PDA

View Full Version : Salvaging an upgraded TiVo


bugmeno
05-01-2006, 09:51 PM
I have a Phillips DSR6000R01 DirecTiVo that I upgraded a couple years ago using Hinsdale's upgrade instructions. It has the original 40GB A drive and the newer 120GB B drive that I added. Now the A drive seems to be dead and I want to replace it and try to salvage my shows and settings.

Not that it really matters, but here's a little background on the problem. A few weeks ago, I noticed that one of the drives was making a clicking noise as if the drive heads were seeking around and hitting something. The noise would last about a second and then I wouldn't hear it for a couple more days. Since then, it has been happening more frequently until tonight when my TiVo rebooted itself and sat on the "Welcome. Powering Up...." screen for hours. I unplugged the unit, opened the case, and plugged it back in to see which drive was making the noise. It is definitely the smaller A drive.

I dug out my old Hinsdale instructions and found that I made a backup image with Tiger MFS. I also noticed that there is a section in there for replacing an existing A drive in a factory dual-drive or upgraded system with dual-drives. However, this assumes that both drives are working.

What is the best chance at salvaging my shows and settings? I'm hoping that when I put the A drive in my PC to perform the upgrade that everything will work. However, when that doesn't happen, I'm not sure what to do. If I have to forfeit all of my settings and recordings, should I just try to restore the backup I made before the original upgrade or is there another image I should install?

Also, should I just follow my Hinsdale instructions again or is there a better set? I looked at tivo<dot>upgrade-instructions<dot>com which seems nice, but doesn't really cover the "one of my drives is dead, now what?" scenario.

Thanks!

Dkerr24
05-01-2006, 11:43 PM
Highly doubt you'll be able to recover your shows and settings. Can't hurt to try, but most likely the drive copy will fail at some point during the process.

Recommend you skip on creating another dual drive unit along with all their headaches. A single large hard drive will prove to be a more reliable solution over the long haul. 300gb drives can be found many places for less than $100.

bugmeno
05-01-2006, 11:58 PM
Yeah, so far I'm not having any luck getting the A drive to even power up in my PC.

Assuming the drive is hosed, how do you recommend that I image the new A drive? Should I start with the backup I have from my A drive or should I buy one of the InstantCake images? My backup is probably 2 years old at this point.

Thanks!