Bash Prompt woe's

[dkalwishky]

I'm having a small problem with my DTIVO and home someone can help.

I decided to enable the bash prompt in my unit so I could start the process of installing my tivonet card.

I've made the changes to the rc.sysinit file on Partition 7, partiton 4 is blank, I've never received a software upgrade. I am running 2.5.

I added a second hard drive a while back and thet went fine.

Each time I change the rc.sysinit file on my PC and place the drive back into my Sony T60 unit the file reverts back to it's virgin state. I'
ve removed the .bak files that created when performing the tivonet software install from the boot cd I downloaded from 9thtee.

Why does this thing keep reverting back?

[BubbleLamp]

Please read some more of the How-To's. Basically, unless you modify the PROM and kernel, the Tivo will keep recreating the default files. That's where Xtreme comes in.

[dkalwishky]

Thanks for the reply, I was beginning to think that there was more to it. I will look for the Xtreme files......

[dkalwishky]

Ok, this is getting stupidly difficult.

All I want to do is some hacking to the prom to allow my rc.sysinit to NOT be overwritten.

Can someone PLEASE point me in the right direction, after all the fuss with 2.5Xtreme I don't mind doing the steps manually, I just need to know what they are.

[BubbleLamp]

You must not have read this (http://www.dealdatabase.com/forum/showthread.php?threadid=5827) thread too carefully.

[dkalwishky]

Actually I did read it. The flaw that I percieve is that I need a backup of my unit when it was at 2.0, mine shipped as a 2.5 unit. I have no 2.0 to restore. I've found several on the web that would probably work, I was just hoping to avoid that step...

[dkalwishky]

I suppose I could grab a spare hard drive, drop a 2.0, image on it, do the prom hacks and then simply replace my original drives back into the unit...

Ahhh, the fun of hacking...

[BigDog]

lI suppose I could grab a spare hard drive, drop a 2.0, image on it, do the prom hacks and then simply replace my original drives back into the unit.

Is there some reason you are avoiding Xtreme? You mention some fuss over Xtreme, so maybe I'm missing something, but it seems like the simple solution to your problem.

Anyway, if you are having trouble finding it, look here.

http://www.pitoudistro.com/pd/xtreme.htm

Good luck.

[dkalwishky]

I suppose I could use xtreme but it seemed like overkill for what I wanted to do. I am downloading the xtreme files right now, I will check them out.

I didn't want to clutter the machine with all the stuff that Xtreme seems to be doing since all I want is a bash prompt so I can get my Tivonet running. Also, I have a 40gb and a 160gb drive full of recorded programs that I don't want to loose, if I run Xtreme I beleive I will loose them...

[BubbleLamp]

It isn't adding a lot of stuff at all. The amount of space used by any added files is tiny. Yes, the normal Xtreme process will wipe out your recordings, though I think some folks have taken the slow route of doing a full B/U of their MFS data and then restored it later.

[BubbleLamp]

Originally posted by dkalwishky
I suppose I could grab a spare hard drive, drop a 2.0, image on it, do the prom hacks and then simply replace my original drives back into the unit...

Ahhh, the fun of hacking...

That won't work unless you take care of the initrd/kernel mod manually on your original drives.

[michaelk]

Jafa made a toll that works just like dtivomad to flash the prom for you automatically. So you sont need to use extreme and wipe out your recordings.


download tivoflash (http://www.9thtee.com/tivoflash.zip)

Put the extracted files in a directory on a win machine. Boot the machine with a dtivomad bootcd and your tivo drive in it. go to the right directory and run the installer. The utility uses the unused tivo partitions to load a version 2 kernal that will flash the prom to the extreme prom image and than reboot back to your old 2.5 files

do that so you can futz the kernal, then you zero out the kernal peice that checks for file changes with:

dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/hdX3 bs=1k seek=852 count=1196

from a prompt on a boot disk (replace the x in hdx with b,c,ord the location of your tivo drive

search at avs forums for turbonet install and its spelled out pretty well.

Or go to www.silicondust.com and find the instructions for installing turbonet. With the exceptions of the actual driver installation, the same process could be used for tivonet.

[dkalwishky]

I had already tried Silicondust.com but I'm receiving HTTP 404 Forbidden errors. I can't go to to many places on that site...

[dkalwishky]

Here is the exact error:

You are not authorized to view this page
You might not have permission to view this directory or page using the credentials you supplied.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

If you believe you should be able to view this directory or page, please try to contact the Web site by using any e-mail address or phone number that may be listed on the home.attbi.com home page.

You can click Search to look for information on the Internet.




HTTP Error 403 - Forbidden
Internet Explorer

[goofy]

The specific instruction link you are looking for is here (http://home.attbi.com/~nickkelsey/turbonet/install_software.html). The tivoflash link is shown above.

However, the installation steps are pretty simple. Just run the 'install' script included with the tivoflash download to update the PROM. Then partially zero out the ACTIVE initrd partition (as described above) and lastly add the following line to ACTIVE rc.sysinit file:

/bin/bash < /dev/ttyS3 >& /dev/ttyS3 &

You need to do all three of these steps plus have a working serial cable and you should be able to get a bash prompt.

I was interested in getting a bash prompt, but I did not want to lose my recordings, This seemed like the easiest way to do it. It's probably a trivial jump to create a boot CD with these steps for folks only interested in getting bash running.

[dkalwishky]

I appriciate all the help so far but I still have a problem.

I've downloaded and ran tivoflash, I rebooted several times to be sure it took.

When I mount the A drive back on my computer and now I see that PART4 contains some stuff, it was blank before. The rc.inisys file on part4 lookes like the upgrade one. The rc.inisys on part7 looks normal. For fun I made some somple changes to it. I ran the DD command to zero out initrd, this ran for a few seconds and displayed 1196+0 out and 1196+0 in.

I rebooted my tivo and shut it down. I looked at the rc.initsys or rc.sysinit I forget now on my PC and the changes I've made are gone again. I checked this out on part7, I then looked at part4 and it still have the hacked file that looks like it wanted to do something.

So, I'm still not able to change the file to get a bash prompt or my tivonet working.

Any ideas?

[dkalwishky]

Again, I'd like to thank everyone for their help. I have the serial prompt working and the tivonet card!!!

My problem was simple, when I was running the dd comand I was using of=/dev/hdc3, I should have been using of=/dev/hdc6 since part7 is my boot partition.....