ok if i heard of a quality setting i sure had forgotten it, but the way it was refusing to record simply did not make sense; was, I mean is. it records one show thats 1 hour but doesnt record a show thats 30 min, it also said that it would delete then re record a newer version of the same episode (cant recall the exact wording) ? But i used to have shows that stayed there for over a year (when i used it in 2006) and newer showings of the same episode took place all year and it never re recorded them.

Is there more information about what mfsrestore and mfsbackup do at the code level? Ive found the help info that give a brief sentence about what each of the options do, is there more info? are there tools that I can use on the disk to examine detailed partition info and content? maybe find a problem with it?

The problems you're describing really sound like issues with guide data or settings. There's almost no way these are mfsbackup/mfsrestore issues, as those failures would be catastrophic.