Problem upgrading Series 3 to 750GB

[GaryBx]

I got a DB35 750GB drive and have a puzzling problem.

First of all, let me say that I had first bought a non-DB35 drive and it wasn't recognized by the computer I used (with a PCI SATA card). But I was so intent on trying to upgrade my capacity that I did the update to a 500GB drive that I had lying around. That went fine and I used it for a couple of weeks.

I still wanted to put in a 750GB drive, so I decided that since my old motherboard was in need of a speed-up, I would go out and buy a new motherboard/video card/memory (with built-in SATA support), hoping that the problem was because of an old PCI card. Also, while doing the PC upgrade, I returned the non-DB35 drive and bought the DB35 drive.

Since I had recorded a bunch of shows on the 500GB drive, I figured that I should be able to use it (rather than the original 250GB drive) for the source drive in the upgrade process.

I used the Weaknees boot CD and successfully performed the dd command to copy the data. But that CD didn't appear to have the mfstool program, so I then booted with the Knoppix CD and downloaded/ran mfstool to enable recognition of the entire drive. But I got an error message (I've forgotten it) and I got discouraged and let it sit for a few days. Tonight I was going to try it again so that I could determine the actual error message. But this time, the command "worked", although it says:

Current estimated standalone size: 581 hours
Nothing to add!

Huh??!!

I verified that I referenced the proper drive (sdb) by executing the "cat /proc/partitions" command to show the size of the drives. The mfstool command I used is:

/home/knoppix/Desktop/mfstool add -x /dev/sdb -r 4

Any idea what's wrong?

Thanks,
Gary

[c3]

You can upgrade from the factory configuration only once. You have to discard the recordings on the 500GB drive.

[aaronwt]

You can use the Bumwine method to copy it and it will retain all the recordings. You can do it multiple times with no problems.

[GaryBx]

You can upgrade from the factory configuration only once. You have to discard the recordings on the 500GB drive.
It sounds like I need to be sure that I completely understand your statement. Does your first sentence mean that I can't now upgrade from my factory drive to the 750GB drive? Your second sentence seems to imply that the only limitation is that the new recordings on the 500GB drive are orphaned. Please clarify - and if you can give me a link to a discussion of this issue, that would be great.

On the assumption that I can still go back and upgrade from the factory drive to the new 750GB drive, can I safely swap the 500GB and 750GB drives in and out? In other words, could I put the 500GB drive back in the Tivo and watch/transfer the programs. Then I could put the 750GB drive in (upgraded from the factory drive) and go forward. Is that possible? I'm also concerned about possible problems if there is an automatic Tivo update during all of this swapping around.

Which upgrade method would you recommend? It's confusing with several slightly different methods.

Thanks much for your help.

[GaryBx]

You can use the Bumwine method to copy it and it will retain all the recordings. You can do it multiple times with no problems.
Essentially, I DID use the Bumwine method (although I used the Weaknees CD to do the dd command rather than the Knoppix CD - that's because I didn't realize at the start that the Weaknees CD didn't have mfstool).

When you say that I can do it multiple times, do you mean upgrading from the factory drive to other drives. Or are you saying that I can upgrade in a chain fashion multiple times (ie, factory -> 500GB and then 500GB -> 750GB)? That would be contrary to what c3 said.

Thanks.

[c3]

TiVo can have up to 3 pairs of MFS partitions per drive. The factory drive has 2 pairs, so you can add only 1 pair, which is what mfsadd does. Therefore, you cannot upgrade to 500GB and then add another pair to reach 750GB. You can start from the 500GB drive and use the "mfsbackup -s" option to skip the recordings. That would retain settings, Season Passes, etc.

[GaryBx]

You can start from the 500GB drive and use the "mfsbackup -s" option to skip the recordings. That would retain settings, Season Passes, etc.The only thing of "value" on the 500GB drive is the recordings, so it would be better for me to upgrade from the factory drive to the 750GB drive so that I'll get at least the older recordings (before the 500GB mess).

Do you have any advice on my "plan" to put the 500GB drive in the Tivo and offload them (via analog output) and then put the re-upgraded 750GB drive in? Any gotchas involved?

[spike2k5]

You can use mfslive beta cd to copy 500GB to 750GB and copy your recordings as well.

Or if you can wait few days, I'm putting together another version that can expand 500GB to 750GB like mfsadd does but w/o partition limits.

[aaronwt]

TiVo can have up to 3 pairs of MFS partitions per drive. The factory drive has 2 pairs, so you can add only 1 pair, which is what mfsadd does. Therefore, you cannot upgrade to 500GB and then add another pair to reach 750GB. You can start from the 500GB drive and use the "mfsbackup -s" option to skip the recordings. That would retain settings, Season Passes, etc.
I copied from the original 250GB drive to a 500GB then copied that to another 500GB drive then copied that to a 750GB drive. Then I decided to just use the 500GB drive and wait for the 1000GB drives to come out. I sold the 750GB to my brother. This was all done with Bumwine method retaining all recordings each time.

[spike2k5]

I copied from the original 250GB drive to a 500GB then copied that to another 500GB drive then copied that to a 750GB drive. Then I decided to just use the 500GB drive and wait for the 1000GB drives to come out. I sold the 750GB to my brother. This was all done with Bumwine method retaining all recordings each time.

You can copy using dd them, but hours will not increase. As C3 said, you can only have upto 3 mfs partition pairs on a single drive.
So dd copy from 250GB to 500GB and use mfsadd to increase capacity.
dd copy from 500GB to 750GB, and mfsadd won't work anymore. So, you are getting only 500GB worth of hours.

mfslive beta cd can handle expanding more than once w/ -f option so full 750GB can be used and retain your recording.

[GaryBx]

You can use mfslive beta cd to copy 500GB to 750GB and copy your recordings as well.

Or if you can wait few days, I'm putting together another version that can expand 500GB to 750GB like mfsadd does but w/o partition limits.It sounds like you've got 2 good options. I guess that since it's going to be a few days before your second option is available, I will try the mfslive beta in the interim. I assume that the -f parameter is the "magic key" here.

I'll let you know how it goes.

Thanks!

[aaronwt]

So ho wcan I get the beta of MFSLive beta? I thoughT I had gone from a 500Gb to 750GB before and it worked but maybe I didn't look too closely.
Anyway I've just copied a 500Gb to a 750GB using the Bumwine method but it won't expand to 750GB. How can I get the MFSLive beta CD so I can expand to 750GB? ALso if I don't expand now can I use the 750GB drive and expand it later without having to worry about losing any recordings?

[aaronwt]

This MFSLive is great. I upgraded my 500GB drive to 750GB with it last night. I won't be using the Bumwine method anymore for my Series 3 TiVos. This is so much easier and faster. I should have used this a long time ago!