TiVo Community Forums Archives - Seeking experienced upgrade opinions...

TiVoCommunity.com
(c)opyright 1995-2005 All rights reserved
indexcheckTC
This area is a static history of posts in the TiVo Community Forum Archive.
This archive history was made for the simple indexing of search sites like Google.

Pages:1

Seeking experienced upgrade opinions...
(Click here to view the original thread with full colors/images)

Posted by: iceisles

Hey guys - I have heard so many good things about Weaknees.com, but just wanted to get some experienced opinions on the reliability of upgrading the Tivo's - in particular, the HDVR2. Have most of you had flawless upgrades? Or have there been some serious system crashes, drive failures, etc? I'm sure you can understand my conflict - I want to add hours, but really want to have a handle on the risk before doing so. Thanks for your help.

Posted by: rsmith

You should ask yourself a few questions before upgrading your unit:
Have you ever built a PC from parts or replaced a hard drive?
Do you understand the basics of formatting drives, or what master and slave drives are?
Do you understand the Windows or Linux operating system?
Are you good at troubleshooting or problem solving?
Is your time worth $100 per hour?
Do you get a sense of accomplishment from tackling new projects and learning?
I am not a computer technician yet I successfully upgraded my DSR6000 with a Maxtor 120GB HDD.
I did have some previous experiences Building a computer from scratch, upgrading and replacing hd, setting up a home peer to peer wireless network, MS DOS commands (from the early 80's) and fair knowledge of Windows.
The whole process from research, gathering tools and parts, reading the Hinsdale guide, searching this forum and actually completing the upgrade probably consumed 32 hours of my time.
The most difficult issues for me were related to using my Home PC with Windows XP.
Here is a cost comparison that might help. This is based on upgrading with two Maxtor 120GB Hard Drives and your labor cost of $50 per hour.
Do-it-yourself - $180 + $1600 (32 Hours @ $50/hour) = $1780
Replacement Drives Kit - $430 + $400 (8 Hours @ $50/hour) = $830
Hope this helps!

Posted by: Rschultz1457

My upgrade went flawless and I used PTVUpgrade.com, you should check them out.

Posted by: g111444

I consider myself fairly competent with computers as I've built 3 or 4 for myself and friends, but never dealt with Linux. At any rate, I crashed my A drive and just sent it off yesterday to get it fixed. If I had to do it over again, I would have saved myself the 20 or so hours and the frustration and sent it off for the upgrade...well worth the $100.

A lot of people have done it without incident, but if you decide to do it yourself, make sure you do the research and know what you're getting into and the associated risks.