# S2 Hard Drive Upgrade



## Cajun (Jan 7, 2002)

OK..I'm finally ready to take the plunge and upgrade my Series 2. I've been reading and searching posts about which drive to upgrade to. Seems like most like seagate drives, but they are too noisy. Others like maxtor & hitachi but only after they run a utility to make them quieter. Can anybody help me decide which one is truly better than the other? I'm lookin at a minimum of 400gb. Also, if you know of a good deal on a drive, please pass it along. I'll look tomorrow in my Fry's ad for sure. 


Thanks All
Boudin for Everyone


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## rock_doctor (Oct 22, 2000)

I just upgraded to a seagate and do not find it loud. If the room is completely silent you may (may) hear a slight clicking sound. Nothing more. Seagate drives also have a 5 year warranty which seems to be about the best at this point. You should make sure you get a video drive (a drive designed for DVR/PVR recorders). They are specifically designed for this use and are designed to run cooler, require less power and according to seagate make less noise. I got my 250gig drive from newegg for $77 and another poster got a 400 gig drive from outpost.com $107. Look at the last page of the weaknees thread tacked to the front page, top. The upgrade is absolutely necessary! I found my HDVR2 actually responds faster to the remote now. Also make sure you have nothing recorded on the unit, this way you are only moving about 2 gig of files to the new drive and the upgrade will take less then 10 min start to finish (including reinstalling the drive). The only catch is to make sure you are very careful with the ribbon cables, take the time to clean out all of the dust and when imaging the drive - slave for a seagate is no jumpers installed. 

Good luck
mark


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## rock_doctor (Oct 22, 2000)

A PM was sent but I have included it below in case there are any delivery issues.

You can go to http://tivo.upgrade-instructions.com/step1.php and pick your unit, then check the appropriate blocks. The last page will give you fairly detailed instruction of how to use a few linux based software packages that allow you to copy your original tivo drive onto the new drive. This is the cheapest way to do the upgrade as it will only cost you the cost of the drive, the other utilities are free. The only catch is the tivo drive must be in good shape. If it has died or the unit has started to reboot on its own then you will have issues getting a good image off the original drive. This is the point where you will have to purchase a copy of instantcake and go that route.

If your tivo is working fine but you want more space then use the weaknees site (given above), download the software which is provided as an ISO file. You can then use this file and any descent cd burning program to burn the ISO to a disk, which will contain the necessary software and will make the cd bootable. If you tivo drive is ok then open your computer and unplug the hard drive (if the computer starts to boot into windows with the tivo drive installed, windows will mark the drive. You do not want this to happen, so just unhook the C: drive to be safe. You want the cd drive on # one ide channel and on the second channel you will hook the two drives. On the hard drive ribbon cable the original tivo drive will go on the end plug and then the new drive will go on the middle plug on the ribbon cable. The new drive needs to be set to be a slave drive, which on a seagate is all jumpers removed. The tivo drive needs to be set as master (mine was already set as master so yours probably is also but check to be sure). Once everything is plugged in just boot the computer to the cd and follow the printed directions from the website. You do not need to know linux just how to hook up a hard drive. While you have the tivo open and drive removed take the time to blow out all of the dust from the unit. Some have hypothesized that dust can cause the tivo to have issues. It is just a good time to clean house.

The software off the cd is going to copy the operating software for the tivo (actually is written in linux) off the original drive onto the new drive. No need to format anything or do anything special. I would not bother to back up the tivo software because you should take the original drive and put it into storage. This way if the new drive dies in the next few years you can just use the original drive to make a new replacement drive.

It is relatively automatic, the weaknees package will do all you need. If for some reason the tivo tells you that you still have 35 hrs recording time then the image went wrong. Check your jumpers and re-image the drive.

Becareful, make sure to touch the computer frame before touching anything else and besure to never touch the printed circuit board on the drive, computer or the tivo. You don't want to shock anything. It is an easy job.

good luck,
mark


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## QED (Sep 27, 2003)

rock_doctor said:


> just make sure when you type out the Linux string, replace the 127 with 150. This increases the size of the swap file from 127 meg to 150 meg.


I thought replacing the 127 with any number over 127 resulted in no swap file being initialized....unless you take the extra step to run tpip.


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## rock_doctor (Oct 22, 2000)

Somebody else suggested the 150 stating that the larger swap file would be better. 

Interestingly enough I have seen posts that say you want 1mg of swap for each two gig of storage capacity. I have also seen the posts that support what you are saying as well as the sticky on the front page. I have edited my posts to reflect this issue. Good catch. :up: 

mark


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