Series 2 in a Purchased Motor Home - No Idea who owned it.

[Grzldvt]

I have a Series 2 that came with a Motor home. It was bought from a dealer over a year ago, and came to them via auction. Bottom line we have no idea who the previous owner was and Tivo will not activate it until the previous owner releases it.
Anyone had to deal with this?
Thanks
Steve

[scandia101]

In this type of situation you have to firmly tell them what they are going to do rather than meekly asking. People buying second hand units not having any info on the previous owner is not new to Tivo. They very well know it happens frequently and can easily work around it.

[pdonoghu]

Tivo will generally not transfer ownership without the previous owners permission if the unit is under a plan.

Did you connect the unit, power it up, have it make a few connections back to Tivo (phone line or network)? Once it has connected in a few times, go to the System information screen and check what is says next to Tivo account status. If it lists 3: Account in Good Standing, the unit is paid up. If it says Lifetime, you got lucky. You should be able to transfer a lifetime to you once the unit has connected in from your zip code. If the account is in good standing, there is probably either a pre-paid plan in effect, or, someone is continuing to pay for the Tivo service.

As previously stated, calling in an being firm should get a lifetime account transfered. If it is on a prepaid plan, or existing paid up month to month, you can understand Tivo's reluctance to transfer. Tivo will not transfer a prepaid plan, it would end and you would have to start a new plan with a minimum 1 year commitment.

[Grzldvt]

I did connect it, and saw it had a Lifetime on it, but I did not see anything about the account in good standing. The hard drive went bad on me, I can hear it clicking, and it will not get out of the Welcome Powering up screen even after 12 hours. I am going to pull it and test it to make sure. I have a swappable drive on my PC that is drive G. I can hook it up run some disk tests to make sure it is bad.
Thanks for the information, once I get the hard drive situation figure out, I will contact them and be firm.
Steve

[Cory09]

open the box and look for the bios chip

a small chip with a glass window

remove the cover over the window, shine a flashlight on it and boot the device
turn it off after 10 secs and replace the tape or slide over the glass window

you just flashed the bios and the box will be as if bought in the store
no onboard info about any past user

[classicsat]

Just buy an new drive and Instant cake, that is the second easiest thing to do. The easiest thing you can do is buy a prepared drive.

I hope Cory09 is just being funny. No TiVo has a UV erase EPROM (which cannot be erased with a flashlight anyways); they all use flash based PROM chips, nor do any components on the mainboard hold any user data at all, let alone anything personal.

One thing you could do to possibly trace the owner is to trace the ownership of the motorhome.

[Grzldvt]

open the box and look for the bios chip

a small chip with a glass window

remove the cover over the window, shine a flashlight on it and boot the device
turn it off after 10 secs and replace the tape or slide over the glass window

you just flashed the bios and the box will be as if bought in the store
no onboard info about any past user

I shined a very powerful flashlight on the chip and I guess it simply is not bright enough as the information is still there:D
The HD in the new box is definitely gone. I ran some tests on it and everyone failed miserably.
When I had the box open I can see two separate modules, looks like one is for power and the other is the MB. I suspect the Power board is bad. I am going to swap them and see what happens. I may be able to Frankenstien the old one and have it come alive.
I have a spare 250GB

[Grzldvt]

Well, I got them to activate the new box. I am sure it was due to shining a flashlight into the phone :D. I had to use my old hard drive, in the new box. Now I CAN d othe swap with the 250GB.
The power supply is definitely bad in the old box, You can see that the transformer is burnt.
So now I have a nice boat anchor, one Series 2 with a dead hard drive and a burn't power supply....
Thanks for all the help!!!!
Steve

[ciper]

open the box and look for the bios chip

a small chip with a glass window

remove the cover over the window, shine a flashlight on it and boot the device
turn it off after 10 secs and replace the tape or slide over the glass window

you just flashed the bios and the box will be as if bought in the store
no onboard info about any past user

What in the hell are you smoking? I'm flabbergasted at how incorrect your post is.

SRSLY OMGWTFBBQ

[steve614]

What in the hell are you smoking? I'm flabbergasted at how incorrect your post is.

SRSLY OMGWTFBBQ

:D

Yeah, hopefully he was going for a serious "I tried that -- didn't work" reply.

:p