TiVo Community Forums Archives - unlock or not unlock -- Maxtor

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unlock or not unlock -- Maxtor
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Posted by: jmathey

Hi all,
I'm in the process of upgrading a tivo, I would just like to add a 120 GB Maxtor to an existing 30 gig single drive tivo. I did a backup and with the instructions in Hinsdale, he indicated to test the backup image by restoring it back to one of the new larger drives and putting in tivo and playing around a bit. I did this. Now, to continue, I would have just wanted to add this drive to the existing 30 GB drive. Now that I have blown the backup onto this drive, tested it in the tivo, MFStools now reports that this drive is only ~10 GB. I have seen many threads on this topic, the hinsdale seems to indicate running qunlock on it, but I've just read a thread saying never run qunlock on a Maxtor drive. Can I just run the mfsadd command and put the drive in tivo and all will be fine, I doubt it, how do I unlock the entrie space. When I initially put it in the PC, mfstools did report ~120 GB of space which is correct. Hopefully, the drive isn't fried, repeat, I have NOT run qunlock on it yet.

Thanks in advance
John

Posted by: Robert S

Definitely not qunlock! jkeegan wanted to try somethings with a drive in this condition. Starting with dlgchk.exe, if I recall correctly.

Not optimistic, though, my guess is you won't be getting back into that drive again.

Posted by: jmathey

Hi Robert,
I can obviously return this drive, I just purchased it yesterday, but the question still remains, how would I upgrade the Tivo, is Hinsdale's instructions incorrect, how do we now test the backup image if not to restore it to a new drive and try it? Or are Maxtor's now taboo with regards to Tivo upgrades?

Can you direct me to jkeegan's thread for this experiment?

Thanks in advance
John

Posted by: jmathey

One other thing, I was doing this as a trial run before doing my upgrade on my live Tivo ( a DirectTivo DSR7000), will this same thing happen to that assuming I use simiiar drives? (Maxtor's)?

Thanks in advance
John

Posted by: Robert S

This is an issue that's come up over the last month or so, and we don't have any work arounds yet. Part of the problem has been that everyone runs qunlock and it's therefore been difficult to separate the effects of qunlock and the TiVo.

jkeegan has a much better understanding of this issue than I do, so hopefully he'll spot this thread, or you can PM him and ask directly.

If you can hold off returning the drive until he's had a chance to get you to try some things that would be useful.

This problem only affects Maxtors, and in different ways depending on the model, so it's very confused at the moment.

Posted by: jkeegan

quote:
Originally posted by Robert S
This is an issue that's come up over the last month or so, and we don't have any work arounds yet. Part of the problem has been that everyone runs qunlock and it's therefore been difficult to separate the effects of qunlock and the TiVo.

jkeegan has a much better understanding of this issue than I do, so hopefully he'll spot this thread, or you can PM him and ask directly.

If you can hold off returning the drive until he's had a chance to get you to try some things that would be useful.

This problem only affects Maxtors, and in different ways depending on the model, so it's very confused at the moment.

Ok, here's what I'd like to hear the results of..

(well, first, a question: you're saying that the drive now appears locked when using the mfstools cd, right? But that when you put it back in your TiVo it still works?)

Ok.. First download dlgchk.exe. The original location at Western Digital's site doesn't seem to exist anymore, so I did a Google search and found a copy at:
http://student.fsb.hr/download/driv...ools/dlgchk.exe

Create a msdos boot floppy and put that executable on it. Boot your PC from the floppy (with the TiVo drives connected), then run dlgchk.exe. If I remember right you just press enter on each screen until it's done. When the program exits, eject the floppy, put in the bootCD, and press control-alt-delete (DO NOT POWER DOWN THE MACHINE). When the CD starts up, see if it still looks like a ~10GB drive..

If it does successfully appear larger, be aware that this unlocking is temporary (until the power goes down). Once the drive is powered off, it will appear locked again (to everything except a TiVo) unless you use dlgchk.exe again (which I'm hoping activates a mode on the drive that the locking mechanism prevents).

Let us know what happens! Thanks.

Posted by: jkeegan

It's also be good to hear just about every piece of info about the drive that we can. Can you give us the results of running a "hdparm -i /dev/hdX" (where X is either A, B, C, or D, depending on how the drive is connected)? If you ran that from the bootCD you'd have to either copy the results down by hand or redirect them into a file on a mounted filesystem to get later..

At the very least it'd be good to know the model# of the drive, the firmware# of the drive, the model TiVo you're using (DirectTivo DSR7000?).. It'd be interesting to see the hdparm output too though..

(BTW, if possible, it'd be great to see the hdparm output run both while it's locked (during a time where you hadn't used dlgchk.exe) and then another time when you had used dlhchk.exe.. then we could see the info it returns both while "locked" and "unlocked")

Thanks again,
..Jeff

Posted by: jmathey

Jeff and all,

Here are the results of your requests:

If the formatting in some of the tables is off, I'll be glad to email a doc/txt file if you give me an email address.

Don't know if this helps, but here you go:

Let me know if you see anything peculiar

John

1: Drive does NOT work in Tivo, nothing comes out of Tivo output, not even the the system is starting up, or almost there. I had thought that those were part of Tivo's firmware, but perhaps I was mistaken. I can hear the hard drive being accessed or attempting to be, but nothing ever progresses, possibly MBR corruption?

2: dlgchk run:
I have my CDRom attached to the primary IDE controller and the Maxtor in question attached as Master to the secondary IDE controller

1st screen:
Int 13h Devices: 1
ATA Devices: 1
ATAPI Devices: 1

2nd screen:
IDE Drive3: BIOS does not proviide extended functions
System BIOS is NOT controlling your drive(s) properly:

3rd screen:
CDRom data, doesn't matter

4th screen:
Standard Legacy Controller - 2nd IDE Port - Master Device - ATA
Model: Maxtor 6Y120L0
Serial: Y30T87RE
Firmware: YAR41BW0
Int 13 #: 80h

Cylinders Heads Sectors/Track Total Sectors Capacity
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Drive Default: 19 16 63 20000 10 MB
Drive Current: 19 16 63 19152 9 MB
Int 41 Physical: 19 16 63 19152 9 MB
Int 41 Logical: 19 16 63 19152 9 MB
Regular Int 13: 18 16 63 18144 9 MB
Extended Int 13: ---- Not Supported by BIOS ----

Note also, in order of the above chart, the following is displayed along with total sectors:
20000=Max LBA
19152=Max CHS
19152=C*H*S
19152=C*H*S
18144=C*H*S

5th Screen:

Partition System Beginning Ending Previous Total
Table LBA Type Cyl Head Sect Cyl Head Sect Sectors Sectors

** Nothing is displayed in this table, no zeroes, just blank??

6th screen

Interrupt 13h Function 08h

Device # Cyls Heads Sec/Track Total Sectors Capacity
80h 18 16 63 18144 9 MB

7th Screen

Interrupt 13h Function 48h

Device # Cyls Heads Sec/Track Total Sectors Capacity
80h Not Supported

reboot without powering down off the mfstools cd,

still reports ~10 megs.

Results of hdparm

command:

hdparm -i /dev/hdc

Modecl=Maxtor 6Y120L0, FwRev=YAR41BW0, SerialNo=Y30T87RE
Config={ Fixed }
RawCHS=19/16/63, TrkSize=0, SectSize=0, ECCbyhtes=57
BuffType=DualPortCache, BuffSize=2048kB, MaxMultSect=16, MultSec=16
CurCHS=19/16/63, CurSect=19152, LBA=yes, LBAsects=20000
IORDY=on/off/tPIO={min:120,w/IORDY:120}, tDMA={min:120,rec:120}
PIO modes: pio0 pio1 pio2 pio3 pio4
DMA modes: mdma0 mdma1 mdma2 udma0 udma1 udma2 udma3 *udma4 udma5 udma6

Note: the * in the above line is not a typo, it is really there

Posted by: mrtickle

quote:
Originally posted by jmathey
Hi all,
I'm in the process of upgrading a tivo, I would just like to add a 120 GB Maxtor to an existing 30 gig single drive tivo.
[...]
Now, to continue, I would have just wanted to add this drive to the existing 30 GB drive.

You should not do that. It is much safer to make the new drive the A drive, with expanded swap space, so that your tivo would be able to recover from a GSOD without you needing to take any more action. Hinsdale's guide even has warnings about this now!

Posted by: jmathey

I'm now convinced that all series 1 Tivo's, if you upgrade with Maxtor drives, you should NOT test the backup image on the new drive. Perhaps have a Seagate or WD standing by just to simply test the backup, then proceed with the Maxtor's. Or just use WD or Seagate's all the way through since I haven't seen any complaints about anything but Maxtors. I believe that putting it in the Tivo, booting off of it, and taking it out, "locks" the drive as I experienced. I'm about ready to upgrade the DSR7000 tonight with two 160 GB drives, any insights or warnings before I start as to what NOT to do as to avoid this problem again? Perhaps I shouldn't test the image.

Any comments are welcome and encouraged.

Regards
John

Posted by: c3

I don't think we know exactly what conditions would destroy (not just lock) Maxtor drives. I have run qunlock successfully on at least two Maxtor 120GB 7200rpm drives without any problem, after they were locked by Tivo. Drive locking can be turned off in the PROM boot menu if you can access it through the serial port.

Posted by: Carfan

This weekend I installed a brand new 120 G/7200 rpm Maxtor in my Sony T-60. I first did the backup and installed the drive to test the integrity - all OK.

I then performed the backup/restore with expand and it too ran great. Finally I added a Seagate Barracuda 88 G B drive using mfsadd.

All is well, no issues getting total drive sizes recognized. This "locking" must not affect all Maxtor drives.

Posted by: Nihilator

Weeeellll...

I didn't have any luck. My Maxtor 120GB drive (installed last year, part number 6Y120L0, firmware YAR41VW0) is stuck at 9MB (or 10MB, depending on where you look).

The details of its death are in this thread. Because it had some good stuff on it (Family Guy! Futurama!), I wanted to get it back complete with shows.

I have not ever run qunlock on it. Ever. dlgchk.exe did not work. A brand new image of the latest boot CD didn't unlock it. I eventually settled on (DON'T TRY THIS AT HOME) sticking my TiVo on top of my PC, powering up the TiVo, unplugging the IDE cable (but not the power cable), plugging it back into my PC's IDE port, and powering up the PC.

That worked. It read as 122GB.

First I tried to copy it using a pipe backup/restore to an A+B pair of unused drives I have sitting around. One is 60GB, one is 80GB. It failed, probably because you can't, well, do that.

So the I broke open the last 160GB drive I have. I tried again to do a pipe backup/restore. Again, it failed. It claimed that there was insufficient space on the 160GB (or rather, 137GB) drive to hold the 120GB drive's contents. That makes no sense, but I was willing to just accept it anyway.

Last attempt...I did a dd copy from the 120GB to the 160GB. *That*, finally, worked, although expanding with mfsadd did *not* work, and I'd like to know why...

So now I've got a 120GB drive's contents on a 160GB drive, and it works just dandy in the TiVo. No serious issues at all, so far. It *did* stop in the middle of a playback, but at least it was responsive to remote command, and I suspect that the program was what it was recording (on the old drive) when it finally cut out on me.

So now I'm stuck with a 120GB drive that reads as 9MB everywhere but in a TiVo, and in the TiVo, it doesn't work for longer than an hour before it grinds to a halt. Any suggestions?

--Chris

Posted by: jmathey

Hi Chris,
Well, I'm glad you were able to make some headway on this issue. I think this proves Jeff's initial assumption that the Tivo issues some unlock sequence to the drive, which resets when you power off. I'm sure someone at Maxtor is familiar with this issue? Did you happen to look at what Tivo thought the capacity was when you powered up the 160 GB in there? Did he think ~120 or ~137?

Thanks
John