Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

Replacing dual drives (Series1)

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • Replacing dual drives (Series1)

    I have an older Philips Series1 TiVo that was upgraded when I bought it (to 198 hour capacity - I was told it has 160GB total of hard drives in it, split between two drives I'd guess it's two 80s).


    Now I'm starting to see problems with my TiVo, and I have every reason to believe that one (or both) of the drives are starting to fail.


    Before that happens, I figured I'd use MFSTools to copy everything (settings/schedules/recorded shows) from the old hard drives to new ones (and I have new drives already).


    However, before I even start the process, I was wondering if I can do what I'm proposing: Can I copy everything (including recorded shows) from two hard drives, to two new hard drives?


    What made me think (and bear in mind - I've been building computers for years, so I'm not a newbie when it comes to hardware installation), is that most motherboards (mine included) have support for just 4 drives. If we figure that the CD-ROM (so I can boot the MFSTools CD) is one, and a fat32/dos drive (which is required, yes?) is another, that only leaves me two drives more I can put in my computer, when I really need four.


    How does this work? Do I need to get another IDE controller card (which luckily I think I may be able to get)?


    In addition, is there any way I can (after clearing out a bunch of recorded shows) go from two drives down to one, especially when you consider that the total capacity of the two may be a little larger than the one?

    Okay, let me explain it better with real numbers - my current tivo has two drives totalling 160GB (I think - it reports 198 hours maximum capacity), and I know that I'm liminted to drives that (individually) are less than 137GB. Luckily for me, I happen to have a 120GB drive sitting here that would be perfect. Is there any way to copy from the dual drives totalling 160GB to the single 120GB drive I have, considering I'm sure at least 40GB of that 160GB is free anyways?

    Or alternatively, could I add a smaller drive (such as, say, 40GB) in addition to the 120GB, just to bring my total up to the old total, even though that means the second drive would surely be smaller than the original second drive?

  • #2
    Okay, I just re-read the upgrade instructions, and managed to answer many of my own questions. Turns out I can use the "UPGRADE CONFIGURATION #5" (Option #1) and boot to floppy, in order to have all four drives hooked up (guess I don't need the fat32/dos drive after all).


    Two questions left though:
    1) Is it possible to go from two drives (totalling 160GB) to one drive (at 120GB) considering that there's at least 40GB free (or at least I'd make sure there was before starting the process)?

    2) If we assume that my current system is two 80GB drives, can I run that process to copy to a 120GB and a 40GB drive (despite the fact that the second drive is smaller, the first is larger)?


    Or will I need to find a second drive the same size or larger than 80GB in order to make it work?

    Comment


    • #3
      1 - Not in a situation where you're saving recordings.

      2 - Same as above.
      Been here a long time . . .

      Comment

      Working...
      X