# Have you done an internal drive upgrade?



## MirclMax

In my search through the forum to find the best Hard Drive for an internal upgrade .. I've found a great thread (sticky) dealing with eSata stuff, but I thought a survey specifically for internal updates, especially with all the new THD people doing only that would be good .. 

So, if you folks wouldn't mind can you list the following bits of information:

1. Hard Drive Model
2. Drive Size
3. Post Upgrade HD/SD hours listed
4. Did you do any acoustic modifications?
5. S3 or THD
6. Any Comments? How does it sound? Any problems?

Thank you to any/all who participate.

-MirclMax


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## djstix

I upgraded my TivoHD - installed a Maxtor Quickview 500GB drive - 604 SD hours listed and 84 HD after upgrade - no modifcations needed no problems


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## dkwong

I upgraded to a Western Digital 500GB drive this weekend. The whole process went very smoothly with no problems. Final capacity is 70 HD hours (with MfsSupersize on).

djstix, how did you get 84 HD hours on your 500 GB drive? Are you sure you don't mean 64 HD hours?


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## lickwid

I upgraded my TivoHD using a Hitachi Deskstar 7K1000 drive, 1TB model from the Best Buy deal last month. I ran the Acoustic Management tool and decreased it to 128, and it runs quiet and as cool as the original stock WD drive. I believe the HD recording is about 120 hours and the SD recording is over 1000 hours. Not sure the exact amount.

No problems so far.

[UPDATE]
1. Hitachi 7K1000
2. 1TB
3. 131 HD/1248 SD (approx. #'s)
4. Set acoustics to 128
5. THD
6. Works fine. Barely audible unless I listen for it when all TV is off. Nice and cool.


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## MirclMax

Thanks for all the replies so far .. please keep them coming .. Is there a rebellion against my 1 - 6 numbering system?  Also, if possible, actual model numbers of hard drives would be great .. especially for people like me who are searching for the best deals. No need to post deals here .. I'm thinking a month or two from now this would just be a nice place to look for model numbers.


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## rcamille

I upgraded to the Samsung Spinpoint 500GB (SATA) drive. The upgrade goes very smoothly with WinMFS. It is very easy. I choose the samsung drive because it is very quiet, runs cool and is a lot cheaper than the Seagate DB35 equivalent.

Good Luck


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## MirclMax

rcamille said:


> I upgraded to the Samsung Spinpoint 500mb (SATA) drive.


I'm hoping you meant 500 GB  (HD501LJ) Did you do any Acoustic stuff or use it out of the box?


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## drew00001

1. DB35 - many will say this is overkill, but I would use this or another drive listed in the eSATA sticky if I did again. 
2. 750gb - seems sufficient. 
3. HD 98 hours /SD unknown - posted on many threads.
4. AM not available on DB35, which comes adjusted for sound.
5. S3
6. No sound or problems. This drive is amazing.


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## jfh3

1. Seagate DB35 
2. 750GB
3. used supersize option
4. No
5. THD
6. Can't even tell the drive is on

Other THD box is running stock drive.


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## jfh3

1. Hitachi Deskstar 7K1000 (extracted from BB special)
2. 1TB
3. used supersize option
4. Yes - set drive to AM 128
5. S3
6. At least as quiet as stock drive, probably quieter. Biggest problem was getting the drive out of its' original external enclosure. 

Other S3 has stock internal drive.


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## borabora

1. WD RE2 500ABYS (24/7 rated high duty cycle)
2. 500 GB
3. 70 / ~633
4. Tivo HD
5. Quiet but maybe warmer.

I just did the upgrade yesterday. Used Hitachi drive tool to set acoustic management to 128. The unit is in my bedroom and not audible but I have seen temperatures from 40 to 49. But, unit is sitting on an amp and it's currently unusually warm in CA. Not yet sure if I have to move the box or even add a fan. Unfortunately, I never looked at the temp before the upgrade.


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## djstix

dkwong said:


> I upgraded to a Western Digital 500GB drive this weekend. The whole process went very smoothly with no problems. Final capacity is 70 HD hours (with MfsSupersize on).
> 
> djstix, how did you get 84 HD hours on your 500 GB drive? Are you sure you don't mean 64 HD hours?


I need to check the screen again - maybe i meant 64 hours  Anyway i chose the maxrtor quickview because it was supposedly optimized for video and is OEM on cable DVRs - it is totally silent to my ears. Installation was a bit fiddly but not an issue if you have a good set of Torx drivers.


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## bkdtv

1. Seagate DB35 (part #ST3750840SCE, $250 from TheNerds.Net)
2. 750gb 
3. 98 HD hours / 924 SD hours - did not use Supersize option.
4. No. The Seagate DB35 comes pre-adjusted for DVR applications.
5. TivoHD
6. Can't even tell the drive is on.


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## cmonroe

1. WD WD7500AAKS: $200 from newegg.
2. 750GB
3. 98HD; 924SD
4. Nope
5. TivoHD
6. I can only hear the drive when it is reading/writing if the room is dead silent and I'm within ~2 feet of the box. I didn't touch any acoustic management settings (are there any for this WD drive?)


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## TivoInNY

Did it tonight! Same setup as many others:

1. Seagate DB35 (#ST3750840SCE)
2. 750GB
3. 98 HD hours / 924 SD hours - no "supersize" option
4. No (not necessary on the DB35, I believe)
5. S3
6. Totally silent. Thought it actually wasn't working when I booted up my computer with it attached. Had to gently touch it to "feel" it working. Amazing, really.


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## jfh3

TivoInNY said:


> 4. No (not necessary on the DB35, I believe)


Not only not necessary, you couldn't do it on a DB35 if you wanted to.


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## Berkshire

I am thinking about buying a 400GB TiVo HD from DVR Upgrade. Any comments on them and any idea if they use the DB35s in the 400GB units they sell?

Thanks.


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## bkdtv

Berkshire said:


> I am thinking about buying a 400GB TiVo HD from DVR Upgrade. Any comments on them and any idea if they use the DB35s in the 400GB units they sell?


They don't use DB35s. If you want to do the upgrade yourself using 500Gb Seagate DB35 ($150) or 500Gb Samsung HD501LJ ($120), here are instructions:



> *TivoHD Upgrade Instructions*
> 
> Remove the outer case and existing drive using a torx screwdriver in the T10 size. If you don't have one of appropriate length, you can purchase the Star Driver T10 Ampro (9014713) from Advance Auto Parts for about $4.
> 
> Download WinMFS here.
> 
> Shut down Windows and attach original TiVo drive. You can open your computer and attach it with a SATA cable, or attach it externally using a SATA->USB adapter like this.
> 
> Boot to Windows XP (SP2) or Vista, run WinMFS, and click 'Select Drive' to select the drive you attached.
> 
> In WinMFS, click the 'Backup' option. Save the file to your hard drive.
> 
> Shut down the computer and attach the new, larger drive. You can disconnect the original Tivo drive.
> 
> Turn your computer back on, run WinMFS, and click the 'Restore' option. Select the file you saved to your hard drive in step #5.
> 
> You're done. Install the new drive in the TivoHD.
> 
> Note that won't backup your existing recordings. The "Backup" option in WinMFS just backs up the Tivo software and your configuration, not the recordings.
> 
> If you want to backup your recordings too,then you need to choose the MFSCopy option in WinMFS which requires that the original Tivo drive and new drive be connected at the same time -- in which case you may want 2x SATA -> USB adapters.


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## jfh3

bkdtv said:


> They don't use DB35s. If you want to do the upgrade yourself using 500Gb Seagate DB35 ($150) or 500Gb Samsung HD501LJ ($120), here are instructions:


dvrupgrade doesn't use DB35s for the 400GB, but I believe they do for the 750GB drives.

However, like most things, you can save a good bit of money if you can do it yourself.


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## 1283

borabora said:


> But, unit is sitting on an amp


I wouldn't put anything on an amp, especially not a TiVo.


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## Berkshire

bkdtv said:


> They don't use DB35s. If you want to do the upgrade yourself using 500Gb Seagate DB35 ($150) or 500Gb Samsung HD501LJ ($120), here are instructions:


Thank you, I was looking for those instructions.

I am also replacing existing S2 drives with larger ones. I have external IDE/PATA-USB boxes; could I use two of those boxes for the copy of OS & recordings from/to old/new S2 drives? Are the tools required the same?

I am now leaning toward buying the TiVo HD direct from TiVo because of the 30 day full return policy, and then later buying a larger drive from an upgrade house. But if I buy the drive raw I can see there is a significant cost savings. I would need the SATA-USB devices in that case.

P.S. If I were to install a drive into one S2 and MRV recordings to it from a second TiVo, could I then reinstall the original drive into the first S2 and install the drive the recordings were MRV'd to into the second S2 and have those recordings preserved?


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## rcamille

MirclMax said:


> I'm hoping you meant 500 GB  (HD501LJ) Did you do any Acoustic stuff or use it out of the box?


Yes, GB.

I used it right out of the box. I have been told, but have not tested it, that this drive cannot be adjusted using acoustic managment software.

In any case, it is quiet and I would not need it to be quieter even if the software can soften it. It is quieter, in my opinion, than the WD OEM drive in the TiVo HD.


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## jtown

1) Hitachi (still want to type IBM) 7K1000 
2) 1tb
3) Dunno offhand
4) Made sure acoustic management was set to "quietest"
5) S3
6) No problems. It makes slightly more noise than the stock 250 gig Western Digital drive when seeking. It's more of a swishy sound than clicking. One of the few drives I've heard in the "swishy" category. If you've heard the difference, you know what I mean. I can hear it from about twice as far away as the stock drive which translates to about 2.5 feet in a quiet room.

The drive itself seems to run quite warm without airflow. I had the drive sitting on a box while doing the initial data transfer and it got _hot_. Hot enough that I had to let it cool down before I could put it in the S3 because I couldn't pick it up. However, in the S3 with the cover on, the reported temp was around 47 and the drive only felt warm to the touch when I took the cover off to check. A bit warmer than the stock Western Digital but not alarmingly warm. Airflow in the S3 seems much improved over my old Sony S1. I let it run like that for a couple of months before adding a small fan in front of the drive. Cooler is always better and the fan didn't increase the noise noticeably (until the fan's bearings starting to go last weekend and I replaced it).

Whether you want to add a fan or not is up to you. I happened to have a splitter that plugged into the case fan's power socket and a small fan with the same plug so it was an obvious and simple modification. If any soldering had been required, I probably wouldn't have bothered unless I was really bored.


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## DBLClick

I just completed an upgrade on my Tivo HD.

1. DB35 SCE
2. 750 GB
3. 98 hours HD/SD 938 (But who cares)
4. None
5. THD
6. What sound? As good as the drive that comes with the unit.

DB35 may be overkill but the sound of the head chattering is not.


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## MirclMax

Replying to my own thread... but I did the upgrade today ... so here are the stats ..

1. Western Digital WD7500AAKS
2. 750 GB
3. 98/924
4. None
5. THD
6. Piece of cake to do .. nice and quiet. Used a USB -> SATA adapter, did it off of my laptop. Thanks a bunch to spike for the tools!


-MirclMax


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## Mephisto

1. Hitachi Deskstar 7K1000 from BB
2. 1TB
3. 144HD hours - used supersize option
4. No - at default AM 192
5. TivoHD
6. Very quiet


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## borabora

Mephisto, 
Do you know at what temperature your Tivo now runs? For that matter what do folks with the 750GB Seagate (DB35) observe?

Thanks


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## cody_dingo

I have a Seagate ST3400832AS laying around. It's a couple years old. Do you guys think it is too old/loud for use in a THD?

Thank you.


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## Mephisto

borabora said:


> Mephisto,
> Do you know at what temperature your Tivo now runs? For that matter what do folks with the 750GB Seagate (DB35) observe?
> 
> Thanks


48C


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## AbMagFab

borabora said:


> Mephisto,
> Do you know at what temperature your Tivo now runs? For that matter what do folks with the 750GB Seagate (DB35) observe?
> 
> Thanks


42C w/ 750GB DB35, in a closet, with an XBox 360 nearby.


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## ThreeSoFar

I'm about to do my second S3 upgrade, hoping it fixes the bad behavior of that system of late (reboots, seizing up).

What's the accepted best practice for a linux boot CD to copy over everything, including recordings, and increase the capacity as well? Last time I used mfstools, not sure if there's something better.


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## CCourtney

Bought a 750GB WD today and plan on installing it this weekend. I'll post the results once complete.

CCourtney


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## Arcady

I put a Maxtor QuickView 500gb in my Series3 about 8 months ago. No problems at all.

On the other hand, the same exact model drive (bought at the same time) placed in my PowerMac G5 died last month. Maxtor sent me a replacement without issue.


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## aaronwt

1 and 2) Hitachi 1000GB, WD 750GB, WD 500GB
3) 131, 98, 64 HD hours
4) Hitachi AM is set at 192, WD drives are set at 128
5)TivoHD and S3 boxes all upgraded(See sig)
6)They all sound quiet. Highest temp is 48 degress.


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## smgord

If you are going to upgrade, would you recommend not prepaying for Tivo Service? What happens if you are clearly out of warranty and your Tivo breaks? Would they definitely transfer the service if you bought a new box, or would you have to hope for a nice CSR?


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## ThreeSoFar

New drive, 500GB Samsung, $110 with free shipping, from Newegg.com, SAMSUNG SpinPoint T Series HD501LJ 500GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM, Item #: N82E16822152052.

4. No acoustic mods.
5. Series 3
6. I've always preferred Samsung drives. Very quiet, robust, good prices from Newegg.com without any rebate hassle crap, and I don't have to deal with any Best Buy employees.

New capacities:


Code:


HD:	65h
Best:	103h
High:	152h
Medium:	240h
Basic:	610h

Answering my own question, mfslive.org has the ticket. Their boot CD, version 1.3b, just released, worked just fine.

I used the backup | restore method, not preserving recordings:


Code:


backup -qf 9999 -so - /dev/XXX | restore -s 128 -r 4 -xzpi - /dev/YYY

The old hard drive had been having issues (reboots, siezing up, very slow responses to remote commands), despite the drive not having any audible problems (clicks and such).



ThreeSoFar said:


> I'm about to do my second S3 upgrade, hoping it fixes the bad behavior of that system of late (reboots, seizing up).
> 
> What's the accepted best practice for a linux boot CD to copy over everything, including recordings, and increase the capacity as well? Last time I used mfstools, not sure if there's something better.


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## 1283

smgord said:


> If you are going to upgrade, would you recommend not prepaying for Tivo Service? What happens if you are clearly out of warranty and your Tivo breaks? Would they definitely transfer the service if you bought a new box, or would you have to hope for a nice CSR?


Other than lifetime service, you're free to transfer the service to other hardware, as many times as you want. Broken hardware does not get you out of monthly commitment anyway.


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## smgord

c3 said:


> Other than lifetime service, you're free to transfer the service to other hardware, as many times as you want. Broken hardware does not get you out of monthly commitment anyway.


Thanks, I was locked into lifetime thinking. After I posted this, I realized I was eligible for the multi-service discount, so there's no need to prepay anyway. I was just worried that if I prepaid, the prepayment was good only for the single machine.


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## jfh3

aaronwt said:


> 1 and 2) Hitachi 1000GB, WD 750GB, WD 500GB
> 3) 131, 98, 64 HD hours
> 4) Hitachi AM is set at 192, WD drives are set at 128
> 5)TivoHD and S3 boxes all upgraded(See sig)
> 6)They all sound quiet. Highest temp is 48 degress.


Why didn't you change the Hitachi setting to 128?


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## aaronwt

jfh3 said:


> Why didn't you change the Hitachi setting to 128?


Either I tried it and it would n't take or it was already quiet at that setting. I just know the 192 is at the lowest point for the normal AM setting. 191 and lower is in the quiet range. The Hiatchi was just as quiet at 192 as my WD drives so I decided to just keep it at that setting. I didn't even mess with it with my second Hitachi drive. They both came from the external enclosures and were preset to 192. I guess I should have checked the second drive to see if it was the same, but I guess I won't worry about it.


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## jfh3

Ah OK- If you extracted a Hitachi 1TB drive from the BB special, the factory AM setting was 192.

You can set it to 128 and have it even quieter, but I found it very hard to hear even at 192.


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## CCourtney

CCourtney said:


> Bought a 750GB WD today and plan on installing it this weekend. I'll post the results once complete.
> 
> CCourtney


The joy of upgrading.

After buying my HDD I proceed to attempt to detect it via my USB-SATA Adapter w/ my laptop. I wasn't able to detect it.

I try with my HTPC. Not able to detect it. I assume my USB-SATA is bad and go straight to the MoBo of my HTPC. BIOS doesn't even detect it.

So I naturally assume that the HDD is DOA. Back to Fry's to swap out.

I get home and I get the same issue's. Before taking it back I decide to do a bit of research. It turns out that certain MoBo chipsets have southbridge's that do not perform the autonegotiation from 3.0Gbps SATA down to the 1.5Gbps. Well both my laptop and PC fall into this category. The WD can be jumper'd out to force it to 1.5Gbps, did it and everything worked w/o a hitch.

I hope this may help some people who think they may have a busted HDD diagnose it prior to returning the drive.


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## CCourtney

1. WD7500AAKS
2. 750GB
3. HD 107Hrs, SD 1015Hrs (set to High 400Hrs)
4. Yes, AMM set to 128 - Supersize on.
5. TiVo HD
6. No discernible noise from the drive?

CCourtney


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## danator

Just did it and loaded it minutes ago.
1. DB35 750GB
2. 750GB
3. 107 hours HD with supersize option/ SD? what's that?  
4. None
5. S3 
6. NO issues so far, drive is very quiet.


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## gespears

CCourtney said:


> 1. WD7500AAKS
> 2. 750GB
> 3. HD 107Hrs, SD 1015Hrs (set to High 400Hrs)
> 4. Yes, AMM set to 128 - Supersize on.
> 5. TiVo HD
> 6. No discernible noise from the drive?
> 
> CCourtney


Ditto the above except I did not change any of the settings on the drive. The fan in my projection TV is louder than the Tivo harddrive will ever be.

Gary


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## jasonh4451

1. Seagate DB35
2. 750GB
3. 107 HD / 1015 SD
4. No acoustic mods
5. THD

6. I can hear the head seeking from across the room when there is no background nosie is the house. 
Is this normal for a DB35? I thought they were supposed to be silent. I can't hear any spin noise.

Can anyone with a DB35 hear the head seeking? I'm wondering if I got a lemon drive and I may exchange it for a new one. It will be a pain to exchange, so please let me know if this is normal behavior for these drives.


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## 1283

jasonh4451 said:


> Is this normal for a DB35? I thought they were supposed to be silent.


I don't have personal experience with one, but based on the spec of 30dB seek, it's really not *THAT* quiet, just a lot quieter than their standard desktop line. I can hear my 29dB WD drives when they're really active in a quiet room, but they're definitely not loud.


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## aaronwt

I can hear the seeks on any drive from across the room in a completely quiet room. But I'm rarely in a room that is completely quiet. There is usually ambient noise from outside for me which drowns out any seek noise. I actually can't even sleep anymore when it's completely quiet since I'm so used to the heatpumps outside my condo.


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## danator

> 6. I can hear the head seeking from across the room when there is no background nosie is the house.
> Is this normal for a DB35? I thought they were supposed to be silent. I can't hear any spin noise.
> 
> Can anyone with a DB35 hear the head seeking? I'm wondering if I got a lemon drive and I may exchange it for a new one. It will be a pain to exchange, so please let me know if this is normal behavior for these drives.


It should be normal. I'm about 12' from them so it's not that obvious nor do i care. It was well hidden from the noisy ps3, projector and xbox hd-dvd. But my Moto box top them all!


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## JANNINO

What is the best deal out there right now for a Seagate DB35 705GB drive?


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## jcthorne

Does the TivoHD have space for only one drive internally? I know my old Series 1 had space and connections for 2 drives.


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## AbMagFab

jcthorne said:


> Does the TivoHD have space for only one drive internally? I know my old Series 1 had space and connections for 2 drives.


It has space, and connections for two drives. However, you'd be better off using the second connectiong through the eSata port that it's currently connected to. There are publicaly available ways to do this (you need to open the box, and connect the drives into your PC), but it's simple if you've done it before.

(eSATA is the full SATA speed, so it's just as good, and easier, since it's external.)

And hopefully at some point in the future, Tivo will support this officially.


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## AbMagFab

aaronwt said:


> I can hear the seeks on any drive from across the room in a completely quiet room. But I'm rarely in a room that is completely quiet. There is usually ambient noise from outside for me which drowns out any seek noise. I actually can't even sleep anymore when it's completely quiet since I'm so used to the heatpumps outside my condo.


Depends on how sensitive your hearing is. I can't hear my drive at all, unless I stick my ear on the box. Like the original drive that ships with the S3. It's very very quiet, and with all my other equipment off I don't know the S3 is even on.

Compared to the AS/ES drives, which constantly sound like someone is dropping beads on a tile floor.


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## CCourtney

jcthorne said:


> Does the TivoHD have space for only one drive internally? I know my old Series 1 had space and connections for 2 drives.


Space, yes. Provisions for hard-mounting another drive, no.

There is another SATA connector beyond the one that connects to the eSata but there isn't a 2nd Sata power source and the internal drive has the power and sata connector as one unit, so forget about power splitter, you'd have to cut wires and make new connections resulting in a voided warranty.

CCourtney


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## aaronwt

CCourtney said:


> Space, yes. Provisions for hard-mounting another drive, no.
> 
> There is another SATA connector beyond the one that connects to the eSata but there isn't a 2nd Sata power source and the internal drive has the power and sata connector as one unit, so forget about power splitter, you'd have to cut wires and make new connections resulting in a voided warranty.
> 
> CCourtney


The warranty is voided as soon as the unit is opened. Once you upgrade the drive TiVo knows it. Whether they want to press the issue though is another matter.


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## Hyrax

ThreeSoFar said:


> ...
> Answering my own question, mfslive.org has the ticket. Their boot CD, version 1.3b, just released, worked just fine.
> ...


Can I just burn mfslive-1.3b.iso to a CD and then boot off of it? Do I need to know anything about Linux to be able to do this? Or should I stick to WinMFS if I've never used Linux before?


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## jfh3

Hyrax said:


> Can I just burn mfslive-1.3b.iso to a CD and then boot off of it? Do I need to know anything about Linux to be able to do this? Or should I stick to WinMFS if I've never used Linux before?


WinMFS is so easy, it's not funny. Unless you have a reason NOT to use it, use it rather than mfslive.


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## CCourtney

aaronwt said:


> The warranty is voided as soon as the unit is opened. Once you upgrade the drive TiVo knows it. Whether they want to press the issue though is another matter.


True, my point is that if you go cutting wires and soldering in power splitter's, then I'm fairly certain they're not going to support the warranty.

But to date TiVo has been friendly to those who have done upgrades of internal drives and then put the original back in if there were issues.

If they didn't want to do such a thing, then they would presumably put a tamper proof sticker over the back that would need to be broken to get into the case and indicate on that stick that breaking it would void the warranty.

This is what the industry does at least.

CCourtney


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## jcthorne

Thanks guys for a very complete answer. I've been away from the Tivo world for a few years and am OHHH so happy to be back. Told Comcast where to stick thier comcastic bill and moved to a TivoHD and OTA. Just don't watch $93 a month worth of Discovery TV and food network.

I think a 750 Seagate DB35 should serve my meger needs for a few months anyway. Unless a 1TB version is on the threshold of being released. Until I can transfer video from the PC into the tivoHD, I will not be needing all that much more storage. I really see the usefullness of this video appliance taking off after this is enabled. Perhaps completely replacing my HTPC in the future. Would sure help the WAF!


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## Riptide

1. Hitachi 7K1000 from Best Buy
2. 1TB
3. 144 HD / 1,367 SD 
4. Left acoustics at 192 - completely silent
5. TiVo HD
6. No issues, temp 41C inside a rack


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## smgord

For all of you who have upgraded, would you recommend doing it before or after the cablecard installation?


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## 1283

After, so you get the CableCard info on the original drive as well, assuming you prepare your own upgrade drive.


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## dkahs23

Does anyone know where one could get a THD image? In case my harddrive dies before I can upgrade it?


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## ThreeSoFar

??
Just back it up yourself. Or is it dying?


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## houman

1. WD10EACS (http://www.westerndigital.com/en/products/Products.asp?DriveID=336)
2. 1 TB
3. Originally 144HD/1368SD with SuperSize, ran into problems, now 131HD/1241SD
4. Did not change Accoustics, WD Site claims this is < 35db
5. THD
6. Two nights ago, I did this following a 9.1 upgrade on the original drive, I had MFS supersize on, and after a while, I started having lot of problem, the booting would take forever, some shows did not record, and eventually I started losing signal (could not watch live TV), the weird thing is that I could watch HD channels, but not SD. So I played with the video output and after that things got worse...

So last night, I connected the old hard drive and everything was fine, so I did another copy with WINMFS and this time I did not set the MFS Supersize option after restore, just to see how things would go, and it seems to be more stable, and I have not had another problem I was getting (the black screen when wanting to play video playback).

I thought the MFSSuperSize was something when the hard drive would be filling at the end, does it have implication for hard drives that are being filled with shows as well ? it could also be that I did not do the MFSCopy right the first time, but really it's just 5 steps 

Losing 13HD hours is no biggie, now I gained 6x+ of what I used to have. But I'd rather it be stable...

/Cheers
Houman


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## Catul

1. Seagate DB35
2. 750Gb
3. 98 HD Hours
4. Can't on this model / Not Needed
5. THD
6. Couldn't be easier! Used WinMFS, hooked up original and new drives at the same time, used MFSCopy which took about 35 minutes to copy over all my recorded programs, didn't use SuperSize when expanding, and it was done.

So beautiful


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## smgord

Is it necessary to disconnect the IDE cable to the hard drive on the computer being used to format the drives (as the web page suggests) or is that overkill?


----------



## GoHokies!

ThreeSoFar said:


> ??
> Just back it up yourself. Or is it dying?


++ Even if you never plan on upgrading, do the backup.

My S3 crapped the bed (reboot loop, tried everything power off, kickstarts, etc) and I had to spring for the extra for a weakness drive that's plug and go. (Yes, I could have bought the drive and Instant Cake and the SATA -> USB, but Weakness was the quickest and easiest way to get back up and running for me. Hopfully the drive will ship today and I'll have it tomorrow!

As soon as I get the cablecards re-paired, the drive is coming out and getting backed up (along with the drives from one of my 540's, the S2DT and the Humax, so I won't be left out in the cold again!).


----------



## jlib

cody_dingo said:


> I have a Seagate ST3400832AS laying around. It's a couple years old. Do you guys think it is too old/loud for use in a THD?


Not too old but probably too loud and a maybe a bit too small. But you should be the judge on seek sound level. Just hook it up to your PC and copy a bunch of files to it and see if it bugs you.


----------



## smgord

What have you all done with the original drive? Any reason why I shouldn't buy an enclosure for it, and use it as an extra hard drive for (non-Tivo) backup purposes?


----------



## AbMagFab

smgord said:


> What have you all done with the original drive? Any reason why I shouldn't buy an enclosure for it, and use it as an extra hard drive for (non-Tivo) backup purposes?


I like to keep them on a shelf "just in case". Yes, I make an image backup right away, but I still like having them available.

Plus, they're so small (you can get 500GB+ for $99), why bother?

To answer your question, there's no technical reason. And the only real reason is a "just in case" one, which is kind of weak if you've done a backup already.


----------



## smgord

AbMagFab said:


> Plus, they're so small (you can get 500GB+ for $99), why bother?


I bought a 750 GB DB35, and it was about $250 -- it seemed like the 500GBs were only about $100 cheaper, so they aren't all that cheap ... in any case, not that it really matters, but I'm feeling a bit cheap b/c I bought the hard drive when I thought I was getting the Tivo HD. I ended up with the Original Series 3 instead, b/c the price difference got to be very minimal, and at that point, I no longer felt like I necessarily needed to upgrade -- but I was stuck with the hard drive and the two USB to eSATA cables, so now I'd like to economize by getting some use out of the extra drive and one of the cables.

I did do the truncated back-up, the kernel back-up and the bootpage back-up, so I have those ready to go on my computer's hard drive if I ever need them.


----------



## c-surfer

rcamille said:


> I upgraded to the Samsung Spinpoint 500GB (SATA) drive. The upgrade goes very smoothly with WinMFS. It is very easy. I choose the samsung drive because it is very quiet, runs cool and is a lot cheaper than the Seagate DB35 equivalent.
> 
> Good Luck


Received a DOA Samsung 400 GB SATA drive with a new HP recently.

Samsung isn't known for their hard drives. Stay away.

Get a Seagate.


----------



## smgord

Speaking of the Seagate DB35, was I supposed to remove or move any jumper that came installed with it? This is the ST3750840SCE. Just starting to read about jumpers, and it didn't occur to me look for one before I installed the drive in the Tivo. Thanks.


----------



## George Cifranci

smgord said:


> Speaking of the Seagate DB35, was I supposed to remove or move any jumper that came installed with it? This is the ST3750840SCE. Just starting to read about jumpers, and it didn't occur to me look for one before I installed the drive in the Tivo. Thanks.


Nope. You should be good.


----------



## MScottC

I'm planning on copying my S3 internal drive to a WD 1TB drive that was recommended here. I have a P640 CPU in a machine that is about 2.5 years old with 2 Gig of RAM. I'm looking for a ballpark figure on how long that copy should take, and how much time I should leave myself for this task. As of now my S3 drive is probably about half full, as I was able to move a lot of stuff off the TiVo with the new TTG.

Thanks... 
Scott


----------



## Mars Rocket

I moved a 160GB drive that was about 90% full to a larger drive in a little more than an hour. Both drives were connected via SATA. I would guess that it would take between 1 and 2 hours for you to fully copy your drive.


----------



## MScottC

Thanks


----------



## cloudance

c3 said:


> After, so you get the CableCard info on the original drive as well, assuming you prepare your own upgrade drive.


Really.... I'm planning on getting a THD in the next week or so and tossing a Hitachi 1TB drive in there. I was planning on doing before anything was initialized or recorded so I don't have to worry about transferring any shows or anything, and I don't expect to (or at least I hope to not) touch the system after that. The internal Hard Drive would then be stored safely somewhere unless I need it at some point... I hope never to be touched again.

Would you still recommend that I wait for my cablecards??

D.


----------



## Mars Rocket

If you use WinMFS to replace the internal drive it doesn't matter if you do it before or after the CC setup - it can copy the CC info if you do it after, and if you do it before it's not relevant.

It's a 15 minute job if you start with a blank drive (or do it before CC setup), and about 1 hour if it's full. If it's not full but you have already done the CC setup, it will take somewhere in between.


----------



## Mars Rocket

BTW, I'd at least recommend booting the TiVo up and running through Guided Setup to make sure it's working before pulling and replacing the drive. You can even use it for analog cable or OTA TV before you get your CableCards, and if you want to save the recorded shows it really doesn't add that much time to the copy process.


----------



## 1283

cloudance said:


> Would you still recommend that I wait for my cablecards??


Yes, if you want a backup of the CableCard data. Otherwise, you will have to take out the 1TB drive to make a backup. Also, I would recommend the WD 1TB drive instead of the Hitachi, unless you can get the Hitachi for $20+ less.


----------



## BitMonkey

1. WD10EACS
2. 1 TB
3. 131 HD / 1241 SD
4. No
5. THD
6. The factory drive has acoustics set to 254 so I left the new drive at its factory default of 254 also. I have not heard a peep from this drive installed in my entertainment unit - it is very quiet. I did notice that the drive did run warmer than the factory drive after the entire source drive was copied over. Nothing to get excited about though. The new drive has been running over a week now without a single issue. I used the MFSLive Linux Boot CD v1.3b to prepare the new drive. I used the '-r 4' option and copied everything over. The entire transfer process took 82 minutes and I was happy that there was an accurate transfer rate and estimated time to completion the whole time the transfer ran.

Great work spike2k5! Add me to your list of happy software users.

- BitMonkey


----------



## Doit2it

1. WD7500AAKS
2. 750GB
3. HD 107Hrs, SD 1015Hrs
4. No, but I'm going to.
5. TiVo HD
6. Lot of clicking noise even when no recording or playback.
Indexing, I guess, or duel live buffers. It's the 
noisiest WD drive I've ever had (Newegg OEM)

Runs a little hotter that original drive.
But internal temp stays between 42C to 44C.


----------



## gamo62

I actually sell the upgraded drive. The 1tb drive goes for $475. Piece of cake to install.


----------



## stream

1. Seagate ST3500830SCE

2. 500GB

3. 70 Hours HD (use supersize in winMFS)

4. Seagate Seagate DB35.3 already has it

5. THD

6. Works great & quiet.


----------



## 1283

Doit2it said:


> 6. Lot of clicking noise even when no recording or playback.


Run Hitachi Feature Tool to change the AAM setting to 128.


----------



## 1283

gamo62 said:


> I actually sell the upgraded drive. The 1tb drive goes for $475. Piece of cake to install.


That's more than $200 mark-up.


----------



## jlib

c3 said:


> That's more than $200 mark-up.


And if you do it yourself you get to save all your recordings...


----------



## opus472

Are there pros and cons to using supersize? Checked the FAQ and guide at MFS, couldn't find anything...


----------



## opus472

Is this USB/SATA cable the correct one to use? Didn't get very good reviews...

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16812156017


----------



## stream

opus472 said:


> Are there pros and cons to using supersize? Checked the FAQ and guide at MFS, couldn't find anything...


The pro is additional recording capacity (around 10% as I recall) added to the drive.

My recollection is it removes a sector on the drive dedicated to TiVo downloaded ads/videos, and frees it up for general recording, but still allows those ads to be stored, just not in a dedicated sector.

Even if it disallows TiVo ads from downloading, it's a good thing.


----------



## stream

opus472 said:


> Is this USB/SATA cable the correct one to use? Didn't get very good reviews...
> 
> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16812156017


I bought a SATA cable for a few $ at the local computer store, plugged it into a spare SATA connection on the motherboard of my PC, and used a spare power connector.


----------



## toony

I saw one post in this topic with a problem with this drive, and one that had no problem. I want to upgrade my TivoHD, and this is the best price on a 1 TB HD that I can find. Also, at newegg, there was this review:

tivo s3

Reviewed By: brewhunter on 1/16/2008
Rating + 3Rating + 3Rating + 3Rating + 3Rating + 3 
Tech Level: high - Ownership: 1 day to 1 week
This user purchased this item from Newegg.com

Pros: Plenty of space for your computer
Cons: Will not work with tivo series 3
Other Thoughts: Wish I'd read other reviewers comments sooner about the drive. I'm sure under most circumstances it's a great drive but for tivo upgrades it's a no go. It won't boot past the welcome screen. 


Can anyone confirm that this drive will or will not work with TiVoHD?

Thanks


----------



## 1283

toony said:


> Can anyone confirm that this drive will or will not work with TiVoHD?


It does work with the TiVoHD. It's only the -00 version that does not work with internal S3.

BTW, instead of getting a bare drive, buy the Cavalry CAXE3701T0 from buy.com for $230. Same drive with 3-year warranty, and you get a USB/eSATA enclosure as well.


----------



## toony

c3 said:


> BTW, instead of getting a bare drive, buy the Cavalry CAXE3701T0 from buy.com for $230. Same drive with 3-year warranty, and you get a USB/eSATA enclosure as well.


Hmm, this looks very promising. Looks like the installation is about the same as for an internal drive. Thanks for the reply.


----------



## 1283

I'm *NOT* recommending to use it as an external drive. Instead, take out the drive from the external enclosure and use it as an internal drive.


----------



## toony

If you don't mind, one more question....

In the Official eSATA Drive Expansion: FAQ + Discussion, it says... "Other "Non Verified" drives can only be added to the TiVoHD with the "hack" discussed in Part III, #10 of this FAQ."


It seems to me that this would be better, as I would have my programs saved, and the current TiVo drive to use, as well as the added drive. 

Is it the reliability of the upgrade that is the issue? I see some people have had problems using this drive as an external.

Again, thanks much for the advice.


----------



## dwit

c3 said:


> I'm *NOT* recommending to use it as an external drive. Instead, take out the drive from the external enclosure and use it as an internal drive.


Is that mainly because of the enclosure(Cavalry), or is it something about the drive's functioning in any enclosure?

Also, in regard to your mention of the 3 yr warranty, I read Cavalry provides 1year warranty. Does the s/n show @ WD support as having warranty support?


----------



## 1283

I do not recommend adding an external 1TB to the internal 160GB because the relatively small additional capacity is not worth the increased risk of having a 2-drive system. Since you have to open up the TiVo anyway, just copy everything from the original drive to the new drive and keep the original drive as a backup.

I have the Cavalry unit (for PC, not TiVo), but I do not have enough experience with it to recommend for or against it as an external enclosure. It costs less than a bare drive, and you get a "free" enclosure. WD shows 3-year warranty for the drive. It's the -00 version, which is the same as all of the bare drives.


----------



## bizzy

If you replace the internal drive using MFS Tools, correct me if I'm wrong, you're then unable to add external storage via Tivo's automagic process, right?


----------



## 1283

correct


----------



## gamo62

c3 said:


> That's more than $200 mark-up.


Not for the Western Digital 1tb green drive. The drive has already been prepared as well with the expanded image.


----------



## 1283

gamo62 said:


> Not for the Western Digital 1tb green drive.


If that's not more than $200 mark-up, then you have no idea where to buy drives.


----------



## gamo62

c3 said:


> If that's not more than $200 mark-up, then you have no idea where to buy drives.


These aren't OEM drives. And the price includes the TiVo preparation. DVRUpgrade.com sells the same drive for about $520.

For those not wanting to mess around with it, not too bad of a deal. Plus a 3yr warranty on the drive.


----------



## 1283

gamo62 said:


> These aren't OEM drives.


Other than the remaining old retail -32 version, there is absolutely no difference between OEM and retail drives. Both have 3-year warranty.



gamo62 said:


> And the price includes the TiVo preparation.


which means a few minutes running mfsrestore.


----------



## AbMagFab

gamo62 said:


> DVRUpgrade.com sells the same drive for about $520.


That just means theirs is almost $300 over priced. For about 5 minutes of work, I can't see anyone justifying paying this, except out of ignorance.

If you can open your Tivo to swap this drive in, you can easily prepare the drive in your PC and save $200+ by doing it yourself.


----------



## ThreeSoFar

AbMagFab said:


> That just means theirs is almost $300 over priced. For about 5 minutes of work, I can't see anyone justifying paying this, except out of ignorance.
> 
> If you can open your Tivo to swap this drive in, you can easily prepare the drive in your PC and save $200+ by doing it yourself.


This has always been true. But you're forgetting rules #1 and #2:

People are stupid.

People are lazy.


----------



## bizzy

gamo62 said:


> These aren't OEM drives. And the price includes the TiVo preparation.


What preperation is this, specifically?


----------



## toony

c3 said:


> BTW, instead of getting a bare drive, buy the Cavalry CAXE3701T0 from buy.com for $230. Same drive with 3-year warranty, and you get a USB/eSATA enclosure as well.


Well, crap. I should have bought this last night. Today the price is $306.79 on Buy.com.


----------



## dkahs23

So where is the best place to by Hard Drives? New Egg? or Buy.com?


----------



## 1283

dkahs23 said:


> So where is the best place to by Hard Drives? New Egg? or Buy.com?


Whoever has the best price with reasonable reputation.


----------



## opus472

> Remove the outer case and existing drive using a torx screwdriver in the T10 size.


I removed the outer case and the internal drive-holder assembly using the Torx T10. But it looks like a larger Torx is needed to remove the drive itself from the drive holder. Unless maybe I'm missing something?


----------



## opus472

smgord said:


> Speaking of the Seagate DB35, was I supposed to remove or move any jumper that came installed with it? This is the ST3750840SCE. Just starting to read about jumpers, and it didn't occur to me look for one before I installed the drive in the Tivo.


I have the same question for the Hitachi 7K1000 - need to be concerned about jumpers?


----------



## opus472

c3 said:


> Yes, if you want a backup of the CableCard data. Otherwise, you will have to take out the 1TB drive to make a backup. Also, I would recommend the WD 1TB drive instead of the Hitachi, unless you can get the Hitachi for $20+ less.


Is there some particular reason to recommend WD over Hitachi?

Also, which WD - Amazon shows these 3:

$279.99 - WD Caviar GP WD10EACS 1 TB 3.5" SATA-300 7200rpm buffer 16 MB

$266.36 - WD10EACS Caviar GP 1 TB SATA II 3.5-Inch Hard Drive

$239.99 - 1TB Caviar Se Sata 5400 Rpm 16MB


----------



## stream

opus472 said:


> I removed the outer case and the internal drive-holder assembly using the Torx T10. But it looks like a larger Torx is needed to remove the drive itself from the drive holder. Unless maybe I'm missing something?


That's a T15.


----------



## opus472

stream said:


> That's a T15.


Ok, thanks. Didn't see any mention of a T15 in the step-by-step guides...


----------



## opus472

I have a hard drive enclosure (Antec MX-1 from Best Buy) with USB, esata bracket, and esata cable. The instruction manual is pretty worthless. I assume there's no reason to actually mount the drive in the enclosure? Just connect the esata cable from the Tivo drive to the enclosure, then connect USB from the enclosure to the PC? No reason to use the esata bracket?

I tried connecting the esata cable to the Tivo drive, haven't yet been successful, doesn't seem to quite fit. Must be missing something...


----------



## 1283

opus472 said:


> Is there some particular reason to recommend WD over Hitachi?


cooler, quieter, lower power consumption, 4 platters instead of 5



opus472 said:


> Also, which WD


See my previous messages about Cavalry drives. Right now buy.com has the CAUM3701T0 for $200 after rebate. 90% sure it's a WD10EACS inside.


----------



## jlib

But wait! If you are a new customer and redeem this coupon you get another $10 off. Too bad buy.com is in Cali. Might still be OK since there is free shipping to make up for some of the tax. This is the best so far. Thanks c3.

Edit: You can also get $10 for first time use of Google checkout. You probably can't stack the coupons but I don't know for sure.


----------



## opus472

c3 said:


> cooler, quieter, lower power consumption, 4 platters instead of 5. See my previous messages about Cavalry drives. Right now buy.com has the CAUM3701T0 for $200 after rebate. 90% sure it's a WD10EACS inside.


So it's actually an internal drive, even though it's listed as external? And you could use the USB connection to run MFS before removing the drive?


----------



## greg_burns

opus472 said:


> So it's actually an internal drive, even though it's listed as external?


All(?) external drives are just regular "internal" drives inside an enclosure.


----------



## opus472

greg_burns said:


> All(?) external drives are just regular "internal" drives inside an enclosure.


Just shows you what I know. 

Is there any trick to removing the drive from the enclosure?


----------



## 1283

opus472 said:


> Is there any trick to removing the drive from the enclosure?


a few standard Philips screws, very easy


----------



## lew

Removing a drive from the external case might void the warranty. Make sure you can put it back together (keep the parts and try to avoid breaking any seals) or accept the possiblity of having a drive without a warranty.

Newegg has been know to ship drives with just bubble wrap. That's not considered a good way to ship.

zipzoomfly.com is also a good place to shop drives.


----------



## rturrentine

Have anyone confirmed what drive is inside of this external? I know some external Calvary drives have 2 internals inside instead of one.

I'd buy this for my THD if I knew it was one 1TB inside.


----------



## aaronwt

lew said:


> Removing a drive from the external case might void the warranty. Make sure you can put it back together (keep the parts and try to avoid breaking any seals) or accept the possibility of having a drive without a warranty.
> 
> Newegg has been know to ship drives with just bubble wrap. That's not considered a good way to ship.
> 
> zipzoomfly.com is also a good place to shop drives.


No "might" about it. It does void the warranty. Just like opening up the TiVo voids it's warranty too. It's just a question about whether they will decide to honor the warranty if they know it's been opened. TiVo knows when a hard drive has been replaced but they usually seem to still honor their warranties.


----------



## opus472

aaronwt said:


> No "might" about it. It does void the warranty. Just like opening up the TiVo voids it's warranty too.


Best bet is to buy from Costco, then you don't hafta worry about warranties.


----------



## aaronwt

WHY Costco ? I thought they switched to 90 days like Walmart.


----------



## opus472

aaronwt said:


> WHY Costco ? I thought they switched to 90 days like Walmart.


Only for certain items, not including Tivo.


----------



## 1283

rturrentine said:


> Have anyone confirmed what drive is inside of this external? I know some external Calvary drives have 2 internals inside instead of one.
> 
> I'd buy this for my THD if I knew it was one 1TB inside.


You can look at the picture, specs, and dimensions. WD10EACS-00 inside with 2.5-3 years of warranty from WD.


----------



## 1283

aaronwt said:


> No "might" about it. It does void the warranty.


That's why I like the Cavalry drives. Don't really care about the 1-year warranty from Cavalry. The drives inside have 2.5-3 years of warranty directly from WD because they were sold to Cavalry as bare drives.


----------



## opus472

Not quite on topic, but after upgrading the drive, is it possible to transfer recordings from a Comcast DVR?


----------



## dkahs23

Doit2it said:


> 1. WD7500AAKS
> 2. 750GB
> 3. HD 107Hrs, SD 1015Hrs
> 4. No, but I'm going to.
> 5. TiVo HD
> 6. Lot of clicking noise even when no recording or playback.
> Indexing, I guess, or duel live buffers. It's the
> noisiest WD drive I've ever had (Newegg OEM)
> 
> Runs a little hotter that original drive.
> But internal temp stays between 42C to 44C.


How are you getting *HD 107Hrs, SD 1015Hrs* I have the same Hard Drive and I used WinMFS build 8 and I only get *98 HD hours / 924 SD hours?*


----------



## stream

dkahs23 said:


> How are you getting *HD 107Hrs, SD 1015Hrs* I have the same Hard Drive and I used WinMFS build 8 and I only get *98 HD hours / 924 SD hours?*


Did you use the MFS supersize? That's probably the difference.


----------



## dkahs23

stream said:


> Did you use the MFS supersize? That's probably the difference.


Yes I use the MFS Supersize.


----------



## dkahs23

dkahs23 said:


> How are you getting *HD 107Hrs, SD 1015Hrs* I have the same Hard Drive and I used WinMFS build 8 and I only get *98 HD hours / 924 SD hours?*


Anyone?


----------



## tluxon

opus472 said:


> Not quite on topic, but after upgrading the drive, is it possible to transfer recordings from a Comcast DVR?


I suspect not. Files I've captured from my Comcast DVRs via firewire do not even play when I "transfer" them via TTCB (TiVo Desktop). Perhaps I would have more success using pyTiVo but I haven't tried that yet. Also seems to me that finding a way to physically copy them to the new drive in the upgrade process may create some problems.


----------



## Acropora

Would this CAUM3701T0 be super easy to hook up like a stock Tivo DVR expander would be? 
http://www.buy.com/prod/cavalry-1tb-usb-2-0-3-5-external-hard-drive-w-one-touch-back-up/q/loc/101/206746682.html
I'd like to wait and upgrade the internal drive in maybe 6 months when the new WD AV-GP comes out.


----------



## jlib

For TiVo use it would only be good for salvaging the bare drive out of. The USB enclosure would then only be usable as an add on for a computer. There are already a list of known good solutions in the eSATA FAQ. Also, the TiVo cannot make use of any of the advanced features of AV/DVR drives so you will just be wasting your money on the WD AV-GP.


----------



## tluxon

bkdtv said:


> *TivoHD Upgrade Instructions
> *
> 1. Remove the outer case and existing drive using a torx screwdriver in the T10 size. If you don't have one of appropriate length, you can purchase the Star Driver T10 Ampro (9014713) from Advance Auto Parts for about $4.
> 
> 2. Download WinMFS here.
> 
> 3. Shut down Windows and attach original TiVo drive. You can open your computer and attach it with a SATA cable, or attach it externally using a SATA->USB adapter like this.
> 
> 4. Boot to Windows XP (SP2) or Vista, run WinMFS, and click 'Select Drive' to select the drive you attached.
> 
> 5. In WinMFS, click the 'Backup' option. Save the file to your hard drive.
> 
> 6. Shut down the computer and attach the new, larger drive. You can disconnect the original Tivo drive.
> 
> 7. Turn your computer back on, run WinMFS, and click the 'Restore' option. Select the file you saved to your hard drive in step #5.
> 
> 8. You're done. Install the new drive in the TivoHD.
> 
> Note that won't backup your existing recordings. The "Backup" option in WinMFS just backs up the Tivo software and your configuration, not the recordings.
> 
> If you want to backup your recordings too,then you need to choose the MFSCopy option in WinMFS which requires that the original Tivo drive and new drive be connected at the same time -- in which case you may want 2x SATA -> USB adapters.
Click to expand...

Is this still pretty much the best way to do the upgrade?

Thanks!


----------



## ciper

tluxon said:


> Is this still pretty much the best way to do the upgrade?
> 
> Thanks!


Only if you dont have two sata ports and want to make the process longer. You could just connect the old and new drives at the same time and transfer the data directly between them.


----------



## tluxon

Done - using the mfscopy option. Copied about 30GB of shows. Took about 15 minutes total.

1. Seagate DB35.3
2. 750GB
3. 98 HD/968 SD (Supersized, some programs copied over)
4. No
5. THD
6. Silent - have to put my ear within an inch of the box to hear it.


----------



## opus472

tluxon said:


> Is this still pretty much the best way to do the upgrade?


No need to shut down Windows when using USB connection.


----------



## tluxon

opus472 said:


> No need to shut down Windows when using USB connection.


That would've been nice, but perhaps a tad slower data transfer. I didn't have the USB -> SATA adapter cables, but I had two 500GB SATA data drives I disconnected temporarily and used those cables on the source TiVo drive (WD 160GB) and the destination (Seagate DB35.3 750GB) drive. Of course, that required a power down and restart of Windows, but it took all of about 3 minutes until I was in WinMFS selecting the source and running mfscopy.

I was pleasantly surprised to see how transparent the change was. The CableCARD was still working as though nothing had changed, the To Do List was intact, any messages I hadn't deleted were still there, and the few shows I wanted to preserve from the original drive were still there. The only difference was the amount of available space. I'm glad I picked out a drive that was optimized to be a DVR drive, but seeing that the original TiVo drive was just a standard Western Digital 160GB drive made me realize it probably doesn't matter that much.

After experiencing how simple this upgrade was, I can't imagine having a TiVo without upgrading the stock drive.


----------



## jlib

tluxon said:


> ...I'm glad I picked out a drive that was optimized to be a DVR drive, but seeing that the original TiVo drive was just a standard Western Digital 160GB drive made me realize it probably doesn't matter that much.


It only matters in that your Seagate DB35 has head seek speed detuned by default to allow quieter operation. Regular Seagate drives can't manually be adjusted. So, with Seagate you should _always_ use a DB35 model with the TiVo. Other brands usually can be manually adjusted so there is no value in using a AV/DVR drive.


----------



## tluxon

When I upgraded to the Seagate DB35.3 750GB drive, I deliberately selected "Supersize" (my 11-year old can vouch for that as he asked me about it).

However, my System Information screen is showing only 98 hours, while I'm seeing many others who upgraded to a 750GB drive and Supersized show 107 hours.

Any theories on this? Are there "Supersizes" that don't take? Could it be because I used mfs*copy* to preserve shows from the original drive?

Thanks.


----------



## richsadams

tluxon said:


> Any theories on this? Are there "Supersizes" that don't take? Could it be because I used mfs*copy* to preserve shows from the original drive?
> 
> Thanks.


Yes, when you use MFSCopy the Supersize option is lost according to Spike, the program's creator.

I noted that you asked the same question on the MFSLive Forum. There is already a thread there regarding the subject which includes an answer to your question. (Using the search feature is always a good idea. ) Click here for more.


----------



## tluxon

richsadams said:


> Yes, when you use MFSCopy the Supersize option is lost according to Spike, the program's creator.
> 
> I noted that you asked the same question on the MFSLive Forum. There is already a thread there regarding the subject which includes an answer to your question. (Using the search feature is always a good idea. ) Click here for more.


Thanks Rich. I read that whole thread before posting my question(s), but I guess I didn't interpret it correctly because I didn't think the answer was so clear there.

I must've misunderstood exactly what Spike was saying when he wrote


> You can turn it on and off at any time by running mfssupersize utility but if you use mfstools to backup|restore, you will loose that ability.
> If you want to use mfstools (not winmfs), turn it off before making a backup.
> 
> WinMFS backup, restore, mfscopy preserves this setting as well as cablecard settings.


 It kinda looks like he's saying Supersize can be turned on or off on any drive at any time, but when he mentions mfscopy preserving the setting I guess it could also be interpreted the way you understand it.

Are you really certain of your understanding?


----------



## richsadams

tluxon said:


> Thanks Rich. I read that whole thread before posting my question(s), but I guess I didn't interpret it correctly because I didn't think the answer was so clear there.
> 
> I must've misunderstood exactly what Spike was saying when he wrote It kinda looks like he's saying Supersize can be turned on or off on any drive at any time, but when he mentions mfscopy preserving the setting I guess it could also be interpreted the way you understand it.
> 
> Are you really certain of your understanding?


Certain? Be serious man.  My understanding of what he said (above) was that if you use MFSCopy that Supersize was no longer an option...but you'd need to get the answer from the horse's mouth to be sure. I believe someone said earlier that they were able to take advantage of both though...so again, not certain. Spike's pretty good about responding to posts on his site (and sometimes here) so you should get a definitive answer soon. It would be great if you could share it so others can benefit (including your's truly).


----------



## spike2k5

If you use WinMFS (mfscopy and backup/restore), supersize and CC settings are preserved.

If you turn on supersize from WinMFS and then do a backup/restore using mfstools, you can't turn off supersize. So, if you want to use mfstools to do a backup/restore, simple turn off supersize from WinMFS frist.

As far as CC settings in mfstools,
truncated backup/restore does not preserve CC setting.
Full backup/resore does transfer CC settings.


----------



## tluxon

spike2k5 said:


> If you use WinMFS (mfscopy and backup/restore), supersize and CC settings are preserved.
> 
> If you turn on supersize from WinMFS and then do a backup/restore using mfstools, you can't turn off supersize. So, if you want to use mfstools to do a backup/restore, simple turn off supersize from WinMFS frist.
> 
> As far as CC settings in mfstools,
> truncated backup/restore does not preserve CC setting.
> Full backup/resore does transfer CC settings.


Thanks Spike,

Thanks for the clarification - I'm just not sure to interpret it for my particular experience, as I didn't use mfstools at all - just WinMFS.

I had both the stock 160GB TiVoHD drive and the raw 750GB drive hooked up at the same time to a WinXP SP2 system and ran WinMFS. I ran mfscopy, making sure to answer "yes" to the prompt for expanding the drive. Next, I ran the supersize option and I didn't get any indication that there was a problem.

Is there anything I can do to "supersize" the new 750GB drive at this point?

Thank you!


----------



## sethlabadie

Has anybody been successful in upgrading TWO hard drives to TWO larger hard drives with an S3? Copying previous recordings?
I've got an S3 with stock 250GB internal and the 500GB MyDVR Expander. I'm trying to upgrade to two 1TB drives, but have been completely unsuccessful with either WinMFS or MFSlive.
Just want to see if anyone else was successful; maybe I need to use different drives or a different OS to do it.
Are there any other upgrade softwares out there besides WinMFS / MFSlive? Isn't InstantCake basically the same thing?


----------



## rodbeezy

c3 said:


> a few standard Philips screws, very easy


actually, you need a T10 bit which is dirt cheap at your local home depot


----------



## greg_burns

sethlabadie said:


> Has anybody been successful in upgrading TWO hard drives to TWO larger hard drives with an S3?


http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?p=5850209#post5850209


----------



## richsadams

sethlabadie said:


> Has anybody been successful in upgrading TWO hard drives to TWO larger hard drives with an S3? Copying previous recordings?
> I've got an S3 with stock 250GB internal and the 500GB MyDVR Expander. I'm trying to upgrade to two 1TB drives, but have been completely unsuccessful with either WinMFS or MFSlive.
> Just want to see if anyone else was successful; maybe I need to use different drives or a different OS to do it.
> Are there any other upgrade softwares out there besides WinMFS / MFSlive? Isn't InstantCake basically the same thing?


 I tried to do the same thing and unfortunately I couldn't. I had a stock Series3 with an eSATA drive and I wanted to upgrade to a larger internal and external drive while keeping my existing recordings. I asked Spike about it on the MFSLive Forum a while back and IIRC he said he had not worked on that yet.

Two problems (currently) exist. One, there isn't a way to copy the contents of an existing eSATA drive to an internal drive and make it work. And two, TiVo automatically reformats new eSATA drives when they are connected. Tivo recognizes eSATA drives by their model number, not the recording data. So even if you were able to copy the contents of an existing eSATA drive to a new/larger eSATA drive, as soon as the new drive is connected to TiVo it would be reformatted and all of the contents lost.

That said, and I never tried it (I just did a fresh install of my new 1TB drive), but it seems like it would be possible to upgrade the internal drive and keep your existing eSATA drive by copying all of the information on your stock drive to the new 1TB drive you're using to upgrade. You'd still end up with 1.5TB's.

So AFAIK, although you can upgrade both the internal and external drives as Greg's link outlines, any existing content recorded _after _the eSATA drive was added will be lost.


----------



## tluxon

tluxon said:


> spike2k5 said:
> 
> 
> 
> If you use WinMFS (mfscopy and backup/restore), supersize and CC settings are preserved.
> 
> If you turn on supersize from WinMFS and then do a backup/restore using mfstools, you can't turn off supersize. So, if you want to use mfstools to do a backup/restore, simple turn off supersize from WinMFS frist.
> 
> As far as CC settings in mfstools,
> truncated backup/restore does not preserve CC setting.
> Full backup/resore does transfer CC settings.
> 
> 
> 
> Thanks Spike,
> 
> Thanks for the clarification - I'm just not sure to interpret it for my particular experience, as I didn't use mfstools at all - just WinMFS.
> 
> I had both the stock 160GB TiVoHD drive and the raw 750GB drive hooked up at the same time to a WinXP SP2 system and ran WinMFS. I ran mfscopy, making sure to answer "yes" to the prompt for expanding the drive. Next, I ran the supersize option and I didn't get any indication that there was a problem.
> 
> Is there anything I can do to "supersize" the new 750GB drive at this point?
> 
> Thank you!
Click to expand...

Well, I just finished upgrading our other TiVoHD with another Seagate DB35.3 750GB drive last night. I may have discovered an answer to my last question above or may have screwed something up.

With this 2nd drive upgrade, I started by running a WinMFS Backup off the original TiVo drive. Next, I ran a Restore to the new drive, followed by a supersize. I had second thoughts about keeping a couple of the shows from the original drive, so I then ran an a mfscopy (I figured it would just supercede the previous Restore). I put it in the THD and booted it up. Sure enough, the copied shows were there and the system information screen showed 98 hours (HD). Everything seemed to be fine.

This is where it got interesting. I decided I really didn't care about the shows that were saved as much as I'd like to have that 107 hours, so I took the drive out, reconnected it to my PC, and re-ran WinMFS. I ran a Restore (figuring it would "supercede" the previous mfscopy), accepted the "Expand" prompt, then Supersized it. I put it back in the THD and booted up. To my surprise, the originally "copied" shows were still there, AND system information now reports 107 hours. Everything seems to be working fine.

Should I be concerned? Or did I hit on a legitimate way to preserve shows in the upgrade process and still get the "Supersize"?


----------



## Hyrax

I did the internal upgrade to my TivoHD last summer. All is working well, although I wish I'd put in a 1 TB drive instead of a 500 MB one. Is there any reason to keep my original Tivo drive?


----------



## ontheway

Hyrax said:


> I did the internal upgrade to my TivoHD last summer. All is working well, although I wish I'd put in a 1 TB drive instead of a 500 MB one. Is there any reason to keep my original Tivo drive?


I installed a 1TBG drive, I am keeping the old drive in case my new drive fails at some point, then I can put the old drive in and continue watching TV until I can replace the larger drive.


----------



## 1283

rodbeezy said:


> actually, you need a T10 bit which is dirt cheap at your local home depot


The message that you quoted was not related to the TiVo case.


----------



## richsadams

Hyrax said:


> I did the internal upgrade to my TivoHD last summer. All is working well, although I wish I'd put in a 1 TB drive instead of a 500 MB one. Is there any reason to keep my original Tivo drive?


If you really need to re-use your TiVo drive you could use WinMFS to back up all of your original files and create a new drive later or you could use Instant Cake to image a new drive as well. However IMHO, with the price of a "small" drive like the one used in the TiVo HD being so low it seems more prudent to just shelve the original drive for a quick R&R down the road if it's needed and buy a new drive for whatever application you're thinking about. I suppose it depends on how much your time is worth...pop the original drive back in - done - or go through the hassle of imaging a new drive and then installing it.

Plus you still have a one-year parts warranty on your TiVo HD. In the event something else fails you can easily reinstall the original drive and return it to TiVo for an exchange. (Just don't leave your screw driver inside! )


----------



## allyn

i'm posting this to report success using a WD7500AAKS (750GB) as an internal drive in a series 3. the earlier postings in this thread are for tivo hd, not series 3.


----------



## richsadams

allyn said:


> i'm posting this to report success using a WD7500AAKS (750GB) as an internal drive in a series 3. the earlier postings in this thread are for tivo hd, not series 3.


Congrats...nice. :up: Did you happen to adjust the AAM (automatic acoustic management) before installing it? Just curious as to the noise level while it's busy. TIA. Oh, and enjoy!


----------



## dizneykev

I was thinking of getting this 1TB drive for a soon to be purchased TiVo HD. It is a Seagate and the model # is ST3100005N1A1AS . Question #1, is this one of the "quiet" drives and Question #2, should I go through the setup and get cable cards installed before I upgrade the unit, or does it matter? All answers are greatly appreciated.


Dizneykev


----------



## ilh

Why this over a WD10EACS which likely runs quieter and cooler? (THD is fine with WD10EACS as opposed to the S3 which seems to have issues with the newer versions.)

I would recommend getting all setup with the original drive for two reasons:

1. You won't be wondering if your upgrade is causing problems should they arise, and

2. You'll have your original drive all set up if you should need to go back to it (e.g., if your upgraded drive meets an untimely death). I believe CableCARD pairing info might be stored on the drive.


----------



## richsadams

ilh is right...go ahead and get everything set up with your original drive. All of your settings including those for the cable cards will transfer over to your new drive. Put your original drive on the shelf when you're done and you'll always have an immediate backup available. 

I'm not sure about the Seagate ST3100005N1A1AS; couldn't find it listed anywhere. If it's not one of the DB35 series, it may be noisy, but w/o the specs it's hard to say. I'm a big fan of Seagate drive, but I have the WD WD10EACS drive that ilh mentions and it has been flawless for about seven months now.


----------



## dizneykev

Is the Western Digital Drive you talk about the same one as this one on Best Buy's Website?

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=8492026&type=product&id=1186003685416

Dizneykev


----------



## jlib

richsadams said:


> ...I'm not sure about the Seagate ST3100005N1A1AS; couldn't find it listed anywhere. If it's not one of the DB35 series, it may be noisy, but w/o the specs it's hard to say. ...


It is basically a retail package model number for the newer 7200.11 series. It is definitely quieter than its notoriously loud predecessor, the 7200.10 series (there actually never was a 7200_10 series 1TB drive), but still has no way to adjust the AAM (seek noise) setting. Some people have claimed the default level is acceptable. I have never heard it personally.

You'll have better luck searching for deals using the OEM model number ST31000340AS


----------



## jlib

dizneykev said:


> Is the Western Digital Drive you talk about the same one as this one on Best Buy's Website?
> 
> http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=8492026&type=product&id=1186003685416
> 
> Dizneykev


Yes, it is just the retail boxed version of the WD10EACS. Unless you need the cable you can get it cheaper in just a mylar OEM bag.


----------



## dizneykev

Well, I bought a Seagate 500 Gig drive that I was going to use, but I am afraid I will not be happy with the room. Actually my office purchased one for me, so I already have about $140 invested at Best Buy. I can get them to price match for about $180. It may be worth it for the retail warranty.


Thanks for all the help.

Dizneykev


----------



## 1283

Sounds like you're trying to price match with Fry's. Fry's also has the WD10000CSRTL for $187.


----------



## runamonk

I replaced the internal 160GB with a Seagate 500GB 16MB - ST3500641AS-RK

64 HD, 607 SD Hours.

Installation was a snap, just make sure you have hex drivers to remove the case and you're fine.

Pulled the old drive, use mfslive to back it up. Then restored it to the new drive.


----------



## thomb

dizneykev said:


> I was thinking of getting this 1TB drive for a soon to be purchased TiVo HD. It is a Seagate and the model # is ST3100005N1A1AS . Question #1, is this one of the "quiet" drives and Question #2, should I go through the setup and get cable cards installed before I upgrade the unit, or does it matter? All answers are greatly appreciated.
> 
> Dizneykev


I upgraded my TivoHD to this drive and have had zero problems. As far as noise, it sits on top of my RPTV and I can't hear it. I'd recommend it without hesitation.


----------



## benjaminallen84

1. Western Digital Caviar SE16 WD5000AAKS
2. 500GB
3. 70 HD / 663 SD (SS)
4. No
5. THD
6. For someone who has never done an upgrade before, there are a few things that I would mention to another first timer. First, you are going to need a different size torx bit for removing the drive from the drive cage. Also, if your replacement drive has been pre-formatted, you will have to unmount it through the Disk Manager (RC My Computer, Manage, Disk Management, RC the drive and select Drive Letter and Paths, the Remove). If you use WinMFS, after the replacement drive has been copied wait a while if you select the Expand Drive option for a dialog box indicating the copy is complete. Otherwise the copy will fail and you will have to do it over again. I would reccomend hooking up the new drive and testing it before you put the case back on. It's a pain to think you are complete and find that the whole deal doesn't work. Also I would add that it's a good idea to backup your original TiVo drive and store it somewhere safe. I didn't bother with AM and can only hear the drive when everything is quiet. Not something that comes close to irritation. This was a fairly easy and quick way to upgrade my TiVo, and I am already considering a 1TB drive. I'm a member of the US Coast Guard and it will be nice to record plenty of shows while I'm gone 2-3 months at a time.


----------



## alyssa

benjaminallen84 said:


> <snip>and I am already considering a 1TB drive. I'm a member of the US Coast Guard and it will be nice to record plenty of shows while I'm gone 2-3 months at a time.


while you're at it get an external too
you have a legit. need for the space


----------



## godess114

I upgraded my internal drive to a WD750
everything looks fine and its showing 98 Hours of HD recording.
the problem is, I get an error when trying to play any old recordings (recordings copied over from the OEM drive). New recordings are working fine.

The error I'm getting is:

"Error playing a recording

The TIVO DVR was not able to record this program because there was no video signal on the channel. You may be trying to record on a channel that you don't receive"

Question 1:
Is there any way to fix this without having to reimage the drive; also what is causing this error? (perhaps some encryption problem?)

Question 2:
I can live without the old recordings, if this problem isn't easily fixed. But is this problem due to a corrupt file system that may impact future recording?


If anyone can shed some light on why i'm getting this error, i'd greatly appreciate it!!


----------



## dbd

Years ago I did the hinsdale thing, and upgraded tivos twice. Recently, I bought two Seagate DB35 drives from newegg for my two new HDs and sent them to Weaknees to prep for cheap.

Now, I gave away a S2 and S2DT with lifetime, but before I did I replaced the drives with Seagate DB35 drives bought right from Weaknees. Fast and simple. My philosophy is to blow it out, replace the moving parts (fan and hard drive) tighten the screws, and press down connectors. 

Actually, I had thrown away my S2 with lifetime some months back (motherboard or power supply issue). I called Tivo, said I wanted to donate it, but to buy and transfer a new S2DT to the (now thrown away) S2's lifetime plan. They let me buy one and arranged the plan transfer.

I've found that you get farther by waiting to speak with women at Tivo's support line. Less rule bound, less egotistical know it alls, and more helpful.


----------



## 1283

godess114 said:


> the problem is, I get an error when trying to play any old recordings (recordings copied over from the OEM drive).


Did you run backup/restore, or copy? You have to use "copy" for the recordings.


----------



## godess114

c3:

hmmm...you might have something there C3.

i ran the following command:

backup -qTao - /dev/hdc | restore -s 128 -r 4 -xzpi - /dev/hdd

I followed the instructions on the mfslive.org website, running the commands listed under:
"Slow way but preserves recordings: (avg 2GB/min)" instructions

Is this incorrect?


----------



## moonscape

i'm trying to find a good time to do a S3 internal upgrade to a 1T drive. i want to keep some of my recordings (large HD ones i've no luck getting off via pytivo ... smaller ones no problem) and wonder how long it will take to copy to the new drive via usb->sata adapters.

i've gotten it down to about 100 MB to transfer...


----------



## aaronwt

moonscape said:


> i'm trying to find a good time to do a S3 internal upgrade to a 1T drive. i want to keep some of my recordings (large HD ones i've no luck getting off via pytivo ... smaller ones no problem) and wonder how long it will take to copy to the new drive via usb->sata adapters.
> 
> i've gotten it down to about 100 MB to transfer...


Not vey long if it's only 100MB(I have no recordings under 1GB). Although WinMFS is the easiest thing to use.


----------



## moonscape

aaronwt said:


> Not vey long if it's only 100MB(I have no recordings under 1GB). Although WinMFS is the easiest thing to use.[/QUOTE
> 
> i meant 100GB  - and yeah, will use WinMFS - but not sure how long it will take to copy the pgms over


----------



## alyssa

It took a little under 2 hours to transfer just about 250GB to a 750GB drive via SATA ports on my motherboard.


----------



## jlib

godess114 said:


> i ran the following command:
> 
> backup -qTao - /dev/hdc | restore -s 128 -r 4 -xzpi - /dev/hdd
> ...Is this incorrect?


There does not seem to be anything particularly wrong with your command line although I usually see SATA drives show up as sd rather than hd but that would not be a problem as long as they are the drives in question as they obviously must be since you completed the transfer. Also, no need for the less efficient large -r setting any more but again that would not cause your problem.

I used essentially that very same command this weekend and all my recordings got piped over fine. It would be interesting to see if the "empty " recordings have any size to them by copying over one of them to a PC via TiVo Desktop. This is a baffling problem.


----------



## virgil1

Just purchased WD7500AACS from Amazon. Expect it Wednesday. Will be upgradeding Tivo HD. Will post my results.


----------



## gshatto

Their is a issue that Weak Knees has pointed out which I have. When ever you reboot the Tivo and use the External Hard Drive Port to add another drive it will hang up and not complete reboot. 

Their is a problem when TIVO sends Service Updates and require reboot of TIVO or if you reset TIVO yourself or thier is a power outage, anything requiring a reboot of the system. At least every 2 months or so I will turn the T.V. on and the screen indicating TIVO is starting up will display. 

It will be stuck in this state unless you first turn off the external drive and unplug tivo. Leave both powered down for 10 sec's. Power up external drive first and then TIVO unit. At that point you will be able to reboot successfully.


----------



## virgil1

I saw this post...and got worried. Canceled my order. Going to find another drive.
http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?p=6036415#post6036415


----------



## virgil1

changed my order to WD7500AAKS. A little bit more $$, but I know it will work.


----------



## richsadams

gshatto said:


> Their is a issue that Weak Knees has pointed out which I have. When ever you reboot the Tivo and use the External Hard Drive Port to add another drive it will hang up and not complete reboot.
> 
> Their is a problem when TIVO sends Service Updates and require reboot of TIVO or if you reset TIVO yourself or thier is a power outage, anything requiring a reboot of the system. At least every 2 months or so I will turn the T.V. on and the screen indicating TIVO is starting up will display.
> 
> It will be stuck in this state unless you first turn off the external drive and unplug tivo. Leave both powered down for 10 sec's. Power up external drive first and then TIVO unit. At that point you will be able to reboot successfully.


Interesting. Service upgrades can periodically cause reboot hangs even for those using the approved WD My DVR Expander. As you suggest, the fix is almost always a reboot of the eSATA drive and TiVo.

The configuration outlined (TiVo HD or Series3 with an expansion drive) is very common and normally shouldn't experience any problems during hard or soft reboots including service upgrades (with the exception mentioned) _unless_ the eSATA drive enclosure does not have a hard on/off switch as outlined in the Official eSATA Drive Expansion in 9.2: FAQ + Discussion. In other words the eSATA drive must be able to turn itself back on during a reboot or a power failure. (To avoid issues like this as well as data corruption a UPS like this or better is highly recommended.)

That said, I don't recall others reporting the use of the Toshiba 1 TB hard drive internally or as an expansion drive. They are not listed on the recommended drive list (Section III, #27), so AFAIK you're the first to report an issue.

More often than not the problem you're seeing is caused by a loose or faulty eSATA cable (inexpensive replacement cables are listed in the FAQ), a problematic enclosure and now and then a failing eSATA hard drive.

Can you fill us in on a couple of things? Do you have a TiVo Series3 or TiVo HD? Can you give us the exact model number of your eSATA drive, enclosure type/brand, and which eSATA cable you're using? TIA.


----------



## jlib

virgil1 said:


> changed my order to WD7500AAKS. A little bit more $$, but I know it will work.


Note that the WD Blue drive is much louder than the WD Green drive so it is very important to attenuate the seek noise on that model before you install it. Hitachi Feature Tool will work to that end. It should then work fine for you.


----------



## joestan

I have used samsung drives in tivos ,pcs and macs. The spinpoint drives are quiet and reliable.


----------



## 1283

joestan said:


> I have used samsung drives in tivos ,pcs and macs. The spinpoint drives are quiet and reliable.


Who handles the warranty service if a Samsung drive breaks?


----------



## AdmiralTivo

1. Seagate DB35
2. 500 GB
3. 70 / 633
4. Series3
5. Quiet.

Easy peasy, lemon squeezy.


----------



## richsadams

AdmiralTivo said:


> 1. Seagate DB35
> 2. 500 GB
> 3. 70 / 633
> 4. Series3
> 5. Quiet.
> 
> Easy peasy, lemon squeezy.


That's what we had in an Antec MX-1 eSATA drive before I upgraded the internal in our Series3. Great drive...now residing in one of our PC's. The downside is that I can't tell if it's working or not unless I look at the drive light. It's almost too quiet.


----------



## virgil1

Thanks for the tip. Will make sure I use that tool to "Change the drive automatic acoustic management settings". Guessing it's pretty easy to do. Create the bootable CD, plug the drive in, boot from CD, adjust? Anyone have any other suggestions before I start the install(drive arrives tomorrow). Goal is limited down time for Tivo (1/2 hour?). I plan on deleting as much as I possibly can before I start. I don't have to go through guided setup again if I do the 'mfscopy' using winmfs (http://www.mfslive.org/winmfs/quickstart.htm), right? I was concerned my cable cards might not work again or something.


----------



## danmcd

I will either use the mfslive bootable CD (keeps my programs, right?) or instantcake (worked great on my old SAT-T60) to format a 1TB for a replacement drive on my TiVoHD.

I know about the WD "Green" drive not working with TiVoHD. I've also heard mumblings about drive noise. What 1TB disk would you all recommend for a clean out-of-the-box experience?

Thanks!
Dan McD.


----------



## greg_burns

danmcd said:


> I will either use the mfslive bootable CD (keeps my programs, right?) or instantcake (worked great on my old SAT-T60) to format a 1TB for a replacement drive on my TiVoHD.


You can use mfslive bootable CD, or simpler yet is WinMFS from www.mfslive.org



danmcd said:


> I know about the WD "Green" drive not working with TiVoHD. I've also heard mumblings about drive noise. What 1TB disk would you all recommend for a clean out-of-the-box experience?
> 
> Thanks!
> Dan McD.


WD "Green" drives works fine on TivoHD and are recommended. It was that specific one that doesn't work with the original S3.


----------



## DougJohnson

greg_burns said:


> You can use mfslive bootable CD, or simpler yet is WinMFS from www.mfslive.org


I will second the recommendation for WinMFS.
-- Doug


----------



## Donni

1. Western Digital AV-GP WD10EVCS
2. 1 TB (internal) + 1TB (external with Antec MX-1)
3. 292 HD / 2777 SD hours (SS)
4. No need (checked with Hitachi Feature Tools, its the most quiet)
5. Series 3
6. Quiet and cooler than original S3 drive


----------



## richsadams

Donni said:


> 1. Western Digital AV-GP WD10EVCS
> 2. 1 TB (internal) + 1TB (external with Antec MX-1)
> 3. 292 HD / 2777 SD hours (SS)
> 4. No need (checked with Hitachi Feature Tools, its the most quiet)
> 5. Series 3
> 6. Quiet and cooler than original S3 drive


Welcome to the forum. :up: And woo hoo! Nice work.


----------



## jlib

greg_burns said:


> WD "Green" drives works fine on TivoHD and are recommended. It was that specific one that doesn't work with the original S3.


See the post a few back from virgil1 with the link about the 2008 version of the green 750 not booting at all on the Tivo HD. I have to admit that haven't heard any corroborating comments but most people are going to bypass the 750 anyway and go to the 1TB right from the start so there probably isn't much experience out there with the 750 one way or the other.

So far, the only caveats with the green WD 1TB drives are with the standard green OEM drive (WD1000EACS) and the RAID edition green drive (WD1000FYPS) that both have the odd "no soft reboot on the S3 only bug" but otherwise work fine. The AV version of that drive (WD10EVCS) has been reported to work with soft reboot on S3. For the HD, the cheapest of the WD 1TB green family at any particular time would be the best choice (usually the WD1000EACS).


----------



## mattack

jlib said:


> So far, the only caveats with the green WD 1TB drives are with the standard green OEM drive (WD1000EACS) and the RAID edition green drive (WD1000FYPS) that both have the odd "no soft reboot on the S3 only bug" but otherwise work fine. The AV version of that drive (WD10EVCS) has been reported to work with soft reboot on S3. For the HD, the cheapest of the WD 1TB green family at any particular time would be the best choice (usually the WD1000EACS).


Does this just mean you can't reboot from the menus and must unplug? Other than that, it works fine?

I'm not positive, but I think that's the drive that's $159 at Fry's (or was until at least last Tuesday -- usually their sales do continue after that, but I haven't checked the Fry's ads).


----------



## captkirk685

will be upgrading my tivo hd using a Western Digital WD10EACS Caviar GP 1 TB. Got it from Amazon for 229.00. Any issues with this drive? I have read on these forums its good for dvrs, I will be getting it tomorrow (8-15-08) I will post results tomorrow. I will be using winmfs as it seems to be the easiest way to go if you want to keep cable card settings. I already backed up all my drives from my 4 tivos for piece of mine if something ever goes wrong.


----------



## danmcd

DougJohnson said:


> I will second the recommendation for WinMFS.
> -- Doug


I don't do Windows. 

Thanks!
Dan


----------



## richsadams

mattack said:


> Does this just mean you can't reboot from the menus and must unplug? Other than that, it works fine?


Yes. However the downside is that a "soft reboot" is required for TiVo upgrades to install properly. If you installed either the WD1000EACS or WD1000FYPS internally in a Series3 and an upgrade had been downloaded, you'd come home to TiVo sitting at the "Welcome...powering up" screen w/o the upgrade being installed. A hard reboot would likely cure the problem and allow the upgrade to complete...but why risk it when you can use The WD10EVCS instead?

FWIW we actually have the early version of the WD10EACS-*32ZJB0* (which is no longer available) in our Series3 and it's been flawless for the past 10 months or so. I'm normally a Seagate guy, but based on ours and many others reported to be in use here, I would expect the WD10EVCS to perform just as well.


----------



## richsadams

captkirk685 said:


> will be upgrading my tivo hd using a Western Digital WD10EACS Caviar GP 1 TB. Got it from Amazon for 229.00. Any issues with this drive? I have read on these forums its good for dvrs, I will be getting it tomorrow (8-15-08) I will post results tomorrow. I will be using winmfs as it seems to be the easiest way to go if you want to keep cable card settings. I already backed up all my drives from my 4 tivos for piece of mine if something ever goes wrong.


You should have no problems upgrading your TiVo HD with that drive. :up: BTW, putting the original TiVo hard drive on the shelf is the best backup possible. If something goes wrong you can just pop it back in and be up and running instantly.

Good luck and enjoy!


----------



## captkirk685

richsadams said:


> You should have no problems upgrading your TiVo HD with that drive. :up: BTW, putting the original TiVo hard drive on the shelf is the best backup possible. If something goes wrong you can just pop it back in and be up and running instantly.
> 
> Good luck and enjoy!


Thanks, thats exactly what I plan to do, I have a lifetime sub on this box and I will have the piece of mind of knowing that if the HD goes out I still have the original drive.


----------



## andy_hd

I have to question this reasoning. It's kind of a pain to pull my TiVo from the entertainment center. If my drive goes, I certainly couldn't live with the 20 hrs provided by the drive it came with. Instead, I'd run down to Best Buy or Circuit City and get a 1 TB drive and restore my backup file to it.

One pull of the system from the entertainment center, and then I'm back in business.

I sold my original drive on e-bay. .


----------



## jlib

Yeah, that would work too. It all comes down to how safe your backup is I guess. The original drive on the shelf is as safe as you can get. I did not realize there was any resale value for a small used hardrive. And I think Rich's main point is that with the original drive you can temporarily be up and running again the same day until you buy the replacement drive and do the upgrade at your leisure. For most people the physical access to the TiVo is not so difficult but your point is valid for your circumstances.


----------



## captkirk685

1. Western Digital WD10EACS Cavier GP
2. 1 TB
3. 144 HD hours/1367 SD hours
4. Tivo HD
5. Quiet.

I can not believe how easy that was, hooked it up and was done in about 2 minutes because I had backed up my original drive yesterday. winmfs tools is a breeze.


----------



## jlib

captkirk685 said:


> 4. Tivo HD/Series 3


Just a quick note on the generally accepted terminology here. Though technically the Tivo HD is in the Series 3 family you will find that it is better to call it simply a Tivo HD or THD and reserve Series 3 or S3 for the original cable cards in the back Tivo.


----------



## captkirk685

jlib said:


> Just a quick note on the generally accepted terminology here. Though technically the Tivo HD is in the Series 3 family you will find that it is better to call it simply a Tivo HD or THD and reserve Series 3 or S3 for the original cable cards in the back Tivo.


Thanks for the heads up, I fixed it.:up:


----------



## steinercat

I'm finally making the jump and upgrading my THD internal drive to 1TB.

Anyways, I've decided on Western Digital.

Is there a preference from the two models below? IS either better than the other for a THD?

Sorry to ask this again, but I have searched and read, but just wanted to double-check before buying.

TIA!

WD10EACS

WD10EVCS


----------



## 1283

Get the WD10EACS for THD. WD10EVCS is more expensive and is needed only for internal S3.


----------



## steinercat

c3 said:


> Get the WD10EACS for THD. WD10EVCS is more expensive and is needed only for internal S3.


Wow. That's just a silly low price for the EACS! US$130 at the Egg. Even if its recertified. WD or Newegg are pretty good with RMA.

Anyways...performance/noise/heat are the same for both drives right? With the only difference being that the EVCS is *tweaked* for streaming content?

*I'm most concerned about heat/noise being equal. Pretty sure performance will be the same.


----------



## greg_burns

steinercat said:


> Anyways...performance/noise/heat are the same for both drives right? With the only difference being that the EVCS is *tweaked* for streaming content?
> 
> *I'm most concerned about heat/noise being equal. Pretty sure performance will be the same.


I believe the EACS is not shipped with the acoustic management turned on like the EVCS. You just need to use something like Hitachi Feature Tool boot disc to enable it though.


----------



## richsadams

andy_hd said:


> I have to question this reasoning. It's kind of a pain to pull my TiVo from the entertainment center. If my drive goes, I certainly couldn't live with the 20 hrs provided by the drive it came with. Instead, I'd run down to Best Buy or Circuit City and get a 1 TB drive and restore my backup file to it.
> 
> One pull of the system from the entertainment center, and then I'm back in business.
> 
> I sold my original drive on e-bay. .


Yep, makes sense too. As jlib kindly pointed out, I meant that having the original files sitting on a disconnected HDD is about the best backup there is. In addition some folks do these upgrades within the one-year labor warranty. If TiVo fails for some reason they can easily put the OEM drive back in and return it for an exchange under warranty (as long as they don't mention the details to TiVo or leave their Torx screwdriver inside  ).


----------



## richsadams

steinercat said:


> Wow. That's just a silly low price for the EACS! US$130 at the Egg. Even if its recertified. WD or Newegg are pretty good with RMA.
> 
> Anyways...performance/noise/heat are the same for both drives right? With the only difference being that the EVCS is *tweaked* for streaming content?
> 
> *I'm most concerned about heat/noise being equal. Pretty sure performance will be the same.


Hmmm. Me? I'd drop another $29 and get a brand new one. There's no guarantee that any drive won't fail and I'm sure the reconditioned drives are fine, but I'd always have that worry in the back of my mind..."It failed once, will it fail again?" I guess I just wouldn't risk potentially losing hundreds of hours of recordings.

You can certainly adjust the acoustic management as noted earlier, however the WD10EACS that I have was very quiet to start with...I could hardly tell any difference after lowering it to 128. Ours runs cooler than the original TiVo drive. You'll do fine using it in your TiVo HD. :up:


----------



## V7Goose

richsadams said:


> Hmmm. Me? I'd drop another $29 and get a brand new one. There's no guarantee that any drive won't fail and I'm sure the reconditioned drives are fine, but I'd always have that worry in the back of my mind..."It failed once, will it fail again?" I guess I just wouldn't risk potentially losing hundreds of hours of recordings.


Man, I sure agree with that! Even though slapping in a new drive is easy with a backup, I just cannot easily deal with the huge loss of recordings on an expanded TiVo. It may not be the end of the world to loose them, but it sure feels like it when I have to look at maybe a hundred movies waiting to be transfered to DVD! I just went through this with my S3 after the eSATA drive started going south, so the extra insurance of a brand new drive AND running extended diagnostics on it before putting it into service is worth it to me! Good luck,
Goose


----------



## jrod9707

Hey guys about to take the plunge and upgrade before fall gets here and I was looking at this Seagate drive on newegg and its at a reasonable price $99 and it has a whisper quiet drive(Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 ST3750640AS 750GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive). I was scanning through the pages and didnt read anything as far as compatibility. Would this work for the upgrade? I can live with 250 less gigs if I'm saving $100. Thanks ahead.


----------



## greg_burns

jrod9707 said:


> Hey guys about to take the plunge and upgrade before fall gets here and I was looking at this Seagate drive on newegg and its at a reasonable price $99 and it has a whisper quiet drive(Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 ST3750640AS 750GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive). I was scanning through the pages and didnt read anything as far as compatibility. Would this work for the upgrade? I can live with 250 less gigs if I'm saving $100. Thanks ahead.


The problem with the 7200.10 is noise.

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?p=5905415#post5905415

WD10EACS is highly recommended for TivoHD

If you want cheap, I would consider the 640MB WD6400AAKS. Although I am not sure of the noise specs for it.

There maybe other 750GB worth consider though.


----------



## 1283

jrod9707 said:


> it has a whisper quiet drive(Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 ST3750640AS 750GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive).


That's marketing at work again. It's "whisper quiet" only when it's idle.


----------



## jrod9707

I do appreciate your guys input, I know a lot of people ask what about this drive or another and it can get kind of annoying, so I do appreciate your input! I really only want to spend around $120 or less. Main thing being that the current 160 isn't much at all with HD and 1gig's run around 2 bills and I'm not that dedicated to spend that much but 750 gigs seems to be in the target range I'm looking for but I cant find any info for what drive would be the best buy? And WD doesnt make a green drive for 750. So any input for a 750 drive would be great or even the 640 drive would work but since there's no data on how good that will perform, I dont want to risk having to try it and find out its not good and deal with newegg for a refund. Any suggestions would be much appreciated.


----------



## 1283

jrod9707 said:


> And WD doesnt make a green drive for 750.


WD7500AACS

BTW, WD10EACS is around $150-$160.


----------



## lrhorer

I'm using the Seagate Barracuda 750G in an Antec MX-1 housing on one of my S3 TiVos. 'Can't hear a thing. Of course, where the drive is in relation to the viewer and the surroundings local to the drive can make a big difference. In my case, the Barracuda is sitting in an A/V shelf at least 4 meters from the closest viewer. It also can help sitting the housing (or TiVo) on a mouse pad or terrycloth hand towel. I can once in a while hear a little seek noise coming from the TiVo in the theater. I'm not sure is the noise is coming from the 1T inetrnal drive (I'm not sure of the brand or model) or the 1TB Hitachi Deskstar drive inthe Antec housing. The Western Digital 500G drive in the guest room is definitely the loudest, but then it is a more "live" acoustic environment than either the living room or the theater. I haven't bothered to try setting AM on any of the drives, as the sound isn't bothersome in the living room or the theater, and I'm really not concerned about the (still small) noise in the guest room.


----------



## jrod9707

c3 said:


> WD7500AACS
> 
> BTW, WD10EACS is around $150-$160.


I had noticed that after I posted I went over Greg B's links and saw that. Thanks for the help Greg and C3. I may just tell the wifey its worth it just buying the 1 tera. But I noticed quite a few people were posting the drive failure and real problems with that? Course that was just off the newegg site.


----------



## jlib

User comments sections always have to taken with a grain of salt. There is some value but the negative comments will always be disproportionately large compared to the true number of user experiences.


----------



## jlib

lrhorer said:


> I'm using the Seagate Barracuda 750G in an Antec MX-1 housing on one of my S3 TiVos. 'Can't hear a thing.


For the acoustically non-adjustable Seagates, one wants to particularly avoid the .10 series. Users have reported that the newer .11 series is quieter. Do you know which model you have? For those considering a new Seagate, I would just stick with the quiet DB35 series then there are no concerns.


----------



## alyssa

I think this is the drive you're not recomending but the price is *very* attactive;
ST3750640AS 750GB for $77.77+$5 to ship
till they sell out today
http://www.woot.com/


----------



## 1283

refurbished with 180-day warranty


----------



## Bierboy

750GB DB35 Seagate from WeaKnees...."pre-formatted"....running like a champ for 20 months now. 950+ SD hours and 100 HD hours....upgraded from the stock drive -- Series 3. Quiet as a church mouse.


----------



## adrianblack

I just put in a Samsung Spinpoint F DT 500gb unit into my Tivo HD today. Set AAM to 128. I can say this unit is pretty much silent. With my ear 1" from the front of the Tivo I can just barely hear it seeking when recording two streams and fastforwarding HD. At least as quiet as the stock Maxtor drive .... I think it's a bit more.

Has buzzword features like "Noiseguard" and "Silentseek" ... haha. Cute. It was $65 on Newegg.

http://www.samsung.com/global/business/hdd/productmodel.do?type=61&subtype=63&model_cd=240


----------



## jlib

alyssa said:


> I think this is the drive you're not recomending but the price is *very* attactive;
> ST3750640AS 750GB for $77.77+$5 to ship
> till they sell out today
> http://www.woot.com/


There is a wonderful irony in that link in that it is a daily page and since we are talking about noisy hard drives today it features a Dyson vacuum.


----------



## alyssa

jlib said:


> There is a wonderful irony in that link in that it is a daily page and since we are talking about noisy hard drives today it features a Dyson vacuum.


Every time I see a Seagate drive I'm gonna think of a vacuum cleaner, thanks to you.


----------



## mattack

richsadams said:


> but why risk it when you can use The WD10EVCS instead?


Mostly I was just curious.. I *think* my S3 drive is failing (will probably post another thread about it).. and at least last week, one of the 'green' 1TB drives was on sale at Fry's for $159 IIRC. (I am one of the few people who seems to care about my Tivos wasting tons of power being on all the time, so would like to buy one of the green drives even though it only saves a couple of watts... but admittedly, even I probably will get whatever compatible cheap 1TB drive is on sale at the time I decide to get a new drive..)


----------



## mattack

richsadams said:


> Hmmm. Me? I'd drop another $29 and get a brand new one.


Plus, the reconditioned drive only has 1 year warranty.. and the new one has 3.. (Hmm, some other ones have 5..)


----------



## mattack

V7Goose said:


> Man, I sure agree with that! Even though slapping in a new drive is easy with a backup, I just cannot easily deal with the huge loss of recordings on an expanded TiVo.


You usually have warning that a drive is going bad -- so you can copy the recordings to the new drive.. it just takes maaaaaany hours.


----------



## jlib

If I can borrow adrianblack's image of his Spinpoint equipped TiVo HD for a second. Just a reminder to everyone contemplating an upgrade of the internal drive: Since no "user serviceable parts" are considered to be inside, Tivo is not required to isolate the high voltage section of the power supply as would be in a PC.

So, don't get too casual around the components on the brown colored circuit board while the unit is plugged in. And even when unplugged, the capacitors may have enough charge remaining to curl your hair. Now back to your regular programming...


----------



## jrod9707

Here's a dumb question for you guys... I noticed much to my surprise that my old desktop has a SATA port on the motherboard its about 5 years old a dell 2.8HT. And now I dont have to lug my TIVO to a friends house to do the upgrade. 
DUMB question #1 does it matter what SATA cable I need to buy, I saw theres SATA II or should I buy the cable for 2.89 at newegg.

DUMB question #2 When I use MFS (backup) if I want to also have a backup image would that keep the season pass.

Thanks guys and I should be done asking ?'s for a while!


----------



## Attack

1) Seagate Barracuda ES.2 ST3750330NS
2) 750GB
3 107 HD hours / 1015 SD hours
4) No
5) S3
6) It fixed my S3 reboot issues. I used WinMFS beta 9.2 backup / restore option and explanded the space when it asked. I also enabled the MFS Supersize option. Before doing the backup I deleted all my recordings.


----------



## V7Goose

jrod9707 said:


> Here's a dumb question for you guys... I noticed much to my surprise that my old desktop has a SATA port on the motherboard its about 5 years old a dell 2.8HT. And now I dont have to lug my TIVO to a friends house to do the upgrade.
> DUMB question #1 does it matter what SATA cable I need to buy, I saw theres SATA II or should I buy the cable for 2.89 at newegg.
> 
> DUMB question #2 When I use MFS (backup) if I want to also have a backup image would that keep the season pass.
> 
> Thanks guys and I should be done asking ?'s for a while!


Any internal SATA cable should work fine. Most retail boxed drives will come with a cable, but bulk re-packaged drives will not.

The backup tool in WinMFS will keep everything except the recordings. Good luck.


----------



## alyssa

mattack said:


> You usually have warning that a drive is going bad -- so you can copy the recordings to the new drive.. it just takes maaaaaany hours.


I was pleasantly surprised at my hour & 45 min transfer from a full 250GB to a 750GB hd via the SATA ports on my mobo.


----------



## greg_burns

alyssa said:


> I was pleasantly surprised at my hour & 45 min transfer from a full 250GB to a 750GB hd via the SATA ports on my mobo.


Back in the day, my copy using the linux "dd" command only took about 70 minutes...



greg_burns said:


> I thought the dd copy command used in bumwine process was linear. While copying mine was reporting 60MB/s. Took 4235 seconds.


Not sure the drive being full or not makes any difference.


----------



## George Cifranci

1. Seagate DB35
2. 750GB
3. 98 (plus have another 750GB Seagate DB35 eSata for a total of 198 HD hours)
4. Did you do any acoustic modifications? *No*
5. S3
6. No issues at all with the drives (running with the internal drive from the moment I got the S3 since early Jan 2007). Nice and quiet. Having nearly 200 hours of HD recording (2 x 750GB) rules!


----------



## ChinaBull

:up: for WinMFS!! 


Seagate ST3100005N1A1AS
1TB
131 HD / 1241 SD
No
Tivo HD
Just Upgraded with WinMFS - MFSCopy and 2 USB<>SATA adapters, did not Supersize. Everything went smoothly, and the process of copying the original 160G took 6 1/2 hours. The new drive runs slightly warmer than the original, and makes slightly more noise - I can hear the head seek if I put my ear close to the Tivo case. However, I cannot hear anything from a distance of about 1 meter.


----------



## mrro82

I've never uswed WinFMS. Is it as easy as copying the selected drive to my computers HDD and then restoring it on the new drive? I was planning on getting the WD10EACS. Sorry for my dumb questions I've never upgraded a TiVo drive before. I've upgraded my PS3 HDD but that didn't require any extra cables and programs. Thanks!


----------



## greg_burns

mrro82 said:


> I've never uswed WinFMS. Is it as easy as copying the selected drive to my computers HDD and then restoring it on the new drive? I was planning on getting the WD10EACS. Sorry for my dumb questions I've never upgraded a TiVo drive before. I've upgraded my PS3 HDD but that didn't require any extra cables and programs. Thanks!


I believe you can only do a backup to your computer's HD. The backup would not include recorded programs (just seasons passes and settings). You could then restore the backup to a new drive.

Optionally, you could just connect old and new drive to your computer and do a complete copy (including recordings).


----------



## ChinaBull

mrro82 said:


> I've never uswed WinFMS. Is it as easy as copying the selected drive to my computers HDD and then restoring it on the new drive?


 The software is generally just this simple - if you don't need to transfer the recorded shows, you would select and run the MFSWin Backup (truncated), then Restore. It will require about 500 MB of compressed storage space on your computer.

The hardware can be just a bit more complex than the PS3 upgrade that you did previously. The Tivo case is designed to discourage casual opening, but is not difficult. Here are some detailed instructions - http://www.weaknees.com/instructions/series3-tivo-upgrade-instructions.pdf . Then, you just have to determine how to attach the drives to your computer. If your computer doesn't use internal SATA drives, you will need one USB-SATA adapter for a backup - restore procedure. To include recorded shows, you will need 2 USB-SATA adapters.


----------



## kyam

Sorry if this has been touched upon, but I have a Series3, and I'm debating whether to add storage via an external eSATA 1TB or an internal drive replacement. I was set to buy an external drive, but I've read in multiple posts that owners using external drives, including those blessed by Tivo, have encountered problems when Tivo upgrades its software.

That has me thinking that an internal replacement would be best for long-term stability. Have there been any reports of problems with internal drives when Tivo updates its software? Am I correct in thinking that an internal drive replacement is more stable than adding one through the eSATA port?


----------



## jlib

.


----------



## mrro82

Thank you everyone for the great info. I feel a little better about doing this now. I get kind of nervous thinking about opening up a $300 piece of electronic equipment.


----------



## greg_burns

Tivo seems to be giving some a hard time about warranty replacements if you upgraded the internal drive (unlike in the past it seems). Even if you intend to put the original back in before returning. That would be something to consider if deciding between internal versus external during the warranty period.


----------



## Voix

1. Hard Drive Model WD10EACS 
2. Drive Size 1 TB
3. Post Upgrade HD/SD hours listed 144
4. Did you do any acoustic modifications? No
5. S3 or THD THD
6. Any Comments? How does it sound? Any problems? After trying two DVR Expanders which both caused lockups and random reboots, I decided to go with an internal upgrade. I am very pleased with the ease of installation, cost and capacity.


----------



## virgil1

Just upgraded my Tivo HD with Western Digital 750GB WD7500AAKS.
98 HD hrs
924 SD hrs
Steps:

Realize I only have two SATA ports available on my PC. Had to use SATA to USB adapter. I had bought this one a while ago to hook a drive up to my MAC: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000E6NGBU .
Open up Tivo HD, take out drive.
Power down PC
Disconnect second SATA drive in my PC
Connect new WD 750GB drive to PC
Boot PC with Hitachi Feature Tools CD in
Used the Hitachi Feature Tool to set to change acoustic level of new drive
Tack out Hitachi CD(so it doesn't boot from it again), Shut down PC
Boot PC with new drive still attached.
after windows starts up, plug in Tivo Drive with USB adapter
Open up winmfs, follow steps in 'Quick start'
Put new drive in
Boot Tivo
Realize had had two of my component video cables switched(faces were blue). Fix it.
Done!
All in all...about an hour to do.
I can't hear the drive at all.


----------



## lkinley

1. Hard Drive Model: WD10EVCS (AV-GP)
2. Drive Size: 1 TB
3. Post Upgrade HD/SD hours listed: 131
4. Did you do any acoustic modifications? No, it is a CE drive
5. S3 or THD: S3
6. Any Comments? How does it sound? Any problems? Absolutely perfect. Buy.com has these drives for a decent price now.


----------



## ruinah

1. Hard Drive Model: WD500AVJS 
2. Drive Size: 500GB
3. Post Upgrade HD/SD hours listed: not tested yet
4. Did you do any acoustic modifications? No
5. S3 or THD: THD
6. Any Comments? How does it sound? Any problems? Not sure yet, just did WINMFS at work this morning, no SATA at home. WINMFS worked flawlessly though so I am sure it will be fine.


----------



## stream

1. WD10EVCS (AV-GP)
2. 1 TB 
3. 144 HD / 1,367 SD (WinMFS supersize)
4. No need with this drive
5. THD
6. Very quiet, and cool (TiVo internal temp unaffected). Best total price I found was thenerds.com (+ fast shipping--have used them several times before :up


----------



## dagware

1. WD Caviar
2. 1TB
3. Something like 130/1400
4. No.
5. THD
6. No problems. Quiet. Works perfectly. However, I should have learned more about SATA cards and cables before I bought it, so I wouldn't have bought an eSATA card and cable for an internal SATA drive.  D'OH!

Dan


----------



## flar

1. Western Digital AV-GP Green Drive - WD10EVCS
2. 1TB (i.e. 931GB)
3. 144 HD/1367 SD hours
4. On this AV version of the drive, AAM was already set to 128
5. S3 TiVo
6. Comments:

I bought the drive from Buy.com (even lower price than thenerds.net a few days ago), it was shipped in a cardboard cradle to keep it away from the sides of the box by about 3/4 inch on all sides and about 3 or 4 inches of paper filler padding on top. The drive passed extended WD diagnostics and a full "write zero" test before upgrade.

The upgrade went very smoothly using WinMFS 9.2beta. I had the new drive on an internal SATA bus and the original TiVo drive in a SATA to USB 2.0 external enclosure. The time to do a truncated backup was around 4-5 minutes. The time to do the full copy including all shows using the Mfscopy option was around 2.5 hours. I supersized the new drive after the copy was complete.

The drive is very quiet, I can't hear a thing, but my environment is fairly noisy in the first place (live in a city near a major street).  OK, I can hear faint rumblings if I put my ear right next to the TiVo and wait for a lull in the background noise. Internal temperature is at 45C after running for a couple of hours on a warm day.


----------



## stream

stream said:


> 1. WD10EVCS (AV-GP)
> 2. 1 TB
> 3. 144 HD / 1,367 SD (WinMFS supersize)
> 4. No need with this drive
> 5. THD
> 6. Very quiet, and cool (TiVo internal temp unaffected). Best total price I found was thenerds.com (+ fast shipping--have used them several times before :up


Quick update--TiVo internal temp is 43 C with the new drive (vs. 44 C with stock drive).


----------



## Agent86

Upgraded my TiVoHD with a WD10EACS. Could not adjust the AAM with the Hitachi tool, but was able to do so with hdparm on the MFSLive Linux boot CD.

Drive is very, very quiet and works like a charm.


----------



## charms

1. WD10EACS - $149 from NewEgg
2. 1TB
3. 131 HD / 1241 SD - Hit yes for Supersize in WinMFS, but it apparently didn't take. Eh, 144 vs 131 is no big deal.
4. Yes, set to 128 AAM - used Hitachi Feature Tool, booted from a ISO burned to CD Link to ISO file
5. Tivo HD
6.
- WinMFS was a breeze to use. Did a simple copy (no recordings). Truncated Backup of the original drive. Restore to new drive. Done.

-Also, very nice to now have a TiVo backup stored on my computer. The whole WinMFS process took about 10 minutes total. After nosing around the forums for advice, I decided to use a 500 MB swap size. The whole process was so easy it was anti-climactic.

- Whisper quiet, can't hear a thing.

- Did the internal upgrade because my DVR Expander was causing freezes and reboots after the 9.4 upgrade, something I'm still upset with TiVo about. Next step it to error check the DVR Expander to see if there was a hardwar failure.

- have an older IDE-only motherboard, so for $19 I got the Rosewill RC-209-EX PCI card. 4 internal SATA, 2 eSATA ports (only 4 out of 6 can be active at a time). Comes packaged with 2 internal SATA cables and some power supply converters. In other words, everything I needed to plug 2 SATA drives into my old computer. Only 1.5 GB/s card, but it worked fine and was plenty fast. One or two stalled reboots solved by re-seating the card in the PCI slot.


----------



## Bodie

virgil1 said:


> [*]Realize had had two of my component video cables switched(faces were blue). Fix it.


Smurfs!


----------



## MisterUCLA

Quick Question.

TiVo HD with upgraded 500GB HD with WinMFS last year.
TiVo S3 with stock 250GB HD

I plan on upgrading the TiVo HD to a single TB drive and migrating the 500GB drive to the S3. I plan on keeping my recordings.

Will I have any problems expanding the TB drive since it's the second upgrade?

I plan on buying this drive. Ok?
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136151

Thanks,
Eddie


----------



## stream

MisterUCLA said:


> Quick Question.
> 
> TiVo HD with upgraded 500GB HD with WinMFS last year.
> TiVo S3 with stock 250GB HD
> 
> I plan on upgrading the TiVo HD to a single TB drive and migrating the 500GB drive to the S3. I plan on keeping my recordings.
> 
> Will I have any problems expanding the TB drive since it's the second upgrade?
> 
> I plan on buying this drive. Ok?
> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136151
> 
> Thanks,
> Eddie


If you move a drive from one TiVo to another, it will not play the recordings from the original TiVo.

Per my post above, I recently installed a WD10EVCS, which is a DVR specific drive, for a few $ more at thenerds.com (THeir price actually increased a few $ since I got mine):
http://www.thenerds.net/WESTERN_DIG..._GP_WD10EVCS_Hard_Drive.WD10EVCS.html#reviews

It runs cooler than the stock drive.


----------



## greg_burns

stream said:


> If you move a drive from one TiVo to another, it will not play the recordings from the original TiVo.


I believe he meant (I hope) that he was planning to keep the recordings on the same TivoHD and just upgrade the drive to a larger capacity using WinMFS.

You can't swap drives between a TivoHD and a S3 w/o reimaging the drive. The two are not interchangeable, even after a Clear & Delete Everything AFAIK.


----------



## guarh

captkirk685 said:


> will be upgrading my tivo hd using a Western Digital WD10EACS Caviar GP 1 TB. Got it from Amazon for 229.00. Any issues with this drive? I have read on these forums its good for dvrs, I will be getting it tomorrow (8-15-08) I will post results tomorrow. I will be using winmfs as it seems to be the easiest way to go if you want to keep cable card settings. I already backed up all my drives from my 4 tivos for piece of mine if something ever goes wrong.


Ouch! You got ripped off. Return it if you are still able to.
I bought the same drive today for my TivoHD at Zipzoomfly.com for 136.80 shipped, that's almost $100 you could spend on something else
Here you go


----------



## bgtees

1. Western Digital "Green" (pulled from USB Mybook)
2. 1TB
3. 144 hours HD, lots of hours SD (used supersize)
4. Nope
5. TivoHD
6. So far, so good


----------



## lrhorer

kyam said:


> Sorry if this has been touched upon, but I have a Series3, and I'm debating whether to add storage via an external eSATA 1TB or an internal drive replacement. I was set to buy an external drive, but I've read in multiple posts that owners using external drives, including those blessed by Tivo, have encountered problems when Tivo upgrades its software.


Upgrades can and rarely will cause problems with failing drives, but its more likely to be a problem for the internal drive than the external. It's also very rare, no matter what.



kyam said:


> That has me thinking that an internal replacement would be best for long-term stability.


I don't know that stability is the issue, but in my estimation the best upgrade path is to upgrade the internal drive first, putting the original on the shelf for safekeeping and emergency restoral. This does of course void the warranty, and that may be a real consideration for you if you are upgrading within the first 3 months.



kyam said:


> Have there been any reports of problems with internal drives when Tivo updates its software?


Yes. In particular the most likely failure is a hard drive with bad sectors in the inactive boot or root partitions. The new software is written to the inactive partitions and then the new boot partition is set active. When booting, the new kernel also loads the new root partition. If either have problems, then the TiVo begins barfing soon after the upgrade.



kyam said:


> Am I correct in thinking that an internal drive replacement is more stable than adding one through the eSATA port?


There are fewer single points of failure, so in that sense I suppose so, but I wouldn't say adding an eSATA drive produces an unstable system. What's more, the loss of an external drive does not turn the TiVo into a brick, but the loss of an internal drive does. Either situation can be easily remedied, however, in the case of an internal drive failure especially if the original hard drive is sitting safe on a shelf. A failed external drive can be fixed merely by unplugging the drive and rebooting the TiVo. Of course, no matter what, you're going to lose recordings if a hard drive fails.


----------



## lrhorer

greg_burns said:


> You can't swap drives between a TivoHD and a S3 w/o reimaging the drive. The two are not interchangeable, even after a Clear & Delete Everything AFAIK.


You are correct - absolutely not. They run entirely different software. The file systems are different, the TiVo base application is different, the hardware drivers are different, and even the kernel is different. The TiVo would croak completely shortly after it begins booting. One can't even move a drive set between S3 class machines of the same type unless they don't have CableCards installed.


----------



## lrhorer

I've done too many upgrades to post details here, and I won't bother with the retired TiVos, but I currently have in operation:

Series I DirecTiVo w/ 160G Seagate EIDE drive
TiVo HD w/ 500G WD SATA drive in an Antec MX-1 enclosure (no internal drive)
S3 TiVo w/ Stock 250G drive + Seagate Barracuda SATA drive in an Antec MX-1 enclosure
Weaknees 1 TB S3 TiVo + Hitachi Deskstar 1T SATA drive in an Antec MX-1 enclosure


----------



## Poochie

flar said:


> I bought the drive from Buy.com (even lower price than thenerds.net a few days ago), it was shipped in a cardboard cradle to keep it away from the sides of the box by about 3/4 inch on all sides and about 3 or 4 inches of paper filler padding on top. The drive passed extended WD diagnostics and a full "write zero" test before upgrade.


I just ordered the same drive (WD10EVCS) from buy.com to do an internal upgrade of my S3. Quick question... how did you run the extended WD diagnostics and full "write zero" test? Does the drive ship with a utilities CD that runs under Windows XP? Or did you have to find those utilities online? I see "Data Lifeguard Tools 11.2 For Windows" and "Data Lifeguard Diagnostic For Windows" on WD's support pages so I can poke around in there once the drive arrives, but figured I'd ask for a first-hand account. Thanks!

(Last time I did internal drive upgrades was for my dual-drive Series 1... in 2001 IIRC, or was it 2000? Whenever 9thtee just started stocking 80gb, ah the memories)


----------



## MisterUCLA

Yeah,

I planned on keeping the recordings on both, so each upgrade will be made from the existing drives.

500GB transferred to the TB drive and expanded.
250GB transferred to the 500GB drive and expanded.

No cross TiVo pollination.

My question is about expanding the TB drive which has already been expanded once.

I did decide to get the WD10EVCS from buy.com.



greg_burns said:


> I believe he meant (I hope) that he was planning to keep the recordings on the same TivoHD and just upgrade the drive to a larger capacity using WinMFS.
> 
> You can't swap drives between a TivoHD and a S3 w/o reimaging the drive. The two are not interchangeable, even after a Clear & Delete Everything AFAIK.


----------



## richsadams

lrhorer said:


> If either have problems, then the TiVo begins barfing soon after the upgrade.


 Would you guys please stop with all of the techno-speak!


----------



## lrhorer

richsadams said:


> Would you guys please stop with all of the techno-speak!


I guess you're right. I should not have employed such a polysyllabic technological appellation when a significantly more diminutive pedestrian expression would have sufficiently conveyed an acceptably referential cognitive discourse to the subscribers of this medium. 'My bad.


----------



## richsadams

lrhorer said:


> I guess you're right. I should not have employed such a polysyllabic technological appellation when a significantly more diminutive pedestrian expression would have sufficiently conveyed an acceptably referential cognitive discourse to the subscribers of this medium. 'My bad.


----------



## flar

Poochie said:


> I just ordered the same drive (WD10EVCS) from buy.com to do an internal upgrade of my S3. Quick question... how did you run the extended WD diagnostics and full "write zero" test? Does the drive ship with a utilities CD that runs under Windows XP? Or did you have to find those utilities online? I see "Data Lifeguard Tools 11.2 For Windows" and "Data Lifeguard Diagnostic For Windows" on WD's support pages so I can poke around in there once the drive arrives, but figured I'd ask for a first-hand account. Thanks!
> 
> (Last time I did internal drive upgrades was for my dual-drive Series 1... in 2001 IIRC, or was it 2000? Whenever 9thtee just started stocking 80gb, ah the memories)


I downloaded the WD utilities from their web site. The drive came bare shrink-wrapped into a cardboard cocoon to keep it away from the sides of the shipping box - no CD, no cables, no mounting screws.

Just go to www.wdc.com, click on Support->downloads, select your product (SATA drive, then WD AV-GP in the case of the WD10EVCS), then download the Lifeguard tools and also the diagnostics. I think the full read test and the full write 0s test were in the diagnostics program...


----------



## Poochie

Jim, thanks for the reply... it couldn't have been more timely. My WD10EVCS (-63E0B0 born on May 28 2008) just arrived this afternoon in its shrink-wrap cocoon, less than 24 hours after I ordered it, yay! Since I'm going to want to time the actual drive swap to a time when the Tivo's not recording something I really care about, hopefully I can find a simple way to get a SATA connector (PCI card) on my PC and test the drive out ahead of this. Thanks!


----------



## asooley

jrod9707 said:


> I do appreciate your guys input, I know a lot of people ask what about this drive or another and it can get kind of annoying, so I do appreciate your input! I really only want to spend around $120 or less. Main thing being that the current 160 isn't much at all with HD and 1gig's run around 2 bills and I'm not that dedicated to spend that much but 750 gigs seems to be in the target range I'm looking for but I cant find any info for what drive would be the best buy? And WD doesnt make a green drive for 750. So any input for a 750 drive would be great or even the 640 drive would work but since there's no data on how good that will perform, I dont want to risk having to try it and find out its not good and deal with newegg for a refund. Any suggestions would be much appreciated.


jrod9707, if you're looking to spend around $120 you can get the Seagate 750GB DB35 at www.pcconnection.com for around $125....not a bad deal at all as the DB35 are your most recommended drives built for DVR's.


----------



## jlib

.


----------



## lrhorer

lrhorer said:


> I guess you're right. I should not have employed such a polysyllabic technological appellation when a significantly more diminutive pedestrian expression would have sufficiently conveyed an acceptably referential cognitive discourse to the subscribers of this medium. 'My bad.





richsadams said:


>


Wait. Let me rephrase that...


----------



## TaquacheDawg

I had already upgraded from Original to 500GB, then wanted to upgrade again to 1TB. Here are my notes:

Org HD: 20 hrs HD, 180 hrs standard: box says
1st HD: 65 hrs HD, Maxtor DiamondMax21 500GB Sata STM3500630AS
this drive was noisy, used for over 6 months
2nd HD: 144 hrs HD, 1367 hrs standard: WD Caviar GP (green) 1 TB Sata, WD 10000CSRTL, 300 gb/s, 7200 rpm
this drive is much queter

How I upgraded to 1TB:
- 09/01/2008 10:32 PM 167,206 winmfs_beta9_2.zip
- same instructions as before, except I think "stumbled" into my own
- connect 500GB and 1TB to PC, backup tivo (which is just OS and config)
- MFScopy (includes all data) 500 -> 1TB, left it running, my guess is 2+ hours
- it automatically did the MFSadd, and I issued the SuperSize ON
- put 1TB in Tivo, it did come up and ran about 1 hour, then is crashed
- Green Scrn about dB "out of sync", and would reboot over and over... but would never do the work
- put 1TB back in PC, and did a recover (from just latest backup image), thinking it was the best next step, this takes 2 minutes or so
(it also did the Auto MFSAdd and I did the SuperSize)
- now back into Tivo, booted just fine, and the data (from the prior copy) was still there! but when I went to play and
old stored prgm, it rebooted and did the Green Screen, but this time... it actually was doing the db cleanup, it took
sometime, maybe 1hour
- and now things are good, been over a day. I can see old prgms and new recordings, and all "To Do" is present


----------



## dwit

TaquacheDawg said:


> I had already upgraded from Original to 500GB, then wanted to upgrade again to 1TB. Here are my notes:
> 
> Org HD: 20 hrs HD, 180 hrs standard: box says
> 1st HD: 65 hrs HD, Maxtor DiamondMax21 500GB Sata STM3500630AS
> this drive was noisy, used for over 6 months
> 2nd HD: 144 hrs HD, 1367 hrs standard: WD Caviar GP (green) 1 TB Sata, WD 10000CSRTL, 300 gb/s, 7200 rpm
> this drive is much queter
> 
> How I upgraded to 1TB:
> - 09/01/2008 10:32 PM 167,206 winmfs_beta9_2.zip
> - same instructions as before, except I think "stumbled" into my own
> - connect 500GB and 1TB to PC, backup tivo (which is just OS and config)
> - MFScopy (includes all data) 500 -> 1TB, left it running, my guess is 2+ hours
> - it automatically did the MFSadd, and I issued the SuperSize ON
> - put 1TB in Tivo, it did come up and ran about 1 hour, then is crashed
> - Green Scrn about dB "out of sync", and would reboot over and over... but would never do the work
> - put 1TB back in PC, and did a recover (from just latest backup image), thinking it was the best next step, this takes 2 minutes or so
> (it also did the Auto MFSAdd and I did the SuperSize)
> - now back into Tivo, booted just fine, and the data (from the prior copy) was still there! but when I went to play and
> old stored prgm, it rebooted and did the Green Screen, but this time... it actually was doing the db cleanup, it took
> sometime, maybe 1hour
> - and now things are good, been over a day. I can see old prgms and new recordings, and all "To Do" is present


Have you actually played any of the programs that were "copied" over from the old drive?


----------



## richsadams

TaquacheDawg said:


> I had already upgraded from Original to 500GB, then wanted to upgrade again to 1TB. Here are my notes: <snip>


Nice. Welcome to the forum and thanks for the post! :up: It sounds like you've played both new and old recordings, but can you confirm that everything is still working? TIA.


----------



## FullThrottleDave

Upgraded Last weekend

1. Model - Samsung Spinpoint
2. Size - 750GB
3. HD - 107 /SD - 1018 
4. Acoustic mods? - No
5. THD
6. Can't hear it. WINMFS worked great this time. I had tried it with an older version and it didn't work right, so I put the original back in and tested the drives. Everything was okay, so tried it again after downloading the latest version and it worked like a charm...

Tested existing recordings, made new ones, everything working fine..


----------



## Poochie

Upgraded last evening. Not counting getting my PC prepared (SATA PCI card, drivers, downloading WinMFS and various WD utilities) or pre-testing the new drive, the process took less than three hours from powering down the TiVo through powering it back up with the new drive. MfsCopy also conveniently ended a few minutes after we were done with dinner.

1. WD10EVCS
2. 1TB
3. 144 HD / 1367 SD (MfsSuperSize ON)
4. No acoustic mods to new drive
5. S3
6. Process was pretty straightforward. WinMFS worked first time, no problems there. I also used this as an opportunity to blow a fair bit of dust out of the tivo's innards. New drive seems quiet.

Existing recordings transferred over just fine, CableCard access continues to work fine (as expected), so far so good.


----------



## TaquacheDawg

Questions above for TaquacheDawg, answering now.

Have you seen new and old programs which were copied from the funny "complete backup, then restore" method:
- Yes! I've looked at old recordings, and new programs which have since been recorded. Both HD and SD.

Is everything working fine? 
- been about almost a week, going fine!
- I have moved priority of season passes and have added new season passes. 
- And, as mentioned above, have watched old and new recordings. 

I have to conclude that things are going well. For me, I'd rather have 1 HD, and not have to worry about an external making noise/heat and possible being disconnected/powering off. Just one disk, but a large one, thus the 1TB (from Fry's Electronics for about $160). With one TB I can keep old stuff around and still have lots of season passes recording lots of stuff, and everything in HD (just my preference).

When I feel this isn't enough space (in 6 months or a year), then I'm sure $150 will get 1.5 or 2 TB, hopfully. My old HD, in this case the 500 GB, will go into my PC for DVD rip storage. I have 5 HD in my box at the moment.


----------



## richsadams

TaquacheDawg said:


> Questions above for TaquacheDawg, answering now. <snip>


Thanks for the update and excellent to hear that all is well. Enjoy! :up:


----------



## ManateeMan

1. WD10EACS
2. 1TB
3. 144 / 1367 SD (MfsSuperSize ON)
4. No acoustic changes - I can't hear the drive
5. Tivo HD
6. WinMFS was easy with instructions on this site. Drive has been in the Tivo HD for about 40 hours.

I had 2 issues that I had to overcome to get this to work. The first was that my 4+ year old PC motherboard supported SATA drives but did recognize the WD10EACS probably due to its large size. The manufacturer has not released an update to the motherboard BIOS for nearly four years so I found a homegrown version that included a newer SATA BIOS. Once updated the computer could see the WD10EACS.

The second issue was that the OEM drive had a lot of bad sectors. WinMFS must not have detected/reported this because I ended up trying the drive in the Tivo several times after running WinMFS each time but the Tivo would not fully boot up. I finally put the drive back in the PC, downloaded Western Digital's diagnostic tools and ran it against the drive. It almost immediately reported "too many bad sectors" so I knew I had to return the drive. One possible explanation for the bad sectors was the OEM drive was delivered in a small cardboard box filled with styrofoam peanuts with the hard drive wrapped in bubble wrap. The second drive was sent the same way but this time I checked the drive first and it had no bad sectors. After that the process was a breeze.

Since I already had the two week old archive of the Tivo HD I did not create another one when the second drive arrived. The interesting thing was that the movies I had selected to be recorded since the archive were reloaded when it connected to Tivo for schedule information implying that a record of all future recording selections is kept on Tivo servers not just Season Passes.


----------



## bweeston

I have two new 1TB drives coming on Monday to replace my existing 160G drives in two TivoHD's.

I thought I'd do a practice run of at least backing up the original HD.

When I run WinMFS and select the connected Tivo drive, WinMFS comes up with:

Error Number 9
Error Message: Warning
Your A Drive is married to B Drive but only A Drive is selected.

When I click "OK" and then "File\Backup", after I select the file location to save the backup and click on "Start", it shows "Processing ..." and a line further down says "Last error - Non-standard partition map found - backup failed".

Windows XP recognized the drive through plug & play and tells me my new hardware is ready to use.

WinMFS recognizes the drive as a Tivo series 2 or 3.

Both of my TivoHDs have the WD My DVR Expander 500g drives connected to them. All I did for this one was power down the TivoHD and remove the original drive. I did not see any instructions for upgrading the TivoHD drive that suggested I needed to "divorce" the TivoHD from My DVR to be able to back it up.

So, is there an addtional step the requires "divorcing" an esata drive from the TivoHD before you can backup the TivoHD original drive? Or am I the first to try and backup a TivoHD original drive that had been married to an esata drive?

Some additional observations: all four screws connecting the hard drive to the mounting bracket are NOT the same size. I had to use the next size smaller Torx screwdriver for the two screws closest to the sata and power connectors on the hard drive.

Ben.


----------



## bweeston

After two hours of reading the first 13 pages of the esata FAQ sticky, I found my answer (I think). I have to "divorce" my esata from my TivoHD and then I can backup or mfscopy the original TivoHD hard drive to a new upgraded hard drive. Of course that would be the time to remarry the upgraded internal TivoHD drive with my esata. I assume the errors I saw before will not be there once I've complete the required divorcing of the esata.


----------



## flar

ManateeMan said:


> The second issue was that the OEM drive had a lot of bad sectors. WinMFS must not have detected/reported this because I ended up trying the drive in the Tivo several times after running WinMFS each time but the Tivo would not fully boot up. I finally put the drive back in the PC, downloaded Western Digital's diagnostic tools and ran it against the drive. It almost immediately reported "too many bad sectors" so I knew I had to return the drive. One possible explanation for the bad sectors was the OEM drive was delivered in a small cardboard box filled with styrofoam peanuts with the hard drive wrapped in bubble wrap. The second drive was sent the same way but this time I checked the drive first and it had no bad sectors. After that the process was a breeze.


Hi ManateeMan, sounds like a nightmare - good thing you caught it in time. You might want to say where you bought the drive so that others can be forewarned. In particular, check out this link about similar packing practices causing problems at newegg. (Disclaimer - I've ordered lots of stuff other than OEM hard drives from them and I've always been happy, but I would take these reports to heart if I ever ordered a drive there.)

I had good experiences with the shipping I got from buy.com and I also ran the diagnostics on the drive when I got it to make sure just in case.


----------



## szatkoff

1. WD10EACS
2. 1TB
3. 144 / 1367 SD (MfsSuperSize ON)
4. No acoustic changes
5. Tivo HD

It's been about 48 hours since the upgrade and all seems to be working. My Tivo seems to respond slower when going through menus, etc.

Anyone else experience this after an upgrade?


----------



## ilh

My first WD10EACS from Buy.com (the Cavalry bundle) failed WD diagnostics. This was back in April/May. I did an advance ship RMA through WD and had a replacement within two days and that tested and worked fine. It has been fine in my TiVo HD since then.

Replacing through WD was much faster and less painful than dealing with Buy.com, which I have no doubt would have taken a few weeks at minimum. If I recall, the packaging was OK from Buy.com, but it was better from WD.

I just bought a second WD10EACS from ZipZoomFly ($136 shipped!) for my PC and it tested out fine. The packaging was good on this OEM drive.


----------



## guarh

1. WD10EACS Green 5400rpm
2. 1TB
3. 131 HD 
4. No acoustic mods
5. THD
6. Did the upgrade through WinMfs, said yes when asked about to expand the drive, but still got 131hrs. I then clicked on the Supersize->ON option but I guess that didn't change anything.

Should I have turned supersize on even before starting the copy process in order to get 144hrs?
Also, drive is making slight clicking noises when it's under heavy load (recording two hd shows, or watching hd show that's currently being recorded) not very loud but noticeable.
Anyone else having similar experience with this drive? It seems to be popular upgrade choice. One thing i noticed during the image copying is that the original drive got a lot hotter than the new WD, so the 5400rpm spindle speed must be contributing a lot for the low temps.


----------



## stream

guarh said:


> 1. WD10EACS Green 5400rpm
> 2. 1TB
> 3. 131 HD
> 4. No acoustic mods
> 5. THD
> 6. Did the upgrade through WinMfs, said yes when asked about to expand the drive, but still got 131hrs. I then clicked on the Supersize->ON option but I guess that didn't change anything.
> 
> Should I have turned supersize on even before starting the copy process in order to get 144hrs?
> Also, drive is making slight clicking noises when it's under heavy load (recording two hd shows, or watching hd show that's currently being recorded) not very loud but noticeable.
> Anyone else having similar experience with this drive? It seems to be popular upgrade choice. One thing i noticed during the image copying is that the original drive got a lot hotter than the new WD, so the 5400rpm spindle speed must be contributing a lot for the low temps.


That's how I did it and I got 144 HD hours from my WD10EVCS. You turn on supersize first. The dialog box about expanding refers to the size of the new drive being larger than the original drive.


----------



## dwit

guarh said:


> 1. WD10EACS Green 5400rpm
> 2. 1TB
> 3. 131 HD
> 4. No acoustic mods
> 5. THD
> 6. Did the upgrade through WinMfs, said yes when asked about to expand the drive, but still got 131hrs. I then clicked on the Supersize->ON option but I guess that didn't change anything.
> 
> Should I have turned supersize on even before starting the copy process in order to get 144hrs?
> Also, drive is making slight clicking noises when it's under heavy load (recording two hd shows, or watching hd show that's currently being recorded) not very loud but noticeable.
> Anyone else having similar experience with this drive? It seems to be popular upgrade choice. One thing i noticed during the image copying is that the original drive got a lot hotter than the new WD, so the 5400rpm spindle speed must be contributing a lot for the low temps.


I'm guessing you simply did not do the supersize step completely, or the step just did not take at the time, for some reason.

You probably just need to reconnect the drive to your pc, and repeat only the supersize step. Iirc, when you turn supersize "ON", you will immediately get a "pop up" confirmation that supersize is on.

Also, iirc, you can also click on tools>mfsinfo to confirm the max 1368hr sd/144hd capacity.


----------



## guarh

dwit said:


> I'm guessing you simply did not do the supersize step completely, or the step just did not take at the time, for some reason.
> 
> You probably just need to reconnect the drive to your pc, and repeat only the supersize step. Iirc, when you turn supersize "ON", you will immediately get a "pop up" confirmation that supersize is on.
> 
> Also, iirc, you can also click on tools>mfsinfo to confirm the max 1368hr sd/144hd capacity.


I will try that, hope it works. Hate to delete the shows I now have on the 1TB drive to do it all over again.


----------



## ilh

I don't think you'll need to delete shows. I think turning supersize on is an instant operation that doesn't require reimaging.

--Lee


----------



## guarh

Yes, I meant I would hate to delete them if that didn't work. There's always the option of copying to the pc but that's soooo slow.
They definitely need to put a gigabit lan on nextgen Tivo, or at least pump the hardware enough to fill up 100mbit.


----------



## flar

guarh said:


> Should I have turned supersize on even before starting the copy process in order to get 144hrs?


It's been a little while since I did mine, but I know I did mine after the copy.

I think you need to re-specify the TiVo drive to do it, though. If you forgot then maybe you supersized the old drive after the copy rather than the new drive?


----------



## ManateeMan

flar said:


> Hi ManateeMan, sounds like a nightmare - good thing you caught it in time. You might want to say where you bought the drive so that others can be forewarned. In particular, check out this link about similar packing practices causing problems at newegg. (Disclaimer - I've ordered lots of stuff other than OEM hard drives from them and I've always been happy, but I would take these reports to heart if I ever ordered a drive there.)


flar,
The drives were from NewEgg. I also have had good luck with NewEgg in the past. Even though I knew from reading reviews that there was a good chance of getting a bad drive I should have checked the drive first. The good news is the price dropped $10 before the second drive arrived and they credited my account.


----------



## ourtivo

*Anyone know the size of swap space and minimum allocation size for the new TivoHD XL 1TB drive?*

I am upgrading my TivoHD to the WD10EACS 1TB drive. *Any recommendations for setting swap size and min allocation size?*

I've seen 500MB swap recommendation on this thread, but that's it. I've read through all the documentation and FAQ on MFSLive, but nothing conclusive.

I don't have a Windows machine for WinMFS, so will be using the Linux MFSLive version to perform the upgrade. I am not sure if there's an optimal setting for swap and for the minimum allocation size.


----------



## jlib

ourtivo said:


> ...I am not sure if there's an optimal setting for swap and for the minimum allocation size.


There is no longer a need for the inefficient -r4 parameter if that is what you mean by allocation size. Just accept the default. I don't have any opinion on the swap space except to say I have never had a problem with the default.


----------



## Jonathan_S

Just upgraded my new TiVo HD with a Seagate 1.5 tb disk. Piece of cake, the hardest bit was finding enough sata power adaptors to get all the drives hooked up at once.

Winmfs->mfscopy (default settings) + a couple hours of doing something else = 218 hours of HD capacity. :up:


----------



## mattack

I upgraded my S3 with a Seagate 1 TB drive (orig drive has been starting to fail lately -- mostly it worked, but often when ENDING a recording, it would hang and eventually reboot)..

Since I'm recording almost all *analog* cable, it's going to have a TON of space (until I get a good antenna and record more OTA digital).


----------



## dwit

Jonathan_S said:


> Just upgraded my new TiVo HD with a Seagate 1.5 tb disk. Piece of cake, the hardest bit was finding enough sata power adaptors to get all the drives hooked up at once.
> 
> Winmfs->mfscopy (default settings) + a couple hours of doing something else = 214 hours of HD capacity. :up:


Well, congratulations. Wish I had the same luck. My 1.5TB drive arrived earlier today, but my attempt at expansion was not successful. Maybe it was because I was restoring from a truncated back up image that was too old. Maybe your copying over the newer OS made a difference. Oh well. As I was just attempting the expansion as a test out of curiosity, I have now installed the drive in my pc, the real intended destination.

Looks like you are the first to report success at this.


----------



## sbourgeo

Jonathan_S said:


> Just upgraded my new TiVo HD with a Seagate 1.5 tb disk. Piece of cake, the hardest bit was finding enough sata power adaptors to get all the drives hooked up at once.
> 
> Winmfs->mfscopy (default settings) + a couple hours of doing something else = 214 hours of HD capacity. :up:


Looks like I may have to get one for my TiVo HD. :up:


----------



## Jonathan_S

dwit said:


> Well, congratulations. Wish I had the same luck. My 1.5TB drive arrived earlier today, but my attempt at expansion was not successful. Maybe it was because I was restoring from a truncated back up image that was too old. Maybe your copying over the newer OS made a difference. Oh well. As I was just attempting the expansion as a test out of curiosity, I have now installed the drive in my pc, the real intended destination.
> 
> Looks like you are the first to report success at this.


My success report may have been premature. 
As I [post=6705592]posted[/post] in the 'Seagate 1.5TB drives now available' thread none of my shows recorded last night, and when I tried restarting the TiVo it went into a reboot loop.

*Update:* The issues with the 1.5tb don't appear to be fixable (If you're interested, see the [thread=405303]Seagate 1.5TB drives now available[/thread] thread for details.)


----------



## kamban

I have a Series-2 DT 80 hour that I got to record 2 international channels on the Dish network, since the THD does not do satellite. As I understand, it has PATA hard drive. Is it a 80 GB drive? Initially I wished to wait for some time to see how the recordings go before upgrading the hard drive.

But I seem to have hit a slight road block. PATA drives are on the way out and they are difficult to find. A 500 GB IDE can buy you a 750 GB SATA and the 750 GB IDE can easily get you 1TB SATA plus some change. I feel that I need to do the upgrade soon before it becomes more expensive.

I was researching the Seagate DB 35.3 options and the 500 GB ST3500830ACE is not available currently. A couple of places carry the 500 GB ST3500830SCE. Is there any difference between the ACE and SCE versions? Which one is recommended?

Are there similar one from Western Digital that are in the $80-90 range. Which places are the ones I should be looking for to get the drives?

Thanks for all the help.


----------



## DallasFlier

guarh said:


> 1. WD10EACS Green 5400rpm
> 2. 1TB
> 3. 131 HD
> 4. No acoustic mods
> 5. THD
> 6. Did the upgrade through WinMfs, said yes when asked about to expand the drive, but still got 131hrs. I then clicked on the Supersize->ON option but I guess that didn't change anything.
> 
> Should I have turned supersize on even before starting the copy process in order to get 144hrs?


I just upgraded my drive today, and ran into the same issue. I bet you did the same thing I did - I followed the instructions EXACTLY from the sticky post in this forum. There's a step missing. After you say "yes" to expand, you have to go back and select the destination drive (the source is selected at this point) before doing the "Supersize --> ON" option. This isn't mentioned in the instructions, but following the instructions exactly results in Supersizing the source drive, not the destination drive!

Fortunately, I was able to reconnect the drive to the computer without removing it again from the TiVo, did that, selected it, did the Supersize --> ON and all is well, 144 hours.

I posted in the sticky thread, suggesting that someone update the instructions.


----------



## jlib

Nice find. I've always wondered about that peculiarity. Mystery solved!


----------



## guarh

DallasFlier said:


> I just upgraded my drive today, and ran into the same issue. I bet you did the same thing I did - I followed the instructions EXACTLY from the sticky post in this forum. There's a step missing. After you say "yes" to expand, you have to go back and select the destination drive (the source is selected at this point) before doing the "Supersize --> ON" option. This isn't mentioned in the instructions, but following the instructions exactly results in Supersizing the source drive, not the destination drive!
> 
> Fortunately, I was able to reconnect the drive to the computer without removing it again from the TiVo, did that, selected it, did the Supersize --> ON and all is well, 144 hours.
> 
> I posted in the sticky thread, suggesting that someone update the instructions.


I reconnected the drive back to the pc and set supersize again, and this time it worked, 144 hrs. So, I either didn't specify which drive I want to apply supersize on, or the setting didn't take affect.

If you have the same drive, are you hearing slight clicking noises when recording/watching two shows, I noticed that it stops if tune one of the tuners to a channel that I don't receive, must be decreasing the load on the drive.... I may have to look into some of the acoustic tools

Does anyone know if WD10EACS comes with acoustics preset for silent operation or not?


----------



## richsadams

guarh said:


> I reconnected the drive back to the pc and set supersize again, and this time it worked, 144 hrs. So, I either didn't specify which drive I want to apply supersize on, or the setting didn't take affect.
> 
> If you have the same drive, are you hearing slight clicking noises when recording/watching two shows, I noticed that it stops if tune one of the tuners to a channel that I don't receive, must be decreasing the load on the drive.... I may have to look into some of the acoustic tools
> 
> Does anyone know if WD10EACS comes with acoustics preset for silent operation or not?


Glad to hear things are working out now. Since TiVo records/buffers programming on both tuners 24/7 it's normal to hear some seek/read noise (clicking) as the heads move. Of course tuning it to a channel that doesn't have a signal will decrease the data writing demand on the drive, so less noise.

IIRC the acoustics for the WD10EACS are set at 256 from the factory. I set the AAM on ours to 128 (using the Hitachi Feature Tool) but quite honestly it was very quiet right out of the box. If yours is in a sensitive situation (bedroom, etc.) you can lower the acoustic setting but if it's like ours, you probably won't notice much difference...there will always be some noise; more for high data recording requirements such as HD programming.

Isolating TiVo from it's shelving using a matt (mouse pad material works) or rubberized "feet" might help but there will naturally be some noise.


----------



## guarh

richsadams said:


> Glad to hear things are working out now. Since TiVo records/buffers programming on both tuners 24/7 it's normal to hear some seek/read noise (clicking) as the heads move. Of course tuning it to a channel that doesn't have a signal will decrease the data writing demand on the drive, so less noise.
> 
> IIRC the acoustics for the WD10EACS are set at 256 from the factory. I set the AAM on ours to 128 (using the Hitachi Feature Tool) but quite honestly it was very quiet right out of the box. If yours is in a sensitive situation (bedroom, etc.) you can lower the acoustic setting but if it's like ours, you probably won't notice much difference...there will always be some noise; more for high data recording requirements such as HD programming.
> 
> Isolating TiVo from it's shelving using a matt (mouse pad material works) or rubberized "feet" might help but there will naturally be some noise.


True, the noise seems to correlate to the load of the drive and it's the worst when two HD shows are recording at the same time and I am watching from the buffer. I'll try setting AAM to 128 and will see hot it goes.
As far as isolating the Tivo, if I remember correctly it had rubber feet underneath. I also noticed the rubber/plastic washers on the bolts holding the drive itself to the mounting metal base which should decrease vibration.

Btw my desktop 250G seagate drive showed it's worst noise level when I unintentionally set a job in Ripbot264(x264 encoder) which started "indexing and demuxing audio" on a DVD file, while moving another video file to another drive.


----------



## jlib

guarh said:


> True, the noise seems to correlate to the load of the drive and it's the worst when two HD shows are recording at the same time and I am watching from the buffer. I'll try setting AAM to 128 and will see how it goes.


When using the Hitachi Feature Tool you can test the loudness of the seeks after modifying the AAM settings. Even with a naturally quiet drive like the WD10EACS the difference is significant to my ears.


----------



## EvilMidniteBombr

> 1. Hard Drive Model
> 2. Drive Size
> 3. Post Upgrade HD/SD hours listed
> 4. Did you do any acoustic modifications?
> 5. S3 or THD
> 6. Any Comments? How does it sound? Any problems?


1. Seagate Barracuda ST3500630AS
2. 500GB
3. 70HD 663SD (I get all my HD/Digital OTA. This should be enough for now...)
4. No (see below)
5. TiVoHD
6. I did a complete copy. Things went pretty smooth. Total copy time was about 2 1/2 hours. My original drive was about 3/4 full, maybe. This drive is a little noisier than the original drive. Mostly just clicking. Still not enough to be distracting while watching TV unless it's a really quiet scene.

I didn't run any acoustic tools on it. Mostly because I didn't know where to get them. That combined with trying to get my TiVo up and running before the football game came on.  I've seen the Hitachi sound tool mentioned. Does it work on all drives or Hitachi only? Will it work if I run it after the drive was installed and used or does it have to be done on a clean drive?


----------



## richsadams

EvilMidniteBombr said:


> 1. Seagate Barracuda ST3500630AS
> 2. 500GB
> 3. 70HD 663SD (I get all my HD/Digital OTA. This should be enough for now...)
> 4. No (see below)
> 5. TiVoHD
> 6. I did a complete copy. Things went pretty smooth. Total copy time was about 2 1/2 hours. My original drive was about 3/4 full, maybe. This drive is a little noisier than the original drive. Mostly just clicking. Still not enough to be distracting while watching TV unless it's a really quiet scene.
> 
> I didn't run any acoustic tools on it. Mostly because I didn't know where to get them. That combined with trying to get my TiVo up and running before the football game came on.  I've seen the Hitachi sound tool mentioned. Does it work on all drives or Hitachi only? Will it work if I run it after the drive was installed and used or does it have to be done on a clean drive?


Congrats! The Hitachi Feature tool can be used to adjust the AAM on almost any drive except Seagate. Seagate drive acoustics cannot be changed so you didn't miss anything. For other drives the HFT can be used at any time without impacting the data on the drive.

Enjoy!


----------



## bburtin

EvilMidniteBombr said:


> 1. Seagate Barracuda ST3500630AS
> 2. 500GB
> ...
> This drive is a little noisier than the original drive. Mostly just clicking.


I'm in the same boat. Upgraded to an ST3500830SCE 500GB DB35.3 drive a couple of weeks ago. It's not just a little noisier. It's a lot noisier. I can hear the thing seeking from 10 feet away when the TV is off. To make matters worse, the drive doesn't support acoustic management.

The 160GB WD drive that I pulled out of my TiVo HD was completely silent in comparison. Is anyone using a different 500GB drive that is as quiet as the original drive?


----------



## richsadams

bburtin said:


> I'm in the same boat. Upgraded to an ST3500830SCE 500GB DB35.3 drive a couple of weeks ago. It's not just a little noisier. It's a lot noisier. I can hear the thing seeking from 10 feet away when the TV is off. To make matters worse, the drive doesn't support acoustic management.


That's interesting. The DB35 drive series is DVR-specific and specially tuned to run as quietly as possible. They have one of the lowest acoustical sound ratings of any drive on the market. (<2.6 bels as opposed to about 4.0 for a standard drive IIRC.) I had a Seagate DB35 series as an eSATA drive for our S3 before upgrading the internal drive and it was whisper quiet. I moved it to one of my PC's and I have to look at the drive's activity light to see if it's working.

If it's a DB35 it (pardon the pun) sounds like it's not performing properly and you may be due a replacement.


----------



## chip_r

bburtin said:


> I'm in the same boat. Upgraded to an ST3500830SCE 500GB DB35.3 drive a couple of weeks ago. It's not just a little noisier. It's a lot noisier. I can hear the thing seeking from 10 feet away when the TV is off. To make matters worse, the drive doesn't support acoustic management.
> 
> The 160GB WD drive that I pulled out of my TiVo HD was completely silent in comparison. Is anyone using a different 500GB drive that is as quiet as the original drive?


In the spring I replaced the Maxtor QuickView OEM drives in both of my Tivo Series 2 boxes with the ST3500830ACE 500GB (IDE version of your drive). Both were as quiet as the original drives but two months ago one drive started with a loud high pitched whine. Worked fine but just noisy. I pulled the drive and noticed it rattled when handled. Not good.

RMA process was easy with Seagate as they referenced the S/N to the manufacturing date and saw that it was within it's 5yr warranty. $10 of shipping and 10 days later I had a replacement (quiet) drive. Also you might be within your return period of the ST3500830SCE upgrade if that's a option.


----------



## bburtin

Interesting. Never occurred to me that I just got a bad unit. I'll see if Seagate is willing to replace the drive. Thanks guys!


----------



## loowee2

bkdtv said:


> They don't use DB35s. If you want to do the upgrade yourself using 500Gb Seagate DB35 ($150) or 500Gb Samsung HD501LJ ($120), here are instructions:


I tried following these instructions. I was able to create a backup for the old 160GB hard drive, but when I connected the new 1TB hard drive and used the restore option. It would give me an error saying error at media inode 1. What am I doing wrong?


----------



## EvilMidniteBombr

richsadams said:


> Congrats! The Hitachi Feature tool can be used to adjust the AAM on almost any drive except Seagate. Seagate drive acoustics cannot be changed so you didn't miss anything. For other drives the HFT can be used at any time without impacting the data on the drive.
> 
> Enjoy!


Thanks! I've done a few computer upgrades over the years. Swapping HD's, adding/removing cards, adding memory, etc. But this was the first time I've tinkered inside a TiVo. I'll have to say I was a bit nervous. Especially after trying to supersize the new drive several times before the copy. Each time it caused WinMFS to crash. Not a good sign. I went ahead with the copy and hoped for the best.

AFAIK, everything copied just fine. It even copied the deleted items folder. Which was kind of a bummer. I deleted a bunch of shows that were kids shows and filler shows in hopes to reduce the copy time. Maybe I should have emptied the Deleted Items folder before the copy.

After the copy was complete. I shut down the computer. Disconnected the 160G drive and rebooted. Ran the supersize and got confirmation that it worked.

By the time all of that was done I had to hurry. I had about 15 minutes before game time and still hadn't removed the old drive from it's mounting bracket! Made it with plenty of time before kick-off.

Forgot to say that it figures that I would buy the one brand that the Hitachi tool won't work on.


----------



## EvilMidniteBombr

bburtin said:


> I'm in the same boat. Upgraded to an ST3500830SCE 500GB DB35.3 drive a couple of weeks ago. It's not just a little noisier. It's a lot noisier. I can hear the thing seeking from 10 feet away when the TV is off. To make matters worse, the drive doesn't support acoustic management.
> 
> The 160GB WD drive that I pulled out of my TiVo HD was completely silent in comparison. Is anyone using a different 500GB drive that is as quiet as the original drive?


I agree. After using this drive for a full day now, it is quite a bit louder than the stock drive. Even so, it's still not enough to really bother me. I'll probably get used to it before too long.


----------



## richsadams

EvilMidniteBombr said:


> I agree. After using this drive for a full day now, it is quite a bit louder than the stock drive. Even so, it's still not enough to really bother me. I'll probably get used to it before too long.


Congrats again on getting everything up and running. As mentioned, Seagate Barracuda drives are noisy indeed...noisier than the Seagate DB35 series. I've been a Seagate man from way back and I remember some of them sounding like thrashing machines but I've never had one fail. They've done a pretty good job quieting them down of late and the DB35 series is very quiet in my experience (as well as most others here). I think bburtin's DB35 noise level is an anomaly...probably needs replacing IMHO.

Anyway...enjoy!! :up:


----------



## richsadams

loowee2 said:


> I tried following these instructions. I was able to create a backup for the old 160GB hard drive, but when I connected the new 1TB hard drive and used the restore option. It would give me an error saying error at media inode 1. What am I doing wrong?


Welcome to the forum...although under not so fun circumstances.  That's a new one on me...never heard of such a thing. If someone else doesn't chime in I'd head over to the MFSLive forum and ask Spike (the creator of the program) about it. Very strange indeed.


----------



## DallasFlier

Posted here previously with an issue, but didn't answer the OP's survey, so here it is:

1. WD W10EVCS
2. 1 Terabyte
3. 144HD/1367SD hours
4. No acoustic adjustments, this drive is preset for quiet DVR parameters
5. S3
6. I only owned the S3 for about a week before upgrading, so not a lot of time to compare to the stock drive, but this one is extremely quiet, don't notice any noise at all, even in a quiet room. Only issue I had was with "supersize" not taking the first time, due to a glitch in the instructions, which I posted about in this thread previously and has been corrected now in the sticky thread.


----------



## jmpage2

Hey guys.

I am getting a 2nd Tivo and am trying to refresh my memory on some of this stuff. I successfully upgraded the HD on my 1st HD Tivo but am trying to remember if it's a good idea to get the cable cards paired, etc, prior to doing the drive swapout?

Additionally what are the latest versions of tools, acoustic management, etc. Are there any tools yet that run from a boot disk so I don't have to reconfigure my desktop computer to do this? I hate to ask questions that might be redundant, etc, but this thread is a monster and I've done some basic searches without getting the info I need.

Thanks.

P.S., I am installing a 500GB Samsung Spinpoint, which is the model I put in my 1st Tivo when I upgraded it.


----------



## txporter

jmpage2 said:


> Hey guys.
> 
> I am getting a 2nd Tivo and am trying to refresh my memory on some of this stuff. I successfully upgraded the HD on my 1st HD Tivo but am trying to remember if it's a good idea to get the cable cards paired, etc, prior to doing the drive swapout?
> 
> Additionally what are the latest versions of tools, acoustic management, etc. Are there any tools yet that run from a boot disk so I don't have to reconfigure my desktop computer to do this? I hate to ask questions that might be redundant, etc, but this thread is a monster and I've done some basic searches without getting the info I need.


Whether to have your CC installed before or after upgrade is really your choice. If you upgrade before, your original drive will not have the CC info on it. BUT you can simply pull the upgraded drive and perform a truncated backup on it to get a copy of the CC info.

I would recommend using WinMFS to do your drive update. Very simple. For acoustic management, you can use the Hitachi Feature tool. If you need to do a disk scan, you can use a program like Lifeguard.


----------



## jmpage2

txporter said:


> Whether to have your CC installed before or after upgrade is really your choice. If you upgrade before, your original drive will not have the CC info on it. BUT you can simply pull the upgraded drive and perform a truncated backup on it to get a copy of the CC info.
> 
> I would recommend using WinMFS to do your drive update. Very simple. For acoustic management, you can use the Hitachi Feature tool. If you need to do a disk scan, you can use a program like Lifeguard.


Thanks very much. I believe it was Winmfs that I used before, it's a great program, the only headache is that it's difficult for me to set up my SATA stuff on my Windows PC so I was curious as to whether there was a bootable application that could do the same thing. I think I might have had a few headaches on Vista with WinMFS too but I see that this is a newer version so I will give it a shot.

Also, it sounds like my best bet might be to install and configure the Tivo after the cable cards get paired and then change drives since that has the advantage of giving me a back up of the complete config in the event the new drive suffers a heart attack down the road.


----------



## txporter

You can get a SATA/IDE to USB adapter so you can just hook the HD up through a USB port.


----------



## jmpage2

txporter said:


> You can get a SATA/IDE to USB adapter so you can just hook the HD up through a USB port.


Good deal, maybe I will go that route. Do you know if my 500GB drive is already formatted and partitioned if I have to scrub it in any way before running it through winmfs?


----------



## stream

jmpage2 said:


> Good deal, maybe I will go that route. Do you know if my 500GB drive is already formatted and partitioned if I have to scrub it in any way before running it through winmfs?


No need--winmfs does it.


----------



## EvilMidniteBombr

txporter said:


> You can get a SATA/IDE to USB adapter so you can just hook the HD up through a USB port.


Since none of my PC's are SATA capable, I had to order 2 of these USB to SATA adapters to copy my HDDs. Everything went smooth for me.


----------



## jmpage2

EvilMidniteBombr said:


> Since none of my PC's are SATA capable, I had to order 2 of these USB to SATA adapters to copy my HDDs. Everything went smooth for me.


You should have been able to do it with one, if I remember correctly you can make your truncated backup, then put in the other drive, and restore/build that drive, so only one Tivo disk needs to be hooked up to the PC at any one time.


----------



## stream

jmpage2 said:


> You should have been able to do it with one, if I remember correctly you can make your truncated backup, then put in the other drive, and restore/build that drive, so only one Tivo disk needs to be hooked up to the PC at any one time.


Correct--but if you want to copy the recordings from the old to new drive, both need to be connected at the same time.


----------



## Ipaqjoe

MirclMax said:


> 1. Hard Drive Model
> 2. Drive Size
> 3. Post Upgrade HD/SD hours listed
> 4. Did you do any acoustic modifications?
> 5. S3 or THD
> 6. Any Comments? How does it sound? Any problems?


1. Hitachi Deskstar HDS721010KLA330 (Thailand - Aug 2008)
$109 (AR) from Tiger Direct (nice packaging for shipment)
2. 1 TB
3. 144/1367
4. set AAM to 128 using Hitachi Feature Tool
5. S3
6. No issues, nice and quiet. Ran full scan using Drive Fitness test prior to upgrade, WinMFS - supersize.

The only thing that surprised me was the cable card setup. I did a clear & delete everything (C&DE) on the stock drive prior to the upgrade so I would have a nice clean backup.
When I put the new 1TB drive in I thought I would just have to call the cable company and authorize the cable card again.
It would not work until I did ANOTHER C&DE on the new 1TB drive and called the cable company once again for authorization.
I have a single M card installed.


----------



## richsadams

Ipaqjoe said:


> 1. Hitachi Deskstar HDS721010KLA330 (Thailand - Aug 2008)
> $109 (AR) from Tiger Direct (nice packaging fro shipment)
> 2. 1 TB
> 3. 144/1367
> 4. set AAM to 128 using Hitachi Feature Tool
> 5. S3
> 6. No issues, nice and quiet. Ran full scan using Drive Fitness test prior to upgrade, WinMFS - supersize.
> 
> The only thing that surprised me was the cable card setup. I did a clear & delete everything (C&DE) on the stock drive prior to the upgrade so I would have a nice clean backup.
> When I put the new 1TB drive in I thought I would just have to call the cable company and authorize the cable card again.
> It would not work until I did ANOTHER C&DE on the new 1TB drive and called the cable company once again for authorization.
> I have a single M card installed.


Nice...good work! :up: Being more-or-less Linux based, everything is pretty much cleaned up whenever you shut TiVo down so there's no real need to do a clear and delete but glad to hear that it's working well. Also thanks for the data point regarding the quietness of the Hitachi Deskstar which IIRC has been notably loud (perhaps just by comparison to their Cinemastar line). Enjoy!


----------



## jmpage2

MirclMax said:


> 1. Hard Drive Model
> 2. Drive Size
> 3. Post Upgrade HD/SD hours listed
> 4. Did you do any acoustic modifications?
> 5. S3 or THD
> 6. Any Comments? How does it sound? Any problems?
> 
> Thank you to any/all who participate.
> 
> -MirclMax


1. Samsung HD501LJ Spinpoint
2. 500GB
3. 70HD
4. Yes, 128
5. THD

6: Unfortunately, while this did work I ultimately had to put the original drive back in. This particular series of Samsung Spinpoint is simply unbearably noisy, and it's doubly a problem as this particular TiVo is in a bedroom. The seek noise was keeping me awake so I had to yank it out and put the factory drive back in (which is a WD drive... quieter but still some seek noise).

If noise is the #1 concern what's the best choice currently available in a relatively inexpensive 500GB drive?

Thanks.


----------



## richsadams

If you're looking for peace and quiet in the bedroom (insert your own joke here), your best bet is either a Seagate DB35 series or Western Digital AV GP WD10EVCS  drive. Both are DVR dedicated drives and as quiet as they come. They are slightly more expensive than a standard drive however.

I've have a WD 1TB GP WD10EACS drive (not the DVR model) for about a year now and it's been flawless and whisper quiet. It will work fine in your TiVo HD (but not in a Series3 due to soft boot problems). Once you set the AAM to 128 it s/b more than acceptable...and it costs less than the WD10EVCS.


----------



## jmpage2

richsadams said:


> If you're looking for peace and quiet in the bedroom (insert your own joke here), your best bet is either a Seagate DB35 series or Western Digital AV GP drive. Both are DVR dedicated drives and as quiet as they come.


I appreciate the advice, but I'm not convinced. In the case of the DB35 drive it is mechanically identical to other series Seagate drives. The difference is that Seagate refuses to allow for acoustical management of their drives and forces you to spend more for the DB35 series when it is in fact the same disk drive as other Seagates but with different firmware.

The drive that shipped with my new Tivo HD is a WD AV GP. It's fairly quiet, but not nearly as quiet as the older series Samsung Spinpoint that is in my family room Tivo HD.

I suppose I can track down another of the older series Samsung drives as it will be cheaper than a "DVR centric" disk drive.

I was hoping though that there were some newer model consumer drives that were known to have extremely good noise performance if the acoustic management was turned on.


----------



## richsadams

Stock PC type Seagate drives typically run about 2.9 to 3.8 bels, however the Seagate DB35 7200.3 PVR/DVR series drives (which are recommended) run between 2.7 to 2.9 bels. The WD 1TB &#8220;Green&#8221; drive is between 2.5 and 2.7 and the Hitachi Cinema Star 1TB is 2.9, both with the stock AAM setting of 128. All are acoustically about the same, "whisper quiet". 

To compare:

10dBA - Normal Breathing
20dBA - Mosquito or Rustling Leaves
30dBA - A Whisper
40dBA - A Bubbling Brook, or a Refridgerator
50dBA - Normal Conversation
60dBA - Laugher
70dBA - Vaccuum Cleaner or Hairdryer
80dBA - City Traffic or a Garbage Disposal
90dBA - Motorcycle or Lawnmower
150dBA &#8211; My neighbor&#8217;s dog at 3 a.m. (I&#8217;m sure of it!) 

Also, see my edit above regarding the "standard" WD GP drive.


----------



## richsadams

Of course, anyone wanting a completely silent drive could wait a bit and see if one of the new SSD drives will work...

Seagate to Begin Switch to SSD


----------



## jmpage2

So, the WD Green drives are working ok in Tivo HD boxes? I have a whole bank of WD Green drives that I'm using in a home server and have been extremely impressed with the performance. You can hardly hear them running, even while seeking.

I thought I had read scattered reports that all of the newer WD drives had issues running in the new Tivo boxes.


----------



## EvilMidniteBombr

jmpage2 said:


> You should have been able to do it with one, if I remember correctly you can make your truncated backup, then put in the other drive, and restore/build that drive, so only one Tivo disk needs to be hooked up to the PC at any one time.


I wanted to copy all of the content to the new drive. Including any saved or unwatched video. From what I read (admittedly not the entire thread) that was only possible by having both drives connected simultaneously.


----------



## richsadams

jmpage2 said:


> So, the WD Green drives are working ok in Tivo HD boxes? I have a whole bank of WD Green drives that I'm using in a home server and have been extremely impressed with the performance. You can hardly hear them running, even while seeking.
> 
> I thought I had read scattered reports that all of the newer WD drives had issues running in the new Tivo boxes.


WD GP WD*10EACS* drives are a good internal upgrade option for TiVo HD's, but as noted in the original post of the Official eSATA Drive Expansion in 9.2: FAQ + Discussion and often mentioned, NOT for Series3's due to a soft reboot issue. (They _can_ be used as eSATA drives for both models however.) The WD*10EVCS* can be used for internal or external applications for both models.

We've had the same experience...even before adjusting the AAM to 128 ours was very quiet. :up:


----------



## jmpage2

richsadams said:


> WD GP WD*10EACS* drives are a good internal upgrade option for TiVo HD's, but as noted in the original post of the Official eSATA Drive Expansion in 9.2: FAQ + Discussion and often mentioned, NOT for Series3's due to a soft reboot issue. (They _can_ be used as eSATA drives for both models however.) The WD*10EVCS* can be used for internal or external applications for both models.
> 
> We've had the same experience...even before adjusting the AAM to 128 ours was very quiet. :up:


Are you saying that other Green drives such as the AACS series 500GB and 750GB drives don't work?


----------



## richsadams

jmpage2 said:


> Are you saying that other Green drives such as the AACS series 500GB and 750GB drives don't work?


Untested AFAIK. Perhaps someone here that's tried them can chime in. Otherwise you'd be navigating new territory...becoming a TiVo Pioneer!


----------



## jmpage2

richsadams said:


> Untested AFAIK. Perhaps someone here that's tried them can chime in. Otherwise you'd be navigating new territory...becoming a TiVo Pioneer!


OK, maybe I'll order an AACS drive and give it a go. The primary reason there might be a problem is the unique power management firmware in the drive which attempts to stop the heads, etc, when there's no access, I could see where this could possibly cause a hiccup on a device like Tivo which expects immediate access to the drive at all times.

If it doesn't work out I have a WHS box that likes to eat extra SATA drives like fruit roll ups.


----------



## DallasFlier

EvilMidniteBombr said:


> Since none of my PC's are SATA capable, I had to order 2 of these USB to SATA adapters to copy my HDDs. Everything went smooth for me.





jmpage2 said:


> You should have been able to do it with one, if I remember correctly you can make your truncated backup, then put in the other drive, and restore/build that drive, so only one Tivo disk needs to be hooked up to the PC at any one time.





EvilMidniteBombr said:


> I wanted to copy all of the content to the new drive. Including any saved or unwatched video. From what I read (admittedly not the entire thread) that was only possible by having both drives connected simultaneously.


How many shows did you have to copy? How long did it take? According to the guide for WinMFS it can take literally _days_ to transfer the content, using those USB-SATA adapters.


----------



## richsadams

jmpage2 said:


> OK, maybe I'll order an AACS drive and give it a go. The primary reason there might be a problem is the unique power management firmware in the drive which attempts to stop the heads, etc, when there's no access, I could see where this could possibly cause a hiccup on a device like Tivo which expects immediate access to the drive at all times.
> 
> If it doesn't work out I have a WHS box that likes to eat extra SATA drives like fruit roll ups.


Power management shouldn't come into play as TiVo is writing data 24/7 and never allows the drive to idle down. The prices for the AACS and EVCS appear to be the same...any reason to go with an unknown quantity? Rebel without a cause?


----------



## jmpage2

richsadams said:


> Power management shouldn't come into play as TiVo is writing data 24/7 and never allows the drive to idle down. The prices for the AACS and EVCS appear to be the same...any reason to go with an unknown quantity? Rebel without a cause?


I'm not interested in a 1GB drive and I'm not aware of the EVCS drive being available in smaller sizes.

and actually the WD "blue" drives are now on the scene, which are actually supposed to be the coolest, quietest drives on the market and are specifically marketed as being DVR friendly. Looks like I can get a 500GB WD Blue drive for $75.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136110



> Cool - Cool operation results in the highest reliability, even in intensely hot environments such as digital video recorders. That's why these, the coolest on the market, are the drives of choice for the world's leading consumer electronics and PC manufacturers.
> Quiet - The technology that Tom's Hardware Guide called "very fast and nearly silent" is used throughout this family of drives. Our WhisperDrive technology minimizes noise to levels near the threshold of human hearing. To cut seek noise, SoftSeek technology streamlines read/write seeking algorithms, resulting in more efficient operation.


----------



## richsadams

jmpage2 said:


> I'm not interested in a 1GB drive and I'm not aware of the EVCS drive being available in smaller sizes.
> 
> and actually the WD "blue" drives are now on the scene, which are actually supposed to be the coolest, quietest drives on the market and are specifically marketed as being DVR friendly. Looks like I can get a 500GB WD Blue drive for $75.
> 
> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136110


Excellent! :up: Wonder when they'll offer 750GB and 1TB models?

EDIT: Oops, I was looking at the EIDE models. SATA drives go up to 750GB's with 16MB's of cache. :up: I'd bet 1TB's are just around the corner.

Keep us posted on how well it lives up the their claims!

BTW, I wouldn't be interested in a 1GB drive either.  The WD10EVCS AV GP's come in 500GB, 750GB and 1TB models.


----------



## EvilMidniteBombr

DallasFlier said:


> How many shows did you have to copy? How long did it take? According to the guide for WinMFS it can take literally _days_ to transfer the content, using those USB-SATA adapters.


I didn't have a whole lot to copy. The original drive (160G) was maybe 1/3 full. Only a few HD programs and several SD. Once the copy started it took about 2 1/2 hours to complete.


----------



## DallasFlier

jmpage2 said:


> I'm not interested in a 1GB drive and I'm not aware of the EVCS drive being available in smaller sizes.


Not trying to argue with you, just curious - why? Cost per GB is certainly lower at the 1 TB level than the 500GB level. So it takes the same amount of time to do, results in twice the recording space, costs very little additional, and prevents you from going through the whole process again at some point in the future.

So - I'm curious - why would you not be interested in a 1TB drive?


----------



## richsadams

DallasFlier said:


> Not trying to argue with you, just curious - why? Cost per GB is certainly lower at the 1 TB level than the 500GB level. So it takes the same amount of time to do, results in twice the recording space, costs very little additional, and prevents you from going through the whole process again at some point in the future.
> 
> So - I'm curious - why would you not be interested in a 1TB drive?


Have to agree with Dallas. If you even remotely think that you might need more space later...do it now. You could be risking any recordings you want to archive later (keeping in mind that although you can use MRV with another TiVo, you can't transfer copy protected recordings to your computer). I'd go for 1TB now and save yourself the potential time and headaches later. :up:


----------



## twm01

1. WD10EACS
2. 1 TB
3. 144/1367
4. AAM set to 128 via HDDScan
5. THD
6. Nice and quiet, no real issues.


----------



## jlib

jmpage2 said:


> ...the WD "blue" drives are now on the scene, which are actually supposed to be the coolest, quietest drives on the market and are specifically marketed as being DVR friendly. Looks like I can get a 500GB WD Blue drive for $75.


The Blue series is just the regular old Caviar SE desktop series that have been around for years. They are a fine line of drives but are definitely _not_ the coolest nor quietest (look at the specs). Though they will work fine in your TiVo they are not marketed in any way as being DVR friendly (whatever that might mean). WD calls the Blue line "ideal for family and business computing".

(Seek mode 3 is the quiet AAM setting set by Hitachi Feature Tool or Linux hdparm)

Blue 500GB
Idle Mode 28 dBA (average)
Seek Mode 0	33 dBA (average)
Seek Mode 3	29 dBA (average)

Green 500GB
Idle Mode 24 dBA (average)
Seek Mode 0	29 dBA (average)
Seek Mode 3	25 dBA (average)​3 decibel differences are distinguishable by the human ear.


----------



## jmpage2

jlib said:


> The Blue series is just the regular old Caviar SE desktop series that have been around for years. They are a fine line of drives but are definitely _not_ the coolest nor quietest (look at the specs). Though they will work fine in your TiVo they are not marketed in any way as being DVR friendly (whatever that might mean). WD calls the Blue line "ideal for family and business computing".
> 
> (Seek mode 3 is the quiet AAM setting set by Hitachi Feature Tool or Linux hdparm)
> 
> Blue 500GB
> Idle Mode 28 dBA (average)
> Seek Mode 0	33 dBA (average)
> Seek Mode 3	29 dBA (average)
> 
> Green 500GB
> Idle Mode 24 dBA (average)
> Seek Mode 0	29 dBA (average)
> Seek Mode 3	25 dBA (average)​3 decibel differences are distinguishable by the human ear.


Thanks for providing that additional information. Absolutely I would cbe concerned about the 4 dB volume difference in seek volumes.

Actually the snippet about the blue drive being good for DVR, etc, came from Newegg's site which was quoting WD. I don't know why WD would push those drives as being cool and quiet if the green drives outperform them.

Do you know if the Green drives work ok in the Tivo HD?


----------



## jlib

jmpage2 said:


> ...Actually the snippet about the blue drive being good for DVR, etc, came from Newegg's site which was quoting WD. I don't know why WD would push those drives as being cool and quiet if the green drives outperform them.


If you look at the only page that contains that snippet at WD it is a very old one and the quote from Tom's Hardware is from Feb '05. So, that was probably true ~4 years ago, before the "green" era. Once something gets copied to a vendor's web page it will rarely get updated. So, it is simply obsolete info that may have been true at one point in time.



> Do you know if the Green drives work ok in the Tivo HD?


Yes. For the TiVo HD, most use the WD10EACS or the WD10EVCS, whichever is cheapest or on sale.



> I'm not interested in a 1GB drive and I'm not aware of the EVCS drive being available in smaller sizes.


As others have implied, those are famous last words around here. And the EVCS does comes in 500GB but its model series is confusingly named AVVS instead. Note that these AV-Green Power drives from WD are all OEM drives and not originally intended for the retail market so availability from vendors may be limited. For your purposes, there is no advantage in them over the standard Green Power drives.


----------



## jmpage2

jlib said:


> If you look at the only page that contains that snippet at WD it is a very old one and the quote from Tom's Hardware is from Feb '05. So, that was probably true ~4 years ago, before the "green" era. Once something gets copied to a vendor's web page it will rarely get updated. So, it is simply obsolete info that may have been true at one point in time.
> 
> Yes. For the TiVo HD, most use the WD10EACS or the WD10EVCS, whichever is cheapest or on sale.
> 
> As others have implied, those are famous last words around here. And the EVCS does comes in 500GB but its model series is confusingly named AVVS instead. Note that these AV-Green Power drives from WD are all OEM drives and not originally intended for the retail market so availability from vendors may be limited. For your purposes, there is no advantage in them over the standard Green Power drives.


Thanks for the additional info. I will look into getting a WD green drive and going with that. I might just get 1TB now that they are getting less expensive and rotate the 500GB drive I have in that TiVo to the new one I just bought.


----------



## jcthorne

Any word when WD is supposed to have the 1.5TB green drives out?


----------



## Jonathan_S

jcthorne said:


> Any word when WD is supposed to have the 1.5TB green drives out?


Haven't seen any annoucements for non-Seagate 1.5 TB drives.

FYI - 1.5TB drives currently have issues if used as the primary TiVo HD/S3 drive. (The media partition exceeds the max size supported by the kernel in the current TiVo OS version)


----------



## txporter

Jonathan_S said:


> Haven't seen any annoucements for non-Seagate 1.5 TB drives.
> 
> FYI - 1.5TB drives currently have issues if used as the primary TiVo HD/S3 drive. (The media partition exceeds the max size supported by the kernel in the current TiVo OS version)


Does this mean that 1.5TB drives CAN be successfully used as external drives but only show up at 1.2-1.3TB (whatever the limit)?


----------



## Jonathan_S

txporter said:


> Does this mean that 1.5TB drives CAN be successfully used as external drives but only show up at 1.2-1.3TB (whatever the limit)?


I don't know.

I haven't tested it.
I also haven't checked how external drives are partitioned for use with TiVo.

The problem* is that the TiVo can't handle a partition of more than (2^31)-1 sectors. Which is almost exactly 2^30 bytes or 1 TB (@ 1024 bytes/kbyte; it's closer to 1.07 TB @ the 1000 bytes/kbyte used by hard disk manufactures literature)

I don't know how the external drive format lays out partitions. But if any partition exceeds that limit it's not going to work right.

*based on a report by someone who checked through the TiVo kernel source [isn't open source nice]


----------



## richsadams

jmpage2 said:


> Do you know if the Green drives work ok in the Tivo HD?


As jlib said, to date WD's line of GP/"green" drives have proven to work fine and are recommended as internal upgrades for TiVo HD's (again, NOT for Series3's).


----------



## calstudios

Just ordered the new Samsung 1GB SAMHD103UIY 5400RPM low power, low noise drive from OWC for $99. Will install it next week and report back.


----------



## richsadams

calstudios said:


> Just ordered the new Samsung 1GB SAMHD103UIY 5400RPM low power, low noise drive from OWC for $99. Will install it next week and report back.


Cool...and a great price. AFAIK no one has tried that particular drive. Do you have an S3 or TiVo HD?

It's a 3 platter drive which is very good. It will be interesting to know how loud you feel it is though. The specs indicate that the seek level is about 2.9 bels which is a bit higher than WD's GP drives (2.5 to 2.7) but certainly lower than standard drives (3.5 - 4.5). Also wonder if you'll be able to adjust the acoustics down.

Anyway, best of luck and let us know how it goes!

EDIT: Bummer, just checked the OWC site and they're back up to $119...still a decent price though.


----------



## HazelW

My hard drive failed (I think) a few days after getting a cable card installed in my TiVo HD. Can I use my son's disk image to upgrade a new HD? Will I need to have Comcast come and re pair the cards after the upgrade?


----------



## richsadams

HazelW said:


> My hard drive failed (I think) a few days after getting a cable card installed in my TiVo HD. Can I use my son's disk image to upgrade a new HD? Will I need to have Comcast come and re pair the cards after the upgrade?


You may be able to use your son's data to image a new hard drive if he has a TiVo HD, however it will include information about his TiVo and not yours in which case you'd need to do a clear and delete to remove the incorrect data. The best bet is to use the original image from your hard drive. If that's not available the second best bet is to use Instant Cake to image a new hard drive.

If you aren't able to use your original hard drive to image your new hard drive you will need to have your cableco reinitiate or "re-pair" your cable cards which usually involves a truck-roll to your house.

That said, what leads you believe that your hard drive has failed?


----------



## greg_burns

richsadams said:


> You may be able to use your son's data to image a new hard drive if he has a TiVo HD, however it will include information about his TiVo and not yours *in which case you'd need to do a clear and delete to remove the incorrect data*.


Also, just to clarify...

Which also means you *will* have to have Comcast re-pair your cards (if they require it to be done at all, which most likely they do.).


----------



## jlib

Further, I was surprised to discover Comcast (at least in my N. California area) was able to do the repairing over the phone. It took all of 10 minutes with a first tier CSR. You would want to get the serial number(s) off the back of the card(s) while the TiVo is down and the new Data IDs from the Cable Card setup menu in advance. Thats all you need.


----------



## richsadams

jlib said:


> Further, I was surprised to discover Comcast (at least in my N. California area) was able to do the repairing over the phone.


Very progressive and unfortunately not quite yet the norm. Cableco's in general think that the great unwashed are still unable to read numbers. Sigh.

I'm still curious as to why Hazel thinks that her hard drive failed.


----------



## HazelW

richsadams said:


> Very progressive and unfortunately not quite yet the norm. Cableco's in general think that the great unwashed are still unable to read numbers. Sigh.
> 
> I'm still curious as to why Hazel thinks that her hard drive failed.


It could be something else. I was with Verizon FIOS and I was starting to experience some problems with some channels. The symptom was that the picture would start to break up and in a few minutes would lock up and freeze. Only happened on a few HD channels. Then I moved to a new area and got Comcast installed last week. Now the problem was occurring on most of the digital channels, although analog channels were OK. Also, the response to remote command could take 30 seconds or more.

Since it was two different systems I assumed that cablecards were not the problem.

I then tried several kickstarts with no change.

Finally, to see if it was perhaps the external DVR expander, I removed that. Unfortunately, every time I booted the system it would come back to the the screen that says it does not detect the external drive, and when I tried to remove it the same thing happened over and over. I plugged the drive back in and now it just reboots continuously.

It could be something other than the drive--what do you think?

Hazel


----------



## bananaman

1. Hard Drive Model
Western Digital AV-GP WD10EVCS
2. Drive Size
1TB
3. Post Upgrade HD/SD hours listed
131/1244
4. Did you do any acoustic modifications?
No
5. S3 or THD
S3
6. Any Comments? How does it sound? Any problems?
This drive is so quiet I can barely hear it if I put my ear up to the enclosure.


----------



## richsadams

HazelW said:


> It could be something else. <snip>


If TiVo is constantly rebooting now I'd say your diagnosis is correct, the internal hard drive has failed and needs replacing. But if you can get it up and running (with or without the external drive) there are a couple of things I'd try before replacing it.

1. Disconnect the coax cable from TiVo and see if it runs normally. If it does have Comcast check your signal and/or replace your cable cards to see if that corrects the problem. If the problem remains it could be your internal or external hard drive.

2. Disconnect and properly divorce your My DVR Expander eSATA hard drive. You'll lose all of the recordings made since it was connected but you'd quickly elimate it from the puzzle. If you want to keep some of the recordings and you have a second TiVo you can use MRV to transfer them or if they aren't copy protected you can use Tivo Desktop to transfer them to your PC, but then you probably knew that. 

But it sounds like you tried to complete the divorce screens and it won't work. If that's the case, I think you're right that it's the internal hard drive.

3. If it runs fine w/o the expansion drive, try replacing the stock WD My DVR Expander eSATA II cable with the recommended SIIG Serial ATA external cable...less than $10. There are numerous reports of the OEM cable being problematic and causing some or all of what you're experiencing.

4. If replacing the eSATA cable doesn't fix the problem the WD My DVR Expander has a one-year full replacement warranty so you'll need to contact Western Digital for a replacement. (They'll replace them at a pro-rated amount for up to five years.)

To be honest though, I think you're right and replacing the internal hard drive will likely solve the problems you're seeing. You could simply call TiVo and arrange for an exchange unit...$49 if it's within the one-year parts warranty. Or you can replace the hard drive with a much larger one for not much more yourself. It's pretty easy if you're comfortable with opening TiVo to remove and replace the drive as well as connecting a new hard drive to your PC and running Instant Cake (recommended in your case) or a pretty easy to use program called winMFS. All of the info you need to replace the internal hard drive can be found on the Official eSATA Drive Expansion: FAQ + Discussion (Section III, #30). Western Digital's WD10EACS or WD10EVCS hard drives are highly recommended but the FAQ also includes other recommended replacement drives for the TiVo HD.

As Greg noted earlier, unless you use your existing hard drive to image a new one, you'll need to have Comcast "re-pair" your cable cards.

Best of luck and let us know how it goes! :up:


----------



## richsadams

bananaman said:


> 1. Hard Drive Model
> Western Digital AV-GP WD10EVCS
> 2. Drive Size
> 1TB
> 3. Post Upgrade HD/SD hours listed
> 131/1244
> 4. Did you do any acoustic modifications?
> No
> 5. S3 or THD
> S3
> 6. Any Comments? How does it sound? Any problems?
> This drive is so quiet I can barely hear it if I put my ear up to the enclosure.


Congratulations and welcome to the club! :up: I noticed that you didn't take advantage of the "Supersize" option (which would have given you 144 hours of HD space). Not a big deal and you can go back and do it any time without losing any of your recordings or info, but is there a reason why? Just curious if it didn't work or something.

In any case...enjoy!


----------



## michman

Ok, so I will admit that I'm a newbie and haven't done this before. I plan to attack my TiVo on Saturday.

I have a TiVo HD (about 2 weeks old) that I plan to upgrade using a 1TB Western Digital WD10EVCS. I have my 2 USB-to-SATA adapters and hard drive sitting waiting for the install. I have a full toolbox in the garage including Torx bits, did I see somewhere that I need a long one? I think mine are all for a socket wrench.

I plan on downloading WinMFS later this week, does anyone have a link for that? I also have looked over the instructions on the stick post and think it looks pretty easy.

What should I expect? How long should it take (I think I'm going to move my recordings to my other TiVo to empty the "upgaradee" out)? Do I need to look out for anything? Any advice would help so that this goes smooth.


----------



## Jonathan_S

michman said:


> I have a full toolbox in the garage including Torx bits, did I see somewhere that I need a long one? I think mine are all for a socket wrench.


One of the torx screws holding down the hard drive bracket is about 2" down and is blocked between the front of the TiVo case and the hard drive. So you'll need a torx driver at least that long.



michman said:


> I plan on downloading WinMFS later this week, does anyone have a link for that?


WinMFS 9.2beta - latest (You'll have to register on their forum to actually download it)



michman said:


> What should I expect? How long should it take (I think I'm going to move my recordings to my other TiVo to empty the "upgaradee" out)? Do I need to look out for anything? Any advice would help so that this goes smooth.


It took me about 45 minutes to do a copy from my almost full stock TiVo HD drive to the new 1TB drive (using internal SATA). It might take a bit longer running through a couple USB-2-SATA adaptors.

One note is that the WinMFS program doesn't update the screen while running. So you'll hit start and it will sit there appearing frozen until it's done. That's normal (if a bit annoying)

Once it's done be sure to pick the supersize option from the WinMFS menu. That'll take about a second and get you a few more hours usable space.


----------



## HazelW

richsadams said:


> If TiVo is constantly rebooting now I'd say your diagnosis is correct, the internal hard drive has failed and needs replacing. But if you can get it up and running (with or without the external drive) there are a couple of things I'd try before replacing it.
> 
> 1. Disconnect the coax cable from TiVo and see if it runs normally. If it does have Comcast check your signal and/or replace your cable cards to see if that corrects the problem. If the problem remains it could be your internal or external hard drive.
> 
> 2. Disconnect and properly divorce your My DVR Expander eSATA hard drive. You'll lose all of the recordings made since it was connected but you'd quickly elimate it from the puzzle. If you want to keep some of the recordings and you have a second TiVo you can use MRV to transfer them or if they aren't copy protected you can use Tivo Desktop to transfer them to your PC, but then you probably knew that.
> 
> But it sounds like you tried to complete the divorce screens and it won't work. If that's the case, I think you're right that it's the internal hard drive.
> 
> 3. If it runs fine w/o the expansion drive, try replacing the stock WD My DVR Expander eSATA II cable with the recommended SIIG Serial ATA external cable...less than $10. There are numerous reports of the OEM cable being problematic and causing some or all of what you're experiencing.
> 
> 4. If replacing the eSATA cable doesn't fix the problem the WD My DVR Expander has a one-year full replacement warranty so you'll need to contact Western Digital for a replacement. (They'll replace them at a pro-rated amount for up to five years.)
> 
> To be honest though, I think you're right and replacing the internal hard drive will likely solve the problems you're seeing. You could simply call TiVo and arrange for an exchange unit...$49 if it's within the one-year parts warranty. Or you can replace the hard drive with a much larger one for not much more yourself. It's pretty easy if you're comfortable with opening TiVo to remove and replace the drive as well as connecting a new hard drive to your PC and running Instant Cake (recommended in your case) or a pretty easy to use program called winMFS. All of the info you need to replace the internal hard drive can be found on the Official eSATA Drive Expansion: FAQ + Discussion (Section III, #30). Western Digital's WD10EACS or WD10EVCS hard drives are highly recommended but the FAQ also includes other recommended replacement drives for the TiVo HD.
> 
> As Greg noted earlier, unless you use your existing hard drive to image a new one, you'll need to have Comcast "re-pair" your cable cards.
> 
> Best of luck and let us know how it goes! :up:


Rich,

Thanks for your help. I got one of the drives you suggested, downloaded instantcake for the HD TiVo, and loaded the software on the new disk. Replaced in the TiVo and removed the cablecard and ran guided setup. It seemed to work fine but only getting the basic analog channels.

So I inserted the cablecard and wrote down the pairing info and got ready to call Comcast and beg them to try to re-pair over the phone. But lo and behold I was getting all the premium channels. So I ran guided setup again and everything seems to be working just fine.

I'm guessing that Comcast just authorizes the cablecard and does not require pairing with the unit. Wonder if anyone else has found this to be true?

Hazel


----------



## richsadams

michman said:


> Ok, so I will admit that I'm a newbie and haven't done this before. I plan to attack my TiVo on Saturday.


In addition to Jonathan's sound advice, all of the info you need to replace your TiVo's internal hard drive can be found on the Official eSATA Drive Expansion: FAQ + Discussion. The thread's title is confusing but everything you need to know is in Section III, #30 as well as on mfsLive.org. When you're done put the original drive on the shelf as a backup. If your new drive fails for some reason or you need to return your TiVo you can pop the old one in and be back in business.

Happy upgrading! :up:


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## richsadams

HazelW said:


> Rich,
> 
> Thanks for your help. I got one of the drives you suggested, downloaded instantcake for the HD TiVo, and loaded the software on the new disk. Replaced in the TiVo and removed the cablecard and ran guided setup. It seemed to work fine but only getting the basic analog channels.
> 
> So I inserted the cablecard and wrote down the pairing info and got ready to call Comcast and beg them to try to re-pair over the phone. But lo and behold I was getting all the premium channels. So I ran guided setup again and everything seems to be working just fine.
> 
> I'm guessing that Comcast just authorizes the cablecard and does not require pairing with the unit. Wonder if anyone else has found this to be true?
> 
> Hazel


Excellent news! IIRC someone else mentioned that their cable cards did an "auto-pair". If only that were the case for everyone. Sweet! 

So do you also have your DVR Expander connected?


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## HazelW

richsadams said:


> Excellent news! IIRC someone else mentioned that their cable cards did an "auto-pair". If only that were the case for everyone. Sweet!
> 
> So do you also have your DVR Expander connected?


No, I decided 130 hours is enough and as you mentioned the cable is flakey and you never know which hard drive is bad if you have two. Thanks again.


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## richsadams

HazelW said:


> No, I decided 130 hours is enough and as you mentioned the cable is flakey and you never know which hard drive is bad if you have two. Thanks again.


Got it. No harm in trying it after you get a new cable though. Attaching it won't affect any current recordings and if it doesn't work or flakes out you can always divorce it. (Remember to get plenty of alimony though!  )


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## Cudazz

Wow... this has been a lot of helpful info even though I am not quite ready to swap out my drive. LOL getting awfully itchy though!! Thanks for all the input from everyone!!


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## richsadams

Cudazz said:


> Wow... this has been a lot of helpful info even though I am not quite ready to swap out my drive. LOL getting awfully itchy though!! Thanks for all the input from everyone!!


Once the seed has been planted...


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## Teddydogno1

First post here:

I just ordered a refurb Tivo HD from Tivo so I can ditch my Comcast DVR. My wife and I are sick of the little remote and recording bugs and the new guide setup (the one where they dropped two lines of program info to shove ads in our face). Add these to the very poor storage on the Comcast box and I was ready to switch.

My Tivo HD isn't even here yet, but I've already ordered a Seagate db35 750 GB drive to plunk into it! I already bought and downloaded InstantCake, but have now discovered WinMFS. Wish I'd know about it before spending the $20 on InstantCake! Now I'll feel more comfortable with using the Tivo "as is" for a month or so to be sure it is working before I crack it open for the brain upgrade.

Just wanted to share...

Rob


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## jlib

Teddydogno1 said:


> ...Now I'll feel more comfortable with using the Tivo "as is" for a month or so to be sure it is working before I crack it open for the brain upgrade.


That is a good approach. Get the Cable Cards installed and everything working before the upgrade. Use your old drive for the source, though, not Instant Cake which is intended for those with failed drives. That way if there is ever a problem with your new drive you can transparently replace your original drive and immediately be up and running while you determine the propblem. Not likely you will hold out for a whole month though.


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## richsadams

Teddydogno1 said:


> First post here: <snip>


Welcome to the forum Rob! We tried the POS Comast "DVR" for about four months a long time ago...actually four of them because they all failed at some point.  If you're like most of us TiVo devotees, you'll never look back.

I'll echo what jlib said...it's all right on...and wish you the best! :up:


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## jmpage2

Teddydogno1 said:


> First post here:
> 
> I just ordered a refurb Tivo HD from Tivo so I can ditch my Comcast DVR. My wife and I are sick of the little remote and recording bugs and the new guide setup (the one where they dropped two lines of program info to shove ads in our face). Add these to the very poor storage on the Comcast box and I was ready to switch.
> 
> My Tivo HD isn't even here yet, but I've already ordered a Seagate db35 750 GB drive to plunk into it! I already bought and downloaded InstantCake, but have now discovered WinMFS. Wish I'd know about it before spending the $20 on InstantCake! Now I'll feel more comfortable with using the Tivo "as is" for a month or so to be sure it is working before I crack it open for the brain upgrade.
> 
> Just wanted to share...
> 
> Rob


You are definitely going about this the right way. Get everything set up and working and then after drive replacement you can keep the original drive as a backup/fail-safe drive in the event you need warranty work or the replacement drive has issues.

Make sure you have two SATA ports available on your PC to do the drive to drive copy, or purchase a couple of USB/SATA adapters for the task.


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## tivoupgrade

Teddydogno1 said:


> First post here:
> 
> I just ordered a refurb Tivo HD from Tivo so I can ditch my Comcast DVR. My wife and I are sick of the little remote and recording bugs and the new guide setup (the one where they dropped two lines of program info to shove ads in our face). Add these to the very poor storage on the Comcast box and I was ready to switch.
> 
> My Tivo HD isn't even here yet, but I've already ordered a Seagate db35 750 GB drive to plunk into it! I already bought and downloaded InstantCake, but have now discovered WinMFS. Wish I'd know about it before spending the $20 on InstantCake! Now I'll feel more comfortable with using the Tivo "as is" for a month or so to be sure it is working before I crack it open for the brain upgrade.
> 
> Just wanted to share...
> 
> Rob


Well, thanks for support by purchasing InstantCake; it helps defray the cost of sponsoring these very forums which I'm sure you'll agree are a valuable resource to many folks.

Plus, you'll be able to image your new drive without even having to remove the existing drive from your unit, making your upgrade even more risk-free.

Do make sure to run full-diagnostics on your new drive before putting it to use, though; that is a best-practice that may save you some trouble in the long run if you take the time to do it now.

Thx,

Lou


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## calstudios

1. Hard Drive Model: Samsung "Eco-Green" 5400RPM SAMHD103UIY 
2. Drive Size: 1TB
3. Post Upgrade HD/SD hours listed: 131 HD, 1241 SD
4. Did you do any acoustic modifications?: No
5. S3 or THD: THD
6. Any Comments? How does it sound? Any problems?

Was originally going to use an external eSATA solution, but decided to upgrade the internal drive after reading about WinMFS and NOT having to use any command line code or boot CDs. Purchased the drive on sale from OWC for $99. Read a lot about using WinMFS and what drives people are using to upgrade their Tivos.

Using WinMFS was very very easy, although a little more polish on the UI would help a first-timer. I used MFScopy to transfer all my recordings, which took up most of my 160GB stock drive and which took about 3 hours. I placed both the stock drive and the 1TB new drive in external enclosures with USB ports and connected both to my laptop. With two clicks, the formatting and transfer began. When done, I popped the new drive in the Tivo and plugged it in. 

The boot screen started up but then the screen went blank. I was worried for a minute but when I pressed the format button on the front of the unit the welcome video finished and it went to live TV and began working normally. I've played around with it for a few hours and everything works. All my content was transferred and the UI seems a little more snappy, maybe because of the 32MB of cache or just a fresh drive.

I was thinking about using a 7200RPM drive but all reports indicate that speed is unnecessary (I'd like the Tivo UI to be faster). The SAMHD103UIY drive is tuned for low noise and half the normal energy use, and for $99 it seemed like a good bet. Replacing the drive is no different than replacing a drive in a computer (except for the torx screws). 

Noise seems to be lower than the stock 160GB WD drive, and is not audible more than four feet away. 

Overall, I'm very happy with this drive and recommend it to anyone wanting to upgrade their capacity. I also highly recommend to anyone who's opened up a computer before and wants more capacity to use winMFS--it's literally a two click process, one click if you don't want to transfer content. I'd like to donate to the developer, but there's no option for that on his website.


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## GregComeLately

Glad you were able to figure it all out, calstudios. I bought the same Samsung drive from NewEgg a few weeks ago @$120, which was a very good deal at the time mad, but couldn't figure out how to do the transfer. I thought it was going to be easier from all the user reports claiming as much, but I was stymied during the process and I don't know why (in a nutshell: one drive never spun up no matter what I attempted to do). 

It sucked too, as on the following day, I had to go out of town for two weeks straight and I was counting on the upgrade to provide the extra storage space while I was gone. I was forced to reinstall the original drive and delete a bunch of existing and planned recordings before I left town. 

Now that I'm back home, I'll give it another shot after I get some advice in the other related upgrade thread, or here, if I don't get answers there.


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## calstudios

richsadams said:


> Cool...and a great price. AFAIK no one has tried that particular drive. Do you have an S3 or TiVo HD?
> 
> It's a 3 platter drive which is very good. It will be interesting to know how loud you feel it is though. The specs indicate that the seek level is about 2.9 bels which is a bit higher than WD's GP drives (2.5 to 2.7) but certainly lower than standard drives (3.5 - 4.5). Also wonder if you'll be able to adjust the acoustics down.
> 
> Anyway, best of luck and let us know how it goes!
> 
> EDIT: Bummer, just checked the OWC site and they're back up to $119...still a decent price though.


OWC is selling the F1 again at $99:

http://eshop.macsales.com/item-maillist/Samsung/HD103UIY/


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## richsadams

calstudios said:


> OWC is selling the F1 again at $99:
> 
> http://eshop.macsales.com/item-maillist/Samsung/HD103UIY/


Cheers for that...a great deal! :up:


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## docnaks

I have an S3, and I'm considering upgrading the drive to 1TB. Will I have to re-pair the CCs after I'm done?


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## caughey

I've been meaning to write my success story installing a 1Tb Seagate just over a month ago (42 days to be exact), but today I found my TiVo caught in an infinite Powering Up...Almost There...Powering Up... loop. After trying everything else I could think of, I put the factory drive back and it booted up fine. Unfortunately, I've upgraded from TWC to Fios since the new drive was put in, so the old drive has the old cable card info. 

Is there any hope of resurrecting the new drive? Or getting the programs of it? The limited Seagate diagnostics CD said it passed the generic short test and failed the generic long test. That's not very helpful. I've tried option1 and option2 of WinMFS "Fix Bootpage" with no luck. I'm using a notebook with a USB/SATA adapter, so the probably limits my troubleshooting/repair options.

Thanks for any help.


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## calstudios

docnaks said:


> I have an S3, and I'm considering upgrading the drive to 1TB. Will I have to re-pair the CCs after I'm done?


I have a THD and one Cox dual tuner cable card. Using WinMFS, I did not have to do anything other than put the drive back in the Tivo. All settings were transfered to the new drive during the copy process.


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## richsadams

docnaks said:


> I have an S3, and I'm considering upgrading the drive to 1TB. Will I have to re-pair the CCs after I'm done?


As Cal notes above, all of your settings should remain intact if you follow the winMFS instructions correctly.

Happy upgrading! :up:


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## richsadams

caughey said:


> Is there any hope of resurrecting the new drive? Or getting the programs of it? The limited Seagate diagnostics CD said it passed the generic short test and failed the generic long test. That's not very helpful. I've tried option1 and option2 of WinMFS "Fix Bootpage" with no luck. I'm using a notebook with a USB/SATA adapter, so the probably limits my troubleshooting/repair options.
> 
> Thanks for any help.


You could try reinstalling the new drive and running TiVo's built-in diagnostic programs called Kickstarts. And/or you could try connecting it to a regular PC's SATA connection and using a program like SpinRite. Both programs generally try to isolate bad sectors as part of the recovery process. If you can get it up and running with the problem drive in the short term you could transfer (non-copy protected) recordings to your computer.

However if your TiVo was stuck in a reboot cycle there's a good chance that the problematic area is in the boot partition. Even if a disk repair works this time, during the next software upgrade (or even the one after that) the issue may reappear.

It may be painful, but your best option is to return the drive under warranty and get a new one. You should keep the original drive running in TiVo, have your cable cards re-initiated by Verizon (possibly with a phone call?) and re-run Guided Setup. That way your original drive will be up to date and you can use it to image your replacement/upgrade drive.

Best of luck and let us know how it goes.


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## caughey

richsadams said:


> It may be painful, but your best option is to return the drive under warranty and get a new one. You should keep the original drive running in TiVo, have your cable cards re-initiated by Verizon (possibly with a phone call?) and re-run Guided Setup. That way your original drive will be up to date and you can use it to image your replacement/upgrade drive.
> 
> Best of luck and let us know how it goes.


Yeah, I'm sure you're right, I just had to get through all the grief stages first. I just keep telling myself it's only TV shows (980 gig of TV shows). I was also afraid of re-hitting the cablecards--TW would have insisted on a truck roll--but sure enough Verizon did it over the phone. It should have finished all the updating and stuff by now. I'll now when I get home tonight. One interesting thing I noticed: during it's first phone home, the TiVo seemed to figure out some of the season passes I had added since the hard drive swap. The older ones had TW channel numbers and the newer ones had Fios numbers. I guess some of that info is stored online?

BTW, I had tried the kickstarts mentioned in your other post (thanks for that). The lights responded appropriately, so I think I did it right, but I never got to the GSOD with any of them.


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## greg_burns

caughey said:


> One interesting thing I noticed: during it's first phone home, the TiVo seemed to figure out some of the season passes I had added since the hard drive swap. The older ones had TW channel numbers and the newer ones had Fios numbers. I guess some of that info is stored online?


TiVo Magic


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## richsadams

greg_burns said:


> TiVo Magic


Your archive of links never ceases to amaze. :up:


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## raianoat

I installed an upgrade drive using a kit from DVRupgrade.com. Check out a video of the upgrade process here:

http://www.tivoblog.com/archives/2007/08/14/dvrupgradecom-series-3-tivo-hard-drive-replacement/


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## caughey

greg_burns said:


> TiVo Magic


Cute. I wonder what other magic lurks behind the cute little logo.

I took the dead drive to Best Buy yesterday even though I was past the 30 day return window. They swapped it out no questions asked!

Despite my success with WinMFS the last time (it did take me three tries to be successful though), I couldn't get it to finish. It was just stuck after 8 hours the first time and 6 hours the second time. I know it looks stuck even when it's working, but the first time it took 6 hours to work and that was will a nearly full drive. Now it's nearly empty, so 6 hours should be plenty. The Read/Write numbers weren't updating in Task Manager at all. So I punted and just did a restore of the backup I had made of the previous drive. It booted up okay and seems to be working. Hopefully all is well again.


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## richsadams

caughey said:


> It booted up okay and seems to be working. Hopefully all is well again.


Good to hear! :up:


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## steinercat

1. Hard Drive Model: Samsung "Eco-Green" 5400RPM SAMHD103UIY
2. Drive Size: 1TB
3. Post Upgrade HD/SD hours listed: 144 HD
4. Did you do any acoustic modifications?: No
5. S3 or THD: THD
6. Any Comments? How does it sound? Any problems? : NO PROBLEMS during install. NO PROBLEMS at boot-up, NO PROBLEMS so far. EcoGreen is much quieter than the stock 160GB

I deleted almost all my recording before the upgrade.

Very Happy so far!

I upgraded via SATA ports inside the PC.

Chose SuperSize.


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## RhoXS

I just ordered a WD 1TB WD10EACS to upgrade our Tivo HD. I just want to make sure I know what I am doing so I would like to verify the following.

-I loaded Winmfs. Without having the original Tivo drive connected yet, the only two menu bar items that appear are "File" and "Help". I assume once I connect and select the original Tivo drive, "Tools" will also appear on the menu bar.

- I intend to first backup the original Tivo drive so I have an image I can use in the future. Where does the "Backup" command appear? Under the Tools Menu? I am asking because I do not see "Backup" on the image at the following link

http://www.mfslive.org/winmfs/images/mfscopy.jpg.

- I then intend to make a full backup of the original drive using mfscopy so nothing is lost on the new drive. In the link referenced above, MfsSupersize is a separate drop down menu item from Mfscopy. Can I assume the MfsSupersize menu item just allows me to set a switch then I go back and use Mfscopy?

I need to make sure I know exactly what I am doing as there are some serious politics about this upgrade between my wife and myself.


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## greg_burns

Yeah, the menu choices change once you select a drive.

http://www.mfslive.org/winmfs/images/file_backup.jpg

http://www.mfslive.org/winmfs/images/mfssupersize.jpg


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## Teddydogno1

After running for about a month, I did my HD upgrade today. Pulled out the 160 GB drive with no trouble and hooked both it an my new Seagate 750 GB one to my computer (I had two free SATA ports, just needed to get one more SATA cable and a molex-to-SATA power splitter. Ran WinMFS with no trouble (not exactly as listed on the instructions...likely due to a newer version of WinMFS). My original drive was maybe half full and the copy took about 40 minutes. 

I put everything back together and made the swap into my entertainment center (pulled out the cable co DVR and my old DVD player I'm not using anymore). Fired everything back up, but was getting nothing from Tivo. Cable Co. box was working fine (hooked back up on a temp location).

I decided to leave it without troubleshooting to have dinner. While eating, it suddenly occurred to me that I had FAILED to hook up the data/power connector on the hard drive after re-installing! It took me 10 minutes to take it back out again, open it up, connect the hard drive and fire it up again. TIVO IS ALIVE!

All shows intact, season passes are go and I didn't have to mess with the cable cards. Now I have 5 times the space!

Rob


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## Bodie

Teddydogno1 said:


> After running for about a month, I did my HD upgrade today. Pulled out the 160 GB drive with no trouble and hooked both it an my new Seagate 750 GB one to my computer (I had two free SATA ports, just needed to get one more SATA cable and a molex-to-SATA power splitter. Ran WinMFS with no trouble (not exactly as listed on the instructions...likely due to a newer version of WinMFS). My original drive was maybe half full and the copy took about 40 minutes.
> 
> I put everything back together and made the swap into my entertainment center (pulled out the cable co DVR and my old DVD player I'm not using anymore). Fired everything back up, but was getting nothing from Tivo. Cable Co. box was working fine (hooked back up on a temp location).
> 
> I decided to leave it without troubleshooting to have dinner. While eating, it suddenly occurred to me that I had FAILED to hook up the data/power connector on the hard drive after re-installing! It took me 10 minutes to take it back out again, open it up, connect the hard drive and fire it up again. TIVO IS ALIVE!
> 
> All shows intact, season passes are go and I didn't have to mess with the cable cards. Now I have 5 times the space!
> 
> Rob


Job well done! Congrats and welcome to the high-capacity club!


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## rburriel

1. Hard Drive Model: Samsung Spinpoint HD103UJ (1000GB/7200rpm/32M)
2. Drive Size: 1TB
3. Post Upgrade HD/SD hours listed: 142 hours HD/1241 SD (I currently have 330 previously deleted programs!)
4. Did you do any acoustic modifications?: No
5. S3 or THD: THD
6. Any Comments? How does it sound? Any problems?

WinMFS wasn't as intuitive as I expected, but it was partially my fault. I had previously mounted and formatted the 1TB drive to NTFS so WinMFS didn't know what to do with it. Once I unmounted it (a simple enough matter in the Disk Management utility in Windows), I was on my way. The data copied from the previous drive with no problems.

I used a simple USB-to-SATA device for one drive and a Vantec NexStar for the other.

I know I hear the new drive spin up and whir a bit more than I did with the old drive, but it's not so noticeable that it's a problem.

Raul


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## ciper

1. Seagate Barracude 7200.11 st31000340as
2. 1TB total
3. ~ 144 / 1368 hours (cannot remember if it was this exactly but it was close)
4. No acoustic adjustments made
5. THD
6. This drive failed after only 8 months of use. It developed bad sector cancer which resulted in pixelation, freezing and eventually reboots. It had a 5 year warranty but I replaced it with the following

1. Two internal Maxtor DiamondMax STM310005baaas-rk
2. 2TB total
3.








4. No acoustic adjustments made
5. Same THD as above
6. With two internal drives I was worried about heat and spin up draw on the power supply. I sealed all of the holes on the right side of the case to force cross airflow. I built a spin up delay circuit for the 12 volt line but it doesn't seem to be necessary as the stock power supply easily handles the spin up draw of these two drives. http://tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=412679


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## richsadams

I think I mentioned it before Ciper...but nice work! :up:


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## teamgs

Initially upgraded my old S2 to a 250GB HD back in the day. Still runs great .

Just purchased a refurbed S3HD for $180 (Merry Christmas to me!) , said the heck with the 3 month warranty, and ordered the Western Digital AV-GP WD10EVCS 1TB drive.

I first connected the stock TiVo to the service, and configured it. I go the latest service updates. I then used WINMFS and configured the new drive, reinstalled it into the new unit and it was ready in less than 30 minutes.

Had to wait 2 weeks for the Comcast M Card to be installed, but I am now enjoying all sorts of HDef TiVo goodness!

Gary


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## jamesweber

teamgs said:


> Just purchased a refurbed S3HD for $180 (Merry Christmas to me!) , said the heck with the 3 month warranty, and ordered the Western Digital AV-GP WD10EVCS 1TB drive.
> 
> Gary


Congrats, I used the same drive and WinMFS as well...It couldn't have been easier, certainly alot easier than getting CC's installed

James


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