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Success! 80 Hour Tivo with 45GB WD Drive

Just wanted to say thanks to all the excellent tips in the posts here.
I successfully upgraded my 20hour TiVO to an 80 hour model using a Western Digital 45GB hard drive, purchased for $99 at CompUSA.

Ordered a mounting bracket from 9thTee. Mark is great. He emailed me personally to let me know when he shipped out the 2nd drive mounting kit. I highly suggest ordering the mounting hardware from him just to be on the safe side. For the 20hour TiVO, drive, and bracket, cost $310 after all rebates. Not bad at all!

Haven't had any problems to date. Found it interesting that my 20hour
model backup was only 9MB and took only about 10 seconds with the dd using Dylan's disk, instead of the 2-3hours i thought i would be waiting... Maybe they don't load the TiVO up with all the sample videos anymore?

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Registered: Jun 2000
Location: Rochester, NY
Posts: 12

A 9 meg backup sounds like you have a locked drive (and I'd expect so with a 20 hour unit). I don't think you have a good backup.

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tallboy, just courious to find out how many best quality time you have? I got that WD drive too and I have the 14hrs TIVO, haven't do the upgrade yet, dunno how to do the backup.

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Registered: Dec 1999
Location: Hoffman Estates, IL USA
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quote:

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Originally posted by tallboy:
Found it interesting that my 20hour
model backup was only 9MB and took only about 10 seconds with

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Definately locked. I just did the backup, and my CMOS showed the original drive as 9 meg. Followed the steps in the FAQ, and it opened all the way up.

My 30 hour original drive took a little over 3 1/2 hours to backup.

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Registered: Jun 2000
Location: Rochester, NY
Posts: 12

And just because it hasn't been mentioned yet, don't bother making a backup after the fact. A backup of a married A drive probably won't help you for any reason.

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What was the trick for the $99 WD Hard Drive, I don't see any price close to that for 45GB?

Thanks,
Gary

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CompUSA have it on store, $189 before $60 and $30 rebates from WesternDigital. I posted the deal last sunday. I guess by now most of the CompUSA will be out of stock.

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i saw the notes, but my BIOS reported the drive size correctly?
i compared the two drives and they seemed identical.
well, it works but unfortunately, i guess i don't have a backup which stinks. anyone care to elaborate on what might have happened here and
if there is any way to get a good backup just in case?
can these be purchased as a legal option?
i really don't want to be stuck down the road...where does this leave me?

the drive size reported is 80GB at the lowest quality. I record at medium as a rule, to conserve space. Quality is acceptable for me.

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let me rephrase my last post. the machine i used for the dd with dylan's disk was a dell dimension. it showed the drive description as 30GB, but i guess it didn't post that way. unfortunately, in the BIOS for these machines, it doesn't give an option to provide the physical description of the HD. So i guess i am screwed? Any advice, since I would like to have a valid backup for the advent of 2.0. What sort of problems will i most likely run into? Any known precautions that i should take?

Thanks in advance,

tallboy

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Tallboy,

Your bootup screen will show the full drive size, but if you go into your bios and have it automatically detect the drive, it will show it only has 9 meg available.

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Registered: Jan 2000
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I wouldn't be too worried about the 2.0 upgrade screwing things up... mainly because it looks like it will be at least January or February till it's out.

This is based on recent threads in the Coffee House.

Also, by that time someone may have figured out how to fix things or other workarounds that may today be fixable only by restoring.

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Registered: Jul 2000
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there are several hackers running the 2.0 beta and it appears to be fully compatible with the hack, no surprises.


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Sometimes a vacuum is better than the things nature decides to fill it with.

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