Any pointers on building new Sage server using 9 month old backup?

[Brent94Z]

Hey Guys!

My wonderful SageTV server computer died (OS hard drive failure) a couple months ago. I've been working a lot so haven't been able to fix it yet. It was an old computer running Win XP Pro and I was using PVR250 cards, HDHR, and an HD PVR. Since the computer was old, I bought all new stuff along with Win7 Pro. The problem is that I neglected to check my backups, which I thought were running nightly, but had stopped nearly 9 months earlier. Yes, I suck.

Anyway, I'm wondering if somebody could guide me in how best to recover my Sage system as best I can. I'm not an expert at this but have read bits and pieces but hadn't found a "guide" or anything on how best to do this and there is so much info here on this board that my searches come up with tons of info that I'm having trouble narrowing down just what I need to do. Here are my thoughts and if you can help guide me in the right direction it would be greatly appreciated!

1) I have upgraded SageTV versions several times. I was running V7 and remember some "weird" issues in putting in the keys and all that. But, I thought I read that I can now just install the latest version of V7 and input my key and that works, is that accurate?

2) My most recent backup is around 9 months old. My wiz.bin is old but I think better than starting over from complete scratch. Once I get SageTV up and running then is it best to just replace the wiz.bin at that point with the old one?

3) I will continue to use the USB-UIRT with my remote and my HDHR. Both those have stored info that took me a while to "configure". I'll also use my same HD PVR. I don't think I want to replace the sage.properties file entirely because my system will be so different with new hardware, etc., plus I don't even remember all the plugins I had installed... or should I just use the same properties file? What is the best way to "pluck" my info out of the properties file (for the remote/USB-UIRT, HDHR, HD PVR) if I don't use my old one?

Or, rather than try to pluck stuff out of my properties file for my remote and channel info for the HDHR, am I better off to just start from total scratch. I'm a little afraid to do that though because I don't remember all the intricate details that I did to get all that stuff working before (but do remember spending many hours researching and figuring it out). I'd like to avoid having to spend hours and hours figuring all this stuff out again if that is possible but if I must then so be it

Any recommendations would be appreciated. I go on vacation in a couple days and getting my SageTV setup back up and running is high on my list of things to do!

Thank you!

[Brent94Z]

After poking around, I looked again and found quickly the answer to #1. Just was looking in the wrong place before

http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/showthread.php?t=56225

[mistergq]

Version 7 is pretty easy to start a fresh. With my last install, the only thing i used from the old install was wiz.bin.

For channel lineups and tuners, I would just set them up fresh. HDHR is pretty easy to set up. Just follow the wizard. It will scan for the channels and find them.

As to HD PVR, install the drivers, and then set it up with Sage. As I recall, with Windows 7, I am not sure you need codec to decode the video. But I don't recall and really don't use the server for viewing video, except for making sure all the tuners are working.

I use firewire, so I have not used USB-UIRT in years.

Hope that help. Good luck.

[Brent94Z]

Thanks, mistergq!

Originally Posted by mistergq

For channel lineups and tuners, I would just set them up fresh. HDHR is pretty easy to set up. Just follow the wizard. It will scan for the channels and find them.

When I did this originally, it took me forever because, while it found the channels, they were all numbered wrong. I had to watch each channel, along with a regular TV and cablebox, to determine what number to change it to. Maybe it has changed but I remember the HDHR being a PAIN!

Originally Posted by mistergq

As to HD PVR, install the drivers, and then set it up with Sage. As I recall, with Windows 7, I am not sure you need codec to decode the video. But I don't recall and really don't use the server for viewing video, except for making sure all the tuners are working.

I use my server for my main viewing. I'll make sure I get the HD PVR working before I install Sage.

Thanks!

[MattHelm]

This isn't too hard, and I remember posting the steps I used, but can't find it right now.

Basically get everything running (SageTV, turners), then shut down SageTV completely (service too, if using it), then add your win.biz back in. You'll loose any watched status and new favorites from that 9 month time frame.

The HDHR is hard, until you use anything else (but a cable box/card), then it's super easy.

Just step thru your channels with zap2it in a web page. When you ID the channel, find it in the zap2it listing, then copy the "zap2it" name to the HDHR interface. Save when done, then the scan takes a few minutes in SageTV. If you just get the HD channels, this shouldn't take more than 30 minutes from scratch. I keep a listing of channels in a text file, takes me about 5 minutes to create mine from scratch with this text file.

(Just did it 2 times in the last 6 months!)

Also, get the web interface and the channel import/export plugin. Between the two of them, that'll give you most of you data for next time.

I backup the properties and win.biz file daily (locally and to my dad's recorder), the entire SageTV directory about every 2 weeks (locally only, dad's internet sucks).

[Brent94Z]

Thanks, MattHelm!

I like the pointer about the HDHR. Basically I think you are saying to do my cablebox FIRST and then add in the HDHR. Correct?

And, you nailed it with the HDHR... was hoping to just be able to copy over some settings from my old properties file because it took me a long time to figure out/convert the digital channel name as reported by the HDHR to the actual channel of the cablebox. For, Brighthouse, they are not the same in most cases!

I promise to be vigilant in my backups.