Registered: Jun 2004
Location:
Posts: 27

The drives capacities are reported in MiB like you stated. I just shortened them

The msinfo on the original Tivo A(80GB) and B drives(120GB) are as follows:

MFS volume set contains 8 partitions
/dev/hda10 MFS partition size 256 MiB
/dev/hda11 MFS partition size 16206 MiB
/dev/hda12 MFS partition size 256 MiB
/dev/hda13 MFS partition size 20991 MiB
/dev/hda14 MFS partition size 0 MiB
/dev/hda15 MFS partition size 38112 MiB
/dev/hdb2 MFS partition size 0 MiB
/dev/hdb3 MFS partition size 114472 MiB

Total MFS volume size 190295 Mib
estimated hours in a standalone Tivo: 223
This MFS volume may be expanded 2 more times

Any suggestions?

POST #21 | Report this post to a moderator | IP: Logged

Registered: Jun 2004
Location:
Posts: 27

Robert -

when I tried the -lpi instead of xpi the following was reported

Restore failed: Unknown backup format
Scanning source drive. Please wait a moment

Source drive is 39 hrs
- upgraded to 79 hrs
- upgraded to 223 hrs
Uncompressed backup size: 188707 megabytes

POST #22 | Report this post to a moderator | IP: Logged

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

It's not looking very hopeful, I'm afraid. Although MFS Tools can move partitions between drives, it doesn't look like there's a configuration where that's possible here - the 120Gb partition is too big to move to the A drive and there isn't room for any more partitions to go on to the B drive with that big partition.

I'm wondering if it would work with 160Gb drives, but even then, I don't think there's room (you'd get 128MiB out of one of those drives, 114+16 = 130).

So unless you do the kernel patch, which is a major undertaking, I don't think you can expand that image again.

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

POST #23 | Report this post to a moderator | IP: Logged

Registered: Jun 2004
Location:
Posts: 27

Robert

Boy you are up late.

I do have a 160GB drive I could try. should I use that as the "A" or "B" drive. Do you think it is worth a try? Can I do anything with pdisk?

POST #24 | Report this post to a moderator | IP: Logged

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

Hmm, yes. Perhaps I would have spotted that the partition copy thing wouldn't work if I'd gone to bed earlier...

Anyway, like I said, it's not going to work unless you replace the kernel so you can use the full capacity of the disk. You can try doing the copy in an LBA-48 enviroment to see if it'll work. (If it doesn't then obviously there's no point doing the kernel hack).

I haven't been following the discussion on LBA-48 and Series 2 TiVoes (no-one talks about it here, and the chances of me ever getting a Series 2 TiVo seem slim, at best), but it's more involved than the Series 1 procedure.

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

POST #25 | Report this post to a moderator | IP: Logged

Registered: Jun 2004
Location:
Posts: 27

I think I answered my own question. The "A" drive partition table is full, so to expand it I need to move some partitions off of it onto B. B has one large partition which fills the drive, but has the ability to expand partitions, but would need a bigger drive. If I put the 160GB drive as the new B drive and then the 120Gb as the new A drive. MFStools should be able to move one of the partitions off of A drive onto B. Then it should be able to expand A and expand B. I do not want to mess with the kernal so I will only be able to use 137GB of space on the 160GB.

Does that sound about right?
I really appreciate all your help.

Any idea when will Tivo support LBA48. I originally bought a 250GB drive to use in the Tivo until I found out that it would not support it. That is what started me down this rat-hole.

POST #26 | Report this post to a moderator | IP: Logged

Registered: Jun 2004
Location:
Posts: 27

I may just be out of luck.

I tried the 160Gb drive as the new "B" drive and it still gave me the same error message when I did the mfsbackup .... | mfsrestore.... command. So it must not be able to move the smaller partition on the A drive to the b drive and fit it under 137GB. There probably is no good way to break-up that lareg 114GB partition on B drive is there?

If I did not care about the recordings and stuff what could I do?

POST #27 | Report this post to a moderator | IP: Logged

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

To do the upgrade without the recordings, all you do is make a compressed backup and restore it to the new drives.

The recordings will still be on the original drive set, of course, if you want to go back to them later.

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

POST #28 | Report this post to a moderator | IP: Logged

Registered: Jun 2004
Location:
Posts: 27

Robert -

A couple of more questions. Is there a way to collapse a couple of partitions into one larger partition with MFStools or other tools?

Is MFStools smart enough to move partitions between drives when upgrading a two drive system?

POST #29 | Report this post to a moderator | IP: Logged

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

No, you can't resize or merge MFS partitions with MFS Tools (or anything else I know of). MFS Tools can discard empty partitions when it makes a backup and it can create new partitions to expand an image. It never alters the properties of an existing partition.

I believe MFS Tools would move the partitions around to make room to upgrade the A drive, there just isn't room to do that in your case. Although, to be completely open, I don't recall actually seeing that happen in practice. It happens routinely with people upgrading single-drive machines, though.

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

POST #30 | Report this post to a moderator | IP: Logged

Registered: Jun 2004
Location:
Posts: 27

If you look at Post #21 on this. MFS Partition hda14 has 0 MiB. If this was discarded would the partition table still be full or could it be expanded then.

POST #31 | Report this post to a moderator | IP: Logged

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

Yes, but that's the App partition that's paired with Media partition #15. If you separate those, the TiVo won't boot.

I don't know why it was designed this way, but that's the way it is. (Admittedly, TiVo themselves would never do such upgrades themselves and didn't envisage that TiVo owners would want to do it themselves).

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

POST #32 | Report this post to a moderator | IP: Logged