TiVo Community Forums Archives - Upgraded T60 - A Drive Dead in Storm - B Drive Appears OK

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Upgraded T60 - A Drive Dead in Storm - B Drive Appears OK - Please Assist
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Posted by: das Monkey

First, let me say that I've tried to search as best as possible, but I'm not sure how to form a good query for this situation, so if I've missed something obvious, please point me in the direction of the information.

Here's my setup and the issue I'm having with it:

I have a single drive SAT-T60 with a 40 gig Quantum Fireball in it. Back in April of 2002, I used Hinsdale's instructions to add a 120 gig Maxtor, and I backed up the program portion of the original drive to a CD.

Last night, during a severe electrical storm, the power surged, and the DirecTiVo locks at "Welcome. Powering Up ..." I tried resetting the card and cables without success, so I yanked the drives and hooked them up to my PC. I tested the Maxtor B drive with the PowerMax diagnostic disk, and it passed all the tests. The Quantum A drive, however, cannot be recognized at all, so I'm assuming that drive is dead.

While it has some important data on it, what's on the B drive is significantly more valuable to me, and I'd very much like to recover it if at all possible. I have an 80 gig Maxtor w/ 8 meg cache and a 120 gig Maxtor w/ 2 meg cache sitting on the shelf and my original backup from the first upgrade. Am I screwed, or is there a way out of this, and if so, how should I proceed now?

I would very much appreciate any help on this subject.

Thanks,

das

Posted by: Foos

I have a 40 Gig Fireball as well, but mine appears to have failed completely on the initial upgrade. It will boot in the DirecTiVo if it is the only drive, but since I already added the "B" drive via Hinsdale, that's not going to work for me. If I add the "B" drive to the TiVo, it hangs on "Welcome". The "A" drive will not recognize in my PC at all.

I'm really up a creek here. Everything started out swimmingly, and now I think my wife is going to divorce me. Help!

Posted by: das Monkey

Your post prompted me to try something I hadn't considered: boot with just the A. When booting with just the A, it gets past the Powering Up screen and hits the Almost There screen before flashing a few times and cycling again.

Now I'm confused.

das

Posted by: Foos

Exactly the same problem I have. The PC bios won't recognize the drive (the little green light keeps flashing) anymore (it did the first time), and the drive only works in the TiVo when it's the only drive.

Someone else has to know how to solve this - we can't possibly be the only two people it's happened to - at exactly the same time.

Posted by: Foos

I'm not a Linux guru, but apparently (from reading the archives) if we turn off BIOS autodetection in the PC, Linux will take care of things. Smart kernel.

My understanding is that I can redo the adding of the "B" drive and try again. Sigh.

As soon as my wife finishes using the main PC (I'm on the webserver right now) I'll try that and post back my results. It'd be nice if an expert (or someone with more experience than I) could weigh in on this issue.

Posted by: das Monkey

I've read so many posts myself that I think I'm going blind. :) Don't get too impatient though. The thread's only an hour and a half old. I'm sure the experts will be glad to help when they have a chance.

In the meantime, can you explain further and/or direct me to the posts that discuss what you're talking about?

das

Posted by: Foos

I did a search for "BIOS" in this particular forum, and read thru all (ok, just most) of those threads. I'm still not sure _why_ our A drives are on the fritz, but I'm willing to sacrifice a goat if it'll fix my TiVo. :) Poking around in my BIOS is child's play in comparison.

Posted by: Foos

No dice. Still couldn't get the PC to recognize the drive. The new 120GB Linux identified with no problems, but nothing seems to work with the Quantum. And I'm positive the jumper is set correctly.

Posted by: das Monkey

I'm in a linux boot right now and am experiencing the same result.

das

Posted by: Foos

Well, we've got the same problem, apparently, and I'm fresh out of ideas. The wife is pissed, I've got a 10-excedrin headache, and an overwhelming urge to take a sledgehammer to my favorite piece of electronics in the whole house.

It's bad mojo, baby. Time to sleep for a few hours...

Posted by: das Monkey

I assume from the lack of response that I've asked a stupid newbie question with an obvious answer that I cannot seem to find. If this is the case, could someone please point me in the right direction. I've tried to search as best I can, but I cannot find any information on this.

Assuming the A drive is dead (something that confuses me a bit since the DirecTiVo can still somewhat recognize it), is it possible to restore my backup to another A drive, wave a magic wand, and connect my B drive back to it maintaining at least the recordings that are on the B?

Thanks,

das

Posted by: Foos

Well, I never did figure out what happened. But since I wanted to save my marriage, I just copied the backup (whew!) to the new 120GB drive and mfsadded the drive to itself. The TiVo is back up and running, with a larger capacity, but without all those unwatched Farscapes. :(

So now I have a frelled 40GB hard drive lying around. It'd be nice to at least be able to stick it in the webserver, if anyone can tell me a) what happened, and b) how to recover.

Posted by: Mighty LoPan

Speaking of frelled, ready for more bad news? Farscape is only going to be aired on Sci-Fi once a week starting next month.

Posted by: das Monkey

Please. I'm down on my virtual knees begging for help. Is there anyone out there who can point me in the right direction?

If nothing else, there should be a quick answer to the question of whether I can load my backup on to a new A drive and preserve the recordings on the B. Just a quick, "yes ... search on xyz topic" or a "no - can't be done" would help me immensely.

I know people get tired of answering the same questions over and over and over and OVER, but I have searched and searched and SEARCHED and have no other choice but to ask for help. If my searching skills simply suck, I apologize, but I don't know what else to do.

Can anyone please offer some help on this?

das

Posted by: unixadm

das Monkey,

Unfortunately, you cannot get the recordings back if you replace "A" drive. The reason is that all of the indices and pointers to what shows exist and where they are located are on the "A" drive.

Now, considering that TiVo recognized the "A" drive to a point when you connected it, you may want to reconnect to your PC again (without the "B" drive). Make sure you set the Master/Slave/CS jumper to either Master or Slave (whichever is appropriate for where you are connecting on your PC). If you can get your PC to recognize it, then you can take a backup. You could then restore that to another 40GB drive and try that in combination with the 120GB drive.

If you can't get your PC to recognize the 40GB drive at all, then I would venture to say that you are SOL......you would need to get another 40GB drive (or you could go larger), and restore your original backup to it, you could then use the 120GB drive to expand your space, but again, all programs would be lost.

Posted by: das Monkey

Thanks for the response. I've tried numerous configurations in attempts to get the A drive recognized with no success. I was afraid that the indicies were on the A drive and tested this last night as I dd'd my B drive to another and setup a backed-up A drive, mfsadded them together and couldn't access the shows.

It's looking like my two options are to find a way to repair the A drive (cost prohibitive for professional work) or find a way to hack into the B drive and extract the data (something I know it taboo to discuss). Most frustrating.

In any case, thank you for confirming the main question I had addressing the overall problem. I suspected that was the case, but it helps to have confirmation of this. Now I don't need to go through trial and error any more to see what will happen.

The only thing that's confusing is the way the TiVo sort of recognizes the drive when it's isolated. My guess here is that it locks on Powering Up as it's trying to match the Master and Slave and can't do it. When the Slave is gone, it probably fails in a different way and goes into a look. I suspect both instances are failures, just with a different response. I've tried everything I can think of to get a PC bios to recognize the drive, and it can't see anything on the cable. If I'm lucky, it's just the controller on the drive that's busted, and maybe that can be replaced.

Thanks again. Just getting clarification of what I'm up against is very helpful and saves me quite a bit of guesswork. I still love my TiVo, but this has been a painful experience.

das

Posted by: Foos

quote:
Originally posted by das Monkey
The only thing that's confusing is the way the TiVo sort of recognizes the drive when it's isolated. My guess here is that it locks on Powering Up as it's trying to match the Master and Slave and can't do it. When the Slave is gone, it probably fails in a different way and goes into a look. I suspect both instances are failures, just with a different response. I've tried everything I can think of to get a PC bios to recognize the drive, and it can't see anything on the cable. If I'm lucky, it's just the controller on the drive that's busted, and maybe that can be replaced.

FWIW, when the drive was in the PC, or hooked up with the B drive in the DirecTiVo, the drive access led would flash ten times, pause, and repeat. When the drive was in the TiVo by itself, it would behave in a method much like a standard access light - and I could hear the drive working.

It seems to me like there must be a way to recover the drive, I just don't know what it is. I don't even care about the recordings anymore, I'd just like to be able to use the drive somewhere - TiVo or otherwise.

Posted by: das Monkey

Startling how identical out situations are. 10 flashes, pause, repeat. Exact same thing over here.

das