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What is the largest single drive a Series 2 can handle?

2948 Views 7 Replies 6 Participants Last post by  c-collins
What is the largest single drive a Series 2 can handle? A few years ago, I upgraded my Series 2 80gig to a 300 gig. Now I want to install a bigger drive. I know I can install 2 separate drives, but I would like to only install 1 drive. Are there any problems with a 500 or 700 gig drive? Will it recognize the full drive?

Thanks,
Ouman28
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I'm using a pair of 750's in a HDTivo. The system info page doesn't report the size properly but the space is there..
The largest drive is the one you can afford. There are some Series2 TiVos out there running with (2) 1000GB Drives. The limitations will be the draw on the TiVo's power supply and your wallet. Remember you need an EIDE or PATA drive. SATA drives will not work in a Series2 without an adapter.

Unfortunately when you upgraded the first time the partition table was maxed out when the 2 additional partitions were added to the drive making it not easy to re-expand the TiVo drive and keep recordings. A second drive can easily be added however.

If you do replace the drive I suggest you use the MFSLive CD and instructions this version of MFSTools has fixed some serious bugs that were in the original MFSTools2 code.
I still have the original 80gig sitting on the shelf. I guess I could use it again with a new larger hard drive.

"Unfortunately when you upgraded the first time the partition table was maxed out when the 2 additional partitions were added to the drive making it not easy to re-expand the TiVo drive and keep recordings."

The new drive would have the old version of Tivo, but I am guessing after it is imaged, it would get all of the updates from Tivo again.
ouman28 said:
I still have the original 80gig sitting on the shelf. I guess I could use it again with a new larger hard drive.

"Unfortunately when you upgraded the first time the partition table was maxed out when the 2 additional partitions were added to the drive making it not easy to re-expand the TiVo drive and keep recordings."

The new drive would have the old version of Tivo, but I am guessing after it is imaged, it would get all of the updates from Tivo again.
You can use the current working drive keeping the software and your settings you just can not keep the recordings. In the MFSLive ICG leave the check the box labeled "Save recording?" unchecked then the proper command will be generated that strips the extra partitions allowing the restore the option to create new larger, smaller or no extra partitions on new drive.
I can get a 2TB SATA drive for $99... I'm considering putting it in my S2 DTivo -w- a "SATA to IDE bridge/converter" card for ~1750 hours of DirecTV SD programming.

Yeah, crazy, I know.
Out of curiosity, are there any issues w/swap size on the Series 2? I remember the Series 1 rule mentioned at http://mfslive.org/tivofaq.htm. I want to make sure that it can properly recover from GSODs w/o having to remove the drive and fix it with a PC, which is a pain.

If it turns out the 80 gig stock drive in the Series 2 I loaned out is failing, I'll need to replace it but I don't want to overbuy capacity.
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