GSOD - Can this Tivo be saved?

[tonya]

Hello,

I have an HDVR40 that was upgraded with two 160G drives and running fine for months. After taking a power hit two nights ago the Tivo rebooted and seemed to be ok. Last night I turned on the TV and saw that it was stuck in an endless Reboot-GSOD-Reboot cycle.

I put the drives into my PC and ran Pdisk and Mfstool info on them and they seem to have all the proper partitions and information, but they still will not boot past the Green Screen Of Death. (Yes, I did increase the swap space to 127MB when I did the space upgrade).

Does anyone know if there is there any way to recover from this and not lose the recordings? If not then what is the easiest way to recover and give up the recordings? I still have my original factory 40G drive. Should I just restore that or is there a way to reformat the MFS partition only?

I appreciate any help provided.

Thanks,
Anthony

[PlainBill]

I would say thee first thing to do would be to either look at the kernel log, or hook up a serial cable and see WHY it is rebooting. With that information, someone MIGHT be able to make a suggestion.

One question: Did you use an LBA-48 kernel in the TiVo, or did you limit the drives to 137 gig?

PlainBill

[tonya]

Hi,

Thanks for the suggestion, do Tivos have serial output by default? The Tivo is not hacked, it was just space upgraded and runs a standard kernal and os. I am not using lba48.

Anthony

[PlainBill]

What cd did you use to expand the drives?

PlainBill

[tonya]

I used the batbd cd and mfstool to backup the original 40G and restore onto a pair of 160G's with the -x expand option.

[PlainBill]

I used the batbd cd and mfstool to backup the original 40G and restore onto a pair of 160G's with the -x expand option.
I'm not familiar with that cd, so we'll try to figure this out another way. How many hours of recording time did you get as a result? If it was more than 250, you've got a problem.

PlainBill

[tonya]

Its a cd that came with the "Hacking Your Tivo" book I got as a gift. I never actually did any hacking, just read the book to learn (guess I didn't learn enough, eh?). In the end I got about 217 hours of recording time... seemed like the linux kernal would not go past 137GB even on the 160GB drive.

[tonya]

I have more info that may be helpful. First I realized I put HDVR40 in my first post, my model is actually SD-DVR40. So sorry, I really hope this didn't send you on a tangent.

However, I just attempted an mls listing of the MFS volume using "mfstool mls" and the volume lists several files with the last few being as follows:
...
SwSystem
Table
Theme
TuikRes
User

There is then a slight pause and the mls stops with "Segmentation fault".

Not sure if this helps.

Anthony

[tonya]

More info since a question on recording time was asked...

mfstool info /dev/hda /dev/hdb reports:

/dev/hda10
MFS Partition Size: 512MiB
/dev/hda11
MFS Partition Size: 16162MiB
/dev/hda12
MFS Partition Size: 512MiB
/dev/hda13
MFS Partition Size: 21563MiB
/dev/hda14
MFS Partition Size: 0MiB
/dev/hda15
MFS Partition Size: 77976MiB
/dev/hdb2
MFS Partition Size: 0MiB
/dev/hdb3
MFS Partition Size: 117244MiB
Total MFS volume size: 233970MiB
Estimated hours in standalone TiVo: 277
This MFS volume may be expanded 2 more times

[The Only Druid]

Its a cd that came with the "Hacking Your Tivo" book I got as a gift. I never actually did any hacking, just read the book to learn (guess I didn't learn enough, eh?). In the end I got about 217 hours of recording time... seemed like the linux kernal would not go past 137GB even on the 160GB drive.
Well, on a DVR-40, you're running a non-LBA-48 aware kernel, so this could easily be your problem. Without LBA48, Linux can't see past 137GB properly. Unfortunately, the program you used to expand your hard drive set it to use the full size of it (the 217). What most likely has happened is that your Tivo recorded a file [or rather, it tried to do so] past that 137GB point, and in doing so has created a rather nasty little problem.

Off hand, I'm not sure how you fix that. I'd suggest doing a search, but if you're lucky one of the more senior members who knows this particular trick may post.

[PlainBill]

Druid,
Listen and learn, Grasshopper (No, I don't really mean it that way ;) ). On a SD-DVR40, 2-160 Gig drives partitioned under LBA-48 would give about 275 hours. Tonya indicated she got only 137 Gig out of each for a total of 217 hours - DEFINITELY NOT an LBA-48 problem.

Tonya,
I'm not sure the meaning of 'segmentation fault', but is isn't good. At this point, I'd suggest running either the manufacturer's diagnostics, or Gibson's Spinrite on the drives to see if they find any unreadable sectors. If they find and repair one, the TiVo might be able to recover. I'd say it's worth a try.

PlainBill

[The Only Druid]

Druid,
Listen and learn, Grasshopper (No, I don't really mean it that way ;) ). On a SD-DVR40, 2-160 Gig drives partitioned under LBA-48 would give about 275 hours. Tonya indicated she got only 137 Gig out of each for a total of 217 hours - DEFINITELY NOT an LBA-48 problem.
Bill, trust me, I dont have anywhere near enough of a swelled head to refuse being corrected by more knowing members on this board such as yourself, alphawolf, alldeadhomiez, bliss, etc. etc. If I'm EVER wrong, PLEASE tell me. Only way I'll learn.

Now, I did something stupid: I misread the original post as having a single drive reporting 217, not two seperate drives. Rookie mistake.

[tonya]

Many thanks to Druid and Bill for all your help. I looked at the dmesg output and saw it logged several bad sectors in the MFS Application Partition and the 2nd MFS Application Partition. Probably these are a result of the power hit the system took.

So, I used dd with the conv=noerror,sync option to copy the partitions to a spare drive and then copy them back to the Tivo drive. dd reported read errors on 24 sectors on one partition and 26 sectors on the 2nd. After I copied them back I was able to read both partitions without error, however I am sure some data was missing from the bad sectors as they were originally unreadable.

Back in the Tivo, I got the GSOD again one more time then on the following reboot the Tivo got stuck on the second Welcome screen. I rebooted several times and could not get past that screen. I assumed this was because of the missing data on the MFS Application Partitions. I read in some forums that once you lose or damage an MFS Application Partition you're pretty much screwed.

So, having been without Tivo (and worse, TV in general) for several days now I gave up. I just restored my 3.1.1c factory image, reexpanded to the second drive and started clean. I forced a call and Tivo updated me back to 3.1.1e (wish it would have given me 6.2 but oh well) and all seems to be back in order. Unfortuntely, I lost all my saved recordings (including the entire Eagles superbowl season!) but at least I can watch TV again.

Thanks for all your assistance, I learned quite a bit during this excercise.

Just one more question while I have your attention...

A while ago I attempted to monte my system using the sleeper iso. It seemed straight forward enough but every time I did it the Tivo would seem like it is booting ok but then would suddenly display a distorted image, make a horrendous screeching sound in the speakers and then reboot. I tried it about three times always with the same result. Seems like the code image I was trying to Monte to was incompatible with my hardware, but I am not sure what sleepr tried to use.

Is the sleeper iso or the monte trick in general compatible with an SD-DVR40? My whole goal was to enable networking so I can remotely schedule programs from the web or download video to my PC for DVD backup (so I don't lose next year's football season!)

Now that I have a basically blank system again, I am willing to give it another attempt but would appreciate some guidence this time. Or, should I just wait until 6.2 is ready and do it all with that?

Thanks again!

[PlainBill]

Read the various threads on killhdinitrd. You should also look for Jamie's backported usb drivers, AlphaWolf's Series 2 utilities, and I have a sample rc.sysinit.author file posted in several places (Sorry, because of a hardware problem I can't provide links today). With a little careful reading (and don't be afraid to ask questions) you should be able to hack it yourself.

The state of hacking is in transition right now. A few months ago 4.x on RID was a hot item. 6.2 is available, offers better speed AND folders, and IF it is possible to get HMO/MRV working, will be the wave of the future.

PlainBill