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Cheap and fearfull of messing up the upgrade
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Posted by: briang5

OK, I want to upgrade my series 2 to add a 160gig drive, I was going to go weaknees cause that seemed simplest, and I thought only marginaly more expensive than upgrading myself. It was pointed out on here that I can buy a 160gig drive for $108, which is $100 less than the weaknees drive (ignoring momentarily the little things I would have to buy like the brackets)

So I would prefer to do it myself and save money, but I fear screwing it up and losing the programs and setup info on my main drive.

My question is as follows:

Is it possible to buy a 160gig drive, bring it to work, download all the stuff I need off the web, hack it into looking like a weaknees drive, bring it back home and slap it into my TIVO as if it was a weeknees drive ?

And if i did this, and when I brought it home and hooked it up, it didint work, would I then be able to remove it and have the original drive work just as it did? In other words, will simply connecting a "weeknees" type drive to the second drive, modify the first drive so that I wouldnt be able to remove the "weeknees" type drive and have it work as it originally did ?

Thanks

Posted by: cavalier

Well keep in mind that you cannot just 'slap' the drive in, you need someway to mount it so that it 1) stays stable 2) stays cool inside the unit.

What weaknees (et al) are offering you is convenience, if you would like to Hinsdale it yourself it is certainly possible. I would just reccomend you at least consider the TwinBreeze kit from weaknees or a mounting kit in general. It's well made and will save you a lot of hassle.

As far as slapping the drive on, having it fail, and taking it off, your mileage will vary. You definitely want to do a straight backup of the existing tivo drive so you can restore it if need be - hinsdale talks about this. Also, make sure your machine at work is not XP, or it will screw the drives.

cheers

Posted by: briang5

Thanks for the info. PS- I used the word "slap" loosely, I was going to mount it properly.

As for the backup, is there a way to back up the program data or just the basic config ? I dont see how to backup program data unless I back it up to a bigger drive.

Thanks

Posted by: Robert S

If you just read Hinsdale, these things would become clear(er) to you.

Once you've made your backup then you can turn any ATA drive into an A drive for your TiVo, so you can recover from any hard drive problem (self-induced or otherwise). At that point you can relax a bit about messing things up.

Posted by: cavalier

er sorry I realized you did mean slap as in to place in a gentle fashion --- I was just concerned about your choice of mounting hardware.

:)

happy TiVoing!