TiVo Community Forums Archives - Reusing Hard Drives

TiVoCommunity.com
(c)opyright 1995-2005 All rights reserved
indexcheckTC
This area is a static history of posts in the TiVo Community Forum Archive.
This archive history was made for the simple indexing of search sites like Google.

Pages:1

Reusing Hard Drives
(Click here to view the original thread with full colors/images)

Posted by: technojunkie

I'm combining a couple of used tivo drives into a single unit, SA. How do I re-initialize -reformat the drives?

Posted by: Robert S

For the TiVo or the PC?

Posted by: cbordman

i just re-used a tivo 'A' drive, and mfsrestore took care of everything.

Posted by: technojunkie

I'm putting them back into the Tivo.

Is the restore on the MFS disk? How do I initiate it?

Posted by: Robert S

Just run MFS Tools as described in Hinsdale. It will over-write whatever is already on the disks.

Posted by: technojunkie

Could you be more specific. Which tool? I thought I followed things correctly but obviously I did not.

Posted by: Robert S

Could you be more specific. Which things? I thought I followed your question but obviously I did not.

Posted by: technojunkie

OK, let me re-explain. I had two 14 hr SA Tivos one had a 30 gig drive added to it the other a 40. Both machines worked fine. Having added a Series 2 I no longer needed 3 machines so I want to combine the 30 and 40 gig into a single unit.

I downloaded the MFS tools and created a floppy. I backed up both sets of drives to my computer's c: drive (one was tivo.bak the other tivo2.bak). Next I put the new A (40) with the old A and B (30) drives into the computer and followed the directions in Upgrade configuration #4 From: Any Dual Drive TiVo. To: New A or New B Drive (replacing only one or the other). The copy of the old drives when fine but when I went to marry them I received errors. Being late in the day I decided to put the original 2 drives back in the machine. Now I'm stuck with the Green severe error screen. Should I leave it plugged in for 3 hrs like it says or try something else? I still want to do the combination and save my old movies if possible. Please advise.

Posted by: Robert S

I love 're-sxplain' - you've only posted four lines in this thread so far!

OK, so you copied A 30Gb drive (which one?) on to a 40Gb. Did you test the new configuration in the TiVo? But then you ran mfsadd and got an error (did you write it down?).

The GSOD should repair your TiVo if you give it a little time.

Posted by: technojunkie

No I didn't write down the error. Actually I found it hard to believe since the copy went so well. Anyway GSOD has been running for 1-1/2 HR and keeps rebooting every minute or so. Is that normal?

Posted by: Robert S

No, that's no good. The GSOD needs to stay up to do any useful work - it takes several minutes to set up. You'll have to repeat the copy.

I love your style, man, it makes giving tech support like pulling teeth! I ask a long list of questions and the only one you answer is to tell me you don't know the answer to that one?

Posted by: technojunkie

Hey your patience is appreciated.

Tell me what I should do next. I'm stuck and if I don't get this back and running the wife will divorce me!:D

Posted by: Robert S

I would think you need to restore your backup. If you use the correct backup and get the options right, your recordings should survive.

You don't want -s 127 when you restore the original A drive and you don't want p if it's a Series 1 Stand Alone.

Posted by: technojunkie

Ok I reran UPGRADE CONFIGURATION #4:

From: Any Dual Drive TiVo

To: New A or New B Drive (replacing only one or the other)

(Slow option – preserves setup, season passes, etc. and recordings).

13006 +1 records in
13006 +1 Records out

Shut down the computer. Reinstalled drives in the TiVo, same problem. Keeps retrying to boot then GSOD every 30 seconds.

Tried next step expand/marry. Put drives back into computer ran mfsadd -x/dev/hdc /dev/hdb and now I get:

mfs_load_volume_header: Total sectors (25834496) mismatch with volume header (10024064)

mfs_load_volume_header: Load anyway

mfs_load_volume-zone-map: Primary zone map corrupt, loading backup.

mfs_load_volume-zone-map: Secondary zone map corrupt, giving up.

mfs_load_volume-zone-map: Checksum error! unable to open mfs drives.

Posted by: Robert S

mfsadd seems to be saying that the B drive is missing (the A drive says the MFS set contains twice as many sectors as are actually present. It's not obvious from your description why this should be your mfsadd command is correct apart from a missed space between -x and /dev/hdc, but I assume this is just a typo in your post.

Fortunately you make a compressed backup before embarking on this. If you restore that to your original drives without -s 127 or -px (which I think leaves you with just -i), your recordings might survive.

Unfortunately there aren't any other repair utilities to fix things if the GSOD gets stuck.

Posted by: technojunkie

I feel like a real newbie here. If it's not too much trouble could you list the instructions?

my dos drive is hda, the a drive is hdc and the b drive is hdb. the file name is tivo1.bak

Thanks!

Posted by: Robert S

mount /dev/hda1 /mnt
mfsrestore -i /mnt/tivo1.bak /dev/hdc /dev/hdb
umount /mnt

Posted by: technojunkie

Thanks, It's now working but.....only some of the very latest shows are working. All the others first ask if you want to delete when you say no it tells you there is an error. Any ideas?

Posted by: Robert S

That's very odd, normally you get everything or nothing. I don't see why the older show should be missing, unless the GSOD did something. Anyway, that's the best you're going to get, I'm afraid. You'll just have to delete the shows that don't play.

Posted by: technojunkie

OK. I guess I have to live with that but now back to my original scenario. I'd like to take the 2 "B" drives and have one unit with larger capacity. How should I proceed?

Posted by: technojunkie

I just noticed that it says my max capacity is only 14 hrs. Do I need to remarry these drives?

Posted by: Robert S

Well, you did the right things as far as you've described them here, you use dd to clone one of the disks and then expand with mfsadd.

It might be better to start from a backup, so if you don't have any recordings left that you want to keep, try restoring the backup with -x and see if that works better.

Posted by: technojunkie

well I tried -x -i (per FAQ on the MFS) I'm back to 51 hours but still no access to the shows. Looks like they're toast!

Posted by: technojunkie

Yo Bobby, Thanks for the help. I'm up to 75 hrs but lost all my movies...heck I'll just record them again. Built a 30hr out of the other 2 drives and now the wife has her own ...unsubsrcibed but she only watches BBC america. If you're ever on this side of the pond give me a call.

Posted by: Robert S

Glad things are working for you now. No charge :)