# Hard Drive change leads to no account service



## DanMannyMan (Jun 1, 2010)

Hi everyone,

I purchased a Tivo HD upgraded with a 1 TB drive and lifetime service from eBay back in Nov. of 2008. It worked perfectly until recently, as the hard drive seems to be failing (still boots fine, new recordings are just unwatchable because they are so pixelated). This was a WD GreenDrive before the current "EARS-" series.

I tried to use the original 160 GB drive, but I when I copied my info from the 1 TB drive using WinMFS (truncated transfer) and reinstalled in the Tivo, I get a message from Tivo saying that there is no service tied to that machine, and it gives me a number to call. (I had formatted the original drive prior to copying the 1 TB data). 

After this, I bought a new 1 TB drive (Hitachi Deskstar 3100), did a complete copy with WinMFS and the same thing happened. My understanding is that the account info is tied to the motherboard, so I'm not sure why this is happening. Others have reported doing similar upgrades with no problem... the Tivo boots with the new drive, but again it warns me about no account info. I understand that Tivo does not support any hard drive changes, so I am wary to call to re-activate service. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!
Dan


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## dilbert27 (Dec 1, 2006)

Has the Tivo made a call after the new drive for it is possible that the original 160 GB drive was removed before the service was activated and therefore did not know about the service status.


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## DanMannyMan (Jun 1, 2010)

I bought it with an upgraded 1 TB and the lifetime service activated to the seller which was then transferred to me. Are you saying that maybe he activated the Tivo after swapping out the 160 GB drive? Why would that have any effect on the account status of the Tivo? 

Basically, it works right now with the original upgraded 1TB drive, but copying my files and installing either of these other two drives results in the no account service message. Does WinMFS have anything to do with account status? That info is nowhere on the hard drive right?

Do I need to manually have the Tivo download the latest data or something? I plugged in the ethernet cable after setting it all up again, but I didn't try that. From what I've read, doing a complete copy should have all of my shows and everything looking the same as before, but this is not the case.


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## kdmorse (Jan 29, 2001)

Service is tied to the motherboard. 

However, service status is stored on the hard drive. It is updated every time the unit makes a daily call. (It says "Here's my serial number, what's my services status", and stores it). So... If the hard drive you installed was last used in a unit with no service, it would have no way of knowing it's now in an unit with service, until it made it's first daily call.

-Ken


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## cwerdna (Feb 22, 2001)

If you go to System Info, does the TSN (serial number/service id) look valid and match what's on the back of the box? If it's totally wrong (like all 0s or something) and/or you're getting an error 51, try doing a clear and delete everything when booted w/the replacement drive.

I had to do this when fixing someone's dead Series 2 TiVo w/a source image from another person's Series 2 TiVo. (Both were TCD54xxx units.) I had to do that too in order to get my Tivo HD going using an image I got elsewhere since the original stock drive was corrupted and/or bad.


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## ChuckH (Mar 27, 2002)

If you do a clear and delete you will need the cablecard repaired if you have one.

chuckh


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