TiVo, a class act

[Lex]

As an early adopter of TiVo, my unit is woefully short on HD space. I'm well aware that there's ways to increase the drive capacity. However, I have neither the time, knowledge, nor inclination to go down this road myself.

While considering a used 80 hour model with lifetime subscription, I decided to call TiVo just to see if they'd allow me to transfer my subscription to a new TiVo. Low and behold, because I was an early adopter, I would be allowed to do this one time under the early adopter policy.

The subscription is now 50.00 more than it was when I got mine. Hey, that's a nice thing. In a sense, they are thanking me for supporting them early on, and that really makes me feel good about enjoying TiVo.

I'll be upgrading soon, and when I do, I just call, give them a case number to refer back to , and change my subscription over to the new unit. :T

Lex

[HowardGjr]

Lex,

That's a fantastic policy. I love my TIVO. BTW...if you can make a cable :LOL: you can certainly install a new hard drive in a Tivo. I'll be upgrading my series 2 in a few months...80 hours just isn't enough.

Take care.
Howard

[Lex]

Hey Howard! If you can tell me exactly what you have to do, then I will take a look at it. I'll probably upgrade to the 80 soon though if I can't figure it out. Sure, I'd just as soon keep what I have though if I could make it work, but I don't have a lot of time to devote to it, especially right now.

Lex

[HowardGjr]

Lex,

Sorry for the slow reply. There are a number of sites that show you how to "do it yourself". However, you know me, I'll go with the simple route.

http://www.weaknees.com

These guys were very responsive to emails. They actually recommended that I take back a unit rather than upgrade since I was in the warranty period. I plan to upgrade to a second hard drive once my warranty on the 80 hour one expires.

instructions and the kits (by reputation) are pretty bulletproof. Just look at the Tivo upgrade kits on their site. If you were willing to take a crack at HTPC and can support a zillion web sites, you certainly can add a hard drive to a linux computer

BTW...where do you find the time to do all this stuff AND listen to music and watch movies :LOL:

Take care and enjoy the holiday.

[David Meek]

Lex, these puppies are basically LINUX boxes - no more no less. As computer savvy as you are, it should be a snap.




David - HTGuide flunky
Our "Theater"
Our DVDs on DVD Tracker

[David Meek]

Okay, I went to the site and if you are just adding a drive, it's literally a snap. we're talking 15 minutes Lex. I'm ordering my 145-hour upgrade as soon as I get home and see what model we have. For $179 + free shipping, this is a no-brainer.

Thanks Howard!!!!! I have to award you three of Chris' bananas.

:banana: :banana: :banana:




David - HTGuide flunky
Our "Theater"
Our DVDs on DVD Tracker

[HowardGjr]

A long holiday weekend coming up...a three dancing bannana award...life is good

[Lex]

Thanks for the tip Howard! I want as much capacity as I can afford, that's for sure. I'm tired of being so limited on what I record.

Lex

[Rock Dog]

Lex, it isn't that difficult (although I have an extensive computer background. Not playing "big shot," I'm just saying that it's easier if you've really got a handle on things)

http://www.tivocommunity.com

Is by far the best place to find what you need. Go to the TiVo Upgrade forum.

I recommend that you backup your original drive. I got my TiVo about 2 years ago. 2 days after I bought it. I razor?d that little "warranty void" sticker and went to work. It had one 30 Gig drive out of the box.. I bought a 30 gig and a 60 Gig.

I backed up the original 30 Gig using the TiVo utility boot disk downloaded from the aforementioned site. And stored the original. Then I "married" the 60 to the 30. The reason for backing up the original was because once you added (or married) a 2nd drive. Those 2 were matched for life. If you wanted to increase the 2nd drive later. You could always recopy the original, and ?marry? a new drive, because the original was never ?married? to another. I believe the TiVo Gurus have found a way around that now.

So I installed the new 30, then the 60 and "married" the 2 using the utilities found at that site. The instructions in the TiVo HACK FAQ were invaluable.

I get 28 hours of best quality, and about 108 of worst. I never use anything other than best. It's been enough for me so far.

At that time there was no way to increase or upgrade the size of the original, now there is. I think you use the TiVo MAD utility (found at the same place) for this process.

This can be done on any PC. They suggest that you connect the drives you're working with to the secondary IDE ports. You put in the Linux boot and command disk downloaded from that site, and follow the instructions.

The downside. It can take a couple or 3 or 4 to do the copy. Depending on how much data is on the original drive. I highly suggest that you remove/delete any shows stored on the drive. Makes the copy process much faster.

Then you will need a mounting bracket, and a cable. These can be found at http://www.9thtee.com a big TiVo aftermarket and Hack parts depot. You'll need an ATA/66 cable at least. Anything I tried from my standard computer stock was too short. The connectors between the 2 drives would not make the distance. That's why I bought one from 9thtee. They make them up to the proper length. Although you could just make your own.

TiVo's white papers require nothing faster than a 4,200 RPM (or there abouts) hard drive. My 30 and 60 were 5,400 rpm. The 7,200 RPM drives have caused overheating issues. Plus the 5,400s are cheaper.

For a price you can just have 9thtee do it for you. Tell them what size number 2 drive you want. And I think, send them the original. In a couple of days you'll get your original back, with a 2nd drive married and ready to go, already on a bracket. Just install the stuff back in the box, and away you go.

I may have this wrong, maybe you give them your model number (they have a library of original images) and they?ll make a set of drives for you. 9thtee?s parts prices are very reasonable.

That's it!




-Thomas-

The easiest way to find something lost around the house, is to buy a replacement.

Hey You! Make sure you stop by the HTguide Off-Topic section. It's FUN!!!

[Lex]

Thomas, thanks for sharing that. How I rather feel about that is, if it's something I am going to do over and over again, I don't mind learning new things. With 14 years in programming, and having built PCs from the ground up, I know I can ndo it.

But if it's something I likely won't do often, then sometimes it's better to just take the easy even if more expensive road. Especially with my time being a precious commodity most of the time. I remember reading about some of that at one time. I considered doing it, but last I recall, you needed a Linux box to do it. Something I don't have.

Well, anyway, I think weaknees makes sense for me if I upgrade. They do say there are some advantages to series 2 boxes though. Increased speed, and the HMO option, which can give you remote programming capability. That's pretty cool. I could be at work, and setup recording for the evening.

Lex

[Rock Dog]

Lex

I totally agree and can get behind the thought that sometimes paying to have something done, is better than doing it yourself. The commodity of time being the smallest resource I have as well. Just thoght I'd give you the low down. Information to think about.

And by the way, a Linux box is not needed. You just unplug the harddrives from your windows PC, plug in the TiVO drives, and use the Linux flavored Floppy you download from that site.

There also seems to be a lot of misinformation regarding Series 2 out there. There is no discernable, increase in speed. Unless you consider tha ability to get off the modem, and get on ethernet. And my understanding is that the ethernet setup is still an add on with series 2. You can do that on series 1. Although with more difficulty and you have to open the box.

The remote programming feature is cool. But I wonder how long it'll be before we here about series 2 boxes getting hacked, or trojans and viruses or something like that.

Stay Tuned!




-Thomas-

The easiest way to find something lost around the house, is to buy a replacement.

Hey You! Make sure you stop by the HTguide Off-Topic section. It's FUN!!!

[David Meek]

Hehe, got back from vacation yesterday and found a box from Weaknees on the kitchen counter! I'll be putting their 145-hour upgrade kit (total record time with both disks = 170 hours) in my HDR31203 model TIVO tonight. I'll take photos of the process and post them and a full report. . . .




David - HTGuide flunky
Our "Theater"
Our DVDs on DVD Tracker