How-To Upgrade your TiVo

hinsdale · 12-21-2001, 01:33 AM

I Want a Large TiVo with Lots of Recording Time
Here is a recording capacity upgrade How-To for relative newbies that incorporates the newest utilites for hopefully a quick and painless TiVo upgrade experience (includes Boot Cd and floppy instructions).

http://www.newreleasesvideo.com/hinsdale-how-to/

Following the above guide you should wind up with a large TiVo (60 - 330 hrs) in around an hour or so. The instructions function for all U.S. and U.K. makes/models of standalone TiVo's and DirecTV/TiVo combo units (referred to as DirecTiVo's for this document). Remember, however, that you are hacking your TiVo and there are no guarantees of the utilities or instruction provided.

Most common upgrade questions should be covered within the How-To, so read carefully and if still in need of assistance then post requests in the underground forum.

George42 · 12-21-2001, 04:36 AM

Hinsdale,

Thanks a bunch to you and the many other people who contribute to this fourm. With your instructions, a bracket from 9th Tee, and a low-cost Maxtor 5400 rpm 80G drive from newegg, I (and college student son) easily bumped our 30G Sony SA Tivo to 30G+80G.

Thanks!

George

dwight · 12-24-2001, 12:03 PM

Just wanted to post a quick note thanking you for developing such a comprehensive and complete guide to upgrading a Tivo unit. With no prior Linux experience, I was able to follow your instructions and increase my 30-hr SA Tivo to 145 hours via a 120Gb Maxtor hard drive.

The upgrade when without a hitch. I did encounter one unusual thing, though. When I attempted to use the version of TivoMad for "merged" 2-drive units, it asked me to insert floppy disk #2. Since I didn't have any floppies, I used the standard TivoMad utility (I had a married unit anyway), and everything went fine from that point forward.

Thanks again!

Eric Cottrell · 12-24-2001, 01:11 PM

Hello,

I got my Philips HR-112 over a year ago. I found
it useful but of limited capacity. I could not
watch Basic quality but the 8 hour medium quality
was okay. I have a pretty full schedule and can
go for a number of days before watching the TiVO.
I turned off the background recording and only
have a few season passes. I was also following
the upgrade threads but put off upgrading because
of the limitations. When I checked last week
after a few months, WOW!

Thanks to everyone for
their work. I also like the feature of being able
to upgrade again in the future easily!

I went to a computer show planning to get a
100/120 gig drive but ended up getting two Maxtor
536DX (4W060H4) 60 Gig drives for $105 apiece.
The drives on offer over 60 Gig were all 7200 RPM
drives and cost more per gig.

I found the instructions useful and complete but I
am not a new computer user. One suggestion is
when a user has multiple operating systems that
the C: partition might not be on /dev/hda1. I run
three OSes and hda1 is Boot Manager on my machine.
I used the fdisk program to find the right one
(hda2).

The only problem in burning the CD-R was the
readme had the wrong filename for the iso file.
I used linux to burn the CD-R. I backed up my old
TiVO A drive using MFStools for a just-in-case
backup and used DD to copy to my new A drive.
I used a SCSI CD-Rom drive without any problems
and it allowed me to put the TiVO B drive on
/dev/hdd.

I was suprised to start the DD copy and have it
complete by the time I finished supper. Having a
fast machine (1 GHZ P3) really helps. All tests
went okay. The Maxtor drives are quiet with some
low volume clicking sounds. A review said they do
not generate excessive heat.

Thanks also for the suggestion to use tiewraps for
the B drive. I am planning to get a bracket soon.
I now have 145 hours of (unwatchable) Basic and 85
hours of (watchable) Medium. I bumped up my
preference to the 64 hour high quality setting and
will be doing more reprograming to take advantage
of the space.

One thing on my wishlist is a way
to backup the unit without taking out the
harddrive.

Thanks again and 73,
Eric Cottrell

Kash76 · 12-27-2001, 09:21 PM

Last night I went and picked up a WD 100 gig drive and hadn't really done much reading on upgrading. I printed your 20 page upgrade instructions and 2 1/2 hours later....

Walla!! I have a 126 hour DSR6k.

Many thanks to Hinsdale and his thorough instructions!!

Rik · 12-28-2001, 10:37 AM

Thanks much. I upgraded my Philips DirecTivo unit to 126 hours a couple of months ago. Unfortunately ... I just got a severe error last night and the unit has been unable to repair itself. Are there any step by step instructions for fixing this myself (after identifying which hard drive is the culprit)?

12-28-2001, 11:06 AM

What is the difference between a Quantum Drive and
a regular harddrive? Also where can I find MFS tools?

Thanks,
Robert

kroddy · 12-28-2001, 10:30 PM

Quantum is (was) a manufacturer of hard-drives.

You will find a link to MFS Tools in the above mentioned how-to

Steavis · 12-28-2001, 11:07 PM

A big THANK YOU to Hinsdale and all those who put in time and energy to create the TiVo upgrading tools. Thanks to all you guys (and a great deal on a Maxtor 120GB HD at Comp-U-Plus), my HDR212 now sports a whopping 174 hrs.

Couldn't have asked for a smoother experience--everything fell into place without a hitch. Contrast that to the 5-day headache I had while trying to upgrade my PC's hard drive and re-install Win98 back in September.

Anyway, you guys are appreciated. I applaud your genius!

--Steavis

12-29-2001, 11:56 AM

Never mind...Site is up.

I appreciate your help and feedback,

TIM

Rik · 12-29-2001, 12:22 PM

Anybody know why my signature ... which appeared correctly under the previous forum ... now shows up as the code I typed in to create it?

Nihilator · 12-29-2001, 11:32 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by hinsdale
I Want a Large TiVo with Lots of Recording Time
Here is a recording capacity upgrade How-To for relative newbies that incorporates the newest utilites for hopefully a quick and painless TiVo upgrade experience (includes Boot Cd and floppy instructions).

I just finished upgrading my Sony SVR2000 from 30 hours to 101 hours by adding a 60GB Western Digital drive that I had sitting around. Now I can bump up the recording quality for most all of my shows, and not have to worry about transferring West Wing to tape so quickly. Hinsdale's instructions made it easy...thanks so much!

Here's a suggestion for future revisions of the How-To doc: As soon as you pull your TiVo's A-drive, get on the web, go to the drive manufacturer's website (Quantum owners, go to Maxtor), and pull down a copy of the jumper spec sheet. My Sony uses a Quantum LS15 drive with a somewhat confusing jumper sticker, and this would have been a little hardship if I didn't have a second computer on the network available for just this task.

By the way, my brother and I purchased a Hughes DirecTV with TiVo unit for my mother (in the West Virginia wilderness) for Christmas. As soon as the wrinkles are ironed out of the upgrade process for these apparently tricky units, I'll give that one a try.

Thanks again, Hinsdale, and of course a huge thanks to all of the wicked smart people (Dylan, TiVoMad, Tiger, and Kazymyr) who laid the groundwork.

-Nihilator

cactus46 · 12-30-2001, 07:14 PM

And yet another thanks, Hindsdale.

Using your How-to it was a almost painless process replacing my 30 GB A drive with a 100 GB Western Digital WD1000 7200 RPM drive (the price was right

).

My SA HDR31202 seems to be doing fine with the new drive. I don't notice any excessive noice. Basic recording space is reported as 115 hours now.

It was a bit of a challenge to get the older computer to boot with the 100 GB drive. Finally adjusting the bios setting to a fictional user setup worked and the Linux recognized the proper drive.

Thanks for your detailed instructions on performing this upgrade!

John

HTH · 12-31-2001, 04:21 PM

The download for the altered larger version of Kazymyr's Boot Cd image v2.6g containing DTiVoMad 4.0 and all necessary utilities is being served as "text/plain" instead of "application/octet-stream". The host serving that file needs to be taught that .iso files require binary transfer and not to assume they are text files, otherwise downloads may become corrupted as CRLF conversions are performed.

foo · 12-31-2001, 05:45 PM

Just a note of thanks.. a couple of weeks ago I did a DTiVo upgrade to 2 80gb drives for a total of 149 hrs.

foo

12-31-2001, 08:28 PM

Warning!

Tivo will try to take away your 800 number privilages when you reset under ver 2.5-01-1-011.

I reset just before trying to back up. Then, dummy me, I realized I had not written down the software version number. Tivo made me go thru all the setup screens before I could get to the sys info screen. In the phone setup section, they tried to make me use a long distance number even though I live in the sticks at a ski resort. This was completley different than the procedures with the older ver software.

Another thing they did not warn me about was just how long a sys reset takes. Mine took over an hour and was totally unnecessary for me to do. Shame on rookies like me.

tivobernd · 12-31-2001, 10:35 PM

A word of thanks!

The upgrade HowTo document is great! Upgraded my DirectTivo to 230 hours today in less than 2 hours total. And it is running like a charm!

Thanks again for the great document and links!!!

daveo4tivo · 12-31-2001, 11:55 PM

thanks to Hinsdale and the wonderful instructions.

1 TiVo down (68 hour SAT-T60)
2 TiVo's to go

dsmith48 · 01-01-2002, 02:14 PM

Hinsdale:

I see the "last updated" section of your how-to has recently changed. Is there a section in which I can find what exactly has been updated. I am not sure if I should print out another copy, I am days short of an upgrade and my current printed copy is covered with my notes.

Thanks in advance,

HTH · 01-02-2002, 12:02 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by HTH
The download for the altered larger version of Kazymyr's Boot Cd image v2.6g containing DTiVoMad 4.0 and all necessary utilities is being served as "text/plain" instead of "application/octet-stream". The host serving that file needs to be taught that .iso files require binary transfer and not to assume they are text files, otherwise downloads may become corrupted as CRLF conversions are performed.

BTW, according to the HTTP standard, the browser must adhere to the Content-Type supplied by the server, and therefore must treat this .iso file as text/plain as declared by the server. Clicking on the link to that file will cause it to appear in the browser rather than the user being prompted to save the file to disk, as well as conversions of line end sequences to CR, LF, or CRLF as appropriate for the platform.

Therefore, downloads may be possible using Internet Explorer which is infamous for ignoring this requirement in the HTTP standard by ignoring the Content-Type header and instead sniffing the downloaded content to determine the type for itself, resulting in more broken server configurations like this.
Still, the trevor server must be reconfigured to not serve .iso files as text/plain, or zip the file, or an alternative server set up for this file that is properly configured.

Does anyone know who to contact directly for problems with that server? There's no identifying information on its root index, and I can't find reference in the Hinsdale FAQ to who runs it.

Steavis · 01-02-2002, 09:29 PM

dsmith48:

Noticed in your sig that you're not sure whether to shelve your TiVo's 20 GB drive or use your Maxtor 120 GB 5400 rpm as a B drive.

Thought you'd like to hear about my recent upgrade experience, since I used the exact same hardware (HDR 212 with Maxtor 120/5400 drive). I installed the Maxtor as my B drive without a hitch, adding about 154 hours to my 20 hr. TiVo. That was a week ago today and everything's still working great. If you prefer Medium quality to Basic as I do, keeping your original hard drive will mean about 101 hours total assuming your experience mirrors mine.

More space is always better than less since you will inevitably find ways to fill it up. The only reason I would consider removing the 20 GB drive is if I had a computer that needed it more. (Actually, I'm considering swapping my 20 from the TiVo with my computer's 40 GB drive).

Anyway, whatever you decide to do, good luck with your upgrade!

--Steavis

dsmith48 · 01-02-2002, 10:00 PM

Steavis:

Thanks for your input.

I too agree more is better, however the 20hr drive truly doesn't give all that much more space. I myself cannot stand the look of basic and currently use medium as well at about 12 hours. Upon upgrading, my current intentions are that of using high.

Ultimately I wish to have 120GB + 120GB, simply buying them both at the same time right now is not possible. I am thinking of using the 120GB now as A: then adding an additional B: of 120Gb in the future, this is what I will do.

*** My question though, is what is more work. Is adding a large drive as B: then upgrading drive A: at a later time more work? If so I would only want to replace my factory A: drive with a large drive and then add a large B: later on in time.

The loss of any recorded material during any upgrade is not a concern to be, simply I would suck it up and move on only to yet again fill the drive.

I too have a 40GB drive in my home PC in which I do not fill and thought about removing that to use as a B: drive 120GB + 40GB. And using the 22GB TiVo drive in the PC. For some reason that makes me feel like a compulsive gambler doing what ever necessary to feed the addiction, haha.

Can anyone answer the asterisk question above?

Steavis · 01-02-2002, 10:48 PM

dan--

My limited understanding of the upgrade process tells me that the difference wouldn't amount to more than a few minutes of extra work, especially if you don't care about losing your recordings. There are plenty of people on this board that can answer that question more knowledgeably than I, however.

Ultimately though, if you're going to be utilizing High quality, the extra couple hours probably won't be worth it--easiest thing to do would be to use one large A drive for now. When you get a second large drive, just run BlessTiVo on it and put it in. You won't lose any recordings, and your 22 GB drive could be a backup.

thtv01 · 01-05-2002, 11:56 PM

hinsdale: I have a question about the link in your How-To. It's regarding the link for the updated boot CD (nuboot6.iso). I burned the CD and it has a text file for TIVOMAD and it says version 3.1. Do you know if the text file is wrong? How can I tell if this boot cd has the updated version of DTiVoMad 4.0?
I guess I can boot up using the CD and test it by typing 'maddtb4/setupcd.sh ' to see if it starts the script.

thtv01 · 01-06-2002, 12:24 AM

Never mind...I guess I answered this myself. I booted up the CD and entered the command for DTivoMad 4.0 and it works fine.
I guess I should have done this before posting my question.....
Thanks!

KFL · 01-09-2002, 12:31 PM

I too wish to thank all those that did the hard work setting up these utilities and getting the cd & instructions together. I found them easier to follow upgrading my DSR6K to 2 160 GIG Maxtor 5400 drives this weekend than when I added a 60 GIG drive to my standalone last year. I now have up to 259 hours of recording time. I'm still using the original fan and my temperature has stabilized at 48C in a 70 degree room.

Thanks once more for an outstanding job!!!!!!!!!!!!

Breacagan · 01-12-2002, 02:47 AM

I ran across several bumps in my upgrade, but every contingency was covered by the HOW-TO. The tools were easy to use. Well done, everyone!

Thank you,
byron

01-13-2002, 11:11 AM

This is my first post to the forum. I would like to express my thanks to Hinsdale, Tiger, and any others who I didn't see your name (sorry). Yesterday I upgraded my 30 hour Phillips Tivo by adding a 100 GB WD drive. The upgrade went flawlessly and I now have a 154+ hour Tivo! I can only imagine the time and effort that went into the development of this process. How generous of you guys to share it all with us. THANK YOU!

Sam Sharp
Albuquerque, NM

tivoboy · 01-14-2002, 01:10 PM

to complete the upgrade?

Steve O · 01-14-2002, 01:48 PM

I'm about to do the upgrade deed, but I had a couple of questions before I got started (better to get them answered now rather than post a "help!" message after it's too late).

My primary master drive in my PC is a 60 G drive that's broken up into 3 partitions. C: is 5 Gig, D: is 10 Gig, and E: is 45 Gig. I'd have to check fdisk, but I think it's a primary partition and 2 extended partitions.

Next, I think those are FAT16 partitions.

Are either of those issues likely to give me any problems when doing the backup and/or blessing portions of the upgrade? Will hda, hdb, etc. be different because of the extra partitions already on the Primary Master drive?

-Steve