email
pgpkey
dodgeball
myspace

TiVo Hard Drive Upgrade

1) Acquire a large hard drive. The last hard drive I used wasn't as large as the newest ones people are throwing in to the TiVo now. According to AVS Forum, almost all new large IDE hard drives will work fine. You have to look inside your TiVo to see what kid of upgrade path you need to follow. The are different TiVo models: one hard drive, two hard drive, DirecTV models. Please refer to http://www.newreleasesvideo.com/hinsdale-how-to/ if you have a TiVo that have more than one drive or that you aren't sure of. Some info that I found valuable is the most cost efficient combination would be to use your existing TiVo A drive (or your largest of an existing two drive setup) and simply add a new large 60-80gb B drive (ex: adding an 80gb B drive to a 14hr/13.6gb unit will upgrade you to around 110hrs). However, you can simply use a single larger A drive or combine any two drive sizes you wish as long as your A drive is at least as large as your original A drive image.

2) Acquire Torx screwdriver and a hard drive bracket. TiVo didn't make the box for you to get into it with just a simple screwdriver, they didn't want people just to screw with the box. You will need a Torx Screwdriver to open it up. Another thing you need is a hard drive bracket. Both of these items you can get at http://www.9thtee.com/.

3) Download some upgrade utilities. Download Kazymyr's latest Boot CD image v2.6i containing all necessary utilities. You can find the image at http://www.9thtee.com/tbdv2_6i.iso.

4) Remove the drive. Remove 4 Torx screws from the back of the TiVo. The top slides towards you and then can be lifted off. Disconnect your hard drive and remove it.

5) Place the TiVo drive and new drive into a computer. The way I did my upgrade was to have my Windows drive as hda (primary) and made my cdr hdb (primary slave). This left me to make TiVo drive hdc (secondary) and the new drive as hdd (secondary slave).

6) Backing up your TiVo. The easiest way to backup the TiVo is with Mfs tools. Power your PC with the boot CD in the drive. You will then see a dmesg output to the console, check your hard drives in the messages. If your drive is locked seen about 9-10mb then you might need to unlock it now using your qunlock found at http://www.9thtee.com/qunlock.exe . Reboot and use the qunlock DOS boot disk. Then type "a:\qunlock 2" After your drive is cleared of unlocking if needed, reboot with the boot CD and type "root" to get a prompt. Mount your DOS partition by typing the commands "mkdir /mnt/dos" and "mount /dev/hda1 /mnt/dos". Then "mfstool backup -6so /mnt/dos/tivo.bak /dev/hdc"

7) Run BlessTiVo on your new large upgrade drive. Boot up PC with boot CD in the drive. Get a prompt type "BlessTiVo /dev/hdb". The programs will report the results and size of your drive. Hinsdale says make sure this value is within about 2-6gb of your drives actual size (use formula (XXgb x 1000000000)/1073741824 where XX is advertised drive size, to give you an estimate of what the actual drive size will be reported as). Do not insert a blessed drive into your TiVo that had the size reported substantially wrong. If you have questions about a drive then see AVS TiVo Underground.

8) Reassemble your TiVo. You should now make sure the jumper settings are configured correctly - with your TiVo A drive jumpered to Master and your new B drive jumpered to Slave. Place the drives in the TiVo so that the A drive is in the bay closest to the master IDE connector (end of the IDE cable) and connect the master IDE connector (red/black edge stripe closest to the power connector) and power cord properly. The new large upgrade B drive will be in the empty bay next to the A drive and connect it to the slave IDE connector (middle of the IDE cable) and second power cable. After it boots, go to the system information menu and verify your new expanded hours. If it worked, place the new bracket in and don't worry about the long vacation ruining your TiVo time.