Registered: Apr 2003
Location: Sunnyvale, CA
Posts: 16

X-post from TiVo Help Center...since I am not sure which forum it should be in.

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-v...threadid=111110

If anyone has answers, they will be my hero for today. :-)

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Registered: Apr 2003
Location: Sunnyvale, CA
Posts: 16

Please help...anyone!

1. Is there a way for me to test the drives from my machine (original 40G and aftermarket 120G)? I only have a PC with XP on it...

2. If the drives are ok, and I buy a new Hughes receiver, can I just drop the drives into it?

3. If the drives are dead, and I buy new ones for this receiver, is there a way for me to restore the image from my original 40G drive (made before I upgraded) with only a computer running XP?

Two days without the TiVo now, and I feel like a heroin addict going through withdrawals....

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Registered: Aug 2000
Location: Nashua, NH
Posts: 7476

Ignore what your PC has installed on it - doesn't matter.

You could run the Maxtor MAXDIAG diagnostic on the disk (boots from a floppy), but this isn't a particularly good diagnostic - the drive has to be pretty much dead in the water before it will fail.

You cannot mount the drives in a new receiver and do anything useful. If you put them in another DSR6000, you'll get "Error 51" which requires you to do a clear and delete everything. If you put them in the new Hughes HDVR2 it won't even boot.

Since you have a backup, you could boot the Linux "TiVo boot CD" and use the dd command to copy the backup disk to the new one. Alternatively, you could use MFS Tools to do a small backup to a FAT partition on another disk (if you have one) and then restore to the new disk (this will be faster.)

Do not let your PC boot into Windows with your TiVo drives attached.

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Steve

One thousand three hundred thirty-three, zero

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Registered: Jul 2002
Location: Cambridgeshire, UK
Posts: 9266

Yes, download PowerMax (Maxtor/Quantum), or whatever diagnostic is appropriate for your B drive (look at the support section of your drive manufacturer's website).

These diagnostics run from a boot floppy, so you can disconnect your XP drive while you run them.

DTiVoes encrypt their recordings, so you can not move recordings between different DTiVoes (you have to do a 'Clear and Delete Everything' reset before you can use it). You can't use Sony software in a Hughes TiVo.

If the drive is OK, though, you could use MFS Tools to prepare it for use in the new TiVo.

The problems with XP are that it writes a signature to the drives that will make the TiVo unbootable. Do not let XP boot while you have a TiVo drive connected.

Also Linux has read-only support for NTFS, so it's tricky to make a backup if your C: drive is formatted NTFS. (Put a small FAT partition on a spare hard drive (like, say, the one you're about to upgrade with) and backup to that before you do the upgrade).

Your symptoms don't exactly scream 'hard drive'. I'd be checking that the power cables are tight (particularly the one from the PSU to the mainboard).

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Please do not PM me asking for TiVo backups. I don't have any.

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Registered: Oct 2001
Location: Silicon Valley
Posts: 3135

1. You can test the drives by downloading the Maxtor diagnostic (or equivalent), creating a bootable DOS floppy, mounting your TiVo drives into your computer and running the diagnostic.

2. You cannot put the drives into any other TiVo and keep the material on them ( I assume you are trying to not loose recorded material.)

3. Whether your computer is running XP or not is immaterial. Just do NOT boot into XP with a TiVo drive connected. You do need a FAT32 partition to write a backup into if you backup any drive.

4. You said (in other post) that your original 40GB drive does not boot up in the TiVo. That should be cause for concern.

5. Your original .bak file can be restored to any drive 40GB or larger - not smaller.

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TOTAL Digital

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Registered: Apr 2003
Location: Sunnyvale, CA
Posts: 16

quote:

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Originally posted by Robert S
Do not let XP boot while you have a TiVo drive connected.

Your symptoms don't exactly scream 'hard drive'. I'd be checking that the power cables are tight (particularly the one from the PSU to the mainboard).

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Registered: Jul 2002
Location: Cambridgeshire, UK
Posts: 9266

If the TiVo boots at all (past the first 'powering up' splash screen), even if it then crashes, the drives have not been affected by XP.

Run PowerMax on the drives and see if it tells you anything useful (my guess is it won't, but it will save a lot of bother if it does).

Beyond that, if you're happy to lose your recordings, put an A drive image on both of the drives and see if the TiVo misbehaves with one but not the other.

It's unlikely that both drives are faulty. You can use the standard upgrade tools (MFS Tools 2.0 should do the trick) to prepare the hard drives for use in a different TiVo if you eliminate it/them as the cause of the problem.

It's not so much that the cables fail, but the connectors work loose. It would definitely be worth remaking the mainboard power connection. In the same vein, you might want to talk to weaknees about checking your power supply. Power problems cause TiVoes to behave really strangely. Hard drive problems are usually a bit more consistent.

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Please do not PM me asking for TiVo backups. I don't have any.

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Registered: Apr 2003
Location: Sunnyvale, CA
Posts: 16

Ok, well the original 40G drive boots past the "Welcome. Powering up..." screen, and resets about 5 seconds after getting to the "Almost there. A few more seconds..." screen. Does this mean that the drive was not affected by the XP boot? Does this mean that this is the drive with the problem? Or will this not boot without a B drive now?

I really didn't want to lose my recordings, but it doesn't look like I have much choice now. So, how do I copy my tivo.bak from my XP hard drive onto the 120G drive to see if that drive is still functional? Is there any way other than to create a Win98 drive?

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Registered: Jul 2002
Location: Cambridgeshire, UK
Posts: 9266

Like I said, if you get past 'powering up', XP didn't affect it. 'Almost there' is printed by Linux when it starts the boot sequence. It's eventually replaced by the TiVo interface when that starts up.

A two-drive TiVo needs both drives for the interface to run - sticking at 'Almost there' is the expected behaviour for a twin drive TiVo with a missing B drive. I don't /think/ the XP signature breaks the B drive.

You should be able to mount your C: drive (it'll be read-only, but that's fine) to restore the backup.

But like I keep saying, I think you've got a power problem, so if your drives pass diagnostics I would be talking to weaknees rather than hosing your recordings.

If you can borrow a suitably large hard drive, you might be able to establish that your TiVo is faulty without reimaging your drives.

If the power supply is faulty, fixing it will save your recordings, but if the fault requires a mainboard replacement, your recordings are lost.

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Please do not PM me asking for TiVo backups. I don't have any.

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