Crashing Tivo - help

[trevor.austin]

Hi I've been lurking and reading this forum ever since I got my Tivo a few years ago.

I have been running fine with an upgraded Tivo (network/disk/web access, etc.) for about 24-36 months but over the last few months I am getting more and more regular freezes/random reboots. Now nearly every day.

I am hoping that, from other similar problems I have read, this is an HD error (we did have about 20 flash power cuts in November).

If so I am wondering the best way to replace the HD.

Should I clone it to a replacement or would I be better off starting with a new clean image (I have lost my backups over several computer changes so might need some help here!).

It would be nice if I could retain all of my settings and modifications if possible but I'm not bothered about the saved recordings.

Any advice welcomed?

Does it sound like an HD failure and is cloning still viable? I have a load of 40 and 60 gig hard drives knocking about and "think" it is currently a 60 gig drive.

Trevor

[blindlemon]

Hi Trevor - welcome to to forum :)

Yes, it does sound like a drive error so if you don't mind losing your recordings the quickest and easiest option would be to make a minimal backup (-l 32 -so) and restore that to a new drive.

[trevor.austin]

Great thanks.

Just found it was a 160 I put in it so I'll have to buy a new one!

Are their new tools to do the backup or are they the same as a few years ago?

Trevor

[blindlemon]

MFSTools 2.0 is the current version which most people use. The best CD for this is the PTVUpgrade LBA48 V1.0 (http://www.tivoheaven.com/download/ptv-mfstools2-large-disk.iso) image.

[trevor.austin]

OK.

Got that ISO and burned it.

Now my plan is to mount the old tivo drive into hda and the new one to hdb or hdc.

Do I still use the old command lines from hinsdale's guide or is their any updated instructions?

Also should I be considering the copy kernel upgrade or will that lose me any of my installation or cusomizations I have made?

Thanks

Trevor

[cwaring]

Do I still use the old command lines from hinsdale's guide or is their any updated instructions?
Yes and no, in that order :)

Also should I be considering the copy kernel upgrade or will that lose me any of my installation or cusomizations I have made?
Large hard drives (>120) need the kernel upgrade so, yes.

[trevor.austin]

OK.

Did a backup (mfsbackup -l 32 -6so /mnt/dos/tivo.bak /dev/hdc /dev/hdb), then a restore/expand (mfsrestore -s 127 -xzpi /mnt/dos/tivo.bak /dev/hdb) direct from the backup.

Then used copykern, option 1 for a directivo 2.52 kernel, except I'm not sure that is right.

Anway, when I installed it in the Tico it greenscreened halfway through boot and is trying to rebuild itself for 24 hours.

The only other thing I noticed was that while I was restoring the restore got "stuck" for several minutes at approx 69 to 75% and only moved very slowly unlike the first 69% of very quick restore. Possible bad blocks?

Anybody any idea what I have done wrong?

Thanks trevor

[trevor.austin]

Strange.

I have rerun the restore with the only differences being that I mounted the new drive as HDC and used restore ..... rather than mfsrestore....... and everything seems to be OK.

Thanks for the help :)