TiVo Community Forums Archives - So is hacking really that hard, or do we only see the "problem" threads on here.

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So is hacking really that hard, or do we only see the "problem" threads on here.
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Posted by: Crash331

This whole forum is filled with nothing but problems. Is it just because people don't post "HEY, IT WORKED", or are the failure rates really this high?

Posted by: chino

Yes!

No!

Maybe!

It depends!

Posted by: Robert S

Um, 1 million TiVo subscribers, 50,000 members of the Forum, most of whom seem to spend their time asking why their TiVo won't tune to channels with a '6', not trying to resolve real problems.

I'm not exactly seeing a cause for panic here...

Posted by: Crash331

I don't mean is TiVo a bad product, I am just concerned with adding a HDD.

I am going to add 160gigs to my 40 hour on monday, but all the problems people have are scareing me.

I am just wondering if lots of people have problems upgrading, etc.

No knock at TiVo or anything, I love mine, just don't wanna break my baby.

Posted by: walters

If you don't feel like you should do it, you probably shouldn't. You can send it in to have it professionaly done. You can buy a premade hard drive. You can buy a geek friend a 12-pack. Or you can just follow the instructions to the letter.

BTW, there's no excuse for %^&*ing it up beyond repair. You *carefully* perform a backup of the current setup. You test the backup on the new drive (repeat backup if it didn't work). Now you proceed with no worries, knowing in a worst case you could restore your known-good backup.

Posted by: Avenger

Well, human nature is for people to complain loudly about their difficulties while remaining much quieter when they're content. Besides, there's no reason to go to the support forums for help with an upgrade if the upgrade went off without a hitch. This is a little like a doctor's office. You mainly see people who need help. The ones who have no current problems tend not to come.

I think there are thousands of us out there who have now done these upgrades successfully, and maybe several hundred who have had difficulties. Frankly, while this stuff isn't rocket science, it isn't child's play, either. It takes something of a mathematical mind (or at least a very methodical personality) to get this right, especially the first time. There are a lot of areas where it can be screwed up - even down to having the drive jumpers set to something other than CSEL. And I'd guess that almost no one is making backups before their upgrades, on the theory that *I* won't be the dope who accidentally overwrites his original drive without benefit of backup.

Download the most current Hinsdale instructions. Read them through thoroughly - maybe several times. Plan your upgrade out before you remove the first screw from your Tivo. Print a hard copy of Hinsdale, and mark up the commands you will need with a highlighter, so you can find them once you start the upgrade.

Have everything you will need on hand, and make sure you familiarize yourself enough with your PC so you know exactly what connections you will have to make, and maybe what BIOS changes you will have to make, once you start the upgrade process.

If you do all of this, and follow the directions exactly, you should have no problem at all. And, if you make the backup as part of the process (you will make a backup, right?), you will have a quick and easy way to rectify any problems that might arise.

Posted by: Crash331

Yeah, I am definitely backing up.

And I don't know about buying a geek a 12-pack...Don't think I can do it drunk.

lol. Seriously though, I don't mean that I am dumb or anything. I can build my own computer and that type of stuff and have messed around with linux enough to know how it works, but not enough to know it like the back of my hand. I don't want to give the wrong impression that I am a total idiot. It's just a never messed with a TiVo before. ANd Although it IS pretty much like a computer by what I have read, you are always a little anxious the first time you crack open a new type of machine.

I guess I am just not used to this board yet and I don't really know the intelligence level of all the posters yet. All of the threads yelling for help could be from people who did no research and have no experience, so for someone like me who is fairly experienced could have no problems; or I could have tons.

I am just trying to get a feel for what I am getting in to, if you know what I mean.

Posted by: TivoGeezer

This was my first post on the Tivo Community Forum and I think it was an indication that, no, upgrading is not really difficult, but that you have to acquire a certain level of confidence before cracking the case. For me, it came from reading this forum and from getting documentation (in the form of a book I bought) and software (also came with the book), pouring over all of it at length, and preparing a plan. I also enlisted some expert help in the form of my two sons, who have been using Linux for many years between them.

Posted by: Crash331

By the way, can you guys help with this?

I booted from the Linux CD that has MFS Tools on it just to snoop around, but it just hung at a black screen after it read off all of the text (like HDD size, etc. the usualy Linux startup stuff).

Does this mean my ISO was bad, or is it just hanging because it can't find a TiVo drive? Because I booted it with my regualr PC hard drives attached, just to make sure the Boot CD was OK.

Posted by: Robert S

The Linux kernel on those disks is pretty old and doesn't always cope with some of the newer hardware in current PC's (stevel was having similar problems a while ago that seemed to relate to the SATA bus). You could try Dylan's Boot Disk which uses a (slightly) different kernel.

Try Knoppix, which has the latest kernel on it. MFS Tools will run fine under Knoppix, although if you expand (with mfsadd or mfsrestore with -x) in that environment, you'll get the whole 160GB, which will break your TiVo. Perhaps Tom's Root and Boot Disk would be a better choice. I don't think that's LBA-48 yet. If it is, then you'll have to use an older version that isn't.

To repeat, you need a Linux that detects your 160Gb drive as 137Gb. If it detects 160Gb it will break your TiVo.