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Instant Cake software version?

2.1K views 1 reply 2 participants last post by  richsadams  
#1 ·
First off; my tivo shut off and now won't restart; it hangs up at the initial 'powering up' screen. Before paying for Instant Cake, am I right in assuming this is probably a failed hard drive?

Second, when looking at Instant cake options for my Directv Hughes HDVR2, I am supposed to choose whether I have software version 6.2 or 3.1.1.e. As this will be a new install on an old hard drive, does it matter which version I purchase?

Lastly, the old hard drive I will be installing the image to is formatted with NTFS. Do I need to reformat to fat32 first, or will the Instant Cake boot cd I purchase format it as part of the install?

Thanks for the help
 
#2 ·
It does indeed sound like a hard drive issue if it's hanging at the Powering Up screen. That almost always means that the motherboard can't communicate with the hard drive.

You have some choices. First I would pull the hard drive and run a diagnostic program to see if the drive has failed. Trying to install IC on a bad drive wouldn't do you much good. Try Western Digital's Lifeguard Diagnostic program or something similar.

If it runs fine you could try rehabilitating it with IC. If you can get it running on your PC but it shows bad sectors, etc. you may be able to use it to image a new hard drive using winMFS or the MFSLive Linux program. Or you can go the Instant Cake route.

I've never worked with DTV DVR's so I can't help you with formatting or which IC version to buy, etc. If you don't get a quick answer here, Lou over at DVRUpgrade is a great resource and could easily answer your questions. Try DVRUpgrade's Support first.

Oh, and welcome to the forum...hopefully your next post will be a story of success. ;)

Best of luck and let us know how it goes! :up: