Dual DB35 in Series 2 DTivo

[hoyty]

I wasn't sure if this was the right forum or the drive upgrade one. Anyway I just got 2 x 320 GB DB35.3 drives. I was able to migrate data from older drives without issue on a PC. When I install them in the HDVR2 it comes up to the welcome screen and will not go any farther. There has been discussion of dual Seagate drives having issues. I was just wondering what you have experienced in doing upgrades with two Seagate DB35 drives? Is there anything special that needs to be done with these drives? Thanks for any help.

[WK-Michael]

Seagates definitely work - that's almost all we use at this point, and exactly the DB35s for obvious reasons.

What command line did you use for the copy?

[hoyty]

I used the mfslive CD and the command

backup -qTao - /dev/hda /dev/hdb | restore -s 128 -r 4 -xzpi - /dev/hdc /dev/hdd

.

[hoyty]

Success with HR10

I used two 750 GB DB35.3 in my HR10 upgrade and it worked fine. Still no luck getting the dual 320 to work in the HDVR2. Have you done installs in Series 2 DTiVo with identical DB35 drives? It seems to be something with using two identical DB35 drives in those models. Thanks.

[WK-Jeff]

Yes, we have been using dual-DB35s in TiVos for quite some time. The 320GB is a new model, so I cannot tell you specifically that we have used two 320gb drives in an HDVR2, we have never had a problem with a dual-drive kit in an HDVR.

Did you try the two drives in your HR10?

[hoyty]

Once I got the two 750 working in HR10 I didn't want to mess with it anymore so I didn't try the 320 in there. I tried using the 250+400 from the HR10 in my HDVR2 and they aren't working either. I am obviously doing something wrong in moving the data from the 40+137(160) to new drives. Just can't figure out what. I used the same commands and same machine to do the HR10 transfer. Thanks for the info on your usage of the drives. I must be missing something else.

[hoyty]

Got it working

Just a follow-up here. A friend had a HDVR2 with a dead A drive. I took it and did some testing with it. Using the dual 320 DB35.3 I was able to get it working fine. Rather than migrating and expanding an existing image I used instantcake to make a fresh disk set. It appears all my problems were from trying to transfer the old image. Still trying to figure that out with some other drives. Thanks for the help.

[hoyty]

One more followup in case anyone else has this issue. The fix for my problem was removing the p switch from the above command. After that my upgrade went fine. It seems the optimization caused by p option moves the boot partition to far from the beginning of drive for Series 2 DTiVo.