Removing and reinserting external drive when modding

[edcba]

My TiVo has a 1Tb external drive. Before presenting the TiVo to a modder do I unplug the external drive before unplugging the TiVo? And after modding is done do I then just plug the external drive back into the TiVo before restarting the TiVo? Obviously I want to ensure that my stored programs will still be there.

[DavidKeegel]

I have a 1TB external drive and went through this with no hassles and kept all my recordings.

Unplug your external drive after the TiVo is powered down, so the TiVo does not notice the external drive being disconnected. After modding is done, yes just plug the external drive back into the TiVo before restarting the TiVo.

I also used the modding process as an opportunity to put in a new hard disk drive (to replace the 9 year old original internal drive).

[edcba]

Thanks for your reply. I understand that recordings are split between the internal and external drives. When you put in a new hard disk drive did you just copy the contents from the old hard disk to the new one?

[DavidKeegel]

Thanks for your reply. I understand that recordings are split between the internal and external drives. When you put in a new hard disk drive did you just copy the contents from the old hard disk to the new one?

What I ended up doing essentially copied my 160GB internal disk onto the first 160GB of a new 2TB internal disk. (If you're interested in details, I used dvrBARS to backup the internal disk to first.vhd and the external disk to second.vhd, and then I restored first.vhd onto the 2TB disk. I had planned to do things a bit differently but I had troubles like the PC I was doing the backup on crashed part way through the backup of the external drive three times in a row, probably due to PC hardware issues. I also tried WinMFS but have troubles with that.)

So currently I have both internal disk and external disk. If I can work out how, I want to move the 2 MFS partitions on the external 1TB disk onto some of the unused space on the 2TB internal disk so I can stop using the external disk (except perhaps as a one-off backup).
That will reduce risks like losing recordings due to external drive failure, and simpilify a number of things. (Like dvrBARS and I think WinMFS will only do a truncated backup when all drives are connected.)

[cpab]

Just modded a Tivo with expander. Unfortunately, after software upgrade the Tivo froze in welcome screen. The suggestions are hdd or power supply problems.
I had a spare 160GB Tivo hdd, so C&DE'd and the Tivo now works fine with programme data already in the guide, postcode 6000.
Now I cannot get the expander to pair.
I've formatted, removed partition, etc., but no go yet.
I have been searching for a WD expander image, but haven't come up with a solution yet.
Anyone else got an answer?

[Darren King]

To be totally honest I'd be looking more at ditching both the old internal hard disk and the expander and start again. The expanders are known to be problematic and they are all getting old now, so even if you did get it going again it probably won't have a long life and the TiVo has lost most/all it's recordings anyway.

A new 2TB hard disk in the TiVo will be the better solution.

[cpab]

G'day Darren.

As no other solutions came up, I cloned the 160 onto the 1 TB HDD from the expander and fitted it in the Tivo. Worked perfectly.

I told the Tivo owners that it may not last, but it can be replaced anytime.

At the end of the process, it had 3 days of program data on with postcode 6000.

[Darren King]

Good result!

Yep so long as they know it may be on borrowed time then all good.

Cheers