TiVo additional hard drive setup using a PowerBook?

January 9, 2005 12:11 PM

DVRFilter: I just picked up a TiVo TCD540040 and am [predictably] madly in love with it. I also have a 250GB EIDE drive laying around, and can figure no better use than upgrading this baby. I have read this great tutorial, but I have a problem -- my PC/Linux box died a great death a number of months ago, and now I have only my PowerBook (as well as a FireWire disk enclosure I could put the drive into). Have I any options for getting the TiVo to recognize the extra 250GB drive, without hunting down a friend with a PC and a spare drive bay?
posted by symphonik to technology (5 comments total)

By appearances, you should be able to compile MFS Tools for Mac OS X. Someone has already gone to the trouble, it looks like. The path names may be a little different, however.
posted by AlexReynolds at 12:27 PM on January 9, 2005

Speaking as a PowerBook owner with a TCD540040 that's going to be delivered next week who doesn't want to have to bother fashioning a PC out of old parts lying around to upgrade it, I say... sorry. Unless you know a lot about compiling software for the Mac and can fashion them yourself, the right tools just aren't out there. The tools AlexReynolds linked to are incomplete for replacing the primary, "A" drive of the TiVo -- although they should be enough for adding a second "B" drive, the problem is that the 540040 doesn't come with a bracket for that second drive. You can get the Mac to *recognize* that 250mb drive, and even "bless" it, but it looks like you just can't use the Mac to use the TiVo file system to back-up the TiVo's primary drive to it.

Here's hoping someone can prove me wrong, because I'd love to not have to reassemble my old PC next weekend. ;)
posted by eschatfische at 9:09 PM on January 9, 2005

Mac OS X has the dd command that does the block-level duplication described in the tutorial (i.e. dd from the original to your PB, then dd from the PB to the larger hard drive).

You'd need to compile and install the MFS tools so that you can at least mount the Tivo drive under OS X. I imagine after a dd, you'd need to "bless" the drive so that the Tivo box is happy with the new drive.

Looks possible to me, reading the tutorial, since all the tools are there to do the job. But I don't own a Tivo so you'll have to consider my comments with that in mind.
posted by AlexReynolds at 9:29 PM on January 9, 2005

Whoa. Alex, I was just about to gripe at you with a "compiling MFS Tools is easier said than done" kind of response, but it looks like Loki released binaries for the MFS Tools in this thread.

Symphonik, our answer is in the thread I linked above.
posted by eschatfische at 10:18 PM on January 9, 2005

Excellent. I've been thinking about a Tivo so this page'll get bookmarked. Thanks, eschatfische.
posted by AlexReynolds at 11:29 PM on January 9, 2005