Drive Expansion and Drive Upgrade FAQ

[VodkaStr8Up]

Originally Posted by Mahty

you may want to consider holding off on voiding your warranty by opening the TiVoHD to do the transplant.

How does TiVo know if the TiVoHD has been opened; mine didn't have a sealed sticker?

[pl1]

Originally Posted by bmal1

I ordered the Seagate Pipeline 1TB HD ST31000322CS a few days ago. Based on what pl1 and S3-2501 said about the noise they are experiencing, I just ordered the WD10EVDS and will be returning the Seagate.

Just for the record, it's not really THAT noticeable. It's not like a lot of the non-DVR drives I've used (Maxtor for example) where I could hear the annoying headseeking all the time. Boy, that drove me crazy. But, I will say that the WD drives are whisper quiet and run very cool.

Right now, I have a program recording on the Seagate Pipeline. I just pressed the mute button. I can hear absolutely no difference in either of my TiVo's, the one with the WD drive and one with the Seagate drive. I'm trying to figure out what it was that DID cause it to be so loud the other day. Maybe it's the data reorganization or something. But, still, that is not a noise I remember hearing with the WD drives.

[pl1]

Originally Posted by rocko

That's odd since your TiVo is always recording. You have two 30-minute buffers that are constantly filling so ...

Now I'm thinking that maybe it was a guide data reorganization while recording, since I am currently recording on one tuner, and I can not hear anything.

[Da Goon]

Originally Posted by VodkaStr8Up

How does TiVo know if the TiVoHD has been opened; mine didn't have a sealed sticker?

haven't seen a warranty sticker since back in the Series1 days

your tivo does upload logs every time a daily call is made however

those logs contain many details about your box, including the model # of the hard drive currently installed

[bjmurphy]

Hi all

As previously posted I have upgraded my Aussie TiVo but would like to post an image of my 'system information' screen and 'Now Playing' list and am wondering how to post images on this forum. I see that you can enter a url but can you just post an image???

[bjmurphy]

Originally Posted by richsadams

IIRC someone here said that wdidle3.exe is in fact on their website. Folks here (including yours truly) have had less than satisfactory results trying to get answers out of WD...if they answer at all. No need to block out the WD CSR's name. Just a wild guess...it's Raul, Paulo or some variation correct?

BTW, happy upgrading and if you have time, can you post a pic or two of your System Information and maybe Now Playing screens when you're done? I'm curious to see what an Aussie TiVo screen looks like. When we lived in NZ we hacked a Series1 and it worked like a charm, but now that they have TiVo in AU and NZ, it would be nice to get a feel for what our southern cousins are seeing. TIA.

Hi all attached are two images of my system information & now playing screen from my aussie tivo that I upgraded to a wd10evds drive.

8 days and going well, no issues at all!

[Mahty]

Originally Posted by bjmurphy

Hi all attached are two images of my system information & now playing screen from my aussie tivo that I upgraded to a wd10evds drive.

In the system information image, the TiVo box indicates up to 200 hours of HD recording capability and up to 400 hours of SD capability. I thought that 200 hours of HD capability would equate to a lot more than 400 hours of SD capability. Is this somehow an Australia thing?

[richsadams]

Originally Posted by bjmurphy

Hi all attached are two images of my system information & now playing screen from my aussie tivo that I upgraded to a wd10evds drive.

8 days and going well, no issues at all!

That's amazing! The screens look exactly like...U.S. screens! Thanks for that and enjoy!

[saturn456]

I tried posting this on the Series3 forum without any response. I have searched the forum but cannot find the exact answer I am looking for.

I have read the upgrade tread and I see that a single drive HD has a max capacity of 1TB while a single drive HD XL has a max capacity of 2TB. Is this limit imposed by the hardware or how the original drive was formatted?

Is there any physical difference in the hardware between the HD and the HD XL? (I aware of the THX certification on the XL)

So if I bought 2 TiVo boxes, HD and HD XL and a 2GB HDD. Could I clone the HD XL 1TB drive on to the 2GB HDD and then put the 2TB drive in the HD box?

Thanks

[willard]

Can anyone tell me if the 32mb cache of the WD10EVDS provides any noticeable advantages over the 8mb cache of the WD10EVVS? Is the 32mb cache worth paying a bit more for?

Just curious as apart from the cache size difference they are essentially the same drive if WD's website is to believed and the WD10EVVS is the drive Tivo uses in the HDXL right?

Also, the only desktop computer I have access to is a 64 bit machine running 64 bit windows XP professional. It is only using one of the available 4 SATA ports on the mobo. Can anyone tell me if backup/transfer process detailed in the FAQ using WinMS and the Widdle do-da to disable Intellipark will work on this machine?

Thanks in advance for the help.

[bjmurphy]

Originally Posted by Mahty

In the system information image, the TiVo box indicates up to 200 hours of HD recording capability and up to 400 hours of SD capability. I thought that 200 hours of HD capability would equate to a lot more than 400 hours of SD capability. Is this somehow an Australia thing?

Must be an aussie thing, as originally I had 60hrs or SD and 30hrs of HD and this is what is advertised on the tivo australia website

[smithrl]

I have an TiVo HD with the original 160 Gb drive and have used the plug-and-play option to add a WD MyDVR 1Tb expansion.

If I did the following using WinMFS

upgrade the internal drive to 1Tb and copy its recordings
marry the MyDVR drive to the newly expanded internal drive

would my recordings be preserved?

[dmartin5454]

Originally Posted by willard

Can anyone tell me if the 32mb cache of the WD10EVDS provides any noticeable advantages over the 8mb cache of the WD10EVVS? Is the 32mb cache worth paying a bit more for?

Just curious as apart from the cache size difference they are essentially the same drive if WD's website is to believed and the WD10EVVS is the drive Tivo uses in the HDXL right?

Also, the only desktop computer I have access to is a 64 bit machine running 64 bit windows XP professional. It is only using one of the available 4 SATA ports on the mobo. Can anyone tell me if backup/transfer process detailed in the FAQ using WinMS and the Widdle do-da to disable Intellipark will work on this machine?

From what I've read, Tivos are performance limited by their processor, and having a larger disk cache will not make any difference to the overall Tivo performance. So, spending extra money for it would not get you anything.

I upgraded my Tivo recently using a 64-bit desktop running Windows 7, directly connecting the drives to the SATA ports. This worked with no issues for both wdidle3 and winMFS. You will need to make sure you have SATA and power cables to both drives. There might be some unused power cables attached to your motherboard, and there might not. Same for the SATA cables.

[richsadams]

Originally Posted by dmartin5454

From what I've read, Tivos are performance limited by their processor, and having a larger disk cache will not make any difference to the overall Tivo performance. So, spending extra money for it would not get you anything.

That is correct. FWIW OEM TiVo HDD's have a miniscule 2MB of cache.

Originally Posted by dmartin5454

There might be some unused power cables attached to your motherboard, and there might not. Same for the SATA cables.

It's unlikely that there will be any unused power or SATA cables on a motherboard. On most modern computers there will be a few open SATA connectors on the motherboard and probably at least one open power connector coming out of the power supply. In a pinch one can usually use the SATA and power connections on an existing optical (CD and/or DVD) drive.

Congrats on your upgrade and enjoy!

[ADG]

Three months ago I replaced a failing hd in my S3 with a Western Digital WD5000AVVS. This morning I woke up to an endless reboot cycle (screen gets to Powering Up and then reboots). I posted this on the forum and someone suggested it's probably a bad HD. Is that possible / likely? If so, am I better of with the Seagate Pipeline ST3500312CS? Thanks.


EDIT - also, is there a way for me to retrieve only specific recordings from the failed drive?

[rocko]

Originally Posted by ADG

Three months ago I replaced a failing hd in my S3 with a Western Digital WD5000AVVS. This morning I woke up to an endless reboot cycle (screen gets to Powering Up and then reboots). I posted this on the forum and someone suggested it's probably a bad HD. Is that possible / likely? If so, am I better of with the Seagate Pipeline ST3500312CS? Thanks.

If you're going to replace the drive why not go for a 1TB? This one looks like a good deal - and Hitachi drives can be acoustically tuned IIRC.

http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/Produc...dlist=celebros

EDIT - also, is there a way for me to retrieve only specific recordings from the failed drive?

No. If your drive is failing you might not be able to save any recordings at all. You could try to copy the entire drive with WinMFS and see what happens. Otherwise, your other choices are a truncated backup/restore with WinMFS or InstantCake if the drive is totally borked.

EDIT: You can actually go back to your original 160GB drive and copy it if the existing drive is borked. I just noticed you have an already upgraded drive.

[ADG]

Thanks - I have no need for 1Tb (two s3's right next to each other). Just wanted informed opinions to see if the Seagate I'm ordering is a solid drive - but then I would have thought the WD would be okay .

Yeah, I realize I can go back to the original, and that's my fall back position - thanks. I think I'll give it a shot with the WD - only problem is the drive is so large it'll take about 8 hours to copy over (obviously did not have a chance to dump the "recently deleted" folder). Thanks again for the response.

[richsadams]

Originally Posted by ADG

Thanks - I have no need for 1Tb (two s3's right next to each other). Just wanted informed opinions to see if the Seagate I'm ordering is a solid drive - but then I would have thought the WD would be okay .

Yeah, I realize I can go back to the original, and that's my fall back position - thanks. I think I'll give it a shot with the WD - only problem is the drive is so large it'll take about 8 hours to copy over (obviously did not have a chance to dump the "recently deleted" folder). Thanks again for the response.

Have you tried running TiVo's built-in diagnostic and repair programs called Kickstarts? It might be worth a try.

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb...23&postcount=2

If it is your hard drive, why not get a replacement from WD? Drives fail now and then, but WD's history over the past few years has been quite good. Your drive has a three-year warranty. The only downside is that a replacement will probably have the soft reboot Intellipark issue (have a look at some other posts here or do a search in this thread) so you would need to run a quick program to disable it.

Otherwise there are several folks here successfully using Seagate Pipeline hard drives. They are dedicated AV drives. I'm with Rocko...installing the largest hard drive you can afford is the way to go. There are many, many posts from people regretting not going with a larger drive originally. Your call of course.

500GB Seagate Pipeline: http://www.buy.com/retail/product.as...ingid=52462978

1TB Seagate Pipeline: http://www.provantage.com/seagate-st...s~7SEGS1XR.htm

The Hitachi Rocko suggested s/b fine as well (adjusting the AAM to make it quieter is very easy).

Best of luck and let us know how it goes.

[ADG]

Thanks Rich. I've just ordered the Seagate. After I do the swap I'll return try to get a replacement from WD and keep it as a backup for my two S3's. I don't believe kickstart is an option for me since I can't get past the Powering Up screen.

[richsadams]

Originally Posted by ADG

Thanks Rich. I've just ordered the Seagate. After I do the swap I'll return try to get a replacement from WD and keep it as a backup for my two S3's. I don't believe kickstart is an option for me since I can't get past the Powering Up screen.

Got it. Keep us posted!

[richsadams]

Based on several earlier posts on the "HDXL soft reboot hang" thread we were pretty confident that TiVo was beta testing a fix for the Intellipark issue. Now based on a couple of recent posts TiVo may be pushing a minor update to address the Intellipark menu restart/soft reboot issue, at least for TiVo HDXL's. I've no idea if this update would be sent to all Hi-def TiVo's including Series3's and TiVo HD's or if it's limited to the HDXL. AFAIK only owners of new HDXL's have reported the problem.

According to the posts the software version number hasn't changed from 11.0d, but TiVo has made minor updates w/o a version change before.

Since WD implemented the Intellipark "feature" for all of their GP HDD line, I'm wondering if the issue will eventually affect TiVo HD's as well. Then, if not, why not?

I'm also wondering if the update does go out to Series3's and HD's how or if it will affect folks here that have upgraded and turned off or extended the Intellipark timeout on the newer WD HDD's. I doubt that it will make any difference but it will be interesting to see (or hopefully not see).

The good news is that it appears that TiVo is taking the necessary steps to correct the problem.

[drey]

Originally Posted by richsadams

Since WD implemented the Intellipark "feature" for all of their GP HDD line, I'm wondering if the issue will eventually affect TiVo HD's as well. Then, if not, why not?

The Intellipark issue has been part of WD Green drives from the beginning. Although only recent firmware versions affected TiVo HD units as well. I guess that's what prompted me to post what to do to resolve the problem.

WD has a number of revisions for WD GP drives, with different variations for Intellipark. Not all drives are affected.

Not sure how eager TiVo is to release the "fix" since internal upgrades is not something TiVo supports and they would prefer for their customers to purchase HD XL units instead.

[richsadams]

Originally Posted by drey

The Intellipark issue has been part of WD Green drives from the beginning. Although only recent firmware versions affected TiVo HD units as well. I guess that's what prompted me to post what to do to resolve the problem.

WD has a number of revisions for WD GP drives, with different variations for Intellipark. Not all drives are affected.

Not sure how eager TiVo is to release the "fix" since internal upgrades is not something TiVo supports and they would prefer for their customers to purchase HD XL units instead.

Good points...and I know they can isolate updates by model, etc., so it's likely that's what will happen.

[bmal1]

I received a WD10EVDS today from Amazon. The date on the label says:

10 Oct 2009

Do I need to run wdidle3.exe on this drive? Or is it only necessary for drives manufactured after November. Thanks for your help.

[bjmurphy]

Originally Posted by bmal1

I received a WD10EVDS today from Amazon. The date on the label says:

10 Oct 2009

Do I need to run wdidle3.exe on this drive? Or is it only necessary for drives manufactured after November. Thanks for your help.

From my knowledge it is only drives from early novenber, I think I recall 3rd or 4th Nov from a previous comment on this thread. So I believe you would be ok not to run wdidle3. Unfortunately my wd10evds was November 16th so I had to run the software. If I was you I would try it without running wdidle3 as 10 oct is WELL before November.

[backyard]

Up-grade complete.

Purchased a WDEARS first then Hitachi Deskstar to avoid the parking issue. (I’m SATA/USB bound). Up-graded THD to 1Tb with winmfs via. SATA/USB cable. Very easy. No troubles. Although the drive does make a thumping noise occasionally (reported a few pages back) and the soft fix didn’t help it doesn’t bother me.

I have noticed the TiVo now playing menu still turns programs yellow and yellow with exclamation even though I have lots of space. It’s a little unnerving. Can I change this?

Also, the deleted programs are piling up. Is there any way to delete permanently (erase) them as a group rather than individually?

I have two THDs but one has a ticking transformer/dead power supply. If I can find enough documentation I would like to repair at the component level. It doesn’t seem to make sense to pay $100 for a replacement. That’s why I bought the 2nd THD. I’ll install the EARS if I can fix it. Any power supply hints would be appreciated.

[ThAbtO]

Originally Posted by backyard

I have noticed the TiVo now playing menu still turns programs yellow and yellow with exclamation even though I have lots of space. It’s a little unnerving. Can I change this?

Also, the deleted programs are piling up. Is there any way to delete permanently (erase) them as a group rather than individually?

Your yellow tagged programs just show it has the potential of deletion but only if the space is required for upcoming recordings (after Recently Deleted folder emptied) and you can just ignore yellow dots (!), which are date related.

[richsadams]

Originally Posted by ThAbtO

Your yellow tagged programs just show it has the potential of deletion but only if the space is required for upcoming recordings (after Recently Deleted folder emptied) and you can just ignore yellow dots (!), which are date related.

Per my esteemed colleague's prior post...the yellow warning bullets are meaningless to you! (At least for now ) Nothing you can do to change them showing up unless you mark every recording scheduled as Keep Until I Delete...then you have a nice green bullet point.

You cannot delete the Recently Deleted folder as you can with normal recordings folders. If you wanted to permanently delete the RD's you'd have to do them one-by-one. Unless you want to cut down on the time it would take to make a full copy of your hard drive for some reason, there's really no reason to do that. They will take care of themselves and will not take up any space when you need it.

Can't help with the power supply...although IIRC a couple of folks here have replaced a specific part that seems to fail. Most folks just replace the power supply or look for a dead TiVo on ebay or Craig's List to canabalize. You might want to post over in the TiVo Help Center for more info.

Congrats and enjoy!

[backyard]

Thanks for your responses TiVo Friends.

[CraigK]

Originally Posted by backyard

Up-grade complete.

Congratulations on the upgrade.

I don't worry about the yellow programs anymore. As long as I have a large amount of programs in my deleted folder I know I'm doing fine and don't have to worry. I don't tend to keep programs for a long time (except saving up a few movies) so I'm usually running at 150+ programs in my deleted folder.

I have left a couple of short (old) programs at the end of my Now Playing List as a kind of indicator. I'll know something is going on if they disappear, but that's leftover behavior from when I had a 160G HDD in my TiVo HD.