TiVo extender. Just a hard drive?

[Igor-g5]

I was looking at the TiVo extender. Is it just am eSATA hard drive? Or is it special? Can I use my own eSATA HD? if so, how would it need to be formatted?

[Jonathan_S]

It an eSata drive that contains some secret recognintion mechanism so the TiVo unit recognizes it. Because of that it's the one eSata drive that works automatically with all the Series 3 TiVos.

(There are different tricks or hacks on the 3 different Series 3 platforms to allow you to use any eSata drive, but for the TiVo HD and TiVo HD XL the hack required temporarily removing the internal SATA drive and hooking it and the eSATA drive up to a computer. The original series 3 has a much simpler trick to allow you to use any eSata drive)

[Joe01880]

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=370784

[richsadams]

It an eSata drive that contains some secret recognintion mechanism so the TiVo unit recognizes it. Because of that it's the one eSata drive that works automatically with all the Series 3 TiVos.

(There are different tricks or hacks on the 3 different Series 3 platforms to allow you to use any eSata drive, but for the TiVo HD and TiVo HD XL the hack required temporarily removing the internal SATA drive and hooking it and the eSATA drive up to a computer. The original series 3 has a much simpler trick to allow you to use any eSata drive)Well...sort of. The WD My DVR Expander is a basic eSATA drive and could be used as such...there's nothing special about it. TiVo HD/HDXL software is programmed to verify the actual hard drive model inside of the WD My DVR Expander enclosure. No other eSATA drive can be connected via plug and pray with the TiVo HD/HDXL without additional work that voids the warranty and includes removing the internal drive from TiVo and marrying it to an external hard drive.

On the other hand TiVo Series3's don't have the verification requirement. Although not supported by TiVo, you can successfully connect most eSATA drives to a TiVo Series3 due to a "grandfather clause" of sorts. There's really no trick to it. Simply connect the drive (following the normal instructions (http://www.tivo.com/mytivo/howto/getconnected/howto_add_recording_capacity.html)). The "Unsupported Device" screen (http://i40.tinypic.com/2ywzn8h.jpg) will appear. Click "Yes" and that's it, you're in business (http://i41.tinypic.com/2jfb1p1.jpg). Note that I said most eSATA drives will work, a few do not work. For all of the info you need regarding eSATA drives and internal upgrades, click on the link that Joe posted above or the one below my sig.

To avoid confusion, reference to the various models are as follows (click on the link for the visual aide).

TiVo Series3 (http://i39.tinypic.com/2ela4it.jpg)
TiVo HD (http://i44.tinypic.com/2nqy554.jpg)
TiVo HDXL (http://i44.tinypic.com/10mmmja.jpg)
Western Digital My DVR Expander (http://www.amazon.com/Western-Digital-WDG1S5000VN-500GB-Expander/dp/B0018O77Q2/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1236756813&sr=8-1)

Happy upgrading!

[Jonathan_S]

On the other hand TiVo Series3's don't have the verification requirement. Although not supported by TiVo, you can successfully connect most eSATA drives to a TiVo Series3 due to a "grandfather clause" of sorts. There's really no trick to it. Simply connect the drive (following the normal instructions (http://www.tivo.com/mytivo/howto/getconnected/howto_add_recording_capacity.html)). The "Unsupported Device" screen (http://i40.tinypic.com/2ywzn8h.jpg) will appear. Click "Yes" and that's it, you're in business (http://i41.tinypic.com/2jfb1p1.jpg). Ah, I was half remembering the old requirement to 'kickstart' the Series 3 to get it to recognize an external drive (from back before the official expansion drive was released).
I guess I hadn't kept up enough to realize that you didn't need to do that anymore.

[richsadams]

Ah, I was half remembering the old requirement to 'kickstart' the Series 3 to get it to recognize an external drive (from back before the official expansion drive was released).
I guess I hadn't kept up enough to realize that you didn't need to do that anymore.Yep, not since v9.2 IIRC. :)