[sfuhrman]

Well it finally happened... after about 2 years of service my Tivo started acting up, occasionally glitching during video playback. I searched the threads and decided it sounded like a hard drive going south.

So I pulled the drive and tried to make a backup image of it, but about half way through it gets tons of i/o errors and does not finish. I can actually hear the hard drive is bad, it starts making a buzzing sound as is searches for tracks that it never finds. I even tried the freezer trick and put the drive in the freezer for a while, but still no luck.

So here I am with a Series 2 (TiVo 40hr TCD24004A Standalone). I bought a new drive to copy the old one, but she didn't make it through. Is there anywhere I can download an image and put it on my new drive so I can use my Tivo again?

 

[litzdog911]

http://www.ptvupgrade.com/products/instantcake/

 

[sfuhrman]

Thanks, it worked. The wife is happy now.

 

[litzdog911]

You're welcome.

 

[dshinnick]

Just curious...how can they do that? Isn't the Tivo O/S proprietary to some degree? How is this different from selling a "restore Windows XP" cd?

 

[litzdog911]

PTVUpgrade worked a deal with Tivo to provide these images.

 

[djk]

Hello. I've found all these forums to be quite helpful, but I have a slightly different situation than the above, and I haven't been able to find any forums with my problem. I am prepared to spend the $20 because my hard drive is dead too (40 GB). However I also have an 80 GB hard drive in my other Tivo. Is it possible for me to image my working hard drive to a brand new hard drive (I'll probably just pick up some 80 GB at Best Buy)? Or will this cause some kind of conflict because I'd have the same exact software running on 2 different Tivos? Any help is greatly appreciated.

 

[jeff92k7]

Hello. I've found all these forums to be quite helpful, but I have a slightly different situation than the above, and I haven't been able to find any forums with my problem. I am prepared to spend the $20 because my hard drive is dead too (40 GB). However I also have an 80 GB hard drive in my other Tivo. Is it possible for me to image my working hard drive to a brand new hard drive (I'll probably just pick up some 80 GB at Best Buy)? Or will this cause some kind of conflict because I'd have the same exact software running on 2 different Tivos? Any help is greatly appreciated.

If the units are identical, you shouldn't have any problem at all so long as the new drive is at least as big as the drive you are imaging from.

Jeff

 

[djk]

Great, thanks a lot, Jeff!

 

[mackiedoo2]

You guys are so lucky! I tried the PDTV upgrade stuff but I can't get my spare computer to recognize the CD ROM drive on the Primary IDE interface. Without that, the hardcoded preset drive letters in the PDTV instantcake software won't do me any good. It wants to see the target TiVO drive as hdc and nothing else. I can only boot my CD-ROM as hdc and the spare drive as hda so I'm toasted.

I need a TCD540140 image and the only place I can get that would appear to be from TiVO itself. :-(

 

[cewinchester]

I am having similar problems with my Pioneer DVR810H-S Hard drive failed and now I have to PAY for a image file ? ? ? No where does TIVO or Pioneer tell me that I should make a backup, or how to make one. SO now that my hard drive has failed , (i have a new one in hand) I have to BUY the image when I already paid for it on the unit ?? Even Microsoft provides reinstall options for FREE for their operating system.

 

[Robbdoe1]

See post #42:

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=441697&page=2

Robb