Are "dead" drives really dead?

[The Great Inert]

Hello, everyone.

After many years of faithful service, my Series 2 has begun the GSOD-reboot-GSOD cycle and it's time for a new drive. A hopeful question to any members who might have dealt with this before: when the hard drive in a Tivo gets to this point, is it still possible to copy the entire drive to a new one? (The Tivo is presently unplugged and won't be turned on again until I install a new drive.) Many thanks in advance to any and all who respond!

[HomeUser]

Hello Inert... and welcome to the TiVo Community.

There is a good chance that you can binary copy the failing drive to a new drive a lot of users including myself have successfully done it. Look in the "Underground Playground" > "TiVo Upgrade Center" the sticky thread MFStools Boot CD - LBA48 Boot Disk for ALL Series1 and Series2 TiVo Models is a good place to start. I know the thread is long hint look for dd_rescue.

And definitely a wise move to keep the drive powered off until you are setup and ready to copy.

[jrtroo]

Also look at the sticky in this forum- it talks about troubleshooting as well. I believe it touches base on this, as well as using kickstarts.

I have also done this upgrade successfully using a drive showing GSOD. Though I was also successful in using the mfr tool to get the initial drive going as well.

However, unless you are wanting extra hard disc space or really want to save some content, pulling a drive from a used unit may be the best way to go here (you can get these for $20, while the drive would be $50 or more). I assume that yours is under lifetime?

[The Great Inert]

Thank you both for your replies.

HomeUser: Your advice here was invaluable and inspired a few other ideas overnight. I hooked the drive to a PC and ran WinMFS, to discover that the drive doesn't seem to have an OS installed on it anymore. I've DL'd a virgin kernel and am waiting for confirmation that the process of restoring the kernel won't wipe the drive before I load it...

jrtroo: You'll might get a good laugh out of this, but I actually don't have lifetime on the unit. I actually installed a 1TB drive about 4 years ago and have a LOT of recordings on it--including an entire TV series that will probably never be released on DVD. I hate the idea of losing everything on the drive, thus the obsession with trying to get (hopefully everything) off of it successfully.

[HomeUser]

Originally Posted by The Great Inert

Thank you both for your replies.

waiting for confirmation that the process of restoring the kernel won't wipe the drive before I load it...

Don't do anything yet, What happen to the kernel?