# Format Tivo Premiere Drive to use in Tivo HD



## Jasper628 (Dec 8, 2002)

Being a long time Tivo user, I acquired a Tivo Premiere about a year ago. My 1 year contract ($19.95/month) is up and I've decided to replace my Premiere with another Tivo HD model ($12.95/month) which has a better OTA tuner which suites my needs. 

I've already bought a brand new Tivo HD form a guy on Ebay and have it set up and it works great. I want to however expand the size of the Hard Drive. I'm wondering if I can take the hard drive out of the Premiere unit I have and reformat it to work with the Tivo HD ? 

For my older Tivo HD I used weaknees to upgrade and it worked perfectly....but due to hard drive prices spiking recently.....I'm wondering if the drive I already own in the Premiere unit would work (with reformatting) in my new Tivo HD unit ?

Also....if it will, where do I find the software to reformat and how complicated is it to reformat the drive ?

Any comments would be appreciated


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## mr.unnatural (Feb 2, 2006)

Use WinMFS to create a backup image of the Tivo HD and then restore it to the Premiere drive. You can also do a complete copy of the drive to retain your recordings. You'll probably want to make a backup image of the Premiere drive before overwriting it. The process for working with Premiere drives is different than the Tivo HD, IIRC. Look through the sticky threads at the top of the forums for info on working with both types of Tivo drives.


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## steve614 (May 1, 2006)

mr.unnatural said:


> *You'll probably want to make a backup image of the Premiere drive *before overwriting it. The process for working with Premiere drives is different than the Tivo HD, IIRC. Look through the sticky threads at the top of the forums for info on working with both types of Tivo drives.


I believe at this time, there is no way to make a truncated backup for the Premiere software.
The only reliable back up for a Premiere hard drive is a copy of the software on a hard drive.

If the OP writes over the Premiere software, but later decides he wants to use it again, he'll have to purchase a pre-prepared hard drive.


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## lillevig (Dec 7, 2010)

Jasper628 said:


> Being a long time Tivo user, I acquired a Tivo Premiere about a year ago. My 1 year contract ($19.95/month) is up and I've decided to replace my Premiere with another Tivo HD model ($12.95/month) which has a better OTA tuner which suites my needs.
> 
> I've already bought a brand new Tivo HD form a guy on Ebay and have it set up and it works great. I want to however expand the size of the Hard Drive. I'm wondering if I can take the hard drive out of the Premiere unit I have and reformat it to work with the Tivo HD ?
> 
> ...





steve614 said:


> I believe at this time, there is no way to make a truncated backup for the Premiere software.
> The only reliable back up for a Premiere hard drive is a copy of the software on a hard drive.
> 
> If the OP writes over the Premiere software, but later decides he wants to use it again, he'll have to purchase a pre-prepared hard drive.


Steve is right, make sure you are ok with not being able to fire the Premiere back up without getting a new drive for it. Personally, I wouldn't trash the Premiere just to get a 320GB drive. You may want to check out the ads for CompUSA, TigerDirect, Best Buy, OfficeMax, Office Depot, etc. Many times they feaure a 1TB drive for less than $100. I prefer WinMFS but I've also used MFSTools. I always use an inexpensive USB to IDE/SATA adapter so I don't have to crack open my PC box to hook up the drive. I will PM you with links to S3HD images for both tools.


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## Jasper628 (Dec 8, 2002)

Thanks for the info you all provided.....I appreciate it  I'm still considering all options. One potential problem, I have a lap top with no sata port....so I may need that adaptor mentioned (sata/usb). I do have a 11 year old desktop tower computer which still works (XP pro operating system) which possibly I could use for the drive copying....but it's so old I'm not sure everything would be compatible (software/hardware) and I don't want any problems. It's was a great computer which I built myself using newegg.com for all the parts...and it worked reliably with no problems for 7 years until I bought my lap top 4 years ago.

It does appear even if I decide to buy a brand new hard drive (maybe 1 TB) rather than use the Premiere hard drive it would save me a bundle of money compared to the pre-formatted weaknees product.

I've surfed around a bit this morning and even checked out youtube videos and it appears this is something I can do without screwing it up....lol.

Thanks again for the helpful posts !


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## lillevig (Dec 7, 2010)

Jasper628 said:


> Thanks for the info you all provided.....I appreciate it  I'm still considering all options. One potential problem, I have a lap top with no sata port....so I may need that adaptor mentioned (sata/usb). I do have a 11 year old desktop tower computer which still works (XP pro operating system) which possibly I could use for the drive copying....but it's so old I'm not sure everything would be compatible (software/hardware) and I don't want any problems. It's was a great computer which I built myself using newegg.com for all the parts...and it worked reliably with no problems for 7 years until I bought my lap top 4 years ago.
> 
> It does appear even if I decide to buy a brand new hard drive (maybe 1 TB) rather than use the Premiere hard drive it would save me a bundle of money compared to the pre-formatted weaknees product.
> 
> ...


The adapter cable is cheap. I should mention that if you get a Western Digital Green series drive then you will need to connect to an internal PC port to run the wdidle utility. You can also check eBay for a pre-formatted drive for your Tivo. Prices are up at the moment but it might be worth the extra cost to save the headaches.


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## garrettmarvel (Oct 28, 2007)

can someone help me out here on the tools, software, and/or resources to do this myself with my own windows laptop?

i'm looking to do similar to the original thread writer, to figure out how to format a drive for a tivo HD and also for a premier to upgrade the drive size. i have one of each at home, but need more space, so wanted to do it myself and save some dough.

thanks!

garrett


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## jrtroo (Feb 4, 2008)

There are many threads of drive upgrade instructions in this forum. You have several choices. Just read and follow the directions. If you have a question- just post there.

Hint- the same tool (jmfs) will allow you to upgrade both to 2TB.


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## DM3MD157 (Nov 30, 2012)

I used WinMFS, it worked fine with my external PATA enclosure.


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

garrettmarvel said:


> can someone help me out here on the tools, software, and/or resources to do this myself with my own windows laptop?
> 
> i'm looking to do similar to the original thread writer, to figure out how to format a drive for a tivo HD and also for a premier to upgrade the drive size. i have one of each at home, but need more space, so wanted to do it myself and save some dough.
> 
> ...


There's a thread about using comer's jmfs cd v1.04 to copy the Premiere drive to a larger drive and expand into the extra space.

There's also a thread about using it to do the same with S3 HD and HD XL drives.

When you say you have an HD, I assume you mean a TCD652160 and not a TCD648250

You should have decided you wanted to do this about a week or so ago when the WD20EURS 2TB AV hard drives were selling for $100 at Amazon and newegg instead of the $120 they're back up to now.

To do the Premiere drive upgrade, you'll need to be able to connect the original drive and the upgrade drive to the laptop at the same time, regardless of whether you want to save any recorded shows on the original drive or not.

Upgrading the HD might be possible with just one drive connected at a time, depending on a few things.

I would advise you not to plan on re-using the original drives from either TiVo for anything, but to plan to tuck them away for safe-keeping somewhere.


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