[RESOLVED] TIVO Hard drive
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Thread: [RESOLVED] TIVO Hard drive

  1. #1
    Join Date
    Sep 2010
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    Resolved [RESOLVED] TIVO Hard drive

    I have a TIVO which is giving me fits. With any luck I'm in the right forum. I've tried TIVO forums in the past, and found they were no help.

    The hard drive on this TIVO unit has a problem. It will download data for it's setup, but has an error when installing that data. Therefore it will not run. I have gone through all the TIVO diagnostics I can find, and none have helped. The last instruction set said, if all else failed, to remove the Tivo hard drive, install it in my computer, and run the manufacturers diagnostics. It's a Western Digital 80 GB drive.

    The WD drive is currently mounted in my tower, but is not recognized. It does not show on file explorer (WinXPsp3). I have tried running WD Data Lifeguard tool,no luck. I have run UBCD 4.11 and UBCD 5.0, but still that hard drive is not recognized. I seem to recall that TIVO hard drives are formatted differently from any other hard drives. I think that is a large part of my problem.

    I may have the jumper set wrong. How should the jumper be set?

    Background: I bought the TIVO at a garage sale because it has a lifetime service plan, no monthly payment. They said it ran (yeah, right). It does fine until it hits the error message. It has provided me with endless hours of entertainment, trying to fix it. I've admitted defeat and come to you all.

    Any thoughts on how to proceed?

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Apr 2000
    Location
    Sheboygan, WI
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    Best read this article.
    http://www.tivopedia.com/tivo-hard-drives.php

    Found this:
    Even with the special firmware and tweaks on DVR hard drives, most drives don't last longer than four years due to the contant, 24/7 reading and writing. These drives are always buffering live TV and are therefore used much, much more heavily than standard computer hard drives.

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Sep 2010
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    312
    It's very true, Train, that Tivo HDs are subject to a hard life. They are spinning 24/7, and constantly buffering. It's no great surprise they die frequently.

    The reason I want to make this one live is the lifetime service plan, which does not require a monthly payment. Otherwise Tivo service gets rather costly.

    There is hope, though. In another article from the site you suggested I have found that the lifetime service information is imbedded in a chip on the motherboard, not on the hard drive. That means I can change out the hard drive. In theory I can place/replace the Tivo image on a hard drive through a program called Instantcake.

    This is and will be a slow process, not a high priority project. I'm working on it as time allows. We'll see how it goes.

  4. #4
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    Glad that link helped out as I hoped it would.

  5. #5
    Join Date
    Sep 2010
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    312
    Ah...yes. Progress is indeed slow on a lower priority project.

    The CD arrived, the one with Instantcake. The instructions make it sound easy, a simple job. However, I have faith that it will be more difficult than they claim. I will have to pull all hard drives from the tower, set the cd/dvd player as a slave, put in the target hard drive as something else, say a long prayer and have a good stiff drink.

    Maybe this weekend, or maybe next week. I'll report back on any progress, or disaster.

  6. #6
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    Take a deep breath.

  7. #7
    Join Date
    Sep 2010
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    312
    The job is done, finished, successfully. I now have a second TIVO unit up and running.

    I pulled and/or disconnected all hard drives, as instructed. I had to play around with the Master/Slave settings, though. Setting them as per the instructions would not work. My system would not boot from the CD when it was set as slave. I had to set it as Master. Luckily, the latest Instantcake allows for this, and asks how things are connected. Once things were set, and I hit the "Go" key, it was quite fast.

    Of course I had to run the complete TIVO setup, once the hard drive was back in the TIVO unit, but that is more a time thing than a difficult thing. I now have a TIVO unit with about 390 hours recording time.

    One of my main concerns, and the reason for saving this unit, was the "Lifetime Service". I really don't want to pay TIVO a king's ransom every month to watch the (mostly) garbage now on TV. Luckily the Lifetime feature is indeed contained in a chip on the motherboard rather than on the software.

    So, on to another project. Now, to find the "Resolved" button.

  8. #8
    Join Date
    Apr 2000
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    Good news and thanks for posting the final instructions.

  9. #9
    Join Date
    Sep 2010
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    312
    And I thank you, Train, for your help and your patience on this project.

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