The origin of the backup file shouldn't matter - in fact, we don't distribute them at all. If it was made with mfstools, it should be fine.

You can leave the backup file anywhere that Linux can get to it, which usually means a FAT32 partition on a drive, CD, or floppy.

We haven't done a lot with USB to IDE converters - so we're unsure how to help you there. The CD has relatively new drivers, but we don't know if you'll even be able to make that work.

ok. Figured out how to add my backup folder to the iso image before burning the CD so that takes care of that problem.

However, after I boot linux from the cd I get about three pages of messages before getting the weaknees prompt. I notice some error messages but they fly by too fast to read. Is there a way to pause this output or review it again from at the prompt? I'm assuming there is some important stuff in all that text.

Finally, should I disconnect my hard drive from the laptop before trying to write to the tivo drive? I'm nervous about accidentally writing over it or somehow messing it up.

Thanks again.

Try shift-pgup to see the messages that go by.

Unplugging your internal drive does seem like a prudent move - although it'll involved opening the unit.

error messages

Ok. I disconnected the hard drive and booted up my laptop from the CD (without the tivo drive connected yet). It looks like quite a few error messages so if someone can reassure me that it's ok to proceed or propose solutions I'd much appreciate it.
Here's the dialog after booting up ({#} numbered for reference in replies).

{1} ide: Assuming 33MHz system bus speed for PIO modes; override with idebus=xx
{2} PCI_IDE: unknown IDE controller on PCI bus 00 device f9, VID=8086, DID=266f
{3} PCI: Device 00:1f.1 not available because of resource collisions
{4} PCI: No IRQ known for interrupt pin A of device 00:1f.1 Please try using pci=biosirq.
{5} PCI_IDE: BIOS setup was incomplete/
{6} PCI_IDE: chipset revision 4
{7} PCI_IDE: not 100% native mode: will probe irqs later
ide0: BM-DMA at 0x1810-0x1817, BIOS settings: hdaio, hdbMA
ide1: BM-DMA at 0x1818-0x181f, BIOS settings: hdcio, hddio
{8} hdb: HL-DT-ST DVD-RW GWA-4082N, ATAPI CD/DVD-ROM drive
{9} ide0: unexpected interrupt, ststus=0x00, count=1
{10} ide0 at 0x1f0-0x1f7, 0x3f6 on irq 14
. . .
{18} PCI: No IRQ known for interrupt pin A of device 06:09.0. Please try using pci=biosirq.
{19} Yenta IRQ list 02f8, PCI irq0
. . .
{23} EXT2-fs warning: checktime reached, running e2fsck is recommended
{24} VFS: Mounted root (ext2 filesystem).
{25} Welcome to the rescue disk
{26} kmod: failed to exec /sbin/modprobe -s -k nls_iso8859-1, errno = 2
{27} kmod: failed to exec /sbin/modprobe -s -k nls_iso8859-1, errno = 2
{28} Found the Rescue CD-ROM on hdb
{29} preparing ramdisk. . .
{30} mke2fs 1.32 (09-Nov-2002)
{31} spurious 8259A interrupt: IRQ7.
{32} all done
. . .
{38} Mounting CD-ROM. . .
{39} kmod: failed to exec /sbin/modprobe -s -k nls_iso8859-1, errno = 2
{40} kmod: failed to exec /sbin/modprobe -s -k nls_iso8859-1, errno = 2
{41} Found the Rescue CD-ROM on hdb
{42} finding network module
{43} sorry no ethernet card found here
{44} done
{45} INIT: Entering runlevel: 1
{46} sh: no job control in this shell
{47} weaknees#
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You won't hurt the target drive by booting it with that, so there's no reason not to go ahead, as far as I can tell. There's no guarantee the upgrade will work, but so long as you don't overwrite the original drive, you shouldn't be moving backwards here.