TiVo Community Forums Archives - TiVo 2 newbie hack

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TiVo 2 newbie hack
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Posted by: FricanCrobat

Ok, I followed Steve Jenkin's tutorial to hack my TiVo. I can't seem to telnet over into it. I have read something about a ROM command that prevents changes to certain files. What do I do from here?

Posted by: Robert S

Most TiVo hacks apply to Series 1 machines. Hacking a Series 2 is difficult.

The Series 2 boot PROM includes code to restore the TiVo to its original software load if you try to alter any of the files.

Posted by: kbuegel

I did the same thing. If you remount your Tivo drive in your PC, you will see that all your changes to the rc.sysinit file(s) are gone. The TIVO actually validates those boot-up files from the EPROM, and if they are changed in any way, the entire etc/rc.d directory is erased and re-copied. This started happenning with software version 3.2, as far as I can tell from reading this forum.

I think it would be nice if TiVo Steve-O updated his introduction to say that his newbie hack does not work on Series 2 Tivo's with software versions 3.2 or later.

My next move is possibly to get a copy of the older Tivo 3.1 software, then downgrade my system, and then follow Ingineer's BASH_ENV hack instructions. But, those are for the HDVR2, and I have a stand-alone, so not sure if that will work. But, if you have an HDVR2, then I think it should be easy. I also remember seeing a web site that sold already-hacked drives to upgrade your Tivo, so perhaps that would be simpler.

Posted by: Robert S

Series 2 TiVoes have always been locked down. You're thinking of the Series 1 DTiVo which was locked down after it was released. For that model reverting to the original PROM image (and a couple of other tricks) defeats the lock-down.

The BASH_ENV hack gets around the lock-down (haven't TiVo patched that hole yet?), but it could not be described as 'pretty'.