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Swap Drive Between Premiere's?

Discussion in 'TiVo Premiere DVRs' started by CR500, Jan 26, 2021.

  1. Jan 26, 2021 #1 of 12
    CR500

    CR500 New Member

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    Jan 26, 2021

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    My old Premiere w/lifetime subscription has been working flawlessly since I got it used in 2014 or 2015. Hard drive died today.

    I have another used Premiere that I bought at the same time (no subscription but two years newer) just to get a remote and fan. Its been in storage ever since and looks like it was never used. The cable card slot still had the protector covering it.

    First thing I tried, just to see if I could quickly get a signal, was to move the cable card to Premiere #2. It booted much faster than the first one but I got a message saying it needed to be activated and didn't seem to be accessing the cable card, it was trying to view antenna channels.

    Next I put the cable card back into Premiere 1 and moved the hard drive from #2 to #1 and it booted! That confirmed the dead drive. But I'm getting the same issue with the notice that it needs to be activated.

    I entered my network info and clicked Connect to the TiVo Service Now. It ran through the list and rebooted but says the Last Status Failed Unrecoverable Error.

    - Do I need to do the full setup to get it to look at the cable card. It shows the M-Card inserted.
    - Is the lifetime subscription tied to the mother board or something on the (dead) hard drive
    - Is swapping the drives, like I did, not good thing
    - Any idea what to do next (call Tivo or do they not allow changing drives)

    I don't need increase capacity on the drive. I never got close to filling the smaller original drive.

    Thanks for any tips!

    Rob
     
    Last edited: Jan 26, 2021
  2. Jan 26, 2021 #2 of 12
    kpeters59

    kpeters59 Well-Known Member

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    The software is likely to be too far out of date to work properly.

    You should ask for an updated version in the appropriate thread to do a restore.

    -KP
     
  3. Jan 26, 2021 #3 of 12
    krkaufman

    krkaufman TDL shepherd

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    Wait for someone with Premiere drive prep experience to chime in. One thing you may want to do, in the meantime, is post the specific model number for each Premiere, noting which is the Lifetime unit and which the "Parts" unit.

    e.g.:

    See also: TiVo Service Number and Model Number Table
     
    Last edited: Jan 26, 2021
  4. Jan 26, 2021 #4 of 12
    krkaufman

    krkaufman TDL shepherd

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    You *will*, once the box is working again.

    Lifetime is tied to the motherboard, so you'll be fine once you're able to prep a replacement hard drive for your specific Premiere model (the Lifetime unit).
     
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  5. Jan 26, 2021 #5 of 12
    krkaufman

    krkaufman TDL shepherd

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    How does one know the "appropriate thread"?

    And is there a particular thread that best outlines the restore process to be followed?
     
  6. Jan 26, 2021 #6 of 12
    ThAbtO

    ThAbtO TiVoholic by the bay TCF Club

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    When you swap drives like that, you have to do Clear & Delete Everything or else it will not record and you cannot play the shows already on it.

    Unfortunately, the Premiere without a subscription is now useless and cannot be activated anymore.
     
  7. Jan 27, 2021 #7 of 12
    CR500

    CR500 New Member

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    Jan 26, 2021
    Lifetime:
    Series4
    Model: TCD746320
    Software (on hard drive from Parts): 20.4.2-01-2-746
    Account Status: Closed call ...

    Parts:
    Series4
    Model: TCD746500

    Thanks!

    Rob
     
  8. Jan 27, 2021 #8 of 12
    CR500

    CR500 New Member

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    Jan 26, 2021
    I just spoke with TiVo. Sounds like KP was correct. They thought the software from the donor was not compatible with the Lifetime box and suggested contacting Week Knees.

    I did see a thread on the image file for my Model box and will jump over there. Hopefully there are Mac options for the software to do the restoration.

    Thanks!

    Rob
     
  9. Jan 27, 2021 #9 of 12
    kpeters59

    kpeters59 Well-Known Member

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    DVRBars is the current state-of-the-art.

    It runs on Windows.

    -KP
     
    CR500 likes this.
  10. Jan 27, 2021 #10 of 12
    krkaufman

    krkaufman TDL shepherd

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    Which could be run on a Mac via a VM???
     
  11. Jan 28, 2021 #11 of 12
    CR500

    CR500 New Member

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    Jan 26, 2021
    I do have parallels on the Mac but got my hands on a PC laptop and an esata box that holds a naked drive.

    Right now trying to backup the crashed drive and will see what happens when I write that to the donor drive.

    Rob
     
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  12. Jan 28, 2021 #12 of 12
    CR500

    CR500 New Member

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    Jan 26, 2021
    I'm back baby!!

    The backup of the crashed drive, restored to the donor drive worked!!

    Now I just need to learn how to use MFSTools to expand the backup to the size of the new drive and restore it again.

    Thanks

    Rob
     
    krkaufman likes this.

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