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  • #1

    mfsrestore -r 4 command with 251+GB drives

    Hi,

    In the past I used the Hinsdale web page and successfully upgraded my 40GB series 2 to a 250GB Maxtor drive. Recently it started making clunking noises and Tivo has started hanging up; probably an impending drive failure. In all of my PCs I use WD drives so for my replacement drive I purchased a 320GB WD Enterprise class drive. I downloaded the new 11.8 image from Hinsdale with LB48 support and followed the Hinsdale instructions but I can't get the new drive to work.

    I went to the weaKnees forums and did a lot of reading and found a post that mentioned using "-r 4" when running mfsrestore with a large drive. I searched the Hinsdale page and didn't find any mention of this. Is this command valid with the Hinsdale instructions? I tried incorporating the command with the Hinsdale instructions and got through everything OK and when I tried testing the restored backup image Tivo started booting up and got to a screen that said it was installing a service patch. I let it run for awhile and came back and the screen was black and the hard drive wasn't making any noise so I assumed that something had crashed.

    I put my original 250GB upgraded drive back in and started using Tivo desktop to download my saved shows to a PC that has a lot of space. I then put Tivo in standby mode because my transfer rates go to 3-4mb(everything seemed to be working fine for 4+ hours). I left everything running and my TV turned on while I was doing other things. Around 6:00pm my Tivo powered up and started installing a service update which was still going on as of 7:15pm. After awhile my existing upgraded drive quit making noises but eventually I started hearing drive activity again. I started poking around the forums and found that Tivo v8 software is being distributed now I'm wondering if my WD 320GB test might have been working correctly after I incorporated the "-r 4" command switch with the Hinsdale instructions for mfsrestore; I just gave up in the middle of the service update.

    Questions:
    1) If the "-r 4" command should be used with mfsrestore at what drive size should it be used; what is the cutoff(251+)?

    2) How long should the Tiivo v8 service update take to work? I'm starting to worry that my latest excursion into the silver box has ruined my previous upgrade somehow . I still have my original Tivo drive but for troubleshooting/testing I have used the same commands on the delivered Tivo drive that I used on the attemped upgrade of the 250GB Maxtor drive to the 320GB WD drive.

    Side note: Neither my successfully upgraded 250GB Maxtor drive nor my original 40GB Tivo drive have worked unless the drive jumper is set to CS. When I set the drives to MS neither one will get past the powering up screen before Tivo reboots(set drive to MS per Hinsdale page).

    Any help or noted similar experiences will be appreciated. I have a s2 TCD540040.

    Have a good day,
    murphyld
    Tags: None
  • #2
    Basically, if your drive is getting to the point of installing a s/w update, then you likely restored correctly. It is possible that you have a bad backup. Are you working off a backup made previously, or one that you tried to get from your 'clunking' drive(s)? Ideally, you would be restoring from a known working backup, which would have been made before your TiVo drive started making nasty noises.

    How long has the update been running?

    Comment

    • #3
      Originally posted by WK-Jeff View Post
      Basically, if your drive is getting to the point of installing a s/w update, then you likely restored correctly. ...
      How long has the update been running?
      The Update ran from 6:15pm to 7:30pm at which point the Tivo rebooted and then screen went black after the "a few minutes more" screen. I thought that it might have gone into another setup but apparently it went into standby mode because the Tivo desktop that I had up and running to download my saved shows started downloading again. I didn't discover this until about an hour and a half after the reboot.

      I went ahead and used the 250GB Maxtor with the v8 Tivo software this evening to record some shows which seemed to work ok except during playback at which point Tivo hung up twice. To get Tivo unstuck I would have to go to live TV and then go back to my recording and fast forward to just before the point where the hang ups occured and then continue on.

      I have been thinking about your comment of working with a bad backup made from my failing drive. At this point I'm thinking that it might be better to do another upgrade from my original 40GB Tivo drive to the new 320GB WD drive and continue using Tivo desktop to recover my saved shows from the failing 250GB Maxtor drive, if it will hold out.

      Would it possible to install Red Hat Linux on a PC, attach my Tivo drives and then copy my shows over? If you can do that is it quicker than using the mfstools?

      Comment

      • #4
        Originally posted by Murphyld View Post
        Would it possible to install Red Hat Linux on a PC, attach my Tivo drives and then copy my shows over? If you can do that is it quicker than using the mfstools?
        Sure, but you can also do that from the CD, and there's no long install necessary. The speed of the copy should be essentially identical either way, so if speed was the reason to do the Red Hat install, I'd say: don't bother.
        Been here a long time . . .

        Comment

        • #5
          Originally posted by WK-Michael View Post
          Sure, but you can also do that from the CD, and there's no long install necessary. The speed of the copy should be essentially identical either way, so if speed was the reason to do the Red Hat install, I'd say: don't bother.
          I poked around the net and forums for awhile trying to find the location where the Tivo show recordings are kept and also for Linux file copy commands and then it occurred to me that I should try the direct copy and expand method(dd if=/dev/hdc of=/dev/hdb bs=1024k). At 5:50pm yesterday I put my upgraded 250GB Maxtor drive back in my PC along with my new 320GB drive and entered the command above. It's 7:20am and I can hear a faint drive noise like one of the heads is stepping and I sometimes see the drive light flicker but as of yet I haven't had any kind of error.

          Would it be possible to create a modified version of the Linux dd command for Tivo conversions(mfsdd?) that would produce some kind of screen output to let the user positively know that the system is still running and hasn't hung up on something(block or sector being processed)? On the Hinsdale page it says that the dd command approach generally takes 1-4 hours and could run as long a 8 hours depending on the processor and drive speed(I'm using a P4 3.2EE w/ ATA100 as the slowest drive). Have you ever heard of dd running this long on 250GB drive? Could I have had an errorless crash? As it is I'm afraid to shut down and restart because it is possible that everything is functioning as it should.

          I stated previously that while the 250GB drive was in the Tivo I did hear a clunking noise a couple of times but I haven't ever received a S.M.A.R.T. warning or error when the drive has been connected to my PC.

          Comment

          • #6
            You want to use dd_rescue, which is on the cd we have up at upgrade-instructions. That will give you output and will also help avoid bad sectors.

            Comment

            • #7
              I ran dd_rescue it copied everything over to the new drive in 2:45. Tivo booted up and seems to be fine. I took the new drive back out and ran "mfsadd -x /dev/hdb" which output "Current estimated size: 283 hours. Nothing to add!" 283 is the old upgraded drive size. Previously when I ran mfsrestore I had 363 hours. Is there another option that I should use?

              Comment

              • #8
                There aren't enough partitions to get the extra space if you copied the 250 onto a larger drive. The only way to get the extra space is to copy settings only, and not recordings. If your goal was to save your stuff because your 250gb was failing, then consider yourself lucky that it works. The extra space just isn't going to happen with you upgrade scenario.

                Comment

                • #9
                  Not giving up

                  Now that I've got a useable large drive I'm going to continue downloading my shows to Tivo Desktop. Once that's complete I'll perform another upgrade from my original 40GB Tivo drive to get the full 363 hours and then recover my shows from Tivo Desktop. It'll be time consuming but I'll get everything.

                  The 250GB Maxtor drive is still under warrantly so it's not a total loss. Thanks for your help.

                  Comment

                  • #10
                    Does swapfile size affect Tivo performance?

                    Will I get better performance with the swapfile set to 300 instead of 127?

                    Comment

                    • #11
                      Does swapfile size affect Tivo performance?

                      Nevermind. I found a website that said to use a 127MB swapfile for drive sizes up to 274GB and for drive sizes larger than 274GB to take the total drive size and dived by 2 to the the appropriate swapfile size in MB. 320GB drive=160MB swapfile.

                      Thanks anyway.

                      Comment

                      • #12
                        Actually, any size larger than 127 MB is very complicated to create, and if you just do it with the "-s 160" switch, it won't get created at all. We really do recommend just 127 for technical reasons.
                        Been here a long time . . .

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