Hopper hard drive duplication for backup

[TheKrell]

Does it matter which folder I put the copied files in? Do I follow the same pattern and fill the folders from the bottom up? I anticipate filling the bottom folder from the donor drive to the bottom folder on the target drive, and work my way up from there.

I agree with bookworm; you can do just that. My only caveat, and this is a bit hazy. I believe I skipped that bottom 1GB partition and went with only the partitions containing programs in each of the remaining 500GB (or less) partitions. I had 1.5TB EHD's so one of my 500GB partitions was also a bit less.

Why does Dish partition EHD's like this? I don't know, but it benefitted me greatly when one of my WD Greendrives semi-crapped out. Only one of the 500GB partitions became unreadable, so I was able to copy the remaining programs onto a new drive that WD sent me and I was happy. As near as I can remember, it was the uppermost partition and there was nothing on it. So I lost nothing (other than the bad drive).

 

[riderj]

Thanks both of you.

A sort of off-topic question: when Win formats a 3TB drive, there is only about 2.7 TB of available space. Does Linux take up less space?

 

[bookworm370]

Google is your friend. 1 search.

Why Do Hard Drives Show the Wrong Capacity in Windows?

 

[riderj]

I have been able to successfully copy a 1TB EHD onto a 2TB
drive. It works. I am using Linux Mint Cinnamon 20.2

I moved on to another EHD, this time a 2TB, copying it onto a 3TB. There is a problem that I can’t seem to solve. The copy process stalls, with the error message "Error Splicing File: Input/Output error". I went to the Linux forums, and the error is well talked about. The one similar theme to the “fix” is that the target drive might be formatted to FAT32. No other solutions are offered. I reformatted it by the Hopper, even tried another drive and formatted it – no luck.

Has anyone come up against this problem?

 

[TheKrell]

I moved on to another EHD, this time a 2TB, copying it onto a 3TB. There is a problem that I can’t seem to solve. The copy process stalls, with the error message "Error Splicing File: Input/Output error". I went to the Linux forums, and the error is well talked about.

I have never heard of that error. But I was not using Linux Mint, but rather Scientific Linux, which is a free re-compiled Redhat Enterprise LInux. Newer versions such as 7 and 8 default to the xfs file system. But 4-6 default to ext3 or 4. So if I were you, I'd go with an old live DVD of one of those versions and try again.

 

[bookworm370]

I moved on to another EHD, this time a 2TB, copying it onto a 3TB. There is a problem that I can’t seem to solve. The copy process stalls, with the error message "Error Splicing File: Input/Output error". I went to the Linux forums, and the error is well talked about. The one similar theme to the “fix” is that the target drive might be formatted to FAT32. No other solutions are offered. I reformatted it by the Hopper, even tried another drive and formatted it – no luck.

Has anyone come up against this problem?

By any chance are you copying more files or files that add up to more than each individual partition? A file (folder/recording) cannot span multiple partitions. So all the recordings you put into a each partition on the EHD have to cleanly fit. If you are dragging and dropping, try dragging and drop one or two less folders. Or even copy one folder at a time and see if you get the error.

I can't think of anything specific to a 3TB drive that would be different than a 2TB or even my 7TB drive other than the Hopper creating more 500G partitions.

I've also seen phantom errors like this because the code is not recognizing that it might be the input file that could be the culprit and might be corrupted. Copying each one or copying different ones than the ones you are currently doing, you might find the bad/corrupted folder.

Also, if the folders have been saved with any Hopper software version over the last year or so, Dish went with adding the show icon inside the folder as a regular JPEG. So if there is a .jpg you can just open it up and see what the show or movie is. Before that, they used their own format for the icon.

Let us know how copying each file goes or copying different folders to possible different partitions. Remember, it doesn't really matter if you bunch them together or put the folder randomly across all the partitions. The Hopper will figure it out.

 

[riderj]

I have never heard of that error. But I was not using Linux Mint, but rather Scientific Linux, which is a free re-compiled Redhat Enterprise LInux. Newer versions such as 7 and 8 default to the xfs file system. But 4-6 default to ext3 or 4. So if I were you, I'd go with an old live DVD of one of those versions and try again.

I tried many google links to download Scientific v6 or lower, and they are all dead. I can't find one.
I will try a v7.

 

[TheKrell]

I tried many google links to download Scientific v6 or lower, and they are all dead. I can't find one. I will try a v7.

In the blue menu bar, click on Downloads, and then select Versions. They go all the way back to SL3. I would go with SL5 if I were you, because the GUI can run under root.

 

[riderj]

In the blue menu bar, click on Downloads, and then select Versions.

On what website is the blue menu bar?

 

[TheKrell]

On what website is the blue menu bar?

Scientific Linux

 

[riderj]

I went to that site repeatedly yesterday and every time I clicked on a link a connection error came up.

Not today!'
thanks

 

[riderj]

 

[TheKrell]

View attachment 153761

My memory isn't good enough to interpret this screen grab. Is this the SL file manager? It looks like the contents of your boot CD. If so, you need to plug in your EHDs and let it auto-mount them. Each partition will appear as a separate ext3 disk, and you can start dragging and dropping program folders from one disk to another.

 

[riderj]

I downloaded a v5.0 iso from Scientific and created a boot DVD using Rufus. When I went to start the machine, it said that the Scientific Linux CD was not found. Here is how it went down.



In the beginning, I used Cinnamon and it worked well. After downloading the iso I made a USB boot drive, and also made a DVD boot disk, both by using Rufus. The screenshot shows the structure of the USB drive, and the DVD looks the same. Their sizes are the same. Is there any flaw that anyone can see?



I put the USB drive into the Toshiba P770 laptop, (of which I own 5) and started the machine. No other drives or media were mounted. I started the machine loading process using the USB. It asked me to select languages and keyboard, and then asked for the location of the media. I was using the USB, but somehow It did not offer a USB option for loading files, so I put the boot CD in the drive, and it kicked it back out at me in a fit of disgust.





I am learning my way around Linux, on a need to know basis. The GUI in Mint is great. How this ends up, TBD.

 

[TheKrell]

I downloaded a v5.0 iso from Scientific and created a boot DVD using Rufus. When I went to start the machine, it said that the Scientific Linux CD was not found.

Well, nuts. I vaguely remember having that issue once. But I no longer remember how I overcame it. Do your Toshibas have BIOS or UEFI? If UEFI, are the "legacy" settings enabled? I do remember booting up Linux to erase the hdd on brand new computers, because I couldn't boot up a Windows 7 installation thumb drive; it kept going to the hdd instead or not showing me the USB drive at all.

You might have to step up to SL6 or 7 if you can't figure out what the issue is.

 

[ethanlerma]

Was gonna say, it could also be that the thumb drive was formatted in GPT/UEFI with the laptop only being MBR/BIOS compatible, I've forgotten to check that in Rufus before.

 

[riderj]

My memory isn't good enough to interpret this screen grab. Is this the SL file manager? It looks like the contents of your boot CD. If so, you need to plug in your EHDs and let it auto-mount them. Each partition will appear as a separate ext3 disk, and you can start dragging and dropping program folders from one disk to another.

I was able to transfer files yesterday using SL v5.11. I copied about 90 folders, BUT 15 of them had the "Error Splicing File: Input/Output" error. When I first started this project I was able to copy a 1TB drive onto another without any errors using Mint Cinnamon. I don’t know if that was because the drive I chose to copy didn’t have any problem folders or not. It could be dumb luck. I will be doing some other tests, but I am pretty frustrated.

 

[Altitudinous]

Just a suggestion about this project. I've used Clonezilla to clone drives, and it supports parameters to account for different drive/partition sizes. It's an open-source bootable Linux system that might avoid the manual copying of files.

 

[TheKrell]

I copied about 90 folders, BUT 15 of them had the "Error Splicing File: Input/Output" error.

Well, at least you got 75 folders off!

I've been googling that error, which I have never seen before. Some people (Fedora forum) claim one of the EHD's is gong bad. Another (Ubuntu forum) claimed it was because the target was formatted FAT32 and not ext3. You formatted them using your dish receiver, did you not?

 

[riderj]

Just a suggestion about this project. I've used Clonezilla to clone drives, and it supports parameters to account for different drive/partition sizes. It's an open-source bootable Linux system that might avoid the manual copying of files.