H10-250 Drive B seems to have died

[tivoboy]

So, after reviving this thing from a power failure about nine months ago, this AM there was an odd noise coming from it. When I got home tonite, it was on POWERING UP.

Tried opening it up, and it was a bit dirty, this was a TWO DRIVE upgraded unit, 250gb each drive.

Now, it appears that the B drive is having seek errors, I hear a clicking and that ain't EVER good.

Two questions, and I can get on with the research.

IF I pull the B drive, could I reboot with just the A running and see what is there?

IF I wanted to upgrade it to just a single 500gb or 750gb drive, IS there a way to do DD to the TWO DRIVES and copy over all the recordings that are there? I REALLY wanted to try to keep the recordings?

I guess I would just try to get the B drive copied to another B drive of similar size using knoppix? Is this the best path? That would probably be fastest and quickest, since 250GB drives basically fall off the trees around here (and, well I MIGHT just be moving to an H20 sometime soon - but don't say that around my beloved H10) :-)

TB

[weaknees]

The drives are "married," so if you pull the B, the A won't boot (although it may Green Screen).

A dd of the B drive is probably your best bet for now if you want to try to save recordings. You should also try to do a backup of both without recordings in case more problems ensue.

[tivoboy]

Thanks WK, been buying stuff for years.

Maybe it is a sign. I'm going to pull them tonite and try the DD maybe to a larger drive? I think I have another 250GB kicking round though, would be easiest.

[tivoboy]

One more question if anyone is listening. Can I do a DD to a LARGER drive and then somehow do an expansion to include the EXTRA space? What would the process for that be like?

My thinking is, I have found 250GB drives for 75$, and 500GB for 100$. If the whole thing goes boom and I cannot get it running, I'd really rather have an extra 500GB drive on my hands (and this an EIDE drive not newer SATA) than a pretty poor 250GB drive which is almost useless.

thanks for the response anyone !!! :-)

[weaknees]

If you copy the B drive to a larger B drive, you should be able to re-expand and get the additional space out of the new/larger B drive.

[tivoboy]

Thanks, picked up a nice WD 500 at frys for 79$. What would the best thing be to use to do the expansion? I'm going to try to use either MFStools or DD Knoppix to do the drive copy.

thanks

[tivoboy]

does anyone know what commands I can use to expand the B drive that I am now copying using DD_RESCUE to use the additional 250GB space I have in there now? I want to preserve recordings if possible, which is why I am running this process.

thanks

[DevilDogs]

The last time I needed to expand a drive, I followed Hinsdale's How-To. It is pre-lba48, so I'm not sure if it will work. But, here's the URL for it: http://www.newreleasesvideo.com/hinsdale-how-to/index9.html

If that doesn't do it, can WinMFS do it? I haven't played with it yet, but if it really is the best thing since sliced bread, I would think it would be able to do what you need.

[T1V0]

does anyone know what commands I can use to expand the B drive that I am now copying using DD_RESCUE to use the additional 250GB space I have in there now? I want to preserve recordings if possible, which is why I am running this process.

thanks

under some circumstances you can dd one drive to another and then use mfsadd -x to expand the image to fill any unused space. However, since you've been using 2 large drives, you've already expanded the image once. Therefor you can't expand a second time. You could dd the original setup to the new drives and (maybe) have it work correctly, but you won't be able to use the additional space without sacrificing your recordings.

recordings or additional space..you'll have to choose one without some serious hacking around, and since this is all because a drive is dying, I doubt it would be worth trying. sorry.

[BTUx9]

under some circumstances you can dd one drive to another and then use mfsadd -x to expand the image to fill any unused space. However, since you've been using 2 large drives, you've already expanded the image once. Therefor you can't expand a second time. You could dd the original setup to the new drives and (maybe) have it work correctly, but you won't be able to use the additional space without sacrificing your recordings.AFAICR, the issue isn't # of total mfs partitions, it's the fact that the modified apple partition scheme (which tivo uses) only supports 16 partitions per drive... this is a major issue with primary drives, which come from the factory using 11 or 13 partitions to start (13 on all S2 and newer boxes, I believe), but much less so with secondary.

[tivoboy]

So, this morning I found a WD 320GB EIDE at Cicuit City for 41$, so I'm now in the process of DD_RESCUE to that drive, since the 500GB could go back in its external housing and be useful for something. I hadn't tried the mfsad -x on the 500GB drive since I didn't want to lose any of the recordings - and really wanted to see if it worked at all.

Now, i MIGHT try it here on this one, since I know I have another copy, and could always just copy it AGAIN to the new 320GB drive if the mfsadd deletes all the records, or would putting the 320GB in there that was expanded - BUT NOT SUCESSFULLY kill the references to all the files? Could I screw myself then and not be able to just stick the other back in?

What I MIGHT do is just watch the stuff on there, sacrifice the stuff I really want to keep and then try to do the ADD of the space later in the future. What would the commands for that be? Is that possible. I'll put the 5$ bounty on a good answer for that one that would work.

TB

[tivoboy]

SON of a b....h. So, I ran the DD_RESCUE to the new 320GB drive, and I was going to swap this out for the 500GB that I had put in there last night, which seemed to be working fine. So, I ran the DD_rescue from the old failing B drive. But, this time after sucessfully doing the DD_rescue I went ahead and did the msfadd. I did it ONLY to the B drive that was hooked up, the A drive wasn't in my computer. It said SUCESS.

But, now that I put the new 320GB drive in the tivo, I get the GSOD. It has been popping up that screen now for three reboots.

the receiver is NOT plugged in, but it is going through this process over and over again.

Did I just royally screw myself, now screwing up the fine A drive that was in there? I don't dare disconnect the new B 320GB drive, and try to put the A drive back in, do I?

What is the next course of action here?