Registered: May 2004
Location:
Posts: 2

newbie q here so please play nice...
in terms of networking with the tivo, installing backdoor,ghosting a new hard drive etc- can this stuff be done using mac os x or does it require a pc?? I have a linux box also that is currently dead- I may resurrect it if it is my only choice here...
thanks for any help

POST #1 | Report this post to a moderator | IP: Logged

Registered: Oct 2002
Location: Maryland, USA
Posts: 139

quote:

---

Originally posted by macattak
in terms of networking with the tivo, installing backdoor,ghosting a new hard drive etc- can this stuff be done using mac os x or does it require a pc?? I have a linux box also that is currently dead- I may resurrect it if it is my only choice here...
thanks for any help

---

MacTivo Blesser can do some of what you might want to do:

http://www.weaknees.com/mactivo.php

From that page: "MacTiVo Blesser is a collection of software written by Eric Wagner for free distribution. MacTiVo Blesser is a formatting utility that sets Linux partitions on IDE drives for use in TiVos as "B" drives. In many cases, TiVos with one hard drive can simply "Bless" their new drive and add it - then the TiVo automatically uses it for extra recording capacity. MacTiVo Blesser performs the same function as the Linux BlessTiVo does."

As you can see, that's fine as far as it goes, but it's not nearly enough. I've been running Macs for twenty years, and I love them, so I regret having to tell you that there's no way to do the really gritty work of upgrading, copying, etc., with a Mac. I upgraded my SAT-T60s using mfstools on my wife's home-office PC, and when I had to replace one of the upgraded drives, I used the PC again and did the job with dd copy. I didn't have any trouble, despite the dangerous alien environment .

__________________
TiVo is 21st Century Television
-----
Two SAT-T60s, Both at 230 Hours

POST #2 | Report this post to a moderator | IP: Logged

Registered: Aug 2003
Location:
Posts: 716

I believe someone here said he had mfstools working on the Mac, but I haven't seen it for download yet. dd should work just fine, for what it does.

POST #3 | Report this post to a moderator | IP: Logged

Registered: Feb 2002
Location:
Posts: 254

There continues to be hope that a Mac tools package will surface, but it's not here yet.

I ended up tracking down a friend of a friend who is a systems administrator and asked if he had any unused PCs sitting in his basement that I could have. He dug out a Dell Dimension 200 MHz mini-tower that was completely unusable to him but works just fine for doing TiVo upgrade work.

My Philips Series one now sports a 250GB hard disk. I haven't gotten the courage to try any serious software hacking yet, although I suspect a Cache Card and all its fixings will be next in line.

Finding a free PC isn't as easy as just going to the corner store, but they are out there ...

__________________
Philips HDR212 Series 1
Upgraded from one 20GB drive to one 250GB drive
86 hours Best quality
313 hours Basic quality

POST #4 | Report this post to a moderator | IP: Logged

Registered: Jan 2002
Location:
Posts: 20

There is hope!!

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-v...threadid=169883

It looks like Loki has tigers mfstools basically working onder OS X.

POST #5 | Report this post to a moderator | IP: Logged

Registered: Jul 2000
Location: NV, USA
Posts: 23

Well here it is. As far as I know I'm the only one who has used it but the Tivo has been working fine for the past few weeks. I'll also post the version with the DEBUG flags enabled.

Attachment: mfstool.zip
This has been downloaded 781 time(s).

POST #6 | Report this post to a moderator | IP: Logged

Registered: Jul 2000
Location: NV, USA
Posts: 23

Here's the Debug version.

Attachment: mfstooldebug.zip
This has been downloaded 929 time(s).

POST #7 | Report this post to a moderator | IP: Logged

Registered: Jul 2000
Location: NV, USA
Posts: 23

Here's a small utility to determine what disk is what device.

If you are running with an encrypted home directory OS X treats that as a seprate disk drive. Just a warning if it seems like you have too many disks.

Edit: Changed the listing header to the correct units GB instead of MB

Attachment: devmapper1.1.zip
This has been downloaded 868 time(s).

Last edited by Loki on 05-21-2004 at 03:11 AM

POST #8 | Report this post to a moderator | IP: Logged

Registered: Feb 2001
Location: Sunnyvale, CA, USA
Posts: 52

Woh! This is huge! So how would a typical Hinsdale style upgrade instruction go?

1) Remove drive(s) from Tivo.

2) Place in Mac tower (or Firewire cases).

3) Power on Mac (any concern with Mac writing anything to Tivo drives?). I'm assuming they won't mount.

4) Run devmapper app to figure out which drive is which.

5) Perform backup:

mfstool backup ....... (similar flags to what's in Hinsdale; device names called /dev/xxxx)

6) Perform restore or do a dd (would OS X dd work the same?)

7) Put back in Tivo and enjoy.

If this is the case, this is absolutely huge. I've been looking forward to the possibility of doing this for 3 years.

Steve

POST #9 | Report this post to a moderator | IP: Logged

Registered: Aug 2000
Location: Lincoln, NE
Posts: 3582

Now we just need a switch to move drives between two sets of ATA cables, hook TiVo to the drives on A, hook Firewire interfaces to them on B (chained together over Firewire), put a Firewire port on the back of the TiVo, and you can access your drives with the Mac without taking them out of the TiVo. Maybe two Firewire ports so the TiVo doesn't have to be at the end of the chain.

__________________
┌──┬──┐
─├┤┬├┤─ There is no spool.
└─────┘

If you are dissatisfied with your life, return unused portion for partial refund.

POST #10 | Report this post to a moderator | IP: Logged

Registered: Jul 2000
Location: NV, USA
Posts: 23

The Mac will notice the new drive and offer to format it if its from a Series 1. For a series 2 it will recognize the partition layout since Tivo uses the same as Apple's. If you have the ext2 KEXT installed in your system it may mount the ext2 based partitions depending on how you have the extension configured. Unless you take up the offer to format the drive the system will not write anything to the disk.

dd and the mfstool parameters are all the same with the exception that I haven't really tested all the different environmental variable testing and it expects the /dev file to be of the format /dev/disk# where # is the Tivo disk.

You do need to run it with sudo or as root. If you are really paranoid and know what dev your Tivo is you can add yourself to the operator group and add write permission for the operator group for that /dev.

Also the /dev/disk #'s can change between reboots. So make sure to run the devmapper after you've rebooted with the Tivo disk in attached.

POST #11 | Report this post to a moderator | IP: Logged

Registered: Jan 2002
Location:
Posts: 20

quote:

---

Originally posted by Loki

snip

If you have the ext2 KEXT installed in your system it may mount the ext2 based partitions depending on how you have the extension configured.

---

POST #12 | Report this post to a moderator | IP: Logged

Registered: Jul 2000
Location: NV, USA
Posts: 23

Yes, I didn't have it installed when I modified my Series II. The mfstools reads the partition map itself to get the offsets, ext2 KEXT is only required if you want modify any specific ext2 files.

POST #13 | Report this post to a moderator | IP: Logged

Registered: May 2004
Location: Los Angeles, CA
Posts: 3

Thanks Loki for making it possible to do some of this stuff on a Mac. Now, can you tell me what program I use to open devmapper 1.1 and mfstool. I am very familiar with Mac's, but know nothing about linux.

POST #14 | Report this post to a moderator | IP: Logged

Registered: Feb 2001
Location: Sunnyvale, CA, USA
Posts: 52

They're terminal applications. You need to run them from the terminal. The easiest way would be to start terminal and drag and drop the app to the terminal window. Add a '-h' and hit return to see the help commands for either app.

Steve

POST #15 | Report this post to a moderator | IP: Logged

Registered: Jul 2000
Location: NV, USA
Posts: 23

First you need to decompress them if its not done automatically. If you are running panther all you need to do is double click the zip icon for the file.

They both need to run with privileges. Log in with an administrator account. Put the program you want to run that account's Desktop. Start up the Terminal program, usually located in Applications/Utilities; or the X11 program. Type at the prompt:
sudo Desktop/devmapper1.1
It may ask for your password again to confirm that you are an administrator
You should get something like:
[Lokis-Computer:~] Loki% sudo Desktop/devMapper1.1
Password:

Version 1.1
Device Endian Type Size (GiB) Size (GB)
------ ------ ---- ---------- ---------
/dev/disk0 Big Mac 9.57 10.27
/dev/disk1 Big Mac 74.53 80.03
/dev/disk2 Big Mac 11.00 11.81
/dev/disk3 Little Unknown 0.61 0.66

[Lokis-Computer:~] Loki%

The first two drives are real, the third is an encrypted image mounted as part of the file vault system, and the fourth is an audio CD that I'll now make a version 1.2 to identify.

For mfstools its:
sudo Desktop/mfstool

with options same as the linux commands. Here's an expected output :
% sudo Desktop/mfstool
MFSTools 2.0.DARWIN
Usage: Desktop/mfstool <function> <args> or <function> <args>
Available functions:
backup Backup TiVo drive fast and small.
restore Restore mfstool backups to TiVo drive.
add Add partitions to your TiVo MFS volume.
mls List files in the MFS volume.
d Dump raw data from MFS volume.
info Display information about MFS volume.
For help on a particular function: Desktop/mfstool <function> -h

POST #16 | Report this post to a moderator | IP: Logged

Registered: May 2004
Location: Los Angeles, CA
Posts: 3

Loki and Steve, thanks for the help. I have been able to mount DevMapper 1.1 and mfstool. However, I guess I need to know more about using linux commands. For example, after opening mfstool, when I enter <function> -h for "backup", "restore", "add", and "d" I get an explanation. But when I enter "mls" or "info" as the function, I get the following:

-h: Invalid argument
mfs_load_volume_header: mfsvol_read_data: Input/output error
*** malloc[426]: Deallocation of a pointer not malloced: 0x3001e0; This could be a double free(), or free() called with the middle of an allocated block; Try setting environment variable MallocHelp to see tools to help debug

Could you suggest a website that might give me more info on using linux? My operating system is OSX v10.3.3 on a Cube.

POST #17 | Report this post to a moderator | IP: Logged

Registered: Jul 2000
Location: NV, USA
Posts: 23

Short answer is that info and mls don't have help so it ignores the -h flag and tries to open the default drive. Since the default drive wasn't a Tivo or it didn't have permission to read it you get the error message. You'd have the same problem on the Linux side except the error message would probably be just Bus Error for the second line.

As for website suggestions, linux and the BSD OS X are very similar but there are many subtlties. First I'd suggest doing a google search for Introduction to UNIX. That'll take you a long way. After that start looking at the BSD documentation available on the web.

POST #18 | Report this post to a moderator | IP: Logged

Registered: May 2004
Location: Los Angeles, CA
Posts: 3

Well, I've done some reading and have been able to work through my earlier problems. Now I have a new one. I am attempting to restore my Tivo image to an external firewire drive using mfstools for OSX by Loki. The drive is formatted in OSX Extended. I get the message:

"/dev/disk2: Devise busy" and "Restore failed: Unable to open destination device for writing."

I have checked permissions. They allow read/write by me, system, and admin. The disk is not locked. I have identified the disk as "Disk2" and also as "Disk2s3", which are the Disk Identifier as listed in Disk Utility for the Disk and the Volume.

Any suggestions as what to do next?

POST #19 | Report this post to a moderator | IP: Logged

Registered: Apr 2004
Location: Plano, TX
Posts: 229

Is the Disk mounted? You need to make sure MacOS X isn't using it. Just drag it to the trash and try again.

__________________
Steve Martin
ISF Calibrator
Smart Calibration, LLC

POST #20 | Report this post to a moderator | IP: Logged