Having a terrible time upgrading drives

[emarsh]

I just purchased a pair of 120gb WD drives ($19.95 each after rebate at Fry's ) to upgrade my Phillips DVR6000 DirectTivo. This is not the first time I've done an upgrade. A couple years ago I replaced the second drive with a60gb drive. I also purchased a copy of the Hacking the Tivo book which comes with a utilities disk.

I have been absolutely having a terrible time upgrading to the new drives. I'm using a Linux box with four IDE cables.

At first I tried to redirect the output from mfstool backup to mfstool restore. I constantly received messages saying that there was not enough available space on the target drive. I finally gave up and tried to do a backup to one of the new drives with the idea that I would do a restore later. I partitioned the drive and created a new filesystem. However even though I had created a 117gb filesystem the df utility was only showing something like 10-17gb. After enough experimentation I discovered that if I created a 95gb filesystem the version of Linux that comes on the utility disk could see all the space.

I then tried to do a backup onto the new filesystem but it failed several times. I recognized that it was failing after trying to write 2gb to file so I piped the output to split, creating a series of files smaller than 2gb.

Now I'm back to trying to restore the data. I continue to get an error from mfstool restore saying that there is not enough available space. I've tried using BlessTiVo to create a partition. When that didn't work I used pdisk to reinitialize it and manually create partitions. I've also tried mfstool mfsadd. No luck.

Needless to say this is very frustrating. For the time being I've put my original disks back into the Tivo until I can get data on to the new drive.

Can anyone get me on to the right track with this problem?

Thanks,

Eric Marsh

[emarsh]

As a followup, the drive can be found at shop1*outpost*com\product\3306472 - change the backslashes to forward slashes and the * to dots (.) as this message board won't let me submit a url yet

[JamieP]

Originally Posted by emarsh

Can anyone get me on to the right track with this problem?

It's not quite clear to me what you are trying to do. Are you starting from a two disk configuration or a single disk? You can only expand an A disk once and preserve recordings with mfstools 2.0. This is due to the 15 partition limit. I suspect that is what you are running into. There is a workaround, but it's messy, and leaves you with a non standard mfs layout that mfstools can't properly backup and restore. If you want to persue this route, see this post. I've only tried this on a Series 2.

The easiest course of action is to give up on preserving your existing recordings.

[emarsh]

'm trying to backup two drives to a single backup and then restore it.

I used mfstool backup -a -s -o - /dev/hdc /dev/hda | split -b 2000m tivobackup_ to perform the backup. Now I'm trying to restore the data

[JamieP]

Originally Posted by emarsh

'm trying to backup two drives to a single backup and then restore it.

I used mfstool backup -a -s -o - /dev/hdc /dev/hda | split -b 2000m tivobackup_ to perform the backup. Now I'm trying to restore the data

How many partitions are on each of the original drives (pdisk -l /dev/hdX). Are you restoring to one drive or two? You can have at most 15 partitions on a tivo drive. Normally, that means an A drive can be expanded only once, since each expansion adds two partitions and a stock tivo drive (at least the Series 2's) have 13 partitions.

[emarsh]

At this point I'm going to have to yank the drives back out of the Tivo to determine how many partitions. I'm trying to restore the content of both drives to a single 120. Once that works I plan to install the second 120. I'm pretty much trying to follow the instructions in the book.

This is a series 1.

[JamieP]

Originally Posted by emarsh

I'm trying to restore the content of both drives to a single 120. Once that works I plan to install the second 120. .

That will not work. Too many partitions for a single drive restore. You might be able to restore onto two drives. Try it first without expanding. Then run mfsadd separately. There's a good chance that the A drive will have a full partition table and won't be able to expand. If that's the case, give up your shows and do a backup/restore pipeline that does not preserve recordings. That should drop the extra partitions and should work.

[emarsh]

Can the book really be that far wrong? You wouldn't think they would publish without making sure everything works first.

Would it be worth doing a dd to copy each drive indepenently and then a mfstool add to expand them?

[wscannell]

I think that part of the problem is that you are working with old tools and an older version of Linux. I recommend that you get mfstools 2.0. You can find versions from weaknees and PTV upgrade. These all should work better.

You might also be better off copying each drive with dd, then using mfsadd to expand both drives.

[JamieP]

Originally Posted by emarsh

Can the book really be that far wrong? You wouldn't think they would publish without making sure everything works first.

Are you sure the book is wrong? Did it go over this case? e.g. copy two drives (one previously expanded) to one? Did you check the errata list?

Would it be worth doing a dd to copy each drive indepenently and then a mfstool add to expand them?

That probably will not work, if you are up against the partition limit. It does not reduce the number of partitions.

I've outlined your options.

[JamieP]

Originally Posted by wscannell

I think that part of the problem is that you are working with old tools and an older version of Linux. I recommend that you get mfstools 2.0. You can find versions from weaknees and PTV upgrade. These all should work better.

I missed that. Yes, do use the latest version of the tools. If the partition tables are full, it won't help, but if it is something else, it might.

[emarsh]

I was under the impression that the mfstool would properly create partitions with the -x and -p flags. Was I wrong? I wonder if I missed something in the book.

[JamieP]

Originally Posted by emarsh

I was under the impression that the mfstool would properly create partitions with the -x and -p flags. Was I wrong? I wonder if I missed something in the book.

It will, but there can't be more than 15 partitions on each disk, not counting the "Apple Free Partition" at the end.

[emarsh]

Originally Posted by JamieP

How many partitions are on each of the original drives (pdisk -l /dev/hdX). Are you restoring to one drive or two? You can have at most 15 partitions on a tivo drive. Normally, that means an A drive can be expanded only once, since each expansion adds two partitions and a stock tivo drive (at least the Series 2's) have 13 partitions.

Can you point me to a reference on the whole partition thing? Evidently this is not as easy as I first thought. I'm using mfstool 2.0 - is it worth going to 2.0.1?

[JamieP]

Originally Posted by emarsh

Can you point me to a reference on the whole partition thing? Evidently this is not as easy as I first thought. I'm using mfstool 2.0 - is it worth going to 2.0.1?

This is not particularly well documented. Here's one place where it is mentioned in the Hinsdale guide:

Those with dual drive DirecTiVos, dual drive Series 2 units (with user added B drive), the rare factory combined dual drive standalones (see Step 7 Option #2 for description), or dual drive UK Thompson TiVo will not have enough available partitions remaining in order to combine their existing drives onto a single larger A drive and expand to use any remaining space while still preserving their recordings. For further upgrade possibilities of these units see Upgrade Configuration #2 (will not preserve recordings) or Upgrade Configuration #4 or #5 (preserves recordings).

I am not aware of a 2.0.1 version of mfstools. The version here identifies itself as 2.0. There is a develpment snapshot available here, but I don't think it addresses the partition limit issue.

[emarsh]

My mistake on the 2.0.1 thing. I saw the title of a thread that said 2.0! and mistook it for 2.0.1.

I did the pdisk on my primary drive and it has 13 partitions. I'm going to dd my drives onto the new ones and see where that gets me.

BTW, my Tivo has started to get very jerky and slow since I pulled and replaced the drives. Hope I didn't hurt anything.

[JamieP]

Originally Posted by emarsh

I did the pdisk on my primary drive and it has 13 partitions. I'm going to dd my drives onto the new ones and see where that gets me.

You are not over the partition limit then, so my warnings about that are unfounded, that is, if you are restoring to two drives. If you are trying to restore A+B to a single drive, then you probably will hit the partition limit.

[Freddy_k]

Hi
Im new here I love the forum and hope someone can help me. I have a Dtivo DSR 708 It has never been hacked or opened before this time I used MFStools 2.0 to back it up and then used LBA 48 cd to boot and restore using MFStoos 2.0 to restore it to a 200 gig Maxtor My PC recognized the 203 gig drive fine and so did the LBA 48 linux boot cd. The restore went fine no errors but when I display in settings on my Tivo it still shows 70 hours of Storage. What am I missing here is the command I used for the Backup and restore

Backup: # mfsbackup –6so /mnt/dos/tivo.bak /dev/hdc

Restore: # mfsrestore –i /mnt/dos/tivo.bak /dev/hdc

Thanks

Freddy_k

[slaponte]

You didn't expand. the mfsrestore should have had a "-xzpi". The "-x" makes the image expand to use the extra new space.

[Freddy_k]

Thanks Hinsdale told me and you confirmed now I got 200 hours now to find how to do the unscramble on a 6.2 any help will be apreciated.

Thanks
Freddy_k

[slaponte]

"unscramble"? Like in reverse eggs??

Sorry, no clue.

[sheetbird]

Hi List,

I'm attempting to add a 300 GB drive while keeping the orig 80 GB drive to a previously unmod'd S2 (TCD24008A) using the Hinsdale HowTo and Weakness bracket. I did the back up with the test restore fine. However when I put the orig Drive and new drive in shortly after the TiVo splash screen (yellow/black ... few minutes more) I get a green screen (GSOD) which leads to a reset after about 15-20 seconds. I have some shows on the 80GB I'd like to keep.

Any suggestions

Thanks,

Paul

[sheetbird]

I should have mentioned as far as the upgrade is concerned I only ran

./mfstools add -x /dev/hdX /dev/hdY

X orig, Y new

I have the latest mfstools installed on my Linux box

Thanks again,

Paul

[HomeUser]

Check drive select Jumpers for both of the drives