TiVo Community Forums Archives - Using former windows HD?

TiVoCommunity.com
(c)opyright 1995-2005 All rights reserved
indexcheckTC
This area is a static history of posts in the TiVo Community Forum Archive.
This archive history was made for the simple indexing of search sites like Google.

Pages:1

Using former windows HD?
(Click here to view the original thread with full colors/images)

Posted by: AAhitman

My HD died on my gxcebot and was wondering can I use a WD 40gb HD from my computer and just reformat it as FAT32 and then restore a backup image? My compter runs WinXP and the drive is D drive with nothing on it just formated for use.

Posted by: drmcm

Yes, you can use a drive that was formatted for Windows (or whatever). I think MFStools will give you a warning that you are about to erase the drive, so just make extra-sure you're erasing the correct hard drive, and then it will be reformatted a-la-TiVo.

-Mike

Posted by: AAhitman

I've read the instructions about MFS tools and done a search on this subject but I can't find the commands to make it do a reformat. Can you help with this?

Posted by: AAhitman

OK I played around trying to restore an image to the drive but it tells me it's not large enough. It is correctly reporting the drive as a WD 40GB drive. What am I doing wrong?

Posted by: flyersfan

Hard drive manufacturers round their numbers when reporting gigs. Your Tivo drive is bigger than the WD you're trying to use now... it might be bigger by only a byte, but that's enough of a difference for the restore to fail.

You'll need a bigger drive... 60, 80, & 120 gig drives are all around $1/gig if you shop around.

Posted by: Robert S

You may need to reduce the size of the swap partition slightly. Try -s 56.

Posted by: AAhitman

When I boot using MFStools and hit shift+pageup it reports hdc as 40021 MB and gives this error code

hdc: dma_intr: error=0x84 {DriveStatusError BadCRC}
hdc: dma_intr: status=0x51 {DriveReady SeekComplete Error}

I'm not sure what all that means.

Posted by: Robert S

That's not good! Run diagnostics (get from WD's support site) on it before you commit to it as a TiVo drive.

Posted by: AAhitman

Ran the diagnostics and it said everything was OK. Ran the full erase on the disk too and no longer get the error messages. Still says it is too small so I guess I will go buy a bigger HD.

Posted by: Robert S

Have you tried different -s values? You can go a lot lower than 56 if you have to.

Posted by: AAhitman

I bought a new 60 GB HD and the image restored just fine but now all I get is the a few more seconds please screen. Could this be a bad image or do I have another problem?

Posted by: Robert S

That's strange. 'Almost there' is printed when Linux starts its boot script. When MyWorld starts it replaces it with the TiVo interface screens. Therefore, if you get stuck here it means that Linux has started, but MyWorld hasn't.

Typically this is caused by one of three things, corrupt MFS Partitions, a failed modem (there's a command called modemtest in the boot script which can hang if the modem is broken) or a failing power supply.

I'd be quite surprised if the problem was your hard drive or backup as the image has installed well enough to boot Linux.

You might want to try deleting /tvbin/modemtest to see if that clears the problem.

Posted by: AAhitman

I'm not a real good Linux person so I will have to have some help here. What partition is it in and and what command do I use. Also it is not currently hooked to a phone line (if that makes a difference). I've also read here that going to a 7200 rpm HD instead of a 5400 rpm HD could give the power supply a hard time since it needs more power. If I metered the PS what should I be looking for at the HD connector? And if it is bad where can I get a new one, Hughes?

Posted by: Robert S

You'd have to ask ElectricLegs or weaknees about your powersupply.

To delete modemtest, you need to mount your active root partition, which will be either

mount /dev/hdc4 /mnt

or

mount /dev/hdc7 /mnt

(one will fail with an error about specifing file system type).

Then delete the file

rm /mnt/tvbin/modemtest

and unmount the partition

umount /mnt

(note: umount, NOT unmount!)

Posted by: AAhitman

OK deleted the modemtest line and still have same problem. I guess the next step is the power supply. Thanks for your help.