copy unhacked hd data to hacked hd

[jerrym]

I have 2 Samsung SIR-S4040R's. One has a larger drive and some networking hacks installed. The other is untouched.

I recently received the 6.2a update on both boxes. The updates killed all of the networking tools on my hacked box. In the process of trying to fix the networking tools, I broke it so it will not even boot. Stuck on the "Welcome. Powering up.." screen.

My question is, Can I mount both drives using a Tivo boot disk and cp the information on the partitions from the functioning/unhacked unit to the nonfunctioning/hacked unit?

If you think this will work, should I cp the information on hda7 and hda9, or just hda7? I believe hda7 is the active partition.

If that won't work, can you suggest a method to get it operational again?

TIA!
-Jerry

[PlainBill]

The first step is to capture the serial console output (http://www.dealdatabase.com/forum/showthread.php?p=234467#post234467) and see why the one drive fails. It is usually easier to fix what is broken than rebuild from scratch. For example, something as simple as neglecting to chmod a file can 'break' a system.

Rather than copying files from the good drive to the bad, I suggest copying the root partitions (dd /dev/hdcX /dev/hdbY /bs=1024k). Use bootpage -p /dev/hdX to determine the active root on each system. Also, if the two systems have different root partitions, it will be necessary to fix /etc/fstab on the target drive. Also, it will be necessary to rehack that system.

PlainBill

[jerrym]

Thanks for the quick reply.

Unfortunately, neither of my tivos seem to want to output any data to the serial port. I was getting data from the hacked box before I started having problems. Should the unhacked box output data on the serial port?

I'll follow the instructions on your link tomorrow to try to get the serial output functioning again.

Thanks again,
Jerry

[jerrym]

I followed the instructions and the serial output working again. Unfortunately, now I receive the following error.
-----
Boot failed reason=60
Ram size = 64
Service number is 3810000E0380007.
What is password?
-----
I have a feeling I did something wrong with the bootpage command, but I'm not sure what.
bootpage -p /dev/hda provided the following output:
root=/dev/hda7 dss=true console=9600

I've entered the following variations:
bootpage -P "root=/dev/hda7 dss=true console=115200" -C /dev/hda
bootpage -P "root=/dev/hda7 dss=true console=2,115200" -C /dev/hda
bootpage -P "root=/dev/hda7 dss=true console=2,115200 upgradesoftware=false" -C /dev/hda

I've searched for the Boot failed reason=60 error but didn't find anything that seemed relevant. Can someone point me in the right direction?

[PlainBill]

Jerry, it's your lucky day. Ordinarily I roast newbies that make simple mistakes. A few minutes reading the results of the search confirms that your kernel is failing the prom signature check. I suggest using a killhdinitrd 3.1.5 kernel.

And your boot parameters are incorrect. I'm going to let you search for the correct terms; they've been posted a few thousand times.

PlainBill

[cokekid]

Come on!!!

No flaming?? Are you sure this is PlainBill?

Does he have a compassionate soft side??? :)

[jerrym]

Thank's for the insight PlainBill. Just out of curiousity, What search terms did you use to come up with using "killhdinitrd 3.1.5 kernel" as a resolution?

I'll search again for the boot parameters. Maybe I'll get lucky twice today :D

[PlainBill]

Thank's for the insight PlainBill. Just out of curiousity, What search terms did you use to come up with using "killhdinitrd 3.1.5 kernel" as a resolution?

Do an advanced search for 'reason=60', displaying results by posts, not threads. One of the posts confirms this error means 'Kernel signature failure'. It so happens the id10t who did that tried to use TiVoScripts (aka Sleeper's ISO) to hack a series 2.5. The RESOLUTION to his problem is different, the error is the same.

Since you are running 6.2a on Samsung SIR4040's a correctly installed killhdinitrd 3.1.5 kernel works on your system. That is the standard kernel used to hack all Series 2 DirecTiVos running 6.2 (and 6.2a).

I'll search again for the boot parameters. Maybe I'll get lucky twice today :D
That depend on your wife, girlfriend, etc. And I don't need to know the details.

PlainBill

[jerrym]

I got the boot parameters straightened out...not the luck I was hoping for, but I'll take what I can get.

I'm still researching killhdinitrd. I don't want to run anything until I have a good idea of what it does. I'll probably run it later tonight.

Also, I figured out where I was going wrong with the searches. "Google search" is not equal to "forum search".

Thanks again!
Jerry

[jerrym]

Woo hoo, tivo boots again. I originally hacked the drive with a ptv disk. The active partition is hda7, and hda4 still has a copy of all of the hack files. I mounted hda4 and then used dd if=/mnt4/ptvupgrade/misc/vmlinux.px of=/dev/hda6. Tossed the drive back into the tivo and it's booting again. Now I just have to get the networking hacks installed and I'll be happy. I'm going to try to get it setup without the ptv disk. Might as well learn something while I'm playing around. Thanks again for the help PlainBill!