Setup Upgrade Drive without Original Drive?

[Jarobata]

I bought a maxtor 200 gb hd to give to my dad as an upgrade drive for christmas and I was wondering if it was possible for me to program the drive for him without the original drive out of the tivo because I don't have access to a computer with an IDE connection back home. His tivo is a Tivo series 2 240080. I saw a place that sold tivo model specific upgrade cd's but I was wondering if I could do it myself. Any recommendations on the best upgrade drive bracket would also be appreciated.

[wscannell]

Instantcake from ptvupgrade.com will load an image on the hard drive for you. Then all you need to do is replace the hard drive when you visit. You are better off with a single large drive rather than multiple drives.

[Jarobata]

Why is that? Instantcake is pretty pricey just for software.

[wscannell]

$20 is pretty pricey? There is plenty of software that costs more than that.

[aaronwt]

The $20 is worth it!

[mick66]

Why is that? Instantcake is pretty pricey just for software.

$20 is a bargain when you don't have another source for the Tivo software.

Why is 1 drive better than 2?
a) Two drives produce more heat which will reduce the life of the drives and/or other electronic hardware components.
b) Reliability. Your Dad's 80GB drive is already several years old. It makes little sense to pair a well used hard drive with a new one. When the old drive fails, everything on the new drive is also rendered useless.

[classicsat]

Why is that? Instantcake is pretty pricey just for software.

Download costs for one.

Also, it might be contractual, with TiVo, to make it available for pay.