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  • Restoring image problem

    Hi,

    I have a Samsung S4040R DirecTivo. In December of 2006 I got a 160 gig Seagate drive to replace the original 40 hour drive.

    I made backup images of both drives, then transferred the contents of the original drive to the new one. The System Information page showed it as 130 hours.

    A while back we started having problems with the unit spontaneously rebooting. Thinking it might have something to do with transferring the contents of the old drive to the new one I waited until we had cleared all our backlog of stored shows and then tried to use mfsrestore to put the original image back on the drive. With the new drive connected as slave I used the command

    Code:
    mfsrestore -r 4 -zpi /mnt/backupnew.bak /dev/hdb
    When I put it back in the DirecTV and it finished rebooting the System Information page showed 100 hours. The next day, after it updated to 6.3e, it showed 97 hours.

    I have just tried restoring again. This time I used the command

    Code:
    mfsrestore -s 127 -zxpi /mnt/backupnew.bak /dev/hdb
    The message on the screen says:
    Starting restore
    Uncompressed backup size: 1466 megabytes
    Restoring 1466 of 1466 megabytes (100.00%) (81.61% compression)
    Cleaning up restore. Please wait a moment.
    Restore done!
    Adding pair /dev/hdb14-/dev/hdb15
    New estimated standalone size: 174 hours (48 more)

    This doesn't seem right. Shouldn't it only have 160 hours since it's a 160 gig drive?

  • #2
    You are assuming that you get 1 hour per 1GB and that's not the case. The standalone size is about 1.2 hours per 1GB and DIRECTV TiVo units get about 0.875 hours per 1GB.

    Comment


    • #3
      Originally posted by WK-Jeff View Post
      You are assuming that you get 1 hour per 1GB and that's not the case. The standalone size is about 1.2 hours per 1GB and DIRECTV TiVo units get about 0.875 hours per 1GB.
      Ok, that explains why I had 130 (or so) hours before I did the restore (160 x .875 = 140 - reserved system space). I'd wondered if copying the 40 gig drive to the 160 gig drive messed something up.

      But... That still doesn't explain why the readout is showing 174 hours, because 160 x 1.2 = 192 (which would probably be 182 hours after reserved system space).

      I'd really like to get this straightened out before I swap the drives again. Messing around inside our DirecTiVo makes me very nervous. If I damaged it our ability to watch TV would be severely crippled (since we're constantly interrupted by phone calls) and we'd might have to replace it with an (ick!) DirecTV DVR...

      Comment


      • #4
        Does the box boot after the restore? How many hours in the system info screen?

        Comment


        • #5
          Originally posted by WK-Jeff View Post
          Does the box boot after the restore? How many hours in the system info screen?
          I haven't put the drive back in the box yet - it's still in my PC. I have the original 40 gig drive in the box for now and it has a list of shows we haven't had time to watch yet (mostly my personal stuff). We also had several hours of recordings coming up and I didn't want to miss recording stuff while I fooled with the box.

          I was hoping to have all my issues resolved - and watch all our recorded programming - before I put the 160 gig drive back in. The limited time I have when the box is not recording something AND I have time to work on it isn't long enough to allow for a full working test.

          Is there an instruction page for the MFSTool operating system (Weaknees Bootable CD)? Something with instructions about how to run tests on the drive...

          I have already used the SeaTools bootable CD from Seagate to test the drive. It reports the drive is fine. But this issue with varying recording times is sending me for a loop.

          Comment


          • #6
            I think you might be creating issues that aren't really there. Just install the drive, confirm that it works, and be happy. The hours quotes are not 100% accurate, they vary, and the standalone hrs are different from the DTV hours. If the backup and restore worked, your numbers are well within reason.

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