TiVo Community Forums Archives - First Upgrade complete

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First Upgrade complete - Questions...
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Posted by: Randyman...

Hello,

I sucessfully completed my first TiVo HDVR2 upgrade this week. I added a Maxtor 120g to my stock "A" drive.

The question I have is I had a small problem the first time I performed "mfsadd". The PC procedure went fine, and indicated the new total drive size perfectly.

When I installed the drives into the TiVo, it got to the "Almost there - a few more seconds", and then would re-boot.

I attempted to re-run "mfsadd" but I got some kind of check-sum error, and it would not complete the mfsadd.

I then restored my backup image (tivo.bak from my c: dos drive) to the stock 40g drive, and removed the "-s 127" to restore this image from where it came (so it would fit). Someone else told me this might cause problems down the road - but how? I just put the image back where it belonged. Not to mention, that is what Hinsdale says to do!

I then performed "mfsadd" a second time, installed the drives into the TiVo, and the TiVo booted right up with 144 Hours capacity and all of my settings and old shows (38 Hours worth) were right there.

The reason I am asking is I noticed very minor audio stuttering (like digital unlock) on one show I recorded, and I read that was related to upgrading the capacity. The TiVo seems to work fine, I still have all of my old shows from the 40g drive, and it has been recording almost non-stop for like 3 days now - no issues besides the minor audio stuttering on 1 show. Now, I am worried that this will only get worse from what someone posted about the "-s 127" command I omitted on the image restore.

Would it be better to go back and restore my original image to the stock drive again, and just copy the whole stock drive to the new 120g drive, making the Maxtor 120g the "A" drive? I know this is easier down the road when upgrading the "B" drive, but any other reason this methood is preferred?

PS - I have no clue what 99% of the Linux commands mean, I just type what's on the Hinsdale notes. What the heck is "-s 127" and all that stuff anyway?

Thanks for any insight on future problems...

Later :cool:

Posted by: Robert S

-s 127 means 'create a swap partition of 127Mb'. The original swap partition is 64Mb. If you go over 180Gb (on that model of TiVo), 64Mb of swap is insufficient for the 'Green Screen of Death' to complete. So it's only a problem for you in the 'down-the-road' sense of a further upgrade to replace the A drive. You're completely fine in your current configuration. (You'll appreciate it's a lot easier all round just to add -s 127 to the standard command rather than explaining when it may or may not be needed).

So, stutters, bit worrying as that might mean a failing disk. However, as they haven't recurred, maybe it's nothing.

Posted by: Randyman...

I assumed the "stuttering" was actually from the new 120g disk as the stock drive was practically full, and this was like the 5th or 6th show that got recorded after the upgrade! Not to mention, the unit is only 3 months old.

So, if I upgrade my "A" drive to a 120g in a month or so, what EXACTLY would I do? I'll guess, and tell me how close I am...

Do a "DD" copy of the stock "A" drive to another 120g drive to keep programs entact. Run mfsadd with the new 120g "A" and the old 120g "B" drive, and re-install into Tivo.

I assume I need to increase the swap file to like 256 or something? How would I do that while copying my stock "A" drive over, and I assume you do the swap file stuff before you run mfsadd?

Thanks for your time!

Later :cool:

Posted by: Robert S

That's the correct procedure except, by using dd, you're copying the original swap partition from the A drive. So, as you infer, you need to create a new swap partition in the empty space that's on the drive before you run mfsadd.

The TiVo's partition table has a nice feature that allows you change the order of the partitions, so you can make your new partition number 8, so that it becomes the new swap partition.

There's a similar trick that allows you to use the inactive root partition as emergency swap to give the GSOD enough memory to recover. Both these procedures are documented in the third post of the Fixes thread.

127Mb of swap is enough for 2x137Gb, the maximum amount of disk space a TiVo can handle without an LBA-48 kernel. It's actually quite difficult to initialise a swap partition larger than this.

In the spirit of 'I told you so' (no, only joking!), my recommended upgrade is to to replace the A drive on the first upgrade. If you want to keep the recordings you need to wait several hours for them to copy. As you use MFS Tools to do this, mfsrestore will expand your swap for you. I then recommend that you run just the new drive for a bit (at least until it's full). You can then add the old A drive or a second large drive if you want still more space.