TiVo Community Forums Archives - hacking a tivo with no good drives to work from

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hacking a tivo with no good drives to work from
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Posted by: todd_j_derr

I've chronicled the problems with my TIVO in another thread:

http://www.avsforum.com/ubbtivo/Forum2/HTML/005929.html

Basically, this is an unhacked Philips 30hr unit with a failing hard disk; I confirmed this by getting a shell and looking at the errors in the kernel log. Last night, though, it stayed up long enough to dial in and apparently upgrade to the latest software - I had been running 2.0.1-Z16, but as a result of calling tech support, they had put my box back in the queue for the 'final' 2.0). Now its condition has now deteriorated to where it gets to the 'Almost there' screen, then green screens, then reboots a couple seconds later. I haven't tried booting back to Z16 yet.

Anyways, this leaves me in something of a bad position. I had resisted the urge to hack my box prior to this (I didn't even play with the shell until after it started failing) because I was worried about my warranty. The irony is that if I had hacked it, I'd be in much better shape, I'd still have my original 30G disk to work with. Now, I can send my unit back to Philips, and for $99, still have a 30hr unit, but I was thinking, especially with this new method of expanding the A drive, for $215 I could hack it.

But, having never hacked my box, I don't have a backup disk image to use. I suppose I could try to copy the disk that is in there, ignoring the bad sectors, but I don't feel very good about that; I suspect that at least some of the bad sectors were used for the background animations in the menus, etc., which I could live without, but it would be nasty...

So, I thought I'd check to see it anyone had an idea I hadn't thought of? If I wanted to be really dishonest, I suppose I would go to the store, buy a 30 hour unit, open it up, copy its disk, and return it, but I'd rather not have to do something like that http://www.avsforum.com/ubbtivo/frown.gif

Posted by: ADent

1) Find a friend with a 30hr unit of the same brand.

2) Buy a new 30 hr unit (14, 20, any single drive will work if it the same brand and uses the same software or later your box shipped with - 2.0 units from the factory may be locked to that serial # though) and copy that drive to your machine. eBay the machine (or here in the garage sale forum). Please DO NOT return an open unit - it just makes TiVo mad at hackers.

3) http://www.ptvupgrade.com may be able to help, but looks like it would cost more than shipping it to Phillips.