WinMFS Confusions

[kairee]

I've been out of touch with the upgrade community ever since getting my S3. However, now that the drive is failing and it's out of warranty, looks like I'm being thrust headlong back in. I'm fairly sure I have a lead on an image to use (since I dind't make one, more fool me) but I'm rather confused about this WinMFS utility that seems to be recommended.

Back when I was involved in upgrades with my ancient s1 and its following s2, there was one piece of advice that was always, always made - never boot windows with a tivo drive attached, it will ruin the tivo drive.

Yet, WinMFS runs in Windows. Is this really safe to boot Windows XP with a sata tivo drive attached?

Also, WinMFS's site strongly recommends against using WinMFS with XP (original release) and recommends XP SP2, without a mention of SP1. The only computer I have available right now runs only XP SP1, and certain applications I must run for work don't run under SP2 so upgrading is not an option. Is WinMFS safe to use under XP/SP1?

[IminMs]

You can use mfslive, make a boot cd. It boots using linux.
http://www.mfslive.org/download.htm

[mr.unnatural]

The issue of booting into Windows with a Tivo drive attached has become a bit overblown. The only thing you have to be careful of when booting into Windows NT, 2K, XP, and now Vista, is that you don't want to let the Disk Management tools take over and assign a drive letter to your Tivo drive. This is where the boot partition of the drive gets overwritten and prevents it from working in a Tivo. As long as you don't answer yes to any prompts that pop up to add new hardware and such you'll be OK. Just select cancel and close out any popup windows if they do show up.

[spike2k5]

Also, WinMFS's site strongly recommends against using WinMFS with XP (original release) and recommends XP SP2, without a mention of SP1. The only computer I have available right now runs only XP SP1, and certain applications I must run for work don't run under SP2 so upgrading is not an option. Is WinMFS safe to use under XP/SP1?

Try not to use WinXP b/c it will mess up sector 0, boot sector or 1st 512 bytes on the hard drive.

I have not tried it on WinXP sp1 since I don't have that version.

On WinXP sp2 or later OS, as long as you don't use disk manager to mount the drive, you are good.

If you mess up, there is a utility to fix the bootpage (Winmfs->tools->fixbootpage) so you don't have to worry too much.

[franknthomas]

Also, if it does happen, there is a menu option to fix the boot sector within the tool. I was even able to use an old windows hard drive for replacement, just used a backup to the drive from the tivo image, issued unformat from the tool, rebooted, then was able to use the drive as the target.

[kairee]

Used mfslive and the S3 lives again. Thank you!

Though apparently this Seagate drive doesn't support acoustic management and I can hear the clicks from across the room. Time to look into a Hitachi instead...