Copying two OLD drives to a new Single InstantCake drive?

[berryb]

My question has to do with copying my recordings from two OLD drives to a new Single InstantCake drive. I’m feeling like a Newbie again! (Actually, I suppose I never really graduated from that level!)

I’m sure the answer is somewhere in the Forum - BUT – I’ve searched and read so much (sometimes conflicting) stuff that my head is now REELING!

Four years ago while blindly following Hinsdale for my Philips DSR6000, I successfully upgraded it with two new drives, an 80 Gb and a 100 Gb. Thanks again, Hinsdale!

Now after those four years, drives running 24/7, I decided to replace them with a single 300 Gb drive. After some initial mis-steps with InstantCake, with the new drive tested and working, my DVR runs quiet again.

I’m sure this is a dumb question, but is there some simple way my tired OLD brain can assimilate to show me how to copy my saved recordings to the new InstantCake 300 Gb LBA48 drive? Hinsdale, maybe; WeaKnees?

Thanks, Bert :)

[classicsat]

You can't really copy recording other than doing dd copies of drives or mfstbackup|restore. You cannot do that really, because your A drive partition table is full on the 80 GB drive.

[berryb]

Thanks for your reply!

Apparently during your answer, I was revising my original post, explaining I still am that Newbie, I guess. The more I’ve read on the forum, the more confused I’ve become.

You may want to read my post again to see what a dummy you're trying to explain this (probably) very simple thing to? I had so much trouble getting InstantCake to ‘bake’ that drive, (trying since last January) I even bought the Linux for Dummies book and built a SuSE V.10 Linux box to educate myself. But the old adage about “teaching an old dog,” is becoming increasing true in my case!

Bert

[mr.cello]

berry,

The issue is that the partition scheme that is used by TiVo has a maximum of 16 partitions available. If you expanded your A drive (the 80G) drive from something smaller you have no more partitions available (the default TiVo image has 13 partitions defined and expanding adds 2 more - the media partitions come in pairs). Now if you added the 100G drive to a system that already had an 80G drive then the way to do what you want is to download the PTV LBA48 (http://www.ptvupgrade.com/products/software/lba48/index.html) disk and follow the directions on saving your media with mfsbackup and mfsrestore. It may take a while (like 20hours - it took me 30 to do this for two 120G drives).

so the question is did you keep the original 80G drive, or add it to the box?

[berryb]

OK, I think I'm beginning to understand a little bit of what both you guys are talking about!

My original TiVo drive was a 40 Gb. I removed it, completely replacing it with a new 80 Gb AND the new 100 Gb, with the Hinsdale upgrade. (I've been still saving that old 40, “just in case!”)

I already had downloaded that PTV LBA48 in attempting to create my LBA48 300 Gb drive. So will what you are suggesting allow me to transfer the recordings? I’ve cut way down, deleting many hours, but still have stuff I'd like to save!

Thanks, Bert

[mr.cello]

Bert,

The only way to do what you want is to go from 2 drive to 2 drives, or (if you have more than one TiVo and they are networked) "transfer" the recordings from the TiVo you are modifying to the other. Unfortunately there isn't any other way. I heard a rumour that Tiger (the MFS tools guy) was working on a version 3 that would allow the merging of media partitions, but haven't seen anything from that in the year or so since I read that rumor.

[berryb]

DRAT! Well, OK, I guess!

Fortunately, as I said, I’ve cut way back on recordings, deleting MANY hours. So I’ll reassemble the old drives and record off the remaining stuff I wanted to save.

Before one of my favorite TV shows, “The Shield” started its fifth season last January, they reran all four previous seasons. I thought it would be neat to save them off to DVD since I hadn’t even seen many early episodes. I changed my Season pass to record all episodes and started saving them.

Sometime after copying off the first dozen or so episodes, I got involved in trying to make that "blankety-blank" InstantCake work – and spent lots of spare time on that project to 'bake' my 300 GB 'cake.' (Drive finally working, just 3 days ago!)

So when I figured out it was going to take hours and hours to backup my drives (even it I could) I still had fifty-two hours (four seasons) of Shield programs recorded. So I bit the bullet and deleted all 52 - Went online to Amazon and ordered the Complete Five Season Set!

Many Thanks for your help! Bert