TiVo HD - 1TB Upgrade?

[adamaluy]

Hello all!

I just got a new 37" Olevia LCD, am awaiting Cox HD cable installation later this week, and have a TiVo HD (R65216) coming this week as well - going with 2 x CableCards. I consider myself a lucky man! I've had TiVo in my life since the first month the series 1 was released many years ago.

I see the Series3 is limited to one internal drive...does this apply to the new TiVo HD as well? Also, can I swap the original drive in an HD box with a 1TB drive, or am I limited to a 750GB upgrade? I am looking at the WD10EACS 1TB Caviar GP drive specifically.

Any help is greatly appreciated!

-Adam

[WK-Michael]

Both units can only hold one drive internally, although there's the possibility of the TiVoHD holding two with some work. Either unit can use a 1 TB drive - and we're likely about to start using that WD drive here ourselves.

[adamaluy]

You rock! Thanks man!

I'm going to give the WD a whirl, and will post back how it goes. If all goes well I'll be getting another one, and some mounting hardware from you guys.

Cheers,

-Adam

[WK-Michael]

OK - no mounting hardware yet, but we're considering it.

[BilgePete4]

there's a decently easy do-it-yourself upgrade here:
www bumwine.com/tivo.html

[adamaluy]

Thanks for the Knoppix suggestion. I had a problem with it though. This is a brand new TiVo HD with no recordings at all, my HD service isn't even installed yet. Going from the original 160GB drive to a 1TB WD drive.

The DD went fine and completed in about 70 minutes, but the 'mfstool add' part fails with the following error:

Primary volume header corrupt, trying backup.
Secondary volume header corrupt, giving up.
mfs_load_volume_header: Bad checksum.
Unable to open MFS drives.

I hooked up the original 160GB to the TiVo and it works fine, hooked up the new 1TB and it works fine too but the space hasn't been expanded. Any suggestions? I've tried various formats of the 'mfs add' & 'mfstools add' with no luck.

Any help is greatly appreciated!

[WK-Michael]

Did you use a "-r 4" in the mfsadd code?

[adamaluy]

I figured out the problem!

Turns out the original TiVo HD 160GB drive would display the same error when trying 'mfstools' commands like list, backup, etc... This happens with the Weaknees, Hinsdale, and Tiger CDs - they support SATA, but not the way the MFS tables are layed out in a TiVO HD unit (HighDef not harddrive).

MFSLive was the ticket - it understood the TiVo HD MFS structure and expanded the new 1TB drive with no issues. The MFSLive dude also has a new Windows based tool - WinMFS, but it's still in beta and it would not even recognize the physical drives on my system - no bueno.

Sooo in wrap up...if you have a TiVo HighDef unit and want more recording time, MFSLive should do the trick. I wouldn't doubt that the other MFS tool makers will support this scenario soon.

[WK-Michael]

Right - our publicly-available tools don't (yet) work with the TiVo HD.