Hard Drive backup/upgrade

[jamesthecarman]

I've got a new Philips 212 with a 20GB standard HD in it (I haven't imaged it at all yet). I've also got a 140GB HD that was used in a DirecTV Tivo (not sure if that will cause any issues. Wanted to watch some of the saved movies on it).

I'm going to get a 250GB HD in a few weeks. I bought two of them for very cheap, but it turns out they are SATA, and not IDE. I'll just have to sell them on Trademe, and get an IDE 250GB HD on there as well.

If the 140GB "DirecTV Tivo HD will cause any issues, I'll happily back the files up on my computer. I do have a 2GB FAT32 partition on my C drive. I'm not sure if this could help with creating a backup of the 140GB or not.

[Darren King]

Hi and welcome :)

Apologies, I'm not quite sure what you are actually asking here, but I think you are ultimately wondering if the 140GB hard disk will work in your recently acquired TiVo if you reload it with the OzTiVo software as BigMal pointed out in your other thread here: http://forums.oztivo.net/showthread.php?t=1511

If that is correct then yes it will but it won't retain the current recordings if you reload the new software, nor will it plug into a different style of TiVo so you can watch the current recordings and you cannot plug it into a PC to extract the recordings either.

Also as you have found out, SATA is not compatible with TiVo and neither are the newer Seagate hard disks if you intend using two. More information on that can be found here: http://minnie.tuhs.org/twiki/bin/view/Install/PrepareTiVoDisk#Seagate_7200_9_7200_10_hard_driv


Also just a tip: Go into your forum account settings and please enter where you are from. I gather that it is NZ from you mentioning "Tradme" but future posts may not give any clues and there are differences between OZ and NZ setups that dictate what advice is given.

Other than that, have fun! :)

[petestrash]

Adding to what Darren has said, if you planned on using just one of the 250Gb Sata drives in the TiVo, it would work fine if you used an IDE to Sata converter and power cable converter. This may be cheaper then selling the SATA drives and repurchasing PATA's.

Peter.

[Darren King]

It does? What hardware combination have you got it going with?

I once tried a SATA<>IDE converter and although it seemed to image the hard disk OK using the converter, when I plugged it all back into the TiVo although it would recognise the hard disk via the bootprom "back door" serial menu I could not get it to boot the TiVo.

Now this was around a year ago with R1.5 and a 250GB Seagate SATA so maybe things have changed and/or the issue of large dual PATA Seagate hard disks applies to even single SATA setups.

Can you comment on what procedure was used? I might have to try again :)

[petestrash]

The TiVo has been given to a friend, but I have just done a quick scan of eBay and I think the adapter looked like the attached picture.

My friend already had the SATA drive, so I had to use this converter.

It's important to buy the right type, and can be easily confused as both types have a female IDE connector and male SATA connector.

You need to use the type designed to convert an IDE Mainboard to SATA drive, not SATA mainboard to IDE drive.

I plugged this adaptor directly into the PC mainboard to image the drive, and directly into the TiVo mainboard for the install.

Peter.

[Darren King]

I'll play "snap" with you, as that is exactly the adaptor I have, even down to the HW-629 part/model number and REV1.0 PCB stencil.

So ruling out imaging technique that leaves hard disk type. When you can, let me know the model HDD that was used :)

[petestrash]

Like I said it's not the actual card, but from memory it looked like that (I didn't supply it). It had a single push button (unknown purpose) which makes it a little different to some of the other cards I have seen.

Next time I visit, I'll have a look for you.

As for the drive, again from memory it was a single Samsung 400GB.

Peter.

[jamesthecarman]

Darren,

Yep, that's what I was asking.

And your skills of deciphering my message also determined correctly that I am indeed in NZ. I've updated my profile, thanks for the tip :)

I've got about a week before getting broadband hooked up, so have time to figure out what I need to do with the hard drive situation (and see what Pete finds out about SATA-->IDE).


Which leads me to another (hopefully clearer) question: Do I need to choose carefully what my first drive will be (as for size). In other words, if I go with the default 20 GB for the first hard drive, will it significantly hamper me in the future?

[Darren King]

Glad I got it right :)

My advice with using the original 20GB in addition to a larger hard disk is this:

Technically you can get away with it but there are problems. First and foremost is you don't know what condition the hard disk is in. Are you 100% sure this is a "brand new" TiVo and not a "refurbished" TiVo? The hard disk may not be brand new. The problem is that you go adding two hard disks together you cannot split them if one dies. Therefore you will lose all data. It seems crazy to put hundreds of GB of recordings at the mercy of an unknown 20GB drive just for the sake of adding 8-10 hours of recording, which is all you will get out of the 20GB drive.

There is also the possibility of IDE bus conflict between an older IDE device and a modern one. You may get jerky playback and recording due to IDE speed conflicts. It does not always happen but has been known to.


So, yes you can. But for the extra few dollars of buying for example a 250GB hard disk as opposed to a 300GB hard disk my recommendation would be to simply use the old 20GB as a PC hard disk and start the TiVo fresh with one big hard disk. Or keep the 20GB as a "test hard disk" with a basic TiVo image set up if you need to experiment or feel there is a hardware problem with the TiVo which the majority of the time turns out to be a software issue and/or a mechanical hard disk failure.

[Wibble]

So ruling out imaging technique that leaves hard disk type. When you can, let me know the model HDD that was used :)

Another thing to consider is that newer Sata drives are 3Gbps drives while the older ones are 1.5Gbps and some older Sata controller will not work with the newer drives unless you jumper it to the slower setting. (Speaking from experience with an older VIA motherboard).

[Darren King]

Thanks for that.

I know the type of converter I have is for using a SATA drive in a PATA system, so that bit of the puzzle is correct.

I also know the drive is communicating to the converter and to a PC fine as I can use the HDD and converter in a conventional PC fine, and can image the hard disk with an OzTiVo image no problems.

I can also read the boot parameters of the hard disk via the bootprom "backdoor" menu via serial (ie the one with the "factory" password prompt) so the TiVo can recognise the hard disk and converter at this low level.

But.... When a conventional boot is tried the hard disk makes initial seek sounds and then halts on the initial bootprom screen and never gets to the first hard disk based splash screen. This is similar to the boot issue caused by dual large Seagate PATA hard disks and I am starting to draw similarities of this to the use of even a single large Seagate SATA hard disk via a converter. What is needed (when I have some spare cash... ha ha...) is to buy a non-Seagate SATA drive and see if it works.