Upgrade success report: 100GB=245 hrs
Yeechang Lee
Western Digital's new 7200rpm 100GB drives. I chose
these because of a) the capacity and b) Best Buy ran a promotion where
you get $100 of the $299 retail price back in a gift card/refund
(unclear which). I ended up buying three; the third is in my desktop.
Although my TiVo is over a year old, it's only been recently that the
various utilities involved have advanced enough to let (most) dual
drive models upgrade. I knew ahead of time that with recent advances
in utilities. I used
<URL:http://www.newreleasesvideo.com/hinsdale-how-to/> as
instructions, and burnt a CD beforehand with the image at
<URL:http://www.9thtee.com/tbdv2_6i.iso>. Some observations and
comments:
* Getting the TiVo case off really *is* a pain. I finally did it by
pushing the TiVo with the RF and other connectors against a wall.
* The 'mad/setup.sh' script, and some other utilities, are hardcoded
to use hdb, hdc, and hdd as drive names, and most documentation is
written to reflect this. In my new 1.4GHz Athlon box, the Asus A7V133
motherboard actually comes with two Promise UltraDMA 100 controller
cards, each controlling two IDE connectors, so the whole thing can
drive up to 8 IDE devices (hda through hdh). The TiVo disks were
generally hooked up to hdf, hdg, and hdh. It was no problem mentally
adjusting the documentation, but the hard-wired nature of the
utilities forced me to do some cable swapping on the motherboard
during the BlessTivo process. I recommend further iterations of the
utilities permit arbitrary drive names.
* Getting the TiVo case back on is a pain too. I couldn't get the
sides to fit quite as flush as before, and the two tabs on the left
and right sides of the case are slightly bent from the strain.
* The new drives are so far performing like a champ, with no video
skipping seen. The temperature has remained exactly the same as when
using the stock Quantum drives. The drives are slightly louder, but
they are usually unnoticeable and in no way are obtrusive. Overall
system performance seems the same or perhaps a little faster, but then
we'll see what happens once I get the space filled up.
* Having 245 hours is simply awesome!
--
<URL:http://www.pobox.com/~ylee/>
ar...@adelphia.net
>* Having 245 hours is simply awesome!
>
And overkill?
Yeechang Lee
> >* Having 245 hours is simply awesome!
> >
> And overkill?
I'm an investment banker, and work long enough hours that many
programs disappeared from lack of space before I could get around to
watching them. The same thing happened whenever I made a business
trip. Hopefully that won't be a problem anymore.
--
<URL:http://www.pobox.com/~ylee/>
djx...@home.com
7200rpm produce much more heat.
Yeechang Lee
> I have always been told you should stick with 5400rpm because the
> 7200rpm produce much more heat.
I was worried about this, but so far so good.
--
<URL:http://www.pobox.com/~ylee/>
Mike Sphar
Read the book:
>>* Having 245 hours is simply awesome!
>>
>And overkill?
What does 245 hours translate to in "Best" mode? That would be the value
for me, to be able to record more things at higher quality and not run out
of space.
--
Mike Sphar http://www.dogfacedboy.org/
They say 'the early bird gets the worm'. What they often fail to
consider, however, is the early cat.
Yeechang Lee
> What does 245 hours translate to in "Best" mode?
245 hours in basic = 67 hours in best.
--
<URL:http://www.pobox.com/~ylee/>
Doug Jacobs
>>* Having 245 hours is simply awesome!
>>
> And overkill?
Naw, just record everything at high or best. :)
Bao H. Lammy
Not sure if it was argee, but someone at adelphia.net always
questions people's desire to have a huge capacity PVR. S/he
has been given numerous reasons why a superhigh capacity
PVR is desirable for many, but feels the need nonetheless
to continually question it.
Pat McQueen
same to my box.
pat
"Yeechang Lee" <yl...@pobox.com> wrote in message
news:slrn9qsoi...@pobox.com...
Mike Wanninger
Yeechang Lee wrote
-----deleted-------
> * The 'mad/setup.sh' script, and some other utilities, are hardcoded
> to use hdb, hdc, and hdd as drive names, and most documentation is
> written to reflect this. In my new 1.4GHz Athlon box, the Asus A7V133
> motherboard actually comes with two Promise UltraDMA 100 controller
> cards, each controlling two IDE connectors, so the whole thing can
> drive up to 8 IDE devices (hda through hdh). The TiVo disks were
> generally hooked up to hdf, hdg, and hdh. It was no problem mentally
> adjusting the documentation, but the hard-wired nature of the
> utilities forced me to do some cable swapping on the motherboard
> during the BlessTivo process. I recommend further iterations of the
> utilities permit arbitrary drive names.
-------- deleted -------------
Yes I ran into the same problem but worse. I was trying to upgrade
using a 60 GB drive. My motherboard BIOS did not recognize anything
beyond 32GB - and therefore not the new drive. I had even send for a
replacement drive before I finally recognized the problem. My Promise
card would recognize the drive - as hdg to Linux, but not to MFSTools. I
tried to work with every combination of MFSTools commands without
success. If I had been a Linux guru, I may have been able to make it
work. Finally after two days I found a two year old motherboard beta
BIOS update that would recognize the larger drive and was able to use the
motherboard IDE connector. (ASUS had created but never released the BIOS
update). I had to move the cable connectors so many times, I broke my
66/110 ATA pinned IDE cable and am running my PC at 33 ATA until I get a
replacement.
To top it off, Tivo had downloaded the 2.5 update, but it had not
rebooted yet. I did not know it, but when I turned the Tivo back on with
the 2nd drive, it loaded then new software and added the new drive. With
25 years of computers under my belt, this is usually a recipe for
disaster. But then Tivo is not Windows, so it did both and worked fine.
I just sweatted it out for about 10-20 minutes as it when thru its steps -
or was it 10-20 hours (or so it seemed).
I am looking at a new system with the 8 IDE drives and had wondered if
a rush ordered would have solved my problem. Nope - would still had to
re-cable. But thanks to your post, at least I know.
Mike