# Previously upgraded Tivo HD hard drive in Tivo Series 3?



## aryndub (Jun 25, 2009)

Hi,

I've moved on to a Tivo Premiere and am wanting to sell my old Tivo HD. I had previously upgraded it to a 1TB drive. Before unplugging it, I did a factory reset and pulled the plug after it was about to go through the guided setup. I've put the old factory drive back in and reset it as well. Someone is wanting to buy my old 1TB hard drive, but they want to use it in a Tivo Series 3, which I know is similar to the Tivo HD, but I wanted to make sure it will work. My questions are:

Can I simply pull a previously used hard drive and use it in another Tivo? (will it automatically recognize the new system?)

Can I use a Tivo HD hard drive in a Tivo Series 3? Is it basically plug and play?

Thanks in advance.


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## txporter (Sep 18, 2006)

aryndub said:


> Hi,
> 
> I've moved on to a Tivo Premiere and am wanting to sell my old Tivo HD. I had previously upgraded it to a 1TB drive. Before unplugging it, I did a factory reset and pulled the plug after it was about to go through the guided setup. I've put the old factory drive back in and reset it as well. Someone is wanting to buy my old 1TB hard drive, but they want to use it in a Tivo Series 3, which I know is similar to the Tivo HD, but I wanted to make sure it will work. My questions are:
> 
> ...


The drive can be used in a Series3 but it will not be plug and play. They will need either an image from a Series3 or an InstaCake for a Series3. If they had a TivoHD unit, it would work but they would be required to do a Clear and Delete all.


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## calstudios (Jul 16, 2008)

txporter said:


> The drive can be used in a Series3 but it will not be plug and play. They will need either an image from a Series3 or an InstaCake for a Series3. If they had a TivoHD unit, it would work but they would be required to do a Clear and Delete all.


So if I buy a Tivo HD off ebay, can I move the upgraded 1TB drive from my current THD to the new THD? I understand that I could/would lose my content, but would the drive be recognized?


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

calstudios said:


> So if I buy a Tivo HD off ebay, can I move the upgraded 1TB drive from my current THD to the new THD? I understand that I could/would lose my content, but would the drive be recognized?


Is your current HD dead or dying?

If not, you can use Tivo Desktop to backup your shows to a (very large) partition on your computer (or possibly an external drive connected to the computer, I haven't gotten that far in my experiments yet).

When you take a drive out of particular model TiVo and put it into another of the same model, you'll probably get an "error 51" or at least a complaining screen.

You'll have to do a "clear everything" so it can marry itself to the new motherboard, and then you'll have to run guided setup again.


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