Does TiVoWeb+ work on Toshiba SD-H400?

[LBCABob]

I have only used TiVoWebPlus on my Series 1 stand alone units and it works great. But will it work on a Series 2 machine - specifically the Toshiba SD-H400 (DVD player, not burner)? The tivo.fp2000.org/twp site indicates the August 9, 2005 rel. 1.2.1 will run on Series 1 & 2, software versions 6.x and 7.x with no mention of the DVD-TiVo units one way or the other. So, it should be OK but before I start taking the unit apart, I thought I'd check here for confirmation.

The unit's serial no. starts with 264-0000 and is running 7.2.2-oth.01-2-264 software. It's on TiVo Basic and uses a Netgear wireless USB adapter to acquire its program guide data via my router.

From other threads on this model, it appears the disk drive is near the end of its lifecycle so I thought I'd (a) remove it and make a backup image while the drive is still viable, (b) perhaps upgrade to a larger drive, and (c) add TiVoWebPlus for the added convenience of network access to Now Playing, etc.

A reasonable plan of action or not? Any warnings or encouragement will be appreciated.

[john1980]

I have only used TiVoWebPlus on my Series 1 stand alone units and it works great. But will it work on a Series 2 machine - specifically the Toshiba SD-H400 (DVD player, not burner)?
I know it works on Series 2 standalone units... I am unsure if it works on DVD players. I have been updating the software so you may wish to try the latest version from here (thomson.tivo.googlepages.com) or get a copy from the DD forum. If you do encounter problems them let me know and if at all possible I'll fix it up.

[BrianEWilliams]

I have the same Toshiba unit you have with a bad hard drive. My advice is to back it up now, something I failed to do. Now I am learning all about trying to salvage a bad hard drive. Fun.

[JamieP]

I have the same Toshiba unit you have with a bad hard drive. My advice is to back it up now, something I failed to do. Now I am learning all about trying to salvage a bad hard drive. Fun.You can buy an instant cake image now for this model ($20), or look on the ed2k network (free - link over at DDB in the image begging thread). This won't recover lost recordings, but it will allow you to start over with a fresh software image on a new drive.

and BTW to the OP: TWP 1.2.1 works fine for me on a sd-h400 running 7.2.2b.

[LBCABob]

Well, finally got around to replacing the drive on the SD-H400. I used the $20 InstantCake CD to install v7.2 to a new larger drive. I assume it will upgraded (again) by TiVo to 8.1 within a few days. AFTER that happens, then -

Phase 2, installing TivoWebPlus 1.3.1/1.4.0 on the unit. Of course, I need access to the system (ftp/telnet/BASH) to get the files loaded and installed. And, while I did this years ago with my Series 1 with a BASH prompt, I'm having trouble finding the right instructions for getting ftp/telnet/BASH installed on a Series 2 SA unit.

I've searched and Googled and read up on DVRupgrade's Universal Boot CD Ver11, but nothing seems quite the right fit (e.g. Zipper is for DirectTV units).

Or, do I need to do something like this:
(A) Download the TWP software from John1980's site (or the "official" tivo.ft200.org/twp/ ?) and save on an FAT32 drive.
(B) Connect the SD-H400 drive and the FAT32 drive on a PC with a CD-ROM drive and boot from MFStools 2.0 CD to get UNIX (Linux?) running.
(C) "Mount" the FAT32 and SD-H400 drives and then copy (dd?) the TWP software to /var/hack directory.
(D) Run the TWP install script (which installs ftp & telnet & BASH as well as TWP, right?).

OR, just get DVDupgrade's Universal Boot CD Ver 11 which has TWP 1.2.1 on it and then upgrade to 1.3.1 or 1.4.0 once 1.2.1 is running (along with ftp, telnet & BASH)?

Any guidance on the better path will be greatly appreciated.

[LBCABob]

As is the tradition in this forum, given a weekend to work on my problems allowed me to figure most everything out either by trial-and-error or by sorting through everything I could find via Google and the other boards.

So, I've got the SD-H400 running with:

(A) A new, larger drive using software ver 7.2.0-oth-S9-01-2
(B) Serial Bash prompt works (slight problem remains, see below)
(C) Telnet Bash prompt works just fine
(D) TiVoWebPlus ver 2.0.0 installed and running

STILL TO DO: Install Slicer and see if I can get the upgrade to 8.1 to happen and keep my hacks in place.

One quirk I have is that PATH is not correct for the Serial Bash but is fine for the Telnet Bash. Probably because I'm still starting Serial Bash in rc.sysinit but Telnet, etc. in rc.sysinit.author which has the export PATH statement. Thought I only had to export once to be in effect everywhere but apparently thought wrong. Correction would be to start Serial Bash in rc.sysinit.author and revert rc.sysinit to it's original condition.

The kernel command line contains "upgradesoftware=false" so I hope the unit will NOT be downloading and upgrading to 8.1 until I'm prepared.

Any thoughts, warnings, suggestions regarding Slicer or other matters will be greatly appreciated.

[LBCABob]

With the assistance of Jamie on the DDB board, I got the right drivers installed and all seems to work just fine under 8.1 (Serial BASH, Telnet, FTP, TWPv2).

I was planning on adding the customized graphics provided by Sirshagg in Yet another TivoWebPlus TCF theme (http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=303739&highlight=install+TiVoWebPlus) but the files to install/replace don't seem to quite match up. Specifically:

(1) html.itcl is to be replaced but I don't see that v2 has such a file (perhaps replaced by httpd-tt.tcl and load.tcl ?).
(2) tcfbook.css should likely go in the themes directory with the other .css files rather than the TivoWebPlus directory

Any guidance, John1980? Others? Perhaps I should quit while I'm ahead.

[BTUx9]

Any TWP hack that replaces a file (like html.itcl) is unlikely to work in other versions than what it was originally written for.

Given that TWP2 added submenus, it's extremely unlikely that such a hack would work without rewriting.