A Drive Completely Dead- Options?

[jedmunds]

Hello All,

I've got a Tivo Seris 2 (originally 40gb, but was upgraded with a second 160gb a year ago). Long story short, the A drive failed and I want to know what my choices are at this point. I've tried using Knoppix & dd_rescue but get nothing but read errors that go on for hours... So I'm guessing the disk is beyond salvage. So what tools will "bless" a replacement "A drive". And if I can do that, what will I need to do the "B disk" to get that to be recognized?

The only other caveat is that this box has a lifetime subscription, and I want to make sure I can keep it.

Any help is appreciated.
Jeff

[Dkerr24]

Either purchase a 'instantcake' drive image for $20, or search the net for a version you can download. Good luck on finding one.

Of course, a single large hard drive replacement would run cooler, quieter and be more reliable than a dual drive setup.

[kcarlile]

I did have success with dd_rhelp (found at this site (http://www.kalysto.org/utilities/dd_rhelp/index.en.html)), which basically is a wrapper for dd_rescue that skips the errors until the end. I had some corruption in one or two programs, but got everything else off. I may have mispelled it, but it works. I used a Knoppix CD and a thumb drive to run it--sadly, I also didn't document, so ymmv.

[jedmunds]

Thanks, I didn't know about instantcake, I might give that a try. Though if anyone knows the whereabouts of a free image please PM me.

[Skylooker]

I just completed an InstantCake repair on a Series2 standalone with a supposed "dead" drive. I used the same drive, reloaded the IC image onto it and she works like a dream. Even if that drive does really fail, I just need to replace it and load the image onto the new drive. I would definitely recommend going this route if you know anything at all about the inside of a PC. There's very little hardware knowledge required. I don't know what other images you get off the net are like but the IC boot and go CD made it well worth the twenty bucks.

[jedmunds]

Sounds like instantcake is the way I'll be going. Does anybody know what if anything I'll have to do with my current second drive to make it work with the instant cake imaged drive?

[Skylooker]

You can connect two drives to the PC while you run the InstantCake setup. I'm not sure that's necessary, but if you run the IC setup with both drives connected to the PC, it will start you from scratch on both drives. I don't beleive you can really do it any other way. I don't think you can pair a B drive with a different A drive for the purpose of retaining recordings and settings.