TiVo Linux & Large Drives

[iam29a]

Hello All,

Normally I would have asked this question over at TiVo Community forums, but they have been down for several days (and will be for several more). I bought a large hard drive (180GB) and would like to replace my current/OEM single-drive (40GB). I have read the Hinsdale(sp) How-To and one thing has been bothering me ...

I have been playing, on and off, with Mandrake Linux since 4.x, but not recently (stopped around 7.x). I just downloaded the new ISO's, but aside from this I am trying to understand the hard drive limit in terms of size. You see, I was under the impression that beyond POST (power on self-test), Linux does not use the BIOS for disk I/O geometry determination. While under this belief, and I suppose I am now wrong, the disk drive had no real BIOS-centered limitation for the Linux operating environment.

Being that TiVo runs on Linux, hence TiVo Linux, I was wondering if I thus have over-killed myself in buying such a large hard drive (i.e. should have bought a 120GB drive, instead). Can anyone shed any light on this matter?

 

[YRLSEngr]

I don't think this is an OS or Bios issue. The Tivo hardware does not support addressing beyond 137 GB.

 

[iam29a]

Can you explain a little further? I thought that maybe the limitation was in the current number of bits LBA-mode has available for addressing, but then thought different since Linux does use the BIOS, or its LBA interpretation, for read-write and geometry. I know this was something that was overcome with a newer motherboard chipset (845?) and some operating systems enabled for 48-bit LBA (ex. XP w/SP1).

 

[Nothinman]

The OS and the IDE controller need to support it.

 

[iam29a]

I think I may have wasted money by buying this drive. Bummer. If 137GB is the limit then I'm throwing away 43GB (24%) of the drive. I should install this on my PC (my raid controller would support it) and take the 80GB drive in it and put that in the TiVo. I suppose I could go through the Hinsdale upgrade for adding a 'B' drive (i.e. from 'A' to 'A+B') and get about 120GB of recording space.

I hope the resolve this matter when it comes time to offer an HD-capable PVR as the hard drive capacities needed would most certainly crest 2x137GB.