started when I was upgraded to 6.3a.

I'm now on 6.3b and was hoping that it would stop.

Well it has not. It is still locking up.

So do I have a bad hard drive or just bad code????

[tchyde]

Attempted to Zipper the HR10-250 ... but at the tail end of the install the script says "WIRELESS currently not supported for the HR10-250" ?? ... WTF ?!?!

Anyone sucessfully do a Zipper install with "wireless" on the HR10-250?

I gave up and was able to InstantCake and expand a new 750 GB drive no problem.

If in fact the HR10-250 cannot support wireless (even with a wireless bridge) ... it's BS that none of the sites (DVRupgrade/Zipper) point this out.

[mvita]

The HR10-250 can support wireless, at least with a wireless bridge... I recently upgraded to 6.3b on my HR10-250 (hacked "by hand", not using the Zipper), and I've got wireless networking working well using a combination of a D-Link DWL-G820 802.11g wireless bridge and a Netgear FA120 USB Ethernet adapter. Prior to the 6.3b upgrade (i.e. 3.1.5f), I ran wireless on the same unit using the FA120 and a D-Link DWL-810 wireless bridge (a slower 802.11b unit). (For some bizarre reason I could never explain, I could never get the DWL-G820 working with the HR10-250 when it was running 3.1.5f).

FWIW, I'm getting pretty good transfer rates (upwards of 2MB/sec) with the FA120/DWL-G820 combo with 6.3b... and there's nothing really exotic in my networking setup (i.e. I'm using the standard USB drivers, etc.) I can't see any reason you shouldn't be able to get the same sort of setup working with a Zippered unit.

[tchyde]

Will try that ... thanks

[toms111la]

I recently upgraded my H10-250 from a 250 and 300 HD to two 500's. I wanted to keep all of my recordings and could not find a way to hook up all 4 drives and a CDROM to a PC. I therefore used the DD Copy method mentioned in "Hinsdale how to" to copy each of the old drives individually to each of the new drives one at a time. I then tested the two new drives in the H10 and all looked fine and the number of hours reported had not changed (as expected). I then put the two new drives back into the PC and used the expand command (mfsadd -r 4 -x /dev/hdc /dev/hdb). I then put both drives back into the H10 and everything still worked ok but the unit is only reporting available HDTV hours of 103. I had 69 available before (with a 250 and 300) so I expected something like 125. I tried putting the two drives back into the PC and expanding the drives again but got a message that there is nothing to expand. The best I can tell, I think I am getting all of the space but I am not 100% sure. Any ideas??

[dwynne]

My guess is that your 250->250+300 expansion will not allow you to go to dual 500's and get all the space.

Do you still have your OEM 250, or is that what you had in the Tivo? I purchased and extra drive and kept mine "on the shelf" in case I need it again.

If you have the OEM drive available, plug it, a CD, and the dual 500s in and go from the 250->1,000. Plug that into the Tivo and check the space.

If you don't have the drive available, you could try taking something like the "instant cake" CD to create a new image on the twin 500s (just for a test) and see how much capacity it shows. A dual 500gb should be 144-146 hours, I think. 103 is what you get with a pair of 400gb drives, I think.

Dennis

[toms111la]

My guess is that your 250->250+300 expansion will not allow you to go to dual 500's and get all the space.

Do you still have your OEM 250, or is that what you had in the Tivo? I purchased and extra drive and kept mine "on the shelf" in case I need it again.

If you have the OEM drive available, plug it, a CD, and the dual 500s in and go from the 250->1,000. Plug that into the Tivo and check the space.

If you don't have the drive available, you could try taking something like the "instant cake" CD to create a new image on the twin 500s (just for a test) and see how much capacity it shows. A dual 500gb should be 144-146 hours, I think. 103 is what you get with a pair of 400gb drives, I think.

Dennis
It seems to me that the amount being reported is also what I would have had I only upgraded one of my two drives. I don't have the OEM 250 as I originally added the 300 and did not keep the 250. I am thinking that if I added only one drive at a time it probably would have worked ok.

[kmd_mlc]

Hello,

I have been using this forum for a few years. Always impressed with the information found here.

I have an HR10-250 that is hangs during boot - get to 'almost there. just a few minutes more' but never completes. From what I have seen here in the forum, this is a good sign that I am in need of a new drive. Fortunately I have a drive. Unfortunately, I do not have an image and cannot get one from the existing drive.

Can anyone send me a PM to direct me to an HR10-250 image?

Thanks,
Kd

[azitnay]

If you can't find one, you can always try pulling one from the current drive, and seeing if it works.

Drew

[cr33p]

It seems to me that the amount being reported is also what I would have had I only upgraded one of my two drives. I don't have the OEM 250 as I originally added the 300 and did not keep the 250. I am thinking that if I added only one drive at a time it probably would have worked ok.

Dump your hinsdales direction and go download mfslives cd from mfslive.org, they have a command generator that will help you out .you may find yourself needing the beta cd that will allow you to expand the root partion if yours has shrunk. PM if you need some help or need a new image.

[kmd_mlc]

As usual, this forum was very helpful. My HR10-250 if working again.

Thanks for all the help!!!

Kevin

[xrob]

Hey all,

I have a stock HR10-250 which is slowly, but surely giving up the ghost. I'm getting very jittery live playback (although the recordings being made are much better for some reason) and I've been thinking about doing an upgrade. I've started to sift through the hundreds of posts and pages to be found and want to make sure I'm doing this with the most current software, images, etc.

Can anyone point me to a current set of instructions for replacing/upgrading the HDs in one of these units? I've seen everything from full hacking (for network connectivity and ftp access) to simply putting in a larger HD.

I am a mac user (fairly proficient with the command line and I know my way around a PC fairly well so I am hoping I can knock this out without too much help) but can get access to a PC if needed. I know these topics have been covered dozens of times (even in this thread), but it would be great to get some current info. Anyone who can offer some assistance, I would greatly appreciate it. I am not at all interested in "upgrading" to DirecTV's Tivo replacement. That would be pure crap.

Thanks for reading,

Rob

[Da Goon]

The latest sw for an HR10 is 6.3d. You can get an image included in a bootable linux cd from www.dvrupgrade.com , called InstantCake for $20. Or you could use mfslive to copy your current image to a new disk, provided your current drive isn't too far gone yet. www.mfslive.org

[xrob]

Thanks for the info.

One quick question. If my optical audio port is no longer working and I am getting an occurring message to "please insert my access card," are these problems that would be attributed to the software (or hard drive dying) or is this a box hardware failure? I don't want to waste time trying to save a unit that is already on the way out. Anyone have any experience with these types of problems?

Thanks again,

Rob

[hjscm]

Well i am glad i saw this post. i am in kinda the same boat. i was wondering if there is a step by step to upgrade. i have a hr10-250 i bought from weakness with 750gigs of storage. i want to network it and extract the video to my computer. i have a pc and a mac. more comfortable on the pc but i can go either way.
thanks

[sk33t3r]

Video extraction discussion is a NONO on this site.

[dturturro]

I've tried searching for Tivowebplus and all I'm getting are posts telling people they should use it, but not how. I zippered my drive to 6.2b, but I entered the wrong IP address info and I want to fix it. Anyone have a post that covers Tivowebplus?

[Da Goon]

I've tried searching for Tivowebplus and all I'm getting are posts telling people they should use it, but not how. I zippered my drive to 6.2b, but I entered the wrong IP address info and I want to fix it. Anyone have a post that covers Tivowebplus?
To use TWP, pull up an internet browser and connect to the ip address you assigned to your tivo. I don't quite understand how you plan on editing your network params if you're needing to "fix it". Don't you have bash? If you don't have telnet access, good luck getting into TWP. If you do have bash, why not just edit it there?

[tspringett]

Hello, I'm planning on getting a hr10-250, so that I can get the over the air hd stuff on the tivo. Nothing worse than live tv. I have a non HD DirecTV Tivo currently and want to simply move the current content on the standard DirecTV Tivo to a new larger drive and use that as the primary on the hr10-250. I could go dual drive, but just trying to keep it simple. What path should I take in this upgrade? Last time I did an upgrade was about 2 years ago, so lots has changed.

Thanks

T.

[dwynne]

You can't move scrambled/protected content from one Tivo to another. If your old Tivo has been hacked to record "unprotected" then you could do this for the recordings made after the hack.

Dennis

[tspringett]

So, the programs on my existing tivo will not be able to move to the new tivo? The wife is not going to like that answer. Was thinking I could do something at the very least like add it as a second drive.

So then my only option is to upgrade to a larger drive. Is the easiest route then to purchase a large drive and use the instantcake type utility?

T.

[Carlton Bale]

You can still play recordings off a deactivated TiVo. Just use your old TiVo to watch the old stuff, and your new TiVo to watch the new stuff.

You don't need to purchase InstantCake to switch to a larger drive, but it is the easiest method for newbies.

[tspringett]

Yup, I guess that is an option. Quick question, then another, if you have two Tivos hooked up, won't the remote control both? So when I'm watching the old one, the new one would be mimicking the commands?

I've upgraded the two Tivos I've had previously, so am pretty sure I can upgrade the hr10-250 using a non $$ option. I've used the Hinsdale instructions, is that still good or is there a better option?

Thanks for all the feedback

T.

[Carlton Bale]

You can set each TiVo to respond to a specific remote. You basically change the remote address for each remote, then go to the service menu for each and use the remote, and that will change the remote address for that TiVo (block the IR port of the other TiVo.) It's in the manual.

[toms111la]

I've upgraded the two Tivos I've had previously, so am pretty sure I can upgrade the hr10-250 using a non $$ option. I've used the Hinsdale instructions, is that still good or is there a better option?
I highly recomend the instructions and utilities found at http://www.mfslive.com/

[phox_mulder]

I tried searching, but didn't come up with much.

I have the original drive and I added a 500g drive so I now have 2 drives in my HR10-250.

It's been flaky lately, and making odd noises at times.

I think I'm overtaxing the power supply and want to go back to one drive, albeit bigger than the 2 I have now combined.

I have a lot of unwatched programs that I want to watch and watch in HD so dubbing off to a VHS or DVD isn't a good option.

Is there a way to combine two drives onto a new bigger drive and keep the programs intact?


phox

[Carlton Bale]

Yes, there is, but it's not easy. You basically have to backup your shows and then restore them to a new drive created from a fresh image. I've done it, but it takes time and space. You don't have to decrypt the shows or anything like that, they will only play back on the original TiVo. You just have to pull shows off of one drive to a temporary location, create the new drive, and restore them back that drive. Here are the details: http://dvrpedia.com/Backup_Shows_TiVo_Drive_PC

[phox_mulder]

That isn't going to work with my current computer setup.
The original TiVo HD is bigger than the HD in my computer.

I'd have to get a huge drive to put the shows on temporarily along with the drive that would be going in the TiVo.

Couple that with my knowlege of Linux.

I might have to look into this more though.
It's better than losing everything I have on there should either drive or the power supply fail.



phox

[fasTLane]

Yes, there is, but it's not easy. You basically have to backup your shows and then restore them to a new drive created from a fresh image. I've done it, but it takes time and space. You don't have to decrypt the shows or anything like that, they will only play back on the original TiVo. You just have to pull shows off of one drive to a temporary location, create the new drive, and restore them back that drive. Here are the details: http://dvrpedia.com/Backup_Shows_TiVo_Drive_PC
Interesting. Is it then possible to relocate these saved shows to a larger drive but with a rollback software version, say from 6.x back to 3.1 ?

[hauntedsoul]

Just a question.....can you take a hard drive from a hr10-250 and just stick it in a hr20? will it get mpeg4 than? I mean the tivo hard drive

[gigageek2]

I have dutifully read (or at least skimmed) all 1959 posts on this thread and I can't quite figure out if I can do what I want. About 3 years ago, I upgraded my HR10-250 with 2x250GB drives (kept original drive on a shelf; added two new drives). I think I may have used MFSTools, but it was 3 years ago and my memory is just not that good.

I now wish to upgrade this unit to 2x500GB drives (and keep my recordings), but I saw some discussion near post #1515 on this thread about a possible 257GB partition limit.

1. Is it possible to upgrade the unit to 2x500GB drives while retaining all of my recordings?
2. How?


TIA,
Greg

[Carlton Bale]

I think you can just do the linux DD command to copy from your old A drive to the new A drive, then the old B drive to the new B drive. Then do an mfs_add to expand the 250 GB partitions on the new drives to fill all available space (500 GB on each drive).

There is really nothing special about the HR10-250. This applies to all Series 2 TiVos.

[aclem]

I upgraded my HR 10-250 from an original stock drive to a 500GB Seagate using Weaknees instructions, and did not save any programming. The new drive takes a long time to boot and then I have a message "insert valid access card". I thought maybe something internal came loose when installing the new drive, but the access card is recognized with the old drive if I reinstall it.

Any suggestions?

carolyn

[weaknees]

That's pretty strange. Usually, an access card message means that you have a bad power supply, but I'm not sure why the drive change would mean the power supply behaves differently.

See our HR10 troubleshooting info here:

http://www.weaknees.com/hr10-repair-troubleshooting.php

[Carlton Bale]

If you don't mind losing your season passes and recordings, do a Clear and Delete all and see if that helps.

[aclem]

Clear and Delete took care of it. Thanks. The upgrade was much easier than I expected and my 10 year old loved taking apart the DVR and the computer.

[aclem]

Ok, I'm back after calling DirecTV to get service re-activated on the receiver, the same error message returned. "Insert valid access card receiver id = xxxxxxx". My guess is that everytime DirecTV downloads something new to my receiver I'm going to get this message and have to do a clear and delete. Is there any way to take care of this problem permanently?

[kyleohme]

Hello,

I am not new to playing with the Tivo - I love it!

I do have an issue that my HR10-250 has stopped and I have not had a chance to do a backup of the base image. Would anyone be so kind to let me know if you have a backup?

I have backups for my series 1, 2 but never got around to upgrading this tivo ..

it now sits on the wonderful "starting up" and I miss my HD.

[kyleohme]

Hello,

I am not new to playing with the Tivo - I love it!

I do have an issue that my HR10-250 has stopped and I have not had a chance to do a backup of the base image. Would anyone be so kind to let me know if you have a backup?

I have backups for my series 1, 2 but never got around to upgrading this tivo ..

it now sits on the wonderful "starting up" and I miss my HD.

[dwynne]

I am sure you can find an image around someplace, but I think I would just buy the "Instant Cake" download image from this page (http://www.dvrupgrade.com/dvr/stores/1/instantcake_display.cfm) and get it going. I would get 3.1.5f and put the "hack" to so it does not need to phone at all. A lot of folks I know, including me, with 6.x software on their HR10-250 boxes have a lot of trouble with reboots and lockups. With 3.1.5f it is bullet-proof - but you don't get folders and don't have the new DST fix. Other than that it works fine.

Dennis

[Lord Vader]

Why not just buy the 6.3e Instantcake? Much faster than 3.1.5f!

[dwynne]

Why not just buy the 6.3e Instantcake? Much faster than 3.1.5f!

Because on some boxes 6.x blows major chunkage. The HD Tivo I have on that load locks up and reboots all the time. Put in a new drive, same thing. The box locked on 3.1.5f is steady as a rock. If I ever get everything watched off the 6.3 it is getting wiped and taken back to 3.1.5f.

Dennis

[fasTLane]

Same here. OTA navigating is a pain with 6.3... I can handle slower guides fine.

[Lord Vader]

Strange. Other than the reboots on 6.3a, I've never had a problem with 6.3x. I'm at 6.3e now and it took that just fine.

[gambling]

About 3 weeks ago I purchased a PVRnet upgrade disk for my DirecTv HD10-250 with a 400MB drive. I finally have installed it and it works great.
But I noticed that I have lost my HD Local stations (9.1, 9.2, etc.)

A little digging around the net, and I see from PVRblog that
a) DirecTv is moving to a MPEG4 standard
b) The local stations on the west coast (where I am) were the first to move
c) They will migrate all their HD content to it
d) The Tivo does not support it
e) DirecTv announced an new HD20 box that does
f) They also announced they are going to replace all the 10-250's with the HD20 for free or close to it.

[slocko]

the hr10-250 can record from Off the air antennas. If you are lucky, you can buy one of those tv antennas and you will be close enough to the stations for the antenna to receive them. the hr10-250 can include those ota channels right into your channel line up on the tivo interface.

of course, this will only work until they go digitial.

[mattdb]

the hr10-250 can record from Off the air antennas. If you are lucky, you can buy one of those tv antennas and you will be close enough to the stations for the antenna to receive them. the hr10-250 can include those ota channels right into your channel line up on the tivo interface.

of course, this will only work until they go digitial.

The Hr10-250 only receives digital if memory serves. It has an ATSC tuner which only takes in digital, so if you can get it on antenna, then you are good.

[slocko]

ahh okay, wasn't sure if the digital transition would have affected it.

[Lord Vader]

About 3 weeks ago I purchased a PVRnet upgrade disk for my DirecTv HD10-250 with a 400MB drive. I finally have installed it and it works great.
But I noticed that I have lost my HD Local stations (9.1, 9.2, etc.)

A little digging around the net, and I see from PVRblog that
a) DirecTv is moving to a MPEG4 standard
b) The local stations on the west coast (where I am) were the first to move
c) They will migrate all their HD content to it
d) The Tivo does not support it
e) DirecTv announced an new HD20 box that does
f) They also announced they are going to replace all the 10-250's with the HD20 for free or close to it.

The new DirecTV/TIVO HD box won't be out until at least early 2010, if not later.

[dwynne]

About 3 weeks ago I purchased a PVRnet upgrade disk for my DirecTv HD10-250 with a 400MB drive. I finally have installed it and it works great.
But I noticed that I have lost my HD Local stations (9.1, 9.2, etc.)

A little digging around the net, and I see from PVRblog that
a) DirecTv is moving to a MPEG4 standard
b) The local stations on the west coast (where I am) were the first to move
c) They will migrate all their HD content to it
d) The Tivo does not support it
e) DirecTv announced an new HD20 box that does
f) They also announced they are going to replace all the 10-250's with the HD20 for free or close to it.

I assume you had the locals before you swapped out the drive? So you must already know the HR10-250 DTivo gets locals from over the air only and not via sat. So if it worked before it should work now. You just need to do guided set up again and/or choose the "select local area" option for OTA signals, or if all that does not work you need to re-scan for OTA signals. If none of that worked, you probably knocked the push on coax connectors off the tuner "Cans" inside the DTivo when you were replacing the drive.

None of that other stuff you posted has any meaning for you getting OTA channels via an antenna.

If you were one of the few getting "local" feeds via the sat in HD in MPEG2 (channels in the 80's) that were for folks in 2 markets or lived where they had NO local channels, then those channels COULD have gone away now. I don't have access to them, so I could not tell you. But in any case, tuning 9.1 should be an OTA channel.

Dennis