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I'm sure I messed up my Philips DSR6000
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Posted by: gadgetcraig

HELP! My tivo started to die. I purchased a new 60GB Maxtor drive. I work with PC's all the time, just not Linux. I followed Hinsdale's instructions to create myself a new Tivo A drive. I must have messed up and reversed the drives in the command. Now my Tivo A drive is gone. I downloaded a Tivo image from the FTP site, put it on my new drive but it still doesn't work. So I thought I'd try it again. Now I can't run the MFSTools restore to my new drive or to My original Tivo A drive. Am I out of luck? Is it time to buy a new Tivo?

Craig

I have a Series 1 DirecTv/Tivo. Philips DSR 6000 with a 30GB A Drive
and a 15GB B drive.

Posted by: jerrymc

Craig,

All is not lost, but you're going to have to give us some details if you expect any help. What happens when you load an image to your 60GB drive and try to power up your Tivo? Be specific.

And next time, make a backup first. :)

Regards,
Jerry

Posted by: gadgetcraig

Jerry,

Thanks! Here is what happened. I followed Hinsdale's instructions to copy my old Tivo A to my new Tivo A: Detached my normal C: drive from my PC so I wouldn't mess it up. I liked this option because he said you could do it even if you have Windows XP, which I do. I ran the linux dd copy (dd if=/dev/hdc of=/dev/hdb bs=1024k). It did report X number of blocks in and X blocks out which did match. Then I rejumpered my new Tivo A drive to master, put it in my Tivo and booted up. It just stays on the "Welcome Powering Up" screen. Then I figured out the I must have overwritten my original Tivo A with my new (blank) Tivo A. So I downloaded the latest Tivo build I could find on the FTP site (2.?? Something, I really need 3.1). Ran a MFSRestore to new new Tivo A which went without a flaw, now when I boot the new Tivo A drive in my Tivo it says Welcome Powering Up, and it looks like it is about to start booting up, then it reboots (Continual Loop). Now I can't runs MFSRestore to either my old Tivo A or New Tivo A. It says no space available. Is there a way to erase these drives and start again?

This all started when my Tivo started pausing video. So I figured I would run the Tivo option to delete everything and start fresh. When doing this, when it came up again and dialed in, it downloaded 3.1. That's when the constant rebooting started. I ran for like 2 years on 3.0 with no reboots ever. I called Philips technical support (for $19.95) they said they could fix it for $149, but "It Couldn't be the 3.1 Upgrade - yeah right". I probably did have a bad spot on my hard disk that didn't show up until I upgraded. I do have the latest (4) card in my Tivo.

Thanks,

Let me know if I missed any information you may need.

Craig

Posted by: Robert S

How big is your new drive? How big is the backup you download (the filename should tell you)?

Is the drive being detected as the correct size in the Linux boot sequence?

Posted by: gadgetcraig

Robert,

My new drive is 60GB. The backup I downloaded is 158MB, yes the drive is being detected as the correct size.

Craig

Posted by: Robert S

I don't see why that would prevent MFS Tools working.

You can easily erase what's on the disk:

dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/hdc count=2000

will zero out the first 2Mb - you can set count to any value you like.

I don't think that'll make any difference either.

What is the exact error message from MFS Tools?

Posted by: gadgetcraig

Robert,

The error I'm getting that you were asking about is "Restore Failed: Backup target not large enough for entire backup by itself" and I believe I know why. See below.

I zeroed out the drive. Didn't help. I noticed something. I have 6 partitions??

/dev/hdb10 - 512MiB
/dev/hdb11 - 11403MiB
/dev/hdb12 - 512MiB
/dev/hdb13 - 15746MiB
/dev/hdb14 - 4MiB
/dev/hdb15 - 14320MiB

Total MFS volume Size 42497MiB (it's a 60GB drive)
May be expanded 3 more times.

Is this normal? Did I do something wrong? Did mfsadd do this when I ran it? Can the partitions be deleted?

Thanks again!!!

Craig

Posted by: Robert S

I assume that's the output of mfsinfo? Partitions 1-9 are system partitions that mfsinfo doesn't report on.

If you boot byteswapping (not easy from the MFS Tools 2.0 CD, get Dylan's boot floppy) you can use pdisk to manipulate the partition table, although it's not immediately obvious to me how that could help you.

Your A drive's partition table is full (you only have 16 slots in the map, and each expansion adds a pair of MFS partitions), so mfsadd can't expand any further (mfsinfo seems confused on this point).

You didn't really answer my question about the backup you downloaded (I mentioned the filename for a reason - the size of the file is meaningless). Is it possible you've got a twin-drive backup? That would explain why your A drive is full (13 partitions from the A drive + two from the B) without filling the disk. In that case you'll have to download a single-drive backup instead.

Posted by: gadgetcraig

Robert,

I downloaded DSR6000_200_2drv. Sorry I didn't include this information the first time.

Craig

Posted by: Robert S

I would infer that "2drv" means "two drives", so my supposition was correct.

You will have to get a single drive image if you want to fill your whole drive. (Twin drive images would only be useful for restoring the original drives in a twin drive TiVo. For upgrading to a larger disk the single drive image would always be better.

Posted by: gadgetcraig

Robert,

Thanks! I downloaded the single drive image. Restored it successfully to my new drive after I wiped the partitions in Windows XP. Now it says "Welcome Powering Up" then reboots. Same as with when I had the 2 drive backup image. I even unplugged my second drive in my Tivo to see if that helped nothing. AHHH. I just can't figure this out. It is a 2.0 image. Do I have to run TivoBless before it will even see it?

Craig

Posted by: gadgetcraig

I figured something out! My post from before showed all the partitions. I figured out thats what happens when doing a 1 drive or 2 drive Mfsrestore to the new drive. Mfsinfo will see all those partitions that the restore has created. As soon as I run BlessTiVo then mfsinfo can't read the partition table anymore. Any Ideas anyone???

Craig

Posted by: Digitaldiver

I just completed the same operation - replacing a failing 40GB with a 60GB. Instead of Hindale, I downloaded Surgeon's 25xtreme image. Worked like a charm. Just burn the image on a CD, boot from the CD, and follow the VERY simple instructions. Virtually no Linux knowledge required.

You'll get v2.5 of the software, but connect it back to the satellite and phone line, and it'll self-upgrade back to 3.1.xxxx overnight - and restore your local channels, too.