MFStools Boot CD - LBA48 Boot Disk for ALL TiVo Models

[tivoupgrade]

updated 11/18/08

Thanks to feedback and contributions from many TCF members, we've updated our popular LBA48 CD (now at version 4.04) to reflect the current state of DIY upgrading for Series1 and Series2 TiVo DVR units. It will also work fine with a Series3 unit as long as you are using and IDE-SATA adapter because this CD does not contain native SATA support.

This CD is designed to replace most of the out-of-date and flaky CD's (Kazmyr's, Dylan's, etc.) that have been floating around for about EIGHT years now. It is also incorporated into our Universal Boot CD (version 11), but we have separated it here to keep the file size small, and the download free.

It is assumed you have a basic working knowledge of MFStools (or are using a decent how-to with detailed instructions) and are also aware that many bootdisks, utilities, and most importantly, the TiVo kernel for Series1 systems, and early Series2 software releases are limited to accessing only 137GB of each individual drive.

Key Features:
Native LBA48 kernel for handling of >137GB hard drives
MFStools 2.0
Toshiba/Pioneer 'unlock' util
CopyKern kernel transplant utility for Series1 units; modified TiVo kernels
dd_rescue tools
BusyBox Environment


Release notes (abbreviated):

This CD uses an LBA48 Linux kernel which is designed for use with all hard disk drives, including drives that are larger than 137GB. This CD may be used to perform standard MFStools backup and restore operations for ALL make/model TiVo systems which are upgradeable. HOWEVER, do not use this CD to restore a backup onto a drive LARGER than 137GB unless it will be used in a TiVo system whose kernel uses a comparable native LBA48 kernel or you are using tools and techniques to augment your upgrade with a user-supplied LBA48 kernel.

Units with a native LBA48 kernel are now:

All Series2 and Series3 Models running version 6.X or later of the TiVo OS


If you are intending to use larger than 137GB drives in a Series1 standalone or Series1 DirecTiVo system, you can simply use the "copykern" utility (provided on the CD) to install an updated kernel featuring LBA48 support. Just type "copykern" and follow the prompted instructions.



Note: 11/18/08 The current version of this CD (4.04) conatins updated LBA48 kernels which work fine with the latest standalone software (3.0) and the latest DirecTiVo software (3.5d) on all Series1 models.

Note: 9/11/07 The current version of this CD (4.04) contains updated LBA48 kernels which work fine with the latest standalone software (3.0) and the latest DirecTiVo software (3.5c) on all Series1 models.

Note: 7/22/07 The current version of this CD (4.04) contains updated LBA48 kernels which work fine with the latest standalone software (3.0) and the latest DirecTiVo software (3.5b) on all Series1 models.

Note: 5/12/06 New Release of the LBA48 CD (ver 4.04) includes a revised copykern and a recompiled kernel (labeled 3.10+) in the s1_kernels directory. We have done preliminary testing with this kernel in conjunction with version 3.5 of the Series1 DirecTV TiVo release and early tests are encouraging. If you have built LBA48 drives which are spuriously rebooting, or contain content that is not accessible through the "Now Playing" list, we encourage you to use copykern to transplant this newly updated kernel. Also note that you will need to use killinitrd to zap the new initrd (or use nic_config in the silicondust network driver release to achieve the same result).



If you are not using drives greater than 137GB, you may use this CD for any model TiVo without worry, with one exception: Do not attempt to use BlessTiVo on drives being added to a Series1 unit; instead, use mfsadd.

Use this CD for performing standard upgrades to units which support disk drives greater than 137GB or use this CD if you are performing an upgrade to any Series1 unit and use copykern to update to an LBA48 kernel (after you have restored your MFS backup image to your new drive.

You can use this CD for ANY Series1 TiVo unit if you are not planning on using a drive greater than 137GB. You can use this CD to bless add-on drives for Series2 units, or use mfsadd to combine two drives for any upgradable Series2 or a Series1.

One last note, MFStool 2.0 (included on this CD as well) has a bug and will not properly initialize a swap partition greater than 127MB. If you are building a SERIES1 replacement drive, and are planning on using "copykern" you can use the -s option (hit F3 for MFStool usage examples) to define a larger than 127MB swap partition, and copykern will initialize it for you when replacing the kernel.

That's it; please consult standard upgrade instructions (hinsdale or weaknees for example); as this CD is designed to be compatible with their guides.

Note:

If you are in over your head and would prefer something easier, please consider our InstantCake DIY software CD which can be used to build a new replacement drive for your TiVo with limited effort, as long as you understand your PC and how to hook drives up to it. If even that is beyond you, please consider our pre-configured upgrade kits or professional services for your upgrade needs.

----

More information and the free download can be found here (http://www.dvrupgrade.com/dvr/stores/1/lba48_support.cfm) (it is approximately 8MB, and in ISO format).

If you are looking for a CD with killhdinitrd, or kernels modified with killhdinitrd (these tools are used for installing networking and other aftermarket modifications to Series2 units with USB ports), then you need one of our premium boot CD's which are also discussed on the free LBA48 CD download page (http://www.dvrupgrade.com/dvr/stores/1/lba48_support.cfm).

If you have any questions about the use of mfstools or any specifics regarding use of this CD (or the included utilities), please use this thread as a support resource and we'll do our best to answer your questions -- this CD is intended to be compatible with the major upgrade guides already available, however some of the unique tools provided may require additional explanation.

Please stay tuned, as this CD is a work in progress!

[Thom]

Does your LBA48 CD contain support for ATA interfaces beyond the primary and secondary controllers found on the motherboards? Or, does it contain an LBA48 boot floppy disk image that contains MFSTools 2.0?

Sometimes I upgrade by performing a complete MFSTool backup | restore from my current dual drive setup to a pair of larger drives. If booting from CD, the boot CD must support ATA interfaces beyond the motherboard's pair. So far I've been booting from an MFSTool 2.0 floppy, but it only supports 137 GB.

- Thom

[weaknees]

Originally posted by Thom
Does your LBA48 CD contain support for ATA interfaces beyond the primary and secondary controllers found on the motherboards? Or, does it contain an LBA48 boot floppy disk image that contains MFSTools 2.0?

Sometimes I upgrade by performing a complete MFSTool backup | restore from my current dual drive setup to a pair of larger drives. If booting from CD, the boot CD must support ATA interfaces beyond the motherboard's pair. So far I've been booting from an MFSTool 2.0 floppy, but it only supports 137 GB.

- Thom

I'm not at the office any more, but as far as I know, our CD will recognize PCI card-attached drives, at least on Promise-based cards (Maxtor cards use Promise chipsets).


WeaKnees Large Kernel Boot CD (http://www.weaknees.com/weaknees_lba_boot_cd.iso)

Michael

[Rschultz1457]

Originally posted by Thom
Does your LBA48 CD contain support for ATA interfaces beyond the primary and secondary controllers found on the motherboards? Or, does it contain an LBA48 boot floppy disk image that contains MFSTools 2.0?

Sometimes I upgrade by performing a complete MFSTool backup | restore from my current dual drive setup to a pair of larger drives. If booting from CD, the boot CD must support ATA interfaces beyond the motherboard's pair. So far I've been booting from an MFSTool 2.0 floppy, but it only supports 137 GB.

- Thom

The CD currently supports primary and secondary only - (/dev/hda - /dev/hdd).

[Robert S]

Is dd_rescue on either of those disks?

[BillL]

Forgive me if this is a stupid newbie question, but does this CD contain the LBA48 kernal? I have a Dtivo and want to utilize all of my 160GB hard drive. Will I be able to do this using copykern?

[dswallow]

Originally posted by BillL
Forgive me if this is a stupid newbie question, but does this CD contain the LBA48 kernal? I have a Dtivo and want to utilize all of my 160GB hard drive. Will I be able to do this using copykern?
Newbie or not, you deserve this: Did you even read the original post?

[BillL]

Originally posted by dswallow
Newbie or not, you deserve this: Did you even read the original post?

I did read the original post, but it said "to install an updated kernel featuring LBA48 support" in the original post. That could also mean find a LBA48 kernal somewhere else and install it with the utility from the disk.

[tivoupgrade]

Originally posted by BillL
I did read the original post, but it said "to install an updated kernel featuring LBA48 support" in the original post. That could also mean find a LBA48 kernal somewhere else and install it with the utility from the disk.

To answer your questions:

1) the LBA48 CD uses an LBA48 kernel
2) copykern will installed an updated Series1 kernel when you are making a large disk

More details and clarifications to follow.

[BillL]

Originally posted by tivoupgrade
To answer your questions:

1) the LBA48 CD uses an LBA48 kernel
2) copykern will installed an updated Series1 kernel when you are making a large disk

More details and clarifications to follow.

What about for Series 2 Directivos. Will "copykern" install the Series 1 kernel for them as well?

[tivoupgrade]

Originally posted by BillL
What about for Series 2 Directivos. Will "copykern" install the Series 1 kernel for them as well?

No, copykern is for Series1 units, only! Please reference the first post for the Series2 units which currently have an LBA48 kernel.

[BillL]

then what does this paragraph mean?

"If you are intending to use larger than 137GB drives in a Series1 standalone or DirecTiVo system, you can simply use the "copykern" utility(provided on the CD) to install an updated kernel featuring LBA48 support. Just type "copykern" and follow the prompted instructions."

[tivoupgrade]

Originally posted by BillL
then what does this paragraph mean?

"If you are intending to use larger than 137GB drives in a Series1 standalone or DirecTiVo system, you can simply use the "copykern" utility(provided on the CD) to install an updated kernel featuring LBA48 support. Just type "copykern" and follow the prompted instructions."


It means that if you are going to build a replacement drive kit using drive(s) that are larger than 137GB (eg a 160GB drive, or two 160GB drives), then you should use the copykern utility and it will install an updated kernel featuring LBA48 support (ie a kernel which can address > 137GB of space on the disk drive).

If you can give me an alternative way to word the aforementioned phrase which is any clearer, I'm all ears...

[tivoupgrade]

Originally posted by Robert S
Is dd_rescue on either of those disks?

Just made a quick and dirty attempt to include both dd_rescue and dd_rhelp. Please see my post on PortlandPaw's thread here (http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?s=&postid=2272612#post2272612) for more details and a link to download a test version for folks to try. If all works out OK, we'll fold it into the latest release and update the main iso on our site.

Thanks!

[BillL]

Originally posted by tivoupgrade
It means that if you are going to build a replacement drive kit using drive(s) that are larger than 137GB (eg a 160GB drive, or two 160GB drives), then you should use the copykern utility and it will install an updated kernel featuring LBA48 support (ie a kernel which can address > 137GB of space on the disk drive).

If you can give me an alternative way to word the aforementioned phrase which is any clearer, I'm all ears...

I guess the reason that I was confused was that I thought that all directivos were series 2.

[tivoupgrade]

Originally posted by BillL
I guess the reason that I was confused was that I thought that all directivos were series 2.

Got it. For good measure, here are the descriptions of the Series1 DirecTiVo systems:

Philips DSR6000
Sony SAT-T60
Hughes GXCEBOT(D)

[lawnmowerdeth]

Originally posted by tivoupgrade
Just made a quick and dirty attempt to include both dd_rescue and dd_rhelp. Please see my post on PortlandPaw's thread here (http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?s=&postid=2272612#post2272612) for more details and a link to download a test version for folks to try. If all works out OK, we'll fold it into the latest release and update the main iso on our site.

Thanks!

Hi,
I'm trying to rescue an HDVR2 drive, and there are some errors with dd_rescue.
I don't know if it's a version issue, but I was following the command in this thread http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?s=&postid=2272612#post2272612
and I can't use the -B switch or the -A switch (unknown command), and -b 2M gives a segmentation fault. Basically I am only able to use: dd_rescue -v /dev/hda /dev/hdb.

Anyway, fingers crossed that this will save the drive. I'll know tomorrow afternoon sometime.

[tivoupgrade]

Originally posted by lawnmowerdeth
Hi,
I'm trying to rescue an HDVR2 drive, and there are some errors with dd_rescue.
I don't know if it's a version issue, but I was following the command in this thread http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?s=&postid=2272612#post2272612
and I can't use the -B switch or the -A switch (unknown command), and -b 2M gives a segmentation fault. Basically I am only able to use: dd_rescue -v /dev/hda /dev/hdb.

Anyway, fingers crossed that this will save the drive. I'll know tomorrow afternoon sometime.

Can you please repost this issue in the other thread, as well as your follow-up results? This thread is really not for dd_rescue and the version referenced here does not contain it (yet); hopefully whatever problem this is can be verified by another reader of the dd_rescue thread who may be using it in a different environment and can either replicate the result, or identify what we need to add to our CD so that it doesn't happen.

Thanks,
Lou

[Kaelum]

I created both the 2.0 and the 3.0 CDs from the ISO images, and neither CD contains a copykern executable. What's up?

[dswallow]

Originally posted by Kaelum
I created both the 2.0 and the 3.0 CDs from the ISO images, and neither CD contains a copykern executable. What's up? You are booting from the CD to look, right? If it's there and the ISO distribution is like the other CD's that've been made available to hack TiVo systems, you won't see it from DOS/Windows since it's part of a disk image that's loaded when Linux boots.

[Kaelum]

Originally posted by dswallow
You are booting from the CD to look, right? If it's there and the ISO distribution is like the other CD's that've been made available to hack TiVo systems, you won't see it from DOS/Windows since it's part of a disk image that's loaded when Linux boots.

I know that and of course I booted from the CD. If I type in copykern, I get:

sh: copykern: command not found

Which means its either not in the path, or its not on the CD. In either case, the CD is not working. Also, after booting, there are 2 shell errors before I get the PTVupgrade /# prompt.

[mrtickle]

Please could you list those two shell errors here? Ta.

[Kaelum]

Originally posted by mrtickle
Please could you list those two shell errors here? Ta.

mount: No medium found
cat: /cdrom/.menu/startup: No such file or directory

[Olly]

Originally posted by Kaelum
mount: No medium found
cat: /cdrom/.menu/startup: No such file or directory I get that too.

[tivoupgrade]

Originally posted by Kaelum
I know that and of course I booted from the CD. If I type in copykern, I get:

sh: copykern: command not found

Which means its either not in the path, or its not on the CD. In either case, the CD is not working. Also, after booting, there are 2 shell errors before I get the PTVupgrade /# prompt.


Oops, a problem with the CDROM automounting script... doesn't seem to work on all PC's

Short term fix: mount -o ro -t iso9660 /dev/hdX /cdrom

where hdX is one of the following:

A == primary master
B == primary slave
C == secondary master
D == secondary slave

My guess is that your CDROM isn't on one of the aforementioned device ID's, correct?

Thx,
Lou

[Olly]

Thanks, I now have a 200GB drive to play with.

[Kaelum]

Originally posted by tivoupgrade
Oops, a problem with the CDROM automounting script... doesn't seem to work on all PC's

Short term fix: mount -o ro -t iso9660 /dev/hdX /cdrom

where hdX is one of the following:

A == primary master
B == primary slave
C == secondary master
D == secondary slave

My guess is that your CDROM isn't on one of the aforementioned device ID's, correct?

Thx,
Lou
My CD/DVD ROM is the secondary master, so the following did work:

mount -o ro -t iso9660 /dev/hdc /cdrom

There is another problem as well, you don't allow copykern to use hda. I remove all of the existing drives in my system before using this as I've had UNIX/Linux/Xenix systems destroy my DOS/Windows partions and will never allow both to reside on the same system. Was there a reason you don't allow it to work on hda, other than thats where many people keep their DOS/Windows drive?

I also noticed that once you place the new drive into your TiVo and boot it up, the new drive will become locked. I put in a 200GB Maxtor and this happened, thus requiring the use of qunlock each time I needed to do anything to it.


Thanks

[tivoupgrade]

Originally posted by Kaelum
My CD/DVD ROM is the secondary master, so the following did work:

mount -o ro -t iso9660 /dev/hdc /cdrom

There is another problem as well, you don't allow copykern to use hda. I remove all of the existing drives in my system before using this as I've had UNIX/Linux/Xenix systems destroy my DOS/Windows partions and will never allow both to reside on the same system. Was there a reason you don't allow it to work on hda, other than thats where many people keep their DOS/Windows drive?


Will take another look at the scripts; not sure why it works on some systems, and not on others.

As for CopyKern being hard-coded to not allow /dev/hda - our other tools require drives to be connected to secondary IDE; hence that assumption. Will try to document that better and perhaps create a different CopyKern version that allows user-selected target drives.


I also noticed that once you place the new drive into your TiVo and boot it up, the new drive will become locked. I put in a 200GB Maxtor and this happened, thus requiring the use of qunlock each time I needed to do anything to it.


Thanks

That has nothing to do with the boot CD you use and everything to do with the type of TiVo you have; my guess is that you have a Sony SVR2000....

[Robert S]

DON'T use qunlock!

One moment's inattention and you'll lose that nice new drive.

DiskUtil (http://upgrade-instructions.com/) is a safe alternative.

[Kaelum]

Originally posted by tivoupgrade
Will take another look at the scripts; not sure why it works on some systems, and not on others.
Could it have something to do with the system having multiple CD/DVD drives? I have a DVD ROM and CD-RW drive on the machine I was using.

[tivoupgrade]

Originally posted by Kaelum
Could it have something to do with the system having multiple CD/DVD drives? I have a DVD ROM and CD-RW drive on the machine I was using.

ooh - that very well could be the issue; i have a dual drive system here and was able to reproduce the error; will try to get something worked out tomorrow... stay tuned...

[kkluba]

I have a series 1 with a 160gb drive and have only utilized 137gb of it for a long time. Is there an easy way to see the other 23gb? Do I have to wipe it and start fresh?

[Robert S]

Maybe. If you're lucky, all you have to is boot the LBA-48 CD, mfsadd and CopyKern.

It all depends on how many partitions you've used. There's only room for three pairs of MFS partitions on the A drive, so you can fill up the partition table pretty quickly.

If you have an early Series 1, with an 11-partition A drive and you went straight to 137Gb, then you should have 3 spare entries in your partition table.

However, if you have a late model, with a 13-partition A drive or you've already upgraded more than once, then you'll only have 1 spare entry, and expanding requires 2 partitions.

mfsinfo will give you a definite answer.

[kkluba]

Thanks Robert

[kkluba]

I can't get anything meaningful from mfsinfo. My drives are setup with tivo hd being primary master and the boot cd being secondary master. No other devices. This is a P4, 1.7 with a promise card installed (not using that for this). Should I be attaching these drives to the Promise card? What am I missing? The cd boots fine I just can't get anywhere.

thanks..

[Robert S]

Do you see the drives being detected in the Linux boot log? (dmesg | grep hd if you miss it during boot).

[kkluba]

I do see that hda is the hard disk and hdb is the cdrom. I have them on the same ide cable. When I do mfsinfo /dev/hda I get this:

mfs_large_volume_header:
mfsvol_read_data: Success

What am I missing?

[Robert S]

It's not a problem that I recognise.

If you boot in byteswapping mode, you should see the TiVo partition table in the boot log. I don't know how byteswapping is set up on Lou's disks, but you might have to move the hard drive to hdb or use a different boot disk.

[tivoupgrade]

Originally posted by Robert S
It's not a problem that I recognise.

If you boot in byteswapping mode, you should see the TiVo partition table in the boot log. I don't know how byteswapping is set up on Lou's disks, but you might have to move the hard drive to hdb or use a different boot disk.

I have noticed some strangeness with the LBA48 kernel and how certain apps interact with the filesystems on the drive; last time I checked, using things like nic_install were a problem with the LBA48 kernel. We have a different disk we use for certain apps that runs off a different kernel (we boot it with swap enabled) and that solves that problem. The universal boot cd solves both problems as its packaged with both kernels so you can boot in different modes for different requirements. Only reason its not available for free download is that its significantly bigger; trying to strip down and consolidate things so we can have one unified boot disk that works for all things; easier said than done, as it does get confusing...

[kkluba]

Trying to get an extra 23gb from a 120gb doesn't work I found. I forgot that I swapped the 120 and 160 a while back before there was support for 137gb + disks. My bad.

I was still curious why the msfinfo wouldn't work with the 120gb drive. Robert's suggestion of doing the dmesg | grep hd tipped me off. It said the drive was 10mb. My bios was set to autodetect and was not seeing the 120gb drive correctly. User defined settings solved the problem.

Sorry to have wasted your time...

[vibrantnet]

I have a dtv 2 and was also a little confused as to which kernel applied (becuase its hard to tell if Series 1 modifies standalone or also dtv). Your instructions are great, and helpful, but a recommended rewording is to change:

"If you are intending to use larger than 137GB drives in a Series1 standalone or DirecTiVo system"

to

"If you are intending to use larger than 137GB drives in a Series1 standalone or Series 1 DirecTiVo system"

Thanks

[Thom]

Originally posted by weaknees
I'm not at the office any more, but as far as I know, our CD will recognize PCI card-attached drives, at least on Promise-based cards (Maxtor cards use Promise chipsets).


WeaKnees Large Kernel Boot CD (http://www.weaknees.com/weaknees_lba_boot_cd.iso)

Michael

Michael -

Thanks for the link! I'll use your CD on my next drive upgrade, which will happen within a week or two.

- Thom

[johnmacd]

I have a question about large drives with a S2 that doesnt have the native LBA48 kernel:
Originally posted by tivoupgrade

This CD uses an LBA48 Linux kernel which is designed for use with all hard disk drives, including drives that are larger than 137GB. This CD may be used to perform standard MFStools backup and restore operations for ALL make/model TiVo systems which are upgradeable. HOWEVER, do not use this CD to restore a backup onto a drive LARGER than 137GB unless it will be used in a TiVo system whose kernel uses a comparable native LBA48 kernel.

Units with a native LBA48 kernel are:

TiVo TCD540 (aka NiteLite)
Series2 HUMAX
Pioneer DVD combo
Hughes HR10-250 (HDTV)


So if I'm reading this correctly, one can use this CD to upgrade using a larger than 137GB drive on a S2 non native LBA48 kernel (like 24004A), but you will not be able to use this CD to restore it.
Is that correct? If so what suggestions do you have if you need to restore it?

John

[Robert S]

I'm not sure whether that's poor phrasing on Lou's part or overly close reading on yours.

Anyway, there's no problem restoring backups, the problem is expanding (typically you would restore and expand in one operation).

If you don't have an LBA-48 kernel on your TiVo, just use the standard mfstools2noJ.iso instead of this CD.

[tivoupgrade]

Originally posted by Robert S
I'm not sure whether that's poor phrasing on Lou's part or overly close reading on yours.

Anyway, there's no problem restoring backups, the problem is expanding (typically you would restore and expand in one operation).

If you don't have an LBA-48 kernel on your TiVo, just use the standard mfstools2noJ.iso instead of this CD.

Or, don't use drives larger than 137GB (ie, use 120GB drives). Will try to reword things so that they are clearer. Eventually, will have additional kernel so that CD can be used for any unit, whether LBA48 or not.

[tivoupgrade]

A new release (beta) is now available with the aforementioned dd_rescue utilitity.

Additionally, we've included a new utility (still under testing) which allows you to upgrade your Toshibs SD-400 unit with a simple mfsrestore to a large drive using mfstools, followed by the running of the unlock utility on the PC you are using to perform the upgrade. There is a readme file on the CD with additional info.

Please use the following page as your jump point for downloading the CD:

http://www.ptvupgrade.com/support/bigdisk/index.html (please don't link directly to the ISO files as they constantly change.

Thx!

[elindoo]

Several years ago I upgraded my SVR2000, adding a second disk. Recently the Tivo system has been freezing up, obviously because of a failing drive. I downloaded PTVupgrade 3.0 and bought a 200gb Seagate. Rather than trying to copy from the 2 existing drives (thought there might be a problem with one failing), I simply restored the original Tivo.bak I had on CD from the last upgrade. Of course I lost all my recordings but they weren’t needed. Went thru the upgrade, restored, did the copykern –s (note I forgot to put in a value after the –s) and all seemed fine. Put the drive in Tivo and it boots fine but so far (two days now) it has not been able to update the listings guide, and without that TIVO complains about everything you try to do. It goes thru the process of dialing, connecting and downloading but I don’t get the guide. I’m looking more into that, but my bigger issue is that TIVO is reporting I have 9hrs recording time (at best recording). I sent a note to the fine folks at PTVupgrade and they said it sounds like the drive is locked, and to post here.

I noticed that when I did the install on the PC that it recognized the drive as a 200gb but I’m assuming if I go home tonight and put it back in the PC and boot up it’s going to show something much small. I get this from reading thru all the postings regarding this subject. Seems Tivo screws with it on boot up. I have qunlock and diskutil. Had to run qunlock with my previous upgrade on a Maxtor drive. The postings all talk about Maxtor and Quantum needing to be unlocked so I’m hesitant to use one or the other on my Seagate. Any suggestions? Ed Lindoo

[tivoupgrade]

Originally posted by elindoo
Several years ago I upgraded my SVR2000, adding a second disk. Recently the Tivo system has been freezing up, obviously because of a failing drive. I downloaded PTVupgrade 3.0 and bought a 200gb Seagate. Rather than trying to copy from the 2 existing drives (thought there might be a problem with one failing), I simply restored the original Tivo.bak I had on CD from the last upgrade. Of course I lost all my recordings but they weren’t needed. Went thru the upgrade, restored, did the copykern –s (note I forgot to put in a value after the –s) and all seemed fine. Put the drive in Tivo and it boots fine but so far (two days now) it has not been able to update the listings guide, and without that TIVO complains about everything you try to do. It goes thru the process of dialing, connecting and downloading but I don’t get the guide. I’m looking more into that, but my bigger issue is that TIVO is reporting I have 9hrs recording time (at best recording). I sent a note to the fine folks at PTVupgrade and they said it sounds like the drive is locked, and to post here.

I noticed that when I did the install on the PC that it recognized the drive as a 200gb but I’m assuming if I go home tonight and put it back in the PC and boot up it’s going to show something much small. I get this from reading thru all the postings regarding this subject. Seems Tivo screws with it on boot up. I have qunlock and diskutil. Had to run qunlock with my previous upgrade on a Maxtor drive. The postings all talk about Maxtor and Quantum needing to be unlocked so I’m hesitant to use one or the other on my Seagate. Any suggestions? Ed Lindoo

Try diskutil, or dlgchk... Lots of threads in the underground forum about drive locking/unlocking.

[mtakahar]

Originally posted by elindoo
Went thru the upgrade, restored, did the copykern –s (note I forgot to put in a value after the –s) and all seemed fine. Put the drive in Tivo and it boots fine but so far (two days now) it has not been able to update the listings guide, and without that TIVO complains about everything you try to do. It goes thru the process of dialing, connecting and downloading but I don’t get the guide. I’m looking more into that, but my bigger issue is that TIVO is reporting I have 9hrs recording time (at best recording).
I'm using a 200G Seagate in my SVR-2000, too. I saw two problems during this upgrade - one is that the "-x" option nor mfsadd didn't work without rebuilding the partition map. If you don't find the drive locked, run mfsinfo and see if you have extra mfs partitions on it. Another problem was that the 384M swap partition I added didn't get activated properly. I tried rerunning tpip -s, Todd's mkswap with -v1 after booting up with bswap enabled, but neither one worked. I finally made it work by running Todd's native mkswap on TiVo.

9 hours at the best quality is the original capacity, so this could be because of the expantion failure, and not having swap space at all might be the cause of guide data building problem.

[elindoo]

Well I went back thru the doc's, more specifically the Hindsdale stuff and found that I forgot to do the mfsadd command. I guess I got so fixated on the brief instructions from the PTV boot cd that I didn't use the Hinsdale docs as suggested by the instructions on the PTV boot.

Anyway, I redid the copykern with the -s 320, ran mfsadd and Tivo is very happy now. 220hrs of basic is available.

Thanks all for your help. Ed

[nichols_eric]

Statement:
Series 2 DirecTivos models, which are not listed in the first post (like Samsug SIR), can not currently have more than 137Gb addressed.

I gathered this from reading the forum. Is this correct?

Sorry if this angers any one.. it still is a little confusing.

[tivoupgrade]

Originally posted by nichols_eric
Statement:
Series 2 DirecTivos models, which are not listed in the first post (like Samsug SIR), can not currently have more than 137Gb addressed.

I gathered this from reading the forum. Is this correct?

Sorry if this angers any one.. it still is a little confusing.


That is correct; currently, the olny Series2 DirecTiVo units with LBA48 support (>137GB per drive) are the ones listed in the first post.

[gilf22]

Just upgraded from a two drive to single drive system (Seagate 200GB 7200 rpm) using the Instant Cake for a SVR 2000, no problems, took no time at all, flawless software upgrade. I had extra IDE cables so I opened side cover on computer unplugged installed IDE cables from motherboard. Used spare cable to attach spare older CD burner drive (slower model) and the new hard drive. I think I would have had a new reocrd for upgrade but I was distracted by the dust in TV box and after vacumning unit forgot to hook up drive cables in the Tivo. I had cover back on and was half way upstairs when I remembered what I had forgot to do. All in all no challenge at all. I would recomend saving an old CD drive and IDE cables to facilitate hard drive upgrades. No need to unplug your installed drives.

[johnmacd]

Originally posted by Robert S
If you don't have an LBA-48 kernel on your TiVo, just use the standard mfstools2noJ.iso instead of this CD.

Why mfstools2noj.iso instead?

Originally posted by tivoupgrade
Or, don't use drives larger than 137GB (ie, use 120GB drives).

A 160GB can be used without a problem, but you will not have access to all 160GB, only 137GB. Is that a correct statement?

Once the drive has been expanded using the ptvupgrade cd, will you have bash, telnet and tivoftpd?

I'm really only looking to add tivoweb capability (which I can add once I have telnet and bash. But I have a 160GB drive laying around and I want to put the orginal drive (from the tivo)on the shelf as a backup.

[tivoupgrade]

Originally posted by johnmacd
Why mfstools2noj.iso instead?



A 160GB can be used without a problem, but you will not have access to all 160GB, only 137GB. Is that a correct statement?

Once the drive has been expanded using the ptvupgrade cd, will you have bash, telnet and tivoftpd?

I'm really only looking to add tivoweb capability (which I can add once I have telnet and bash. But I have a 160GB drive laying around and I want to put the orginal drive (from the tivo)on the shelf as a backup.


Please see the first post in this thread with the model information. In short, don't use this CD on drives greater than 137GB unless you have an LBA48 kernel in your TiVo.

As for bash/telnet/tivoftp; you need to install that yourself. This is a utility CD to assist with the upgrade process, but its not a substitute for it - you still need to follow your favorite upgrade instructions to complete an upgrade.

[HDLouco]

I attempted to backup the original Tivo drive with the inclusion of recorded programs, totaling about 230,000 MB. I typed the command parmhd -d1 to enable DMA on both hda and hdb drives. Then I issued the command
dd dd if=/dev/hda of=/dev/hdb.


The PC ran over night for about 22 hours. In the morning, it had rebooted itself, and the backup drive, hddb, did not boot in my Tivo HD 10-250. I was given the impression that the dd command is a data dump that works much faster than the pair mfsbackup | mfsrestore commands. Can anybody comment on this? Thanks!

[tivoupgrade]

Originally posted by HDLouco
I attempted to backup the original Tivo drive with the inclusion of recorded programs, totaling about 230,000 MB. I typed the command parmhd -d1 to enable DMA on both hda and hdb drives. Then I issued the command
dd dd if=/dev/hda of=/dev/hdb.


The PC ran over night for about 22 hours. In the morning, it had rebooted itself, and the backup drive, hddb, did not boot in my Tivo HD 10-250. I was given the impression that the dd command is a data dump that works much faster than the pair mfsbackup | mfsrestore commands. Can anybody comment on this? Thanks!

I don't know if I'd be using DD for that sort of thing. Go the MFStools route; it does work. If you can get the DD method to work, benchmark results would be interesting, but I don't think its going to be faster.

[HDLouco]

Originally posted by tivoupgrade
I don't know if I'd be using DD for that sort of thing. Go the MFStools route; it does work. If you can get the DD method to work, benchmark results would be interesting, but I don't think its going to be faster.

Thanks for repplying. I followed your advice and tried backing up with
mfsbackup Tao - /dev/hda | mfsrestore -s 127 -xzpi - /dev/hdb,
but the process terminated after scanning hda and reporting on the total size. It went back to the prompt without any further information. Could it be that the new drive is now corrupted because of the multiple attempts to copy the Tivo drive? Is there a command in your boot CD that allows a complete deletion of what ever is on the drive? Sort of FDISK in DOS? Thanks again!

[tivoupgrade]

Originally posted by HDLouco
Thanks for repplying. I followed your advice and tried backing up with
mfsbackup Tao - /dev/hda | mfsrestore -s 127 -xzpi - /dev/hdb,
but the process terminated after scanning hda and reporting on the total size. It went back to the prompt without any further information. Could it be that the new drive is now corrupted because of the multiple attempts to copy the Tivo drive? Is there a command in your boot CD that allows a complete deletion of what ever is on the drive? Sort of FDISK in DOS? Thanks again!

You might have meant "-Tao" not "Tao"

Can't really say what might have happened. If you accidentally wrote to your original drive, you could have corrupting it. Reading it is another story. I suppose you could use BlessTiVo to zap the drive, not sure why you'd want to do that, however.

You might want to look/post at some of the other mfstools oriented threads to discuss the issues of creating the backup you are attempting; this is not necessarily specific to the use of our CD, just MFStools, in general.

[Mars Rocket]

I'm having a problem, but I'm not sure if it's because of my upgrade or not. Here's the info:

I have a Series 1 TiVo that was originally a 2-drive 30 hour model, and I upgraded it years ago with a single 120GB drive. That drive started failing, so I booted with the LBA48 CD and did a mfsbackup -> mfsrestore onto a new 160GB drive. I then used copykern to put a LBA48 compliant kernel onto it and initialize the new, bigger swap space.

The TiVo boots up fine, and everything seems to work fine (including the new, bigger swap space) EXCEPT I'm getting "Failed while loading series" errors whenever I do a Daily Call.

Is there some way to tell if this error is related to the upgrade, or if there's just a data problem on the TiVo side? I've read the various tips about fixing it but have not yet tried any of them.

[tivoupgrade]

Originally posted by Mars Rocket
I'm having a problem, but I'm not sure if it's because of my upgrade or not. Here's the info:

I have a Series 1 TiVo that was originally a 2-drive 30 hour model, and I upgraded it years ago with a single 120GB drive. That drive started failing, so I booted with the LBA48 CD and did a mfsbackup -> mfsrestore onto a new 160GB drive. I then used copykern to put a LBA48 compliant kernel onto it and initialize the new, bigger swap space.

The TiVo boots up fine, and everything seems to work fine (including the new, bigger swap space) EXCEPT I'm getting "Failed while loading series" errors whenever I do a Daily Call.

Is there some way to tell if this error is related to the upgrade, or if there's just a data problem on the TiVo side? I've read the various tips about fixing it but have not yet tried any of them.

Could be that you didn't really get a good backup (if there was a failing drive underneath that software, its very possible). It could also be a problem with the new drive, as well. It doesn't have anything to do with the LBA48 CD, though. MFStools is still MFStools.

[Mars Rocket]

I seem to have solved the problem by repeating Guided Setup and selecting "Satellite + Antenna" in place of "Satellite". This has no real effect on the system since the channels are essentially the same, but it did enable it to download the fully process the guide data - probably because it replaced the existing data rather than simply trying to update it.

I still need to go through one day's update, but so far it's doing better than before.

I'll switch it back to "Satellite" alone at some point.

[bnm81002]

Originally posted by tivoupgrade
Thanks to feedback and contributions from many TCF members, we've updated our popular LBA48 CD (now at version 3.0) to reflect the current state of DIY upgrading.

This CD is designed to replace most of the out-of-date and flaky CD's (Kazmyr's, Dylan's etc.) that have been floating around for about four years now. It will be incorporated into our Universal Boot CD in the near future, but we have separated it here to keep the filesize small, and the download free.

It is assumed you have a basic working knowledge of MFStools (or are using a decent how-to with detailed instructions) and are also aware that many bootdisks, utilities, and most importantly, the TiVo kernel for Series1 systems and many Series2 units are limited to accessing only 137GB of each individual drive.

Release notes (reprinted and edited - also available on the CD):

This CD uses an LBA48 Linux kernel which is designed for use with all hard disk drives, including drives that are larger than 137GB. This CD may be used to perform standard MFStools backup and restore operations for ALL make/model TiVo systems which are upgradeable. HOWEVER, do not use this CD to restore a backup onto a drive LARGER than 137GB unless it will be used in a TiVo system whose kernel uses a comparable native LBA48 kernel.

Units with a native LBA48 kernel are:

TiVo TCD540 (ALL MODELS)
Series2 HUMAX (ALL MODELS)
Pioneer DVD combo (ALL MODELS)
Hughes HR10-250 (HDTV)
Toshiba DVD combo (ALL MODELS)

If you are intending to use larger than 137GB drives in a Series1 standalone or Series1 DirecTiVo system, you can simply use the "copykern" utility(provided on the CD) to install an updated kernel featuring LBA48 support. Just type "copykern" and follow the prompted instructions.

If you are not using drives greater than 137GB, you may use this CD for any model TiVo without worry, with one exception: Do not attempt to use BlessTiVo on drives being added to a Series1 unit; instead, use mfsadd.

Use this CD for performing standard upgrades to units which support disk drives greater than 137GB or use this CD if you are performing an upgrade to any Series1 unit and use copykern to update to an LBA48 kernel.

You can use this CD for ANY TiVo unit if you are not planning on using a drive greater than 137GB. You can use this CD to bless add-on drives for Series2 units, or use mfsadd to combine two drives for any upgradable Series2 or a Series1.

One last note, MFStool 2.0 (included on this CD as well) has a bug and will not properly initialize a swap partition greater than 127MB. If you are building a SERIES1 replacement drive, and are planning on using "copykern" you can use the -s option (hit F3 for MFStool usage examples) to define a larger than 127MB swap partition, and copykern will initialize it for you when replacing the kernel.

That's it; please consult standard upgrade instructions (hinsdale, for example); as this CD is designed to be compatible with them.

----

The CD is available for free download here (http://www.ptvupgrade.com/support/bigdisk/index.html) (it is approximately 13MB, and in ISO format)

Please post your questions here (please do not send Private Messages) so others can benefit from the responses.

Thanks, and enjoy!

Lou


forgive me if it has been asked already, is this support compatible with the Philips DSR704? what would be required to incoporate it with a dual drive upgrade of the Philips? is it also compatible with a netwrok of the Philips? thank you

[Robert S]

the TiVo kernel for Series1 systems and many Series2 units are limited to accessing only 137GB of each individual drive.

and

Units with a native LBA48 kernel are:

TiVo TCD540 (ALL MODELS)
Series2 HUMAX (ALL MODELS)
Pioneer DVD combo (ALL MODELS)
Hughes HR10-250 (HDTV)
Toshiba DVD combo (ALL MODELS)

So, not only is this a question that has been asked, the answer was already in that vast quantity of text you quoted.

You will not find details of how to use large drives or networking with Series 2 DTiVoes on this site.

[Snowman]

Robert, yes I just read what you said. However, I got the aforementioned cd from ptvupgrade.com because my understanding was that it contains lba48 kernels that have already been patched with killhdinitrd.

My question concerns just that. I have software v3.1.1c. I WANT to apply the lba48 patched kernel. Unfortunately, I have ZERO clue how to do that.

copykern does NOT work on anything but series1 units it would appear.

I'm not sure which partition I need to mount to apply the kernel or what command to use to apply the new kernel.

Anyone want to help on that?

As for not finding details of how to use networking with Series 2 DTivos, unless it's against the rules, I'll help anyone I can.

[bnm81002]

Originally posted by Snowman
Robert, yes I just read what you said. However, I got the aforementioned cd from ptvupgrade.com because my understanding was that it contains lba48 kernels that have already been patched with killhdinitrd.

My question concerns just that. I have software v3.1.1c. I WANT to apply the lba48 patched kernel. Unfortunately, I have ZERO clue how to do that.

copykern does NOT work on anything but series1 units it would appear.

I'm not sure which partition I need to mount to apply the kernel or what command to use to apply the new kernel.

Anyone want to help on that?

As for not finding details of how to use networking with Series 2 DTivos, unless it's against the rules, I'll help anyone I can.


so can you help me out then with my S2Dtivo Philips DSR704? thanks

[tivoupgrade]

Guys,

I'd suggest you take another look at the first post in this thread so you can truly understand what its intent is and what the LBA48 CD is designed to do for you.

This thread is not intended to be a catch-all for support questions related to MFStools, killhdinitrd, or any of the additional utilities that are on the LBA48 CD, or may appear in the future. There are plenty of threads, guides, how-to's etc in existence in a variety of places both here, and on other forums which discuss the nuances of the multitude of simple and complex upgrades available for the variety of TiVo systems out there.

Please take some time to do some searching, as its likely you'll find the how-to information you are looking for in the appropriate places, and you can post your upgrade-specific questions there.

As for the CD we've released in this thread - its designed to be compatible and usable with the upgrade guides/how-to's that are already in existence. If there is something specific about this CD, as far as the types of utilities you'd like us to incorporate, or remove, or problems using this CD with a particular guide, please do post that here.

In fact, you can post anything you pretty much want to here, but please don't expect to get answers to questions that might be better posted somewhere else.

With that said, remember - video extraction is verboten here, so don't bring it up.

And with that said, networking your TiVo is a good thing to do, so if you are interested in doing that, you can start your reading here (http://forum.ptvupgrade.com/showthread.php?t=763) and hopefully you'll find your way to the how-to information for which you may be looking.

Cheers,
Lou

[Snowman]

With all due respect Lou, I read the entire thread through before I posted. Since the cd includes the lba48 kernels, and I need the killhdinetrd patch for what I want to do anyway, I saw this as a perfect opportunity to kill two birds with one stone. That is still my path and fortunately, received the answers through another source. However, I have no problem with being slapped on the hand and being told to go search, but I find "had you searched, you should have found something like <link>" to throw me a bone. Not 43 different threads, but one showing at least some of the info I was seeking. Often with being TOO new to this, not knowing WHAT to search for makes it more difficult.

Thanks for the CD and for offering the pre-patched kernels. I just had thought there would have been instructions in the f1-f3 routine giving something to show how to copy the kernel on s2 boxes since s1 was included.

The point here isn't to argue with you, but rather to hopefully explain where I'm coming from and why I asked the question.

Yes, the networking discussion does need to be taken elsewhere agreed.

[tivoupgrade]

Originally posted by Snowman
With all due respect Lou, I read the entire thread through before I posted. Since the cd includes the lba48 kernels, and I need the killhdinetrd patch for what I want to do anyway, I saw this as a perfect opportunity to kill two birds with one stone. That is still my path and fortunately, received the answers through another source. However, I have no problem with being slapped on the hand and being told to go search, but I find "had you searched, you should have found something like <link>" to throw me a bone. Not 43 different threads, but one showing at least some of the info I was seeking. Often with being TOO new to this, not knowing WHAT to search for makes it more difficult.

Thanks for the CD and for offering the pre-patched kernels. I just had thought there would have been instructions in the f1-f3 routine giving something to show how to copy the kernel on s2 boxes since s1 was included.

The point here isn't to argue with you, but rather to hopefully explain where I'm coming from and why I asked the question.

Yes, the networking discussion does need to be taken elsewhere agreed.

We are going to be adding all sorts of utilities to the CD and its important to try to keep this thread as on-topic as possible.

The point is that ALL tool-specific questions should be asked in another thread (if one doesn't exist, you can always start one).

Meanwhile, feel free to post any links you've discovered that may help others to use the tools more effectively.

As for the information associated with kernel replacement on a Series2 vs using our CopyKern utility on a Series1; the technical issues are significantly different, so its not a simple request.

Thx

[diskus]

Ive looked but one thing Im still unclear on,

If I use this cd and mfstools on a 540-140 to take the 120gig and expand it to 120 and 200 total 320 is there an issue with the swap size limit ? Im using the command in hinsdale to increase the swap file size from the one on the 120 but i understand there is a 274 gig limit using this or am I wrong? do i somehow have to also copy a new kernel to the drive or not?

[slorenzen]

do any of these ISO images contain the software for upgrading network drivers to support the usb ports(USB to LAN or USB to wireless usb adapter.

[tivoupgrade]

Originally posted by slorenzen
do any of these ISO images contain the software for upgrading network drivers to support the usb ports(USB to LAN or USB to wireless usb adapter.

No, currently the files required to do so are not included on this CD; they will be at some point, but right now there are a lot of different tools in use, and not a lot of good how-to information out there. Right now, there doesn't seem to be any sense in including a bunch of additional tools which people don't know how to use.

[bnm81002]

may I ask once again can I use the LBA48 CD from PTV Upgrade for my Philips DSR704 along with MFS Tools and anything else needed for installing the LBA48 Kernel for support in my Philips unit? if not then is there anything I can do to enable the Philips to use LBA48 support?

[tivoupgrade]

Originally posted by bnm81002
may I ask once again can I use the LBA48 CD from PTV Upgrade for my Philips DSR704 along with MFS Tools and anything else needed for installing the LBA48 Kernel for support in my Philips unit? if not then is there anything I can do to enable the Philips to use LBA48 support?

The PTVupgrade LBA48 CD does not offer any LBA48 support or tools for the Philips DSR704. The specific model numbers supported are listed in the very first post of this thread.

[LightCC]

Originally posted by tivoupgrade
I don't know if I'd be using DD for that sort of thing. Go the MFStools route; it does work. If you can get the DD method to work, benchmark results would be interesting, but I don't think its going to be faster.

I went the dd method copying over an original, full 40GB TIVO drive to a new 160GB drive. It took roughly 7 hours. Somewhere between 6.5 and 7.5 anyway...

Someone ought to add some progress reporting to dd... :)

Anyone have benchmarks from the MFS route?

[tivoupgrade]

Originally posted by LightCC
I went the dd method copying over an original, full 40GB TIVO drive to a new 160GB drive. It took roughly 7 hours. Somewhere between 6.5 and 7.5 anyway...

Someone ought to add some progress reporting to dd... :)

Anyone have benchmarks from the MFS route?

MFS is significantly faster, but its performance is going to vary because it will be more CPU dependent, and related to the levels of compression you use when using it at well.

Not a lot of benefit to doing major benchmarking here unless you really have nothing more to do -- its definitely faster, though.

[wudilye]

I have 2 Tivos and recently did some upgrade work on both, so I used dd on one (~ 14 hrs for a 120Gb drive) and mfs on the other (~ 4 hrs for a 120Gb drive). No further benchmarking required, it's a no brainer...

[wudilye]

So, those of us with non-native LBA48 Series2s (like my Hughes SD-DVR40) have 2 options? Wait for 5.x and pray it has LBA48, or beg for a Series2 version of copykern? I know it's not a simple request, so I'm on my knees begging :D

[Robert S]

a Series2 version of copykern

CopyKern is not the problem. What you need is a kernel with LBA-48 support and a way of persuading the TiVo to boot an unsigned kernel.

Both of those things exist.

[tivoupgrade]

Right now, we have no free utility for enabling the LBA48 kernel on this model, however we are including an LBA48 kernel (along with the mods associated with allowing it to boot) with our newest replacement drive kits (PTVnet). Eventually, we'll have some end-user utilities available (not sure yet whether they will be free) for doing what you want.

[hnaparst]

I have a HDR112, series 1. I've already successfully upgraded to an LBA48 v3.0 kernel using tpip and set upgradesoftware=false. I have two disks total=280 GB, just over the 274 GB limit for 127 MB swap.

Two questions I really don't see answered in the thread:

1) It seems that I need to enlarge my swap slightly. What is the one command or command sequence that will do that and preserve all my programs (or alternatively, not preserve them)? Has mfstools been patched or fixed yet to allow a restore to over 127 MB? I have a bunch of TiVo utility disks, so feel free to use commands from those disks too.

2) Can I upgrade to a more recent kernel from Todd Miller's disk to access new TiVo features? Will my hardware support a more recent kernel? I'd love to have all my copies of "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart" go into one folder, but v3.0 doesn't do that.

Harold

[tivoupgrade]

Originally posted by hnaparst
I have a HDR112, series 1. I've already successfully upgraded to an LBA48 v3.0 kernel using tpip and set upgradesoftware=false. I have two disks total=280 GB, just over the 274 GB limit for 127 MB swap.

Two questions I really don't see answered in the thread:

1) It seems that I need to enlarge my swap slightly. What is the one command or command sequence that will do that and preserve all my programs (or alternatively, not preserve them)? Has mfstools been patched or fixed yet to allow a restore to over 127 MB? I have a bunch of TiVo utility disks, so feel free to use commands from those disks too.

2) Can I upgrade to a more recent kernel from Todd Miller's disk to access new TiVo features? Will my hardware support a more recent kernel? I'd love to have all my copies of "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart" go into one folder, but v3.0 doesn't do that.

Harold

Not sure why you actually need to enlarge your swap, but if you want to, its certainly doable.

Use mfstools with the -s xxx option and choose your swap size to be whatever you want it to be. Then use copykern to update the kernel and it will automatically initialize the swap file in the new partition. OR just use tpip to do it.

There should be more info in the readme files on the CD (use the F1 key, F2 key, etc) for that info...

[hnaparst]

I need to enlarge the swap because the maximum disk size that a 127 Mbyte swap partition can support is 274 GB, and I have 280. This has been well documented in this forum. It may have changed, though.

Regarding your second piece of advice, that I use mfstools -s xxx where xxx>127:
mfstools has a bug (to my knowledge) that will cause a zero size swap partition to be created if you use xxx>127.

Do you have any further information?

Harold

[tivoupgrade]

Originally posted by hnaparst
I need to enlarge the swap because the maximum disk size that a 127 Mbyte swap partition can support is 274 GB, and I have 280. This has been well documented in this forum. It may have changed, though.

Regarding your second piece of advice, that I use mfstools -s xxx where xxx>127:
mfstools has a bug (to my knowledge) that will cause a zero size swap partition to be created if you use xxx>127.

Do you have any further information?

Harold

Ok, so actually, you don't NEED the extra swap space; it has been well documented that mfsassert won't run if you don't have the extra swap space, its also well documented and well known that you should never have to run mfsassert, and that when it does run, its almost always due to a bad hard drive. Its a matter of opinion; we've never been proponents of pushing the large swap space.

With that said, you might WANT the extra swap space, and there is nothing wrong with that, but I think its important that people understand that although there are few strong opionions in favor of larger swap space (I know Robert S is a big proponent of it), the reality is that it is truly not needed.

Lastly, my previous post gives you the info need to create that larger space; just follow those directions, and/or the ones on the CD and it will work fine. CopyKern and tpip will take care of the swap initialization for you.

[hnaparst]

Three follow up questions:

1) Given that I don't NEED the swap space to be more than 127 MB, why would I want it to be large? Will I get better performance?

2) Why are you recommending using mfsrestore -s to create swap spaces larger than 127MB? Isn't there a fatal bug in mfsrestore that prevents that?

3) Can I use more recent kernels than the 3.0 kernel in order to get more features?

Harold

[tivoupgrade]

Originally posted by hnaparst
Three follow up questions:

1) Given that I don't NEED the swap space to be more than 127 MB, why would I want it to be large? Will I get better performance?

2) Why are you recommending using mfsrestore -s to create swap spaces larger than 127MB? Isn't there a fatal bug in mfsrestore that prevents that?

3) Can I use more recent kernels than the 3.0 kernel in order to get more features?

Harold

1) my point exactly... there really is no benefit that you will ever see, in my opinion

2) i am not recommending it, i'm telling you how to use it, in conjunction with copykern or tpip, so that you can have a swap space larger than 127MB

3) no

[MRussell]

Hi, I have one quick question:-

I recently upgraded my UK Tivo to use a single 200GB disk using V2.0 of your excellent LBA48 disk. V2.0 was used because I somehow got hold of an old copy.

My question is, is there any point in me blowing V3.0 to CD and running copykern again - is there any difference in the kernel itself between V2 and V3, or were the differences only in the tools provided etc?

Mark.

[tivoupgrade]

Originally posted by MRussell
Hi, I have one quick question:-

I recently upgraded my UK Tivo to use a single 200GB disk using V2.0 of your excellent LBA48 disk. V2.0 was used because I somehow got hold of an old copy.

My question is, is there any point in me blowing V3.0 to CD and running copykern again - is there any difference in the kernel itself between V2 and V3, or were the differences only in the tools provided etc?

Mark.

I am not aware of the kernel specifics associated with version of the software running on UK systems versus the US versions. You might want to check the underground forum as there is an LBA48 discussion there that Robert S participated in - he is in the UK and knows the details of the UK kernel and whether its different than the ones we supply. I know you can use copykern to update your kernel and that the appropriate one is already on the CD; I just don't know which one is appropriate.

[MRussell]

Thanks for the (very) quick reply :)

I'll take a look over there.

[Robert S]

The UK TiVo is still running 2.5.5, so the 2.5 kernel seems appropriate. No complaints about it from UK users.

As for hnaparst's worries over swap, saying that 274Gb is the limit for 127Mb of swap is a convenient simplification. mfsfix requires exactly 128Mb of memory to check 274Gb of disk space. But the 127Mb of swap is not the only memory available to mfsfix - there's also about 10Mb of RAM available, so the true limit will be somewhere around the 300Gb mark for Series 1 stand alones, and a bit higher still for DTiVoes and Series 2's with their extra 16Mb of RAM.

[tivoupgrade]

Originally posted by Robert S
The UK TiVo is still running 2.5.5, so the 2.5 kernel seems appropriate. No complaints about it from UK users.

As for hnaparst's worries over swap, saying that 274Gb is the limit for 127Mb of swap is a convenient simplification. mfsfix requires exactly 128Mb of memory to check 274Gb of disk space. But the 127Mb of swap is not the only memory available to mfsfix - there's also about 10Mb of RAM available, so the true limit will be somewhere around the 300Gb mark for Series 1 stand alones, and a bit higher still for DTiVoes and Series 2's with their extra 16Mb of RAM.

right... so the message i want to make sure all those who are confused or concerned regarding the whole large swap file issue is this:

We understand the limitations of mfstools and the fact that a 127MB swap file is not large enough to handle invocations of mfsfix on systems with "very large drives" -- however we feel that it is not a problem worth worrying about, unless you have a particular interest in investigating and pursuing it. We believe that the "casual upgrader" should not be concerned about this issue at all - in fact, the energy/time/effort is definitely better spent, thoroughly running diagnostics on any drive you consider putting into your TiVo. In EVERY case where we've had a "green screened" drive returned to us, its been due to a bad hard drive; that means that whether mfsfix runs or not, you've still got an underlying problem.

Yes, I'm aware of the fact that a system that may be temporariliy recovered due to a GSOD, mfsfix revival, may give you the opportunity to rescue your content or settings, or whatever, however I still consider this to be a corner case, and I'd hate to see anyone losing sleep over not having a large swap because they either couldn't figure out how to do it, or where intimidated into not ugprading at all because they didn't think they could without having to have a large swap.

With that said, it can't hurt to have it, but again, don't sweat it because its just not that big of an issue.

[eibgrad]

Thank you for the v3.0 CD, worked great. Updated my Humax DRT800 "A" drive from a Seagate 80GB to Seagate 200GB. Incredibly easy, just followed Hinsdale documentation and used your CD. Took me about 3 hours, most of the time spent being VERY cautious and deliberate so as to avoid mistakes. Another upgrade I could probably do in 1 hour given what I know now.

Now if I could only find a way to make this 200GB as quiet as the original 80GB! Have since discovered Humax was using a special "U" version drive, which I think runs 5400RPM and uses acoustic management. I replaced it w/ a standard, retail Seagate 200GB HD, and wow, is it noisy compared to the original drive. Enough so I'm seriously considering going back to the 80GB HD unless I can find a means to quiet it down! That will be the "fly in the ointment" for a lot of people.

Anyway, that's another story, just wanted to provide some feedback to anyone who might interested in a similar upgrade and let them know this CD works great.

eibgrad

[tivoupgrade]

Originally posted by eibgrad
Thank you for the v3.0 CD, worked great. Updated my Humax DRT800 "A" drive from a Seagate 80GB to Seagate 200GB. Incredibly easy, just followed Hinsdale documentation and used your CD. Took me about 3 hours, most of the time spent being VERY cautious and deliberate so as to avoid mistakes. Another upgrade I could probably do in 1 hour given what I know now.

Now if I could only find a way to make this 200GB as quiet as the original 80GB! Have since discovered Humax was using a special "U" version drive, which I think runs 5400RPM and uses acoustic management. I replaced it w/ a standard, retail Seagate 200GB HD, and wow, is it noisy compared to the original drive. Enough so I'm seriously considering going back to the 80GB HD unless I can find a means to quiet it down! That will be the "fly in the ointment" for a lot of people.

Anyway, that's another story, just wanted to provide some feedback to anyone who might interested in a similar upgrade and let them know this CD works great.

eibgrad

Excellent, glad things went well. You may want to check the Seagate site to see if they have an acoustic management utility or research use of the "hdparm" command as I know it has some settings for Seagate drives (be careful, though - hdparm can do some nasty things).

Also, your drive may be noisier than usual right now because it may still be busy indexing guide data, and could settle down once its done with that...

[dmk1974]

This has got to be somewhere and I apologize if it's been covered, but using the 3.0 CD, which set of instructions are most appropriate and current? Hinsdale, Weeknees interactive guide, or other?

[tivoupgrade]

Originally posted by dmk1974
This has got to be somewhere and I apologize if it's been covered, but using the 3.0 CD, which set of instructions are most appropriate and current? Hinsdale, Weeknees interactive guide, or other?

Shouldn't matter which one you choose, just make sure you read and understand the caveats associated with our CD (IE don't use the LBA48 CD to prepare a replacement drive on anything larger than 137GB unless you are doing a kernel transplant or the target TiVo unit has a native LBA48 kernel. If the guides you are referring to don't mention that, you should contact the authors to make sure they cover that issue, as well as any issues associated with using drives larger than 137GB, whether or not you use an LBA48 CD.

[DVDKingdom]

Thanks for the 3.0 CD it was a great help upgrading my new DirecTiVo R10 to use a 160GB drive to its full capacity. This gives you another unit to add to your list of native LBA48 supported kernels.

[tivoupgrade]

Originally posted by DVDKingdom
Thanks for the 3.0 CD it was a great help upgrading my new DirecTiVo R10 to use a 160GB drive to its full capacity. This gives you another unit to add to your list of native LBA48 supported kernels.

Oh good. That is good to hear. We haven't gotteh the R10 unit yet to test. Is there an 'official' model number for that or is it just "R10?"

Thx

[DVDKingdom]

Originally posted by tivoupgrade
Oh good. That is good to hear. We haven't gotteh the R10 unit yet to test. Is there an 'official' model number for that or is it just "R10?"

Thx

R10 is the Official Model name. A Review of the R10 (http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=210960) is available on this forum.

[tivoupgrade]

Originally posted by DVDKingdom
Thanks for the 3.0 CD it was a great help upgrading my new DirecTiVo R10 to use a 160GB drive to its full capacity. This gives you another unit to add to your list of native LBA48 supported kernels.

Please see top post (http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=198444&perpage=1&pagenumber=1) for updated info; new relase (4.0) incorporates R10 mention, but also some other goodies, including a complete rebuild of the BusyBox environment.

[kf6dky]

I see PTV sells the drives with PTVnet installed and includes LBA48 support, is LBA48 support available for the Hughes DVR80 now? And is so, which utilities or .iso's will allow me to upgrade this?

[tivoupgrade]

Originally posted by kf6dky
I see PTVupgrade sells the drives with PTVnet installed and includes LBA48 support, is LBA48 support available for the Hughes DVR80 now? And is so, which utilities or .iso's will allow me to upgrade this?

We don't offer a separate utility and kernel for support of LBA48 kernels on these units - we can't give everything away, you know? ;-)

[tivoupgrade]

Anyone having restore issues with the LBA48 CD resulting in a disk that won't boot in your TiVo, try one of the following:

Alternative 1: At boot time, use the "noswap" option

Alternative 2: When using mfsrestore, use the "-b" flag to turn off byte-swapping.

That should solve your problem. This was not an issue with the previous version of the boot cd (3.01) because we changed the default boot scenario from "noswap" to "swap" for devices hdb, hdc and hdd.

Should we switch it back?

If there is anyone available to help us build a new lba48 kernel that will work with the following option:

ide=nodma

Please contact me directly as I believe that will solve the problem and allow partitions to be mounted as "swap" at the same time.

[ashu]

Ahh - is there a consistent pattern to the systems/upgrade scenarios this would affect?

In particular - (for a Humax DRT800 upgrade this weekend) I'm planning to use your LBA48 CD on a Seagate 300GB, connected as /dev/hdb, with my Humax DRT800's 80GB as /dev/hda. Should I anticipate any problems? Should I connect them any differently?

I plan to do a backup-all (including shows) ... I'm VERY patient ;)

Thanks!

[tivoupgrade]

No idea. Only your feedback will help us determine whether there is any consistent pattern; we don't have enough info to generalize about any problems, however my previous post was targeted towards those with that specific problem.

[tivoupgrade]

Never should have changed the boot defaults; back to normal again with version 4.01...

http://www.ptvupgrade.com/products/software/lba48/index.html

[DonnelleyPCDude]

After reading through most of the posts, I myself am a little confused; is the copykern for only the new drive over 160. A year ago I upgraded from the factory 20 gig to a 100 gig, but now that drive occasionally stutters, so I upgraded to 160 ( since it could be failing), but still only see the same 114 hrs. I tried the copykern and it appeared to go flawlessly, yet the same 114 hr limit applies. Do I need to apply the copykern to the 100 gig drive PRIOR to copying to the 160. I know I made a mistake somewhere, ideas anyone?

Is there a better thread for me to be in?

PS The occasional stuttering is now gone, so I think the drive was going bad.

Donnelley

[tivoupgrade]

Originally posted by DonnelleyPCDude
After reading through most of the posts, I myself am a little confused; is the copykern for only the new drive over 160. A year ago I upgraded from the factory 20 gig to a 100 gig, but now that drive occasionally stutters, so I upgraded to 160 ( since it could be failing), but still only see the same 114 hrs. I tried the copykern and it appeared to go flawlessly, yet the same 114 hr limit applies. Do I need to apply the copykern to the 100 gig drive PRIOR to copying to the 160. I know I made a mistake somewhere, ideas anyone?

Is there a better thread for me to be in?

PS The occasional stuttering is now gone, so I think the drive was going bad.

Donnelley

CopyKern replaces the kernel with an lba48-enabled one, and also initializes your swap space (this is useful for folks who have created one greater than 127MB for which MFStools does not have the ability to properly initialize). CopyKern is simply a script which essentially invokes tpip to do the work. Replacing the kernel will do nothing more than give you a kernel capable of handling the larger address space on your larger drive, but if you didn't do your upgrade properly (ie expand to fill the space of your 160GB drive), its not going to do you much good. You probably need to take a few steps back, and review your upgrade steps to ensure you expanded/utilized the drive properly and then go and use CopyKern to replace the kernel.

[kennet6565]

I have put larger drives (80gb & 160gb) in my Hughes DVR40's and used Intsant Cake. Everyhting works perfectly. I would appreciate it if someone would give the string to expand the drives, using the PTVupgrades Universal Upgrade CD Ver. 10. Thanks

[DonnelleyPCDude]

After some thought, I am thinking that since the main focus of this upgrade was to solve the stuttering issue, and also to get a much quieter drive (WD100gig with AMSET wasn't that quiet), it may be prudent to NOT open the drive the whole way. The idea was to use copykern to upgrade to the lba48-enabled one, but if another software release comes out, won't it replace my current kernel with a non lba48-enabled one, since I have a Series One. I don't want to kill the drive I have, even though I still have the original 20 gig (with the oldest sw version I am sure) and the failing-but-still-usable 100 gig. These other drives have not been upgraded with the new lba48-enabled kernel, so I want to keep them unaltered in case I need to use them for recovery.

Has anyone ever had a lba48-enabled kernel be replaced with a software upgrade from TIVO. Am I being too paranoid? Will it simply not happen the way I think it might?

Thanks in advance,

Donnelley

[tivoupgrade]

Originally posted by DonnelleyPCDude
After some thought, I am thinking that since the main focus of this upgrade was to solve the stuttering issue, and also to get a much quieter drive (WD100gig with AMSET wasn't that quiet), it may be prudent to NOT open the drive the whole way. The idea was to use copykern to upgrade to the lba48-enabled one, but if another software release comes out, won't it replace my current kernel with a non lba48-enabled one, since I have a Series One. I don't want to kill the drive I have, even though I still have the original 20 gig (with the oldest sw version I am sure) and the failing-but-still-usable 100 gig. These other drives have not been upgraded with the new lba48-enabled kernel, so I want to keep them unaltered in case I need to use them for recovery.

Has anyone ever had a lba48-enabled kernel be replaced with a software upgrade from TIVO. Am I being too paranoid? Will it simply not happen the way I think it might?

Thanks in advance,

Donnelley

The LBA48 thread (http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=83342) in the underground is probably a better place for this question.

Short answer: If you have a Series1 SA unit, you are being paranoid - that product was EOL'ed like two years ago - ie no software updates coming. If you have a Series1 DirecTV unit, your unit is likely to semi-survive a software upgrade; just rerun copykern again after it downloads a new software update. Chances are you are being a bit more cautious than you need to be, but its good to have your eyes open enough to know what you are doing.

[cr33p]

Hi im a newbie but have been trying very hard to do this without asking for help and read up on as much info that I thought would be sufficient, last nite I decided to take the plunge and upgrade my tcd540040 machine. I have 2 160 gig hitachi drives. I used the boot cd from ptvugrades web site. And yes it was for lba48. i copied the image to my windows drive then loaded it to my new A drive booted the tivo and it worked no problems. then i plugged in all the drives the way the directions said and did the long option to copy all my originall data to the new a drive and at the same time restore it and expand both the a drive and the b drive. now it finished with no errors. i boot it up and it says welcome powering up and then the screen switches to the tv that is incoming and then back and forth with it all distorted. Any ideas please help

thanks

[tivoupgrade]

Originally posted by cr33p
Hi im a newbie but have been trying very hard to do this without asking for help and read up on as much info that I thought would be sufficient, last nite I decided to take the plunge and upgrade my tcd540040 machine. I have 2 160 gig hitachi drives. I used the boot cd from ptvugrades web site. And yes it was for lba48. i copied the image to my windows drive then loaded it to my new A drive booted the tivo and it worked no problems. then i plugged in all the drives the way the directions said and did the long option to copy all my originall data to the new a drive and at the same time restore it and expand both the a drive and the b drive. now it finished with no errors. i boot it up and it says welcome powering up and then the screen switches to the tv that is incoming and then back and forth with it all distorted. Any ideas please help

thanks

You've probably reconnected your TiVo incorrectly or possibly have a bad cable. Please note that this thread is not for "general upgrade support" if you have a problem that is directly related to our CD, please post it here, of course, if your questions aren't specifically answered in the upgrade guides referenced in the first post of this thread. Thx.

[cr33p]

I have a 40/80 cable . is this not the correct one to use? I know the cable works because its working in the windows pc to do the upgrade.

[bsnelson]

Perhaps I'm missing something incredibly obvious, but on a Series 1 combo box (DirecTiVo, whatever you wish to call it), you have to flash the PROM to use a non-standard kernel. I don't see any evidence on this thread that the ISO provides a means to do this.

How is this situation handled with this ISO?

Brad

[tivoupgrade]

Originally posted by bsnelson
Perhaps I'm missing something incredibly obvious, but on a Series 1 combo box (DirecTiVo, whatever you wish to call it), you have to flash the PROM to use a non-standard kernel. I don't see any evidence on this thread that the ISO provides a means to do this.

How is this situation handled with this ISO?

Brad

It doesn't (yet) - it was actually in the process of dealing with this that I ran into the swap/noswap/dma issues. The best way to flash is either by using this cd here (http://www.silicondust.com/nic_cd_tivoflash_20041218.iso) for now. You can use the instructions provided here (http://forum.ptvupgrade.com/showthread.php?t=975), as well.

[scottjf8]

Originally posted by tivoupgrade
It doesn't (yet) - it was actually in the process of dealing with this that I ran into the swap/noswap/dma issues. The best way to flash is either by using this cd here (http://www.silicondust.com/nic_cd_tivoflash_20041218.iso) for now. You can use the instructions provided here (http://forum.ptvupgrade.com/showthread.php?t=975), as well.

I tried using that, and after the standard reboot (which is where I believe it flashes the PROM) I get "cannot boot kernel"... have you had others with this issue? I have a S1 DTivo with a 200GB drive (and have done the 'copykern' part, then rebooted with the flash bootdisk and did the ./tivoflash/install)

[tivoupgrade]

I would try reinstalling the kernel again, and reflashing, just in case the flash didn't take place. Oh, and make sure you are installing the right kernel.

[scottjf8]

Originally posted by tivoupgrade
I would try reinstalling the kernel again, and reflashing, just in case the flash didn't take place. Oh, and make sure you are installing the right kernel.

That's what I did.... I did copykern off the Large Disc bootdisc, then rebooted and did the flash... then I put the drive back in the tivo and turned it on.. it started booting, then rebooted, then said cannot boot kernel.

At the reboot point, should I take the drive back out of the tivo and do the copykern again?

[scottjf8]

ok I tried it again and noticed an error this time.. when I run copykern, and put all the parameters in, I get

tpip: unknown boot block signature 0xd01668d7

Does it sound like something happened to the drive? I swear I didn't boot to Windows with it attached, but it sounds like that's what happened... I do have a full backup from before I put the new drive in, so I can restore it if needed...

Does that sound like the problem?

[maximian]

Will, the PTVupgrade CD w/ LBA48 support upgrade my SD-DVR80 DirecTivo to 250 Gig version? I wish to replace the existing drive, save all programs, + season passes, etc, and swap in a 250 Gig drive. Will I see all 250 Gig of capacity? Just wanted to be clear.

I am running version 3.1.1e

[Robert S]

If only Lou could post a list of which models this disk is suitable for, then you'd be sure.

[tivoupgrade]

Originally posted by Robert S
If only Lou could post a list of which models this disk is suitable for, then you'd be sure.

;-)

the list (http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?postid=2266039#post2266039)

[maximian]

So basically, the CD is useless for my SD-DVR80, and 250 GB upgrade drive.
Thanks for being honest.

[tivoupgrade]

Originally posted by maximian
So basically, the CD is useless for my SD-DVR80, and 250 GB upgrade drive.
Thanks for being honest.

I wouldn't say its useless.

But if you were to use your 250GB drive for the upgrade, you'd be wasting almost half of it.

[unixadm]

tivoupgrade,

So from what I can understand, there is not a LBA48 kernel that will work in the DVR40/DVR80 Series 2 DirecTiVos....is that correct?

Are they out there and just not on the CD, or do they not exist?

[tivoupgrade]

Originally posted by unixadm
tivoupgrade,

So from what I can understand, there is not a LBA48 kernel that will work in the DVR40/DVR80 Series 2 DirecTiVos....is that correct?

Are they out there and just not on the CD, or do they not exist?

They are out there and just not on the CD. Kernel replacement on the Series2 is not the same as on the Series1; to get a new kernel to work on the Series2 involves the use of a few other tools. We may offer something on the "free CD' and something a little more automated as an inexpensive download at some point in the future.

[jtayl22]

First time TiVo hacker writes...
- Read Hinsdale-How-To
- Bought 250MB drive for my TiVo Series 2 (TCD540040)
- Downloaded mfstools2.iso
- Used Dell Dimension 4100 (no BIOS support for LBA 48)
- # mfsbackup -aqo - /dev/hdc | mfsrestore -xpi - /dev/hda
- Now, I have a 137MB unit.

I think that the problem is with the BIOS on my Dell PC. It is not explicitly stated in this thread if "PTVupgrade LBA 48 CD with MFStools and Enhancements" will help. Am I right to think that I need a PC with LBA 48 BIOS support to be successful?

Any suggestion on how to proceed will be appreciated.

Thanks,
jtayl22

[thepicman]

My CD/DVD ROM is the secondary master, so the following did work:

mount -o ro -t iso9660 /dev/hdc /cdrom



I had the exact same problem today, so I guess the automount still does not work in all cases. Thanks for the post Kaelum!

[bobgcampbell]

I've done a drive size upgrade in the past with my series 1, but having trouble with my series 2.

Series 2 TDC24004A (single 40G)
4.01b-02-2-240
No sub yet, I'm trying to copy the 40G to a 72G before applying more hacks.
No big drive, so I shouldn't need to worry about the tivo not having lba48 support.

I'm using ptvlba48-4.01.iso, but just using mfstools so far.

hda=windows
hdb=new tivo drive, 72G IBM deskstar
hdc=old tivo, 40G
hdd=cd-rom

I got no errors with the following command (tivo.upgrade-instructions.com):

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

After this I checked the partitions on the new drive and partitions 4 and 9 had stuff, so I put it in the tivo and it won't boot. It just loops resetting the video every 30s or so.

I put it back in the PC and dmesg shows all drive present but shows the old drive having partitions 1-13 while the new drive has 1-16.

dmesg also shows:
EXT2-fs warning: maximal mount count reached, running e2fsck is recommended
(but I can mount partitions from the new drive)

mfsinfo on the new drive shows partition 14 is zero size. Is this normal?

I checked the help messages for mfsbackup and mfsrestore and can't see any errors in the command I'm using.

Help, what else can I look for?

Bob

[tivoupgrade]

I had the exact same problem today, so I guess the automount still does not work in all cases. Thanks for the post Kaelum!

If you have more than one CD/DVD device in your computer, automount can be a problem; that is the only scenario I know of where it won't work as predicted. Is that the case with your PC?

[thepicman]

If you have more than one CD/DVD device in your computer, automount can be a problem; that is the only scenario I know of where it won't work as predicted. Is that the case with your PC?

No I was using some bits I threw together in a case. I had:

HD0: Nothing attached (Pri Master)
HD1: Old Tivo B (Pri Slave)
HD2: New TiVo A (Sec Master)
HD3: CD Rom (Sec Slave)

Nothing was set cable select either, all jumpers were set true.

-TPM

[tivoupgrade]

No I was using some bits I threw together in a case. I had:

HD0: Nothing attached (Pri Master)
HD1: Old Tivo B (Pri Slave)
HD2: New TiVo A (Sec Master)
HD3: CD Rom (Sec Slave)

Nothing was set cable select either, all jumpers were set true.

-TPM

Hmm. Interesting. Definitely different than I've ever seen (usually, the CDROM would be either primary slave or secondary master) but I don't know off-hand why the mountcd script didn't work. With the variety of BIOS' and potential configuration issues out there, its really impossible to make these things bulletproof...

[thepicman]

Hmm. Interesting. Definitely different than I've ever seen (usually, the CDROM would be either primary slave or secondary master) but I don't know off-hand why the mountcd script didn't work. With the variety of BIOS' and potential configuration issues out there, its really impossible to make these things bulletproof...

They were hooked up that way because Hinsdale's guide calls for that config in my situation. Thanks for the ISO though, It was a great help!


<snip>If you are REPLACING YOUR EXISTING “A” DRIVE with the new larger upgrade drive:

(Assumes existing TiVo A drive as Primary Master, existing TiVo B drive as Primary Slave, and new larger upgrade drive as Secondary Master)

Use the following command to copy the existing A drive to your new upgrade drive at the # prompt:

dd if=/dev/hda of=/dev/hdc bs=1024k </snip>

[bobgcampbell]

No I was using some bits I threw together in a case. I had:

HD0: Nothing attached (Pri Master)
HD1: Old Tivo B (Pri Slave)
HD2: New TiVo A (Sec Master)
HD3: CD Rom (Sec Slave)

Nothing was set cable select either, all jumpers were set true.

-TPM

I didn't think you could have a slave without a master. Try changing the Old Tivo B over to Pri Master.

Bob

[thepicman]

I didn't think you could have a slave without a master. Try changing the Old Tivo B over to Pri Master.

Bob

Bob, thanks. Sure you can. I did have a Pri Master (old tivo A) until I pulled it. Anyway, it worked, just did not automount from the CD.

[crownroyal]

I was able to get my Tivo upgraded with the LBA48 disk sucessfully and it worked great for about two weeks, then recently I started getting errors on older programs until finally my Tivo got stuck at "Welcome, powering up" (something like that).

I've gone through all the posts and everything but I haven't seen a solution for Tivo's that actually worked, but failed later. What do I need to do? If I missed the solution a link would be great.

Thanks

[tivoupgrade]

I was able to get my Tivo upgraded with the LBA48 disk sucessfully and it worked great for about two weeks, then recently I started getting errors on older programs until finally my Tivo got stuck at "Welcome, powering up" (something like that).

I've gone through all the posts and everything but I haven't seen a solution for Tivo's that actually worked, but failed later. What do I need to do? If I missed the solution a link would be great.

Thanks

Did you ensure that the TiVo you upgraded either had a native LBA48 kernel or that you installed an LBA48 kernel onto the TiVo?

[BobCamp1]

I had this same exact thing happen to me yesterday. For now, I have given up on the LBA48 kernel and am using 137GB of a 160GB drive.

Plug the hard drive back into your PC, boot with the LBA48 ISO, then hit <shift>-<page up> to scroll up the boot messages. I'll bet your hard drive is only 137 GB in size!

You need a PC that supports LBA48 when you do the upgrade. Sometimes you have to set the BIOS's IDE detection to "auto" or "none" to get it to work. Or you need to upgrade your BIOS, or use a new (less than one year old) PC. This should be added to the instructions at the beginning of this thread, as this is a frequent stumbling point.

It is also possible that the copykern command did not work. It always reports it was successful, even when it didn't do anything. I will ask again if there is a way to independently verify copykern was successful, as no one has answered me yet.

Finally, I haven't had time to verify this, but I swore the hard drive said 160 GB before I put it in the Tivo. I remember using IBM's drive fitness test as well as Spinrite, and they both reported 160 GB as the drive size. After I pulled the drive from the Tivo, they now both report only 137 GB! Did the hard drive sense the slow, outdated, UDMA-33 connection of Tivo and automatically cap itself at 137 GB? I haven't heard of anything like this before, but I can't think of a different explanantion.

I am using a Samsung Spinpoint SP hard drive. I didn't have time to rerun the Samsung utilities, but I remember you can set the HD to report any size you want. I remember it was set to 160GB before the upgrade. I wonder if it's set to 137 GB now?

For now, my 20GB to 137 GB upgrade seems enormous, so I'm not worried about the missing 23 GB. I'll let you know in two weeks if my second attempt at upgrading was successful.

[tivoupgrade]

I had this same exact thing happen to me yesterday. For now, I have given up on the LBA48 kernel and am using 137GB of a 160GB drive.

Plug the hard drive back into your PC, boot with the LBA48 ISO, then hit <shift>-<page up> to scroll up the boot messages. I'll bet your hard drive is only 137 GB in size!

You need a PC that supports LBA48 when you do the upgrade. Sometimes you have to set the BIOS's IDE detection to "auto" or "none" to get it to work. Or you need to upgrade your BIOS, or use a new (less than one year old) PC. This should be added to the instructions at the beginning of this thread, as this is a frequent stumbling point.

It is also possible that the copykern command did not work. It always reports it was successful, even when it didn't do anything. I will ask again if there is a way to independently verify copykern was successful, as no one has answered me yet.

Finally, I haven't had time to verify this, but I swore the hard drive said 160 GB before I put it in the Tivo. I remember using IBM's drive fitness test as well as Spinrite, and they both reported 160 GB as the drive size. After I pulled the drive from the Tivo, they now both report only 137 GB! Did the hard drive sense the slow, outdated, UDMA-33 connection of Tivo and automatically cap itself at 137 GB? I haven't heard of anything like this before, but I can't think of a different explanantion.

I am using a Samsung Spinpoint SP hard drive. I didn't have time to rerun the Samsung utilities, but I remember you can set the HD to report any size you want. I remember it was set to 160GB before the upgrade. I wonder if it's set to 137 GB now?

For now, my 20GB to 137 GB upgrade seems enormous, so I'm not worried about the missing 23 GB. I'll let you know in two weeks if my second attempt at upgrading was successful.

We are using the LBA48 CD on systems over 4 years old. You definitely don't need a new PC to boot a kernel that supports LBA48. Practically any PC will work - even an old Pentium MMX should work.

As for verifying whether copykern works, ie ensuring that the correct kernel was installed, you can look in /var/log/kernel after the system has booted (if you can't telnet into the unit, then pull the drive mount the /var partition -- /dev/hdX9) and search for the string "court" in the file -- you should find a kernel log entry that confirms the build of the kernel with the "courtesan" name in it - that is what Todd Miller used when he built the kernel (sorry I can't give you the full entry right now as I do not have access to a system running that kernel at this moment).

Lastly, in the last several posts -- there has been NO mention of what type of TiVo you are talking about here. If you are using a Series2 unit, then this entire sub-discussion is moot; CopyKern is for Series1 units only....

[BobCamp1]

Thanks for telling me how to verify copykern worked. I have a sneaking suspicion this was the problem, but it is weird that my drive suddenly starting reporting only 137 GB. I might never pull the drive again, as the Tivo seems to be happy now. More importantly, my wife seems to be happy now. :D

I understand the LBA48 issue, and I understand that the BIOS and PC shouldn't matter, but I also understand that some older PCs simply choke when the hard drive is larger than 137 GB (or 33.8 GB or 8 GB). I have a old Pentium 133 PC that wouldn't POST with the new hard drive attached. Other PCs do different things.( http://www.pcguide.com/ref/hdd/bios/sizeHandling-c.html )

New PCs have to be able to handle large hard drives properly, especially if they are shipping with them! Using a new PC eliminates one possible problem someone may be having. If your old PC works then go for it.

I am using a Series 1 HDR212. Series 2 standalone owners without LBA48 should just wait for TivoToGo to get downloaded before they upgrade. Other Series 2 owners have to go "other places" for instructions or software.

[sully10128]

I currently have a 160GB A drive and a 60GB B drive in a TiVo Series 2 TCD140060. I upgraded about a year ago, restoring my backup onto the 160GB drive and adding the original 60GB drive as drive B.

I've read that the TivoToGo version of the OS (7.1?) will support LBA addressing. I have 7.1 installed now - is there a simple way to realize the full 160GB of my drive A, now that an LBA48 kernel is in place?

[djtravis]

I am using the current PTVupgrade iso image burned onto a CD.
What I have run into trying to replace my 120g drive with a 300g drive in my SA TiVo TCD240080 with 7.1 software.

hda – Primary master = DOS
hdb – Primary slave = New bigger (300g) drive
hdc – Secondary master = Current TiVo (120g) drive
hdd – Secondary slave = CD

mkdir /mnt/dos
mount /dev/hda1 /mnt/dos

Make backup:
mfsbackup –f4138 –6so /mnt/dos/tivo.bak /dev/hdc
This created an 207mb file on the DOS disk.

Restore to 300g drive w/o programs:
mfsrestore –s 127 –bzpi /mnt/dos/tivo.bak /dev/hdb
Put 300g drive in TiVo & it booted fine & reported 86 hours.

Restore to 300g drive w/o programs & expand to full capacity:
mfsrestore –s 127 –xzpi /mnt/dos/tivo.bak /dev/hdb
Put 300g drive in TiVo & it booted fine & reported 340 hours.

Copy programs from 120g to 300g:
mfsbackup –Tao - /dev/hdc | mfsrestore –s 127 –xzpi - /dev/hdb
Scanning source. Please wait.
Source drive size is 79 hours
- upgraded to 127 hours
Uncompressed backup size: 113979 megabytes
Restore failed: Backup target not large enough for entire backup by itself.

Try dd copy:
dd if=/dev/hdc of=/dev/hdb bs=1024k
after 30 minutes get the following error & copy stops:
dd: reading ‘/dev/hdc’: Input/output error
40829+2 records in
40829+2 records out

As stated in the instructions, I then tried the following:
dd conv=noerror,sync if=/dev/hdc of=/dev/hdb bs=1024k
Same errors as above, but kept copying. Finished after 1 hr 45 min.

Put in TiVo & get "Welcome. Powering up…" for 1 min 15 sec.
Then "Almost There" for 25 sec.
Then green screen with some error & statement to leave things alone for 3 hours.
Then back to "Welcome. Powering up…"

I have 2 hours more to wait. I have no indication that anything is happening inside that box, but I'll play along for the next 2 hours! After that, I'll go back to the restore/expand without saving programs, put the drive in the TiVo & see how long it'll work.

Does anyone have any ideas why the copy programs didn't work?

[wwli7p]

Does any linux users out there have a PTVupgrade TiVo Upgrade CD with LBA48 support for Series1 cd that I could get the programs off and sent to me in a gzipped file, minus mfstools.

Will

[FredericLS]

I have a DSR6000 that contains two upgraded drives from 2 years ago. I now would like to use two new 250 drives. I expect to replace the kernel, of course. When I did my upgrade before, I booted off the floppy so I could do two disks in and two disks out with backup | restore to keep my recordings. I would like to do this method again, but the only floppy I