[NeuroDawg]

I was able to get a great deal on an XL4 (TCD 758250) with lifetime service, but the hard drive is going bad. I purchased a new 4TB WD Red HD and have been following the instructions found in this thread - Rebuild Premiere Hard Drive from Scratch - but I've hit a road block.

When following the instructions, I accidentally skipped the step (#6) that said to put the new HD in the TIVO and let it get to guided setup before running mfsadd and apmfix on the drive. I did all that and plugged the drive into my Tivo and ended up in a startup loop. I get the startup screen, it's there for about 20s, and then all the lights on the front panel flash and the machine restarts.

Realizing my error, I atttempted to start over, using DVRBars to copy a full image to the new hard drive, and putting it into the Tivo before running mfsadd/apmfix. I still get stuck in a startup loop.

If I reinstall the original (failing) drive, it boots up without any problem.

I'd appreciate any suggestions as to how to get out of this loop and get the thing running. Do I need to wipe all partition data from the new drive and start over? Should I try mfscopy from the old drive to the new? If so, what's the command line to not copy any recorded shows (don't need to keep them)?

 

[ggieseke]

You should have mentioned the 4TB drive. The image I sent you is too old to boot on any drive over 2TB (that wasn't possible until 20.3.8 came out). I sent you a new image that's already on 20.4.1 that should work.

 

[NeuroDawg]

You should have mentioned the 4TB drive. The image I sent you is too old to boot on any drive over 2TB (that wasn't possible until 20.3.8 came out). I sent you a new image that's already on 20.4.1 that should work.

Sorry about that, at the time I wasn't planning on increasing the size of the hard drive, but when buying the price for 4TB was the sweet spot for me. Thanks for the new image. I'll give it a go tonight.

 

[NeuroDawg]

So I got the new image from ggieseke (thank you!). I used DVRBars to copy the image to my 4TB drive. I put it in my Tivo, and it boots right up to the guided setup. I paired my cablecard and get channels coming through. The next step is to connect to the Tivo servers, which it appears to do, stepping through the steps. However, after the last step the unit restarts and starts the guided setup all over again.

I haven't even tried to expand the image to 4TB and I can't get it to work. Any and all advice is appreciated.

 

[ggieseke]

Even with the newer version, it will still need to update the software and switch the database from Gracenote to Rovi. There will probably be at least two reboots and you may also have to run Clear & Delete Everything to "marry" the drive to the encryption chip on the motherboard. Did you run Guided Setup the second time?

 

[NeuroDawg]

Even with the newer version, it will still need to update the software and switch the database from Gracenote to Rovi. There will probably be at least two reboots and you may also have to run Clear & Delete Everything to "marry" the drive to the encryption chip on the motherboard. Did you run Guided Setup the second time?

I stopped after I reached 15 reboots, each time starting guided setup from the very beginning, pick your country screen.

I did ultimately succeed, by using a different method. After reading though the mfstools thread again I finally clued in that mfscopy actually automatically expands the target drive to be fully utilized. I had also read that it will copy bad data from a failing drive so I had been hesitant to use it. But I was so feed up with the guided setup loop I was stuck in I figured I would give it a go since I wasn't having any OS errors with the old drive. I didn't copy anything recordings, just the operating system (with mfscopy -i). This worked and I have had no errors watching live or recorded TV.

I appreciate your help with this. I can't thank you enough, as now I'm going to use DVRBARS to make a backup of this working 4TB drive in case it ever fails.

 

[tommage1]

I stopped after I reached 15 reboots, each time starting guided setup from the very beginning, pick your country screen.

I did ultimately succeed, by using a different method. After reading though the mfstools thread again I finally clued in that mfscopy actually automatically expands the target drive to be fully utilized. I had also read that it will copy bad data from a failing drive so I had been hesitant to use it. But I was so feed up with the guided setup loop I was stuck in I figured I would give it a go since I wasn't having any OS errors with the old drive. I didn't copy anything recordings, just the operating system (with mfscopy -i). This worked and I have had no errors watching live or recorded TV.

I appreciate your help with this. I can't thank you enough, as now I'm going to use DVRBARS to make a backup of this working 4TB drive in case it ever fails.

Good job, that's probably what I would have done. You know with almost any Tivo (other than a Bolt) you can occasionally clone your drive to a new one, maybe every 2-4 years? Put in the clone, save the old as a backup or re-purpose. And you can have unlimited drives with different recordings on them, kind of a library. If using cable you'd have to do copy/clones to keep cable card settings (and if you replace/change your cable card all the drives in your "library" would lose pairing info). OTA unlimited drives with different recordings, no problem (again not with a Bolt, or Edge I assume). 2-4TB drives pretty cheap, cloning to a new one every few years not a bad idea?

 

[NeuroDawg]

Good job, that's probably what I would have done. You know with almost any Tivo (other than a Bolt) you can occasionally clone your drive to a new one, maybe every 2-4 years? Put in the clone, save the old as a backup or re-purpose. And you can have unlimited drives with different recordings on them, kind of a library. If using cable you'd have to do copy/clones to keep cable card settings (and if you replace/change your cable card all the drives in your "library" would lose pairing info). OTA unlimited drives with different recordings, no problem (again not with a Bolt, or Edge I assume). 2-4TB drives pretty cheap, cloning to a new one every few years not a bad idea?

I think it will be easier to save recordings I want to keep longterm by using kmttg and storing them on my NAS.

A backup of this one using DVRBARS will likely be sufficient for recovering from had failure in the future.

 

[tommage1]

I think it will be easier to save recordings I want to keep longterm by using kmttg and storing them on my NAS.

A backup of this one using DVRBARS will likely be sufficient for recovering from had failure in the future.

That will work also For me I like Tivo to Tivo type backups as they keep all show info including channel, Tivo to computer and back does lose some info.

 

[ggieseke]

I'm going to use DVRBARS to make a backup of this working 4TB drive

The backup will run and may even work if you restore it, but DvrBARS only supports drives up to 2TB. That's a limitation of the Microsoft Virtual Hard Drive file format that it uses. It was written back in 2012/2013 when drives over 2TB didn't exist, so it seemed like a good choice at the time