problems trying to create new DirecTV Tivo drive...

[cannibal-horn]

I purchased an R-10 from WeaKnees a year.5 ago and my drives are failing. They actually started failing about a year ago but I just power cycled and everything seemed ok for a month or so. I'm down to about once a day now.

So, I have two 160GB drives currently inside and I want to put just 1 160GB drive back in. This is just a back up, bedroom unit, don't need 200+ hrs on it any more.

Question 1: Is this possible, to go from two drives to 1?

Second, I've tried the "interactive TiVo Upgrade" at upgrade-instructions.com and I'm running into trouble. So if the answer to question 1. is "no" then this could be why. I don't know.

I have the drives set up like this: a spare 15GB drive as the primary master "C drive" (formated FAT32, blank), my DirecTiVo A drive as my "secondary master", my CDROM as secondary slave and the DirecTiVo B drive as the primary slave. Is this set up right?

Because if it is then I'm running into some kind of problem. What happens is I start everything up with the bootCD in and I get to the prompt and hit "enter" and I see a bunch of things run. I then hit "shift + page up" to check the drive sizes and one of the 160GB DirecTiVo drives reads as 80GB (give or take). I've tried changing where the drives are and one of them always comes back as 80GB.

Also, I've noticed that the "interactive TiVo upgrade" says I need to attach the "new drive" in the chain, too. So I take the primary master out and put the new blank drive in as secondary slave, moving this and there around and still, one of the original TiVO 160GB drives reports back as 80GB (give or take). Should I make my cdrom the primary master? and if not, where should all the the drives go?

more info if needed: I don't need to preserve any recorded shows on the old drives.

I usually know my way around a computer, inside and out and am screwed up here. Any help would be appreciated. Also, If there is a different guide I should be using, I'd appreciate being pointed in that direction, too.

[WK-Michael]

You can go from two drives to one. The key is that you need a valid and complete TiVo OS image to put back on that one drive.

The setup you describe is fine - there's really no 'right' setup, but yours should work.

What boot CD are you using exactly?

You don't need the new drive in the chain if you are first making a backup. It just depends on the options you chose when you produced the instructions.

[cannibal-horn]

Thanks for the info.

I'm using the weaknees_lba_boot_cd.iso. That was my next question, should I be using a different one?

[cannibal-horn]

Sorry for the dumb question, I don't have a lot of time to look it up. If I wanted to preserve the shows that are on my current 2 160GB drive set up, would I need that much space on the drive that I'm backing the shows up on and would I need to put the backup on 2 160GB drives (or larger)?

Thanks again, in advance, for the help.

Less important question: is there a way I can "give back" for the help I get in these forums? Any place to donate money for any cause? If anyone has a failing heart I can get them world class medical treatment.... like right now....

[WK-Michael]

Thanks for the info.

I'm using the weaknees_lba_boot_cd.iso. That was my next question, should I be using a different one?

That's the best CD to use for this operation. I can't explain why the sizes of your drive show up improperly, unless you maybe have a limiting jumper setting on the drive.

[WK-Michael]

Sorry for the dumb question, I don't have a lot of time to look it up. If I wanted to preserve the shows that are on my current 2 160GB drive set up, would I need that much space on the drive that I'm backing the shows up on and would I need to put the backup on 2 160GB drives (or larger)?

You'd need as much space as the shows take - not necessarily as much as the total capacity that was in the TiVo.

Less important question: is there a way I can "give back" for the help I get in these forums? Any place to donate money for any cause? If anyone has a failing heart I can get them world class medical treatment.... like right now....

Just keep posting info here for others to use as a reference in case they're in your situation and need some help.