A couple of last questions before I take the 4.0 on HDVR2 plunge

[Steavis]

I'm a veteran user of all the mainstream hacks on my DSR6000. I want to take advantage of the newfound HMO ability on series 2 DTiVos, so I've got an HDVR2 and a 160GB drive on the way. Couple of questions:

--I'm aware that the entire 160GB won't be recognized. Can I just go ahead and restore the 4.0 image to it and then do the Sleeper monte and the superpatch, with the knowledge that I'll be limited to 137GB, or is there anything special I need to do to ensure that the HDVR2 won't try to go beyond that capacity? Related to that, I know very, very (very) little about using lba48 to access the extra capacity... is this something I can take advantage of with a couple extra steps or is it way more involved than that and thus not worth it to me?

--Can I add a B drive later or does it have to be now or never? Can this approach even use a dual-drive setup?

[Waruwaru]

If you have a newer computer/newer drive controller, the larger drives might be recognized at full-capacity. If you want to stay with the lower limit, you might have to either run an utility or set jumpers properly.

I am sure that you can add the B drive later.

[Steavis]

Thanks waruwaru--I'm not worried about my computer recognizing the full 160GB, it's the TiVo I'm concerned about. As far as I'm aware it won't recognize the full 160GB and I'm OK with losing the space; I just want to make sure that when 137GB is filled with recordings it'll just say the drive's full rather than freaking out on me.

[Waruwaru]

Thanks waruwaru--I'm not worried about my computer recognizing the full 160GB, it's the TiVo I'm concerned about. As far as I'm aware it won't recognize the full 160GB and I'm OK with losing the space; I just want to make sure that when 137GB is filled with recordings it'll just say the drive's full rather than freaking out on me.

Yeah, that is what I meant. I think mfs_tools will try to take advantages of all the spaces available. If your computer can handle 200 gb, but your Tivo kernel can not, then you are screwed.

One way to find out is to perform the hack, and check to see what Tivo thinks your recording capacity is. If it is larger than 137, then you have to run the utilities limit your drive.

[PlainBill]

Thanks waruwaru--I'm not worried about my computer recognizing the full 160GB, it's the TiVo I'm concerned about. As far as I'm aware it won't recognize the full 160GB and I'm OK with losing the space; I just want to make sure that when 137GB is filled with recordings it'll just say the drive's full rather than freaking out on me.

It is likely you are right, you PROBABLY won't have a problem. However, if you do, it will happen when you have 120 hours of recordings on the drive. That is a REALLY bad time to discover you made a mistake. Run the drive utility to reduce the capacity, it's cheap insurance.

PlainBill

[tivomaster]

It is likely you are right, you PROBABLY won't have a problem. However, if you do, it will happen when you have 120 hours of recordings on the drive. That is a REALLY bad time to discover you made a mistake. Run the drive utility to reduce the capacity, it's cheap insurance.

PlainBill

I can testify that if you don't dial down the drive to 137 or below IT WILL mess up when it gets full.. Happened to me twice before I figured out what was going on.

[DPlatt]

I can testify that if you don't dial down the drive to 137 or below IT WILL mess up when it gets full.. Happened to me twice before I figured out what was going on.

So I'm trying to make sense of all this-- did your TiVo still actually only show the 120 or so hours with the 160GB drive, but you had problems anyway when you hit that limit, or was it showing more hours? I'm worried that my box I monted last week with a 160GB drive may have problems....

[tivomaster]

So I'm trying to make sense of all this-- did your TiVo still actually only show the 120 or so hours with the 160GB drive, but you had problems anyway when you hit that limit, or was it showing more hours? I'm worried that my box I monted last week with a 160GB drive may have problems....

It showed 137gb and when it filled up crashed. I lost everything. Had to start from scratch...

[Steavis]

Stupid newbie question:

What utility do I use to limit the drive size? The drive I ordered is a Seagate, if that makes any difference.

[malfunct]

Stupid newbie question:

What utility do I use to limit the drive size? The drive I ordered is a Seagate, if that makes any difference.

Seagate might have a tool, otherwise there is one from maxtor (it didn't work on my maxtor drive for some reason) and also one from hitachi that I've heard works on more drives than the maxtor tool.

[Waruwaru]

Usually there will be an utility disk/cd in the HD package. Sometimes you can download it from the company website. For Maxtor, I think it's MaxBlaster or something like that.

[dwellar]

I downloaded MAXBLASTER III from maxtor. It lets you set LBA. It worked on my Seagate 160GBs. I also got a CDROM included with the Seagate 160s. Turns out that CDROM has the SAME tools as MAXBLASTER but somewhere in there they have a specific check for the drive mfgr. The same tool is obviously OEMed from a third party source.

I had some problems getting the Seagate CDROM to work (likely a prob with the PC I was using), so I ended up using MAXBLASTER III on the Seagates using a different PC. Just execute the tool, do a safe reboot and reuse the tool to verify that the drive actually was reduced in size. The size to use is somewhere in DDB threads. The hex number is 0FFFFFFFh (7 Fs), equivalent to 28-bits of ones.