TiVo Community Forums Archives - Adding B to Already Expanded A

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Adding B to Already Expanded A
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Posted by: willmw

I have a 30hr Philips SA in which I've previously replaced the 30GB A with a 40GB A.

I would now like to add an 80GB B. If I understand correctly it may be (is?) possible to reapply my backup image to the A and then Bless the B and NOT LOSE my recordings on the A. Is that correct?

What are the chances of recording loss in this scenario? Any other problems, gotcha's to look out for?

Posted by: hinsdale

If you try the instructions at Step 7) Option #1 - Preserving Recordings it may work:

Mfs Tools only overwrites the included partitions so, in theory, if you restore the unexpanded image directly back to the source drive, your programs may remain intact. Another plus is that you will not need to increase the swap file (<140GB) so you don't have to worry about that messing things up. I have only seen reports from a few people whom have tried this (have not had need to try it personally - just proposed it as a theory) and if I recall correctly (it was awhile back) one saved all of their recordings and another only saved one of their recordings. So you can try but if you really have anything important I would Save to VCR or watch first.

Report back if you give it a shot.

Posted by: willmw

I went ahead and saved what I really wanted to tape and tried this. Here's what happened:

Restored the Current A Image back to the Current A (40 GB) drive and re-ran TivoMad to re-expand.

Blessed New B (80 GB) drive and added to the TiVo box along with the Current A drive.

I had no problems or errors during any of the above process, but found that the startup animation didn't play through fully (I had seen this before when doing some testing and a restart of the unit then showed the full animation.)

I then checked out my previously recorded programs and found that of the 21 programs I had stored on the system, I kept 12 completely intact. I lost 8 completely and I had 1 Limbo program that kept about 95% of the program but caused TiVo to act strangely when I skipped to the end (instead of getting to the end and asking if I wanted to keep/delete, it just jumped back to the info page for the show). I went ahead and deleted it just to keep from causing any confusion.

On the programs that wouldn't play I got the following Error (for the record in case anyone is still reading and interested):
----------------------------------------------------
ERROR
Error playing a recording
The Recorder was not able to record this program because there was no video signal on the channel. You may have been trying to record on a channel that you don't receive.
----------------------------------------------------

I found no pattern to the keeps/deletes. I had old and new recordings that fell into both categories.

All in all I count this as a Successful upgrade. My Philips unit (originally 1 drive 30 hour unit) now shows:
38hrs, 56min (Best Quality) :)
141hrs, 19min (Basic Quality) :D

I am still trying to do the math on these numbers, since my 40GB only showed about 32 hours and the 80 GB when installed by itself for testing only showed about 88 hours (at basic). :confused:

Posted by: willmw

Almost forgot...
Once again, many THANK YOU's to the folks with the know-how to make these tools available for the rest of us to do these upgrades.

:cool: :cool: :cool: