Upgrade Tivo Hd hard drive (internal)

I'd start with the the Upgrade FAQ http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=370784 A lot of things have come through that thread over time, and a lot of questions have been answered there.

I think there is a little checkbox somewhere on that screen(winmfs screen) that says something to the effect of "Show Mounted Drives". Try checking that box to see if it helps.

Otherwise, I think I read somewhere that, on the instructions page at mfslive.org , there is a notice for windows vista that may also apply to Windows 7, that you must be logged into windows as "Administrator", or something to that effect.

I think you need to go to the upgrade page as suggested. This drive is NOT a Windows-formatted drive. That is, there is no NTFS or CIFS. It is, effectively a Linux hard drive and requires special steps. Therefore, you will not be able to look at it using Windows explorer. Sorry, but I don't know if you software can handle non-Windows drives, especially TIVO-formatted.

I had the same problem, couldn’t see the drive in WinMFS until I ran it with administrator prividges. Try right clicking on WinMFS.exe and run it with administrator prividges.

Thanks for the replies, I have my PC set as always the administrator but I guess that wasn't good enough . As soon as I right clicked Winmfs.exe and picked to run the file as admin the two drives were there listed in WinMFS. I copied the original drive over to the new 1TB drive and it works great.

hforman said:

I think you need to go to the upgrade page as suggested. This drive is NOT a Windows-formatted drive. That is, there is no NTFS or CIFS. It is, effectively a Linux hard drive and requires special steps.

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It's not just Linux, either. The partition employs an Apple partition map, two of the partitions are raw binary code containing the Linux Kernel and not directly readable by Linux itself. There are two normally unused partitions and three plain vanilla ext2 partitions. The rest, comprising by far most of the hard drive, are used by MFS, which is quite proprietary.

dwit said:

I think there is a little checkbox somewhere on that screen(winmfs screen) that says something to the effect of "Show Mounted Drives". Try checking that box to see if it helps.

Otherwise, I think I read somewhere that, on the instructions page at mfslive.org , there is a notice for windows vista that may also apply to Windows 7, that you must be logged into windows as "Administrator", or something to that effect.

Click to expand...

Let me add that if the drives show up as mounted, something's wrong. A drive with TiVo software shouldn't be recognized by Windows, and if the target drive was previously used on a pc, you should write zeros to, or otherwise erase, the first few sectors to wipe out the old DOS partition table to keep Windows from seeing it and complaining if you try to do something with it.

That's if you're using WinMFS, if you're booting from the MFS Live cd, it doesn't matter, it'll ignore that DOS partition table and overwrite it when you do the copy.

thegovernor said:

Hello,I'm trying to copy my tivo 160GB hard drive to a 1TB hard drive useing WinMFS . I have both drives hooked to and powered to my Windows 7 computer by two sata cables directly to the mother board . If I go into the device manager I can see both drives , but neither drive shows up in WinMFS or in my windows explorer list. I've tried re -downloading the latest winMFS (9.3) and I still can't see either drive in winMFS . I tried clicking the select drive box and it does nothing.I've also tried double clicking the drive a and drive b list at the bottom of the winMFS page it does nothing . Any help you can send would be wonderfull........ thegovernor

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I recently had this problem.

The solution is to run WinMFS as administrator.
Right click on the winmfs.exe and select 'run as administrator' in the menu.

ETA: Smeek alert: I just skimmed the thread and missed you figured it out.

unitron said:

Let me add that if the drives show up as mounted, something's wrong. A drive with TiVo software shouldn't be recognized by Windows, and if the target drive was previously used on a pc, you should write zeros to, or otherwise erase, the first few sectors to wipe out the old DOS partition table to keep Windows from seeing it and complaining if you try to do something with it.

That's if you're using WinMFS, if you're booting from the MFS Live cd, it doesn't matter, it'll ignore that DOS partition table and overwrite it when you do the copy.

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I have used winmfs several times, although it was several years ago. The checkbox, on the winmfs screen is there for a reason.

You just have to be aware of what you're doing. As always, read the instructions.

You got it wrong - it's 'when all else fails - read the instructions' and my favorite

If it ain't broke - fix it till it is!

thegovernor said:

Thanks for the replies, I have my PC set as always the administrator but I guess that wasn't good enough . As soon as I right clicked Winmfs.exe and picked to run the file as admin the two drives were there listed in WinMFS. I copied the original drive over to the new 1TB drive and it works great.

Click to expand...

Sorry about any mis-information with regard to Winmfs. I looked it up and it seems pretty good. "In the old days" you just had to do it all the hard way. Including the BlessTivo program.

thegovernor said:

Thanks for the replies, I have my PC set as always the administrator but I guess that wasn't good enough . As soon as I right clicked Winmfs.exe and picked to run the file as admin the two drives were there listed in WinMFS. I copied the original drive over to the new 1TB drive and it works great.

Click to expand...

In Win7 having an account with "administrative rights/permissions" is NOT ever the same as running a process with "Run as administrator" it's one of the smartest things MS did with Win7.

Example: with an account with administrative rights, open your HOST file, it will NOT let you save it, you must open Notepad (or your editing software) in "Run as administrator" to save it.

Smart?!?! That's the freakin stupidest thing I've ever heard! It's worse than Ubuntu requiring a sudu command for everything. Why on Earth anyone would accept ths sort of offensive, paternalistic horse$#^% from any from any developer is far, far beyond me.

lrhorer said:

Smart?!?! That's the freakin stupidest thing I've ever heard! It's worse than Ubuntu requiring a sudu command for everything. Why on Earth anyone would accept ths sort of offensive, paternalistic horse$#^% from any from any developer is far, far beyond me.

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As computers have evolved from a "geek product" (ages ago) to a product used by everyone the number of paternalistic (safety?) "features" have evolved.

Tivo isn't that much different. Why can't I just delete something from my RDF with one request? A full RDF means an older show which I delete will vanish quickly.

I wish computes (and computer like devices such as tivo) offered an "expert" mode which would all but eliminate those annoyances. Let me log in as a "super administrator" and do whatever I want.

mchief said:

You got it wrong - it's 'when all else fails - read the instructions' and my favorite

If it ain't broke - fix it till it is!

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My favorite is the guy who described himself the way I should have described myself many years ago---"I like to take things apart to see how they would have worked."

lew said:

As computers have evolved from a "geek product" (ages ago) to a product used by everyone the number of paternalistic (safety?) "features" have evolved.

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Da, comrade. The same thing, however, is true of our society. Freedom is a rare and fragile thing in the first place, and it's all that much rarer for people insisting the establishment protect them from themselves. It comes down to a simple choice: freedom means the risk of making a horrible mistake.

lew said:

I wish computes (and computer like devices such as tivo) offered an "expert" mode which would all but eliminate those annoyances. Let me log in as a "super administrator" and do whatever I want.

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I have a better solution. All devices should only have "expert" mode available to those who purchase the base platform, but charge the user thrtough the nose to enable "idiot" mode...

Oh, wait, they have that, already. It's called "Windows", although sometimes it hides under the name "Mac OS X". Ubuntu is a wannabe, but it's free.

dianebrat said:

In Win7 having an account with "administrative rights/permissions" is NOT ever the same as running a process with "Run as administrator" it's one of the smartest things MS did with Win7.

Example: with an account with administrative rights, open your HOST file, it will NOT let you save it, you must open Notepad (or your editing software) in "Run as administrator" to save it.

Click to expand...

Yes, and even more troublesome, some editors (e.g. Metapad) will let you edit and save the protected file with no hint of a problem -- but you find out (eventually) that the modified version you saved was put in a virtual folder in your user folder tree. So you think you've changed a file but when the program that uses that file next runs, it's still using the unchanged file, which can raise your blood pressure considerably.

Windows makes great rationalizations for this "protection" and even claims they did it to make it more like Linux. (Really?) I've never seen the advantage. It seems to me when a user with admin privileges runs a program, there should be no such limitations.

thegovernor, are you also the governor of Assonet or does your domain only include East Freetown?

sbourgeo said:

thegovernor, are you also the governor of Assonet or does your domain only include East Freetown?

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Only East Freetown at the moment , but I'm workin on it . LOL

Thanks again to everyone who not only replied and rectified my problem but also kept me amused with the discussion.