TiVo HDD detects as 10Mb in PC BIOS

[Skolink]

Is it normal for a TiVo HDD to show up as only 10Mb in BIOS (and under dos/windows). I have had trouble setting up my Tivo and I wondered if it was because the image was not being copied properly from the setup CD (even though no errors).

The drive is a 40Gb Maxtor Quickview. I checked in another PC and it also detects as 10Mb. Is this normal for a Tivo drive?

Installed in the Tivo it boots fine into the welcome/setup screen.

[Darren King]

Yes that is normal as the drive is locked.

Doing a quick search on the oztivo website with the search criteria locked;drive reveals this page:

http://minnie.tuhs.org/twiki/bin/view/Hardware/UnlockATiVoDrive

I personally use QUNLOCK with no problems, so long as it is booted in pure DOS and not a Windows DOS window.

Ever since R1.3 OzTiVo image the install boot CD also challenges and unlocks drives automatically too in most instances.

[Skolink]

Thanks Darren,
I didn't realise they could be locked. I guess if the OzTiVo image unlocks it automatically then thats not the problem. Must be another reason the serial port doesn't go.

BTW you are right in saying to be careful lifting the pins on the Micronas chip, I managed to snap one off. Lucky I ordered a chip off you, even though I thought it would no use in NZ.

Back to reading more FAQs...
Cheers,
John

[Darren King]

The 3410D on a USA board in NZ is perfectly fine except you will get only mono sound from the PAL tuner if you have one fitted. Sound through the rear A/V inputs (and 2nd A/V input mod if you have that fitted) will still be stereo.

Actually if I had known you wanted a 3430G I do have some 2nd hand that I have lifted off boards when replacing for the 3410D.....

Darren

[Skolink]

Thanks Darren for the tip. I unlocked the drive with QUNLOCK, it then showed correctly in BIOS as 40Gb. This time when I rebooted bios report 40Gb available. When I did 'restore image' it actually took a few minutes and had the indication of progress. I thought the image must be tiny as 'restore successful' was displayed instantly before. It's actually ~800Mb!

I have added a couple of sentances to http://131.244.9.101/twiki/bin/view/Install/PrepareTiVoDisk please check they're approriate.

I have edited the 'known issues with current image' page too. Hope thats OK.

Now when the TiVo boots I have the bash promt on the serial port!

Cheers,
John

[Darren King]

Good stuff!

And thanks for adding to the Twiki as that is the general idea to get fellow user input :) Just one thing I fixed: you may have noticed that after adding your comments the wodk "TiVo" displayed as "TiVo?" and this is because the Twiki don't know the word (I think) so to correct it you actually write the text as <nop>TiVo and it displays correctly.

I also added a clickable link to your reference to QUNLOCK to the relevant webpage on unlocking hard disks.

Regarding the "Known Issues" that is a valid entry although I think that is more to do with Knoppix rather than the OzTiVo image, although one of the software savvy guys may/should be able to help out with that too ;)

Thanks again for your efforts, much appreciated!

Cheers

[petestrash]

Regarding the "Known Issues" that is a valid entry although I think that is more to do with Knoppix rather than the OzTiVo image, although one of the software savvy guys may/should be able to help out with that too ;)

John,

When you had the locked drive issue restoring the image, were you using our installer or one of your own boot discs ?

Peter.

[Skolink]

I was using the latest OzTiVo installer disk.

[petestrash]

That's weird, I have not heard anyone mention that problem before. The installer is aware of locked drives and should handle them correctly.

Peter.

[Darren King]

Actually I have had a couple of hard disks not challenge and unlock automatically. They were however smaller hard disks under 100GB, but were not original factory fitted TiVo drives either which had somehow been locked. Only running QUNLOCK first would make them function correctly.

[petestrash]

I'll talk to Simon about it, he did most of the work on that part of the installer.

Peter.