Drive Expansion and Drive Upgrade FAQ

[ThreeSoFar]

Originally Posted by ThAbtO

On the download page,



Don't click on the link with the addresses, look to the left and click on the little icon and that will start the download. The link on the right is just a link to the host.

Clicking on any of those brings up just yet another damn ad site with no clear way to download it. None at all. MOre adds, and always "ultimatebootcd" is one of those ads.

Please give me a sha1sum of the complete iso in case I ever find the damn thing.

[ThreeSoFar]

Originally Posted by ThreeSoFar

Clicking on any of those brings up just yet another damn ad site with no clear way to download it. None at all. MOre adds, and always "ultimatebootcd" is one of those ads.

Please give me a sha1sum of the complete iso in case I ever find the damn thing.

Namely, this:

http://100-downloads.com/download.php?p=376#p376

Oh, but this one gets something:

http://www.serverninjas.com/ultimate...ot-cd-download


I think I have two copies now, from different sites. If they agree, I'll try this.

(I miss FTP.)

[nooneuknow]

Originally Posted by ThAbtO

On the download page,



Don't click on the link with the names, look to the left and click on the little icon (a disk drive with an arrow) and that will start the download. The link on the right is just a link to the host.

I was just thinking of TiVo's own website with their gigantic SUBMIT buttons, that only work if your mouse is dead-center on the button. Sometimes, it's best to have that extra bar on the bottom of your browser that gives you an indication of what, if anything, will happen when clicking on things ...or if anything is happening.

The UBCD site is much easier to navigate with that on, as well.

[ThreeSoFar]

I think I have UBCD524 burned properly now.

If someone has that iso someplace, please post a sha1sum of it here to give me some confidence it's the right one. It's 519M so it's not nothin...

[ThAbtO]

Originally Posted by ThreeSoFar

Clicking on any of those brings up just yet another damn ad site with no clear way to download it. None at all. MOre adds, and always "ultimatebootcd" is one of those ads.

Please give me a sha1sum of the complete iso in case I ever find the damn thing.

Scroll down about a page until you see part of the page similar to what I posted. Its a tiny icon so its easy to miss. I am downloading it right now, ubcd524.iso, is the file.

If you notice in my posted picture, see the dotted square around one of those icons (to the left of "PC Babble"), I had clicked it and it downloads.

[JohnnyO]

The 1GB upgraded drive I installed in a TiVoHD in 2008 is starting to fail, so I'm going to replace it with a similar (or 2 GB) drive. Looking at the note string, WinMFS seems a strong favorite tool these days. What version do folks recommend? It looks like 9.3Beta f and g are the most recent.

[unitron]

Originally Posted by JohnnyO

The 1GB upgraded drive I installed in a TiVoHD in 2008 is starting to fail, so I'm going to replace it with a similar (or 2 GB) drive. Looking at the note string, WinMFS seems a strong favorite tool these days. What version do folks recommend? It looks like 9.3Beta f and g are the most recent.

EDIT TO ADD:

Almost forgot, be sure your problem is really a failing drive and not a failing power supply (although it could be both)

--we now return you to your regularly scheduled post--

Unless you're living in Australia and upgrading an Australian model TiVo, use 9.3f

The documentation isn't exactly up to date--I guess spike has better things to do these days, like maybe making a living.

If you don't already have it and can't register to download it, email or PM me through this site (TCF).

You need to be running version 11.0k of the TiVo software to use a 2TB drive Maybe a previous version will work but "k" is the most recent so you might as well have it anyway, and if you've had the TiVo online lately you probably do.

You copy the old drive to the new one or restore a .tbk WinMFS truncated image file to the new drive, and then tell it no when it says there's extra space, do you want to expand.

Then you select the new drive and click on mfsinfo, and make sure everything looks okay.

At that point you can then expand by using mfsadd (part of WinMFS, as are mfscopy and mfsinfo), and telling it not to limit partition size to 1.2TB, or you can take the unexpanded drive and put it in the TiVo and make sure it works okay and then hook it back up to the PC and use WinMFS to expand.

If you've restored from a pre-11.0k truncated image, then you need to do that to get it up to "k" first anyway.

Start looking for a good deal on a 2TB WD20EURS.

[unitron]

Originally Posted by nooneuknow

I was just thinking of TiVo's own website with their gigantic SUBMIT buttons, that only work if your mouse is dead-center on the button. Sometimes, it's best to have that extra bar on the bottom of your browser that gives you an indication of what, if anything, will happen when clicking on things ...or if anything is happening.

The UBCD site is much easier to navigate with that on, as well.

Since my newest UBCD .iso is from over a year ago I figured I grab the latest one.

Clicked on the little (shades of Win 3.0) drive icon (figured that one out last time around) for older geeks, which launched their web page (or at least one of them) with a bunch of stuff on it and the actual thing to click for the download way down near the bottom, so be warned.

Once I found the right place it downloaded quickly and smoothly.

[bomberjim]

I'm interested in re-upgrading my wife's Tivo HD. Currently it's running a 500GB drive that was created with InstantCake back when it was purchased. I have a (virtually) unused 1.5 TB Seagate drive (ST 31500541AS) that I'd like to upgrade to. I have several questions as follows:

1. Any reason that this model Seagate wouldn't work?

2. I've downloaded Winfms beta 9.3f is this the best program to use? Are the most current instructions on page 1 of this thread?

3. I assume I can use the current 500GB drive as the source and the 1.5 TB drive as the target, correct?

4. Anything else I should be careful of or need to know? I've tried to read some of the info on this thread, but it's getting quite long.

Thanks very much,
Jim L

[jmbach]

Originally Posted by bomberjim

I'm interested in re-upgrading my wife's Tivo HD. Currently it's running a 500GB drive that was created with InstantCake back when it was purchased. I have a (virtually) unused 1.5 TB Seagate drive (ST 31500541AS) that I'd like to upgrade to. I have several questions as follows:

1. Any reason that this model Seagate wouldn't work?

No. Essentially any drive will work. The issues you may have with a non AV drive is noise, heat, and shortened time to failure. The operative word is 'may'.

Originally Posted by bomberjim

2. I've downloaded Winfms beta 9.3f is this the best program to use? Are the most current instructions on page 1 of this thread?

Yes and most probably.

Originally Posted by bomberjim

3. I assume I can use the current 500GB drive as the source and the 1.5 TB drive as the target, correct?

Yes

Originally Posted by bomberjim

4. Anything else I should be careful of or need to know? I've tried to read some of the info on this thread, but it's getting quite long.

Thanks very much,
Jim L

Check the drive for errors with the manufacturer diagnostic before you start writing to it. Make sure you run WinMFS as administrator. Everything takes longer than you think.

[highvista]

I wanted to give a short report on my upgrade of a Tivo Series 3, TCD648250B, from a 750GB drive to a 2TB drive. The new drive is a Western Digital 2TB AV-GP, WD20EURS. The Tivo is running software version 11.0k-01-2-648, and the System Information for the unit shows up to 318 HD hours of recording capacity.

I used WinMFS to copy the contents of my 750GB drive to the new 2TB drive. I had supersizing turned on. I believe I was offered the chance to expand the drive size, but I also used the "mfsadd" function of WinMFS.

I used the wdidle program to verify that the WD20EURS already had the IDLE3 function disabled. Important note: Make sure you attach the drive directly to your motherboard's SATA bus. I tried using wdidle with the drive in an external dock that is attached to the internal bus, and wdidle saw the drive, but it kept reporting an error and not showing the IDLE3 state.

My biggest problem was that when I put the new drive into the Tivo and powered it up, I'd get the "Welcome" screen for a couple minuntes, along with the proper front lights showing on the unit. Then, the lights would go out, the amber light would flash, my TV screen would blank, and then the "Welcome" screen re-appear. I was stuck in an endless boot loop. But the original drive worked just fine and booted normally.

After much fiddling and research, I finally realized that this might be a sign that my power supply was going bad. Sure enough, three capacitors on the power supply had domed, swollen tops, indicating they were going bad. I replaced these capacitors and now the Tivo boots normally with the 2TB drive. I'm guessing that the new drive is drawing enough extra power during boot over the old 750GB drive that the failing capacitors couldn't handle it and induced the boot looping.

Hopefully, this will help out anyone with similar issues. Here are some URLs that were very useful to me through this process:

Series 3 stuck in "Welcome! Powering up..." loop
Bad capacitors in power supply
What's wrong with my S3?

[JohnnyO]

Originally Posted by unitron

Unless you're living in Australia and upgrading an Australian model TiVo, use 9.3f

The documentation isn't exactly up to date--I guess spike has better things to do these days, like maybe making a living.

The process went smoothly. It turned out I already had 9.3f from replacing the drive in my other TiVoHD about 14 months ago.

Interestingly, the two drives that went bad were two of the originally recommended WD Green drives that are no longer on the recommended list. Both of my TiVoHD's now have AV rated WD drives. Hopefully I'll get more than 3 years out of them. Of course, hopefully TiVo will have new systems that I see value in upgrading to in that timeframe.

John

[nooneuknow]

Originally Posted by JohnnyO

The process went smoothly. It turned out I already had 9.3f from replacing the drive in my other TiVoHD about 14 months ago.

Interestingly, the two drives that went bad were two of the originally recommended WD Green drives that are no longer on the recommended list. Both of my TiVoHD's now have AV rated WD drives. Hopefully I'll get more than 3 years out of them. Of course, hopefully TiVo will have new systems that I see value in upgrading to in that timeframe.

John

Just for the benefit of others, the "recommended drive list", generally, is outdated, reflects drives for older units, and/or is just biased. People have been upgrading using drives that others have claimed are NOT recommended. I can't argue, that an AV drive, when they are on sale, is a no-brainer. However, when not on-sale, and either meeting, or beating, the prices of non-AV drives, it leaves you spending money for features that TiVos (even the most recent ones) don't use, known as the "streaming command set". When this is the situation, an AV drive reads/writes, just the same as any other non-AV drive. Why TiVo uses AV drives, in the first place, is probably a condition of their terms with WD, or WD simply offers TiVo the same pricing on both types, leaving it a no-brainer for TiVo.

The streaming command set features of any AV drive MUST BE supported by the hardware of the device, the software of the device, and must be enabled. I just checked my TiVo logs from a Premiere, and even though the drive, and TiVo Premiere, BOTH support SATA2, TiVo sets the transfer mode to SATA1, via software. So, that's even further proof that TiVo is NOT using the full capabilities of the drives they install at the factory.

The above paragraph contains a lot of information that people LOVE to argue about. The key is in what's opinion, or just misinformation, that some have read elsewhere, then pass along, without confirming for themselves. I've spent years digging into it. It's mostly the upgrade vendors that offer pre-imaged drives, that provide the BULK of the misinformation, to scare people into thinking that they NEED AV drives, and it gets passed along in the forums, without confirming the facts. Even though WD advertises AV drives as 24/7 rated, it's also just a marketing tactic. If you study the actual published data sheets, you'll find that the MTBF rating, and drive power-on hours ratings, are the SAME. All modern drives are fully capable of 24/7 operation, in non-standby, non-power saving, use. The manufactures COUNT ON people not digging any deeper than the one-page, bold-print, piece of advertising literature, and NOT studying the fine-print of the multi-page data sheets. It works, and works well. That's why they do it. They make more money that way.

[unitron]

The WD20EURS gives you the most size you can use in an S3 or S4 (and a better GB/$ ratio than smaller drives), usually at as good a price as any other 2TB drive, with a 3 year warranty, and runs fairly cool and quiet, and seems to have as good a history in TiVos as any other drive, if not better.

If you're buying a new drive instead of using something you already have on hand, I don't see any compelling reason to use anything else.

You just have to wait for it to go on sale.