While backing up your TiVo and restoring
while expanding it onto larger space is definitely the recommended
way to go about things, there are two faster options if you have a
one-drive TiVo and you're willing to shave a few
steps. The added benefit of this indiscretion is that you have to buy
only one additional hard drive for your TiVo—instead of
two—when replacing the factory drive
Using mfsadd
The one
definite way to lose some steps is to cut the backup out of the
picture. Pull out your TiVo's one drive and install it in your
PC along with
the new hard drive that you are going to expand your space with. Boot
up MFS Tools 2.0 , and at the prompt type:
# mfsadd -x /dev/hdX /dev/hdY
where /dev/hdX is
replaced with the IDE location of your original TiVo drive and
/dev/hdY is new drive
you are planning to install. This should take only a few seconds, and
it will report the results and sizes of your drives. If it all looks
good, then Control-Alt-Delete your system and pull the drives out. If
it didn't work, then pray that you can get it
working by backing up and restoring.
Using BlessTiVo
This is really
flying by the seat of your pants. If you opt for this, then you
don't even need to remove your
TiVo's drive. Instead, you're just
going to set up the new drive and then screw it right in.
You are going want to open up your TiVo
so
you can install your new drive. Now install only your new drive in
your PC .
Before booting your PC,
make sure your BIOS is set up to boot from either the BlessTiVo CD or
a floppy (see how the BIOS is set up for booting up MFS
Tools , and mimic that). If
you have it all set up, then boot away.
For those of you booting off a CD, press
Enter at the boot: prompt to bring up a
/# prompt. If you are booting off a floppy, you
are going to see a program called TiVoMAD,
asking you to Please enter hdb, hdc, or hdd. Just
Control-C to abort that program and press Enter until you see the
# prompt. Verify the sizes of your drives and
unlock as necessary a la the instructions for booting up MFS Tools.
If everything has gone well, enter the following at the prompt:
# BlessTiVo /dev/hdX
About 1 second will go by, and your
computer will print out a message telling you, hopefully, that the
drive was blessed. Mazel Tov! It will also tell you the size that
your drive has been blessed to. The size of this partition should be
within approximately 5-10 GB of the actual drive size, depending on
the drive. Do not install your drive into your TiVo if the number
reported is far too small. If this does not work for you, then pull
your TiVo's hard drive , install it into your
PC , and then
back her right up and restore it onto your new dual drives , because there are no
short cuts for you this time around.
WARNING
If BlessTiVo does not report the correct blessed size of your new
drive, do not install it. If you do, your TiVo
will not recognize the full size of the drive, and recovery will be
too painstaking to be in the scope of this chapter.
If this all looks good, then Control-Alt-Delete your computer, power
down, and install your new drive alongside your old drive.
