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RTVPatch W2K GUI

Single-drive upgrade procedure

  • Be VERY careful not to touch any of the exposed power supply components.
  • Be sure to observe proper static protection procedures. At minimum you should keep your body connected to the metal chassis of the ReplayTV unit and/or your PC at all times while operating on them. When connecting something up, make sure your body is grounded to the chassis before you make any connections. In other words, connect a ground strap between your body and the computer chassis before you plug in a disk drive. Failure to do this will result in static electricity discharge through the disk drive connector, which will significantly shorten its lifetime.
  1. Stop any recording, and turn off your ReplayTV
  2. Wait until you hear the disk spin down (typically about 10 seconds)
  3. Unplug your ReplayTV
  4. Remove the cover from the ReplayTV unit. There are 7 screws to remove from the rear and bottom of the unit.
  5. Remove the hard drive from the ReplayTV. There are 5 screws holding the top cover down. Be very careful, especially when removing the screws near the power supply.
  6. Set the master/slave jumpers properly on the ReplayTV drive and your new hard drive. Typically you would set the ReplayTV drive to master and the new drive to slave.
  7. Connect both hard drives to your PC. Typically you would connect both to the secondary hard drive connector.
  8. Boot your PC into Windows 2000 or Windows XP
  9. Run the RTVPatch W2K GUI program. You should see a screen something like this.
    • If any of the drive sizes do not look correct (like an 80GB drive showing up as 33GB), then exit from the RTVPatch program immediately, and do not attempt the upgrade on that computer and consult with a knowledgeable source.
    • The program requires Administrator priviledges to access the hard drives. If no drives show up, make sure you are logged on with an account which has Administrator privileges.
    • When using drives larger than 137GB you must have a drive controller that supports the large drives (e.g. ATA-100 or ATA-133 controller). If the drive size shows as 137GB, then verify that the disk management utility in Windows 2000 or XP sees the drive correctly first. If that utility sees the correct size, then it should be reported correctly in RTVPatch as well.
  10. Make a backup image of the original ReplayTV drive:
    • Select the ReplayTV drive
    • Click the source drive "Set" button
    • Click the "Backup Source Drive" button
    • Enter a file name for the backup. You should can save this backup file on your PC's drive, but it would be a good idea to write it to CD or tape as well. The backup image is a little over 300MB for an RTV20xx/30xx/ShowStopper, and a little over 500MB for an RTV4xxx or RTV5xxx.
  11. Your new hard drive should be shown as "Unknown", with a yellow question mark icon. If it is shown as "May be a PC disk", then exit from RTVPatch, run the Windows2000 Disk Administrator, and remove any partitions from that drive. After removing the partitions, reboot your computer and run the RTVPatch program to continue.
    Warning: If at any time you get an error message saying a disk appears to be a PC disk, DO NOT CONTINUE!!! The program gives the option of continuing, but doing so is very hazardous, and should never be done. Exit the program and remove any partitions from the new hard drive first, and then start the procedure over.
  12. Select the ReplayTV drive
  13. Click the source drive "Set" button
  14. Select your new, larger hard drive
  15. Click the target drive "Set" button
  16. Click the "Copy System Partition" button. You will be asked the following question:
    • You are are about to mirror disk SOURCE to disk TARGET
      Answer "Yes' only if the SOURCE accurately describes the original ReplayTV drive, and the TARGET accurately descibes your new hard drive.
    It will take a couple minutes to copy the partition.
  17. Select the desired photo partition size (Note: this setting is only available when patching RTV4xxx or RTV5xxx units)
  18. Click the "Patch Target" button. You will be asked the following questions.
    • You are about to patch disk TARGET
      Compare the disk name and size shown in the prompt. Answer "Yes" only if this describes your new disk drive.
    • Old version asks: Do you want to reset the partition table?
      Answer "No" to this question. If you suspect the partition table on the TARGET is corrupted, you can use this option to try to fix the problem. In general, though, the original partition table will be fine.
    • Do you want to reset the MPEG partition?
      Answer "Yes" to this question so that the MPEG partition directory is cleared. It is possible to copy the shows from the original drive to the new drive, but doing that is not very reliable, and is not recommended.
    • Do you want to reformat the Photo partition?
      (Note: this option is only available when patching RTV4xxx or RTV5xxx units)
      Answer "Yes" to this question so that the Photo partition is sized and formatted as you selected. It is possible to copy the photo partition from the original drive to the new drive, but it is probably easier just reformat and then copy the photos from your PC to the ReplayTV.
  19. Exit the RTVPatch program
  20. Shut down your computer
  21. Remove the original ReplayTV drive from your computer, put it in an anti-static bag, and store it in a safe place
  22. Remove the new drive from your computer and set the jumper to the "Master" position (Note: some drives, notable Western Digital, have a special "Single" setting for masters without slaves. Check your drive's documentation for details)
  23. Connect the new drive to your ReplayTV unit.
  24. Screw the unit back together.
  25. Test the system out by plugging in the ReplayTV unit. It should power up, show the "Please wait a few moments" screen for about a minute, and then the screen will go blank and the power light will turn off.
  26. Push the power button on the front of the ReplayTV unit to turn the power back on, and verify that the proper available space is shown in the ReplayGuide. If not, put the original drive back in your ReplayTV, and get help from a knowledgable source.