HDD upgrade - memory jog needed

[johala_reewi]

Am about to upgrade my Tivo 250G HDD to 400G (Samsung). Have still got the MFS CD from when I went to 250G and am guessing it will still be good for 400G?

I also want to keep my existing recordings so my plan is: to have the 250G drive as Primary IDE Master and the new 400G drive as Secondary IDE master. Boot from the MFS CD and use the following command to stream the old drive to the new drive...

mfsbackup -Tao - /dev/hda | restore –r 4 -s 300 -xzpi - /dev/hdc

Is that correct?

[cwaring]

Mostly correct but you'll need the LBA48-enabled kernel CD, which I'm sure you can download from TivoHeaven, among others I'm sure :p:)

[blindlemon]

I would use 450mb swap for a 400gb drive to give myself the option to add a 500gb "B" drive later - YMMV though :)

Don't forget to run copykern or tpip after the upgrade is finished to correctly initialise the swap. (The LBA48 kernel copied from your 250gb drive will be overwritten with a new one if you use copykern, but who cares?)

[johala_reewi]

cwaring - Have got the MFStools2 LBA48 Cd from when I went to 250G so should be ok for 400G then.

blindlemon - Interesting point about copykern. I did wonder if it was needed or not. The 250G had copykern done on it and I was assuming that the backup/restore would copy the patched kernel across. No plans for a B drive yet but who knows? Next step mode0!

[cwaring]

cwaring - Have got the MFStools2 LBA48 Cd from when I went to 250G so should be ok for 400G then.
Well duh! Of course you have :rolleyes: :o :D

[blindlemon]

I was assuming that the backup/restore would copy the patched kernel across. Yes, it will, but MFSTools 2.0 on the 'normal' LBA48 CD won't initialise a swap > 127mb correctly. For that you need tpip (which is run by copykern).

[Pete77]

Wouldn't the www.mfslive.org CD work better for this kind of thing?

Spike says that in his new v 1.3 he has fixed the -r2 bug so it will now work over 274Gb and he seems to imply this might give more efficient disk use than the larger blocks involved with -r4. He says-r4 is now only needed for HD Tivos.

[blindlemon]

MFSLive is good when the source drive has errors or you need the -F option to expand the 3rd partition.

Otherwise I prefer the 'normal' LBA48 CD as it has copykern - which MFSLive doesn't - so you don't have to re-boot from another CD to install the LBA48 kernel.

-r2 vs. -r4? I've never noticed any difference, except that -r4 allows you to create partitions > 274gb.

However, if you want to use MFSLive and -r2 and then re-boot from the LBA48 CD to install the LBA48 kernel, be my guest :)

[johala_reewi]

Yes, it will, but MFSTools 2.0 on the 'normal' LBA48 CD won't initialise a swap > 127mb correctly. For that you need tpip (which is run by copykern).

OK.
Thanks for the info.

[johala_reewi]

That's interesting. Have got everything setup. MFStools2 has detected the new 400G drive. I type in the backup | restore command and it says...

Uncompressed backup size 227936 megabytes
Restore failed: Backup target not large enough for entire backup by itself.

[johala_reewi]

Found the reason...

It's because you already filled up the partition table when you expanded to the 250. You can not expand again to the 400.

Just have to find a way round it to save the recordings.

[Pete77]

Found the reason...

It's because you already filled up the partition table when you expanded to the 250. You can not expand again to the 400.

Just have to find a way round it to save the recordings.

The www.mfslive.org CD Beta version overcomes this problem by letting you expand the partition size.

[johala_reewi]

The www.mfslive.org CD Beta version overcomes this problem by letting you expand the partition size.

Tried that but it doesn't support the -f option (or maybe I didn't get the beta version?). Now trying WinMFS (beta)!! Wish me luck.

[Pete77]

Tried that but it doesn't support the -f option (or maybe I didn't get the beta version?). Now trying WinMFS (beta)!! Wish me luck.

I hope that WinMFS Beta support S1 Tivos.

You could always PM Spike the site and forum owner to make sure.

[johala_reewi]

Well all the blurb said WinMFS supports S1 UK tivo and it did copy across a large chunk of stuff but when put back into tivo, it got past the cachcard load and the almost there then hung - no tivo startup movie :( :(

However, tivoweb is up and tivo is recording but there is nothing on the TV screen (SCART output).

The original Tivo HDD still works though :) :)

[Pete77]

Well all the blurb said WinMFS supports S1 UK tivo and it did copy across a large chunk of stuff but when put back into tivo, it got past the cachcard load and the almost there then hung - no tivo startup movie :( :(

However, tivoweb is up and tivo is recording but there is nothing on the TV screen (SCART output).

The original Tivo HDD still works though :) :)

May be try messaging Spike on the forum at mfslive or start a thread there about using WinMFS to upgrade UK Tivos. He is usually very speedy and helpful in responding.

You could always message Spike asking for a link to the last version of the MFSLive CD Beta as that definitely seemed to work expanding partitions on our UK S1 Tivos.

[blindlemon]

You could always message Spike asking for a link to the last version of the MFSLive CD Beta as that definitely seemed to work expanding partitions on our UK S1 Tivos. johala_reewi - you have PM :)

[johala_reewi]

johala_reewi - you have PM :)

Hasn't arrived ??

[johala_reewi]

May be try messaging Spike on the forum at mfslive or start a thread there about using WinMFS to upgrade UK Tivos. He is usually very speedy and helpful in responding.

You could always message Spike asking for a link to the last version of the MFSLive CD Beta as that definitely seemed to work expanding partitions on our UK S1 Tivos.

Spike suggested using mfslive and using dd which worked but I still only had a 250G tivo image on the 400G drive. Spike then suggested using mfsadd to expand the disk but this didn't seem to work and now I get GSOD when using the 400G disk.

Will have to put original disk back in for now. Am off on hols so at least Tivo can record onto the 250G drive. Will revisit the upgrade when I get back.

Edit: While typing this post, the GSOD fixed itself and Tivo seems to be working and it has found the extra disk space :) :) 135 hours at best (459 basic).

[Pete77]

Edit: While typing this post, the GSOD fixed itself and Tivo seems to be working and it has found the extra disk space :) :) 135 hours at best (459 basic).

Did you use copykern at the end of the process Spike gave you to change to the kernel that will support more than 137Gb? Also what size swap file did you use.

I'm not an expert on Tivo hard drive upgrading like blindlemon is but only basing my comments on what I have read here previously and having done my own one upgrade keeping recordings from 30Gb + 15Gb to 250Gb + 250Gb.

I'm just concerned you might get problems later when your recordings start to exceed 137Gb, even though things may look ok for the time being.

[johala_reewi]

I thought dd would make a 'mirror' image of the original 250G drive so the LBA48 kernel and the swap partition would be copied across. Which is what appeared to be the case after dd had finished (I had a 250G tivo on a 400G drive).

However, trying to add in the extra space with mfsadd resulted in a hiccup which GSOD seems to have fixed. The recordings already exceed 137G and the swap size of 300 is fine for a 400G drive so no concerns there and everything is working fine after a week.