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BootCD - Which IDE ?

Hi there:

First thanks to all the great work from both the experienced & the novices and the great questions that have been asked that have also helped me.

STATUS.
I've read ton's of posts & threads about an upgrade over the last three months including the FAQ ! I have my two Maxtor 81.9GB drives (one DIAMONDMAX 80 & one 536DX) and have run the installation, burn in (includes the basic & advanced tests) & low level write tests on both drives both before & after changing the settings (amset & wvset to off & udmaupdt to 33). I have downloaded the BootCD image & burned a CDRW. I have a Dell Dimension XPS-T600r (P3-600) with 384MB RAM & the latest BIOS.

QUESTION.
If I connect my TiVo drive to Sec.Master & first Maxtor biggie to the Sec.Slave should I put the CDRW on the Primary Master or Primary Slave ? I've read several times that nothing should be on the Primary IDE but also that it doesn't matter with the CD process. Will it boot from the CDRW if I change the BIOS to boot from the CD ?

Thanks,

Ready to upgrade tomorrow night !

Simon


[This message has been edited by scweston (edited 08-14-2001).]

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In your BIOS settings, you will find a boot sequence. On my Dell(same as yours), the factory sequence is Floppy, Drive C, then CD-ROM. Toggle this setting so that the system will boot from your new CD-ROM first. Should be no problem.

------------------
Kevin

Philips HDR 212 w/(2) 100GB drives

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Oh BTW, you do not need to physically change the cable settings for your CD drive...

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Kevin

Philips HDR 212 w/(2) 100GB drives

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Thanks Kevin:

The CDRW is on Sec.Master at the moment so I'll have to change the cable connections to make it Primary Master, right ?

Or should I leave the CDRW on Sec.Master & put the TiVo drive on Primary Slave & the Maxtor on Sec.Slave ? This of course would require a change in the backup command (should be no problem to me).

Simon

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Registered: Dec 2000
Location: The twinless city.
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As far as the CD is concerned, it can be anywhere and still boot. The only unknown is whether your BIOS has some specific requirements regarding where a cdrom should be to be bootable. Seeing it's a Dell machine, and knowing what incredibly broken BIOSes Dell ships usually, I wouldn't be surprised if indeed you will have to move your cdrom unit to a primary position. However, if you're already booted from the cd unit before (maybe when installing Windows or something) in its current position, the bootable CD should boot just as well.

------------------
<FONT size="1">Some people have told me they don't think a fat penguin really embodies the grace of Linux, which
just tells me they have never seen a angry penguin charging at them in excess of 100mph. They'd be a
lot more careful about what they say if they had.</FONT s>
<FONT size="2"> -- Linus Torvalds</FONT s>

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Thanks !

Looks like I will leave the CDRW on Sec. Master (tell the BIOS to boot from CD) & put the TiVo drive on Primary Slave & the Maxtor on Sec.Slave ? Then copy the Primary slave to the Sec. Slave. N.B. the Primary Master will be unused.

We'll see how it works - I'm getting all excited !!

Simon

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Registered: Dec 2000
Location: Jamestown, RI
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quote:

---

Originally posted by kazymyr:
As far as the CD is concerned, it can be anywhere and still boot. The only unknown is whether your BIOS has some specific requirements regarding where a cdrom should be to be bootable.

---

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Hi All:

Status.
Did HD tests with the two 81.9GB Maxtor drives on Primary Master & Primary Secondary.
Swapped the TiVo 30GB Quantum with the Primary Master drive & then switched the IDE cables on the motherboard so that the CDRW became Primary Master & the drives were on the Secondary IDE. Note my system doesn't recognise slave drives unless there is a master!
The Quantum was locked so I put in my Maxtor utils floppy which I'd already copied dglchk.exe to & unlocked the drive, removed the floppy, put the BootCD in & did CTRL-ALT-DEL. All worked OK and the backup is in progress.

Questions.
1) Did I need to unlock the drive manually as I remembered later something about the CD doing it automatically ? I might be helping someone else after my upgrade and the fewer steps the better :-)

2) I know this is a dumb question but when the backup is done, assuming it is OK how do I start the TiVoMad Utility ? I am going to replace the original TiVo HD with the second Maxtor & switch the cables & jumpers to make the first Maxtor the master & the second Maxtor the slave. Do I do CTRL-ALT-DEL & see the boot process recognise the status of my drives & start the TiVoMad utility or do I boot & then start the process manually (and if so how ?) ?

3) I intend to use ZapTiVo (or the Tiger util if it is out) on the original Quantum eventually so as to get a CD-R backup or half-dozen (in safe places). This will then free up my Quantum. Can a locked drive be permanently unlocked for use in a PC if totally reformatted ? This has probably been asked before so if the answer is yes then just a pertinent link will do & I'll followup on the thread.

Off to bed to get some sleep while the backup is going - fingers crossed !

Thanks to everyone for these great utilities and even better support.

Simon
P.S. Funny story, I got the TiVo open with the Torx screwdriver & got the HD & bracket out. However, the Torx screws holding the HD to the bracket were bigger ! So while cursing I drove to Radio Shack with my Torx screwdriver in hand to get the next size up as well. I walked up to the shelves, saw my screwdriver in the packet on the wall, looked at mine, pulled off the handle and stuck the other end in revealing the next size up, drove home feeling rather sheepish !

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1. if you use the cd you don't need dlgchk. The cd does the unlocking.

2. type "mad/setup.sh"

3. I have no idea.



------------------
<FONT size="1">Some people have told me they don't think a fat penguin really embodies the grace of Linux, which
just tells me they have never seen a angry penguin charging at them in excess of 100mph. They'd be a
lot more careful about what they say if they had.</FONT s>
<FONT size="2"> -- Linus Torvalds</FONT s>

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Well the backup finished OK 916146+0 records in & out. I managed to figure out how to run the TiVoMad utility, I did cd Mad32 & then setup.sh. All went OK & I put the drives in the TiVo & booted. It all worked & I got 198h24m basic! Then I unplugged the TiVo, put the cover on and powered it up again.

PROBLEM !

Now I just get a grey screen saying "Almost there, a few more seconds please..." which blinks on and off every few seconds. I tried unplugging the TiVo, waiting a few minutes and then plugging in again to no avail.

What happened ?

Thanks,

Simon
P.S. My wife is scowling at me as today is a vacation day !

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Registered: Apr 2001
Location: Hinsdale, IL, US
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quote:

---

Originally posted by scweston:
3) I intend to use ZapTiVo (or the Tiger util if it is out) on the original Quantum eventually so as to get a CD-R backup or half-dozen (in safe places). This will then free up my Quantum. Can a locked drive be permanently unlocked for use in a PC if totally reformatted ?

---

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Thanks Hinsdale - Got it !

However, I'm going to wait for a few weeks to see if the new system settles in and works reliably first...

Simon
P.S. Still having this grey screen problem for about 15 minutes now, I'm going to open it back up check all the connections and jumpers and restart although it worked before ????

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Registered: Apr 2001
Location: Hinsdale, IL, US
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quote:

---

Originally posted by scweston:
Well the backup finished OK 916146+0 records in & out. I managed to figure out how to run the TiVoMad utility, I did cd Mad32 & then setup.sh. All went OK & I put the drives in the TiVo & booted. It all worked & I got 198h24m basic! Then I unplugged the TiVo, put the cover on and powered it up again.

PROBLEM !

Now I just get a grey screen saying "Almost there, a few more seconds please..." which blinks on and off every few seconds. I tried unplugging the TiVo, waiting a few minutes and then plugging in again to no avail.

What happened ?

Thanks,

Simon
P.S. My wife is scowling at me as today is a vacation day !

---

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SUCCESS !

I opened 'er up & found the second drive IDE cable was wonky. I rechecked all the cables & power connectors & the jumpers & powered on again. It sat at the grey wait screen for about 10 minutes - no blinking this time. Powered off for 3 minutes & powered on & up pops Mr TiVo within 30 seconds - all is well !!!!!!!!!!!!

Temp is 37C at the moment - will check again later after its been running awhile.

THANKS !

Simon

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Registered: Mar 2000
Location: Van Buren, Ark. USA
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Simon, if you have time you might want to post a detailed log of your experience which could be helpful to others. As a low tech person I did this a while back, being as detailed as possible, and several posters have indicated the log was helpful to them. My log was before the availability of the CDRom bootable version.

Jim West

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Jim:

In summary I followed the superbly written FAQ & read a lot of posts, including yours !

Step 1:
Create a Windows 98 boot floppy.

Step 2:
Download the following files & put them in a special TiVo folder. Double click on them to extract the files & copy all extracted files to the boot floppy.
From : www.maxtor.com
pwrdiag.exe
setacm.exe
66to100.exe
setwrtvr.exe
dlgchk.zip - from the link in the FAQ 2.15
(N.B. this one isn't actually needed)

Step 2:
Download the BootCD image from FAQ 2.12 link & burn it to a CD-RW with Easy CD Creator.

Step 3:
Remove all HD in computer for safety. Put two Maxtor 81.9GB drives (one DIAMONDMAX 80 & one 536DX) on Primary Master & Primary Slave. CDRW is on Secondary Master. Set jumpers on the Maxtors to Master and Slave respectively.

Step 4:
Boot the computer with the boot floppy in (ensure your BIOS is set to boot from a removable drive at some point). Enter the BIOS setup by hitting 'DEL' & turn off all power management options & check the BIOS recognises the drive sizes correctly. I had to backtrack to step 3 & download the latest BIOS & install it at this point for my DELL even though it was &lt;1 year old & then restart at step 3.

Step 5:
At the DOS prompt type 'powermax' & select the first drive & run the installation test on both drives (the instructions are simple). Then run the 'burn in' (includes the basic & advanced tests) test for 1 cycle & then & low level write test. Then switch to the second drive and repeat the same tests. Exit powermax by hitting 'ESC' until you get out.

Step 6:
CTRL-ALT-DEL to reboot.
amset /off
POWER CYCLE
wvset /off
POWER CYCLE
udmaupdt /dma:2
POWER CYCLE

This changes the setting on both Maxtors at the same time.

Step 7:
Repeat everything in Step 5 & then remove the floppy.

Step 8:
Switch the Primary & Master IDE cables on the motherboard around so the the CDRW is now Primary Master & the Secondary Master & Slave have the big Maxtors (pretty neat switch or so I thought ). Remove the Secondary Master Maxtor.

Step 9:
Open TiVo & remove Quantum drive following FAQ 2.9. Remember your Torx screwdriver may have both sizes, try pulling the handle off !

Step 10:
Set jumpers on Quantum to Master & put in Secondary Master position in computer.

Step 11:
Put CD-RW boot disk into CD drive & reboot the computer & enter BIOS setup by hitting 'DEL'. Change boot options to boot from CDRW first.

Step 12:
At this point I checked the drive size of the Quantum & found it to be 10GB thus locked, see FAQ 2.12. I put the boot floppy back in & removed the CDRW, rebooted, ran dlgchk.exe from DOS, removed the floppy, put in the CDRW, rebooted & checked the BIOS & saw the Quantum registering as 30GB.
THIS STEP WAS ALL OPTIONAL AS THE CD WILL AUTOMATICALLY UNLOCK THE DRIVE - I JUST FORGOT !

Step 13:
Exit the BIOS & allow the CDRW to boot into linux. Hit 'ENTER' at the prompt & then type 'root' at the login prompt.

Step: 14:
Type 'dd if=/dev/hdc of=/dev/hdd bs=32k' as in FAQ 2.12 & wait several hours. Result;
916146+0 records in
916146+0 records out

Step 15:
Power Off. Remove Quantum drive & put the Maxtor (TiVo copy) on Secondary Slave on Secondary Master & change the jumpers. Put the second (blank) Maxtor on Secondary Slave & change the jumpers.

Step 16:
Power On & allow the CDRW to boot into linux. Hit 'ENTER' at the prompt & then type 'root' at the login prompt. Type 'cd mad32' then 'setup.sh' to run the TiVoMad utility. Answer the questions - they are very clear, see FAQ 3.19. TiVoMad utility finishes OK.

Step 17:
Power Off. Remove the two Maxtor drives (jumpers are now correctly set) & put the master drive in the TiVo where the Quantum was & put the other in the blank space. I put little rubber feat with sticky pads on the bracket to aid with ventilation. Connect the IDE cables and the power cables - DO NOT TOUCH THE POWER SUPPLY.

Step 18:
Power up the TiVo - everything works and I have 198h24m basic. Power off, put the lid back on & power up. TiVo has problems getting past the grey wait screen (see previous posts). Power off, take the top off, re-attach a dislodged IDE cable, power on first time & it stuck at the grey wait screen. Power Cycle with a 3 minute wait and everything is rosy ! Temp =37C, Temp 6 hours later = 39C.

Step 19:
Put your computer back together & make sure it all works !

Thanks to all who pioneered this & I hope this little contribution will come in helpful.

Simon

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Simon -

Good summary. The one thing that you may have missed is booting the CD with the "noswap" option when you are making the copy of your drive. It allows DMA addressing for the hard drives, and basically makes them work much faster. I'm not sure how long your copy took, but it only takes about 40 minutes copying a 30 gig drive on my machine with "noswap". Then when you need to run the other utilities, you just reboot from the CD and hit "enter" as you said in your note...

- Alex

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alex ciurczak

[This message has been edited by aciurczak (edited 08-16-2001).]

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Don't know how long the backup took as I went to bed but it was &gt;4 hours so your 40 minutes was way quicker. I knew about the noswap option being quicker but wasn't sure of the consequences so I just stuck to the default. Must be the default for a reason, right ?

Simon

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quote:

---

Originally posted by aciurczak:
...The one thing that you may have missed is booting the CD with the "noswap" option when you are making the copy of your drive. It allows DMA addressing for the hard drives, and basically makes them work much faster.

---

i've seen innumerable references to byteswapping but i'm Linux-illiterate and have no idea what it means. is it some Linux vs DOS/Windows thing? why is it okay to turn off byteswapping for copying, but not for the other utilities? how am i supposed to know when to use it and when not to?



[This message has been edited by GreenLantern (edited 08-16-2001).]

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Registered: Dec 2000
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quote:

---

Originally posted by scweston:
Don't know how long the backup took as I went to bed but it was &gt;4 hours so your 40 minutes was way quicker. I knew about the noswap option being quicker but wasn't sure of the consequences so I just stuck to the default. Must be the default for a reason, right ?

Simon

---

Actually, my reasoning when I made the default byteswapped, is that you'll likely only backup once, and ideally have to restore - never (those being the instances when you don't want byteswapping so it's quicker), but for hacking reasons, when you want the bswap to take place, it's easier to have it default because you'll use it several times maybe. Well, OK, I was thinking more of me and other tinkerers, rather than the regular users. Does this make any sense?



------------------
<FONT size="1">Some people have told me they don't think a fat penguin really embodies the grace of Linux, which
just tells me they have never seen a angry penguin charging at them in excess of 100mph. They'd be a
lot more careful about what they say if they had.</FONT s>
<FONT size="2"> -- Linus Torvalds</FONT s>

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