MFSLive Computer Setup

MFSLive - Setting Up Computer

Lets prepare your computer.

With power turned off, open up your computer case if you plan on using a PC desktop. If you have a PC laptop or Intel based Mac, you can use USB to SATA or USB to IDE adapter to perform TiVo drive upgrade or repair.

If you are planning on using MFSLive Linux Boot CD and PC, you might want to unplug the cable from your computer hard drive with windows on it.
You want to do this because you don't want to overwrite your Windows drive by mistake. Also, your computer boots up with some flavor of Windows (WinXP sp1 or older, W2K sp1 or older, WinME, Win98, Win95) and if your tivo hard drive is connected, it will overwrite Tivo bootpage so you will have to fix it to work properly in TiVo.

If you are planning on using WinMFS, don't disconnect windows drive as you will need Windows. Make sure you have Windows XP sp2 or later OS.

If you have Intel based Mac, you can use MfsLive Linux CD by booting directly to Linux. Insert MfsLive Linux CD and hold "c" key during powering up to boot directly.

Using PATA connection

Connect a cdrom drive as primary slave (hdb), original TiVo hard drive as secondary master (hdc), new hard drive as secondary slave (hdd). You may have to set the jumper pin on the hard drive and your cdrom.

Figure 1. ATA Cable

Using USB 2.0 to IDE Adapter

You can use USB 2.0 to IDE adapter to upgrade. Hook up ide end of it to your hard drive and usb to your computer. Some models require your jumper setting to be primary. Make sure the adapter supports large hard drive. Most of them do not support hard drives greater than 400GB. Note: This is not for Tivo S3 or TivoHD.

usb_ide

Figure 2. USB 2 to IDE Adapter

You have to be careful what drive gets mounted where. First USB drive will be mounted sda, 2nd sdb etc.
Once it boots up, make a note of what drive is mounted where by Shift-PageUP and look for sda, sdb, sdc, sdd to see which is the original TiVo drive and which is the new one. You can determine this by size of the drive.

Using SATA (Serial ATA for TiVo Series 3 and TivoHD)

TiVo series 3 uses Western Digital SATA drive with Secure connect cable (left picture) But any SATA cable (right picture) works so connect one end to your computer and the other end to your SATA hard drive. Drives will be mounted as sda, sdb etc. Make sure you find out which drive is mounted where as discussed earlier.

sata_cable sata_cable_generic

Figure 3. SATA Cable

Using USB 2.0 to SATA Adapter

If your computer does not have SATA ports, you can use USB to SATA adapter to upgrade your Tivo drives. Note: This is for Tivo Series 3 or TivoHD

Figure 4. USB 2 to SATA Adapter

Using All-in-One USB 2.0 Adapter

You can get the following adapter that can handle both PATA and SATA drives. This is pefect if you want to use a laptop to upgrade Tivo drives.

Figure 5. USB 2 to All-in-One Adapter

Using eSATA (External Serial ATA for TiVo Series 3 and TivoHD)

Tivo Series 3 can use eSATA drive as "B" drive. So what kind of eSATA are compatible? My recommendation is to get Antec MX-1, or Apricorn EZ Bus DTS.
You might want to try good eSATA II cable as well. eSATA cable length should as short as possible to reduce EMI and keep it away from strong magnetic fields such as voltage regulators, speakers or subwoofers.