# DVRupgrade.com's INSTANTCAKE is out of date



## w2jo (Jun 29, 2003)

I recently purchased "the latest" circa 2007 InstantCake upgrade package for my Tivo Series 3 from DVRupgrade.com. I read (going in) that a) there was NO PRODUCT SUPPORT of any kind available and b) NO REFUNDS. OK says I, but last time I tried it, it worked fine so likely with my computer experience, I can make it work. OOPS!!! That did not turn out to be so.

The program was designed for OLDER PCs where there were a) PATA drive ports and b) (apparently) just two SATA ports. None of my four PCs now meet that criteria. I tried it on three computers, two with multiple (6 and 8) SATA ports and on a 2009 HP laptop using a USB to SATA adapter. In none of these configurations could InstantCake identify and connect to the DESTINATION SATA port (or USB port) so as to be able to write the InstantCake Tivo package to the destination 1TB drive.

It was true! ABSOLUTELY ZERO support was available from DVRupgrade and no refund was available either! Let the buyer be AWARE!

Finally, in despairation, I went to this and other Tivo forums and found the program KNOPPIX at http://www.bumwine.com/tivo.html and it worked beautifully. I did not need the InstantCake image, but just used the original Tivo Image from the original OEM drive from Tivo.

http://www.bumwine.com/tivo.html speaks of http://www.mfslive.org/winmfs/ which is supposedly even easier to use, but I did not try that one out.

I tried to publish this information on the DVRupgrade.com website, but they would not allow these comments on their website. I can understand why. It seems to me that DVRupgrade.com needs to have their InstantCake program updated to work with modern computers OR quit selling it.


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## stevel (Aug 23, 2000)

The only reason to buy InstantCake is if you don't have an image. If you need the software to install an image on a disk, MFSLive is free. You can use it with the IC image. Given that all the TiVos for IC used PATA disks there would be no point to SATA support. USB, though, is another matter.


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## lpwcomp (May 6, 2002)

stevel said:


> Given that all the TiVos for IC used PATA disks there would be no point to SATA support.


That is incorrect. Series 3 use SATA disks and instantcake for a Series 3 is supposed to work with SATA disks and even a SATA CD-ROM, at least according to the instructions here.

Even if the price were still $20, instantcake wouldn't be worth the price. At $40 it is a complete ripoff.

Having said that, it should have worked. I guess the point is moot, but I would be interested to know exactly what you did.

When I replaced my dying 160GB drive in my TiVO HD with a !TB, I used WinMFS.


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## dlfl (Jul 6, 2006)

stevel said:


> The only reason to buy InstantCake is if you don't have an image. If you need the software to install an image on a disk, MFSLive is free. You can use it with the IC image. Given that all the TiVos for IC used PATA disks there would be no point to SATA support. USB, though, is another matter.


Even if I didn't have an image, I wouldn't use IC as there is another option that I would prefer: DVR_DUDE sells plug-in upgrade drives (just google "ebay dvr_dude"). $145 for 1 TB and $200 for 2 TB. Then subtract the $40 you save by not buying IC, then subtract whatever you think your time and aggravation dealing with IC would be worth.


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## lillevig (Dec 7, 2010)

Yes, free images here on the forum and free tools on MFSlive.org. That being said, the image on the Instantcake will still be good (though an old factory version) and can be transferred to a flashdrive following directions here: http://www.dvrupgrade.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1734

Once you mount the flashdrive with the image, you can use a USB to SATA adapter cable to do the imaging. I've done this just to prove it works but normally I use WinMFS and my USB adapter cable.


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

dvrupgrade may be a sponsor of TCF, but selling an S3 image IC disk that is incapable of installing that image is not only inexcusable but prima facia evidence that whoever's minding the store doesn't really know what they're doing, or worse, doesn't care.


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## steve614 (May 1, 2006)

unitron said:


> dvrupgrade may be a sponsor of TCF, but selling an S3 image IC disk that is incapable of installing that image is not only inexcusable but prima facia evidence that whoever's minding the store doesn't really know what they're doing, or worse, doesn't care.


I don't think they care. Makes me question the other stuff they sell on the website.


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## dlfl (Jul 6, 2006)

unitron said:


> dvrupgrade may be a sponsor of TCF, but selling an S3 image IC disk that is incapable of installing that image is not only inexcusable but prima facia evidence that whoever's minding the store doesn't really know what they're doing, or worse, doesn't care.





steve614 said:


> I don't think they care. Makes me question the other stuff they sell on the website.


Last I heard DvrUpgrade and Weaknees are the same people. If that's correct then you guys are badmouthing weaknees also (??).


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## farmermac (Jan 31, 2012)

I know I'd be calling my cc company about this purchase


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

dlfl said:


> Last I heard DvrUpgrade and Weaknees are the same people. If that's correct then you guys are badmouthing weaknees also (??).


There has been speculation that Weaknees absorbed/bought out/took over dvrupgrade, but I don't know of any official announcement or acknowledgement.

You'd think they'd be able to do better with it than just operate it in zombie mode.

It's like someone not really familiar with Instant Cake took the main package and just substituted an S3 image where an S1 or S2 used to go and didn't bother to do anything about the part wrapped around that, the whole "boot and load an OS" installer package, having been written to only work with IDE devices, and only in a certain configuration (something about which one the cd drive has to be and which one the target hard drive has to be).


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## Teeps (Aug 16, 2001)

dlfl said:


> Even if I didn't have an image, I wouldn't use IC as there is another option that I would prefer: DVR_DUDE sells plug-in upgrade drives (just google "ebay dvr_dude"). $145 for 1 TB and $200 for 2 TB. Then subtract the $40 you save by not buying IC, then subtract whatever you think your time and aggravation dealing with IC would be worth.


My thoughts exactly...

Very happy with the 2TB dvr_Dude drive in my OLED S3.


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## billbillw (Aug 15, 2005)

Chances are, you simply needed to change a BIOS setting for Instant Cake to find your drive. I used it a couple years back (with my very modern PC with 6+ SATA ports) with no issues. If I recall, you need to set the SATA mode to IDE instead of ACHI or RAID.

BTW, at that time, I had no good image to clone for the new drive. My original drive image was corrupt. Instant Cake was the easiest method. I should also mention that I managed to get a free copy of Instant Cake, so the $40 wasn't an issue.


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## dlfl (Jul 6, 2006)

billbillw said:


> Chances are, you simply needed to change a BIOS setting for Instant Cake to find your drive. I used it a couple years back (with my very modern PC with 6+ SATA ports) with no issues. If I recall, you need to set the SATA mode to IDE instead of ACHI or RAID.
> 
> BTW, at that time, I had no good image to clone for the new drive. My original drive image was corrupt. Instant Cake was the easiest method. I should also mention that I managed to get a free copy of Instant Cake, so the $40 wasn't an issue.


Well that should be a lesson to all of us:
1. Be a computer expert.
2. Get your commercially-sold software for free.
I'll take back item 1 if the IC software comes with instructions about the BIOS setting.


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## mattack (Apr 9, 2001)

jmfs is very easy too, works for Tivo HD and above, AFAIK. (Definitely doesn't work for original S3..)


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## shadowplay0918 (May 16, 2011)

Teeps said:


> My thoughts exactly...
> 
> Very happy with the 2TB dvr_Dude drive in my OLED S3.


I used dvr_dude as well on my 3rd THD and using dvr expanders on the 1st 2...wish all 3 had larger internals...


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## lpwcomp (May 6, 2002)

mattack said:


> jmfs is very easy too, works for Tivo HD and above, AFAIK. (Definitely doesn't work for original S3..)


Except that you have to use WinMFS to Supersize a THD or THD XL drive. So, for any Series 3, I would recommend using WinMFS exclusively unless you are going with a drive larger than 1TB.


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## haidawei (Feb 3, 2007)

I used Instant Cake last night (did not have an original image) and ran into the same problem (PATA vs. SATA). I was able to find the solution online. You need to edit some information and add a script. Once I did that, everything worked smoothly to get the Tivo back up and running.


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## w2jo (Jun 29, 2003)

lpwcomp said:


> That is incorrect. Series 3 use SATA disks and instantcake for a Series 3 is supposed to work with SATA disks and even a SATA CD-ROM, at least according to the instructions here.
> 
> Even if the price were still $20, instantcake wouldn't be worth the price. At $40 it is a complete ripoff.
> 
> ...


==================================
Where I had the problem with INSTANT CAKE was when it came time to IDENTIFY the various hard drives so as to transfer the InstantCake image. I set up the first two computers with ONLY two drives. The CD drive was on SATA1. I plugged the USB Flash drive with the IC image in and identified that port (I think) as sdb. I set these up in the Bios so I could boot from the CDROM drive and that all worked fine. I then had the NEW 1TB HDD on SATA2. Unfortunately, Instant Cake was unable to find (or at least write to) the sda, sdb, sdc, sdd, which were the ports which KNOPPIX indicated were the potential SATA ports of interest.

When I switched to KNOPPIX to transfer the old Tivo Disk Image over, it identified all the ports properly and the transfer went along without a hitch.

So.. My suggestion is that InstantCake needs to be updated so it is able to properly identify ports on MODERN computers and not just those that have two PATA ports and two SATA ports. Reports are that such two PATA and two SATA port computers work fine and that is what I had in 2006 when I last used InstantCake successfully.


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## mattack (Apr 9, 2001)

lpwcomp said:


> Except that you have to use WinMFS to Supersize a THD or THD XL drive. So, for any Series 3, I would recommend using WinMFS exclusively unless you are going with a drive larger than 1TB.


But you're basically always going to be using a drive over 1 TB nowadays...?


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## lpwcomp (May 6, 2002)

mattack said:


> But you're basically always going to be using a drive over 1 TB nowadays...?


That's probably true for most people, but not all. I used 1TB to replace my dying 160GB drive in a THD. Admittedly, that was a year ago, but if I had to do it today and I could get a 1TB drive for the same price or less, I would do the same thing.


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## dlfl (Jul 6, 2006)

lpwcomp said:


> That's probably true for most people, but not all. I used 1TB to replace my dying 160GB drive in a THD. Admittedly, that was a year ago, but if I had to do it today and I could get a 1TB drive for the same price or less, I would do the same thing.


I agree. 1 TB is plenty for me. But since "more is always better" to most people, I know that is a minority viewpoint.


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## Stormspace (Apr 13, 2004)

Excuse me if I'm just being stupid. I recently found a copy of Instant Cake laying around, yard sale or something, yeah yeah, yard sale. At any rate I looked at the contents of the disk and low an behold I see a GPL license and a license text indicating that IC can be distributed for free. True? If so, how do these guys get away with selling it?


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

Stormspace said:


> Excuse me if I'm just being stupid. I recently found a copy of Instant Cake laying around, yard sale or something, yeah yeah, yard sale. At any rate I looked at the contents of the disk and low an behold I see a GPL license and a license text indicating that IC can be distributed for free. True? If so, how do these guys get away with selling it?


I'm going to guess that only part of what's on that disc is GPL'ed, and that other parts, like the TiVo-specific software, are not, although I'd really like to know exactly what kind of deal they have in place with TiVo, Inc.


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## mattack (Apr 9, 2001)

Stormspace said:


> Excuse me if I'm just being stupid. I recently found a copy of Instant Cake laying around, yard sale or something, yeah yeah, yard sale. At any rate I looked at the contents of the disk and low an behold I see a GPL license and a license text indicating that IC can be distributed for free. True? If so, how do these guys get away with selling it?


Even if something is GPLed, you can sell it.. you just have to provide source on demand (very simplistic explanation).

e.g. you could sell binaries for people who don't know how to build it for themselves.

(the other answer is probably right too -- presumably some of it isn't GPLed)


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## lew (Mar 12, 2002)

unitron said:


> There has been speculation that Weaknees absorbed/bought out/took over dvrupgrade, but I don't know of any official announcement or acknowledgement.


The physical address for both companies is the same.

The bottom of DVRUPGRADE'S home page says "in partnership with the Tivo Superstore" Clicking on the word tivo links to Weaknees site.

Lou stopped posting around the same time of the rumored merger/take over.


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## Wil (Sep 27, 2002)

lew said:


> The physical address for both companies is the same.
> 
> The bottom of DVRUPGRADE'S home page says "in partnership with the Tivo Superstore" Clicking on the word tivo links to Weaknees site.
> 
> Lou stopped posting around the same time of the rumored merger/take over.


Has customer service been maintained at the same sterling level?


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## rayik (Feb 4, 2006)

w2jo said:


> ==================================
> Where I had the problem with INSTANT CAKE was when it came time to IDENTIFY the various hard drives so as to transfer the InstantCake image. I set up the first two computers with ONLY two drives. The CD drive was on SATA1. I plugged the USB Flash drive with the IC image in and identified that port (I think) as sdb. I set these up in the Bios so I could boot from the CDROM drive and that all worked fine. I then had the NEW 1TB HDD on SATA2. Unfortunately, Instant Cake was unable to find (or at least write to) the sda, sdb, sdc, sdd, which were the ports which KNOPPIX indicated were the potential SATA ports of interest.
> 
> When I switched to KNOPPIX to transfer the old Tivo Disk Image over, it identified all the ports properly and the transfer went along without a hitch.
> ...


That is becasue the linux kernel on instantcake is an old one and does not have sata drivers. Thus, it will not recognize any device plugged into a SATA port.

A good strategy for preparing for the eventual day the hard drive goes bad, is to use WinMFS to make a backup of the hard drive that comes with the TIVO while it is still working properly. Thus, when the day comes that it dies, you already have the tivo image and can just throw it on a new hard drive. (If you are worried about warranty, just wait until the tivo goes out of warranty and then the next week make a backup image of the drive with WinMFS.)


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

rayik said:


> That is becasue the linux kernel on instantcake is an old one and does not have sata drivers. Thus, it will not recognize any device plugged into a SATA port.
> 
> A good strategy for preparing for the eventual day the hard drive goes bad, is to use WinMFS to make a backup of the hard drive that comes with the TIVO while it is still working properly. Thus, when the day comes that it dies, you already have the tivo image and can just throw it on a new hard drive. (If you are worried about warranty, just wait until the tivo goes out of warranty and then the next week make a backup image of the drive with WinMFS.)


For $40 a pop, you'd think they could manage to update the kernal to include SATA drives.


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## lpwcomp (May 6, 2002)

rayik said:


> That is becasue the linux kernel on instantcake is an old one and does not have sata drivers. Thus, it will not recognize any device plugged into a SATA port


I seriously doubt the accuracy of that statement. If it were true, DVRupgrade would be guilty of both civil and criminal fraud.


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## steve614 (May 1, 2006)

unitron said:


> For $40 a pop, you'd think they could manage to update the kernal to include SATA drives.


No doubt. I could accept the price hike if they actually updated their software, but it appears it was/is just a money grab.


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## Stormspace (Apr 13, 2004)

mattack said:


> Even if something is GPLed, you can sell it.. you just have to provide source on demand (very simplistic explanation).
> 
> e.g. you could sell binaries for people who don't know how to build it for themselves.
> 
> (the other answer is probably right too -- presumably some of it isn't GPLed)


I'm aware of that, however the license specifically states that "Instant Cake" can be distributed for free. If that's really the case, why aren't more sites hosting it? Is IC a GPL'd product?


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## Stormspace (Apr 13, 2004)

Here is the text of the License.txt file included on the disk.


```
This file is part of InstantCake.

InstantCake is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or
(at your option) any later version.

InstantCake is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
GNU General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
along with InstantCake; if not, write to the Free Software
Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston, MA  02111-1307  USA
```


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

Stormspace said:


> Here is the text of the License.txt file included on the disk.
> 
> 
> ```
> ...


It may say that, but that's not enough to make it true in the sense that everything on the disk is free.

I can burn a cd with Windows XP on it with an added text file saying everything on the cd is free and freely re-distributable, but my little text file does not make it so.

Part of what's on an IC cd is software that belongs to TiVo, which means the IC folks are not legally able to declare it free for redistribution.

Do you see anything on there about the source code for IC being available?


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## Stormspace (Apr 13, 2004)

unitron said:


> It may say that, but that's not enough to make it true in the sense that everything on the disk is free.
> 
> I can burn a cd with Windows XP on it with an added text file saying everything on the cd is free and freely re-distributable, but my little text file does not make it so.


Part of the reason I was looking for some confirmation. Here's the only other file on the disk that has anything relating to the GPL and source.


```
GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE
		       Version 2, June 1991

 Copyright (C) 1989, 1991 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
                          59 Temple Place, Suite 330 
                          Boston, MA  02111-1307  USA
                          
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  9. The Free Software Foundation may publish revised and/or new versions
of the General Public License from time to time.  Such new versions will
be similar in spirit to the present version, but may differ in detail to
address new problems or concerns.

Each version is given a distinguishing version number.  If the Program
specifies a version number of this License which applies to it and "any
later version", you have the option of following the terms and conditions
either of that version or of any later version published by the Free
Software Foundation.  If the Program does not specify a version number of
this License, you may choose any version ever published by the Free Software
Foundation.

  10. If you wish to incorporate parts of the Program into other free
programs whose distribution conditions are different, write to the author
to ask for permission.  For software which is copyrighted by the Free
Software Foundation, write to the Free Software Foundation; we sometimes
make exceptions for this.  Our decision will be guided by the two goals
of preserving the free status of all derivatives of our free software and
of promoting the sharing and reuse of software generally.

			    NO WARRANTY

  11. BECAUSE THE PROGRAM IS LICENSED FREE OF CHARGE, THERE IS NO WARRANTY
FOR THE PROGRAM, TO THE EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW.  EXCEPT WHEN
OTHERWISE STATED IN WRITING THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND/OR OTHER PARTIES
PROVIDE THE PROGRAM "AS IS" WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EITHER EXPRESSED
OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF
MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  THE ENTIRE RISK AS
TO THE QUALITY AND PERFORMANCE OF THE PROGRAM IS WITH YOU.  SHOULD THE
PROGRAM PROVE DEFECTIVE, YOU ASSUME THE COST OF ALL NECESSARY SERVICING,
REPAIR OR CORRECTION.

  12. IN NO EVENT UNLESS REQUIRED BY APPLICABLE LAW OR AGREED TO IN WRITING
WILL ANY COPYRIGHT HOLDER, OR ANY OTHER PARTY WHO MAY MODIFY AND/OR
REDISTRIBUTE THE PROGRAM AS PERMITTED ABOVE, BE LIABLE TO YOU FOR DAMAGES,
INCLUDING ANY GENERAL, SPECIAL, INCIDENTAL OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES ARISING
OUT OF THE USE OR INABILITY TO USE THE PROGRAM (INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED
TO LOSS OF DATA OR DATA BEING RENDERED INACCURATE OR LOSSES SUSTAINED BY
YOU OR THIRD PARTIES OR A FAILURE OF THE PROGRAM TO OPERATE WITH ANY OTHER
PROGRAMS), EVEN IF SUCH HOLDER OR OTHER PARTY HAS BEEN ADVISED OF THE
POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES.
```
Looks like standard GPL language with no info about source location. It's possible the GPL claim is bogus, but again...


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

Stormspace said:


> Part of the reason I was looking for some confirmation. Here's the only other file on the disk that has anything relating to the GPL and source.
> 
> ... GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE
> Version 2, June 1991
> ...


I had no idea GPL had been around that long. It's old enough to vote.

IC loads some version of Linux as an OS when you boot from it, so that part is GPL'ed.

Some of the TiVo software is actually Linux, so that part is GPL'ed.

Some of it was actually written by TiVo, so that part it proprietary.

The part of IC that handles the specific task of putting the image on the hard drive, I don't know who wrote that or under what sort of license it's distributed or if the source code for it is available or not.

Personally I consider the entire Instant Cake package to be a commercial product for which I should pay if I'm going to use it, and which I am not authorized to re-distribute.

If a copy happened to fall into my lap, I'm not sure about the ethics of extracting just the TiVo image and using some other form of MFS Tools or MFS Live to restore it to a hard drive. It's not like the image itself is theirs, because if it's anybody's, it's TiVo's, although apparently they are licensed by TiVo to distribute it.

Because it's a commercial product I feel just as free to express an opinion of whether it's worth the asking price as I would for any other commercial product.

If a copy happened to fall into my lap, any expectation that I would destroy it without taking a look to see what's on there are, of course, completely a case of "They don't know me very well, do they?".


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## magnus (Nov 12, 2004)

unitron said:


> There has been speculation that Weaknees absorbed/bought out/took over dvrupgrade, but I don't know of any official announcement or acknowledgement.
> 
> You'd think they'd be able to do better with it than just operate it in zombie mode.
> 
> It's like someone not really familiar with Instant Cake took the main package and just substituted an S3 image where an S1 or S2 used to go and didn't bother to do anything about the part wrapped around that, the whole "boot and load an OS" installer package, having been written to only work with IDE devices, and only in a certain configuration (something about which one the cd drive has to be and which one the target hard drive has to be).


It's not speculation. They did. And they increased the price. They don't want to have instant cake out there and that seems to be the reason for the huge price increase. I'm not sure why they just don't kill it unless it's part of the agreement that they had with Lou. Maybe they have to keep it out there for so many years.

http://www.linkedin.com/in/loujacob



> Key highlights:
> 
> • Sold company in 2010 after nine years of solid growth. Founded and grew this e-commerce company to sustainable profitability within first year, producing more than $5M in revenue at the time of sale.


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## laddanator (Nov 23, 2012)

The disc format used that the IC CD was made from will not allow editing. The HD I need shows up as hdi but that is not a choice if you use "other" choice from CD. SO I extracted the CD and edited the PVTbake file to add hdi as a choice and used mkisofs to make a new R10 IC ISO with this command



> "mkisofs_20120406.exe" -o R10.iso -b R10.bif -c boot.cat -hide-joliet boot.cat -hide boot.cat -no-emul-boot -N -boot-info-table -V DirectR10 -boot-load-size 4 CD


CD boots up fine but gives an error that /cdrom/.live/PVTbake file cannot be found. This does not occur with original CD. I bought this in 2008 and do not have the original ISO anymore or I would just mount the ISO and edit the PVTbake file and unmount without disturbing any of the original boot track but misplaced it and can't spend 40 bucks on a new one just to see if my modded PVTbake file works. Would be nice to have an ISO encase my CD gives out.

Downloaded the newest MFSLive cd but every computer I boot the CD on hangs midway in so I can't use mfstools to install the IC image from USB.

UPDATE:

Ok, got things working like I want. I don't know why I didn't use UltraISO in the beginning so I put the IC CD in and opened UltraISO and save the CD to ISO and the original boot track was preserved so I edited PVTbake_advance file with hdi as that is my drive and added some sata commands as paths and I now have a IC disc that is baking a cake to my hdi sata drive.


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## e30cabrio (Jun 4, 2006)

I found my old SAT T60 which has lifetime in storage and decided "I don't have enough aggravation, lets replace this noisy 40gb hdd and use it.

I got a cachecard/turbonet card on eBay, and set to imaging a drive. 

First I ran into the no PC that has less than 8 sata ports and dragged a Dell 4600 out of teh garage only to find BOTH optical drives were dead. Of course I have numerous drives and even found a working IDE, then I gept getting a timeout as apparently it does not see the SATA drive so I found an IDE drive only to find once the Linux was loaded and teh program(s) were loaded the USB KBB was no longer seen. I ordered a PS/2-USB adapter which came yesterday BUT WAS REVERSED. I have a PS/2 KBB out for USPS delivery this morning (thanks Amazon Prime) hopefully 27th time will be the charm?


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## scottsh (Apr 14, 2003)

unitron said:


> If a copy happened to fall into my lap, I'm not sure about the ethics of extracting just the TiVo image and using some other form of MFS Tools or MFS Live to restore it to a hard drive. It's not like the image itself is theirs, because if it's anybody's, it's TiVo's, although apparently they are licensed by TiVo to distribute it.


Since the image belongs to Tivo, it doesn't matter what IC has done with it, technically you should get permission from Tivo before redistributing it. That said, since you can't use the Tivo image without their hardware, it seems they are rather liberal with the use. If you want to sell something with it you need permission but otherwise they look to be supporting all the cool thing we do with our Tivos.


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## lpwcomp (May 6, 2002)

scottsh said:


> Since the image belongs to Tivo, it doesn't matter what IC has done with it, technically you should get permission from Tivo before redistributing it. That said, since you can't use the Tivo image without their hardware, it seems they are rather liberal with the use. If you want to sell something with it you need permission but otherwise they look to be supporting all the cool thing we do with our Tivos.


Where the heck have you been? At best, TiVo turns a blind eye to some things. At worst (at least so far), they order the removal of images from free download sites.


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## scottsh (Apr 14, 2003)

lpwcomp said:


> Where the heck have you been? At best, TiVo turns a blind eye to some things. At worst (at least so far), they order the removal of images from free download sites.


I thought I was saying the same thing? They aren't like Apple or other companies with a zero tolerance policy, they genuinely seem to like the enthusiasts promoting their platform. Like any company, they have to protect themselves or run the risk of losing ownership.


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## lpwcomp (May 6, 2002)

scottsh said:


> I thought I was saying the same thing? They aren't like Apple or other companies with a zero tolerance policy, they genuinely seem to like the enthusiasts promoting their platform. Like any company, they have to protect themselves or run the risk of losing ownership.


You said


> If you want to sell something with it you need permission but otherwise they look to be supporting all the cool thing we do with our Tivos.


At best, they _*tolerate*_ the development and use of the third party tools that enable us to do "all the cool thing we do with our Tivos". They provide _*zero*_ support. The s/w that actually runs on the TiVo is locked down even tighter than anything Apple ever did.


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

lpwcomp said:


> ...The s/w that actually runs on the TiVo is locked down even tighter than anything Apple ever did.


The TiVo specific proprietary software that they wrote certainly is, but the Linux part isn't.

Of course to make a TiVo work, you need both.


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## lpwcomp (May 6, 2002)

unitron said:


> The TiVo specific proprietary software that they wrote certainly is, but the Linux part isn't.
> 
> Of course to make a TiVo work, you need both.


It's not so much the s/w I am talking about. The h/w now validates the s/w signature. They haven't gone so far as to validate it to the TSN level but it is no longer possible to install linux utilities.

I bow to no one in my liking of TiVo in general. On a couple of occasions, they have done things for me that they were under no legal obligation to do. But don't try to tell me that they "support" the development and use of things like WinMFS or JMFS or pyTiVo. They don't.


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

lpwcomp said:


> It's not so much the s/w I am talking about. The h/w now validates the s/w signature. They haven't gone so far as to validate it to the TSN level but it is no longer possible to install linux utilities.
> 
> I bow to no one in my liking of TiVo in general. On a couple of occasions, they have done things for me that they were under no legal obligation to do. But don't try to tell me that they "support" the development and use of things like WinMFS or JMFS or pyTiVo. They don't.


They support it to the extent that they used Linux and put themselves into a position where that stuff was possible and when they realized that they didn't become total 455hats about it. 

And considering that iOpener pretty much put themselves out of business by putting open source on subsidized hardware, thereby selling a bunch of machines from which they never got subscription revenue, I'd say they've been pretty good sports about it overall.


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## lillevig (Dec 7, 2010)

laddanator said:


> The disc format used that the IC CD was made from will not allow editing. The HD I need shows up as hdi but that is not a choice if you use "other" choice from CD. SO I extracted the CD and edited the PVTbake file to add hdi as a choice and used mkisofs to make a new R10 IC ISO with this command
> 
> CD boots up fine but gives an error that /cdrom/.live/PVTbake file cannot be found. This does not occur with original CD. I bought this in 2008 and do not have the original ISO anymore or I would just mount the ISO and edit the PVTbake file and unmount without disturbing any of the original boot track but misplaced it and can't spend 40 bucks on a new one just to see if my modded PVTbake file works. Would be nice to have an ISO encase my CD gives out.
> 
> ...


Might have avoided the aggrevation by booting off of a flash drive. I had the issue where I could boot off of the CD but it wouldn't mount the CD drive for actually imaging the drive.  Then I found this link:

http://www.dvrupgrade.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1734


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

lillevig said:


> Might have avoided the aggrevation by booting off of a flash drive. I had the issue where I could boot off of the CD but it wouldn't mount the CD drive for actually imaging the drive. Then I found this link:
> 
> http://www.dvrupgrade.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1734


What that thread fails to mention is that IC in many instances is looking for an IDE drive (/dev/hda, b, c, d, etc) and won't accept /dev/sd"x" as an argument, so you have to have a motherboard with an IDE header and an adapter to write to a SATA drive.


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## lpwcomp (May 6, 2002)

unitron said:


> They support it to the extent that they used Linux and put themselves into a position where that stuff was possible and when they realized that they didn't become total 455hats about it.


I guess I have never really gotten over the time they forced sites that were hosting images to cease and desist. It was insane since the s/w is useless on anything except a TiVo, it wasn't source code, and anybody with a TiVo has access to it.

I'm also a bit peeved that they won't reveal what criteria they use for deciding whether or not to use the programId* to set the metadata, particularly the Season and Episode numbers in the HDUI. Heck, they never even documented that's what they were using. I had to figure it out for myself.

Not to mention that I'm peeved at AMC because, while they are showing the original(1947) "Miracle on 34th Street" numerous times, it is the _*colorized*_ version.

* in the XML, it is the <program> level <uniqueid>.


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

lpwcomp said:


> I guess I have never really gotten over the time they forced sites that were hosting images to cease and desist. It was insane since the s/w is useless on anything except a TiVo, it wasn't source code, and anybody with a TiVo has access to it.
> 
> I'm also a bit peeved that they won't reveal what criteria they use for deciding whether or not to use the programId* to set the metadata, particularly the Season and Episode numbers in the HDUI. Heck, they never even documented that's what they were using. I had to figure it out for myself.
> 
> ...


At least they didn't advertise Edmund Gwynne and run the Sebastian Cabot version instead.

As much as I like Cabot, and Jane Alexander for that matter, I like to know what I'm getting ahead of time.


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## lillevig (Dec 7, 2010)

unitron said:


> What that thread fails to mention is that IC in many instances is looking for an IDE drive (/dev/hda, b, c, d, etc) and won't accept /dev/sd"x" as an argument, so you have to have a motherboard with an IDE header and an adapter to write to a SATA drive.


I ran the whole experiment using my laptop and a USB to SATA cable. Apparently IC recognizes devices connected via USB. Worked perfectly once I went to the flash drive method.


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

lillevig said:


> I ran the whole experiment using my laptop and a USB to SATA cable. Apparently IC recognizes devices connected via USB. Worked perfectly once I went to the flash drive method.


I think it depends on IC for which model.


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## shwru980r (Jun 22, 2008)

e30cabrio said:


> I found my old SAT T60 which has lifetime in storage and decided "I don't have enough aggravation, lets replace this noisy 40gb hdd and use it.
> 
> I got a cachecard/turbonet card on eBay, and set to imaging a drive.
> 
> First I ran into the no PC that has less than 8 sata ports and dragged a Dell 4600 out of teh garage only to find BOTH optical drives were dead. Of course I have numerous drives and even found a working IDE, then I gept getting a timeout as apparently it does not see the SATA drive so I found an IDE drive only to find once the Linux was loaded and teh program(s) were loaded the USB KBB was no longer seen. I ordered a PS/2-USB adapter which came yesterday BUT WAS REVERSED. I have a PS/2 KBB out for USPS delivery this morning (thanks Amazon Prime) hopefully 27th time will be the charm?


For what you paid for the cachecard/turbonet card, keyboard and your time, you could have just bought a used S2 with lifetime service. What is the benefit of putting the Time an money into an S1?


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## magnus (Nov 12, 2004)

shwru980r said:


> For what you paid for the cachecard/turbonet card, keyboard and your time, you could have just bought a used S2 with lifetime service. What is the benefit of putting the Time an money into an S1?


Agreed


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

shwru980r said:


> For what you paid for the cachecard/turbonet card, keyboard and your time, you could have just bought a used S2 with lifetime service. What is the benefit of putting the Time an money into an S1?


Learning Experience!

Or as the GP put it "I don't have enough aggravation..."


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## WO312 (Jan 24, 2003)

tomjackson said:


> After reading this thread, I would like to replace my Series 2 with the HD Tivo but I have Comcast. So now I have a cable box. So if i get 2 cable cards do I keep the cable box for on demand? Or will I lose that feature?
> 
> _____________
> search here


A Tivo HD uses just 1 type M cablecard, or 2 type S. I doubt that anyone still supplies type S.

You cannot get on-demand through a cablecard. If you want that, you will have to keep your cable box and use a different input on your TV to view it. AFAIK, on-demand cannot go through a Tivo HD.

How are you watching on-demand now? Separate from your Series 2?? I don't remember anymore if a Series 2 has an IR blaster to control a cable box.


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## cjgadd3 (Mar 30, 2008)

WO312 said:


> I don't remember anymore if a Series 2 has an IR blaster to control a cable box.


 It does and I did. I had a Comcast STB and it worked pretty well. Then i got a Tivo HD and FIOS.


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## poppagene (Dec 29, 2001)

shwru980r said:


> For what you paid for the cachecard/turbonet card, keyboard and your time, you could have just bought a used S2 with lifetime service. What is the benefit of putting the Time an money into an S1?


iirc the sat t60 is a first generation directv reciever. A used lifetime s2 is more likely a stand alone tivo.


----------

