MFS Tools 2.0! An upgrade revolution!

[Robert S]

I think e2fsck is on the disk (I don't have one handy to check this). However, you have to run it against a partition - e2fsck /dev/hdc4 - so if your partition table is corrupt, it doesn't help you very much.

I'd be /very/ surprised if your problem relates to corruption of you root partition.

[dbfoxnh]

Thanks Robert. I'll at least give it a try. If e2fsck doesn't help, any suggestions on how to proceed? Do I just restore a previously saved 3.0 image and start all over again?

Regards,

David

[Robert S]

I don't know of any tools that would help you recover - even to rebuild the partition table with pdisk would mean you'd have to know the numbers to type in.

I would think restoring from a backup is your only option.

[boomboom69]

hey dbfox I'm having the same problem with burning the cd. It burns but doesn't boot. The floppy disk works fine though.

[rtaheri]

This may be a dumb question, but better ask ahead of time than make a mistake and be sorry!

I upgraded my HDVR2 to a 160GB WD 1600BB disk. It went without a hitch. Loved the how-to notes; thank you Hinsdale and Tiger.

But now I find that the WD disk is way too noisy. I am going to try to return the disk to Fry's and switch to a Samsung, or perhaps a Seagate. I still have the original 40GB Maxtor. Can I re-restore the original disk to a new disk? I have seen references to "you didn't used to be able to copy a second time" and " you can now copy 5 times, 3 times in some case", etc. So, since copying a second time seems to be a non-trivial procedure, I want to make sure I can do it. Can I?

Any changes to the instructions when I am restoring the original disk a second time to a different disk?

Paranoid,
Reza Taheri

[stormsweeper]

It's not copying that has a limit, but adding space. You can do the new upgrade exactly as you did the first.

[neophyte]

Maybe I'm missing something (wouldn't be the first time ;-),,,)
I burned the ISO image and it appears to be complete and error-free. The problem is, my system will not recognize it as a "system disk". Of course, I changed my BIOS to force a CD-ROM boot, still wouldn't accept it.

My question may be as simple as this - what should the boot disk look like? Shouldn't I be able to see some sort of executable linux file in the root directory of the new CD? Did I mis-understand the directions for the ISO? Should I have made the boot CD from the "isolinux" directory? Any other thoughts on settings necessary to get my system to boot with the MFS ISO?

My system:
AMD XP1800 - CPU
Win XP Pro -- O/S
Soyo Dragon+ -- motherboard (tons of IDE capability, on-board RAID)
Plextor 16/10/40 CD-RW

Any other components or configurations I should list to help ID the problem?

[Jorossian]

Are you burning it as a disk image or are you just burning the ISO file as a data file?

What burning application are you using?

I used Nero and it worked fine. If you're really having a hard time I believe you can purchase the MFS tools 2.0 boot disk from 9th tee for like 2 bucks.

[CyberTiVo]

I just added a second drive to my 30 hour TiVo. When I turn it on it continually reboots at the "grey Almost there" screen. I followed the directions and everything seemed to work. I used "mfsadd -x /dev/hdc /dev/hdb". Any ideas?

[alienmeatsack]

I am considering using MFS Tools 2 to try and fix my problems with my TiVo stuttering. About a year ago, I added a second 45gig drive to my 30hour unit and recently it started stuttering.

I don't mind losing the recordings I already have, esp if it saves me space and time when doing the MFS Tools thing, but I cannot live without my several years of thumbs up/downs, season passes etc.

However, what I am planning on doing is removing the 2 drives and trying to figure which one is the one that is dying... then redo the good drive and get rid of the bad one.

How much drive space will I need to back this up on my PC to retore my settings? I am very low on space and can only maybe make 10 gig worth of room to work with. Is this enough?

Can I use MFS Tools to do this? Am I asking silly questions?

r

[Robert S]

If you make a compressed backup you save /everything/ except the recordings. A compressed backup typically takes 150 to 500Mb.

You'll find drive diagnostic utilities on the drive manufacturers' web sites (support section). If the diagnostics don't give a clear result, put an A drive image on both of the drives and see which one stutters when run on its own.

[alienmeatsack]

Originally posted by Robert S
If you make a compressed backup you save /everything/ except the recordings. A compressed backup typically takes 150 to 500Mb.

I can handle that size most definately. I am just not too excited aboot losing my existing info (minus the recordings).

You'll find drive diagnostic utilities on the drive manufacturers' web sites (support section). If the diagnostics don't give a clear result, put an A drive image on both of the drives and see which one stutters when run on its own.

I need to just shut it down and pull the drives and go run utils on them to see which one, if any, is bad. (let it be my smaller drive pleeease)

thanks for the ifno

r

[Onibroc42]

Tiger and Hinsdale - Thank you for making a quick and simple upgrade possible. Upgraded a 40 hr AT&T Tivo to 141 hours (BarracudaV 120) in under an hour with all programs and everything else intact. Very sweet.

Now I have to decide if I want a 40 GB B drive or another 120 <grin>

Thanks, guys.

[DCIFRTHS]

Originally posted by Onibroc42
Tiger and Hinsdale - Thank you for making a quick and simple upgrade possible. Upgraded a 40 hr AT&T Tivo to 141 hours (BarracudaV 120) in under an hour with all programs and everything else intact. Very sweet.

Now I have to decide if I want a 40 GB B drive or another 120 <grin>

Thanks, guys.

How quiet is the Barracuda V? Does it vibrate at all?

Thanks

[Onibroc42]

Originally posted by DCIFRTHS
How quiet is the Barracuda V? Does it vibrate at all?

Thanks

The 'cuda is actually quieter than the fan in my unit, you can only hear the seek when you put your ear on the Tivo. My Tivo is right outside my bedroom door, so it is about 10 feet from me, and I can't hear it at all. Besides, the drive tray is mounted on rubber grommets that absorb the bulk of any vibration.

Word of warning - don't forget to plug the fan back in, my Tivo was up to 61C by the time I realized that I forgot to plug the fan in (three hours)! Plugged the fan in, back to 37C this morning (which is where it was with just the Maxtor).

I got the drive from New Egg (www.newegg.com) for $139 and free shipping, in case anyone cares.

[weaknees]

Yeah - leaving the fan unplugged is a common mistake - we have it in bold on our instructions that we send.

Just so you know, you can't really damage the unit through overheating it like that - the TiVo will simply shut itself down if it reads a temperature out of its normal operating range.

Michael

[gjustice]

Thanks to Tiger and all the rest for your EXCELLENT information on upgrading, what in my estimation, is one of the most remarkable "power toys" I've seen in years.

I've been listening to the radio ads all week, and scrounging the web learning as much as I could about Tivos.

I bought a Series 2 60hr at BestBuy and based on messages earlier, will be waiting for the 90 day warranty to wear off, and in the meantime search for a bargain on 120GB drives to upgrade it. Does the 60 have a power tap for the second drive?

I got the updated software on the first forced daily call I made, took FOREVER. Can't wait for WiFi support!

Now, for the stupid question....

How much CPU is required to run MFS Tools? I have an old Pentium 266/MMX w/128MB of RAM and a 1GB Win98 drive that's more or less idle that I can use for this. I also have a Dell 1.8GHz machine, but it's running W2K and is kind of a pain to get into, and cabling's a real chore. Even if it had to run overnight, would the 266 cut it????

Thanks again for any guidance.

[Robert S]

It doesn't need any computing power - you're just copying data around. The concern is the BIOS. If you can get the drives recognised correctly the old PC will be fine.

[HellBent]

Does MFS Tools 2.0 work on series 1 unit?

[ThreeSoFar]

yup.

[Paul_PDX]

Thanks to Tiger and Hinsdale for another success.

My Sat-t60 is now at 179 hours with fully preserved programming and setup copied and expended onto a Maxtor 120 combined with a Seagate 80.

Temperature is actually cooler by one degree (48) than with the original single maxtor 40.

Thanks again!!:)

[cojonesdetoro]

I'm trying to upgrade from a 30GB quantum fireball+ 120 Maxtor to a pair of Samsung 120s. I also want to increase swap while I do this. I'm following the "add new A and add new B" part of the instructions.

It seems that the samsung 120s are a little smaller than the maxtor drive. I do know that I don't have the maxtor full because I erased some recordings before starting the upgrade. Is there a way to make it work with 'used' space only so I can go to a slightly smaller drive?

this command:

mfsback -Tao - /dev/hda /dev/hdb | mfsrestore -s 127 -xzpi - /dev/hdc /dev/hdd

gives me a message that it can't restore to a smaller drive.

My main goal is to upgrade to 30+120 to 120+120 while preserving ALL and increasing swap as well. Any constructive suggestions are welcome.

Thanks to all.

[weaknees]

Sorry - no way to do this. For this type of upgrade will all (or any) recordings intact, you'd need two new drives exactly equal to or larger than the originals.

Does the Maxtor still work? Why not just upgrade the 30 to the Samsung and leave the Maxtor?

Michael

[cojonesdetoro]

Originally posted by weaknees
Sorry - no way to do this. For this type of upgrade will all (or any) recordings intact, you'd need two new drives exactly equal to or larger than the originals.

Does the Maxtor still work? Why not just upgrade the 30 to the Samsung and leave the Maxtor?

Michael

The maxtor still works but I also want to increase swap space and you can't do that with the 'dd'... can you?

[weaknees]

Nope - but you can with a:

mfsbackup -Tao - /dev/hda /dev/hdb | mfsrestore -s 127 -xzpi - /dev/hdc /dev/hdd

That should work.

Michael

[mrtickle]

Er, that's exactly what he tried and it didn't! Did you read his post? :)

[weaknees]

Right - sorry. I just read the last reply, about using a 'dd' to increase swap, and my brain said "no, but there is a way to preserve recordings AND increase swap" but I totally forgot the context.

As far as I know, there is no way at all to preserve recordings when going to a smaller drive - no matter how small the difference.

Michael

[Matt_G]

I'm poised to perform an upgrade to my unmodified GXCEBOT DirecTivo. I intend to add a new 120 GB Maxtor and reuse the existing 40GB A drive. I have a question about what seems to be a missing or implied step in the excellent Hinsdale new How-to doc.

From following the intense swap file discussion and this thread it seems the best approach is to perform upgrade option #2 or #3 depending on if you want to keep your old recordings.

These options have you turn your new large drive into the new A drive and then the original drive can be re-used as the new B drive. The new large drive will have a image that has a 127 MB swap built in. And the old drive will be wiped clean as it becomes the new B drive.

But in Option #3 (for preserving your recordings) to add the old drive back on as a new B drive I believe I would need amend the directions to:

follow up this command:
mfsbackup -TAO - /dev/hdc |mfsrestore -s 127 -xzpi - /dev/hda
(backup old tivo drive "hdc" and restore it to the new large drive "hda")

with this command:
mfsadd -x /dev/hda /dev/hdc
(marry the old tivo drive "hdc" as a new B drive)

The alternate command under Config #3 assumes that you are copying from the old drive and marying to two OTHER new drives with no reuse of the old drive:

mfsbackup -TAO - /dev/hdc |mfsrestore -s 127 -xzpi - /dev/hda /dev/hdb
(backup old tivo drive "hdc" and restore to new large drive "hda")
(marry on a new drive "hdb")


Am I right on this?
THANKS!

[Robert S]

Be careful about case. -TAO may not be the same as -Tao !

[un33k]

Just upgraded my HDVR2 with a 120G DiamondMax Plus 9......Many thanks to Tiger for the tools and Hinsdale for the terrific How-to! Hope everyone has a nice rest of the weekend.

[triopha]

(Please see "Not a linux user - need link to mfs command set" in this forum)

[Davin]

Many thanks to Tiger and Hinsdale for the tools and directions.
And to Robert S for answering some questions.

I now have a SVR3000 that reports 228 hours!
(Took a std 80hr SVR3000, copied the 80GB to a new 120GB with the -s 127 option; and then re-added the original 80GB as second drive.)


One side question: is there a good man page for the mfstools, or web page with full options descriptions?

Thanks again to all!

Davin.

[Robert S]

I think the README file is as good as it gets. Be aware that where the README and Hinsdale differ (on issues relating to swap and GSOD's), Hinsdale is correct.

[bjcleaver]

Davin - any particular reason for re-ading the original 80GB as second drive rather than the new 120GB. I'm in a similar boat - just bought a Samsung 120GB and wondering which way to go with it and my SVR-3000. Saving my current recordings would be nice, but definitely not critical.

[bjcleaver]

Davin - what was your reasoning for re-adding the original 80GB drive as the 2nd drive, rather than the new 120GB? I'm in a similar situation - just bought a Samsung 120GB drive and wondering which way to go with my SVR-3000. Saving current recordings would be nice, but isn't critical.

[weaknees]

I think I replied to this same question in another thread, but using the larger drive as the A drive allows you to increase the swap space (-s 127 in the commands). You can't do this with the existing drive since the partitions use it all. But if you use the 120 as the A and increase the swap, then you can just add back the 80 as the B.

Michael

[Ohu2]

I used mfstool 2.0 to bring tivo back alive. NOw if I could only get a bash.
How ever I have some questions with a 2.0 I can not mount the drive protions when I boot using the 1. iso I can mount 4 & 9. Am I overlooking something?

thanks

[Robert S]

You need to boot byteswapping. MFS Tools 2.0 does not byteswap by default (see the first post in the Fixes thread).

[tidal]

any reason to fear upgrading my SA HDR114 40+40 Tivo to a 120+120 setup?

Whats the recommendation on swap space for a setup like this?

[weaknees]

That unit (probably an HDR112) will be just fine with a dual 120 setup - just use "127" for your swap value.

Michael

[Ordinant]

Checking, just to be safe: the MFS Tools 2.0 have no problem upgrading Series 2 machines that have version 4.0 of the Tivo software and home media option?

Anybody try it yet?

Thanks!

[jlkirk]

Ok, as I understand it I should be able to use the MFS tools to access my Tivo Drive. However, I have been unable to find any kind of directions for using the MFS tools for something other than upgrading. As it is, I typed something wrong in my rc.sysint file and now my Tivo will not boot. What do I need to do to get access to my Tivo filesystem to correct my mistake?

I have a dual drive S1 Tivo with v 3.0 of the Tivo system software. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!
JK

[SEC55]

I haven't had my Tivo running for a long time and I'm backing it up before sending out for repair. A friend has been helping me use MFS Tools to back up to a second drive, a 160 gb Maxtor I got at Staples for $99 after rebate.

Anyway, in step 8 of Hinsdale it says that if you're restoring a backup image running Tivo software v. 2.0 or below to a non-Quantum drive, you need to add runideturbo=false to the rc.sysinit file for the drive to boot in the Tivo.

The problem: I don't remember what version of system software my Tivo has, so the question is: when did v. 2.0.1 come out? By chance does anybody remember? Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks a lot,

Ed

[ThreeSoFar]

SEC55: you don't give much detail. Is it a new TiVo? A series 1? 2?

Was it plugged in for long? If so, you most likely do not hvae 2.0 or below.

One easy way: If it's a series two, and you have folders, you've definitely got version 4.

[weaknees]

I'm pretty sure that every TiVo has received 2.5 or newer in the last 12 months - hope that helps.

You can always just try restoring the image and seeing if it works - if not, change the boot parms.

Michael

[SEC55]

Originally posted by ThreeSoFar
SEC55: you don't give much detail. Is it a new TiVo? A series 1? 2?

Was it plugged in for long? If so, you most likely do not hvae 2.0 or below.

Sorry about that. It's a series 1 Sony SVR-2000. It's been down for about 10 months or more (don't know how I lived without it that long!). I think you and Weaknees are probably right, that I don't have 2.0 or below. Thanks a lot,

Ed

[Robert S]

I think 3.0 was rolling out about a year ago, so you might have 2.5, you'll probably have 3.0, but you definitely don't need to worry about runideturbo.

[powernexus]

This is sure awesome! Thanks!

I'm having some problems with it being able to mount my TiVo drive, though. MFS Tools was able to make a backup image of my TiVo drive, but I couldn't get some of the other packages to work due to the system not being able to mount the mfs disk.

Could this be due to mfs support not being compiled into the kernel of the MFS Tools CD? I've been working from several different angles trying to get the other networking programs installed, but haven't had any luck.

Could you please take a minute or two and look at my other post to see if I'm missing something?

click here (http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=119250)

Thanks for your time and cool software!

[Cletus]

To mount the partitions on the TiVo disk, you need to boot in byteswapped mode (_and_ the TiVo drive must not be /dev/hda).The mfstools CD won't byteswap the drives. Your best bet is to use the kazymyr boot CD, which will boot correctly in byteswapped mode.

[stamasd]

Hi all,

I hate to sound like a newbie... I've been into TiVo for the past 3 years, but it's the first time I use MFStools, and it seems I've hit a problem. I have searched the forum and RT(F)M, but have found no definitive answers, so here goes.

I have a HDR112, originally a 14h SA. I upgraded it using BlessTiVo in 2000, to a 15G+80GB dual configuration. (for the record, drive A has 11 partitions). Worked flawlessly for almost 3 years, 107h at basic.

I recently decided to upgrade again. I am a Unix sysadmin, and tend to plan any disk upgrades ahead of time, before the drives start to fail. :) There was nothing wrong with my TiVo, but the drives were both ~3 years old, and I wanted to upgrade before a GSOD happened. Besides, disk space is much cheaper now (in 2000, I paid ~$3/GB for the 80GB drive, and now it was only $0.5/GB for a 120GB).

So I decided to upgrade again from the 15+80GB to a single 120GB. I chose to keep my recordings, so according to hinsdale I used step 10 configuration #6. Of course, first I made a small backup and tested it, so I know I can go back to first base if I need to. :)

I connected the drives as follows:

/dev/hda: TiVo A drive (15GB)
/dev/hdb: TiVo B drive (80GB)
/dev/hdc: new drive (120GB)

I used:

mfsbackup -Tao - /dev/hda /dev/hdb | mfsrestore -s 127 -xzpi - /dev/hdc

...in order to copy the drives and expand the 120GB to max capacity (an extra 25GB). Notice the x.

It worked for about 3 hours, reached 100%, then said it added a new pair, /dev/hdc14 and /dev/hdc15, and that I should have 33h extra now. That sounds correct, 11 partitions on A plus 2 from B is 13, follows 14 and 15. The total capacity should have been (107+33) around 140h.

I put the new drive in the TiVo, and it booted fine - but in the system information it still showed 107h. So adding the extra space failed. I rebooted the TiVo, then on an impulse redid the guided setup, but of course neither solved my problem. Still 107h. Because I had redone the GS, I could now not access "search by title" to turn on backdoors and look at the logs - at least not until I had to leave for work this morning.

So what are my options now (assuming I don't find anything relevant in the logs)? I found in this forum various postings about issues similar to mine (for instance http://tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?postid=745370#post745370 - but he never came back to his question #1), but not a definitive answer.

Assuming partitions 14 and 15 were in fact created but not "blessed" correctly so that the TiVo could not see or use them, could I just put the drive back in the PC and run

mfsadd -x /dev/hdc :confused:

Is mfsadd supposed to work on partitions that are already there, or just on empty space? If that wouldn't work, what could I do? Remove hdc14 and hdc14 with pdisk, then try mfsadd again? I would really like to avoid having to do the 2>1 drive copy again, as 3 hours are a lot of time for me. Any other suggestions I may not have thought of?

Thanks all.

[Robert S]

mfsadd should be exactly equivalent to running mfsrestore with -x, so it's not obvious what's wrong. It certainly couldn't hurt to run it again.

Try mfsinfo to see what it thinks the MFS partition set is.

This is not a problem I've seen before, so I don't have a ready answer, but 120Gb A drive should give you 140 Hours, so there definitely is something wrong.

[stamasd]

Thanks for the reply, Robert S.


mfsadd should be exactly equivalent to running mfsrestore with -x, so it's not obvious what's wrong.
Umm.. yeah. I knew that. :):):)
It certainly couldn't hurt to run it again.
Will do tonight.
Try mfsinfo to see what it thinks the MFS partition set is.
This is not a problem I've seen before, so I don't have a ready answer, but 120Gb A drive should give you 140 Hours, so there definitely is something wrong.
I'll see what mfsinfo says. It will probably tell me either that:

1. I have 2 MFS pairs, hdc10+11 and hdc12+13, in which case the "x" failed altogether, or
2. I have 3 MFS pairs, hdc10+11, 12+13 and 14+15, in which case I have no clue what the problem is and what to do. :confused:

In the first case, I'll look at the partition table with pdisk. If I see 15 partitions, it means hdc14 and 15 were created but not correctly initialized - I will then remove them and try mfsadd again. If I see only 13 partitions, it means that the last 2 were never created, and I'll run mfsadd directly. See what happens then.

Does that look like a good course of action?

[Robert S]

You can also give mfsadd partition names as targets rather than just the name of the drive. This might be safer than deleting the extra partitions. See the README for the syntax.

[stamasd]

So according to the readme, I would use:

mfsadd -X /dev/hdc

if hdc14 and 15 don't exist, or:

mfsadd /dev/hdc14 /dev/hdc15

if partitions 14 and 15 are already created, right?
But what do I do if mfsinfo shows 3 pairs? Guess I'd have to redo the disk copying. :(

[stamasd]

Okay, mfsinfo /dev/hdc shows as follows:

The MFS volume set contains 6 partitions
/dev/hdc10 MFS Partition size: 512MiB
/dev/hdc11 MFS Partition size: 12098MiB
/dev/hdc12 MFS Partition size: 4MiB
/dev/hdc13 MFS Partition size: 78163MiB
/dev/hdc14 MFS Partition size: 0MiB
/dev/hdc15 MFS Partition size: 25948 MiB

Total MFS volume size: 116726 MiB
estimated hours on a SA TiVo: 130
This MFS volume may be expanded 3 more times.


So, mfsinfo thinks everything's all right, but the TiVo still won't see the extra space.

Now what do I do?

Edit: pdisk confrms this info. And /dev/hdc14 is in fact 1024 sectors of 512 bytes (=0.5M), not 0. There's also a 1.9M of free space at the end of the drive.

[Robert S]

I don't know. Tiger's probably the only person outside TiVo who understands MFS, so unless he chips in, you might never get an answer.

[stamasd]

:(

Thanks for your help anway.It's much appreciated.

I'll keep trying though. An interesting tidbit: when I run mfsinfo on the original pair of drives, it says that the estimated capacity in a SA TiVo would be 97 hours, but in fact it's 107. After the upgrade, it says there shouls be 130h, but I show still 107. Hmm....

[stamasd]

I have solved the mistery of the missing hours. :)

The short explanation: the upgrade worked as advertised, I just didn't realize it.

The long one: Of course, there was a factor which I didn't consider when I calculated the space. I had completely forgotten about this. Let me put it this way: 3 years ago, I was a Unix sysadmin who purchased this cool box that recorded TV and was running Linux... kid in a candy store... :D I just couldn't keep my hands off it. As a result the poor TiVo was hacked back and forth for 3 years. One of the things I did (about 1 year ago) was use TiVoWeb to adjust the bitrates at basic, so they become more compatible with certain things that shouldn't be mentioned here *cough*video extraction*cough*. ;) So... increase bitrates -> the number of hours decreases.

So where did the confusion start? I keep notes of everything. When I started this upgrade, I pulled out my notes from the previous one. The last thing I had noted was "upgraded capacity=107 hours". Flash forward to last year, I increased the bitrate at basic, so now the 107 hours weren't 107 any more, and of course I didn't check the system info screen.

When I realized that, I put the original 2 drives back and looked at the system info - lo and behold, it showed 81h! And the new drive shows 107h, that is 26h extra plus some reserved space I guess. It was just a coincidence, but 107h !=107h. :)

So the take home lesson is: mfstools works. It's our memory that fails us.

[powernexus]

Originally posted by Cletus
To mount the partitions on the TiVo disk, you need to boot in byteswapped mode (_and_ the TiVo drive must not be /dev/hda).The mfstools CD won't byteswap the drives. Your best bet is to use the kazymyr boot CD, which will boot correctly in byteswapped mode.

Thanks Cletus! The Kazymyr Boot CD let me mount the TiVo partitions just like you said. I only wish I had seen that before trying only the MFS Tools 2 CD. Hopefully, Tiger will make the next version of the MFS Tools CD to allow mounting of TiVo drive partitions like the Kazymyr one does!

[Cletus]

Originally posted by powernexus
Thanks Cletus! The Kazymyr Boot CD let me mount the TiVo partitions just like you said. I only wish I had seen that before trying only the MFS Tools 2 CD. Hopefully, Tiger will make the next version of the MFS Tools CD to allow mounting of TiVo drive partitions like the Kazymyr one does!

If you haven't noticed, Tiger is MIA since about this time last year. I guess we can't count on him anymore for any updates. OTOH, I'm pretty good with Linux - let me see what I can do. :)

[powernexus]

Bummer! I was thinking about trying something similar also.... thinking!! :)
I guess Tiger never released his source code?

[Cletus]

Originally posted by powernexus
Bummer! I was thinking about trying something similar also.... thinking!! :)
I guess Tiger never released his source code?

No. He was asked by TiVo, Inc. not to.

But making the CD byteswap correctly has nothing to do with mfstools source code.

[powernexus]

Oh, I know. I was just wondering if he had released the source code since you said he had been MIA. I was hoping someone else could pick up from where he left off rather than re-inventing what he had done.
However, there's always more than one way to skin a Tiger. (Sorry, bad one, I know!)
:)

[Sbmocp]

So, does anyone know what happened with Tiger? New job, new interests, etc.? Just curious--I noticed the absence and lost a lot of sleep over it during the last year... ;)

[AddictedToTV]

Why can't MFSTools2.0 access HD's hooked up to IDE connectors on an ATA adapter card?

Ok, I'm stumped... I'm using a 1998 pc to setup larger hard drives for a new TiVo (using MFSTools2.0).
This old PC just doesn't know what to do with large hard drives, at power up the BIOS just hangs when it gets to the large HD's, so I'm using the ATA adapter card that came bundled with the HD's. It boots fine, but MFSTools2.0 doesn't seem to see the HD's (even though it just booted from there)!?!

The technical details...
PC is a Packard Bell 955, AMD K6-2/333 processor, 192mb RAM, 1998 Award BIOS.
For this TiVo surgery, I replaced the Win XP Pro HD with a 3GB FAT32 HD with DOS/Win98SE.
This PC has primary/secondary IDE controllers on the MB, but the 1998 Award BIOS hangs on large HD's.

I'm trying to setup 2 new Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 9 160GB ATA/133 hard drives for a TiVo TCD24004A.
Luckily, these new HD's came bundled with a Maxtor Ultra ATA/133 PCI Adapter Card.
Now I'm not using the IDE connectors on the PC's motherboard, but instead using the primary&secondary IDE connectors on the Maxtor adapter card.
I hooked up everything meticulously as in the Hinsdale How-To and MFSTools2.0 instructions (including master/slave jumpers).

primary master: 3GB FAT32 DOS/Windows HDD
primary slave: 160GB new Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 9 ATA/133 HDD
secondary master: 40GB TiVo Western Digital Performer WD400
secondary slave: CD-RW drive containing MFSTools2.0 CD

The system can boot from my 3GB harddisk (master on primary IDE) and also from MfsTools2.0 CD (slave on secondary IDE), so I assume everything is OK. However, once MFSTools2.0 boots (default boot option), it does not seem to see the hard drives attached to the adapter card...

/# mkdir /mnt/dos
/# mount /dev/hda1 /mnt/dos
mount: /dev/hda1: unknown device
/#
/# dd if=/dev/hdc of=/dev/hdb bs=1024k
dd: opening '/dev/hdc': No such device or address
/#

Since, I'm booting off the adapter, it must be hooked up correctly. I'm assuming that Linux is probably assigning the hda-hdc devices still to the now unused IDE connectors on the motherboard. I tried swapping device ID's hde-hdh in the commands, but that didn't work. How do I find out what device IDs Linux is using for the IDE connectors on the adapter card? I later went into the PC's BIOS and selected 'none' for the type of HD hooked up for all 4 primary/secondary master/slave positions on the motherboard. The system still boots fine with the HD's connected to the adpater card, but MFSTools2.0 still doesn't see these HD's as hda-hdd.

I also tried swapping a new 40GB Maxtor DiamondMax Plus HDD for the new 160GB drive, just to rule out the 160GB HDD as the problem. No difference, same error messages.

Is there a Linux command to display what device ID's it has assigned here?
Is there a Linux command to re-map these device ID's to hda-hdd?
Is there something else I should try?

:confused: Any help would be appreciated! Thank you!

[AddictedToTV]

I don't believe this... I got the MfsTools2.0 CD downloaded, burned, and booting properly. But my poor old PC BIOS just didn't know what to do with these large harddisks. I borrowed a brand new PC which correctly recognizes large hardisks. So, problem solved, right? Wrong!

For some reason the BIOS in this brand spankin' new PC doesn't think the MfsTools2.0 CD is a valid boot disk! It has no problem booting off Kazymyr's All-In-One boot CD, just not off MfsTools2.0!!! It tries to boot off it, then decides it's not a valid boot image, and then boots off the next device. I even tried swapping in the CD-RW drive that it did boot from successfully on the other PC (the one I used to burn the MfsTools2.0 and Kazymyr's discs). I tried burning another MfsTools2.0 disc with the same result... Boots everywhere else, just not on this new PC.

Anyway, my question is... What would be better?
1. To boot off the MfsTools2.0 floppy and use mfsbackup and dd from that.
2. To boot off the Kazymyr CD, then swap it with the MfsTools2.0 CD, and somehow access the tools off of it. (I'm not sure what Linux command(s) are needed to acomplish this.)
3. To boot of the MfsTools2.0 floppy, and somehow access the tools off of the MfsTools2.0 CD. (I'm not sure what Linux command(s) are needed to acomplish this.)

I did note, that when Kazymyr's CD boots up, it does recognize all of the connected TiVo harddrives (old and new) at their correct size. However, when the MfsTools2.0 floppy boots, it does show the names of the harddrives (old and new), and shows they are assigned to hda-hdd correctly; HOWEVER, IT DOES NOT INDICATE ANY SIZE FOR THE HARDDRIVES WHATSOEVER! Is this normal?

I'm so close, I can smell success! Any advice, on the best way to boot up here? Or, does it matter? Why is everyone using the MfsTools2.0 CD, when the floppy seems to be much simpler? The CD obviously contains extra goodies, but are they necessary?

[AddictedToTV]

The floppy worked like a charm! :) By the way, the floppy WAS displaying the disk sizes right after it displayed the disk names. Problem was that just after that it does a 'clearscreen' before displaying the # prompt. Somehow that 'clearscreen' erases the last page of boot messages. Pressing SHIFT-PGUP does not display these last boot messages, they have been zapped! The boot messages appear so fast, that I didn't see the disk size messages the first few times as they whizzed by. Since, the SHIFT-PGUP didn't bring back the last few boot messages, it appeared the disk sizes were never displayed.

[Cletus]

There are 2 versions of the mfstools CD: the first version, with Joliet extensions turned on, which does not boot properly; and a second version, without Joliet (therefore called "NoJ"). You must have mistakenly used the first one.

[cubcake1]

Will MFS Tools 2.0 work with TiVo's 4.0 + software?

[Robert S]

Yes.

[HTH]

It's been awhile since I've upgraded a TiVo, so I need a quick refresher.

I have a Series1 with one 120 GB drive (fully utilized) to which I'm going to add a second 120 GB. I also have two unopened Series2 80hr TiVos I'm going to add a 120 GB drive to each.

I know I'll need to buy new mounting hardware for the Series2 (I'm set for Series1 parts), but is it wise for me to do a simple bless-and-add for the Series2 or should I really use the MFS Tools 2.0? I expect to have to use it for the Series1 to increase swap.

[Robert S]

Yes, both TiVoes will need more swap to recover from a GSOD in their expanded configuration. Do you want to keep your recordings? If not I'd make both new drives A drives and run them for a few weeks before mfsadd-ing the old A drives as B drive.

You're looking at /hours/ of copying to move 200Gb of data if you want to keep your recordings. In that case I would run the new drives for a week or so in my computer and then just add them as B drives. If they did GSOD I'd then do the 'rescue' from the third post of the Fixes thread.

Of course, you might consider buying one 250Gb drive for the Series 1 TiVo (see the end of the 160Gb thread in the Underground) and move that TiVo's A drive into the Series 2.

[HTH]

Well, the "new" drives have been running in the computer for months if not at least a year, so I'm confident in them.

I'll probably just do the bless-and-add for the Series2s and live dangerously until I get another pair of matching manufacture (never had good experience mixing Maxtor and WD).

I do actually want to keep the recordings on all the units. I have shows on there that will never be shown again and some that are hedges until they come out on DVD. I'd better upgrade the Series1 this weekend during the longest period where I have nothing scheduled to record and/or move what pending recordings I have to another TiVo. (At least with HMO, I could possibly shift recordings between the Series2s before upgrading.)

As to >128 GiB drives, I need them more in the Mac (for editing video) than I need more recording space on TiVos. And the one that is the tightest on space (due to lots of KUIDs--mostly Odyssey 5 and Max Headroom) is the one that already has two-120 GB drives.

[jmathey]

Hi,
I've never upgraded a Tivo before, but I feel pretty comfortable trying it thanks to all your hard work and all the intelligent posts and replies here. I just purchased a hdvr2 hughes directivo. I am also purchasing two 120 GB 5400 hard drives to go ahead with the upgrade, I have a couple of questions before I start;

1: Would it be better to go with 7200 RPM drives instead? I've heard they do make a slight difference?

2: Is there a brand name drive that has a better track record with these upgrades? I've used Maxtor's for all my computer upgrades so I was going to go with it for the Tivo, but if a Western Digital or some other brand is better, I'd appreciate a heads up.

3: Does it make any sense at all to go with 160 GB drives instead of 120? I've heard that Tivo will only use 137 of each drive anyway, just wanting to confirm.

Well that's it for now, I'll wait for a few replies to this then it's off to the upgrade. I'll post my hopefully successful result when it's complete.

Thanks in advance

John

PS: Way to go Tiger, you made this process much simpler than in the "old days" :)

[Robert S]

7200 drives don't seem to add a great deal to the performance of a TiVo (the original drives were 4500 RPM!) and if you're putting two drives in an HDVR2 the extra heat won't help.

Current Maxtor drives seem to be suffering from a firmware locking issue. This doesn't stop them working in the TiVo, but does prevent access from a PC once they've been put in a TiVo. This problem does not affect other brands.

Yes, you can only use 137Gb of a hard drive, so you can't fully utilise a 160Gb drive. This is a limitation of the TiVo kernel. We have a replacement kernel for Series 1 TiVoes, but Series 2 users will probably have to wait for TiVo to release an official kernel that supports larger drives.

[haardwire]

Upgraded yesterday in about 2 hours from basic single quantum 40Gb drive to Smasung 120Gb drive. MFS did the job briliantly. Popped the new drive back into the TIVO and booted first time. All progs and settings intact. Superb.

Only issue I still have is that I want to back up the old drive, but only have Win XP and NTFS partitions. Any ideas please:

Regards

Nick

[Robert S]

Yes, you put a small FAT partition on your upgrade drive and put the backup file on that before copying the file to your C: drive and proceeding with the upgrade.

[haardwire]

Thanx robert, but I already did the upgrade!!

Eventually, I want to use the old 40Gb drive in my PC, but I would like to do the backup first.

Any other ideas out there??

Thanks again for the response Robert. Much appreciated.

Nick

[lpwcomp]

What will happen if someone has one or two 160GB drives in a series 2 and TiVo finally updates the kernal?

[Robert S]

haardwire, you need a small FAT partition. You could use Partition Magic to resize your C: drive to make room for a new partition on your Windows drive, but that's probably not a good idea. If you're going to reformat your old A drive, then why not backup your new drive to that at that time? A compressed backup drops the upgraded partitions, so you'll have a backup you can restore to the original A drive if necessary.

lpwcomp, nothing. LBA-48 adds the adds the ability to access larger disks. Access to the lower part of the disk is not affected and you won't automatically get to use the extra space on the disks either.

[haardwire]

Robert, it's an idea, but I have the Tivo all back together and dont realy want to take it apart again. Maybe I'll try the partition magic thing, unless MFS will allow me to backup to a CDR!! Anyone know if this can be done ?

If so, a command line would be very helpful.

Regards and thanks again for your reply Robert.

Nick

[Robert S]

No, MFS Tools does not include CD-R support!

[haardwire]

Damn & double damn

[haardwire]

Hmmm, Partition magic time I think. Tripple damn!!

Thanks again Robert

Nick

[Robert S]

Would downloading a backup be a better option, then?

[haardwire]

Robert,

Definitely for me, as I have broadband, the file size is not an issue. Any ideas where I can get one??

Cheers, and thanks for all the help and ideas so far.

Nick

[jmathey]

Before I start, will this work with direcTivo's with 3.1 Software?

I have a DSR7000 (single 40GB drive),

I want to upgrade it to dual 160 GB ( I know it will only use 137).

If yes, will the 9th tee bracket work with these new DirecTivo's?

Thanks
John

[clherv]

I have read the instructions about how to use MFStools for various upgrades. Then I saw someone mention an MFStools command that was not in that document. I did look in several places for this request before posting.

So, my question:

Is there some place on the web, or in this forum that would list all the MFSTools commands, and their structure??

I would appreciate reading it.

Kent

[wavemaster]

I feel kind of dumb asking this....

Well anyway, I downloaded the tools and burned the image to a CDR.

Does the linux folder need to be burned as another image for booting?

Last time I did this on my T-60 I used Hinsdale's (thank you Mr. Hinsdale) walk-through with all the associated tools.

Is the new MFS2 a complete solution for a Hughes HDVR2? How do I get the boot CD created?

Basically, now what?

Thanks,

Wavemaster

[Robert S]

The .ISO file (make sure you get mfstool2noJ.iso) is a container that holds the full structure of a CD-ROM. Your CD burning software should have a special mode for creating CD's from ISO files.

[wavemaster]

"what next?"

Put it in the drive and boot you moron.


Worked great and now has 130 hours.

Thanks,

Brain dead,

wavemaster

[lbrewer]

I just (today) downloaded the mfstoolsnoj.iso and burned yet another cd. As in the other version, this will not boot either. Why is this such a problem? I had no problems at all with the 1.1 download, iso burning, and booting.

[haardwire]

Have you looked at the disk to see what is on it?

Have you set your PC to boot from CD?

Did you burn the disk as a data disk or as an image?

These are the first 3 things I would check.

Hope this helps

Nick :cool:

[lbrewer]

Yes, the previous version was burned in the same way and it works fine on the same pc. I had to revert to that version to add the second drive. MFSTOO~1 is the only file that is listed on the cd.

[Robert S]

MFSTOO~1 is the only file that is listed on the cd.

So you burned a data CD. You need to create a disk from the ISO image, quite a different function.

[lbrewer]

You are right. I went back and looked at options and found the record option under "file" that I had not seen. Why was the old version so easy to burn? Or were the specific instructions spelled out? I used a different cd writing program before, but thought I was doing it the right way with this program. Thank you so much for your help. This was really bugging me.
One thing I did notice though. There is no "burn" option for iso when you just go to record. There is on data cd creation. I guess that is what threw me.

[haardwire]

lbrewer

good luck with it. U dont mention what burning software u r using.

Regards

Nick

[ManOfSteele]

Is there an updated set of upgrade instructions specific to MFS 2.0?

[haardwire]

pwsteel,

if you have burned a cd from the iso image file, you will find a word doc with full info and instructions on it.:)

It's in the root directory "mfstools.doc"

good luck.

Nick

[mickyw]

Will MFS tools 2.0 work with 4.0 software?

[Robert S]

Yes, no problems there.

[DaTester]

Originally posted by Robert S
You must mount /dev/hda1.

You're working from an old (and faulty) document. Download the latest New Hinsdale and use that instead. (See Hinsdale's thread in this Forum).

I found this old post and it refers to the problem I am having.

When I type:
mount /dev/hda1 /mnt/dos
I get:
/dev/hda1: Success
mount: you must specify the filesystem type.

It says "success" so I try to do a backup:
mfsbackup -f 9999 -6so /mnt/dos/tivo.bak /dev/hdc
It scans the source and says the drive size, image size and uncompressed backup size and starts chugging and then gives me the error:
Backup failed: /mnt/dos/tivo.bak: Success

I am using an extended dos partition (fat32) on an old drive for my hda. Anyone have any ideas?

Thanks

[Robert S]

The first logical partition is hda5

[dwynne]

Originally posted by Tiger
Announcing the release of MFS Tools 2.0!

MFS Tools 1.0 was evolutionary in the TiVo upgrade process. MFS Tools 2.0 may prove to be revolutionary.


Thanks for the tools!

I had used the boot floppy method 2 1/2 years ago to upgrade my SA Tivo - it worked but lost all the recordings, wish lists, etc.

My added drive failed a couple of weeks ago, using the new tools was a snap to restore a downloaded 3.0 image and expand it to work on a new drive.

With such an easy to use tool, I upgraded my DirecTivos as well (with no loss of anything) and even upgraded a friend's 30 hour SA box as well - also with no loss.

Thanks again for all the hard work! It sure makes it a snap to do upgrades now.

Dennis

[DaTester]

Originally posted by Robert S
The first logical partition is hda5

Aaah. So few words yet so much has been learned...

I was finally able to back-up the original drives in my TiVos. Since I was on a roll I also backed up the upgrade drives.

Thanks Robert!

Dan

[thelinuxdude]

Thank's to Tiger, Hindsdale and the this forum. I upgraded my DirecTivo Series 2 with the new MFStools 2.0. My version of software was 3.0. I'm pleased to see 120 hours of space available.

I also updated on my linux box. No DOS partition. I would like to see a section in the online manuals from MFSTools and Hindsdale for using a linux only box. I booted with the MFStools CD and mounted my linux paritition (reiserfs) and backup to my home directory. Restored from the backup to my 120gig. Appears to work, I did not backup my recorded programs, because I wanted to get this done fast. (started at 2am finished at 2:45am, first ever upgrade). I also burned a copy of my tivo.bak file to a CD.

This was easy. Thanks again to all the great information on this site. Also when more info on HMO for DirecTivo is available I would be interested. Where is the best place for this information?

[Robert S]

If you're a regular Linux user it should be pretty obvious what to do, although you MUST work from the current Hinsdale and not the MFS Tools 2.0 documentation.

MFS Tools will run under your ordinary Linux install, it doesn't need any of the TiVo-specific patches on the boot CD.

If you do run it under a normal Linux, you need to watch out for drive locking and large drive support. If you are using a 160Gb drive or larger, the standard TiVo kernel will only see the first 137Gb of each of the hard drives. Modern Linux kernels (2.4.18 and later) will see the whole drive, therefore you must not expand the image (the -x option) under your normal Linux. Do the restore without -x and then reboot to the MFS Tools CD to run mfsadd.

Are you claiming that the kernel on the MFS Tools 2.0 CD mounted a ReiserFS partition?

[mattack]

Is the source to these tools available? I tried PMing Tiger but got no response.

I'd like to look at it and see how feasible it is to get it running under Mac OS X. (I know there's some kind of Carbon Tivo Blesser program, but I mean the shell utils.. including the ability to increase the swap).

[jboy]

Hi,

I want to add a second drive to my Tivo. The drive I plane on using was removed from a unix system and has several partitions defined.

According to the MFS version of the HowTo all I have to do is msfadd -x /dev/hdc /dev/hdb.
Does this command update the partitions on second drive (/dev/hdb)? Or do I delete the partition information first?

Thanks,

Jerry

[Robert S]

Yes, mfsadd requires no help from you to prepare the new drive.

[donaudio]

I am a newbie and want to upgrade my Tivo. My current CD-ROM drive is jumpered to CS and is on the end of the secondary IDE cable. To do the backup and upgrade should I change this to correspond to hdd as described in Hinsdale step 7? Thanks for any help. Don

[Robert S]

If you know what you're doing it should be obvious what to change in Hinsdale's instructions. If you don't then it would be a good idea to configure your hardware so that you can follow Hinsdale precisely.

[FredThompson]

The floppy version of MFS Tools doesn't like the nvidia2 chipset and will hang after looking at the hard drives. It reports they exist but doens't like the controller.

I've got 2 source drives and 2 new destination drives, was planning to do the one-step upgrade for both as detailed on the Hinsdale site.

Is there a version of the floppy which DOES support the nvidia2 chipset? If so, where is it? If not, does the CD for 2.0 "play nice" with the nvidia2 chipset?

[Robert S]

You can run MFS Tools from any Linux (I rather like Tom's Root and Boot Disk (http://www.toms.net/rb/)), not just the TiVo boot disks.

Running it from this environment is a little different. See the 6th page of the 160Gb thread at the top of the Underground. das Monkey posted a guide to running MFS Tools under Knoppix.

You have to be a bit careful if you're using a 160Gb drive as if you use a really current Linux then you're into LBA-48 territory - you want a Linux that will see the drive as 137Gb and no more.

[FredThompson]

Great! Thanks.

I've been Googling and Copernicing trying to find a boot disc which will work wiht the nVidia. Not such an easy task.

Yeah, I thought about 160 drives but the LBA48 thing has me a little spooked. These are going in my T60 and they're just 120s. I picked up a couple of S2 units during the recent DirecTV promo and closeout at CIrcuit City. Never understood why people had more than 1 until I'd been using it for a while. Thought the standard 40G was more than enouhg, also.

Well, things change. When this is all done, I'll be able to go on business trips (2-3 weeks/month) and not "lose" anything while I'm gone. These things are awesome.

[FredThompson]

Bah!!! The floppy creation routine for a non-Linux machine requires real mode. Therefore, it can't be run on a non-FAT system.

I'm going to make a disc on a Win98 system and will sent the author a copy of the little IBM utility to compress and decompress floppy drives.

[dbrower]

Originally posted by weaknees

As far as I know, there is no way at all to preserve recordings when going to a smaller drive - no matter how small the difference.
Michael

Does anyone know why this is? I have a similar scenario - replacing
my single maxtor with a samsung, because the seek noise on the maxtor
is making me crazy (even with audible patching).

I have deleted a bunch of big recordings; the actual backup would be 80M
worth. I don't see why anything but the very last partition in the restore
would need to be smaller than the originals, and if it is not filled, why its
shortage should matter. I do disk/file system management stuff for a living,
so I'm aware of some of the complexity. There must be something deeper
going on that is not obvious.

Can someone explain?

thanks,
-dB

[FredThompson]

Why don't you just get a new drive. Your Maztor is probably old using metal bearings, not the new quieter ones.

That's a serious suggestion.

[Robert S]

MFS is a proprietary, closed format. I don't doubt that if enough resources were available a technique for resizing MFS partitions could be developed, but TiVo have no interest in doing so.

No extant tool can resize MFS partitions. This is not likely to change in the forseeable future.

[dbrower]

I'll accept that MFS is close and proprietary. I am wondering what would happen if a 'shrink' case just lost the last partition, and provided a new one of appripriate size that
fit. Certainly you would lose the things present in the last partition; but you might keep most everything else. I might imagine the tivo software is able to somehow tolerate a corrupted partition, which is what the replacement shorter last one would appear to be.

Since I obviously can't run such a test myself, I pose the question to those who might
have access to mfstool source to experiment.

(And yes, I can use the two samsungs in my other hdvr2's, and I didn't look close
enough when I ordered them. The maxtor isn't that old, it just resonates with
seek operations.).

thanks,
-dB

[FredThompson]

Does the Maxtor drive itself make noise or is its movement causing a rattle? IOW, what if you use some shock-absorbing material between the drive and mounting plate?

[Robert S]

From posts from people trying to save recordings, it appears that it's a little more complex.

If you have an 11-partition A drive, take a backup and then add a B drive, you might want to remove the B drive (eg, the TiVo starts stuttering). In that instance, if you restore that backup to the A drive, the recordings that were on the A drive at the time the backup was made will survive.

[Joe Schmuck]

Originally posted by FredThompson
Bah!!! The floppy creation routine for a non-Linux machine requires real mode. Therefore, it can't be run on a non-FAT system.

I'm going to make a disc on a Win98 system and will sent the author a copy of the little IBM utility to compress and decompress floppy drives.

Were you able to get the nvidia2 motherboard to work with MFS Tools CDROM?

I will be trying it out tonight and I expect it to work fine but seeing your post makes me wonder. I did hear that if you have the Serial ATA enabled it could (did in one persons computer) make it not work. I'm not using the Serial ATA and have mine disabled in the BIOS.

Joe

[FredThompson]

Worked fine with the CDROM. I hadn't thought of disabling serial ATA.

[Snoozer]

Tiger,

Could you kindly post a link to the Mfstools source code which is using GPL code.

Thanks in advance for not violating the license agrement.

[Robert S]

If you read the README on the CD you'll discover that

1) MFS Tools is not derived from any GPL'd work

and

2) TiVo Inc. has asked Tiger not to release the source code or details of the workings of MFS Tools as this would reveal how proprietary TiVo technology works.

[Robert S]

If the A drive is not byteswapped and the B drive is byteswapped, mfsinfo (mfstool info) will not give an accurate report on the B drive, giving the impression that the drive set is corrupt.

mfsadd works just fine like this, though.

[Snoozer]

Originally posted by Robert S
If you read the README on the CD you'll discover that

1) MFS Tools is not derived from any GPL'd work

With all due respect, since you are not the author what basis do you have to refute this? The fact that it says that on the disk means nothing. You cannot back that up unless you have seen the source code.

Also, Tiger's silence in the matter speaks for itself.

2) TiVo Inc. has asked Tiger not to release the source code or details of the workings of MFS Tools as this would reveal how proprietary TiVo technology works.

That I can understand. However it's no secret. The fact remains that the tool needs some improvement.

[Robert S]

But, conversely, there's no evidence at all the MFS Tools derives from any GPL'd work. Your assumption that any work derives from a GPL'd work unless the source code is released and analysed to demonstrate otherwise is flawed.

The file called COPYING in the MFS Tools archive asserts that the work is Copyrighted by Tiger. No further statements on the matter are required. Microsoft and, indeed, TiVo Inc, sell software based on no stronger claims than that.

Surely the duty is on the plaintiff to present evidence to support his claims of a license violation? Volumes could also be read into your silence on that matter.

I wouldn't disagree that there's room for improvement in MFS Tools, although, once you know what to avoid doing, there's only one TiVo (Pioneer 810H) that can not be upgraded with MFS Tools. However, your perception of a flaw in a product has no bearing on whether you are entitled to access to its source code (which, of course, is where Free Software started).

[AlphaWolf]

Originally posted by Robert S
2) TiVo Inc. has asked Tiger not to release the source code or details of the workings of MFS Tools as this would reveal how proprietary TiVo technology works.

Pfft....We can already do anything we want with MFS these days. Tiger just spends too much time under the tivo guys desk, much like david bott does. This is why most of the more advanced tivo hackers have left this forum. 99% of the members of this forum haven't even seen half of all of the hacks available.

[DCIFRTHS]

Originally posted by AlphaWolf
Pfft....We can already do anything we want with MFS these days. Tiger just spends too much time under the tivo guys desk, much like david bott does. This is why most of the more advanced tivo hackers have left this forum.

Seems like you have a real knack for public relations :rolleyes: :mad:

Edit: Stoopid spelling mistake...

[AlphaWolf]

Originally posted by DCIFRTHS
Seems like you have a real knack for public relations :rolleyes: :mad:

Edit: Stoopid spelling mistake...

Public relations? You mean to say that it should only be considered acceptable if you kiss david botts ass? All I am doing here is showing you guys the light, its up to you to go to it.

And BTW, none of the hacks I speak of involve theft of service or anything even remotely illegal. If it was illegal, then the other forums would have been long gone by now, because believe me, tivo knows very well of their existence as well as what they do. In fact, there was one site that was barely even heard of that did do something illegal, and tivo DID shut it down.

[DCIFRTHS]

Originally posted by AlphaWolf
Public relations? You mean to say that it should only be considered acceptable if you kiss david botts ass?

No. I don't think it's necessary to kiss anyone's ass to participate in this forum. Additionally, I think your initial comments are rude, intrusive and out of place in this thread.

Originally posted by AlphaWolf

All I am doing here is showing you guys the light, its up to you to go to it.

It sounds like you are either envious of Tiger's work or have a personal grudge to settle. Either way, I am not going to hijack this thread to discuss it with you. I guess I just don't want to see the light.....

[georgejetson]

Using MFSBACKUP/MFSRESTORE does not work....

1. Combat Medic took a 80G hard drive (upgrading the original 40G) and got it to work with my USB Ethernet card.

2. Just in case, I did a backup image:
mfsbackup -f 4138 -6so /mnt/c/tivo2-cm.mfs /dev/hdc

3. Installed it in my machine... worked great then got overwritten with new software.

4. Restored the image:
mfsrestore -s 127 -xzpi /mnt/c/disk2/tivo2-cm.mfs /dev/hdc

5. Added a command to keep my software and not allow new upgrades:
bootpage -P "root=/dev/hda7 upgradesoftware=false BASH_ENV=\`mount\$IFS-n\$IFS/dev/hda16\$IFS/mnt;echo\$IFS/mnt/hacks\`" -C /dev/hdc (this is all one line)

6. Did an MFS backup like step 2 with a new file name. Deleted the old MFS backup (without the bootpage command) to get space. STUPID...STUPID...STUPID...

7. Installed in one of my 4 DirecTivo2s. Works great. Have Ethernet. TyTool works. Etc... Smiles everywhere.

8. Get another matching 80G drive (Same brand and everything). Do the restore. System comes up on the TV, but no ethernet (used 2nd TIVO and even the original TIVO). The first 80G upgraded drive still works fine.

9. Deleted all recorded shows (not the season passes) and did an MFS backup from the working drive again (see step 2)

10. Did a restore like step 4. NO JOY :( Still no ethernet


11. I did a backup image with -f 9999
mfsbackup -f 9999 -6so /mnt/c/tivo2-cm2.mfs /dev/hdc

12. Did a restore like step 4. Still NO JOY (no ethernet)

OK...

1. What the hell?
2. How do I fix this?
3. I would like to get this image on to 2 40G drives in the future. What do I change in the MFS command to allow that?

BTW: If you ask 'What version of MFSBACKUP are you using', how do I check?

George Jetson

[NutKase]

You can't fully backup a monte'd drive with mfstools. You'll need to dd'out each partition into an image then dd them back onto your new drive.

NutKase

[georgejetson]

After the DirecTivo did an automatic upgrade, I was able to restore the original image that Combat Medic made for me (the one I deleted) and then run the bootpage command. This worked and gives me my one and only working drive (so MFSTOOLS worked on to backup and restore the drive before the bootpage command). Now, after the bootpage command and the mfsbackup of that slightly changed image (which was only supposed to prevent the automatic software update), I don't get the usb ethernet port to light up.

Why would the bootpage command cause the mfstools to stop working?

I know I don't have ethernet, but it appears that my season passes made it over, so I assume I get most of the load. Why, as it appears, is it just the ethernet port?

[Combat Medic]

Originally posted by NutKase
You can't fully backup a monte'd drive with mfstools. You'll need to dd'out each partition into an image then dd them back onto your new drive.

NutKase Just checking in here. This drive wasn't Monte'd it's using the original bash_env hack for u151. I'm guessing that there is a problem with the bootpage that he's doing. Then again the other option is to do a full system dd.

-Mike

[Pab Sungenis]

Sorry if I missed this. If so, feel free to yell at me.

I have a SAT-T60 with the original stock 40gig and a 120gig B drive. I've resisted replacing the 40gig because I didn't want to lose programs (we have a LOT stored) because we would be over 137gig total. (According to the "Hacking the TiVo book, it 'couldn't be done.')

Will MFStools 2.0 allow me to replace the 40gig and keep my programs?

[weaknees]

Sure - you can do that very easily. The best way is to do a "Tao" backup, but you'd need a new 120 GB drive to go to also.

Short of that, your best bet is to "dd" the 40 to the new drive and then expand with "mfsadd." You probably will hit the swap ceiling and thus run the (fairly remote) risk of an uncorrectable green screen, but Robert S's fixes in the other sticky post can help you if that ever happens.

Michael

[phoenix_one]

I upgraded my SAT-T60 from a 120GB master and 40GB slave to a two 120 GB drives. (146 hours)

I followed Hindsdale instructions.

I backed up with mfsbackup -6so /mnt/dos/tivo.bak /dev/hdc /dev/hdd

Replaced the 40GB with the new 120GB.

Restored with mfsrestore -s 127 -xzpi /mnt/dos/tivo.bak /dev/hdc /dev/hdd

Installed drives in the TiVo to test backup.

Booted fine. System info shows up to 225 hours.

I am finished or do I need to follow Step 10 configuration #4?

I appreciate your thoughts.

Thanks

[weaknees]

Sounds like you are done.

Michael

[phoenix_one]

Thank you!!!!!:D

Enjoying new capacity now!

[jalex9]

I have an 80 + 20 that I am trying to put on a single 120, when I used
mfsbackup -Tao - /dev/hda /dev/hdb | mfsrestore -s 127 -xzpi - /dev/hdc

It reported that "Backup target not large enough for entire backup by itself"

this thread notes that taking the -x off sometimes works. What is this parameter and what happens when I remove it?

Is it that I will end up with 100 on my 120 and no way to expand it?

[Robert S]

You're out of partitions on the A drive. You can only have three pairs of MFS partition on the A drive, and you already have 2 pairs on there, plus another pair from the B drive.

If you make a compressed backup then you can use the full capacity of the new drive, but, of course, that means losing all your recordings (well, they're still on the original drive set, but they won't be on the new one).

Your only other option would be to use the new drive to replace just one of the current ones.

-x tells MFS Tools to expand the drive image, which it knows it doesn't have enough partitions for. The 'target too small' is a bit confusing, though.

[ether]

I ran into troubles this weekend trying to do an upgrade. Any insights won't help me, as I have completed the upgrade now via a different path (as described), but they may help others and I would love to know what went wrong.

I have a Phillips HDR212 (standalone series 1, v3.0) which previously had a single 80 gig drive, which was filled to capacity with saved shows. I just bought a second 80 gig drive for the tivo. As I don't have a PC at home handy where I can run linux, I plopped the new 80 gig into my powermac G4 and ran MacTivo Blesser for OSX. (The command I ran was "sudo ./OSXv4Blesser /dev/disk0 156299656"). The program reported success, so I installed the drive in the tivo...

I got a green screen of death (GSOD/mfsfix) for about five minutes, then it rebooted and got another GSOD for about 10 minutes. Then on the second reboot, the menus came up, and I discovered that all but about 10 of my shows were gone, and System Info reported a very small figure (I didn't write it down, but it was about 90-110 hours), which is way under what it should be (about 150-160 hours I figured).

I took the drives to a house with a linux system, and ran the mfstools 2.0 CD I had saved from when I installed the OS on the first drive (note: swap had already been set to 127 megs, as I anticipated future upgrades such as this). mfsinfo reported that the drives were married, and confirmed the 95 hour figure:
6 partitions
/dev/hdc10 512 MiB
/dev/hdc11 12098 MiB
/dev/hdc12 0 MiB
/dev/hdc13 65036 MiB
/dev/hdb2 4 MiB
/dev/hdb3 76314 MiB
Total: 153965 MiB
estimated hours: 95
May be expanded 3 more times

The full capacity of both drives was being seen, so it wasn't a QUNLOCK issue. And swap is big enough too.

I tried running mfsadd -x hoping that it would repartition the B drive, but it reported that it was already as expanded as it needed to be.

I happened to have a spare 120 gig drive available that I had also just bought, so I decided to try to make a full backup onto it (saving my shows) and restoring back onto the A+B pair:

mfsbackup -ta6so <file> /dev/hdc /dev/hdb
This reported that the uncompressed backup size would be 4667 megabytes, which would be about 10 shows worth. Unfortunately, it kept aborting at 57% progress, even when I tried to back up to another drive.

Then I tried to move the entire contents to the 120 gig drive:
mfsbackup -Tao - /dev/hdc /dev/hdb | mfsrestore -s 127 -xzpi - /dev/hda
..but it reported "not enough space". I see from posts above that this is because there were too many partitions between the two drives to put onto one single drive, so the shows would not be salvagable in this way.

Finally, I gave up and made a small backup (-6so option), which successfully produced a 816 megabyte file. I restored this to A+B successfully, and finally mfsinfo reports 177 hours. The tivo boots fine with this drive set and system info reports 196 hrs 12 min basic, 53 hrs 56 minutes best.

This generates the following questions:
- what went wrong with the bless process?
- why does mfsinfo say 177 hours but system info says 196?

[HTH]

Originally posted by ether
I have a Phillips HDR212 (standalone series 1, v3.0) which previously had a single 80 gig drive, which was filled to capacity with saved shows. I just bought a second 80 gig drive for the tivo. As I don't have a PC at home handy where I can run linux, I plopped the new 80 gig into my powermac G4 and ran MacTivo Blesser for OSX.

I got a green screen of death (GSOD/mfsfix) for about five minutes, then it rebooted and got another GSOD for about 10 minutes. Then on the second reboot, the menus came up, and I discovered that all but about 10 of my shows were gone, and System Info reported a very small figure (I didn't write it down, but it was about 90-110 hours), which is way under what it should be (about 150-160 hours I figured).

This generates the following questions:
- what went wrong with the bless process? My guess: trying to do a blessed marriage with a system that already had an expanded bride. That sets off alerts for me. If the original system was still at 20hrs, I have no doubt it would have worked.

The capacities sound like the GSOD managed to divorce your earlier expansion on the master 80 GB drive back to 20hrs, then married the slave to that. Only those recordings entirely in the original partition survived. The extra space that was used on the original drive became divorced.

This is just a theory without data to back it up.

[ether]

My guess: trying to do a blessed marriage with a system that already had an expanded bride. That sets off alerts for me. If the original system was still at 20hrs, I have no doubt it would have worked.

That sounds right. I only realized yesterday after reading lots of archives that the TivoBlesser should not be used for drives that have already been expanded (mfsrestore -x) already. Since I bought my tivo without a drive and had to install my own, naturally the drive I used is not the same size as a "factory direct" version. The sad thing is that I am generally very very careful about reading all the instructions, and I would not have used this utility had I thought there was a realistic chance it wouldn't have worked. It wouldn't have killed me to pull the drives and find a linux system (and mfsadd only takes seconds to run -- climbing out of this mess took hours).

Would it have been possible (with just the mfstools) to have recovered the divorced partitions in the A drive and so recover some of the shows that were stored there? Or did mfsfix delete enough information that it wouldn't be feasible?

I would recommend to weaknees that he put this caveat in bold at the top of the instructions at the same time as the other limitations (i.e. no series2 systems)!!!!

[paulfi781]

I'm sure you hear this all the time, but perhaps this will be the first in '04. Thank you for writing and sharing these tools. They worked flawlessly and made my Series1 SA upgrade a complete snap.

Thanks!

-Paul

[HTH]

Originally posted by ether
Would it have been possible (with just the mfstools) to have recovered the divorced partitions in the A drive and so recover some of the shows that were stored there? Or did mfsfix delete enough information that it wouldn't be feasible? That would be like performing a divorce and remarrying the first wife. It is possible the expanded partitions were intact, but the GSODs likely messed up the links between it and the original. I pretty sure it would take a specialized tool that doesn't yet exist, like a Norton Utilities for MFS.

I'd really like to see a version of MFS Tools for Mac OS X. If Tiger is unable due to lack of hardware (and/or communication), perhaps someone has the skills to disassemble and re-engineer MFS Tools 2.0 back to new source that could then be compiled for Mac OS X. (While keeping the derived source as secret as possible of course to protect TiVo's IP.)

[pheffner]

Originally posted by NutKase
You can't fully backup a monte'd drive with mfstools. You'll need to dd'out each partition into an image then dd them back onto your new drive.

NutKase

What does "a monte'd drive" refer to? Is that a drive that was already the
target of an mfsrestore from a previous upgrade?

As far as dd'ing each image in and out, do you need to do any preparation
of the target disk's VTOC with something like fdisk or does just dd'ing to the
raw device populate the VTOC?

Thanks!

[Robert S]

'Monte' refers to a hack to break the lock-down on the Series 2 TiVoes.

We use dd to copy the raw device that contains the entire disk, partition table and all.

[pakmule]

Thanks Tiger!

I just finished upgrading my 30 hour Sony to 247 hours. Beginning to end took me less than two hours. Great work!

[musictoo]

Let me add my thanks to all the others. With Hinsdale in my hands it took me about 2 hours to upgrade my 40GB 40A SA2 box with 2 120GB Seagate's yesterday without a hitch. These guys have made it pretty simple, I have to say. The only catch I ran into was trying to use my nForce2 based PC for the upgrade. It would not let me mount the disks. Used my trusty old 1Ghz Dell once I found that out and it was all smooth sailing. Thanks!

[Orcus]

Prior to my experimenting with the latest driver for the CacheCard in my Sony SA Tivo,
I decided it would be prudent to back it up - especially now that smaller backups are
possible.
(I have a humungous one (5gig?) from when I first got the Tivo)

The TiVo currently has the original 40gig drive, and a 120gig second drive.

I followed the instructions in the mfstools documentation, and created a dual drive backup - which I then tested by restoring to a 160gig drive I have slated for my new DirecTiVo unit.

With just the 160gig drive in my SA TiVo, it appeared to boot up fine - complete with all of the recordings listed - but not actually present.

Now - if down the road my SA TiVo suffers a failure of both hard drives, and I
do a similar restore to a single drive - can I simply delete the recordings?

10D in the MFS2 HowTo deals with transferring the recordings to the new drive - but in my hypothetical case of both drives failing - this would not be possible.

10F seems to be targeted for my hypothetical scenario - but it does not mention what to do with the now "dead" recording entries.

I just want to make sure it is safe to manually delete them from the now showing list.

Also - would this be ok:
Follow step 10F, manually purge all dead recording entries, and then create
ANOTHER backup - this time of the new single drive system?
This would be the one I'd keep around as my rainy day backup.

Jim

[Robert S]

It's a harmless (and, infact, rather useful) side-effect of the way the TiVo stores recordings.

The recordings are stored in the MFS Media partitions as a lot of fairly small files. The list in NP connects to a list showing which media files make up each recording. This list is in the MFS App partition, along with the Guide DB, etc.

When you make a compressed backup, MFS Tools takes everything except the user recording streams. That includes the lists that make up NP.

When you restore a backup, the NP lists are restored, but the files they refer to are not present, so you get an error. (This is where the 'useful' bit comes in - if the media files are there, for example, if you're restoring a backup to a drive that already has a working TiVo image on it, your recordings can survive restoring the backup. Handy if you're hacking and break something!)

I wouldn't think there's any advantage to making a fresh backup after deleting the entries NP, unless you feel deleting them again is too onerous.

Ob admonition: You are working from the current Hinsdale How-to (http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=36974) and not some old documentation you found on Tiger's site, aren't you?

[scH]

The mfstools boot CD seems to be hanging at the drive detection stage on my new machine.

It's a i875p based motherboard and I have two hard drives attached to the SATA controllers, DVD/CD-RW on secondary PATA master, and my two tivo drives on the primary PATA channel.

It starts to boot, and even tells me models of all the attached drives, but then has issues when assigning IRQs or something.

Anyone had any success with SATA drives as your PC backups? My new 250GB SATA is the only drive I currently have that is formatted FAT32 (well at least 32GB of it is)

[scH]

Just an update on this. mfs 2.0 seems to work fine with my motherboard if I don't have any of the SATA drives plugged in.

[Robert S]

In that case, put a small FAT partition on your upgrade drive and use that to make the backup. Once the backup is safe you can either restore it from a CD-R or just copy directly from the original disk to the new one.

[crwalter2003]

Orcus,

If you skip down to 11, the second to last paragraph, it says that you can just delete the entries in NP...

I am not aware of any other way than to select the program and from the menu, instead of [play], select [delete].

Hope this helps...

[scH]

Originally posted by Robert S
In that case, put a small FAT partition on your upgrade drive and use that to make the backup. Once the backup is safe you can either restore it from a CD-R or just copy directly from the original disk to the new one.

Already taken care of. I found an old 3GB drive at work. It's going to keep a permanent copy of my backup image from now on. Unless of course mfstools 3 comes out with more hardware support .

[Robert S]

It's not MFS Tools that doesn't support your hardware, it's the kernel on the boot disk that's the problem. As the kernels are open source, this is a more tractable problem than modifying MFS Tools, but for the time being it's easier to use a non-SATA systme than to run MFS Tools under a newer kernel.

[crwalter2003]

I just upgraded my 35hr DTiVo HDVR2 to 107 hrs... only took about 6 - 8hrs... it helps if you pick as fast a pc as possible. The one I used was well below 1gig in speed.

I made the mistake of picking a no longer used pc that had WMe on it after seeing the warnings regarding W2k/WXP...

It also helps to watch out for power cords, as I usually am. It was just over 50% when I kicked the power, and that's all she wrote!:eek:

Back to square 1.:mad:

The MFS tools worked great, had no trouble booting from CD, saw no mention regarding joliet format when I dl'd the iso & burned the iso to disc using Nero.

I did notice that when I ran my compressed backup, that the restored image on the new drive wasn't quite right. There were no backround animations and when I switched from menu to menu, the live tv was still playing in the background, making it difficult to see the menus.:(

I was, however, happy to see that the regular mfsbackup | mfsrestore worked normally. When it completed, it stated a capacity of 130hrs, which differs from my DTiVo, which states 107hrs.:confused:

I guess it did not know I was backing up a DTiVo and not an SA.

Does anyone know why this is? Does the DTiVo store the animated backgrounds in the same location as the programs recorded?

This week I had ordered a twinbreese kit from WeaKnees, however, I got impatient and could not wait 'til next week to upgrade. So, I ran out and purchased a single Maxtor 120GB drive that I installed last night.

BTW, the new Maxtor makes a series of repetiive noises, like a drive seek, over and over. It has a pattern to it, and it just keeps going. Does not matter it DTivo is in standby or on. The old Maxtor did not do this.

I will pick up another drive after the install kit is delivered. I'm not sure I'll get another Maxtor. I chose that one because of the comments about noise from WD.

With the exception of those glitches mentioned, all went well!
Can't wait to get kit to add a second drive to pump up the hrs some more!

[crwalter2003]

Oops! Forgot to thank Tiger and Hinsdale... The program and instructions are great!:up: :up: :up:

[Robert S]

You forgot the -f 9999 option when you made the backup.

[weldon]

Originally posted by crwalter2003
I did notice that when I ran my compressed backup, that the restored image on the new drive wasn't quite right. There were no backround animations and when I switched from menu to menu, the live tv was still playing in the background, making it difficult to see the menus.:(
Some people have been asking for that behavior as a feature :) Particularly the UltimateTV folks that are used to seeing the little window while navigating through windows.

Maybe somebody could come up with a hack to make high contrast menus that work well with LiveTV in the background ;)

[crwalter2003]

Thanks for the quick replies.

RobertS,

Where does that go... the instructions I downloaded and printed out make no mention of it. I looked at them again after you posted your relpy, and I still don't see it.

I won't worry about it for now, however, when my twinbreese kit arrives, I'll make a new backup before adding the second drive.

[crwalter2003]

Robert S, disregard my last post. I checked prior postings, and one mentioned not to use the documentation on the MFS tools cd. That was my problem.

I just need to read Hinsdale's instructions.:D

[kperrier]

Anyone had a problem with mfstools booting and none of the utilities being executable?

Kent

[bricklayer86]

just bought a used svr2000 that would not get past the welcome screen, replaced the ribbon cable, now get to "use power button to turn on" but then goes blank and will not turn on. I'm assuming the image is corrupt. Would appreciate an image to use. thanks guys

[Robert S]

That sounds like the TiVo has booted correctly and gone into standby mode. Probably not a hard drive issue.

[atcdan]

I want to thank Tiger and everyone else who worked on the Hinsdale How-to TiVo upgrade. I download the new Tiger's Mfs Tools Boot Cd ISO file and off I went. Everything was easy to follow and worked like a charm. I upgraded from a single 40gb to 2 120gb hard drives and now have 240 hours of TiVo instead of 35 hours.

I copied my old drive and it only took a couple of hours. My wife had a few moves that she could not do without. But everything copied over great and it is working like a champ.

Thanks again,

Dan Olsen
240 hours of TiVo

[CaptainBadAss]

I wish they could give a Nobel Prize to all those who worked on the Hinsdale How-To and MFSTOOLS.

Upgraded my Series 2 60hr TiVo over the Easter weekend, despite my wife's misgivings. We love our TiVo even more now!

Threw in two 120 gig Seagate hard drives, giving me a 296 hr TiVo!

Only two issues:

1. It took almost 10 hours to copy my original drive over to the new drives. But I expected a long copy-over due to the fact that I wanted to keep my original recordings.

2. Almost had a heart attack when the TiVo stuck on the "Powering Up" screen. It turned out that the TiVo did not like the IDE ribbon cable that came with my Seagate drives. Luckily, I had a box with some old cables in it, and one of them played nice with my TiVo.

Thanks again to MSFTOOLS/Hinsdale How-To folks and everyone in this forum.

[allan1137]

Tiger,

First, thank you for all your effort to make all of our lives easier.

Now the question... I have a Pioneer 810H Tivo Series 2 / DVR. There are several references that the Pioneer 57H image is needed to upgrade the drive as version 1.0 of MFS tools don't work for this model.

Is that still the case with version 2.0, or will I be able to perform the upgrade. I am simply trying to replace the existing 80GB drive with a 160GB drive.

Thanks in advance for your response.

Allan.

[Robert S]

/Some/ 810H images are incompatible with all versions of MFS Tools. So if mfsadd doesn't expand your image, you're going to have to find a 57H image.

[ThreeSoFar]

Where are the docs/howto for monte'ing?

[allan1137]

I have Pioneer 810H, running Tivo version 2. I ran the mfsbackup/mfsrestore of the MFS2 CD, and at the end of the restore it told me I had 147 hours of recording time.

I put the new drive into my Tivo and powered it up, everything is working as before, but Tivo still thinks I have 82 hours.

Does this mean I need to get the 57H image and put it on the new disk? If so, does anyone know where there's a copy of the 57H image?

Thanks.

[weaknees]

Yes - you do need a 57H image. Full info is here:

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=143213

Certain 810H images around have shown to work, but to be sure, find one from a 57H.

Michael

[beachkeefes]

Thanks Tiger - your software is great!!...I upgraded my Hughes SD-DVR-40 from 40 hrs to 130 hrs without any problem . One small question - MFSADD told me I now had 130 hrs and I believe it, but is there anyway to get TIVO to verify that?
I'm running 3.1.1c-01-2-351.

[weaknees]

You won't actually get that many hours on a DirecTV TiVo. Those numbers work for S2 standalone units.

Anyway, you can see how many hours you have in your System Information screen - page down to find it.

Michael

[beachkeefes]

Thanks, Michael! I'm so happy that the upgrade worked so easily that I don't even feel stupid about missing the down arrow. Jim

[clark steward]

Originally posted by ThreeSoFar
Where are the docs/howto for monte'ing?

I know there are detailed instructions for monte'ing including networking of both s1 and s2 tivo's and Directivos on another forum. deal data base (remove the spaces) is the name. You may need to do a google search for Tivo Hacking.

GoodLuck

[Rcrew]

Just another grateful user of MFS tools, and direct help from Robert S.

Over the last few days, I re-upgraded my original S1 DTiVo, taking it from a A+B 40+80 to a single A 160. Then I re-used the 80 to upgrade my other S1 DTiVo to a single A of 80, including copying over all the recordings on that box.

[DropIt]

If I want to upgrade my B drive, can I simply do a MFSADD with the existing A drive and the new B drive and still keep all of my recordings? Or do I need to restore the A drive from the backup then do the MFSADD?

-DropIt

[Robert S]

To upgrade the B drive, you dd the old B drive on to the new one and then mfsadd.

To add a B drive to a lone A drive, you just mfsadd.

[odiej34]

O.K first off I am very green. :) What brings me here to your great forum is my dead tivo. I got the blue screen of death out of the blue followed buy just a few more minutes.... My directivo is a hughes dvr2 only eight months old and has never been tampered with. I downloaded mfstools2 and I am having trouble making an iso cd. Do I just need to make a bootable cd? If so which files from mfstools2 do I put on the cd? I have four folders in the file, FLOPPY which has an iso image in it and a folder titled ISOLINUX that has an img file titled INITRD. The other folders are other and MFSTOOLS.2. Any help will be greatly appreciated!
On a side note I just got an image of a Phillips_HDVR2_3_1b. and was wondering if it will work with my Hughes HDVR?
Thjanks!!
Odie

[Robert S]

You're supposed to burn the ISO as an image, not open it and try to work with the files inside.

If you're lucky, double-clicking the ISO file will open your burning software in the right mode automatically.

[odiej34]

Originally posted by Robert S
You're supposed to burn the ISO as an image, not open it and try to work with the files inside.

If you're lucky, double-clicking the ISO file will open your burning software in the right mode automatically. O.K So I am a dumb ass...:rolleyes: I burned the disk and I am good to go. What I want to do is put my new image (40 Gig) On the same size hard drive. All of the guides that I have seen so far deal with expanding to a bigger drive. Is thier direction for going from a 40 gig to a 40 gig? I have my image on one cd and my mfstools on another. Will it ask me to insert my image at some point?
Thanks!
Odie

[ThreeSoFar]

Kudos, again, to Tiger and Hinsdale. This stuff is so easy. My first DTV unit (for a friend--sadly no DTiVo's here). Backup, restore/test, then backup via -Tao to preserve shows. That last is only 32% done as of now.

Kudos also to Weaknees et al for making over $100 a pop doing this. Making a living off of the fact that 70% of the people out there are morons. Quite the American Way! Seriously! You guys rock.

[SteveUK]

I've got a series 1 Tivo with a 120GB A drive and I wish to add a second 120GB drive. Is there a simple way to determine the current swap file size (bought a pre-configured A drive so don't know what the swap file size is) and increase it if it's not 127MB? I have attempted to do a mfsbackup/mfsrestore from my current 120GB A drive to the new Drive using the -s 127 option (and then use the old A drive as a B drive once complete) but it says the destination drive is not big enough (weird since they are both 120GB) so I need a way to change the swap file size without going through that process.

Edit: Hang on. Just read a bit more about MFS Tools 2.0. So can I just use the command to add a second drive (given in the Hindsdale guide) and not worry about increasing the swap file as this will be done by these new magic tools?

[Robert S]

You want to read the first page of the Fixes thread (so close, and yet, so far...). There's a post from Cpen there that describes how to use the backdoors to read the logs and check the size of the swap partition.

There's not much you can do either way. I assume you do have 127Mb of swap as it's been standard practice for well over two years now. That's enough to go to at least 274Gb of storage with no concerns.

Even if you only have 64Mb of swap, there's no good way to fix that now. You should just add the second drive and hope you never get a GSOD. If you do, you'll have to use the 'rescue' procedure from the third post of the Fixes thread to recover.

[SteveUK]

OK. Thanks for the feedback. I did just go ahead with the upgrade and once tivoweb was installed I was able to see the swap file was in fact 127MB as required so :)

One final question. When you bless the B drive does it grab all the space available regardless of how the disc was originally formatted? Tivo reported 82hrs of space but I wasn't sure if this was based on real disc space available or wether this was based on drive size.

[AxelSchmidt]

Does anybody have experience with just cloning drives with Easymigrate from Acronis? (for just replacing drives)

[Robert S]

Did you really bless the drive? As you're in the MFS Tools 2.0 thread, perhaps you used mfsadd?

I don't think BlessTiVo is particularly bright - I think it just allocates all the space it can see.

You would expect a 120Gb drive to add about 140 Hours, so your result is a bit odd.

mfsinfo (run it on both drives, naturally) will give you a better idea of what's going on.

If there's any unallocated space, mfsadd will recover the unused space. You will need to make sure that the drive detects as the correct size (but you should be doing that anyway!).

[Robert S]

Axel: Have you heard of this concept of a 'topic'? You know, where the posts in a thread have some vague connection to the thread title? How does a disk duplicator relate to MFS Tools 2.0?

Anyway, yes, anything that will make an exact copy of a drive is fine. Remember that Series 1 TiVoes lock their drives, which would fool the duplicator into copying just the first 10Mb!

[SteveUK]

Originally posted by Robert S
Did you really bless the drive? As you're in the MFS Tools 2.0 thread, perhaps you used mfsadd?

I don't think BlessTiVo is particularly bright - I think it just allocates all the space it can see.

You would expect a 120Gb drive to add about 140 Hours, so your result is a bit odd.
Yes, I used mfsadd but thought that was classed as blessing. So it sounds like it will have allocated all available space from the drive. Sorry for the confusion but I was thinking in terms of best quality since that's what I usually work in. Tivo reports 286 hours at basic quality now with the two 120GB drives.

[Robert S]

'Blessing' has a more specific meaning. It means marking a drive so that the TiVo's internal upgrade mechanism will be triggered. As you've already upgraded the A drive, blessing would have blown up in your face!

For stand alone TiVoes, capacities are always quoted at Basic (you'll notice your TiVo was sold as a '40 Hour' unit), so you don't say what quality you mean, people will assume you mean Basic.

[gadgetgrrll]

Big Thanks to Tiger and to whoever worked on the Hinsdale How-to Guide. I now have an HR10-250 with 64HD and 427SD hours of record time, just in time for all the Olympics coverage in HD!

:D

Kathy

[C Hogg]

MFSRestore question please.....

My hard drive is NTFS so when making my backup, I backed up to my larger FAT 32 target drive and then copied this to my hard drive.

I have managed to corrupt the original target drive and would like to restore my backup image but not sure how to grab it off of the NTFS drive.

Do I need to reverse the process I used to back it up? In other words, copy the backup to a larger FAT 32 drive and then mfsrestore from that drive to the original TIVO drive? Or is there a way to somehow grab the backup file off of the NTFS drive and restore without the intermediate step? NFTS hard drive is reporting as had, FAT 32 drive is hdd and original Tivo drive is hdb.

I have tried booting up with the bootable MFSTools CD but cannot find the backup file in either my NTFS or FAT 32 drive. Can anyone assist this Linux newbie with the command sequence?

Thanks.

[Robert S]

NTFS partitions do mount, but they're read only, which is a problem when you're creating a backup, but not when you're restoring one.

Is the problem that the partitions won't mount, or that you can't find the file inside the mounted partition?

[C Hogg]

The problem was that I could not find the location of the backup file. Stepped back for a while, got a coke and took another look and figured it out. Problem was that the file was on hda2 instead of hda1. Never used Linux before but I learn more every day and am slowly picking it up.

Once I found the backup file, mfsrestore seemed to restore without error. However, when I booted up TIVO I hung up on the Powering Up menu. Have tried with jumpers set to Master and also to cable select but the same result both ways.

I tried to restore the file to a Maxtor 120gb drive instead of the original 40gb drive. It would appear that my backup is corrupt somehow or that something in my hardware setup is just not quite right. Back to the drawing boards.....

[weaknees]

If the mfsrestore works and shows that it was successful, then you really might have a cabling or jumper issue. I'd check there a little more before you give up.

Michael

[bILLH97]

Upgraded Hughes HDVR2 from 35 to 105 hours with a 120 gb WD drive.Did upgrade 2 days ago. Works great. No problems. Kept all the recordings. Took ! !/2 hours with 1.2 ghz cpu. TIGER RULES!!!

[HTH]

I've lost the CD that came with Keegan's book. :(

[hande]

Has anyone had a CSC error come up after trying to boot from the MFS Tools CD boot disk. Everything looked like it was working fine until it uncompressed linux. Then it had the error and ended with system halted.

Thanks

[Robert S]

You may have a bad burn, but it's more likely that the PC is incompatible with the version of Linux on the CD.

Can you boot other versions of Linux (eg: Knoppix (or RIP (ftp://ftp.ibiblio.org/pub/Linux/system/recovery/), if you don't fancy a 700Mb D/L!) or Tom's Root and Boot Disk (http://www.toms.net/rb/))?

[bryanb]

I'm replacing a 40GB + 80GB setup in a DSR6000 with a single 120GB drive. In order to restore, I had to use mfsrestore -s 127 -zpi - /dev/hdd. If I used -xzpi, I'd get "Restore failed: Backup target not large enough for entire backup by itself"

Since I dropped the x, do I need to do anything once the restore is complete?

Thanks,
Bryan

[Jim Kidd]

I bought a new TCD540080 TiVo that I understand breaks the 128 GiB barrier so I bought a 250 GB drive for it. I have a TCD24004A that I have upgraded to a 120 GB drive. Can I use the 120 GB drive from the upgraded TCD24004A to prepare the 250 GB drive or do I need to use the 80 GB drive that came in the TCD40080? The reason I want to do this is to preserve my recordings.

Also, is there any way to extract the recordings from my Series 2 TiVos to my PC to record them to DVDs?

Jim Kidd
----------
1) Series 2 - 80 hour original
2) Series 2 - 137 hour upgraded
3) Series 2 - on it's way to >250 hours

[Robert S]

You can't use the software from the older TiVo on the new one. The recordings are encrypted and wouldn't play on any other TiVo anyway, although you might be able to use MRV to transfer them.

There are big red signs everywhere pointing out that discussing video extraction is a banned topic on this site.

[Ed Dixon]

Trying to add a new 120 GB drive to a Hughes SD-DRV40 Dtivo unit. Using Weeknees bracket and floppy version of Mfstools. Using a new Dell PC for the process.

First phase seemed to go ok where a backup of the existing Tivo was saved to a third FAT32 drive. Have confirmed that the backup file exists and is about 300 MB.

Second phase went bad as the mfsadd failed due to a problem with the new 120 GB drive. The drive was locked (from another source). Have since fixed the drive problem, but now the original Dtivo drive won’t go through the cycle.

I have also tried to restore (using the backup) to the Dtivo drive, but that fails with a “Backup target not large enough” error message. Restoring to the new 120 GB drive seems to work, but that was supposed to be the new second added drive.

Not sure what to try next.

Ed

[weaknees]

Originally posted by Ed Dixon
I have also tried to restore (using the backup) to the Dtivo drive, but that fails with a “Backup target not large enough” error message. Restoring to the new 120 GB drive seems to work, but that was supposed to be the new second added drive.
[/B]
You should restore to the 40gb drive and do NOT use a -x in your restore command. Then, presuming that works and your 120 is not locked, you can mfsadd the second drive to the first.

Originally posted by bryanb
I'm replacing a 40GB + 80GB setup in a DSR6000 with a single 120GB drive. In order to restore, I had to use mfsrestore -s 127 -zpi - /dev/hdd. If I used -xzpi, I'd get "Restore failed: Backup target not large enough for entire backup by itself"

Since I dropped the x, do I need to do anything once the restore is complete?[/B]
You might need a drive larger than 120gb. The 40+80gb might be slightly larger than your 120gb drive, especially if one of the smaller drives is a Maxtor.

Michael

[Ed Dixon]

I am having some trouble finding a consoladated list of mfs commands to use and when they should be used.

I have tried a number of mfsrestore versions for the original drive, but all yield some error message.

There is also the question of what recorded show data now remains.

Ed

[Ed Dixon]

I have confirmed that the restored 120 drive will boot DTivo and that the settings have been retained. Trying to play any of the NPL results in a error as the data files are likely missing.

Have also tried to boot the original drive, but that never gets past the gray powering up screens.

Ed

[Ed Dixon]

All versions of the mfsrestore command are failing with the same "not large enough" error message. What should I try next?

Ed

[Robert S]

Typically, there are two causes for that message, triggered by the use of -x (which is why your restored backup works): Either the drive really is too small or, more likely, the partition table is full and the two additional partitions required for the expand can not be created.

[bigjohn]

Ok, so I'm ready to attempt my first backup/upgrade. I have an Intel D865PERL mobo with a primary and secondary IDE. My windows C: drive is on a serial ata drive though.

So in the sequence of drives, I have hda as the DVDRW, hdb is free, hdc and hdd also are free. Where in the chain does my SATA with fat32 partition fall?

It's either hda and everything comes after or it's hde
OR
can I reset it's position in the bios and this is all irrelevant anyway

[bigjohn]

Originally posted by bigjohn
Ok, so I'm ready to attempt my first backup/upgrade. I have an Intel D865PERL mobo with a primary and secondary IDE. My windows C: drive is on a serial ata drive though.

So in the sequence of drives, I have hda as the DVDRW, hdb is free, hdc and hdd also are free. Where in the chain does my SATA with fat32 partition fall?

It's either hda and everything comes after or it's hde
OR
can I reset it's position in the bios and this is all irrelevant anyway

it'd be great to know for the future, but for now i think i'll just get a plain ol 80GB IDE drive ($40) for upgrading and simply unplug my serial ata "regular use" drives.

[Robert S]

I don't know if the kernel on that disk can access a SATA volume.

You could use your new upgrade drive to hold the backup temporarily and then either copy directly from the original drive or restore the backup onto the same drive (which sounds daft, but does work).

[stinga]

Holiday crazy sale at Office max = 200 GIG for $50

Thanks to Weeknees and a LINUX boot CD...

went from 40 hours to 220 in less than an hour total time.

[JofCoRe]

Originally posted by Robert S
To upgrade the B drive, you dd the old B drive on to the new one and then mfsadd.

To add a B drive to a lone A drive, you just mfsadd.

I have attempted to upgrade my B drive from an 80GB to 120GB drive, using dd and then mfsadd.

However, when I use mfsadd -x /dev/hda /dev/hdb, I get a message that tells me:

Current estimated standalone size: 225 hours
Nothing to add!

When I put the drives back into the DirecTiVo, it says I have 179 hours, which is what I had with a 120 (A drive) and 80 (B drive).

When I dd'd the old drive, it copied the partition table of the 80GB drive too, so now it looks like it thinks my 120GB B drive is a 80GB drive still.....

I've tried manually modifying the partition table on the B drive using pdisk, but it just tells me "pdisk: No valid block 1 on '/dev/hdb'", and I can't view/edit/create partitions...


There's gotta be a way to get my 120 fully recognized, right??

what am I missing....? :(

[sickal]

JofCoRe,

Did you get an answer to this question? I had a similar problem with I tried to upgrade my previously upgraded HDVR2 (120+40) a second time to 120+120 and got the "Nothing to add" message. (see post #1491 below)

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?postid=2405683#post2405683

[Robert S]

I've tried manually modifying the partition table on the B drive
using pdisk, but it just tells me "pdisk: No valid block 1 on
'/dev/hdb'", and I can't view/edit/create partitions...

Presumable following the procedure in the 7th post of the Fixes thread?

It sounds like you haven't got byteswapping set up correctly. That depends on the model of the TiVo and which boot disc you use.

Series 1 TiVoes are byteswapped, Series 2's aren't. The MFS Tools 2.0 CD doesn't byteswap, the others byteswap all drives except primary master.

You should see the TiVo partition table printed in the boot log if you get it right. dmesg | grep hd if you miss it at boot.

[JofCoRe]

It sounds like you haven't got byteswapping set up correctly. That depends on the model of the TiVo and which boot disc you use.

Yep, that's the conclusion that I've reached since. After reading a few more fixes, I've found out that the MFS Tools CD that I'm using boots w/byteswapping turned off by default. I found another thread (might be the fixes thread) that tells the command u need to use to make the MFS Tools CD boot byteswapped.

That's what I'm going to try next, I just haven't gotten around to doing anything else w/it since my post..

Thanx!

[lloydjs]

JofCoRe,

I think I am having a byteswapping problem using MFS Tools 2.0 disk and a Tivo series 1 SVR2000. Could you tell me how to turn byteswapping on with MFS Tools? I read in another thread that you can get around this problem by using another boot disk, such as TivoMad or Dylan's disk, but I would like to try your fix first.

Below is a detail description of my problem.

I note in the boot sequence (MFS tools diskette), after reporting the sizes of hda and hdc, it says
Partition Check:
hda: hda1
hdc: unknown partition table

and when I run the sequence:
mkdir /mnt/7
mkdir /mnt/4
mount /dev/hdc7 /mnt/7

I get
hdc7: bad access: block=0, count=1
end request: I/O error, dev 16:07 (hdc), sector 0
FAT: unable to read boot sector
Mount: you must specify the file system type

[JofCoRe]

Originally posted by lloydjs
JofCoRe,

I think I am having a byteswapping problem using MFS Tools 2.0 disk and a Tivo series 1 SVR2000. Could you tell me how to turn byteswapping on with MFS Tools? I read in another thread that you can get around this problem by using another boot disk, such as TivoMad or Dylan's disk, but I would like to try your fix first.



I haven't tried this myself yet to verify that it works, but here's what I was going to try. I found this in the 3rd post of the "fixes" thread in this same forum. (I added the bold on the part that specifically talks about the MFS Tools CD)

A. Booting so we can read the TiVo disk

Connect your TiVo's A drive as primary master.

TiVo disks can not be read by a PC because the bytes are written in a different order to that expected by the PC's processor. TiVo boot disks are patched to boot in a 'byteswapped' mode that allows the TiVo data to be read.

Most people these days seem to be using the MFS Tools 2.0 CD. MFS Tools 2.0 has internal support for byteswapping so that CD boots in non-byteswapped mode by default. It offers you the option to boot byteswapped, but this doesn't work. To boot the MFS Tools 2.0 CD byteswapped at the 'boot:' prompt you must type

vmlnodma hda=bswap

If you can't get this to work, try Kazymyr's boot CD or TiVoMad's boot CD. If use a different boot disk, hda will be left unswapped. Use one of the other connectors and adjust the commands below accordingly. (We don't currently know how to do this from a floppy, one of the tools we need is only on the CDs).

Series|2 TiVoes are NOT byteswapped. You should be able to boot the MFS Tools 2.0 as normal.

As I said, I haven't tried it yet myself to verify, so let me know how it works out if you get a chance before I do :)

[Robert S]

vmlnodma hda=bswap

Tells the CD to boot with byteswapping activated on primary master. hda was a convenient choice for that How-to, but you can tell it swap other device(s) if necessary.

[lloydjs]

I get "vmlnodma not found"
I have MFS Tools disk and Dylan disk now...neither will mount
Dylan disk mount replies "FAT bread failed"
MFS Tools replies "FAT: unable to read boot sector"
what new?

[Robert S]

vmlnodma not found

Well, yes, that's because you type it at the boot: prompt, not the shell prompt. The floppies don't give a boot prompt, so you're a bit stuck with those.

Dylan should swap primary slave and both secondary drives automatically and you should see the TiVo partition table printed in the boot log.

[lloydjs]

Robert S,

Thank you for your replies and suggestions.
After reading other threads describing similar problems ("unkown partition" and mounting problems), I decided that it might be best if I give up using the boot disks (Dylan and MFS Tools) and get a Kazymyr boot CD. Individuals experiencing similar mounting problems resolved the problems simply by using the KAzymyr boot CD. I ordered a Kazymyr CD from 9th tree so I will try it this weekend. I will let you know if Kazymyr works for me.

Since you have been so helpful, I thought it would be nice to give you the entire background of why and what I am trying to do.
About a year ago, I installed a turbonet card from 9th Tree and connected my Tivo to a Lynksys router which was connected to a cable modem (broadband). I was already using broadband for my PC and wanted to get rid of my home phone, because I was only using my home phone for Tivo. The only hacking requiring was for me to make an access hole in Tivo's cover so I could connect the RJ45 cable to the turbonet card. This worked great for about a year. Then I moved to a new house and did not have broadband initially, so I tried to go back to the modem and use the phone line for Tivo's daily call. This did not work. The call would never complete - usually freezes at importing data 64%. I planned on getting broadband soon, so I figured I would just wait until then and use the turbonet card again, like I did at my previous house. Now, I have broadband and trying to use the turbonet card connected to the Lynksys router (just like before), but the none of the calls (test call or daily call) will complete - always freezes at "hanging up". I read in a couple of threads that you can solve the problem by disabling Tivo's modem. This means I have to remove Tivo's hard drive, connect it to my PC, and start hacking - something I have not needed to do up to now. A posting explained how to disable the modem using the following commands:

#mount /dev/hda4 /mnt
#mount /dev/hda7 /mnt
#mv /dev/cua1 /dev/cua1.disabled

Can you confirm this?
This is where I am at now. I can't get the drive to mount. I have tried MFS Tools 2.0 and Dylan's boot disk - both to no avail.

I have a standalone Series 1 Sony SVR2000.

[lloydjs]

Success!
I suspect the following solution will fix a lot of Series 1 mounting problems.

Configuration: I have a Series 1 SVR2000. The internal phone modem is bad, so I am attempting to use turbonet (PPP) to make the daily call. The turbonet is connected to a Lynksys router and I set the dialing prefix to ",#401" ; Lynksys works great with Tivo.

Problem: When making a daily call or test call, Tivo would freeze at "hanging up" and would never complete the call. I found a thread that described this problem and suggested disabling Tivo's modem (described later). However, disabling the modem will require me to uninstall Tivo's hard drive and connect it to a PC via an IDE cable.

After reading various threads, downloading different boot disks, trying several hard drive cable connections, and receiving many "UNKNOW PARTITION" errors, here is what finally worked:

1 - Disconnect all drives except floppy.
2 - Connect Tivo hard drive to secondary master (hdc).
3 - Set the jumper cables on the HD accordingly - to "master".
4 - Boot with Dylan's Boot Disk - you should see the partitions on hdc listed during the boot process.
5 - At the prompt. type the following commands:
# mount /dev/hdc4 /mnt
If this doesn't work, try:
# mount /dev/hdc7 /mnt
Now, the Tivo drive should be mounted, but you still need to disable the modem.
6 - Unfortunately, Dylan's Boot Disk does not have the proper command, at least as far as I know, so I removed Dylan's disk and put in TivoMad boot disk; finding the downloads for these boot disks should not be too hard.
7 - Mount the new floppy by using the following command:
# mkdir /mnt/floppy
# mount /dev/fd0 /mnt/floppy
8- Change to the floppy drive using the command:
# cd /mnt/floppy
9 - Use commands "cd" and "ls" to find the directory containing file "mv" (move). Sorry, I forget the exact dir name.
10 - In that directory, enter command:
# mv /mnt/hdc7/dev/cua1 /mnt/hdc7/dev/cua1.disabled
Use whatever partition worked in step #5.
11 - Done, power down and put the Tivo drive back in the Tivo

Note: I heard that you can avoid the disk swapping if you use the Kazymyr Boot CD instead of the floppies.

[Jolly-Roger-52]

Tiger,

I just wanted to thank you for the work you did on the TIVO upgrade CD's and MFStools 2.0. I just thanked Hinsdale for his guide.

I'm now the proud owner of a 120HR SAT-T60.

I did have a bit of a head scratcher when I started. I have a AMD Athalon 2500+ CPU on a K7VTA3 mother board. I created the CD using NERO Express 2.0.1.15, Burning ROM 6.0.0.28. using a Toshiba DVD burner.

For some unknown reason The system would not boot to the TIVO Upgrade disk using the DVD burner. I've booted to other Boot CDROMS with the same setup in the past (including Mandrake 10, which I created from an image file. The work around was to replace it with a CD reader for the upgrade process.

Well enough on that. Thanks again

Jolly-Roger-52
newbee but not virgin

Save the smileys:cool:

[digarcia]

I need some help.

I am a newbie attempting a drive replacedment, my original dtivo went bad.

New drive is a 160GB Seagate

1. I download mfs image to cd = hdvr2 3.1b-1.
2. I creatd a mfs boot cd - confirms it works.
3. My new tivo drive is @ hdb, cdrom @ hdc. Nothing in hda or hdd
4. I execute:

mfsrestore -s 127 -xzpi /cdrom/<image>.mfs /dev/hdb

ERROR RETURNED:
I get a input/output error message and my cdrom just goes crazy.

I checked the partition, using mfstool cd, on new drive and there isn't any.

1. Should there be a partition int eh new drive?
2. Should it be formatted?
3. OR will mfsrestore do this for me?

HELP!!

I am lost and not sure if HDD is bad.

David

[Robert S]

Did you mount the CD?

Unless you know Unix, it's probably easier to copy the backup to a hard drive (simply because that's better documented).

NTFS partitions do mount (but read-only, so no good for making backups), so you should be able to do this even if you run XP.

[Jolly-Roger-52]

digarcia,

I agree with Robert S. I accomplished something similar without anything strange happening. I created a backup image using mfsbackup to my windows C: drive. You can do the same by copying the image while under windows from your cdrom to the root directory of your c: drive

Then the following syntax will get you through

mkdir /mnt/dos
mount /dev/hda1 /mnt/dos

You can verify that all is well by reading the directory of your windows drive
ls /mnt/dos

mfsrestore -s 127 -xzpi /mnt/dos/<image>.mfs /dev/hdb

I didn't see any partitions using fdisk but it worked just the same.

finally unmount everything

umount -f -a -r

CTL alt del
turn of computer when all process are complete

Jolly_Roger-52

[digarcia]

Jolly and Roger,

Thanks for the advice. The problem was the PC i was using.

Got to work and we had a spare HP vectra that I performed the above.

STEPS I TOOK TO UPGRADE
##################################################
1. Copied MFS tools to CD. (bootable image)
2. Coped HDVR2 image 3.1b-1 to CD
3. Connected New Drive to Primary Slave (hdb).
4. Booted From CD Secondary Master (hdc).
5. After MFS booted and at "/#" prompt. I Took out MFS CD and inserted CD with image
6. At this point I perforemed the following (there was already a cdrom dir):

/# mount /dev/hdc /cdrom
/# mfsrestore -s 127 -xzpi /cdrom/<image>.mfs /dev/hdb
Starting Restore
Uncompressed backup size: 1449 megabytes
Restoring 1449 of 1449 (100.00%) (84.30% compression)
Cleaning up restore. Please wait a moment.
Restore Done!
Adding pair /dev/hdb14-/dev/hdb15
new estimated standalone size: 147 hours (107 more)
/#

7. Popped Drive into Hughes - HDVR2 and it powered on just fine.
8. Although MFS reported 147 hours, Direct Tivo says 120. Which is right?
##################################################

New issue. Since I have VOIP as a phone service, I cannot make a call in. DirecTv doesn't support Dial ins from VOIP system. I had this problem even before the upgrade and I just avoided the callin.

BUT, the box is warniing me that I cannot record until I make a call.

1. Any way to override this problem?

Thanks for all the help everyone.

David

[Robert S]

Did you do a 'clear and delete everything' reset yet?

[lloydjs]

The maximum hours you can get out of any single drive is 120. I think I read that in another post.

[digarcia]

I cleared everything already and it still won't let me record until i make daily call. Which i can't because of my VoIP service with CalllVantage.

Gues i just have to go to my neighbors house

[digarcia]

okay,

I know i am just adding here, but I launched the daily call and it worked for the 1st time in 3 months. I am not complaining, I am just happy that it records.

Thanks everyone for the help.

David

[Jolly-Roger-52]

David,


Good there are some other threads that you might want to look at

For the VOIP search for VOIP that will find you a wealth of info.

Are you using Vondage?

I think that is the one everyone is using
You have to tweek your VOIP box for best voice quality and maybe change your setup string for the internal modem to drop the baud rate.

About the 120HRS
I beleve his calculation is based on a standalone TIVO where you can reduce the playback quality. Since our DirecTV Signal is already MPEG, we cant tweek the MPEG encoder like they do in the standalones.

If you're real adventurous you can recompile the kernel to cross the 137 GB limit.

Search for LBA48

Without that you can't use the full 160GB and are limited to 120hrs on a DirectTivo Series 1 The Series 2 have LBA48 support.

JOE AKA Jolly-Roger-52

[digarcia]

AT&T CallVantage now supports TiVo Daily Call.

For those with AT&T callvantage, Check your CallVantage account online. It seems that within the Last 36 hours AT&T has a enabled "Fax and MOdem feature" , which specifically says it supports Calls made by "Personal Video Recorders (TiVo)".

I realized something was up when I upgraded the HDD on my HDVR2 TiVo on Wed and the daily went through. Also, I got a Phillips DSR708 yesterday and Call went through as well.

Decided to go to CallVantage site and whoe look changed w/ the added feature.

David

[sync]

I have several NTFS partitions on my boot drive. I created another FAT partition for backing up my Tivo and put the file tivo.txt in it for identification purposes. How can I figure out which partition number Linux is using for the FAT partition?

[sync]

Originally posted by sync
I have several NTFS partitions on my boot drive. I created another FAT partition for backing up my Tivo and put the file tivo.txt in it for identification purposes. How can I figure out which partition number Linux is using for the FAT partition?
I found the partition using 'fdisk -l'

[Paulson]

So you mean to tell me I can take a DirecTivo (Hughes sdr40) which has a 120 gig drive in it now, and place a 250 gig drive in it without any problems?

If so, that'd be absolutely awesome (I just filled up my DirecTivo tonight, and I'm kind of sad :()

[Jolly-Roger-52]

Paulson,

If it is a series 2, it should work.

Jolly-Roger52

:cool:
X

[Paulson]

It's a series 2 D* TiVo...

On weaknees they only have 160 gig hard drive upgrades (whereas other ones they have 300 gig upgrades)

I'm wondering if there's a limit or if MFS 2.0 will take care of it anyways.

[Robert S]

I'm skeptical too.

Got a link to a source for that, JR52?

AFAIK all DTiVoes need major hacking to get LBA-48 support.


The only native LBA-48 kernels are on the v5.x models: the DVD comboes, the 540xxx stand alones and the HDTV unit.

[Paulson]

I wish they'd just update the damn Tivo's with D*

It's pissing me off because on my tivo it's only at version 3.1.1e :(

[ThreeSoFar]

D* blows.

I'm REALLY hoping TiVo is in back room talks with Voom, or Dish, or anyone, so that when D* dumps TiVo, TiVo can immediately announce the new partnership and D* will lose 1/3 of its subs to the new TiVo provider, which will be a better deal than they had with D*, so TiVo will make a lot of bucks with it.

Hoping. I'd give it maybe 5:1 against, but still hoping.

[DVDKingdom]

Originally posted by Robert S
I'm skeptical too.

Got a link to a source for that, JR52?

AFAIK all DTiVoes need major hacking to get LBA-48 support.


The only native LBA-48 kernels are on the v5.x models: the DVD comboes, the 540xxx stand alones and the HDTV unit.

The newly released DirecTV DVR (R10) unit has native LBA48 support. The TiVo OS R10's ship with is 6.1. Dan Collins of DBSForums posted that his sources say DirecTV will release 6.1 to all series2 DirecTV DVRs in January.

[Jolly-Roger-52]

Hey Guys ,

First thing I gotta get out there is DTV is not in the business of updating the kernel for every hack that somebody thinks up. Lets not forget that when you broke the seal in the back of your set that nobody can guarantee that it will ever work again. DirecTIVO software updates are to fix bugs and to implement anticipated features Like the 2 tuner support whis wasn't implemented initially and the wishlist crash stuff.

When I bought my tivo it said on the box 35 hrs, not expandable to 240 hrs and beyond. I got what I paid for and more. Now it's 120 hours and still works with the standard software 3.1.0c2-01-1-011 The other versions are for later products, Series 2 and Tivo w/ DVD burner.

And No! I don't work for DTV just a happy customer.

There is lots of info out there on hacking on the underground playground Just use the search forum grey box. I can't find the "how to" on the hack that I saw about 2 months ago that I referred to. I never planed on doing it I just saw it has ben done and mentioned as a coment.

As I said LBA48 And LBA48 HACK for a search criteria will return a wealth of info. If you're interested spend your time and do a little research


http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-0b/showthread.php?s=&threadid=83342&highlight=lba48
http://www.alt.org/wiki/index.php/TivoHackingLinks

Jolly-Roger=52