TivoMad / Blessing 2nd drive question

[Kythorn]

I have a 120 gig and an 80 gig drive free. I understand I have to use tivomad to alter a partition on my A drive if my total storage exceeds 140 gigs. If I put in the 80, the only thing I have to do is bless it, and put it in, correct?

Would it be more advisable to do this if I want to avoid tinkering too heavily with my tivo? By all means I'd like to have 160 gigs over 120, but what are the potential downsides of this?

[groundhog]

If I put in the 80, the only thing I have to do is bless it, and put it in, correct?

No. I thought the same thing, but it doesn't work. You can only expand an image once. So when you expand it to the 120 gig, blessing the 80 gig later does nothing. You need to expand it to both drives at the same time. See Hinsdales how to for the proper commands.

Would it be more advisable to do this if I want to avoid tinkering too heavily with my tivo? By all means I'd like to have 160 gigs over 120, but what are the potential downsides of this?

I think your math's a little off. 120 gigs+80gigs = 160gigs????. Anyway, the only downside of using 2 drives is that your more likely to have a drive failure in the future(IMHO - 2 times the amount of drives = 2 times the change one will fail).

[Kythorn]

Sorry, i seem to have mispoken myself. I want to leave the original 40 gig unit in the machine and add an 80 OR a 120. I was trying to get feedback on the potential downsides of using the 120 (I understand anything over 140 requires some modifications to be made to the swap partition?)

[groundhog]

I can't give you a definate answer. I think that the 140 gig+ thing has to do with the tivomad expansion on the A - drive. Since you're not doing that, I would assume you'd be o.k., just blessing and dropping the drive in. Try reading the hinsdale guide a few times, and see what it said. I know it's sometimes confusing with all the possible configurations of Tivo's, but the answer should be in there somewhere.

Or. If you don't have to many "Now Playing's" Just back up the A drive, bless the B and try to add it. I think you'll be o.k.

[groundhog]

Question 7: Is your target TiVo > 140GB?
Answer: Add together the full drive size of your new A drive + your new B drive (if applicable) to determine the total drive capacity of your target TiVo and answer y or n accordingly.

This is the only statement I could find relating to 140GB recording space. You'll notice that Hinsdale mentions "New" A drive and "New" B drive.

Everywhere else that he mentions adding a new B drive to a tivo with an original A drive, he never mentions drive space or recording time.

I'm pretty sure your good to go.