bootcd w/ updated mfstools and more

[spike2k5]

Update: September 14, 2007
Checkout MFSLive Linux Boot CD v1.3b.
Added xfs filesystem support so you can explore Directv non-Tivo HD DVR HR20-100, HR20-700

Update: August 18, 2007
Checkout MFSLive Linux Boot CD v1.3a.
Fixed mfsadd that was broken in the previous release.


Update: August 13, 2007
Checkout MFSLive Linux Boot CD v1.3.
This version includes TivoHD support and fixes for Mfstools restore -r 2 and mfsadd -r 2 for a paritition greater than 274GB.


Update: June 01, 2007
MFSLive v1.2 is out.

- Added more IDE / SATA device drivers
- Fixed AAM tuning for SATA drive.
- Added joe text editor
- Added support for Series 3 TiVo with eSATA port
- Added fixdivorce tool.


Checkout ICG (Interactive command generator if you have not)
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Update: 03/09/2007
MFSLive v1.1 is out.
New linux kernel 2.6, intramfs, dd_rescue, dd_rhelp and all the tools from v1.0
-----------------------------------------------------------------


Original post
it's been beta tested by few and worked well. So I want to open it up for more people to test.

What's included:

mfstools:
w/ bug fixes (linux swap bigger that 127MB, alternate root/kernel partition size)
added experimental options for restore:
-n Limit the hard drive size to 137GB for series 1


mfsinfo:
improved


sd-h400_unlock
we know all about this one.

diskutil (ported to linux)
unlock series 1 drives if locked.


hdparm:
has aam support

blesstivo:
I included SATA support for this one.

bootcd:
LBA48 support built in but you can use it Series 1 with -n option and not go over 137GB limit
USB and SATA support so you can use usb drives or serial ATA drives.

It's still being beta tested so report any errors and use it at your own risk.
It's hosted here:


http://www.mfslive.org

[mjn]

I'll try that on a disk that i want to divorce! I'll be a ginuea pig!

[spike2k5]

Originally Posted by mjn

I'll try that on a disk that i want to divorce! I'll be a ginuea pig!

How was your divorce?

If you do this, recordings on your "B" drive if there's any will be trimmed.
After that you can marry another "B" drive if you want to.

[mjn]

Originally Posted by spike2k5

How was your divorce?

If you do this, recordings on your "B" drive if there's any will be trimmed.
After that you can marry another "B" drive if you want to.

didn't have any effect i'm afraid, Tivo still constantly reboots

[Pauli]

Are you saying that, with the -f option, recordings can be saved on drives that had already been upgraded?

Edit: I just went to your linked site and this seems to be what the -f option is for. Dude, that is HUGE! If that works correctly, YOU ARE THE MAN! Maybe I'll try it this weekend.

[spike2k5]

Originally Posted by mjn

didn't have any effect i'm afraid, Tivo still constantly reboots

I read your thread. So you had rebooting problem before you divorced drive right?

Do me a favor and do

mfsinfo /dev/hdc /dev/hdd

(where your A drive is on /dev/hdc b drive is on /dev/hdd)

also do

pdisk -l /dev/hdc

pdisk -l /dev/hdd

email the output and let me take a look at what you got.

[mjn]

Originally Posted by spike2k5

I read your thread. So you had rebooting problem before you divorced drive right?

Do me a favor and do

mfsinfo /dev/hdc /dev/hdd

(where your A drive is on /dev/hdc b drive is on /dev/hdd)

also do

pdisk -l /dev/hdc

pdisk -l /dev/hdd

email the output and let me take a look at what you got.

Unfortunately, the B drive has already been re-imaged, so i've only got the A drive.

But yeah, when i only had a 160gb A drive all was fine, thought i'd add a 300gb B drive, but i didn't use the -r 4 command, and then i get constant rebooting with a bit of green screen errors.

But i'll do those reports, and get them over to you. Thanks

[spike2k5]

Originally Posted by Pauli

Are you saying that, with the -f option, recordings can be saved on drives that had already been upgraded?

Edit: I just went to your linked site and this seems to be what the -f option is for. Dude, that is HUGE! If that works correctly, YOU ARE THE MAN! Maybe I'll try it this weekend.

Yes, it will let you keep the recording and also maintain mfstools compatibility.

In my test case, I went from
40GB -> 80GB using restore -x option
80GB -> 160GB using restore -f option
160GB -> 250GB using restore -f option again.

Didn't have bigger hard drive to test further.

Then I did backup -f 9999 -6so /dos/filename.bak /dev/hdc
and shrunk the size to 40GB again.
Restored the 40GB image to a drive and worked fine.
(backup -s option trims recordings as we know)

[Pauli]

Originally Posted by spike2k5

Yes, it will let you keep the recording and also maintain mfstools compatibility.

In my test case, I went from
40GB -> 80GB using restore -x option
80GB -> 160GB using restore -f option
160GB -> 250GB using restore -f option again.

Didn't have bigger hard drive to test further.

Then I did backup -f 9999 -6so /dos/filename.bak /dev/hdc
and shrunk the size to 40GB again.
Restored the 40GB image to a drive and worked fine.
(backup -s option trims recordings as we know)

Fantastic. Much thanks for your efforts -- I've been avoiding upgrading my 120GB drive for this very reason (wife would NOT be happy). I'll probably try it within a few days.

One question - I noticed that your instructions don't mention enabling DMA mode prior to running your commands for the copy. I believe copy times will be MUCH faster when the hard drives are running in DMA mode. Does your mfstools CD support these DMA commands and is there any reason you don't mention them in your instructions?

[spike2k5]

Originally Posted by Pauli

Fantastic. Much thanks for your efforts -- I've been avoiding upgrading my 120GB drive for this very reason (wife would NOT be happy). I'll probably try it within a few days.

One question - I noticed that your instructions don't mention enabling DMA mode prior to running your commands for the copy. I believe copy times will be MUCH faster when the hard drives are running in DMA mode. Does your mfstools CD support these DMA commands and is there any reason you don't mention them in your instructions?

I tried on few computers and dma was enabled by default. I used the latest 2.4 kernel so maybe that's the reason. If you use the boot option w/ byte swapping on, I turn it off to enable it. It comes in handy if you want to access Series 1 ext2 partitions.

[mjn]

Originally Posted by spike2k5

I read your thread. So you had rebooting problem before you divorced drive right?

Do me a favor and do

mfsinfo /dev/hdc /dev/hdd

(where your A drive is on /dev/hdc b drive is on /dev/hdd)

also do

pdisk -l /dev/hdc

pdisk -l /dev/hdd

email the output and let me take a look at what you got.

mfsinfo /dev/hdc results

"Unknown MFS Partition device /dev/hdb2"

pdisk -l /dev/hdc results

see the attached picture

[spike2k5]

Originally Posted by mjn

mfsinfo /dev/hdc results

"Unknown MFS Partition device /dev/hdb2"

pdisk -l /dev/hdc results

see the attached picture

I thought you had dual drive setup.

mfsinfo /dev/hdc /dev/hdd

is the correct command if you do.

New improved mfsinfo scans mfs (Tivo file system), does some error checking and dumps some useful info about the mfs.

[mjn]

I did have a dual setup, but the B drive had to be used elsewhere, so unfortunately only have the A drive left, which probably why the mssplit didn't work.

[thechachman]

Is there a way to predetermine/view what recordings are on the B drive that will be lost if one does a split ?

[spike2k5]

Originally Posted by thechachman

Is there a way to predetermine/view what recordings are on the B drive that will be lost if one does a split ?

When TiVo records, it saves all over the place and it might go back & forth from A to B drive. So It might be hard to determine what recordings will be lost.

mfssplit does few other things to divorce a drive but one of the step is to look at every inode and trim any reference to "B" drive. So any video store on B drive will be trimmed and you might end up with partial recording.

Alternative is loosing all recordings so at least it's little better than that.

It comes in handy in the situation where you married a new B drive but made a mistake in r values. You can quickly divorce "B" drive and add new "B" drive.

[thechachman]

Ah, thinking moreso of downsizing a dual 180gb machine to a single drive and reusing the B drive elsewhere, maybe I need to write myself something to parse/locate all refs to the B drive then ...

[spike2k5]

Originally Posted by thechachman

Ah, thinking moreso of downsizing a dual 180gb machine to a single drive and reusing the B drive elsewhere, maybe I need to write myself something to parse/locate all refs to the B drive then ...

There is a tool called mfs_streams from unified mfs_ toolset over at another forum that starts with deal....
That will list all the fsid off records.
You can reference those fsid to mfs inodes and that will give you all the datablocks of a recordings.
That would be a cool project. Go for it.

[thechachman]

Yep that's exactly what I figured on doing ...

Been brushing up with my tcl lately, just suggested a mod to the twp info.itcl module 'elsewhere' which I'd always wanted to have in there, so will start on this now.

[monoto]

I gave it a shot. I transfered a 160GB Hitachi HD to a 160GB Maxtor. I couldn't transfer the recordings because 160GB Hitachi's are really 164GB. I used the command:

backup -f 9999 -qso - /dev/hdc | restore -s 128 -r4 -xzpi - /dev/hdd

All went well, but I am having one interresting quirk. My to do list and TiVo suggestions are recording fine and I can stop and rewind live TV. But, if I try to record a show that I am currently watching I get the following error:

"Your request could not be processed. Please try again (Message #86)."

Could this have anything to do with the upgrade?

[spike2k5]

Originally Posted by monoto

I gave it a shot. I transfered a 160GB Hitachi HD to a 160GB Maxtor. I couldn't transfer the recordings because 160GB Hitachi's are really 164GB. I used the command:

backup -f 9999 -qso - /dev/hdc | restore -s 128 -r4 -xzpi - /dev/hdd

All went well, but I am having one interresting quirk. My to do list and TiVo suggestions are recording fine and I can stop and rewind live TV. But, if I try to record a show that I am currently watching I get the following error:

"Your request could not be processed. Please try again (Message #86)."

Could this have anything to do with the upgrade?

I would use

backup -f 9999 -qso - /dev/hdc | restore -s 128 -zpi - /dev/hdd

You don't need -x b/c you are not expanding, -r4 is not needed for 160GB.
You are not using experimental options like -f, -F, -n so that part of the code has been tested very well.
Quick search for that error message on TiVo suggests that you should reboot your TiVo and it's related to guide data problem.
How full is your hard drive, what software are you running, when was the last time your tivo dialed out to get the guided data?

[monoto]

Thanks Spike2k5!

I tried alternating between rebooting and synching with the service. The 3rd reboot did the trick!

[sahurd]

Used the beta backup/restore (with the -f option). Worked like a champ!

Thanks for creating & improving this wonderful tool!

Best Regards, Steve Hurd

[gpegues]

I just found your CD and website, looks great! Thanks!

I'm trying to upgrade an existing DirectTivo (SD-DVR80) that already has two 160GB drives (only sees 243 hours) that I purchased from Weaknees some time ago. (System Information screen lists it has a SD-DVR40).

After much fussing with controllers so that I can put all four drives plus a CD drive in my system at once, I got your CD to boot (worked great after installing latest BIOS on the SiI0680 controller!).

Now I'm ready to copy my old drives to new larger drives (250GB) and after re-reading your instructions, I'm not sure that it will work because of partition limitations. I was planning to use the command(s):

backup -qTao - /dev/hda /dev/hdb | restore -s 128 -r 4 -xFzpi - /dev/hdc
/dev/hdd

expandroot /dev/hdc

But now I'm not sure if it will work because the option "To copy from expanded dual drives is not yet supported in this release".

Will it work? If not, what do I need to do to replace my drives with larger drives and be able to utilize the larger capacities?

Thanks,
Guy

[spike2k5]

Originally Posted by gpegues

I just found your CD and website, looks great! Thanks!

I'm trying to upgrade an existing DirectTivo (SD-DVR80) that already has two 160GB drives (only sees 243 hours) that I purchased from Weaknees some time ago. (System Information screen lists it has a SD-DVR40).

After much fussing with controllers so that I can put all four drives plus a CD drive in my system at once, I got your CD to boot (worked great after installing latest BIOS on the SiI0680 controller!).

Now I'm ready to copy my old drives to new larger drives (250GB) and after re-reading your instructions, I'm not sure that it will work because of partition limitations. I was planning to use the command(s):

backup -qTao - /dev/hda /dev/hdb | restore -s 128 -r 4 -xFzpi - /dev/hdc
/dev/hdd

expandroot /dev/hdc

But now I'm not sure if it will work because the option "To copy from expanded dual drives is not yet supported in this release".

Will it work? If not, what do I need to do to replace my drives with larger drives and be able to utilize the larger capacities?

Thanks,
Guy

Hi,
copying two expanded drive to two will not work if you want to save recording and expand again.

You can either copy 2 to 2 drives and keep the same capacity w/ saved rcordings,
by doing

backup -qTao - /dev/hda /dev/hdb | restore -s 128 -zpi - /dev/hdc
/dev/hdd

or

loose recordings but expand capacity on the new two drives by

backup -f 9999 -qso - /dev/hda /dev/hdb | restore -s 128 -xzpi - /dev/hdc /dev/hdd

Sounds like you bought Weakness Drives when software on it was old and not lba48 aware so it only sees 137GB each. Make sure you currently have 6.2 which is lba48 (large drive support built in)

[gpegues]

Thanks for replying. OK, if I can't do 2 to 2 and expand again, can I do 2 to 1 (really big) and save recordings?

Thanks again,
Guy

[spike2k5]

Originally Posted by gpegues

Thanks for replying. OK, if I can't do 2 to 2 and expand again, can I do 2 to 1 (really big) and save recordings?

Thanks again,
Guy

2 to 1 and save recording doesn't seem to work well currently. I need to go back and revisit it again. Right now it works on 1 to 1.
I may need to change mfsbackup format to do 2 to 1 or 2 to 2 and save recording correctly I think.

[thechachman]

Spike - do I take the 'updated kernel' in v0.4 to mean my suggestion was taken on board?

[TydalForce]

Originally Posted by spike2k5

-F my attempt to fix older mfstools bug and set both paris of root/kernel partition size to 256/4MB.
Use this only if your active root/kernel has shrung to 128MB/2MB.

I've only done one upgrade of my Series2, so I'm relatively inexperienced in upgradeland. Can someone elaborate the above point? In other words, what does that mean and how can you tell if that's happened?

Looks like a great release though! I'll probably use it to upgrade my new Series3 in a few months when I recover from holidays and MacWorld trip and can afford the bigger drive ;-)

[dropper]

I just used the latest beta to upgrade my HR120-250 (2x250 drives) to 2x400GB drives. Worked like a champ. Took 5:15 to copy everything. Went from 63 hours HD, to 107 hours HD, and something like 700 hours SD.

Thanks again for the tool. I ported it to a USB key (syslinux boot, overwrote with the isolinux stuff) so that I didn't have to mess with a USB CD or dig up convertors for SATA ports.

Keith

[spike2k5]

Originally Posted by thechachman

Spike - do I take the 'updated kernel' in v0.4 to mean my suggestion was taken on board?

It was just a cosmetic fix. I may work on some more after the holidays.