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Upgrade did not expand capacity
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Posted by: mr396

I have Series 2 Tivo originally with a 40hr single drive system. I upgraded it to a single drive 80GB and then later added a second 120GB drive to take it up to 232hrs of recording capacity all using the tools supplied in this forum. This has worked great and appreciate the work everyone provided to make this so simple. I am now replacing the 80GB drive(the "A" drive) with a 120GB to make it a 2 drive system with a total of 240GB of recording capacity.

I followed all the Hinsdale instructions using Upgrade Config #4 From a Dual drive system to a New A drive and preserve recordings. I used the dd command (like it stated in the instructions). It did copy 80GB drive over to the 120GB just fine saying 76,xxx records in as well as out. I put both drives back in Tivo to test it out and it worked. I then put both drives back in the PC to expand the capacity and marry the drives by using the mfsadd -x command. This is where I run into a snag. For some reason it gives me a message saying there is nothing to add. The exact message is "Current estimated standalone size is 223 hrs - Nothing to add!" The only two drives in the PC at the time were the two 120Gb drives. When I boot-up using MFStools with the two drives in the PC it correctly reports the size of both drives as 120GB so it does not appear to be a matter of a locked drive.

Can anyone tell me what to do here to expand the capacity to use all 240GB? Is there a max number of upgrades you can do in Series 2 Tivo's?

Posted by: Robert S

The partition table on the A drive is full. There's nothing you can do about this if you want to keep your recordings.

Posted by: mr396

Thanks Robert for the reply, although not quite the answer I was hoping for.

Is the table full because I have done a couple of upgrades already? Would using the pdisk utility as decribed in Post #7 of Fixes be able to expand the partition table or am I totally out of luck and have to erase all the recordings?

Posted by: Robert S

There are 16 entries in the TiVo partition table. There are 9 system partitions on a TiVo A drive. MFS partitions are added in pairs, so there's room for three pairs of MFS partitions on an A drive.

Originally TiVoes had only one pair on the A drive, meaning you could expand twice. Late in the Series 1 run, they started putting two pairs on the A drive, which is a problem if you want to expand the A drive more than one.

MFS Tools is smart enough to move partitions to the B drive when copying to two new drives if you use the -l or -x option, but you already have a B drive, so you would have to copy your two current drives to two new ones, which I don't think is an option.

Posted by: mr396

Thanks for being patient with me.

I am starting to understand, I guess. There is no way to keep the same partitions, and expand them or the MFS media 2 partition to cover the rest of the 40Gb delta?

If I did copy the two current drives over, what process would I use? Would I follow Hinsdale instructions and use Upgrade Config #5 then?

Posted by: Robert S

Yes, if you just copy the two current drives to two new ones (with -x on the restore side), MFS Tools will try and reallocate the partitions to make room to expand the A drive again.

Posted by: mr396

Robert - One more question and I appreciate the help. Thanks.

Can I dd command to copy the contents of the 120GB "A" drive(tha's the new drive in the Tivo as the "A" drive that never got expanded) back to the old 80GB "A" drive since the 120GB drive never expanded capacity beyond the 80GB capacity? I can then re-use this drive and another 120GB drive to do the copy over to two new drives as you stated above. Will this work?

Oh by the way, when I do a mfsbackup it does the scan of the drives as says there is a 39 hr, and 80 hr, and a 223 hr, then then it states it is doing the 39hr backup. Is what it should be doing?

Posted by: Robert S

Yes, copying the drive back should be fine.

When you make a compressed backup with -s, the upgrade partitions are dropped. When you do a pipe transfer with -Ta, all the partitions are included in the backup.

Posted by: mr396

Just so I do not mess up.

When I do the backup command as listed in Hinsdale such as the one below:
mfsbackup -f 9999 -6so /mnt/dos/tivo.bak /dev/hdc /dev/hdb

I need to change this to
mfsbackup -f 9999 -Ta /mnt/dos/tivo.bak /dev/hdc /dev/hdb

and this should back everything up? Is there a listing of what the various options and what they mean/do?

Posted by: Robert S

You missed out the -o, but anyway, that would result in a backup as big as your drive set. Unless you have 200Gb of space on a drive with a filing system that's writable under Linux and supports files larger than 4Gb, that might be a problem.

A more practical approach would be to use Hinsdale's method for copying two drives to two new drives:

mfsbackup -Tao - /dev/hdW /dev/hdX | mfsrestore -s 127 -xpi - /dev/hdY /dev/hdZ

Posted by: mr396

The fog is starting to lift. I appreciate the help, the quick response, and being patient with me. I just want to make sure I do this correct and not mess anything up.

Based on this, I would am guessing I can skip Hinsdale Steps 7-9 and go to directly to step 10 and do the Upgrade Config #5 steps. Is this correct? This will copy and expand all the data from the two original drives to the two new drives in one step. I would need to use the floppy boot-up disk to be able to connect all four drives up

Should I make a backup first onto a different drive, just in case? Would I use the commands in Hinsdale Step 7 using the Option#2 (backing up a two drive Tivo?). I guess this is where I could also use
mfsbackup -Tao - /dev/hdW /dev/hdX (would I need a drive equal to the same size to back this up?)

or could use

mfsbackup -f 9999 -6Tao /dev/hdW /dev/hdX (to compress it some?)

I would like a backup image just in case I mess something up or one of the hard drives go bad.

Posted by: mr396

How can the Hinsdale instructions get updated to let people know what to do when they have already upgraded their "A" drive once and filled their partition table up.

Posted by: Robert S

If you want to suggest improvements to the Hinsdale guides, I'm sure hinsdale would be very happy to get a PM from you. I think you over estimate the scope that he's aiming for, though - the document is already intimidatingly large, so I think careful consideration is required before adding more special cases.

Anyway, as I said, making a backup with recordings results in a file the same size as your drive set (~200Gb in your case). I would think most people have more space in their TiVo than their PC's, so the question of practicality doesn't really arise. If you have a single volume in your PC with 200Gb free, a further problem is that most filing systems (and operating systems) have a limit of 2 or 4Gb per file. Getting round that means running MFS Tools on something like ext3 under a recent version of Linux. (Alternatively you can backup to stdout and pipe to 'split', which will break the backup into managable chunks - you still need 200Gb free on one volume, though).

If you have all that, note the following: -Ta (some people seem to prefer -aq, but AFAIK, that's the same thing) means 'include all streams', so modifiers like -f and -l, which includes streams that would normally be dropped have no effect (because those streams will be included anyway by -Ta).

Compression is pointless as the recording streams are already heavily compressed and are therefore essentially random data. The reason compression works so well on 'compressed' backups is that vast swathes of the data that ends up in a compressed backup consists of long strings of zeroes. (You'll notice that the difference between -1so and -9so is just 2 or 3 percent - most of the data is either incompressible recording streams or blank).

Therefore, the only practical way, IMO, to backup a TiVo is to use dd or MFS Tools to copy whole drives or drive sets to new drives (which must be at least as large as the originals, naturally).

So, generally, you end up having to work without a backup and just be VERY CAREFUL when working on your drives. You won't lose the TiVo, of course, as you still have a compressed backup, but you might lose the recordings.

Posted by: aklock

quote:
There's no way to keep your recordings AND expand AND remain in a single-drive configuration (although you can do any two of those three things). -Robert S.

Ran into this same issue yesterday. An update would be very helpful to those who are upgrading a second time. I suspect there will continue to be quite a few folks who run into this when replacing an aging drive.

I replaced a flaky 120gb drive with a new 160gb. I wanted to preserve my recordings so I ran into the partition table limitation of a second upgrade. The 160gb is now up and running but of course only indicates 108 hours of capacity.

From what I can gather the only way for my to expand the 160 (or at least the first 137gb of it) and still preserve my recordings would be to add a second drive.

If I add a "B" will the 160 expand to its capacity? I am assuming I could just use the following command from Hinsdale:

mfsadd -x /dev/hdY /dev/hdZ

What is the current thinking about running a 2 drive system? I have run 2 drive systems in the past without incident. But I figured a single drive would be "safer" since there is one less thing to break...

Posted by: Mike B

I'm getting a similar error - have I ran into the same problem?

UK Thomson single drive TiVo (Quantum 40GB)
Added a 15GB 'B' drive a while back.
(Moved from 39hrs to 53hrs capacity)

I've just used 'dd' to copy the 15GB 'B' drive onto a new 40GB quantum (identical to my 'A' drive). Pulled the drives, and tested the new pair - everything works fine, but only 53 hr capacity reported (as expected). Put the drives back into the PC, and did (with 'A' drive as primary master and 'B' drive as primary slave)

'mfsadd -x /dev/hda /dev/hdb'

It just complains:

Current estimated standalone size is 53 hrs
Nothing to add!

If I have hit the same problem, what are my options? (I've only done one upgrade before, so can't see how I could have ran out of partitions......)

Posted by: Robert S

See the 7th post of the Fixes thread above.

Posted by: mr396

Robert thanks again,

Can I do a backup to a drive so that it does not contain the recordings, this way in case something does mess up I have something to recover my Tivo to (ie the OS and base partitions, etc.)

Posted by: Robert S

Hinsdale covers making such backups ("compressed" backups) in some detail, as does the Weaknees interactive thingy. I recommend -1so instead of -6so as compression level 1 seems more reliable than level 6 (and, as I mentioned, the size doesn't change much).

You'd normally write such a backup to a FAT partition. It results in a file of a few hundred Mb, which can be written to a CD-R for safe keeping.

Posted by: mr396

Robert - some more problems

I used dd command to copy the Drve "A" (120GB that never expanded past 80GB) back to the original 80GB Tivo drive "A". I then tested the 80Gb drive out in Tivo and it worked fine. I then plugged all four drives in as follows:

Primary Master: Tivo original "A" drive (80GB)
Primary slave: Tivo orginal "B" (120GB)
Secondary Master: Tivo new "A" (120GB)
Secondary slave: Tivo new "B" (120GB)
I booted up using boot floppy. It recognized all four drives and the correct capacity.

I then type in the command
mfsbackup -Tao - /dev/hda /dev/hdb | mfsrestore -s 127 -xpi /dev/hdc /dev/hdd

It started scanning and then gave me the following error message:
Uncompressed backup size 188701MB
Restore Failed: unable to fit backuponto drives

could you help me understand what is going on here?

Posted by: Robert S

It should report the drive sizes in Mb, not Gb. If you can post the output of mfsinfo, that might help too.

You could try -lpi instead of -xpi (that's an L - Arial doesn't distinguish between l I and 1 very well...), although you don't want it to run, I just want to know if it produces an error in that mode.

Posted by: mr396

The drives capacities are reported in MiB like you stated. I just shortened them

The msinfo on the original Tivo A(80GB) and B drives(120GB) are as follows:

MFS volume set contains 8 partitions
/dev/hda10 MFS partition size 256 MiB
/dev/hda11 MFS partition size 16206 MiB
/dev/hda12 MFS partition size 256 MiB
/dev/hda13 MFS partition size 20991 MiB
/dev/hda14 MFS partition size 0 MiB
/dev/hda15 MFS partition size 38112 MiB
/dev/hdb2 MFS partition size 0 MiB
/dev/hdb3 MFS partition size 114472 MiB

Total MFS volume size 190295 Mib
estimated hours in a standalone Tivo: 223
This MFS volume may be expanded 2 more times

Any suggestions?

Posted by: mr396

Robert -

when I tried the -lpi instead of xpi the following was reported

Restore failed: Unknown backup format
Scanning source drive. Please wait a moment

Source drive is 39 hrs
- upgraded to 79 hrs
- upgraded to 223 hrs
Uncompressed backup size: 188707 megabytes

Posted by: Robert S

It's not looking very hopeful, I'm afraid. Although MFS Tools can move partitions between drives, it doesn't look like there's a configuration where that's possible here - the 120Gb partition is too big to move to the A drive and there isn't room for any more partitions to go on to the B drive with that big partition.

I'm wondering if it would work with 160Gb drives, but even then, I don't think there's room (you'd get 128MiB out of one of those drives, 114+16 = 130).

So unless you do the kernel patch, which is a major undertaking, I don't think you can expand that image again.

Posted by: mr396

Robert

Boy you are up late.

I do have a 160GB drive I could try. should I use that as the "A" or "B" drive. Do you think it is worth a try? Can I do anything with pdisk?

Posted by: Robert S

Hmm, yes. Perhaps I would have spotted that the partition copy thing wouldn't work if I'd gone to bed earlier...

Anyway, like I said, it's not going to work unless you replace the kernel so you can use the full capacity of the disk. You can try doing the copy in an LBA-48 enviroment to see if it'll work. (If it doesn't then obviously there's no point doing the kernel hack).

I haven't been following the discussion on LBA-48 and Series 2 TiVoes (no-one talks about it here, and the chances of me ever getting a Series 2 TiVo seem slim, at best), but it's more involved than the Series 1 procedure.

Posted by: mr396

I think I answered my own question. The "A" drive partition table is full, so to expand it I need to move some partitions off of it onto B. B has one large partition which fills the drive, but has the ability to expand partitions, but would need a bigger drive. If I put the 160GB drive as the new B drive and then the 120Gb as the new A drive. MFStools should be able to move one of the partitions off of A drive onto B. Then it should be able to expand A and expand B. I do not want to mess with the kernal so I will only be able to use 137GB of space on the 160GB.

Does that sound about right?
I really appreciate all your help.

Any idea when will Tivo support LBA48. I originally bought a 250GB drive to use in the Tivo until I found out that it would not support it. That is what started me down this rat-hole.

Posted by: mr396

I may just be out of luck.

I tried the 160Gb drive as the new "B" drive and it still gave me the same error message when I did the mfsbackup .... | mfsrestore.... command. So it must not be able to move the smaller partition on the A drive to the b drive and fit it under 137GB. There probably is no good way to break-up that lareg 114GB partition on B drive is there?

If I did not care about the recordings and stuff what could I do?

Posted by: Robert S

To do the upgrade without the recordings, all you do is make a compressed backup and restore it to the new drives.

The recordings will still be on the original drive set, of course, if you want to go back to them later.

Posted by: mr396

Robert -

A couple of more questions. Is there a way to collapse a couple of partitions into one larger partition with MFStools or other tools?

Is MFStools smart enough to move partitions between drives when upgrading a two drive system?

Posted by: Robert S

No, you can't resize or merge MFS partitions with MFS Tools (or anything else I know of). MFS Tools can discard empty partitions when it makes a backup and it can create new partitions to expand an image. It never alters the properties of an existing partition.

I believe MFS Tools would move the partitions around to make room to upgrade the A drive, there just isn't room to do that in your case. Although, to be completely open, I don't recall actually seeing that happen in practice. It happens routinely with people upgrading single-drive machines, though.

Posted by: mr396

If you look at Post #21 on this. MFS Partition hda14 has 0 MiB. If this was discarded would the partition table still be full or could it be expanded then.

Posted by: Robert S

Yes, but that's the App partition that's paired with Media partition #15. If you separate those, the TiVo won't boot.

I don't know why it was designed this way, but that's the way it is. (Admittedly, TiVo themselves would never do such upgrades themselves and didn't envisage that TiVo owners would want to do it themselves).