TiVo Community Forums Archives - anyone in the mood to help with my upgrade?

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anyone in the mood to help with my upgrade?
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Posted by: marklyn

OK, I can build a complete computer from scratch, have done it many times (and they all work!), but, for some reason, I'm a bit intimidated by Hinsdale's "how to upgrade" instructions. Don't get me wrong, they are well written, but, I (being just me) am having a difficult time understanding what I need to zero in on, related to the instructions, that apply to my specific setup, so, I'll post my information here in the hopes that some kind soul wouldn't mind taking the time to "customize" those instructions for my setup. I hope I'm not asking too much or that I'm giving anyone the impression that Hinsdales instructions are not worthy of me trying... That being said...

I have a Philips DSR6000 with 2 drives. The "A" drive is 30 GB and the "B" drive is 15GB. I purchased an 80GB drive that I want to use to replace my current "B" (15GB) drive with, leaving my 30GB "A" drive intact. I also have a computer with an available IDE port to use and a CD Writer. Any "step by step" instructions on how perform this upgrade, specific to my hardware, would sincerely be appreciated.

I'm fairly new to the Tivolution and I hope that, one day, after I've become an "expert of sorts", that I can return the favors to new people in the same boat I'm in.

If what I am asking is too entailing, I would be very willing to paypal a nominal fee for some hand holding instructions/advice.

Thanks!

Posted by: Want1394

The hinsdale guide is really the way to go. I can't begin to replace it, but here are the main steps to concentrate on - it really goes fine if you watch out to do the jumpers correctly at the right time, don't get in a hurry and miss/skip steps, and pay attention to what drive is hda, hdc, etc.

First you need to put both drives (need two IDE connectors) in the computer and do a divorce to separate the merged MFS file system. This looses all recordings on your system - no choice. Now you are done with the old B drive.

Do a backup of the A drive and keep it. Also check it out by doing a safety step of restoring it to the new drive you have and checking it our in Tivo to make sure you both have a good backup and can restore it. Then return it to the computer, where you now have the original (divorced) A drive and your new drive (about to become B). Run MFStool and marry the two dirves, and answer the question about total capacity so the partition size is set correctly.

Get jumpers set properly and return units to Tivo. Have lots of space and enjoyment. :)

Like I said, I may have missed a detail. Use the guide. My post is a general overview only. It's really quite easy if you pay attention to the details. (I said that, right)

Posted by: Ein Jabroni

I agree with you - the FAQ is so darn thorough that it gets hard to keep track of which steps you are supposed to do!

I'm happy to help out though. We can either do it here, or via email if you prefer (EinJabroni at netscape.net) This way may even save your recordings (your Tivo must be

Want 1394 is right though here are the steps you need to do:

Make a Tivo boot CD for your PC
Backup the current drive
Test backup
Restore to the new drives
Rinse, repeat

To break that down some... I'm assuming you have Tivo software 2.5, IDE hard drives in your PC, enough free space to hold the backup and probably some other stuff...

Make a Tivo boot CD:

Download tbdv2_6i.iso and use your burning software to make the CD from the ISO.

Backup the current drive:

Remove the tivo drives and install them as the secondary master and slave in your PC, have the drive with a partition to save to your primary master and your CD as primary slave.
Boot the CD with the noswap option at boot time (you can't look at the partitions but it will backup much much faster!) Hit enter at the "login:" prompt.
Mount your PC drive - if "mount /dev/hda1 /mnt/c" doesn't show you what you expect when you type "ls -l /mnt/c" you can "umount /mnt/c" and run the mount command for a different partition of your a drive, e.g. /dev/hda2 or /dev/hda3
Backup your current system: "backup -6aso /mnt/c/tivo.img /dev/hdc /dev/hdd" (If you don't need to save your programs you can use -6so instead and save time and space.)
Hit Ctrl-Alt-Del to shut everything down
Power down after it starts rebooting

Test your backup: (optional)

Remove the Tivo drives and install your new 80 as Primary slave
Boot the CD as above
Mount the PC drive as above
Restore the image "restore -i /mnt/c/tivo.img /dev/hdc"
Shut down/Power down as above
Pop the 80 in your Tivo and see if it works!

Assuming you skip the test, or it worked....
Restore to new drives:

Install the Tivo A as seconday master and new 80 as secondary slave
Boot and mount as above
Restore the image "restore -i /mnt/c/tivo.img /dev/hdc" (** This may fail if there isn't enough space for all the recordings you had on your Tivo... If so, you need to go back and start again at the backup command and remove "a" from the options.)
Ctrl-Alt-Del
Just hit enter at startup instead of 'noswap'
Bless the new drive: "BlessTiVo /dev/hdd"
Now is the time if you want to add any other hacks...
Shut down/Power down as above
Pop the dives in your Tivo and behold!

Now I don't have a D-Tivo or a dual drive, so take my advice with caution... :-)

/EJ

Posted by: jbirt

I certainly can relate to your situation. I have been pondering for a few weeks now upgrading my Tivo DSR6K which I did last night and it went flawlessly.

I posted a lessons learned that helped me significantly and maybe you will find it useful or not. I feel compelled to share any additional help to compliment those great procedures by Hinsdale. Here is my post. Good luck.

Thread for lessons learned DSR6K

Posted by: aymanme

if you need some more help beyond what has been posted, i am local and could probably lend a hand.

- ayman

Posted by: marklyn

Thanks to all the offers I've had, but I finally managed the upgrade. I have a post in this forum describing the upgrade.

Thanks again!

Posted by: swamped

marklyn,

Congratulations, you got the help you needed.

Wish I could say the same. We're still looking at the DSR6K's guts.