[pl1]

Note- you won't run into this difficulty if you simply add an eSata drive.

Or if you take an image of the original hdd and copy it on to the new hdd.

 

[pl1]

I attempted to upgrade my internal HD

What procedure? Did you get your own blank hdd and copy your old hdd? Or did you buy a pre-formatted hdd?

 

[pl1]

It seems (speculation) that there is data that changes periodically and is stored on the HDD. If a particluar HDD has been out for enough time and the data changes... its re-pair time. (again speculation)

But, notice that the OP lost his pairing from the original 250g right away. So, most likely, it was not a periodic change. My guess is that the 750g did not take the image properly (which is stating the obvious) and a new hardware pairing for the machine was established. Since the machine pairing changed, the old hdd would no longer match, and now the cableco isn't paired when either drive installed.

 

[pl1]

I then put the 500 back in and all worked fine. So I went ahead and used Bumwine and copied the 250 to the 1TB. Then I had to contact TWC and have them do a compete re-pairing. All is well now.

Also, it sounds as though you could have taken an image of the 500g drive and copied that to the new drive since the 500g was still functioning correctly. But, I am very surprised that your original 250g would not have worked if the 500g was truly an image. From everything I've read, a drive image will always work. But, maybe, the image has to be taken and used within a certain period of time, like you are suggesting.

 

[pl1]

I dont believe that would work. I believe you can only 'expand' capacity via MFSTOOLs once. The 500G would be a direct copy of the 250G original PLUS the expanded partition. To do as you suggest would result in two expansion partitons which I dont believe is allowed.... However.... I cant state that with absolute certainty.

I believe you are right. It's been a while. I think that you can make an image from your first 250g and keep that to upgrade additional drives. As long as you don't put anything else in to the S3 and don't fool with the cards, you should be safe. (Unless, as you suggest, there are time constraints. Add that to what different cablecos are doing.)

 

[pl1]

So, assuming the cable tech fixes things today, is there anything I could do to help assure that the cable cards remain paired when I do the upgrade next week? (I'm using MFSLive 1.2)

I copied my 250g to an image and from the image to a bare 750g and all of my cableCARD settings stayed intact. I have never removed any cableCARDs. Whatever you do, do not switch slots and only remove them with the power off in order to protect the pairing. Anyway, I used the w e a k n e e s directions

http://tivo.upgrade-instructions.com/index.php