TiVo Community Forums Archives - Seagate drive errors and the resolution

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Seagate drive errors and the resolution
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Posted by: KSR

I am writing this so that I might be able to pass on some info that I learned. Perhaps it will possibly help someone else.

I bought a Hughes HDVR2 for $99 at Circuit City. I am mad at myself for missing the $49 deal last weekend on the same unit. So I brought the unit home, used it for a day and then opened it up and replaced the 40G Maxtor with a Seagate Barracuda ATA100 7200RPM 120G drive that was on sale at CompUSA for $59. It is also a quiet drive!

I printed and read the Hinsdale-How-To. I studied it for 2 hours or so. I burned the ISO image to make a bootable MFS Tools CD. In my desktop computer I put an old FAT32 disk in as my Primary Master drive and my CD drive as the secondary slave. I put the bootable CD in the drive. I opened my HDVR2 case and removed the Maxtor disk. I stuck it in my desktop computer as the secondary master. Doing this allowed me to leave the Maxtor jumpered as CS. I did the mkdir, mount, and ran mfsbackup. It went great and easy. At the end I unmounted the drives, shutdown, and removed the Maxtor for safekeeping. Now I also have an image of my TiVo that I can keep for a long time.

I put the new Seagate drive in the desktop with it jumpered as CS as it came from the factory and as it needs to be when I install it back in the TiVo box. I powered on the desktop, booting off the CD. I did the mkdir and mount commands. I then did an mfsrestore using the option to restore and expand in one command. I then unmounted the drives and removed my new Seagate 120G TiVo drive.

*** NOW COMES THE UGLY PART ***
During the mfsrestore I got an error saying some section of the drive was corrupted but was fixed. It also got stuck for 10 or 15 minutes at the "wait one moment for cleaning up restore". I put the drive in the TiVo and it would not boot. It got stuck at the very first screen. I removed the drive to re-restore it. This time the mfsrestore reported errors and would not finish.

I downloaded diagnostic utils from Seagate and ran them. I got MANY, MANY, MANY sector errors and it told me to RMA the drive. I took it back to CompUSA and they switched the drive even though I had already sent in the rebate. Thanks to CompUSA!

*** NOW COMES THE GOOD PART ***
So I stuck the replacement Seagate 120G drive in my desktop, ran mkdir, mount, and mfsrestore, and it completed and worked great. I took it out, installed it in the TiVo, and it booted right up. This time it took about 20 minutes from start to TiVo boot!!!!

So other than a little setup of a FAT32 drive, burning a bootable tools CD, and running mkdir, mount, and umount, it really is just 2 commands that I executed. This was so much easier than I thought it would be. Kudos to the people who put these tools together!!!

I bought another 120G drive so I could have a total of 240G. But I am just going to stick with one 120G drive for now. After I use it for a month or so I might change my mind. But at least I now know that I can update my TiVo and make a 240G system any time I want.

I hope this helps someone else with hard disk problems or with just generally understanding upgrading a TiVo.

Posted by: jerrymc

It's usually a good idea to run the quick diagnostic tests from the manufacturer on any new drive before upgrading. As you discovered, a 10 minute investment can save you hours of frustration.

-Jerry