How-To Upgrade your TiVo

[hinsdale]

I Want a Large TiVo with Lots of Recording Time
Here is a recording capacity upgrade How-To for relative newbies that incorporates the newest utilites for hopefully a quick and painless TiVo upgrade experience (includes Boot Cd and floppy instructions).

http://www.newreleasesvideo.com/hinsdale-how-to/

Following the above guide you should wind up with a large TiVo (60 - 330 hrs) in around an hour or so. The instructions function for all U.S. and U.K. makes/models of standalone TiVo's and DirecTV/TiVo combo units (referred to as DirecTiVo's for this document). Remember, however, that you are hacking your TiVo and there are no guarantees of the utilities or instruction provided.

Most common upgrade questions should be covered within the How-To, so read carefully and if still in need of assistance then post requests in the underground forum.

[George42]

Hinsdale,

Thanks a bunch to you and the many other people who contribute to this fourm. With your instructions, a bracket from 9th Tee, and a low-cost Maxtor 5400 rpm 80G drive from newegg, I (and college student son) easily bumped our 30G Sony SA Tivo to 30G+80G.


Thanks!

George

[dwight]

Just wanted to post a quick note thanking you for developing such a comprehensive and complete guide to upgrading a Tivo unit. With no prior Linux experience, I was able to follow your instructions and increase my 30-hr SA Tivo to 145 hours via a 120Gb Maxtor hard drive.

The upgrade when without a hitch. I did encounter one unusual thing, though. When I attempted to use the version of TivoMad for "merged" 2-drive units, it asked me to insert floppy disk #2. Since I didn't have any floppies, I used the standard TivoMad utility (I had a married unit anyway), and everything went fine from that point forward.

Thanks again!

[Eric Cottrell]

Hello,

I got my Philips HR-112 over a year ago. I found
it useful but of limited capacity. I could not
watch Basic quality but the 8 hour medium quality
was okay. I have a pretty full schedule and can
go for a number of days before watching the TiVO.
I turned off the background recording and only
have a few season passes. I was also following
the upgrade threads but put off upgrading because
of the limitations. When I checked last week
after a few months, WOW! :p Thanks to everyone for
their work. I also like the feature of being able
to upgrade again in the future easily!

I went to a computer show planning to get a
100/120 gig drive but ended up getting two Maxtor
536DX (4W060H4) 60 Gig drives for $105 apiece.
The drives on offer over 60 Gig were all 7200 RPM
drives and cost more per gig.

I found the instructions useful and complete but I
am not a new computer user. One suggestion is
when a user has multiple operating systems that
the C: partition might not be on /dev/hda1. I run
three OSes and hda1 is Boot Manager on my machine.
I used the fdisk program to find the right one
(hda2).

The only problem in burning the CD-R was the
readme had the wrong filename for the iso file.
I used linux to burn the CD-R. I backed up my old
TiVO A drive using MFStools for a just-in-case
backup and used DD to copy to my new A drive.
I used a SCSI CD-Rom drive without any problems
and it allowed me to put the TiVO B drive on
/dev/hdd.

I was suprised to start the DD copy and have it
complete by the time I finished supper. Having a
fast machine (1 GHZ P3) really helps. All tests
went okay. The Maxtor drives are quiet with some
low volume clicking sounds. A review said they do
not generate excessive heat.

Thanks also for the suggestion to use tiewraps for
the B drive. I am planning to get a bracket soon.
I now have 145 hours of (unwatchable) Basic and 85
hours of (watchable) Medium. I bumped up my
preference to the 64 hour high quality setting and
will be doing more reprograming to take advantage
of the space.:D One thing on my wishlist is a way
to backup the unit without taking out the
harddrive.

Thanks again and 73,
Eric Cottrell

[Kash76]

Last night I went and picked up a WD 100 gig drive and hadn't really done much reading on upgrading. I printed your 20 page upgrade instructions and 2 1/2 hours later....

Walla!! I have a 126 hour DSR6k.

Many thanks to Hinsdale and his thorough instructions!!

[Rik]

Thanks much. I upgraded my Philips DirecTivo unit to 126 hours a couple of months ago. Unfortunately ... I just got a severe error last night and the unit has been unable to repair itself. Are there any step by step instructions for fixing this myself (after identifying which hard drive is the culprit)?

[rsawic]

What is the difference between a Quantum Drive and
a regular harddrive? Also where can I find MFS tools?

Thanks,
Robert

[kroddy]

Quantum is (was) a manufacturer of hard-drives.

You will find a link to MFS Tools in the above mentioned how-to

[Steavis]

A big THANK YOU to Hinsdale and all those who put in time and energy to create the TiVo upgrading tools. Thanks to all you guys (and a great deal on a Maxtor 120GB HD at Comp-U-Plus), my HDR212 now sports a whopping 174 hrs.

Couldn't have asked for a smoother experience--everything fell into place without a hitch. Contrast that to the 5-day headache I had while trying to upgrade my PC's hard drive and re-install Win98 back in September.

Anyway, you guys are appreciated. I applaud your genius!

--Steavis

[tharpertx]

Never mind...Site is up.

I appreciate your help and feedback,

TIM

[Rik]

Anybody know why my signature ... which appeared correctly under the previous forum ... now shows up as the code I typed in to create it?

[Nihilator]

Originally posted by hinsdale
I Want a Large TiVo with Lots of Recording Time
Here is a recording capacity upgrade How-To for relative newbies that incorporates the newest utilites for hopefully a quick and painless TiVo upgrade experience (includes Boot Cd and floppy instructions).


I just finished upgrading my Sony SVR2000 from 30 hours to 101 hours by adding a 60GB Western Digital drive that I had sitting around. Now I can bump up the recording quality for most all of my shows, and not have to worry about transferring West Wing to tape so quickly. Hinsdale's instructions made it easy...thanks so much!

Here's a suggestion for future revisions of the How-To doc: As soon as you pull your TiVo's A-drive, get on the web, go to the drive manufacturer's website (Quantum owners, go to Maxtor), and pull down a copy of the jumper spec sheet. My Sony uses a Quantum LS15 drive with a somewhat confusing jumper sticker, and this would have been a little hardship if I didn't have a second computer on the network available for just this task.

By the way, my brother and I purchased a Hughes DirecTV with TiVo unit for my mother (in the West Virginia wilderness) for Christmas. As soon as the wrinkles are ironed out of the upgrade process for these apparently tricky units, I'll give that one a try.

Thanks again, Hinsdale, and of course a huge thanks to all of the wicked smart people (Dylan, TiVoMad, Tiger, and Kazymyr) who laid the groundwork.

-Nihilator

[cactus46]

And yet another thanks, Hindsdale.

Using your How-to it was a almost painless process replacing my 30 GB A drive with a 100 GB Western Digital WD1000 7200 RPM drive (the price was right :)).

My SA HDR31202 seems to be doing fine with the new drive. I don't notice any excessive noice. Basic recording space is reported as 115 hours now.

It was a bit of a challenge to get the older computer to boot with the 100 GB drive. Finally adjusting the bios setting to a fictional user setup worked and the Linux recognized the proper drive.

Thanks for your detailed instructions on performing this upgrade!

John

[HTH]

The download for the altered larger version of Kazymyr's Boot Cd image v2.6g containing DTiVoMad 4.0 and all necessary utilities is being served as "text/plain" instead of "application/octet-stream". The host serving that file needs to be taught that .iso files require binary transfer and not to assume they are text files, otherwise downloads may become corrupted as CRLF conversions are performed.

[foo]

Just a note of thanks.. a couple of weeks ago I did a DTiVo upgrade to 2 80gb drives for a total of 149 hrs.

foo

[Bush_Pilot]

Warning!

Tivo will try to take away your 800 number privilages when you reset under ver 2.5-01-1-011.

I reset just before trying to back up. Then, dummy me, I realized I had not written down the software version number. Tivo made me go thru all the setup screens before I could get to the sys info screen. In the phone setup section, they tried to make me use a long distance number even though I live in the sticks at a ski resort. This was completley different than the procedures with the older ver software.

Another thing they did not warn me about was just how long a sys reset takes. Mine took over an hour and was totally unnecessary for me to do. Shame on rookies like me.

[tivobernd]

A word of thanks!

The upgrade HowTo document is great! Upgraded my DirectTivo to 230 hours today in less than 2 hours total. And it is running like a charm!

Thanks again for the great document and links!!!

[daveo4tivo]

thanks to Hinsdale and the wonderful instructions.

1 TiVo down (68 hour SAT-T60)
2 TiVo's to go ;)

[dsmith48]

Hinsdale:

I see the "last updated" section of your how-to has recently changed. Is there a section in which I can find what exactly has been updated. I am not sure if I should print out another copy, I am days short of an upgrade and my current printed copy is covered with my notes.

Thanks in advance,

[HTH]

Originally posted by HTH
The download for the altered larger version of Kazymyr's Boot Cd image v2.6g containing DTiVoMad 4.0 and all necessary utilities is being served as "text/plain" instead of "application/octet-stream". The host serving that file needs to be taught that .iso files require binary transfer and not to assume they are text files, otherwise downloads may become corrupted as CRLF conversions are performed.

BTW, according to the HTTP standard, the browser must adhere to the Content-Type supplied by the server, and therefore must treat this .iso file as text/plain as declared by the server. Clicking on the link to that file will cause it to appear in the browser rather than the user being prompted to save the file to disk, as well as conversions of line end sequences to CR, LF, or CRLF as appropriate for the platform.

Therefore, downloads may be possible using Internet Explorer which is infamous for ignoring this requirement in the HTTP standard by ignoring the Content-Type header and instead sniffing the downloaded content to determine the type for itself, resulting in more broken server configurations like this.
Still, the trevor server must be reconfigured to not serve .iso files as text/plain, or zip the file, or an alternative server set up for this file that is properly configured.

Does anyone know who to contact directly for problems with that server? There's no identifying information on its root index, and I can't find reference in the Hinsdale FAQ to who runs it.

[Steavis]

dsmith48:

Noticed in your sig that you're not sure whether to shelve your TiVo's 20 GB drive or use your Maxtor 120 GB 5400 rpm as a B drive.

Thought you'd like to hear about my recent upgrade experience, since I used the exact same hardware (HDR 212 with Maxtor 120/5400 drive). I installed the Maxtor as my B drive without a hitch, adding about 154 hours to my 20 hr. TiVo. That was a week ago today and everything's still working great. If you prefer Medium quality to Basic as I do, keeping your original hard drive will mean about 101 hours total assuming your experience mirrors mine.

More space is always better than less since you will inevitably find ways to fill it up. The only reason I would consider removing the 20 GB drive is if I had a computer that needed it more. (Actually, I'm considering swapping my 20 from the TiVo with my computer's 40 GB drive).

Anyway, whatever you decide to do, good luck with your upgrade!

--Steavis

[dsmith48]

Steavis:

Thanks for your input. :)

I too agree more is better, however the 20hr drive truly doesn't give all that much more space. I myself cannot stand the look of basic and currently use medium as well at about 12 hours. Upon upgrading, my current intentions are that of using high.

Ultimately I wish to have 120GB + 120GB, simply buying them both at the same time right now is not possible. I am thinking of using the 120GB now as A: then adding an additional B: of 120Gb in the future, this is what I will do.

*** My question though, is what is more work. Is adding a large drive as B: then upgrading drive A: at a later time more work? If so I would only want to replace my factory A: drive with a large drive and then add a large B: later on in time.

The loss of any recorded material during any upgrade is not a concern to be, simply I would suck it up and move on only to yet again fill the drive.

I too have a 40GB drive in my home PC in which I do not fill and thought about removing that to use as a B: drive 120GB + 40GB. And using the 22GB TiVo drive in the PC. For some reason that makes me feel like a compulsive gambler doing what ever necessary to feed the addiction, haha.

Can anyone answer the asterisk question above?

[Steavis]

dan--

My limited understanding of the upgrade process tells me that the difference wouldn't amount to more than a few minutes of extra work, especially if you don't care about losing your recordings. There are plenty of people on this board that can answer that question more knowledgeably than I, however.

Ultimately though, if you're going to be utilizing High quality, the extra couple hours probably won't be worth it--easiest thing to do would be to use one large A drive for now. When you get a second large drive, just run BlessTiVo on it and put it in. You won't lose any recordings, and your 22 GB drive could be a backup.

[thtv01]

hinsdale: I have a question about the link in your How-To. It's regarding the link for the updated boot CD (nuboot6.iso). I burned the CD and it has a text file for TIVOMAD and it says version 3.1. Do you know if the text file is wrong? How can I tell if this boot cd has the updated version of DTiVoMad 4.0?
I guess I can boot up using the CD and test it by typing 'maddtb4/setupcd.sh ' to see if it starts the script.

[thtv01]

Never mind...I guess I answered this myself. I booted up the CD and entered the command for DTivoMad 4.0 and it works fine.
I guess I should have done this before posting my question.....
Thanks!

[KFL]

I too wish to thank all those that did the hard work setting up these utilities and getting the cd & instructions together. I found them easier to follow upgrading my DSR6K to 2 160 GIG Maxtor 5400 drives this weekend than when I added a 60 GIG drive to my standalone last year. I now have up to 259 hours of recording time. I'm still using the original fan and my temperature has stabilized at 48C in a 70 degree room.

Thanks once more for an outstanding job!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Breacagan]

I ran across several bumps in my upgrade, but every contingency was covered by the HOW-TO. The tools were easy to use. Well done, everyone!

Thank you,
byron

[RAINSUX]

This is my first post to the forum. I would like to express my thanks to Hinsdale, Tiger, and any others who I didn't see your name (sorry). Yesterday I upgraded my 30 hour Phillips Tivo by adding a 100 GB WD drive. The upgrade went flawlessly and I now have a 154+ hour Tivo! I can only imagine the time and effort that went into the development of this process. How generous of you guys to share it all with us. THANK YOU!

Sam Sharp
Albuquerque, NM

[tivoboy]

to complete the upgrade?

[Steve O]

I'm about to do the upgrade deed, but I had a couple of questions before I got started (better to get them answered now rather than post a "help!" message after it's too late).

My primary master drive in my PC is a 60 G drive that's broken up into 3 partitions. C: is 5 Gig, D: is 10 Gig, and E: is 45 Gig. I'd have to check fdisk, but I think it's a primary partition and 2 extended partitions.

Next, I think those are FAT16 partitions.

Are either of those issues likely to give me any problems when doing the backup and/or blessing portions of the upgrade? Will hda, hdb, etc. be different because of the extra partitions already on the Primary Master drive?

-Steve

[wookie]

I would like to thank Hinsdale for the great upgrade instructions. I ran into a couple snags, one due to flaky hardware:mad: , and the other:confused: - maybe something I missed in the upgrade instructions, or maybe a place to add a little note to the upgrade guide??

I was doing a "new A" + a "new B" on a new system(2 maxtor 80GB hds from Dell per another discussion thread).

I ran into troubles at the last step (10 option#2) when I was trying to boot and do the mad/setup.sh step. I had the new A connected to Sec Master, CDROM to SecSlave, and the new B connected to PriSlave... The A drive was being recognized, but the B drive was not.

It took me a few minutes to remember that I have to have _something_ hooked up to PriMaster in order for the bios to recognize that the slave... (could be an issue of older BIOS? or just the fact that I'm used to using SCSI :)...

After connecting another HD as PriMaster, and replacing a flakey CDROM all went smooth as silk. The CDROM problem was a strange one. I was using Kazymyr's boot disk, and it worked fine when I copied the original A to the new A... but failed when I tried to boot with 2 disks in the system. After the Kernel finished loading (..........) it displayed "Ready." and would hang. Confusion rained for a little while as I tried to determine if my second HD was bad, etc... but I finally realized that the CD was bad when I tried booting from another bootCD I have with some diagnostic utilities and found the CDROM spining up and down multiple times before finally booting.

Soo, it took me about 4-5 hours to do the setup (I did a dd copy of the original A drive as I wanted to save the programs which took quite a while - and the flaky CDROM had me going in circles for a couple hours).

I haven't actually re-installed the HDs into the system yet, as I brought the HD's to work and left the unit at home, but I'm confident it's going to work :)

Thanks again!

[joedog]

One thing to watch out for: Not all x-gigabyte drives are the same size, so if you attempt to restore an image from a larger drive to one that is slightly smaller, you might not be able to easily.

This one drove me crazy until I saw that MFS Tool could backup an image without the /var directory. My source drive (40 GB Quantum 5400 RPM-was the orignal drive on my "30 GB" SVR-2000) was 10 MB larger than my destination drive (40 GB Quantum 7200 RPM - Fry's was out of 5400 40 GB Quantum/Maxtors). So I restored the image and told MFS Tool to make /var 118 MB instead of 128 MB. Might not be the best way.

[harvscar]

I too want to say thanks to all the people who made my easy upgrade possible. Except for dealing with my pain-in-the-a** PC case and a coaster I burned of Kaz's BootCD, everything was great. I wish I had the funds to upgrade my other unit :(

[Jim Long]

Thanks to TiVoMad, Kazymyr, Tiger and Hinsdale for putting together a nice package.

The expanded boot cd from Kazymyr worked flawlessly. TiVoMad's version 4 beta worked like a charm and all was very straight forward.

I did a safety backup. Did a DD of my Tivo A drive to a new 120GB Maxstor, and then added another 120GB for a B drive. Didn't need to qunlock any drive. And haven't use amset /quiet yet.

Having a DSR6000 DirecTivo I found it an easy exercise to remove the case and unscrew the bracket. Putting it back together was just as easy. And there you go a nice 230hr Tivo with lots of new season passes now being added.

Cheers!

Jim

[joevivona]

Agree with everyone above. Upgraded this week to dual 80GB. Bought them from newegg based upon people's recommendations. Used Hinsdale's instructions and Kazymr's boot disk. Everything was great with just one small bump for me...


We're a heavy Win2K and WinXP house so all my drives are formatted NTFS. You can't mfstool backup onto a NTFS drive because the ability to mount a NTFS drive RW has been removed (from the provided Boot Disk - as per another thread in this forum). After a little searching in this forum of course I found the answer, but could we please, please add it to the FAQ ??

Other than that you guys are great and everything worked wonderful. My Tivo is web enabled, getting updates over the internet and I am a happy camper....

This and my brand new 64inch 16x9 TV and I never have to leave my house....

[hinsdale]

Originally posted by joevivona
We're a heavy Win2K and WinXP house so all my drives are formatted NTFS. You can't mfstool backup onto a NTFS drive because the ability to mount a NTFS drive RW has been removed (from the provided Boot Disk - as per another thread in this forum). After a little searching in this forum of course I found the answer, but could we please, please add it to the FAQ ??


FROM THE HOW-TO:
It is geared for users of common IDE Bus PC's running Windows 95b, 98, or Me (see note at end for Windows NT/2000/XP users).

I have Windows NT/2000/XP:

Do not boot into Windows NT/2000/XP with your original TiVo drives attached as a signature can be attached to the drive that will create problems. You will need to have/create a primary or extended fat32 partition on your primary boot drive connected as primary master and know the partition table (run fdisk -l to dispay partitions). Then you can follow these upgrade instructions replacing (if applicable) the /dev/hda1 with the appropriate fat32 partition designation (example /dev/hda5 if first extended partition, /dev/hda6 if second extended partition, etc). Programs like Partition Magic or the free trial of Bootit (link provided) should allow for simple creation of the necessary fat32 partition. However, the easiest method is to simply use/purchase a small 1-2GB (or even smaller) hard drive and format it as fat32.

[eskin]

Thanks for the upgrade info! I successfully added an 80 gig Maxtor 5400 RPM drive to my Sony 30 hour box this morning. From start to finish, the whole process took about an hour.

One thing that I found was that on my PC, I have a PCI fast hard disk controller, with the DVD-ROM and ZIP drive on the secondary internal IDE bus. I unplugged the ZIP drive from the cable and plugged in the new drive after setting the jumpers for slave. The drive came up as hdd in linux, glad I read the instructions to page up and confirm the drive ids before doing the BlessTiVo.

Cheers and thanks,

Michael Eskin

[farjo08]

Thanks for the great upgrade guide!

I just purchased two WD 120 GB hard drives and upgraded my Sony SVR-2000 and now have:

Recording Capacity: 81 hrs, 55 min (Best Quality)
298 hrs, 47 min (Basic Quality)

My only suggestions to anyone else who might be doing an upgrade is to be aware of the following:

If you are running a Windows Operating System with your primary drive/partition formatted as NTFS, the boot cd will be able to mount the drive, but not write to it, which is necessary to create your initial backup.

If you are running a Linux Operating System with your primary drive/partition formatted as ext3, the boot cd will not be able to mount the drive.

Fortunately I had a ghost backup of my XP machine so I just reformatted the drive so I could mount it and write the backup, then restored the ghost image when I was finished.

As for the actual instructions, they were very easy to follow and worked perfectly!

[Yuterald]

upgrading the new at&t one? is there a way to do that?:(

[grahamc]

As a UK Tivo user my box is a Thomson Scenium, and gives only 12 hours @max quality.
I want to upgrade it by adding a 2nd drive, leaving the existing drive alone(I'm assuming there's only 1 - haven't opened it up yet).
I've read the very detailed hinsdale-how-to, and it seems to me (I know unix/linux) that all I need do is obtain a new drive and run BlessTiVo on it, then install the 2nd drive in the Tivo unit.
Presumably at boot, the tivo software will recognise the extra disk and incorporate it. Nothing I can find in the howto modifies the Tivo A drive, all the other stuff in the howto is concerned with backing up the A drive prior to replacing it, but since I'm not touching it, there is no need for this (apart from peace-of-mind).
Am I correct or have I missed something? Like modifying the fstab file to include the new disk?

[hinsdale]

You are correct. All you need to do is run BlessTiVo on the new B drive and install (also may need to pull the A drive to change the jumper to master).

However, you need to realize that if something doesnt work or either drive crashes or the OS runs into any corruption - you will have a door stop without a backup. The backup part only takes 20 minutes or so and is definetly worth the effort.

[jayster]

Instruction #7, option 3 explains how to copy from one drive to another. The instruction states to hook Tivo to hdb and the blank to hdc. Then it says to type dd if=/dev/hdc of=/dev/hdb bs=32k. This is in fact backwards...and will copy the blank to your tivo!!! I did two VERY boneheaded things. Not being extremely familiar with Linux, I did not confirm the order. Second, being confident in the ease of how the upgrade appeared to be...I didn't create a backup. A VERY STUPID NEWBIE THING TO DO. And I'm not even a newbie to computers. Of course, it would be illegal to use another's backup...but I really don't want to buy another TIVO...so I'm willing to ask. What makes me really mad is the fact I even followed the directions carefully (except for the most important part, the backup...ARGH) I have a Philips TIVO that I was going to swap the 30 Gig for a 100 Gig. PLEASE HELP ME...

[hinsdale]

Originally posted by jayster
Instruction #7, option 3 explains how to copy from one drive to another. The instruction states to hook Tivo to hdb and the blank to hdc. Then it says to type dd if=/dev/hdc of=/dev/hdb bs=32k. This is in fact backwards...and will copy the blank to your tivo!!! I did two VERY boneheaded things. Not being extremely familiar with Linux, I did not confirm the order. Second, being confident in the ease of how the upgrade appeared to be...I didn't create a backup. A VERY STUPID NEWBIE THING TO DO. And I'm not even a newbie to computers. Of course, it would be illegal to use another's backup...but I really don't want to buy another TIVO...so I'm willing to ask. What makes me really mad is the fact I even followed the directions carefully (except for the most important part, the backup...ARGH) I have a Philips TIVO that I was going to swap the 30 Gig for a 100 Gig. PLEASE HELP ME...

From the How-To instructions Step #7, Option #3

Connect your original TiVo A drive to the Secondary Master IDE connector on your PC (make sure the red/black edge stripe on the IDE cable is closest to the power connector and make sure the power connector is inserted fully. Connect your new upgrade drive to be used as your new TiVo A drive to the Primary Slave IDE connector on your PC.

[jayster]

OK...three mistakes. Since I used hda and hdb, I merely used your document for reference. Upon glancing at it, I saw the original Tivo drive first, so I logically figured that the Tivo goes to hdb. I'm humbled for not reading the words carefully. For someone scared to work on computers, the instructions are well written. For an Engineer (more aptly bonehead) like me...who doesn't carefully read instructions, disaster is imminent. Good news though, I've decided to brush up on my Linux syntax now. Hinsdale is all wise.

[cyberjef28]

I am afraid the MFSTools are not always able to divorce the 2 drives in the Thomson Scenium TiVo UK units.

There are lots of posts about the UK TiVo backup images that, when restored to a new drive put the TiVo into a continual booting loop.

This happenned to me and I have noticed that quite a few other UK upgraders have experienced this fault. Yet there is nothing in the guide to warn about this possible problem. In the end I had to source a working TiVo back-up image from someone else.

Might be worth mentioning this as its a little annoying when you've paid almost £200 ($300) on a new hard drive to find that you cannot use it to upgrade your TiVo using the tools specified here.

Jeff.

[Larry63]

I'm getting ready to expand my new virgin DSR6000R01. I haven't even opened it yet!

I work for a small computer reseller and have access to a hard drive programmer.

I was wondering if anyone has any experience using such a device to make backups and larger original disks for Tivo units?

The following link is the disk duplicators web site, the model we have is the D-105.

http://www.greystoneds.com/

I have no doubt that your instructions will work fine, I just wanted to know if our disk duplicator will work with identical drives for back-up, and with larger drives for the upgrade.

It would save time, and I could help out some friends with their units.

Currently for example, if someone were to bring to me a 3.2G HDD with W-98 on it and asked me to give them an upgrade to a larger drive, I say no problem, I take the original 3.2G and copy it to a lets say 40G drive. They take the 40G drive and plug it in to their PC and everything boots up the same, the only difference is they have a larger drive without the headaches, of playing around with software and they still have their old drive as backup.

Any tips before I start on my Philips DSR6000????

thanks

[jldesq]

OK. I did it. My DirecTivo (Philips) started crashing a few weeks ago. It started with constant freezes. Then, the other day, I awoke to the "powering up" and a frozen screen. I was able to reset it by unpluging the power. Did this for 3 days. Then, I wasn't able to reset it at all. All I heard was the sound of a pingpong ball in the harddrive when I powered up. I had to act. I printed out Hinsdale's 18 page guide (someone said 22 pages - did I skip a few steps? ;) I purchased two 80 Gig HDs from CompUSA - over spent by some 50-60 dollars I bet. But, time was of the essence! :D My biggest fear was that the HD was so far gone, I wouldn't be able to get the software (ver. 2.05.01) from it. I know Win2k. I know DOS. I don't know Linux (don't even know how to say it). (That is a testament to how good Hinsdale's guide is). :) :) I broke open the computer case. Broke open Tivo. After a few false starts having to do with my CD ROM Drive not reading my boot CD (made on another computer), (I kept getting "failure to decompress" errors) I swapped out the CD ROM drive and I was able to back up the software from the bad drive. From there, it was easy street. I followed Hinsdale's guide to the letter. Now, I have 143 approx hours and it works too. Thanks Hinsdale. Thanks for everything.

[DaMightyJ]

Please help. I have the 30hr single drive SA. I put the original drive in as Secondary Master, with the intended new A drive (Maxtor 80G 5400) as the Secondary Slave. I ran dd if=/dev/hdc of=/dev/hdd bs=32k and after some time, it seemed to complete with no errors. After swapping the new A to Sec Master, and the other 80G as Sec Slave, I went to run TiVoMAD and I dont remember the error, but it was number 32, and it said it couldnt find some stuff and reverted back to the original partition.

It gets better.

I put the new A drive in the unit, just to see, and it sits at the initial screen for a long time. I tried rebooted a few times, giving atleast 10 minutes between each reboot, and have now put the original 30G drive back in, which is doing the same thing. I have replaced the new A back in, and am trying to run the mfs tools to see if I can get a backup, and restore that to the new A, but when i attempt to mount /dev/hda1 /mnt/dos it tells me I have to specify the filesystem. hda1 is simply a 6.4G disk I partitioned and formatted hoping to dump the 150~300MB there for now.

If anyone can give me advice at this point, I would really appreciate it.

Also, I want one of those TurboNet cards..

Thanks
Josh

[Agent86]

Has hinsdale's FAQ been updated with AT&T Broadband (Series2) TiVo information yet?

I have my AT&T Broadband TiVo and an expansion drive on the way and am looking for a good "one stop" resource to follow step by step, troubleshoot from, etc.

It's quite the comprehensive document. Keep up the great work!

- Agent 86

[siddhartha]

i want to thanks tivomad, hinsdale and tiger for all of their excellent tools, guide and help.

[hinsdale]

In response to many requests, for a limited time I will perform recording capacity upgrades for those of you whom do not wish to or are not comfortable using the How-To provided here. You can either request an upgrade kit or ship me your TiVo unit (Chicago area locals can drop off) and for a minimal fee plus shipping costs (if applicable) I will perform the complete upgrade. This is a service not a business (and therefore $100-$300 less than regular commercial upgraders) and is for those intimidated by the how-to but not wanting to spend so much upgrading. I wont be able to do this for ever and hope that most will attempt using the provided How-To (your cost 0.00).

Details on the drive upgrade kits and upgrade service can be found in the how-to:

http://www.newreleasesvideo.com/hinsdale-how-to/



Note: To those at&Tivo upgraders - i will be upgrading the How-To shortly with specifics for this new hardware.

[Agent86]

Wow - thats mighty generous of you hinsdale. That's really going "above and beyond" to support the community.

In the meantime, I'm waiting with baited breath for your update for AT&TiVos. I have my AT&TiVo coming in on Thursday, with the expansion hard drive showing up on Wednesday.

With a little luck, I can get it going just in time for the "Best of Super Bowl Comericals" show and the Super Bowl itself!

Rock on hinsdale, and thanks again for all your help.

Thanks for all the hackers out there that figured this stuff out as well!

- Agent 86

[hinsdale]

Originally posted by Agent86
Wow - thats mighty generous of you hinsdale. That's really going "above and beyond" to support the community.

Well i would hardly say that. Its not free, and although I am charging less than commercial upgraders would charge, is priced so as to not be burdensome to those legitimately overwhelmed by the process but also not encourage too many to give up in using the How-To (which is free).



In regards to the AT&Tivo update to the How-To, hopefully I will get to that today.

[Agent86]

Well i would hardly say that. Its not free, and although I am charging less than commercial upgraders would charge, is priced so as to not be burdensome to those legitimately overwhelmed by the process but also not encourage too many to give up in using the How-To (which is free).

I agree. I've been working with computer hardware for years now, so its all like walking to me now, but I remember I was terrified of breaking something when I first started. However, once I got going, I realized it really wasn't so bad if you took your time and followed directions.

In regards to the AT&Tivo update to the How-To, hopefully I will get to that today.

Awesome. I'll try to take some pictures of the process. I know most of it is software based - which is not very conducive to photographs - but wherever I see a good photo op, I'll take some.

- Agent 86

[SDV]

Hi,

I've just upgraded a single 40gb quantum drive UK Thomson TiVo to a 40Gb + 120Gb Maxtor TiVo. Many thanks to hinsdale, TiVoMad, Tiger, Kazymyr and others for all their hard work, making this one easy upgrade! :)

[DaMightyJ]

Finally, after some confusion with byteswapping, etc, everything is good to go. Special shouts to jdm5 and Stan! Thanks!!

HDR312 -> Upped to 193hrs worst quality 50-something bestest true-to-TiVo quality, dual 80G 5400 Maxtors provided for my viewing pleasure.. next stop: the bash. :D

[spideymac]

kroddy:

I have just obtained 2 Hughes DirecTV receivers + Tivo @ $79 each and a WD 100GB HD from Best Buy @ $199 and I'm ready to begin my upgrade hack. I have a bracket from 9th Tee (in case I ended up with a two HD unit) . I am currently using a Mits 73905 with SR-HD500 (Home Theater) and I would like to know the following if you can assist:

1. How are you utilizing/connecting your SR-HD500 with your Tivo, if it is also a combined unit?

2. These Hughes Tivos are only supposed to have one HD in them. Can I leave the original in and add the WD100GB or do I have to replace the original with the WD100GB?

3. Can I use Power Quest's "Drive Copy" to format and copy the Tivo software to the new drive, if I have to replace the original HD?

4. Will there be any problem re: "Drive Copy" introducing any extraneous/proprietary software on to the new HD?


5. Will the Tivo unit then recognize the entire drive capacity?

These are just a few of my major concerns before I start hacking away. I've already dnldd the very nice road map for making the change and I'll begain as soon as I can get my above concerns answered. The use of Drive Copy was an after thought possiblity to copy the Tivo software to the new HD.

I'm saving the second Tivo and using it as-is with another in-house set-up until I can find out what I'm supposed to be doing.

Thanx, spideymac :confused:






Originally posted by kroddy
Quantum is (was) a manufacturer of hard-drives.

You will find a link to MFS Tools in the above mentioned how-to

[kstuart]

I'm using WindowsXP and my C: drive is already FAT32.

The "footnote" for NT/2000/XP seems to assume that you need to create a new FAT32 partition.

For those of us who already are using FAT32 under XP, what is going to be different than using FAT32 under, say, Windows ME?

[hinsdale]

It says you will need to have or create a Fat32 partition. You have one so can disregard furthur instructions for those whom need to create one.

[kstuart]

Thanks for your reply!

Do I still need to change the numbers as mentioned in the footnote ?, ie replacing (if applicable) the /dev/hda1 with the appropriate fat32 partition designation (example /dev/hda5 if first extended partition, /dev/hda6 if second extended partition, etc).

I want to be clear, because although I have written software for both Unix and PC, I'm still taking this as a recipe, rather than trying to understand why and how you are doing each part...

[hinsdale]

If its a single large primary partition on your drive then you will use hda1.. however if you have other partitions or the destination is other than the first primary partition on the drive then you will make adjustments. Run fdisk to display your partition table and then make adjustments as necessary based on the partition info.

[Agent86]

Hey everyone,

My AT&TiVo came in today and I am looking to upgrade it.

Can someone please tell me how to boot the floppy in "noswap" mode? I can't figure that part out.

Thanks!

- Agent 86

[kstuart]

Originally posted by hinsdale
If its a single large primary partition on your drive then you will use hda1.. however if you have other partitions or the destination is other than the first primary partition on the drive then you will make adjustments. Run fdisk to display your partition table and then make adjustments as necessary based on the partition info.

So, if "C:\" is the first partition on my hard drive (of 2 total partitions on the HD), and it is FAT32, then even though I am running WinXP, I should be able to follow the normal directions. Is that correct?

[Agent86]

kstuart: Yes. You're ready to roll! :)

I might be wrong, and you might want to wait up for someone else to answer. But as far as I know, the mounting commands will mount the first partition on the drive. In this case, yours is FAT32.

Since you are just backing up, if it doesn't work, you'll know. When you mount the drive per the instructions - just do the following

cd /mnt/dos
ls

If that looks like your C drive, you are all set!

- Agent 86

[uclamz]

Hi Out There...

I have already successfully backed-up, restored, blessed and upgraded my Sony Standalone using the Hinsdale guide by adding an 80gig.

Now, I am attempting to upgrade both of my DirectTivos ... One is the Sony the other a Philips.

Using the same exact process, as all of my units are factory single drive units, I have run the MFSTools 1.1 backup. Then I attempted to restore it and I am stuck in the endless "Powering Up" loop.

I've tried it with both DirecTivos and no dice! Same thing. I've tried it about 5 times each .. checking and double checking all cables, connections and jumpers .. with no success. I know I did everything right as I was able to upgrade the Sony stand alone without a problem.

Any ideas?

Thanks
-Mike

[SteveSD]

Hi everybody -

I've got a Philips HDR112 and a Maxtor 120 GIG 5400 RPM drive that I want to install as my "B" drive. The computer I'll use for the upgrade has only a SCSI CD-ROM which can boot from the CD (the IDE CD ROM is dead). Is there any reason why I can't run the programs from the SCSI CD reader? Do I need to copy the programs to floppy and boot from floppy?

My Tivo "A" drive and new "B" drive can still be connected using the IDE bus as master/slave.

Thanks all for your input - this forum is awesome!

[hinsdale]

You will most likely have problems with the SCSI cd-rom. If you look at Step 4 of the How-to you will find very simple floppy instructions to perform the upgrade of your standalone (almost as easy as using the Boot Cd).

[Agent86]

Just wanted to drop the forum a line to say that my AT&TiVo upgrade was successful. I added a 120GB drive.

I followed Hinsdale's instructions, with the changes PoopBeast posted, and it was easy as pie.

I did need to purchase a longer ATA66 cable.

- Agent 86

[disco]

I used the Hinsdale How-To, too (:)), and upgrading my 14 hr TiVo to a 94 hr, was easy. Thanks!

[jeremy Parsons]

Hi Thanks for an excellent piece of documentation I upgraded my
40GB system single drive to 2 x 120GB Maxtor Daimondmax Hard Drives giving me 84Hrs Best Quality and 299 basic.

A couple of points came to mind.

The computer was a P III and needed a BIOS upgrade to recognise the hard drives

The harddrives needed the utility downloading to disable the power monitoring

i experemented with the maxtor noise setting (downloaded util)quite settings and quite gave the best noise settings (you would expect it to) and tivo seemed happy with it.

I ordered the bracket from 9th tee and it arrived within 1 week

I was able to backup the disk to an image and copy the entire image to the new 120GB A Drive. This took about 1hr on my PIII 600MHZ with 640MB Ram

This version of the maxtor 540X requires the turbo option to be set to false.

The quantum drive that came with tivo has a confusing diagram for the jumper settings , downloading the pdf installaiton manual from www.maxtor.com/quantum helped a lot.

The only thing that I had a problem with was the turbo setting to false. I did not do this initially and the system did not power up , once I made this change everyting worked fine.

[puppypuppy]

If anyone decides to use a Sony Vaio for upgrading a TiVo ... beware.

I did an upgrade this past weekend and the only significant problem I had was with the enhanced keyboard on the Sony Vaio. The Linux boot cd just does not handle this keyboard properly. The first problem is that the "page up" keys (all three of them) didn't work so it was impossible to scroll back through the boot log to confirm disk sizes. After struggling for about 30 minutes total trying to figure out how I could be reading Hinsdale's instructions wrong, I decided to just run several boots and try to "catch" the data as it scrolled by :(.

So after about 10-15 boots (I lost count) I did finally get my disk size info so I proceeded on only to encounter my second problem. I logged in only to find that the some of the other minor keys like "delete" didn't work. So after trying to dredge up my rusty UNIX knowledge about how to remap the keys I was about to give up when, in a flash of brilliance, I finally tired a different keyboard thinking "it can't be that can it?!?!?" and "Viola!" all my problems went away.

Sony Vaio's may be nice machines with lots of slick features but ..... they do a lot of non-standard stuff that can bite one in the butt (even on WindoZZZZZ).

[TwinCityTVHound]

Just wanted to say "thanks" to Hinsdale and all the other contributors here. Thanks to your efforts, I'm now cruising into "sweeps month" with a 106 hr. DirecTiVo.

Upgrade was easier than easy; took a little longer than estimated, however (ca. 75 mins.).

Color me overjoyed. Thanks again!

[Junon]

Just wanted to say thanks to Hinsdale for his VERY helpful guide and special boot cd.

Just about everything went smoothly except that I was upgrading a 2 drive machine that I had upgraded previously to a one drive machine with a much larger A drive. As many people reported, my two drive backup image resulted in an endless reboot loop when I restored it to the new A drive. My solution of course, was to restore a virgin 14 hour A drive image to the new 80gb drive. I lost my season passes and such but I needed an excuse to clean everything up anyway. Once I did that, everything booted as it should.

I'll probably crack it open again soon so I can use that maxtor utility to quiet down the drive, anyone have any negative experiences with that? Reduces performance or anything?

Thanks again.

[JohnW]

I'm attempting to upgrade my UK 2 drive Tivo but have run into the problem mentioned earlier in this thread by cyberjef28.
After using MFSTools to backup and restore to a maxtor 120G drive, I experience a continual booting loop.
I have tried using MFSTools 1.1 to restore as suggested but still get the same problem.

Can anyone suggest where I go now??

[uclamz]

Good luck getting anyone to reply to your post. Mine has been up there for a week, and nothing.

I wish someone would just say, "Nope.. nothing can be done." But I have found this forum to be LEAN ... no, downright worthless ... on information from anyone other than Hinsdale.

Thanks Hinsdale for your input .. but most others just rehash what you have said.

This forum really isn't about solving problems, it seems more to be about people not fully understanding what Hinsdale VERY clearly wrote in his help-file.

[DaMightyJ]

I just wanted to say I have recieved help from quite a few people :)

[hinsdale]

Originally posted by uclamz
Good luck getting anyone to reply to your post. Mine has been up there for a week, and nothing.

I wish someone would just say, "Nope.. nothing can be done." But I have found this forum to be LEAN ... no, downright worthless ... on information from anyone other than Hinsdale.

Thanks Hinsdale for your input .. but most others just rehash what you have said.

This forum really isn't about solving problems, it seems more to be about people not fully understanding what Hinsdale VERY clearly wrote in his help-file.

This isnt really the thread to post a problem.. most experienced upgraders (who may assist you) have no need to check this thread. I would suggest posting a new thread in the fourm.

As far as your reboot problem. If Mfs tools 1.1 doesnt solve the problem, some DirecTiVo upgraders have used the System Reset and as it goes down, unplug to powerdown before attempting to create an Mfs Tools backup. This may help with the log files that could be the cause of such a reboot loop. Mfs Tools is not perfect , although I must admit that in my 100+ upgrades I have never run into the reboot loop so may be a PC hardware issue. Try performing the backup/restore without compression (leave the 6 out of the -6so) - you can always use winrar or winzip later to compress when you are ready to burn the image to CD. If all else fails.. Tiger's Mfs Tools has allowed for creation and storage of small backup images that are fairly easily exchanged. You will most likely get some positive results by requesting an image. This forum has some very generous and knowledgeable contributors.. although since the How-To has been posted there havent been nearly as many needing assistance and therefore the numbers of those providing assistance have dwindled also.

[uclamz]

Thanks Hinsdale ...

Perhaps it is a hardware issue, but I don't think so. I'm a QA Manager and have access to an entire lab of 40 different configurations of PCs. I've tried this, like I said in my post at least 10-15 different times in different systems to no avail.

As for trying the -6so without the 6 .. that was one of my first troubleshooting attempts as I know compression/decompression can screw things up from time to time .. no go.

The only thing I do notice is that my two DirecTivo systems were both produced in the last 3 months (Nov 2001) ... a friend of mine here who was able to back up their direcTivo has one that is almost a year older.

Also .. as for posting this as a separate problem ... tried that FIRST ... I put it up on the main forum and had over 150 views with ZERO replies. I'm sorry, but for the most part on this forum, you are about it when it comes to quality info. Like you said, most of those with any knowledge have left with those who needed knowledge.

Thanks .. and I'll keep pluggin' away...

[JohnW]

I have just tried the these suggestions (no -6) .

I still get the boot loop.

I have posted a new thread hopefully someone will reply with a solution

Thanks

[neonleon]

I did a back up of a two drive directivo. It has a 30 and a 15 gig in it. I did a restore of the tivo.bak file to an 80 gig quantum/maxtor using mfstool just to test the back up..Now the the drive is reported as a 30 gig drive. I've used qunlock, tried partition magic all to no avail.. I even did a low level format with powermax. How do i get my 80 back ????

[uTivo]

Did you update your PC's BIOS to recognize the 80GB drive..maybe it's still configured for a 30GB drive. Otherwise, your BIOS doesn't support large drives.

[dmbong]

Hey Mike! I had this with a Hughes DTiVo for about a day before I tried something else. It works fine now.

Originally I did not use MFSTools 1.1 for the backup, but in a retry, I used MFSTools 1.1 for the restore. Also, originally, I used the setup.sh in the mad/ directory rather than the TiVoMad4 stuff. It was all good once I corrected this by restoring with MFST 1.1 and using TM4.

-Brian
Originally posted by uclamz
Hi Out There...

I have already successfully backed-up, restored, blessed and upgraded my Sony Standalone using the Hinsdale guide by adding an 80gig.

Now, I am attempting to upgrade both of my DirectTivos ... One is the Sony the other a Philips.

Using the same exact process, as all of my units are factory single drive units, I have run the MFSTools 1.1 backup. Then I attempted to restore it and I am stuck in the endless "Powering Up" loop.

I've tried it with both DirecTivos and no dice! Same thing. I've tried it about 5 times each .. checking and double checking all cables, connections and jumpers .. with no success. I know I did everything right as I was able to upgrade the Sony stand alone without a problem.

Any ideas?

Thanks
-Mike

[neonleon]

Actually the bios saw one hd as an 80 but the other 80 as a 30...dunno what was going on...finally solved the prob by switching to my other box...it saw bot drives correctly. Thanks for the reply

[synthe]

In step 8 of your wonderful instructions, where we are restoring our tivo.bak file to our new A drive, is there any reason why we are putting the new A on the PC as primary slave rather than secondary master? I would think that putting it on as secondary master, and changing the command to restore the backup to:

mfstool restore -zi /mnt/dos/tivo.bak /dev/hdc

would remove the need to change any jumpers on the drive after we had set it to master.

Needless to say, I haven't done this process yet, my two 120GB drives will be arriving tomorrow, but I have been reading and rereading the instructions to upgrade to make sure I follow how to do everything, and the original instructions kinda stuck out at me as a needless jumper change.

[hinsdale]

Originally posted by synthe
In step 8 of your wonderful instructions, where we are restoring our tivo.bak file to our new A drive, is there any reason why we are putting the new A on the PC as primary slave rather than secondary master? I would think that putting it on as secondary master, and changing the command to restore the backup to:

mfstool restore -zi /mnt/dos/tivo.bak /dev/hdc

would remove the need to change any jumpers on the drive after we had set it to master.

Needless to say, I haven't done this process yet, my two 120GB drives will be arriving tomorrow, but I have been reading and rereading the instructions to upgrade to make sure I follow how to do everything, and the original instructions kinda stuck out at me as a needless jumper change.

hdc is secondary master.. and that is where you attach the drive.

[synthe]

Originally posted by hinsdale


hdc is secondary master.. and that is where you attach the drive.

From your article, in section #8 with the title "Restoring Mfstools backup image" after the indented section it states:

Whether or not you are replacing your original TiVo A drive, you will want to verify your new small Mfs Tools backup image by restoring to a new upgrade drive and placing in your TiVo to test. The restore command for either the two-drive or single drive backup above will be the same.

If you have just completed your Mfs Tools backup commands, and your new large upgrade drive is not yet currently connected to your PC, then first unmount your drives using the following command at the linux # prompt:

umount -f -a -r (umount not unmount)

Then power down your PC (press Ctrl-Alt-Del and wait for the 'No more processes ... ' message or the system starts to reboot, then power down.) and remove the original TiVo A (and B if applicable) drive(s) and connect your/(one of your) new large upgrade drive to the Primary Slave IDE connector. Then power up the PC and get back to the linux # prompt and re-mount your dos C: drive using the same commands as previously outlined in backup section 7 above.

Those backing up single drives will already have their new large upgrade drive attached to the Primary Slave IDE connector if following the instructions above.

Restore Mfs Tools backup image to your new large upgrade drive using ONE of the following commands:

(This is assuming you have connected your new large upgrade drive as Primary Slave)

mfstool restore -zi /mnt/dos/tivo.bak /dev/hdb (Boot Cd users command)



(sorry about the long quote, but it didn't make sense out of context if I didn't include it all)
What I am suggesting is that if the person didn't already have their new large upgrade drive attached to primary slave, it would make sense to instead attach it to secondary master, and then do the restore to /dev/hdc, therefore not having to change jumpers around a couple times while moving things back and forth between computer and tivo. Does that make sense?

[SuperRob]

Hinsdale ...

Thanks for all the great information and help. You're a credit to the TiVo community.

I have a Series|2 due to show up Friday, and am contemplating your 120GB upgrade. Does it come with the necessary cables (IDE, Power) needed?

I know I can get a drive for about $200, but $290 for a painless upgrade is tough to beat. If it includes the cables, you may have a sale.

Shoot me an e-mail if you like.

Thanks again!

[hinsdale]

Originally posted by SuperRob
Hinsdale ...

Thanks for all the great information and help. You're a credit to the TiVo community.

I have a Series|2 due to show up Friday, and am contemplating your 120GB upgrade. Does it come with the necessary cables (IDE, Power) needed?

I know I can get a drive for about $200, but $290 for a painless upgrade is tough to beat. If it includes the cables, you may have a sale.

Shoot me an e-mail if you like.

Thanks again!

Yes the upgrade kit includes the dual port IDE cable and power Y connector when required. However, even though the upgrade kits will function perfectly with the new TiVo Series 2 DVR's - I have not yet gotten my hands on one of these in order to generate a generic virgin backup image. I do have backup images for the Series 2 AT&TiVo and have performed upgrades and shipped upgrade kits for these (and every other Series 1 model of DirecTiVo and Standalone ) but not the new Series 2 DVR. And without a backup image to send along with the upgrade kit, I am not comfortable providing these yet. Hopefully I will be getting one soon, or perhaps one of the many TiVos currently in route for upgrade will be a series 2 and I can generate a generic virgin backup. Should be very shortly, but until then I can only provide the full upgrade option (shipped to me for complete upgrade) and not the upgrade kit for the Series 2 DVR. I will post in the How-To as soon as I get an image.

[SuperRob]

Please do! And could you send me an e-mail as well? You'll have a sale as soon as you can provide the service! :)

[hinsdale]

Originally posted by SuperRob
Please do! And could you send me an e-mail as well? You'll have a sale as soon as you can provide the service! :)

I was just about to go purchase a couple of the new Series 2 DVRs to have on hand and went to the TiVo website and they were out. They are expecting them in on Feb 14, so should have them shortly and can create a generic backup. Once I have the backup, I will also provide the same upgrade kits for the new TiVo Series 2 DVR that I am providing to everyone for all the other model standalones and DirecTiVos - with CD backup image included for safety.


How-To Update note: I have upgraded the How-To with added instruction for the TiVo Series 2 and AT&TiVos for all the do-it-yourselfers wanting to get their hands wet in their new fancy TiVos.

[chesterdad]

Well,

I tried my best to do the Hinsdale upgrade myself (from a single drive Phillips 112 to a 120GB Maxtor 540x). I have had a number of problems, many of which may have contributed to my present state. Here is some history:

1) I initially burned the CD as instructed and attempted to use that on my system but when I tried to do the mfstool backup step, I received a message about tivo.bak being "read only". I followed some threads that had been contributed, and mentioned that SCSI based CD-ROM's might cause problems, so I started over with the floppy methods as instructed.

My C drive is multipartioned with the first partion being NTFS, the second FAT32, and so on. I made sure I specified the second partition when issuing the mount command for the C: drive mount /dev/hda2 /mnt/dos

2) Unfortunately, I didn't STOP the script as instructed in the floppy directions (Stupid me) answering all of the questions. So, after that completed, I started over with the floppy backup process. This seemed to go well, as did the restore onto the Big Maxtor. When I installed the Big Maxtor in the Tivo to test it, I got past the startup to something like "A serious problem has occured" which was a green screen, recommending I connect the phoneline and wait for it to restore for 24 hours.

3) Figuring something was wrong, I tried the original Tivo Quantum drive and tested that in the Tivo and got the same screen.

What do I do from here? I was guessing if all else failed i would be able to go back to the original Tivo drive and it would work just fine. Did it somehow get corrupted by running the Tivomad script before doing the backup?

I don't want to restore the backup to the original Tivo drive if it is going to make things worse, since I don't know how to check the state of the backup. (The restore to the Big Maxtor completed successfully but gave me the Green screen highlighted above, remember.)

I would love to give this one more shot if I have a reasonable next step before I go to plan B - sending it in to Mr. Regnery. Any ideas?


My software rev is/was 2.5.1.1-01-1-000


Thanks,

jim

Mr. Regnery also CC'ed

[hinsdale]

Without snooping around in your partitions or seeing exactly what happened it is difficult to diagnose.

First thing to try is to let the Green Screen work. Its a repair utility and it may recover by itself.

If you have already booted the mistakenly TiVoMaddened A in your TiVo then trevor's backout program wil not work. You may need to get a new image.. posting a request on the forum often is successful.

Its more satisying fixing it yourself, but if you get desperate and just want to send the drives, I get these recovered and backout out same or next day.

[Tattva]

I successfully upgraded my Philips 20hr to 112hrs with an 80GB Maxtor 536DX second drive in about an hour via Kazymyr's boot CD, and I just wanted to say thanks to Hinsdale, Kazymyr, and everyone else involved in making this doable.

For $150 + tax for the unit at Walmart and $130 for the hard drive, this thing was darn cheap.

In my opinion, I have a more reliable TiVo now than before, because by far the most likely piece to break in a TiVo is the hard drive, and with my backup image I can quickly restore one of the hard drives if the other goes bad.

Thanks,

Dave

[edit]
One note, upon upgrade, the first thing I tried to do was go to the "Messages and Setup" menu, but every time I clicked on that option I was taken to "Now Showing". I did this a couple of times and then clicked on "Now Showing" and after backing out I could go to "Messages and Setup". Strange but apparently harmless.

[tal]

Originally posted by hinsdale
I Want a Large TiVo with Lots of Recording Time
Here is a recording capacity upgrade How-To for relative newbies that incorporates the newest utilites for hopefully a quick and painless TiVo upgrade experience (includes Boot Cd and floppy instructions).

http://www.newreleasesvideo.com/hinsdale-how-to/


[snip..snip]

I too wish to add my testimonial to hinsdale's great howto. The instructions were very clearly laid out.

Things sure have progressed since I first upgraded my 20hour TiVo earlier last year.

When I did my first upgrade back I wanted to back up my original 22G drive, so I got a 30G drive and did a diskcopy from the 22G to the 30G wasting 8G plus the cost of the 30G drive. Then for my second drive I had a 40G, making it a 60hour Tivo.

Thanks to this new howto, I was able to create a ~110M back up image, make the 40G my drive A (using all of this diskspace) and the I dropped in a 120G for my second drive.

Now I have a 193hour TiVo!


I do have a couple of insights to share:

1. All of the references keep referring to having a fat32 "primary Windows boot 'C:' drive on your PC and that this partition should have around 1G or so of free space.

I was afraid that maybe the software was hardcoded to this partition as my boot area was more like the equivalent of F: on the drive.

Fortunately this notation was really just to keep the instructions simple and clear. The exact location of the partition doesn't matter as long as you are aware of which one it is and know how to alter the command line instructions appropriately.


2. Boot Floppy versus Boot CD.
I was really fixated on trying to get the boot CD to work. Thinking I didn't want to have to make a bunch of floppys to do my install off of.

So I spent a couple of hours trying to get my machine to boot off of CD and finally gave up and had to boot with the floppy image instead.

Actually it wasn't too bad all I needed was to create 1 floppy which I used to boot up. The rest of the data was on my HD for me to access. If I had known the floppy install was going to be that painless, I might have just gone with that from the beginning.

Well, thanks again!

[MoneyMINTR]

How come I can't mount the floppy drive using the bootcd?

i.e.,

mount /dev/fd0 /mnt/foo

will not work. However Dylan's Boot disk was able to mount the floppy drive without any problems.


MM

[dmbong]

Originally posted by MoneyMINTR
How come I can't mount the floppy drive using the bootcd?

i.e.,

mount /dev/fd0 /mnt/foo

will not work. However Dylan's Boot disk was able to mount the floppy drive without any problems.
It works for me.

What's the error you get?

Does /mnt/foo exist (ie: did you create it?)?

-Brian

[bonscott87]

Just got my 120 GB drive today in the mail. Took me all of 20 minutes to install and half of that was getting the stupid 3rd screw off near the power supply! 149 hours rules!!!!!

Get Hinsdale's upgrade kits. Well worth it.

[DavidS]

Just posting to say thank you to the authors of the instructions and the utilities. Put an 80 gig as a new drive B in my 2 drive D-TiVo, went without a hitch, thanks to the great instructions. I was a complete novice.

[Will Robinson]

Thanks Hinsdale, Tiger, Kazymyr and those who post here - I upgraded my GCXBOT to 106 hours last night, and it went without a hitch.

[netg0d]

hi all .
i have done a few upgrades but now one has me bumped..
i did a dd from an original 40gb hard disk to a 60gb and was planning on madtivoing the rest of the space ..but i cant get the new 60 gb disk to go past "welcome . powering up" ..
how long should that take usually .. i have never done a dtivo upgrade before ..

please let me know what i can try.

[chefmitch]

Just wanted to thank Hinsdale and everyone else who helped my upgrade (HDR212) goes smoothly. I added an 80GB hard drive and the TiVo is now Fat and Happy!

Cheers!

Mitch

[flynxx]

A friend and I decided to upgrade our T-60's, so we attacked it last weekend. Since I'm a Mac person, he was nice enought to drag his PC with him.

We popped the top off his first. (The two hands on top, push back works great.) After a few false starts, we managed to copy his 40GB drive to an 80GB Maxtor and bless another 80GB Maxtor. Everything went fine. One down, one to go.

When I popped the top off mine, I discovered it was a two drive TiVo. I resigned myself to 'loosing' my recorded shows, and we proceeded to following Hinsdale's instructions to upgrade a two drive.

Flawless. I copied the image to a 80GB Maxtor, expanded the drive and blessed a 120GB Maxtor.

Now it reports up to 190 hours.

I was so happy, that I changed to a Lifetime sub.

Thanks to all that made this so easy to do.

[Babylon5]

Hinsdale, Thanks for your good directions.

Question for you guys.

I Upgraded my Sony 30hr TiVo about a week ago with two WD 80GB drives. They are 7200 but that is what we have (read I have access to). The system temp seems fine with these in there, and runs at around 33C. Aside from temp do the 5400rpm run more reliably?

I did this about a week ago and one HD is going bad already. Yesterday the TiVo paused a few times on the video and at the same time started with a clicking noise. I know that sound. So one HD must be going bad already. Since I just did this last week it is not a huge deal to replace the drive. I have a spare. The TiVo really beats the hell out of HD’s :)

My question is I have not pulled the cover yet to see if it is the Master (A) or Slave(B) drive.
What are my options?

If it is the A drive do I just restore from my backup image to it then put it back in.? What about the data already on the B drive? Do I need to re-bless it? That is fine but will it just work like when I first upgraded? Will the data on the B drive simply be ignored and overwritten?

Then if it is the B drive that is going bad do I just put a new drive in? I guess just bless it first? Will the original A drive be confused with a new drive slapped in. With the new drive all the programming would be all messed up right and confuse it right?

What is the best way to recover from this? Do I need to get two brand new drives and start from scratch first?

I wish the TiVo had a way to shut off the live TV recording for times when you really don’t need it to be running like overnight. It would give the read/write heads a break. Keep it spinning of course 8o)

Thanks in advance.

-Jace

[bbalfour]

:D Just wanted to thank Hinsdale and everyone. I borrowed a friends PC (I'm a Mac guy) and we upgraded my 20 hr unit in about an hour today. No I've got a 65hr TiVo and I'm happy as a clam.

[Adam_M]

Thank you Hinsdale, tivocommunity.com and everyone else that made this possible! I replaced my 14 hour drive with a 80gig Maxtor and it’s now reporting 91 hours basic!

Adam

[hinsdale]

For those that asked me to post when available:

The upgrade kits are now also offered for the new Series 2 TiVo DVR and AT&TiVo as well as all standard Philips, Sony, and Hughes model standalones and DirecTiVos and will include appropriate CD backup image for your model.

Those with Hughes GXCEBOT, AT&TiVo, and TiVo Series 2 DVR will also receive the required dual IDE (ATA100) cable and Y power adapter with their upgrade kit.

[Babylon5]

Hey Guys,
Let me re-ask it this way. If I need to start over can I just restore the image back to the A drive (if A is bad) then tell it I have a B drive and let it re-bless (if B is bad) it? Will the data currently on them both simply be written over? Does TiVo during this process over write any data and just re-use the drive?

It really has not clicked lately at all since that night. Maybe it was just a fluke but I need to know for the time it does go bad. It has to at some point :)

[tgmii]

I just upgraded my vintage tivo (14 hours) with an 80 gig drive! Couldn't be more painless....

Thanks to hinsdale and all the good advice in this forum.

I'll be ordering the second drive bay kit, for the next time Compusa-Bestbuy-staples-officemax has a big sale on drives.

My favorite part was TivoMaddening the drives. :D

Tom Madden

[bsnelson]

Looks like this thread lost it's "stickyness". Could a kind modulator, er, uh, moderator please "stick it"? :D

Brad

[hinsdale]

Originally posted by bsnelson
Looks like this thread lost it's "stickyness". Could a kind modulator, er, uh, moderator please "stick it"? :D

Brad

David has a new sponsor and the temporary upgrade offer mentioned in the How-To apparently ruffled some feathers so it has been set-free.

The How-To may not be sticky anymore.. but will continue to be up-to-date and hopefully thorough.. just have to search alittle harder to locate.

[toolkit]

Originally posted by hinsdale


David has a new sponsor... Well that kind of sucks.

I'm glad we have sponsors. This is a valuable forum, and without sponsors, it would die. But I would think that the sponsors wouldn't want to exert any editorial influence. What's next, give them a delete button so they can just delete what they don't like?

[hinsdale]

I would do the same thing in Davids position. He is not saying that the How-To can't be used, just wouldnt be prudent to have competition (small as it may be) highlighted/stickied in the face of paid advertisers.

[Darin]

There are ways to help keep hinsdale's great work visible, even if this thread falls, that don't jeopardize David's relationships with his sponsors.
;)

[Chris Williams]

I bought a Sony T60 from an AV dealership I deal with on a regular basis. The only unit they had was an open box, but they insisted that it had been opened just to show the unit to someone. I get it home, set it up. The first few times, it doesn't complete booting, finally it boots. I let it do everything, and it upgrades to 2.5 (I believe). My wife and I use it all through the Olympics. After they are over, I decide to upgrade. I get the Hinsdale How-To. It doesn't cover my specific configuration - I want to put in two new drives. But I figure that it is just a matter of doing a single drive replacement, then adding the second one later.

I get the CD ISO from the link in the How-To, make the CD. Everything boots, the drive is correctly identified as a 80 gig drive, the original Tivo drive was a 40 gig.

But here is the nasty part. After I open the drive, I discover that the unit had been opened before. Two of the pins of the IDE connector on the drive had been bent over (the two pins closest to the jumpers) and the plastic barrier had been broken. Some idiot had jammed it it there. I straighten the pins before connecting it to the PC.

I do a back-up to a freshly FAT32 formatted drive, and everything goes well. The backup is 1.3 gigs. But I want to save the two shows on the disk, so I do the dd step as well.

When I put the disk (set as Master) in the Tivo, it does not boot. I get an unstable black screen with white dashes at the top (in the vertical blanking interval). I try my original disk. Exact same results. I've tried restoring to another, fresh 80 gig Maxtor disk with the same result.

Did I wind up with a corrupt backup? I cannot return the unit, as the dealer is in another city.

Are there any Tivo experts in the city of Chicago (CTA accessible, as I don't own a car) who would be willing to help test this disk? in another unit?

[Chris Williams]

I managed to get a 2.5 image, and restored that to one of my new drives and installed that in the T60 configured as Master. No luck. The same black screen.

[Darin]

I'm sorry, I don't know WHAT your problem is, but I do know that on a DTiVo, you can't use a 2.5 image from another unit. Beginning with version 2.5, the data on the hard drive is "married" to the serial on the unit, so if you want to restore an image to your unit, it either needs to be a 2.5 image from YOUR unit, or a pre-2.5 from someone else. In each case, it needs to be from the Sony.

However, I thought that you normally got an error, not just a black screen, so that may not be THE issue, but it is AN issue.

[Chris Williams]

I'm getting a virgin 2.0 from the same location, specifically for the Sony T60. I hope this works, but I have no idea why I'm not getting an error either.

[Chris Williams]

I used mfstools to restore the virgin 2.0 to a drive. Still no luck. Black screen, no text. I'm baffled! What am I doing wrong? I've tried the drive on both Master and Cable Select.

[Rev]

I am trying to better understand upgrading my Series 2. When you say you cannot make a larger A drive does that mean you can create a replacement A drive but it is the same size as the old one?? If not then why, during an upgrade do you make a backup of the A when you cannot replace it??


Another simple question. I have had my series 2 for a month now and have not yet subscribed and It seems to be working fine. Why do I subscribe?? Is it about to stop downloading the guide??

Final question: I am moving soon to another state and want to know if I will have a local number to download the guide? Can I find a list of the local numbers somewhere?

Thanks for tolerating a new TIVOManiac!

[hinsdale]

Originally posted by Rev
I am trying to better understand upgrading my Series 2. When you say you cannot make a larger A drive does that mean you can create a replacement A drive but it is the same size as the old one?? If not then why, during an upgrade do you make a backup of the A when you cannot replace it??


Another simple question. I have had my series 2 for a month now and have not yet subscribed and It seems to be working fine. Why do I subscribe?? Is it about to stop downloading the guide??

Final question: I am moving soon to another state and want to know if I will have a local number to download the guide? Can I find a list of the local numbers somewhere?

Thanks for tolerating a new TIVOManiac!

1)If after upgrading with a new large B drive, either of your two drives then develops any problem, your TiVo will no longer function and without backup you will have no remedy. Having a backup allows you to recover from software corruptions, bad blocks, failing hard drives (unit freezes often) or complete disk failures.

2) You get a free trial period of what used to be about two weeks, and then your guide data is propogated about two weeks out from there so you most likely will be running out of guide data shortly.

3)Running though the Phone Setup and entering in the new area code will then generate a call to tivo which will subsequently list all the local phone numbers for that area code.

[Rev]

Thank you for the fast response...but I still am curious about one thing...
Can I replace the A drive if it fails?? Or does this have to be done by TIVO?? Do you expect this to change anytime in the near future??

Thanks again

[Babylon5]

Did I ask something that has been covered already? I re-read the FAQ and hinsdale instructions and this is not really covered.

I am sorry if it is a lame question but I just need to know this one thing. Everything else went fine.

Do I smell? I took a shower :)

Can someone just tell me yes or no that no matter what drive it is that I need to replace, I just start from scratch and put the good one in with the replacement. I guess that is it. I will just start from my original image then and if it is the A drive just re-image it and slap the B in and tell TiVo it is there. If it is the B I will (I assume) just start over again re-imagine to the new A drive even though it is still good then add a new B.

Sorry but I thought it was better to ask in this thread than to start a new one for a simple question.

I apologize if this has been covered and I missed it. :D


Originally posted by Babylon5
Hey Guys,
Let me re-ask it this way. If I need to start over can I just restore the image back to the A drive (if A is bad) then tell it I have a B drive and let it re-bless (if B is bad) it? Will the data currently on them both simply be written over? Does TiVo during this process over write any data and just re-use the drive?

It really has not clicked lately at all since that night. Maybe it was just a fluke but I need to know for the time it does go bad. It has to at some point :)

[hinsdale]

Originally posted by Rev
Thank you for the fast response...but I still am curious about one thing...
Can I replace the A drive if it fails?? Or does this have to be done by TIVO?? Do you expect this to change anytime in the near future??

Thanks again

Yes you can replace the A drive (no use using a larger drive, but can replace with an equal size drive). That's what the backup is for, it allows you to recover from either failing/failed drives.

[hinsdale]

Originally posted by Babylon5
Did I ask something that has been covered already? I re-read the FAQ and hinsdale instructions and this is not really covered.

I am sorry if it is a lame question but I just need to know this one thing. Everything else went fine.

Do I smell? I took a shower :)

Can someone just tell me yes or no that no matter what drive it is that I need to replace, I just start from scratch and put the good one in with the replacement. I guess that is it. I will just start from my original image then and if it is the A drive just re-image it and slap the B in and tell TiVo it is there. If it is the B I will (I assume) just start over again re-imagine to the new A drive even though it is still good then add a new B.

Sorry but I thought it was better to ask in this thread than to start a new one for a simple question.

I apologize if this has been covered and I missed it. :D




Im not sure Im understanding your question (why would your restore to A if A is bad?) but if you mean can you restore/bless over existing tivo drives.. the answer is yes. The tivo utilities overwrite the drives (might want to use the -z option when using mfs tools to be sure to zero out the existing partitions).

[Babylon5]

Hey man, thanks for helping me here. As I said in my original post I upgraded with two new 80GB drives. The other week I heard some clicking and the video paused etc.. So one drive, though new, may be a bad one. it has been okay lately but *IF* it does it again I want to replace it to be sure.

So I was just wondering what my options were for each drive since I cannot tell if it was the A or B drive that was clicking. So I meant to restore to A (A new drive) if the current A is the one clicking.

So far it has been okay. Maybe a fluke if I am lucky but I know that sound is usually bad on PC's. Usually the start of problems.

I may even re-image my A drive. if I do can I use the current A drive, if it is good, to create a new A image? No I guess not as it is now married to the new B and only the ogiginal would work. Answered my own question :)

Just would have been nice to re-back up the all the season passes I have made in the last few weeks etc...

Thanks!

Originally posted by hinsdale


Im not sure Im understanding your question (why would your restore to A if A is bad?) but if you mean can you restore/bless over existing tivo drives.. the answer is yes. The tivo utilities overwrite the drives (might want to use the -z option when using mfs tools to be sure to zero out the existing partitions).

[NFuqua777]

Hinsdale,
Thanks to you and everyone else who contributed to simplifying the upgrade process! It took me about 20 minutes last night to install the 120GB pre-blessed drive I bought from you. (Most of that time was taken up by assembling the 9th Tee bracket that I bought, attaching the drive to it, and melting a hole in the connector of the data cable I also bought from them.) I went from 14 hours to 163 hours, in plenty of time to record "24". I have also changed all my season passes to use Medium Quality. Why did I wait so long?
Thanks again!

Norma

[DaveLessnau]

Why doesn't this thread stay stuck at the top of the forum anymore?

[tivoupgrade]

Originally posted by DaveLessnau
Why doesn't this thread stay stuck at the top of the forum anymore?

I think because Hinsdale is now officially in the upgrade business. I believe that it was the 'how-to' that gave it the stickiness in the first place. To use the 'how-to' stickiness to draw views to the business offering doesn't really seem ethical to me (especially as a competitor who has been around significantly longer than the how-to has even existed) [i'm not suggesting that this was a calculated move, btw], so I'm assuming that may have something to do with the lack of stickiness... I suspect advertisers may have had some opinions as well.

At least that is what I'm inferring. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

Lou

[Darin]

Just go up a few posts (ok, a little more than a few), he explains why.

[David Bott]

This thread is not to be stuck at the top any longer for the reason stated in above posts. Let me say it though so their is not any misunderstanding.

The How Too FAQ guide is great for the members and hinsdale has been a very helpful members. We have other Hack FAQ's that are also available and also a sponsor like The 9th Tee offer a FAQ. The issue came up when he made a ad for his upgrade service in the FAQ that a lot of people visit based it it's placement.

I was approached by two sponsors and several forum member about the ad (not the members we not upset, just letting me know about the ad and thus the issues with the rules). Even in our other member run FAQ's we do not allow ads other than the ones that run on the site. This one should be no different. Even the other sponsors are helpful on the site but do not push services. (Not that hinsdale is pushing a service.)

I offered ad service to hinsdale, but that still would not allow his upgrade outline to be made in his FAQ. It is just not right and not fair to the others that have also been helpful on the site. The offer was declined based on the fact I asked for his ad to be removed.

I could have gone as far as removing the URL from the forum itself so it is blocked, but he has been very helpful and thus did not do that. You know that if any other user was doing such a thing, posting links his/her site that sells services, it would be removed and banned for it is not allowed per our rules. But as mentioned, he has helped a lot of people.

I still ask that he remove his ad from the FAQ if the FAQ is to remain for the long hall. The suggestion I offered is that he make mention in the re-turn e-mail to people that he helps that he offers this service. After all, they are e-mail him for help, he gives it freely, thus the person should have no problem with him letting them know he offers a service.

Hope this helps.

[HTH]

Does this mean we can't bump it up?

(The worst homonyms are those that are obscure and are in commonly spoken but rarely typed phrases, like "long haul". Don't you agree? (I can't believe I initially misspelled that myself as "hawl"! :o))

[David Bott]

HTH you bring up a good point...so I guess I will say if this goes out of control with bump vs actual posts...Action will need to be taken. Sorry all that disagree with the action. But my reasons I feel are more then justified.

Again...I mean no disrespect to the help given.

[hinsdale]

Ahh.. adrift again in the open ocean.. wonder if this old bucket is seaworthy?


How-To notes: Floppy instructions have been added for the Series 2 Models (Boot CD instructions already present). I have not had a chance to test the Series 2 floppy instructions (floppy drive has cobwebs), although sound on paper, still appreciate feedback for real-world verification.

[HarryD]

Just a quick word of thanks to all for the instructions. Took my 40 gig'er out of my now dissed-DishPlayer and it's now the better half of my Philips 14 hr. Total of 63 hours at basic quality.

Good stuff... next up.. My Sony UTV :D

[Flogduh]

Took the plunge last night around 10 pm. Upgraded a DTiVo Sat T60 with an additional 80 GB Maxtor hard drive and a new fan. Armed with the fabulous assistance of Hinsdale's How-to and a sleeping wife and daughter, it was smooth sailing with the back up image and bless tivo until I returned the original drive and new drive back into the TiVo.

Got stuck on the "Welcome, powering up" message, so I pulled it apart. Checked the power and IDE cables and all were fine. Figured it must have been the A drive so I checked the master jumper setting on the Quantum, and the slave setting on the Maxtor and all looked A-OK. Still stuck on the powering up. Pulled it apart again and checked the jumpers once more just to be sure. Damned if it looked like I had 'em set correctly. Remembered Hinsdale's suggestion that the jumper diagrams sometimes are from an opposite perspective to what you may think you're seeing. Swapped the right side jumper to the other end and held my breath (man I didn't want my wife to wake up the next morning with a TiVo that wasn't working, I'd never hear the end of it!).

Hit the power and viola, SUCCESS!!! 108 hours of space and it still wasn't midnight yet, but it did take me a half hour to get it back into my home entertainment set up.

Thanks to all who give others encouragement. IT really wasn't all that tough, just a bit suspenseful at times. Oh, yes, thanks to all the guys, TiVoMad, Kazymyr, Tiger. If I could pull this off, most anyone else could.

[SilverCresent]

Just wanted to drop you a note and say thank you for your "How To" on upgrading a Tivo.:)

[GaryD9]

Well, I ordered an AT&TiVo tonight, and they claim I should get it by Friday... Of course, I'll have a new 120GB HDD, rounded ATA100 cable, and power splitter waiting when the unit arrives. I suppose I'll actually use it for 5 minutes or so before I start voiding my warantee :D

However, I'm a bit confused about a couple of things in the Hinsdale HOWTO:

1) When using Win2k/XP, why would a seperate FAT/FAT32 boot drive partition be needed? It seems to me that every step of the upgrade requires booting the machine via the boot floppy or boot CD, thereby completely ignoring whatever OS might be installed on the boot drive. If Win2k/XP never boots with the TiVo drive installed, then it wouldn't put a Win32 drive signature on the drive, would it? (I'm not being sarcastic... I just feel like I'm missing something...)

2) While its obviously a good idea to make a backup (and verify it), I almost have the impression from the HOWTO that a second, newly restored HDD must be used as the A drive. If thats not the case, might I suggest noting in the FAQ that steps 8 and 9 aren't "required" when only adding a new B drive (though they might be a good idea no matter what.) As well, step 9 should specifically mention the issue of drive size on Series2 A drives can't (yet) be changed... (So people don't restore on to a 120 GB drive and freak when they test the restore.)

Thanks in advance for any help

[dmbong]

Originally posted by GaryD9:
> 1) When using Win2k/XP, why would a seperate FAT/FAT32
> boot drive partition be needed? It seems to me that every
> step of the upgrade requires booting the machine via the boot
> floppy or boot CD, thereby completely ignoring whatever OS
> might be installed on the boot drive. If Win2k/XP never boots
> with the TiVo drive installed, then it wouldn't put a Win32 drive
> signature on the drive, would it? (I'm not being sarcastic... I
> just feel like I'm missing something...)

I wouldn't say it's required, UNLESS you want to do a backup of the original TiVo drive. I'd also say that what is in the HOW-TO is written in order to be SIMPLE based on the rest of the instructions (which of course, could be even simpler :D). It's also not true that it needs to be a boot drive, but for simplicity, it's easiest. You could also likely use some sort of UNIX or linux partition that the boot cd/floppy will understand.

Cheers!

-Brian
.

[hinsdale]

Originally posted by GaryD9
Well, I ordered an AT&TiVo tonight, and they claim I should get it by Friday... Of course, I'll have a new 120GB HDD, rounded ATA100 cable, and power splitter waiting when the unit arrives. I suppose I'll actually use it for 5 minutes or so before I start voiding my warantee :D

However, I'm a bit confused about a couple of things in the Hinsdale HOWTO:

1) When using Win2k/XP, why would a seperate FAT/FAT32 boot drive partition be needed? It seems to me that every step of the upgrade requires booting the machine via the boot floppy or boot CD, thereby completely ignoring whatever OS might be installed on the boot drive. If Win2k/XP never boots with the TiVo drive installed, then it wouldn't put a Win32 drive signature on the drive, would it? (I'm not being sarcastic... I just feel like I'm missing something...)

2) While its obviously a good idea to make a backup (and verify it), I almost have the impression from the HOWTO that a second, newly restored HDD must be used as the A drive. If thats not the case, might I suggest noting in the FAQ that steps 8 and 9 aren't "required" when only adding a new B drive (though they might be a good idea no matter what.) As well, step 9 should specifically mention the issue of drive size on Series2 A drives can't (yet) be changed... (So people don't restore on to a 120 GB drive and freak when they test the restore.)

Thanks in advance for any help

1) The Fat32 partition is needed to store the backup image you will create, not to boot from.

2) Nothing is required. Steps 8 and 9 are an important part of verifying the function of the backup image you create even when just adding a B drive. If you choose to skip then that's your decision.

The How-To already states that the image is restored to the new HDD for testing. It goes on to state that when just adding a B drive- that after testing your backup image, you will overwrite your test image when blessing the HDD for B drive install.

Im not sure why anyone would "freak" when they test the restore, perhaps you missed reading step 9?

Step 9 of the How-To:
You should now briefly utilize your TiVo to verify that it's working properly. If you check your system information screen, do not expect the TiVo to recognize the full capacity of the drive. You will find that your recording capacity is identical to the recording capacity of your original TiVo A drive (or A+B drive in true dual drive units). This is normal.

[GaryD9]

Originally posted by hinsdale


2) Nothing is required. Steps 8 and 9 are an important part of verifying the function of the backup image you create even when just adding a B drive. If you choose to skip then that's your decision.

The How-To already states that the image is restored to the new HDD for testing. It goes on to state that when just adding a B drive- that after testing your backup image, you will overwrite your test image when blessing the HDD for B drive install.

Im not sure why anyone would "freak" when they test the restore, perhaps you missed reading step 9?

Step 9 of the How-To:
You should now briefly utilize your TiVo to verify that it's working properly. If you check your system information screen, do not expect the TiVo to recognize the full capacity of the drive. You will find that your recording capacity is identical to the recording capacity of your original TiVo A drive (or A+B drive in true dual drive units). This is normal.


Duh, I guess I missed that part while reading through it. That's what I get for trying to read a HOWTO at 2am, and before actually having the hardware in hand.

So, the general idea is to buy a 120GB drive, backup the original A, restore A on the 120GB just to validate a good backup image (and test the 120GB as a drive A), put the 120 back into the PC, bless it, and stick it, along with the original A, into the TiVo?

I'll probably end up burning the backup image and newer mfstools on to a CDR and storing it with the boot CD... just in case.

Sounds easy enough... thanks for the pointer to the lines I missed..

[sbonds]

First off, thanks to everyone who has spent the time and energy not only to reverse engineer the TiVo disk layouts, but for taking the time to make the BlessTivo and/or TivoMad utilities so simple to use!

My Sony 30GB upgrade was a complete success on the first try. I used a Maxtor 160GB 5400RPM drive (DiamondMax D540X, part number 4G16ØJ8), since those seemed to be the preferred drive in these forums and for resale on TiVo upgrade sites.

In short, I replaced the original 30GB drive with the 160GB drive so I could save the original as the backup and also keep a bay open for a future monster-size TiVo upgrade.

Rather than belabor the exact procedure I used (hey, it's the same one listed in the upgrade FAQ, the Hacking the TiVo FAQ, and the TivoMad README!) here are some areas where I was unsure at the time, and how they all worked out for the best:

A) Backing up the original drive

I could not unlock my drive with the Western Digital utility. Each time after a warm boot, my BIOS came back with 9GB as the size. I also tried the 9thtee.com unlock utility and after a warm boot came back with the same size. After a brief moment of dispair, I cold booted and the drive came up as 30GB. Whew!

The 160GB Maxtor could not be detected (at all) by my motherboard BIOS. Although Linux does not use the BIOS, I wanted the warm fuzzy feeling that the drive was there so I flashed my BIOS with the latest revision and voila! 137GB.

I knew about the 137GB "limit" on ATA100, so I wasn't too surprised. From all I had read the TiVo itself doesn't support over 137GB drives so the rest would just be wasted.

I left the Maxtor set to the "quiet" acoustic setting (it was that way by default). I also left the Maxtor in its default "write verification for the first 10 power-ups" mode. I heard that this can cause skipping sometimes, but if Maxtor doesn't trust their drives to write correctly, why should I?

With the write verification on, the initial copy took a very long time. I just let it run overnight.

Once that was done, the 30GB drive went into a static bag for posterity. I hope I never need it.

B) TiVoMad

This ran just as I expected. The only thing even slightly out of the ordinary I noticed is the boot hangs if there is not a TiVo disk connected to the system. Not a big deal.

I went ahead and answered "yes" to the "will this TiVo ever be over 140GB" on the theory that it's better to have some unused swap than too little.

C) In the TiVo

After the expected reboot during the first power-up, the TiVo came back up quickly and everything seems fine.

Imagine my surprise when basic quality showed 165 hours! I was expecting 120-130ish because of the 137GB limitation. I don't know if my 18-month-old TiVo magically supports ATA-133 addressing or if TiVo upgraded the BIOS for me at some point, or if that 165 hours is just a complete BS number. Time will tell.

The TiVo records fine with no skipping, even at "Best" quality. Write verification should still be enabled. With the Maxtor set to "quiet", I hear no head seeks from my sitting position 12-15 feet away.

So this was a resounding success! My only question is how I managed to get more than 137 hours on a single drive. (Not that I'm complaining!)

-- Steve

[hinsdale]

The ratio to calculate hours in a standalone is about 1.2hrs/per GB.

137x1.2 = 164 hours basic

[tivoupgrade]

More specifically, when added to a 14-hour unit, a 160GB drive yields the following increase in basic quality:

167 hrs 49 min

and when added to a 30-hour unit, the following:

171 hrs 02 min

why the yields are different, I do not know, however all drives vary in their yield, depending upon the initial size of the unit.

Lou

[HTH]

Originally posted by tivoupgrade
More specifically, when added to a 14-hour unit, a 160GB drive yields the following increase in basic quality:

167 hrs 49 min

and when added to a 30-hour unit, the following:

171 hrs 02 min

why the yields are different, I do not know

Because a 14hr unit initially has no reserve space, while a 30hr has some?

[tivoupgrade]

Not sure... on the 20-hour units, the yields are also different. I don't have the 160GB numbers for the HDR212, however, the 81.9GB drive yield, as follows (again, basic quality) on these units:

HDR112 94 hrs 37 min
HDR212 96 hrs 41 min
HDR3120x 98 hrs 09 min

the differences are similar for 100GB and 120GB drives. Whether this has to do with the 'reserve' space or not, I do not know.

[HTH]

O