upgrade prep questions (hard drives)

[jeff92k7]

I am almost ready to upgrade the drive in my series 2 tivo. However, I have a few question(s) that I can't seem to find answers to. I checked the stickies and looked around this forum as well as googled for a bit but can't seem to find the answer.

Does the new drive have to be partitioned and formatted prior to running mfstools to copy the data from the old drive? I'm assuming it does but can't seem to find out for certain. If so, does it need to be one partition or is there a separate small partition for the software leaving a large partition for the recorded programs? Also, does it need to be formatted as FAT32 or as something else?

Also, I have some small hard drives available to store backups on. What size are the backup files on average?

What I am doing is taking an 80GB drive from an R10 D* receiver and reformatting it as a blank drive to replace the 40GB in my 540040 series 2. I am thinking about using the same weaknees cd (mfstools) to create a backup of the r10 software just in case I ever decide to go back to D*. I'll then wipe that drive and use it to replace the drive in the series 2. I will also backup the series 2 drive, so I will have two backup files - one from the D* and one from the series 2. I would like to store both backup images on a single small hard drive but I need to know what size the files are to know what size drive to use.

Also, I have read certain posts that bring up a question in my mind. If I upgrade from 40Gb to 80GB right now and then in the future buy an even larger drive, will I have difficulty upgrading a second time? Some things I have read give me the impression that TiVo's can only be upgraded once.

Thanks for the help.
Jeff

[funtoupgrade]

Good questions. You do not need to prep a drive for use in Tivos. MFStools wipes the disk clean when you restore.

A drive with a couple of gigabytes will be more than sufficient to hold backups. Format it FAT32.

If you upgrade from 40 to 80 now and want bigger later you will need to restore from the 40 backup. Trying to restore from the 80 will not work because already expanded once.

[jeff92k7]

Thanks. That's exactly what I was wanting to find out.

Jeff

[HoosierTivoDaddy]

Sorry to jump this thread, but I have a questions about future upgrades.

Several weeks ago I asked about upgrading from an upgraded drive and the -s (shrink) command in creating a backup from the upgraded drive. Will the shrink command in your backup allow you to migrate from the image on the 80GB drive to a larger drive? So could he use the 80GB at a later date or would he still need the 40 GB image to start over?

Thanks.

[classicsat]

Yes, it will.
I have done that myself, in the exact same situation;

40 GB image expanded to 80 GB drive, the mfsbackup -s | mfsrestore -x to a 160 GB drive.

[HoosierTivoDaddy]

Cool, thank you classicat.