TiVo Community Forums Archives - mfsbackup doesn't run

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mfsbackup doesn't run
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Posted by: flyingsherpa

i'm trying to upgrade my series 2 by replacing the 80G drive with a 120G drive. i've followed hinsdale's site and made a backup which worked fine when i loaded it onto the new 120 and put it in my tivo.

but i want to xfer my recordings as well, and here's where the problem is. i use the command

mfsbackup -Tao - /dev/hdc | mfsrestore -s 127 -xzpi - /dev/hda

and i get the following output:
-------------------------------------------
Usage: mfsrestore [options] Adrive [Bdrive]
Options:
-h displays this help file
(it displays a bunch more options)
Scanning source drive, please wait a moment.
Source drive size is 79 hours
Uncompressed backup size: 72918 megabytes
#
------------------------------------------
so it seems like it was starting to work but then it went back to the prompt without doing anything else. both drives seem to show up fine on boot. i'm sure they are jumpered correctly.

Help! i've searched and can't find what i could possibly be doing wrong. fyi, i placed the original 80G drive back in tivo and it still works fine.

Posted by: Robert S

That's mfsrestore failing, not mfsbackup. I would guess that you either added or omitted one or more spaces on the mfsrestore side.

Posted by: flyingsherpa

ah yes, it is mfsrestore that is failing, thats what i meant to say.

but i'm typing it in just as in hinsdale so i don't think i have any extra spaces or anything (i do have a background with DOS and UNIX so i am familiar with command lines).

is there any other reason for mfsrestore to not work? i burned the mfstools CD a few months ago (it says 2.0), were there any recent changes to it that i might have missed?

the only thing i can add here is that i once powered down the PC from within mfstools without doing ctrl-alt-del first... would that have messed anything up that could cause this?

Posted by: flyingsherpa

ok, this REALLY does not make sense. i went back and did:

mfsrestore -s 127 -bzpi /mnt/dos/tivo.bak /dev/hdb

and it worked fine, just like before.

but if i try

mfsbackup -Tao - /dev/hdc | mfsrestore -s 127 -xzpi - /dev/hda

i get the same issue as in my first post. the only difference in those 2 commands is the use of '|' and the options -b vs -x. i don't see why either of these would cause my problem.

note, my | shows up segmented in mfstools, like this:

|
|

instead of solid (but its the normal height), i assume this is normal but i'm throwing it out there in case my keyboard is doing something funky. any ideas out there?

Posted by: Robert S

I would pare it down to the minimum possible options and then work back up to the full command (you do need all those options).

The simplest would be

mfsbackup -o - /dev/hdc | mfsrestore -i - /dev/hda

If that works, add the xzpi and then the -s 127 and see where it breaks.

There's some variation in the rendering of the pipe character. It should be up on the top row by backspace. If you'd keyed anything other than pipe, though, mfsrestore wouldn't have run at all - the error must be to the right of 'mfsrestore'.

Posted by: flyingsherpa

DOH!!!! well, i am a dumbass i guess. i've been pulling my hair out for 2 hours trying to get this to work and the whole time i was missing the "-" after -xzpi. i checked and double-checked and triple-checked the commands and somehow i kept missing it every time. i think my brain just wanted to give itself an aneurysm for some reason and so it tricked my eyes into thinking the "-" was there. i'm going to go sit in the corner for a while and hang my head in shame.

thanks for the replies, sorry to waste your time.