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(originally
a post on TiVo Community
Forum) Some
background: I am an engineer (the gears and motors kind, not a programmer)
and I definitely wouldn’t consider myself a hacker, but I am a strong user
(albeit Windows user). I can remember
the DOS days. I was an AutoCAD
draftsman in college, and I do remember the exciting day when I got the
upgrade to DOS 5.0. I have had my TiVo
unit (a Sony SAT-T60) for about a year now, and it is one of the best thing I’ve ever bought.
It really changed the way I watched television. End of commercial. Initially I balked at paying money for a
service that I felt I already had, in the DirecTV guide, but I broke down
because of the longer recording times and convenience of digital
recording. I was hooked from the first
time I used it. A friend told me about
upgrading the unit, so I searched the net and came across Hinsdale’s
How-To. After reading through it
initially, I thought that this was something that I probably wasn’t qualified
to do, but after a couple of months of ruminating, and seeing all the positive posts on the TiVo community site, I went
ahead and ordered a hard drive. I
bought a Maxtor 120G drive for about $200 going through Shopper.com. saturday, may 25, 2002 I
decided that today is the day. I am upgrading
the TiVo unit. I have a long holiday
weekend, made a list of things to do, and TiVo upgrade is first on the
list. I bought the hard drive about a
month ago, but have been out of town every weekend since, and haven’t had a
chance. Here goes: 2:30 pm First, I downloaded all the applicable
files to my computer, including the documentation and utility files. This was a relatively slow process on
dial-up. I also printed out most of
the things I needed. All told, I
probably printed more than 100 pages, and I didn’t even print out the FAQ
(71pages). The sites that are
important are Hinsdale’s
How-to, the Hack the TiVo FAQ,
and the TiVo Community site. I also downloaded the qunlock
program just in case. I bought a
Maxtor HD but sometimes they have Quantum firmware. I downloaded all the documentation from the
hard drive from Maxtor. 4:30 Creating the TiVo upgrade disk requires
that you burn the CD as an image, and not as a file on the CD. There didn’t seem to be that option in
Windows XP, but I decided to give it a try and see if it recognized that the
file was an image. It didn’t. After making a coaster, I downloaded Nero
CDR tools (this was the longest download, about 13 Meg). I also downloaded the manual, just in case. 5:30 Opening the Sony T-60 was easy. I almost got the sticker off without
breaking the seal, but it did break (as designed). I removed the HD with no problems, but the
third screw behind the power supply was a little tricky. I had to use a smaller size Torx screwdriver because I had to get at it at an
angle. Luckily, I already had several
sizes of Torx.
It seems like they’ve been at the top of my tool box, because every
time I reach for a regular screwdriver, I get a Torx,
but as soon as I need them they tunnel to the bottom of my toolbox and I have
to dump the whole thing to find them. 5:36 My computer runs Windows XP, but it
already had a FAT32 partition. I
didn’t need to do that step, at least, but all the instructions assume that
you have a DOS primary drive, and I will have to be careful about all the
commands. I also had to download a DOS
boot disk from bootdisk.com. 6:02 I installed the Nero software (quick and
painless), rebooted, and burned the CD-ROM without any trouble. It worked the first time. I double-checked the BIOS to see if the
CD-ROM would boot. My CD-ROM is set up
as default bootable ahead of the hard drive, but the CD-RW won’t boot at
all. No problem, write the CD and then
put it in the other drive. Then, I
rebooted to check if the boot CD worked okay, and it didn’t recognize my USB
keyboard. I happened to have another
keyboard (and the adaptor to connect from the old AT style jack to the PS2
style jack). 6:57 When I booted to the DOS boot disk to run
FDISK, the version wasn’t the same as described. The instructions say to run FDISK –L, and
when I tried that, I got an incorrect parameter error. I didn’t think I could see the partition
information I needed with it, so I downloaded another (version 5.00) that I
am more familiar with. Both CD-ROM
drives did mount, though. Very
cool. I recall years ago spending days
trying to get a DOS boot disk to mount a CD-ROM drive (in the old Windows 3.1
days). 7:10 I’m having second and third thoughts about
buying the ready-made service package.
I guess I feel that doing it myself makes me more a man. That’s the only thing keeping me going. 7:23 I went to bootdisks.com and downloaded new
file (639k). I created a new boot disk
with DOS version 5.00, and remembered to copy qunlock
to the disk as well. Then I tested the
boot disk and ran FDISK again. Not
only am I a dumba**, FDISK is the same in version
5.00 as 6.22, the version 5.00 disk didn’t mount the CD-ROM drives, even
though the site says that all the versions have CD-ROM drivers. I then copied the FDISK utility to the HD
and tried to run it (of course it won’t run under Windows, I got an
Application is attempting to access to the disk directly error) and the DOS
boot disk won’t recognize the hard drive.
I looked up the utility in an old manual that I have, but there wasn’t
much help there. The manual didn’t
tell me anything about the command-line parameters. FDISK –L definitely does not work in any
version known to man. I am just going
to assume that my FAT32 partition is the first extended partition (which I
later verified by using Disk Management under the Administrative Tools) and
use the settings Hinsdale recommends.
I assumed that I needed to know the addresses of the partitions or
some other stuff. It turns out I just
needed to know which partition is which.
Now to recreate the DOS version 6.22 boot disk (luckily I saved all the downloads).
About 5 minutes to write a new boot disk, then a reboot to test
it. Back come
the CD-ROM drives. 7:30 It’s been about five hours and I still
haven’t cracked the case on my computer.
Now that I’ve got the original drive out of the TiVo, I need to
connect and download the settings for that drive as well. Since Quantum doesn’t sell hard drives
anymore, I had to go back to the Maxtor site to find the documentation. They didn’t have the exact drive listed,
but I found one similar, and downloaded it (2.4 Meg for the manual, just to
be sure that I have everything). The
settings are listed on the drive, but I couldn’t really understand the
diagram, and the manual as a very explicit drawing. Once I saw the picture in the manual, I
understood the diagram on the hard drive.
Downloading the documentation for the original TiVo hard drive at this
point was a real good suggestion on the Community board, since your computer
will usually be apart once you start to put the TiVo drive into your computer,
and you won’t be able to download the settings from the net when you need
them. Also, now that I’ve created the
CD-ROM, I need to print out the manuals for blesstivo,
TiVoMad, and TiVoNet. It would help to have a second computer
online, so that you can search and view the documentation while you’re
working on the other computer. I had a
laptop just sitting next to me, but I didn’t load any of the stuff onto it,
and I didn’t want to take the extra time, so I went with the paper copies. 7:52 It will be a miracle if this thing works. 8:15 I tried to extend the FAT32 partition so
that I had enough space to do the backup, but Windows won’t let you do that
(Partition Magic will, I’m sure, but I don’t want to have to buy it). I needed about 500 Meg more space to get
the recommended 1.5 Gig. I decided
just to move some stuff from the FAT32 partition to the NTFS partition
temporarily so that I had enough room.
I think that I am going to miss out on recording SNL and Austin City
Limits tonight. 8:20 I opened the case to my computer. I didn’t even need to take off any screws,
pretty nifty, but I had to find the damn manual to figure out how to get it
open. The computer is still copying
about 2 Gig from the FAT32 to the NTFS partition. 8:37 I think I’m ready to put the drives in my
computer. I’m going to take a break
and eat dinner. Another good
suggestion was to have a well-lit workspace, and mine was fine until the sun
went down. I need more light. 9:37 Back on the job. Shut down the computer, hook up the old
drive, and boot into Linux on the TiVo Upgrade CD. 9:40 Horror!!!
The first boot the computer not only didn’t recognize the secondary
hard drive, it didn’t recognize ANY hard drives. Not only did I screw up my TiVo, I trashed
my computer hard drive as well. And I
don’t have a backup yet (the computer is only a couple of weeks [well,
months] old). Reboot and still no hard
drives. Then a quick check of the
cables shows that I pulled the primary IDE cable loose from the
motherboard. Push it in and reboot,
and success. The computer recognizes
the original hard drive. But still no
secondary. Reboot again to see if the
BIOS just didn’t catch the second one.
Nope. Then as a last resort, I
re-read the instructions. Jumper
settings? Check. Right cable? Check.
IDE cable snug? Check. Power connecter snug? Ohhhhhhhh, it
needs power? Connected the power
cable, reboot, and the BIOS sees both hard drives. Excellent!!! I go through the Linux boot messages (very
cool, btw, my first experience with Linux) and see that it recognizes the
drive with the correct size. The last
time I put a new hard drive into a computer, you had to tell the BIOS how
many heads, sectors and cylinders.
Now, the BIOS knows exactly what kind of hard
drive you’re sticking in. Very cool. 10:10 Now to enter the commands to back up the
image. This is the trickiest part,
since I have to change the commands listed in the instructions to reflect my
DOS partition, and not a DOS primary drive.
The drive mounts without error, and then… the backup starts counting
down. Success!! 10:25 The backup takes about 15 minutes. Then I unmount
the drives (nice comment to prevent my certain error on UMOUNT versus
UNMOUNT), change to the new drive, set the jumpers, and reboot. Success!!
The computer sees the new drive and with the correct size. 10:56 The restore takes about 10 minutes, and I
get a Restore Successful! message. Very cool messages in this Linux
world. The backup file completely
restored to the new drive Now the
moment of truth. I’ll install the new
drive into the TiVo as the only drive and see if the image works. 11:18 Don’t forget to change the jumper
settings. One gripe, the new hard
drive didn’t come with screws. I have
some screws that will work from an old computer, I don’t know why I ever kept
them, but I threw them in a drawer, and miracle upon miracle, I found them
again. The old screws are Phillips and
not Torx, but that’s okay. One more trip to the tool bag. Whoops, just attached the old drive, need
to put the new one in. Don’t forget to
attach the fan, too. Also, the power, dumba**. It’s
getting late. I better be careful. 11:34 I put the TiVo back together and hooked it
up to the TV. Every thing appears to
be working. I got a scare when it
seemed to take forever to boot up, and then the screen went blank after a
message “Press UNKNOWN to turn on receiver” but when I turned it back on, not
only was everything working, it was recording SNL. The new hard drive sounds pretty loud, but
that was with the cover off and the screws attaching the bracket were not
tightened. Now, to bless the new hard
drive, install both, and enjoy the sweet smell of success. 11:48 First I pulled the new drive out of the TiVo
unit, and remembered to reset the jumpers.
I had to shut down the computer for that. Then I just ran the BlessTiVo
program (it took less than a second) and Voila! 12:26
am Still buttoning up the
case. The third screw, near the power
supply, is a bear to get back in. I
tried removing the power supply board but there were too many
connections. I finally took some
electrical tape and taped up the shaft of my Torx
screwdriver and a pair of needle-nose pliers, held the screw with the pliers
and tightened with the screwdriver at about a 45 degree angle. I spent about 5 minutes almost stripping
out the Torx screw (supposedly not possible) until
I realized I was trying to put the wrong screw in (too long). When I got the right screw, everything went
together without a hitch. All the
cables were exactly the right length.
I checked all the connections; jumpers, fan, power, IDE, everything
looks good. 12:31
am I AM THE BADDEST MAN IN THE WORLD!!! I calculate 160 hours of recording
time. No more “Save until space
needed.” No more “These programs will
be deleted earlier that scheduled.” I AM KING HACKER OF TIVO’S!!! In
summary, the instructions were EXCELLENT, thanks to Hinsdale, Dylan, Silviu Tamasdan (aka kazymyr), Mike Hill (aka Belboz),
Tiger, et al. They really addressed
everything I needed to know, and all of the above problems were my own. Tools
and equipment needed – Torx screwdrivers (several
sizes), pocket knife, Phillips screwdriver, electrical tape, keyboard, screws
to attach the hard drive, blank CD-R’s (I needed two), blank 3 ½ floppy disk, Number
of reboots about 18 Number
of files downloaded about 16 Number
of manuals printed 6 Total
pages printed about 100 Total
time spent about 9 hours Total
cost $200 Total
recording time 140 hours Last updated 7/4/05 |
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