# Replacing Drive



## bdj470 (Sep 19, 2004)

Sometime today my Series 2 40 hour Tivo hard drive failed today. I have a WD 80 gig drives lying around that I want to replace the dead hard drive in my Tivo.

What software do I need to do this? And where can I find instructions on replacing a drive? Mainly software instructions?

Thanks.


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## Synthohol (Jul 14, 2003)

http://www.ptvupgrade.com/products/instantcake/

ive heard good things here about it.

cant say ive used it though because i upgrade the hdd right after i buy them and keep the original 40 gig on the shelf for copies in case of breakdown.

sometimes you can put the hdd in the freezer for a few hours and get it going in a PC long enough to copy the system software to another drive using the tools from weaknees http://tivo.upgrade-instructions.com/step1.php

good luck!!


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## vman41 (Jun 18, 2002)

Synthohol said:


> http://www.ptvupgrade.com/products/instantcake/
> 
> ive heard good things here about it.


I tried it and I'd give it a so-so rating. You first have to sort out all the different variants to find the one that applies to your particular TiVo and does what you are interested in. The software only works if you re-configure the PC's CD drive as the primary IDE master - an unnecessary complication IMO. The mountcd command failed completely on my PC, l had to manually mount the CD from the shell prompt and invoke the build script. Their release notes have a very muddled explanation of which variants handle LBA48 properly (not and issue if you are using and 80G drive).

Overall, if you know enough to smoothly deal with instantcake, then you probably can use the free tools anyway. It's also easier if you have a PC that is easy to open up and swap drives in - a lot aren't.


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## ForrestB (Apr 8, 2004)

Another free way to upgrade is to follow the Hinsdale Tivo Upgrade instructions at http://www.newreleasesvideo.com/hinsdale-how-to/index9.html


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## wscannell (Dec 7, 2003)

Check the stickies at the top of this forum. They have plenty of info about how to upgrade. If you need an image (your hard drive is unreadable), there is info about that too.


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## bdj470 (Sep 19, 2004)

Thanks all for the replies. But after reading all the stickies and websites I did not feel up to the challenge of doing this myself. 

I ended up buying a new DT Tivo. Found some gift cards that I received from Christmas and my Bday. 

Thanks again.


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