[Ehien]

Copied everything using dd command:
dd if=/dev/hdc of=/dev/hdb bs=1024k

From an upgraded (once from 40GB) 120GB HDD to a new 250GB HDD last night. The normal mfsbackup command (mfsbackup -Tao - /dev/hdc | mfsrestore -s 127 -xzpi - /dev/hda /dev/hdb) was not used due to error message of:

Restore failed: Backup target not large enough for entire backup by itself.

PTV's LBA48 compatible ISO was used to boot my PC and the 250GB HDD was reported with the right size (250GB).

The "dd" command seemed to work fine as it reported copying the whole 112GB of files.

However, the System Information of the upgraded Tivo reports only 132 hours of capacity. The s/w version if 7.2.1.

What did I do wrong? Isn't 7.2.1 already support LBA48 and larger than 137GB drive?

Please help as I've pretty much searched everywhere for an answer but couldn't.

BTW I do want to preserve the recorded (121 hours) programs.

Thanks!

Ehien

 

[JamieP]

You've already expanded once. You can't expand again and preserve recordings, because you are out of partition slots. The only known work around is described here, but it's really only recommended if you know what you are doing.

You could also pull all your recordings to your PC using TTG, then restore them after the sans-recordings upgrade.

 

[tstokes71]

I've got the same problem right now. Replaced 80GB w/ 250GB, but tivo only able to use 137GB. I'm still not positive that a Series2 can support drives larger than 137GB. A friend told me it can, but he has a DirectTivo and I may be confused.... Well, I'm definantly confused, LOL. Hopefully someone will direct us to the golden thread! I hate spending all day (or days in my case) searching for things like this. I'll let you know if I find the answer to our prays.....

Tony

 

[JamieP]

I've got the same problem right now. Replaced 80GB w/ 250GB, but tivo only able to use 137GB.

If you haven't expanded before, your problem isn't the same. Mostly likely you failed to use an lba48 tivo upgrade CD when you did the expansion. There are several available in the sticky threads at the top of the forum. You'll need to start over from your 80GB original drive, but use an lba48 CD this time.

 

[Ehien]

You've already expanded once. You can't expand again and preserve recordings, because you are out of partition slots. The only known work around is described here, but it's really only recommended if you know what you are doing.

You could also pull all your recordings to your PC using TTG, then restore them after the sans-recordings upgrade.

Thanks for the lead. But as embarrassing as it is to say... the steps listed in the link are a bit beyond me. I used to use UNIX machine and ran/wrote a few simple Pearl scripts. But it's been many years and now I don't even know how to execute your Pearl script, assuming it's copied to a floppy or CDR. Could you give me some hints on this?

I'll also explore on the 2nd solution you suggested by backing up to PC and then restore to new drive.

I thought someone's done it with less hassles? Too bad the exact procedure was not documented. Maybe they did perform all the tricks.

Ehien

 

[Ehien]

I've got the same problem right now. Replaced 80GB w/ 250GB, but tivo only able to use 137GB. I'm still not positive that a Series2 can support drives larger than 137GB. A friend told me it can, but he has a DirectTivo and I may be confused.... Well, I'm definantly confused, LOL. Hopefully someone will direct us to the golden thread! I hate spending all day (or days in my case) searching for things like this. I'll let you know if I find the answer to our prays.....

Tony

Hmmm... wonder why my Tivo reported 132 hours (instead of 137 hours)?? This was within 10min from first boot of the new drive and I haven't have a chance to recheck it (at office now). Could Tivo keeps searching for extra disk space and reports it accordingly?

Well let's share our solutions as we find it. I've read a lot last night and this morning on the web and so far there's no easy answer.

Ehien

 

[JamieP]

Hmmm... wonder why my Tivo reported 132 hours (instead of 137 hours)?? This was within 10min from first boot of the new drive and I haven't have a chance to recheck it (at office now). Could Tivo keeps searching for extra disk space and reports it accordingly?

Well let's share our solutions as we find it. I've read a lot last night and this morning on the web and so far there's no easy answer.

You dd'd your 120GB drive to a large disk. It still looks like a 120GB disk to the tivo (at least the partition table does). The hours reported should be exactly the same as it was with the old disk. 132 hours is about right for a 120GB disk in a SA. It's not exactly 1 hour of basic per GB, it's a little more.

 

[Ehien]

You dd'd your 120GB drive to a large disk. It still looks like a 120GB disk to the tivo (at least the partition table does). The hours reported should be exactly the same as it was with the old disk. 132 hours is about right for a 120GB disk in a SA. It's not exactly 1 hour of basic per GB, it's a little more.

I see. But the whole thing is still not clear to me

Can you tell me why Tivo doesn't report something like 271 hours for the 250GB HDD? Is it something in the copied files that tell Tivo the drive is only 120GB? Is it the partition of 250GB that only holds 120GB?

Maybe the answers are in the way dd works. I thought it's just a copy command, i.e., the partition of the new larger drive (one partition of 250GB) was not altered.

Guess I just knew too little about all these. But the first upgrade from 40GB to 120GB went without a single hiccup.

Ehien

 

[JamieP]

Can you tell me why Tivo doesn't report something like 271 hours for the 250GB HDD? Is it something in the copied files that tell Tivo the drive is only 120GB? Is it the partition of 250GB that only holds 120GB?

Maybe the answers are in the way dd works. I thought it's just a copy command, i.e., the partition of the new larger drive (one partition of 250GB) was not altered.

Tivo partition tables contain many partitions. When you "clone" a disk with dd, you are copying everything, including the partition table. The partition table indicates that the disk is 120GB. That's as clear as I can make it.

 

[Diana Collins]

TiVos all contain a number of partitions. Some of these partitions are special partitions that hold the audio and video data of your recordings. These are all in pairs, one small partition and one large one. The size of these partitions are static - once established, they can only be changed by deleting the partition and recreating it with a new size (unless you want to try manually editing the partition table).

When you use dd to copy a drive, or use mfsbackup/restore without limiting the backup to a minimal backup, you copy over the AV (or "mfs") partitions intact. Therefore, the only way to expand the TiVo's storage capacity is to add NEW additional mfs partitions.

This works the first time you expand a drive. However, depending on the model of TiVo the original drive came from, you may or not be able to add a second set of expansion partitions. This is because the maximum number of partitions allowed on a drive is 16, and some new TiVos come with 14. In this case, the only way to further expand storage is to delete the expansion partitions and create new, larger, ones.

Basically, you started out with system, software, swap and mfs partitions totalling 40GB. You then created an expansion partition of roughly 80GB to fill your 120GB drive.

Now, to expand to 250GB you would need to create an additional 130GB partition. However, you may already have the maximum number of partitions.

The way to be sure is to put the drive back into a PC, boot with a LBA48 mfstools disk, and run "mfsadd -x /dev/hdX" (where hdX is the correct device name for your setup). It will either say "Nothing to add" (which means you are out of partition space) or tell you the space has been expanded and give you an estimate for the new total and the additional hours. If the latter, then you can return it to your TiVo and enjoy the additional space. If it says "Nothing to add" you'll need to re-expand from the original 40GB backup.

 

[Ehien]

Tivo partition tables contain many partitions. When you "clone" a disk with dd, you are copying everything, including the partition table. The partition table indicates that the disk is 120GB. That's as clear as I can make it.

Thanks for the patience and explanation!

 

[Ehien]

TiVos all contain a number of partitions. Some of these partitions are special partitions that hold the audio and video data of your recordings. These are all in pairs, one small partition and one large one. The size of these partitions are static - once established, they can only be changed by deleting the partition and recreating it with a new size (unless you want to try manually editing the partition table).

When you use dd to copy a drive, or use mfsbackup/restore without limiting the backup to a minimal backup, you copy over the AV (or "mfs") partitions intact. Therefore, the only way to expand the TiVo's storage capacity is to add NEW additional mfs partitions.

This works the first time you expand a drive. However, depending on the model of TiVo the original drive came from, you may or not be able to add a second set of expansion partitions. This is because the maximum number of partitions allowed on a drive is 16, and some new TiVos come with 14. In this case, the only way to further expand storage is to delete the expansion partitions and create new, larger, ones.

Basically, you started out with system, software, swap and mfs partitions totalling 40GB. You then created an expansion partition of roughly 80GB to fill your 120GB drive.

Now, to expand to 250GB you would need to create an additional 130GB partition. However, you may already have the maximum number of partitions.

The way to be sure is to put the drive back into a PC, boot with a LBA48 mfstools disk, and run "mfsadd -x /dev/hdX" (where hdX is the correct device name for your setup). It will either say "Nothing to add" (which means you are out of partition space) or tell you the space has been expanded and give you an estimate for the new total and the additional hours. If the latter, then you can return it to your TiVo and enjoy the additional space. If it says "Nothing to add" you'll need to re-expand from the original 40GB backup.

Wow, now you answered a LOT of my questions. Part of it I speculated but never was sure. Tonight I'll check with the mfsadd command and report back. Of course I hope it does add an extra partition. I'll keep my fingers crossed.

Ehien

 

[Ehien]

Well, the mfsadd command returned "Nothing to add!" message. So it's confirmed now that the partition has been used up on the 120GB drive. It sounds a bit stupid to me that only either 14 or 16 partitions are allowed in Tivo system. What's the physical or logical reasons that it's only 14 or 16?

But realistically for me, looks like I either have to go through the steps Jamie suggested, or consider making the tough choice of forgoing all previously recorded program and start with an empty 250GB drive.

Ehien

 

[Diana Collins]

The 16 partition limit is caused by the use of a single hexadecimal number for the partion ID. So, you can have partions 0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,A,B,C,D,E and F, for a total of 16. TiVos eat up partitions because they have backup partitions to allow software upgrades to be done on inactive partitions and have the unit switch to them only after the upgrade has been successful.

 

[Ehien]

I'd like to thank Dan and Jamie for their most useful information and advises. Last night, after backing up most of 120GB of recorded programs to my external HDD (5+ days) as advised, I reconfigured the new 250GB with everything sans recordings and new partition added. After reboot it's exciting to see my 540 Tivo reported 281hr of space. Now our Tivo can once again function properly with space to record Tivo recommended programs. We'll just take it at lesiure pace to copy previously recorded programs back to Tivo box. But now after this run of practice, we also learn of usefulness of TTG and will backup program to external HDD whenever a program is not going to be viewed often.

This backup thing is not as bad as I've feared. I just allowed it to run with a laptop on 24hr a day. New programs are recorded in the same period as I cleaned up space after a program was downloaded.

BTW, the new Hitachi Deskstar drive (7k250) is a bit noisy during read/write. Anyone happens to know if this drive has a mode to reduce such noise? If so how to do it?

We're happy campers again!

Thanks.

Ehien

 

[Trey1970]

The 16 partition limit is caused by the use of a single hexadecimal number for the partion ID. So, you can have partions 0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,A,B,C,D,E and F, for a total of 16. TiVos eat up partitions because they have backup partitions to allow software upgrades to be done on inactive partitions and have the unit switch to them only after the upgrade has been successful.

Say it gets to partition F during a software upgrade. Does it go back to partition 0 for the next software upgrade?

Is there a way to delete the partition table on an upgraded hard drive?

 

[Diana Collins]

No, it doesn't work that way. There are "active" and "inactive" root and boot partitions. When a software update is downloaded, it is installed into the "inactive" partitions. After the installation is complete, the upgrade program changes the bootpage parameter to make the formerly "inactive" partitions the "active" ones, and vice versa. The next upgrade does the same thing, flipping the active and inactive partitions.

 

[ahladas]

Aaarg, I screwed up my upgrade and ended up with only 137GB on my 200GB drive. I've read this thread and understand the problem with the partition tables. Hex editing the partition table is not something I would do but I have a copy of partition magic. It seems to me that I should be able to fix this problem by expanding out some of the existing partitions, but which one(s) should I expand?

 

[JamieP]

Aaarg, I screwed up my upgrade and ended up with only 137GB on my 200GB drive. I've read this thread and understand the problem with the partition tables. Hex editing the partition table is not something I would do but I have a copy of partition magic. It seems to me that I should be able to fix this problem by expanding out some of the existing partitions, but which one(s) should I expand?

Nope. That won't work. Just do the process again using an lba48 aware tivo upgrade iso (e.g. from one of the stickies in this forum).

 

[ahladas]

Nope. That won't work. Just do the process again using an lba48 aware tivo upgrade iso (e.g. from one of the stickies in this forum).

Tx for your prompt response Jamie, I believe I did use an lba48 aware iso (mfstools2.iso). Do you think the inadvertant format to FAT32 on the non lba48 aware BIOS machine was a factor? If not it must be something else (like maybe msftools2.iso is not lba48 aware).

I used :
mfsbackup -Tao - /dev/hdX | mfsrestore -s 127 -r 4 -xzpi - /dev/hdZ

to do the backup, and if I read the mfstools doc right, the -x would mean my partition table is not full and I can simply re-expand the drive with:

mfstool mfsadd /dev/hdX -x

The Tivo is like crack to my family, if I have to take it away again for 8 hours to do another backup, I'll have to sleep with one eye open!