Have you tried the fixes we list? See here:

http://www.weaknees.com/phone

That's doing the trick in every situation we've seen.

I'm going through the same issue. Have a Tivo DVR which just got a new power source and hard drive from WK. Same card, no changes. I plugged it and and ran through the set up. No local channels. I tried to update the content and was asked to set up phone. Now I've been trying to contact DTV via the modem to try and get the local numbers and I keep getting an error stating it can't connect to the phone service. This is really lame I had a Tivo DVR repaired by WK before and didn't have this issue. If anyone has any better ideas, let me know, otherwise I'll go back and try to keep trying things to get this to work.

We certainly hear from a lot of people who think DTV is doing something like this. Frankly, we don't think they're really being underhanded, just short-sighted.

Planned Obsolescence

DTV may have dropped the number as an underhanded way of prompting old diehards like me to jettison our old units and replace them with more expensive, new ones.

This raises their revenues (because my unit has a non-transferable Lifetime subscription) and lowers their support load (because now they don't have to train their own phone geeks on the older units.)

The real issue isn't anyone installing a replacement drive, it's what number is on the replacement drive.

It's pretty surprising that DTV let a number go like that. You'd think they'd hang on to a dial-in number endlessly just to keep everyone in this situation from calling them for support.

So, to summarize

Ok, here's the situation as I currently understand it.

The WK external modem instruction sheet says to use simply:

,#316

to disable the internal modem and use the external modem instead.

But the 800 number the 3.0 OS is using is no longer valid, so Guided Setup fails, for all ancient TiVo and DirectTV TiVo units. It only worked for me because when I installed the external modem, my TiVo was already using my local TiVo service number, and switching to an external modem doesn't require repeating Guided Setup.

To get through Guided Setup on a Series 1 with OS 3.x and external modem, override the phone number and use the external modem:

,#396,,#######

where ####### is a local TiVo service phone number.

To override the phone number for the internal modem use:

,#096,,#######

So, theoretically, now that I'm through Guided Setup, I could go back to ",#316" and it would work because the unit now knows to call my local TiVo service number instead of the out-of-service 800 number.

It would be very helpful if the instruction sheet WK packs with the external modem explained the situation and included the ,#396,,####### variant.

There are so many places where information applies to DirectTV TiVos but not Philips/etc TiVos that when I read the web page about the phone number, I thought it applied only to DirectTV TiVos. I read that to mean that DirectTV had changed their own service phone number, not TiVo itself. So, for me, that page wasn't clear.

This is going to be a problem for anyone using a Series 1 with an 3.x OS trying to go back through Guided Setup, right? So won't everyone have to apply the ,#396 or ,#096 fixes when installing a replacement hard drive in an old Series 1? Perhaps this needs to go into that instruction sheet, too...?

Ye gads, what a weekend...! I had given up on my unit and as about to toss it into the trash!

,#396 is used if you have an external modem
,#096 is used if you are using an internal modem

Otherwise, tivo with or without DIRECTV, the instructions apply

Well, not quite.. That's the ,#096 version. The one that finally worked is ,#396, and this is a tivo-tivo, not a DIRECTtv tivo, so does that apply?

Yup. We've got a post about it here:

http://www.weaknees.com/phone

One more try...potential success!

I sent an email to 'info' asking about returning the drive, and a response I got back suggested trying

,#396,,#######

and my decrepit Philips has actually completed the call and is now importing.

I'll nurse this thing along and see how far it gets.

For what it's worth, if you're considering a Humax, you should get it soon because the $150 rebate goes away on 4/5 and the price will go up dramatically after that.

Yes, it's time for a new unit

I've seen comments elsewhere in the forums that Philips is no longer repairing the oldest units because they don't have the replacement hard drives.

I bought myself a dvd recorder to use with this dead tivo, haven't even unboxed it. Now I'm looking at the Humax w/dvd but I've seen so many comments (elsewhere) about Humax units being unreliable that I'm hesitant to order one. I like the high-speed dump to dvd feature, though.

Any new unit is only going to be hooked to a DISH receiver so I really don't see the point of paying for a dual-tuner, especially since 80% of the time it's going to be running unattended while I'm out of town.

Sigh. I'm bummed. I'm heading back out Monday morning for another 6-week roadtrip so I don't have time to deal with this now.

Thanks for your help.

You should swap the drive out before you send it. If you want to return it, email us with your order number.

Good luck with Philips. It's hard to know what's up over there these days. It might be time for a new unit.

Still No luck

I've just tried the ,#319. On the first test attempt it actually got past the dialing stage and into connecting, but it eventually failed with "service not responding". Two additional attempts failed in the dialing stage.

I guess I'll just have to send the unit back to Philips. Sigh. This exact modem setup worked 3 days ago, it's just now, during the intial setup, that it is refusing to connect with the Tivo service.

Can I return this new replacement drive? Philips will just toss it if I leave it in there.

Unless you have anything more to try?

You can't put both prefixes in there. Try:

,#396

which tells it to use both the external, and slower.