# Has TiVo Premier Been Hacked Yet? (Replace drive, or external expander)



## jsrober

Hi,

I have a TiVo Premier. I want to use a standard eSATA drive (high quality drive in a high quality case) with my Premier. I don't want to buy the official expander. Have the hackers figured out how to do this yet?

Has anyone figured out how to replace the internal drive?

Thanks,
John


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## bkdtv

There are no public tools to do either.

Weaknees discovered a method -- which they are keeping private -- and offers pre-upgraded TiVo Premieres in 2TB and 4TB configurations.


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## curiousgeorge

jsrober said:


> Hi,
> 
> I have a TiVo Premier. I want to use a standard eSATA drive (high quality drive in a high quality case) with my Premier. I don't want to buy the official expander. Have the hackers figured out how to do this yet?
> 
> Has anyone figured out how to replace the internal drive?
> 
> Thanks,
> John


Drop-in 1TB and 2TB upgrade drives are on eBay for the Premiere now, so Weaknees isn't the only one that's figured it out. Hopefully there will be a community how-to soon.


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## CharlesH

If Tivo's attitude toward these modifications is like in the past, they don't consider the modifications to be evil violations of the terms of service, as Apple does toward jailbreaking iPhones. They just say that your warranty is void and they won't help you if you have problems with them. But they will be happy to continue to provide service on them.


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## TivoRocks193

bkdtv said:


> There are no public tools to do either.
> 
> Weaknees discovered a method -- which they are keeping private -- and offers pre-upgraded TiVo Premieres in 2TB and 4TB configurations.


Has this changed? Has a public method been discovered?


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## orangeboy

TivoRocks193 said:


> Has this changed? Has a public method been discovered?


http://tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?p=8095021#post8095021


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## TivoRocks193

orangeboy said:


> http://tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?p=8095021#post8095021


Is that a yes or no?


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## lessd

TivoRocks193 said:


> Is that a yes or no?


For the expert you can hack in a bigger Premiere drive but it far from easy like WinMFS was on all other TiVos.


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## bigpatky

CharlesH said:


> If Tivo's attitude toward these modifications is like in the past, they don't consider the modifications to be evil violations of the terms of service, as Apple does toward jailbreaking iPhones. They just say that your warranty is void and they won't help you if you have problems with them. But they will be happy to continue to provide service on them.


i'm really not trying to start a fanboy war (which always seems to happen whenever apple is brought up) but what you just described sounds exactly like apple's attitude toward jailbreakers.


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## donnoh

There is nothing better than a bigger hard drive in your Tivo. All of us hacks might amount to .1&#37; of all Tivo owners so they could give a rats but about us hackers.
Party on...


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## bsdbytes

bigpatky said:


> i'm really not trying to start a fanboy war (which always seems to happen whenever apple is brought up) but what you just described sounds exactly like apple's attitude toward jailbreakers.


I think the main difference is Apple brands you as a criminal and actively tries to re-lock your phone.


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## ilkevinli

I don't think its the same at all. Apple continually closes the holes used to jailbreak so that the phone can no longer be jailbroken. Tivo does no such thing.



bigpatky said:


> i'm really not trying to start a fanboy war (which always seems to happen whenever apple is brought up) but what you just described sounds exactly like apple's attitude toward jailbreakers.


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## StanSimmons

ilkevinli said:


> I don't think its the same at all. Apple continually closes the holes used to jailbreak so that the phone can no longer be jailbroken. Tivo does no such thing.


They lock down each new series of TiVo more than the last, but they don't actively try to break hacks during purely software upgrades.

Series 1 boxes were very easy to hack. Series 2 boxes were harder to hack until some smart hackers found a way to break the "chain of trust" with software. Series 2.5 and Series 3/HD boxes require a replacement prom to hack. Series 4/Premier boxes seem to block being able to just replace the prom....

So TiVo does actively try to stop the hackers, they just aren't malicious about it like Apple is.


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## ilkevinli

Like I said, its not the same. 



StanSimmons said:


> but they don't actively try to break hacks during purely software upgrades.


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## CharlesH

ilkevinli said:


> Like I said, its not the same.


I think that TiVo goes to great lengths to prevent modified software from running on the box so that they don't risk losing their CableLabs and related DRM certifications. Putting authorized software on a bigger hard drive doesn't compromise that; it simply becomes a matter of not wanting to support boxes with random hard drives.


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## ilkevinli

And what exactly are the "great lengths" Tivo goes to ? If they wanted to prevent it and or stop it, they could.



CharlesH said:


> I think that TiVo goes to great lengths to prevent modified software from running on the box so that they don't risk losing their CableLabs and related DRM certifications. Putting authorized software on a bigger hard drive doesn't compromise that; it simply becomes a matter of not wanting to support boxes with random hard drives.


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## RiyanWeb

i agree with CharlesH


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## lessd

ilkevinli said:


> And what exactly are the "great lengths" Tivo goes to ? If they wanted to prevent it and or stop it, they could.


One easy way is to have PROM look for the correct size drive or drive type like TiVo does for the external expander.


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## nataylor

ilkevinli said:


> I don't think its the same at all. Apple continually closes the holes used to jailbreak so that the phone can no longer be jailbroken. Tivo does no such thing.


The "holes" used to jailbreak are security holes that can be exploited to do bad things as well. So yes, Apple patches security vulnerabilities. But if you jailbreak, Apple doesn't do anything to re-lock your phone. Just don't expect future software updates to support your jailbreak.


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## Mike Wolf

Ok, basicallly here is the deal, you _can_ use a regular hard drive that uses eSATA,_BUT_ its not advised because the hard drives used in DVR's and the "official" expanders as you put it are specialized drives that don't have error correcting features that affect the smooth video stream, these features which are required for regular computer usage. Also AV hard drives are much much quieter. Here is some data collected from various DVR drive whitepapers.
Thermal Control: On board sensors monitor temperature and adjust characteristics as necessary to keep the temperature optimal. 
Durability: These drives run at 7200 RPM - more than fast enough for every PVR (providing about three times the necessary peak throughput) but not fast enough to wear out sooner. 
Acoustic Management: DVR-specific drives are specially tuned to run as quietly as possible. 
A/V Streaming: DVR-specific drives have been optimized and tuned to provide consistent data to the PVR processor. Standard desktop drives can hang while retrying drive reads - DVR drives know to move ahead and provide more data to keep video smooth. 
Error Recovery: Desktop drives retry on errors to make sure that your Excel spreadsheet is exactly right - it's imperative. But when watching video, if one block of data is bad, you may not even notice a dark spot on one frame for 1/30th of a second. So these drives are tuned to move past errors faster, putting the stream of data as top priority. Where desktop drives often cause stutters, these drives run smooth.


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## Mike Wolf

ilkevinli said:


> And what exactly are the "great lengths" Tivo goes to ? If they wanted to prevent it and or stop it, they could.


I think what he's referring to is the use of special hex screws that normal consumers can't open with a philips screwdriver, the usage of an operating system that needs to be on the drive in order for the tivo to work, and hardware limitations, at least found in the S1 and S2 models, prevented the usage of huge drives.


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## ilkevinli

None of the things you listed are used to prevent and stop hard drive upgrades. 



Mike Wolf said:


> I think what he's referring to is the use of special hex screws that normal consumers can't open with a philips screwdriver, the usage of an operating system that needs to be on the drive in order for the tivo to work, and hardware limitations, at least found in the S1 and S2 models, prevented the usage of huge drives.


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## DeWitt

nataylor said:


> The "holes" used to jailbreak are security holes that can be exploited to do bad things as well. So yes, Apple patches security vulnerabilities. But if you jailbreak, Apple doesn't do anything to re-lock your phone. Just don't expect future software updates to support your jailbreak.


Actually Apple has gone to the courts (So far unsuccessfully) to establish that Jailbreaking an Apple product is Illegal and can be prosecuted under DCMA.


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## TivoRocks193

bigpatky said:


> i'm really not trying to start a fanboy war...


Criticizing Apple on a tech forum? That's like offering free drugs to a drug addict... you just can't stop nerds from responding (as demonstrated above and apparently below).


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## nataylor

DeWitt said:


> Actually Apple has gone to the courts (So far unsuccessfully) to establish that Jailbreaking an Apple product is Illegal and can be prosecuted under DCMA.


Apple objects to the DMCA exception for jailbreaking, sure. But Apple has never tried to "re-lock" or "unjailbreak" someone's already-jailbroken iPhone. And that has nothing to do with the point I was making, that Apple doesn't close the "holes" used for jailbreaking just to stop jailbreaking. They do it because those holes represent security vulnerabilities that could be exploited to do all kinds of malicious things. Patching secuirty vulnverabilities is a GOOD thing.


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## bigpatky

TivoRocks193 said:


> Criticizing Apple on a tech forum? That's like offering free drugs to a drug addict... you just can't stop nerds from responding (as demonstrated above and apparently below).


I should have listened to myself and not engage in a conversation about Apple. Instead of continuing the conversation in a reasonable manner, someone decided to engage in name calling.


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## Mike Wolf

ilkevinli said:


> None of the things you listed are used to prevent and stop hard drive upgrades.


I disagree but for the sake of not losing my mind, lets just agree to disagree.


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## videogeek

I think Tivo should like the hacking. Taking the box beyond... better yet... turn some of them into features...


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