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PC ALWAYS freezes
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Posted by: u235

I am attempting to upgrade my default T60 with a new 120 GB WD drive. I have no linux experience but good with unix and PCs. I am using Hinsdale instructions, and have tried all options (mfsbackup, | restore, dd, etc) and my PC always locks up a few minutes into the process (anywhere from 2% to 20% complete). Here's the catch....

I own two laptops but no PCs. I dug out some out parts and have managed to piece together a pentium 75 w/48 MB RAM and 600 MB hard disk. I have formatted the hard disk with Win98 system disk but has no operating system. Machine boots up fine, but cannot recognize 40 GB or 120GB hard disk (CMOS is 10 years old - sees them as 2 GB). I cannot disable auto-detection because the CMOS battery is dead and can't be replaced. However, I can hit F4 during startup and it will skip hard disk detection and load the linux boot floppy disk for mfs.

During MFS loading, each hard disk is detected correctly as far as I can tell by the size reported. I get the linux prompt # and can mount the drive, but as soon as I execute the backup, it gets a few percent into the process and then hangs up. I've tried all sorts of different combinations, etc, but it always freezes, but at different times. Once I set the compression to 1 (-so?), and it got farther, but still didn't finish. When it freezes, hard disk lights stop and keyboard completely stops responding. I've also tried removing all old disks and simply backing up the old TiVo to the new disk and still no success.

The reason I am upgrading is that my Tivo started rebooting, and then had a 'critical error' the other night, though now it is working fine. I am suspicious that it was getting too hot (~53 C) due to sitting it on my sony 5.1 stereo receiver. However, there could be a localized problem on my 40 GB TiVo disk.

My main question.. Is it time for me to break down and by a new PC? Could my TiVo drive be damaged from over heating? Is my cloned intel motherboard (MP058) from 1995 even capable of handling these hard disk sizes? Does CMOS need to be able to recognize the correct size?

Thanks in advance for your help,
Andrew
North Carolina

Posted by: dahacker

I would just get hard drive(s) from one of the upgrade services above.

Posted by: classicsat

Another option would be to build a mid-low end desktop PC (of a vintage whose BIOS will support drive of the size Tivo uses). I am thinking of a Super Socket 7
(with a 500 Mhz or so AMD K6 or 7), or a Celeron 500, or therabouts. If you look, you might be able to find an AT system to use the PC case you have now.

Posted by: u235

Thanks classicsat...it just so happens I purchased a PIII 500 MHz off Ebay today for $70. I'll let you know how it goes when it gets here.