RTVPatch Win9x

Dual-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. Download the rtvpatch_image_2.4.zip file and extract the files to your PC's hard drive
2. Put a blank floppy disk in your A: drive
3. From a DOS prompt, run the makeboot.bat script. Answer the prompts and it will write the boot disk image to your blank floppy
4. Shut down your PC
5. Stop any recording on your ReplayTV, and turn it off
6. Wait until you hear the disk spin down (typically about 10 seconds)
7. Unplug your ReplayTV
8. Remove the cover from the ReplayTV unit. There are 7 screws to remove from the rear and bottom of the unit.
9. 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.
10. 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.
11. Connect both hard drives to your PC. Typically you would connect both to the secondary hard drive connector.
12. Boot your PC from the floppy disk created in steps 1-3
13. At the login: prompt, enter "root" and press <ENTER>. If prompted for a password, just press <ENTER> again.
14. NOT AN OPTION: Make a backup of your original ReplayTV drive. If you do not do it this way, you must make a backup somehow. Do not attempt a dual-drive upgrade procedure without a backup since the dual-drive upgrade procedure modifies BOTH drives.
    This assumes your PC's C: drive is the first partition on the primary master IDE drive, and your original ReplayTV drive is connected to the secondary master IDE drive.
    • Mount your PC's C: drive: "mount /dev/hda1 /mnt"
    • Backup the ReplayTV drive:
      RTV30xx: "dd if=/dev/hdc of=/mnt/backup.rtv bs=1M count=310"
      RTV4xxx or 5xxx: "dd if=/dev/hdc of=/mnt/backup.rtv bs=1M count=510"
      
    • Unmount your PC's C: drive: "umount /mnt"
15. From the command prompt, enter "RTVPatch" and press <ENTER>. Note that "RTVPatch" is case-sensitive.
    • 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.
16. Select the ReplayTV drive as the TARGET (1st drive) by entering "t" and then selecting the ReplayTV drive's number
17. Enter "a" to marry a second drive to the target drive and then select the number for your new, larger hard drive as the 2nd drive.
    You will then be asked the following questions.
    • This will attempt to create a 2-drive system where 1STDRIVE is the first drive and 2NDDRIVE is the second drive
      Compare the disk names and sizes shown in the prompt. Answer "Yes" only if 1STDRIVE properly describes your original ReplayTV drive and 2NDDRIVE properly 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 1STDRIVE 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 "No" to this question so that the MPEG partition directory is left alone. This should work fine since the original files should all still be intact.
    • 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 second drive, but it is probably easier just reformat and then copy the photos from your PC to the ReplayTV.
18. Enter "x" to exit the RTVPatch program
19. Turn off your computer
20. Remove the drives from your computer and set the jumper on the original ReplayTV drive to the "Master" position, and the jumper on the new drive to the "Slave" position
21. Connect both drives to your ReplayTV unit. You will have to find some way to mount the second drive inside the ReplayTV unit. See the pictures of how others have mounted their drives for ideas.
22. Screw the unit back together.
23. 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.
24. 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.