# Is DVR_Dude Legit?



## TivoRocks193 (Aug 10, 2005)

I have a Tivo Series 3 (TCD648250B) and Tivo HD (TCD652160), both I'd like to upgrade to 2TB. According to the FAQ, there is no DIY option but some eBay seller named "DVR_Dude" has managed to pull it off.

I'd like to hear from people who actually have bought from him and tell me how many hours their drives had after upgrading with one of his 2TB options. Were there any issues? Is it nearly identical to upgrading a Tivo myself, just with someone else's drives? I'm little disappointed he used a 5400 RPM drive instead of the WD Black line. Any performance issues with the slower drive?

Lastly, I find it strange that no one else, Weaknees in particular, has offered this option. eBay's the last place I'd expect to find the forefront of Tivo upgrades technology, so its a little odd to be considering it. As a side note, his drive markup is $80 over the price of the drive (WD20EARS is $109 on NewEgg, $189 on eBay for upgrade), so I really think this is overpriced as he's nearly doubled the price of the drive.


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## vurbano (Apr 20, 2004)

5400 RPM is plenty fast for this application.


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## jcthorne (Jan 28, 2002)

I bought a 2tb drive for my TivoHD from DVR Dude. He sent it quickly with good instructions. The drive installed, booted and setup without diffeculty. Has been through several official tivo updates so far with no trouble. He is a legit source. Several others her have purchased from him as well.

The drive he uses is not to save money but to keep power and heat low. The drive has all the performance the tivo can use by a wide margin.


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## Robbdoe1 (Dec 29, 2008)

The $109 on NewEgg is not imaged so for $80 you more you get an image that barely exists yet. I guess DVR_DUDE could have chosen any price point for this drive. IMHO: $80 sound fair for cutting edge.

Robb


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## Teeps (Aug 16, 2001)

TivoRocks193 said:


> As a side note, his drive markup is $80 over the price of the drive (WD20EARS is $109 on NewEgg, $189 on eBay for upgrade), so I really think this is overpriced as he's nearly doubled the price of the drive.


So don't buy it, if that is your opinion.


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## donnoh (Mar 7, 2008)

I've bought two drives from him for my Premieres and they have worked flawlessly right on boot including OS upgrades. Both are 2 TB and have 317 HD hours.

As far as the price goes, he made the image, loads it on the drive, ships it, guarantees the image for 1 year and pays ebay and paypal fees so I think it's a bargain.


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## MikeAndrews (Jan 17, 2002)

DVR Dude has checked in here. 

As far as I'm concerned DVR Dude is charging a reasonable price for the service and he's cheaper than others.

Even for me, who can grok *nix and follow the (comer and others) long instructions on 2TB upgrades, I'm tempted to buy from him. For one thing comer isn't saying his method works on anything before a Premiere. 

Hey DVR Dude: Let us know if your 2TB upgrades drives on S3s (and HDs) still allow adding the external drive.


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## TivoRocks193 (Aug 10, 2005)

For a DIY group of people, you sure don't mind spending an extra $80 on a disk image. Guess the people who used to hack their Tivos and install custom apps are long gone.


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## tomm1079 (May 10, 2005)

Their is DIY options for TivoHD and Series 3. Just not the premiere. You can DIY with tools from http://www.mfslive.org/. It is nice software that runs on windows

Update: A premiere DIY is also possible: TiVo Community > Main TiVo Forums > TiVo Premiere DVRs > Drive upgrades in a Premiere unit? > post #307


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## MikeAndrews (Jan 17, 2002)

TivoRocks193 said:


> For a DIY group of people, you sure don't mind spending an extra $80 on a disk image. Guess the people who used to hack their Tivos and install custom apps are long gone.


Most of the people who figured out the hacks are no longer around or are not talking because now the for-profit vendors are keeping it secret.

Being that the majors are selling 2TB drives for the Series 3 line but there is no how-to information out there even on the hacking forums... *sigh*

(*Thanks again to comer* for being the exception for providing a how-to for the Series 4.)


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## Robbdoe1 (Dec 29, 2008)

TivoRocks193 said:


> For a DIY group of people, you sure don't mind spending an extra $80 on a disk image.


I don't want to spend anything on an image. I won't support the guy who doubled the price either. Still, $80 ain't to bad for cutting edge. Think about it this way, if your drive crapped out and you had no image you would need to pay $109 for the Egg drive and $40 to IC and you still can't use the full drive. That cuts the real extra cost to $40 for cutting edge. I guess it's worth it to some.

I backed up all 5 of my units with Winmfs and will eventually replace all the drives with the largest single drive that I can build with freeware.


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## donnoh (Mar 7, 2008)

For all of you DIY'ers feel free to upgrade your Tivo's.
For all of you "I can't do it myself" people, buy an upgrade from someone reputable like DVRDude.
It's a pretty simple concept of capitalism. The guy is not getting rich, he's supplying a service. Deal with it.


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## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

TivoRocks193 said:


> For a DIY group of people, you sure don't mind spending an extra $80 on a disk image. Guess the people who used to hack their Tivos and install custom apps are long gone.


No, but this is not their forum. It never has been. This has always been a light hobbyist's forum, not a hacker's forum. There is a section of this forum that caters more to hackers, but this is not it. There is also another TiVo forum that is dedicated to hackers. It doesn't surprise me at all - nor discourage me - that a large fraction of the population on this forum would consider buying an upgrade rather than doing it themselves. The fact that DVR_Dude's price is quite reasonable in my estimation makes it even less surprising.


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## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

donnoh said:


> For all of you DIY'ers feel free to upgrade your Tivo's.
> For all of you "I can't do it myself" people, buy an upgrade from someone reputable like DVRDude.
> It's a pretty simple concept of capitalism. The guy is not getting rich, he's supplying a service. Deal with it.


Well, it even less controversial than that. While not a pittance, $80 is not a huge amount of money, and the service he provides is significant in extent. The choice to go with a DIY solution generally rests on one or both of two considerations.

The first is, whether the DIY route will save money. Realizing that time is also money, and that a DIY route may take longer, this consideeration may involve more than just the raw outlay of cash. Give the differential of only $80 between the canned and DIY route, even a seasoned expert hacker might reasonably decide to go the canned route - especially if he is in a hurry.

The second consideration is the satisfaction factor. If the task will be a satisfying one, then one might consider the time well spent irrespective of the amount of time it will take. This may significantly mitigate or even completely vitiate any considerations of time savings for the canned route, and given the fact it is also cheaper, the DIY solution becomes a hands-down winner. OTOH, if the task does not promise to be an enjoyable or easy one for the individual, then the greater security and time savings make the canned route the better choice. Indeed, even a seasoned hacker may find it worth the extra money to quickly accomplish what to him may have become a boring task.

The bottom line is there is nothing at all wrong with paying someone else to take care of the more "delicate" aspects of a task, any more than there is anything wrong with preferring to learn for one's self how to do it.


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## jcaudle (Aug 16, 2004)

His prices are cheaper than either weaknees or DVR upgrade for a similar priced drive.


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## lew (Mar 12, 2002)

Robbdoe1 said:


> I don't want to spend anything on an image. I won't support the guy who doubled the price either. Still, $80 ain't to bad for cutting edge. Think about it this way, if your drive crapped out and you had no image you would need to pay $109 for the Egg drive and $40 to IC and you still can't use the full drive. That cuts the real extra cost to $40 for cutting edge. I guess it's worth it to some.
> 
> I backed up all 5 of my units with Winmfs and will eventually replace all the drives with the largest single drive that I can build with freeware.


A reseller who does any volume purchases from vendors that provide service. It's entirely possible he's paying more then those of us who purchase from whatever reputable vendor is offering the best price today.

He's only doubling the price if he sells you a bare drive. He's selling you a drive with modified tivo software loaded on it. Modified software which isn't readily available.

Assume DVR_DUDE purchases the bare drive for $125. Assume a 10% mark up. Assume $10 for shipping. He has to buy packing materials. The cost is now around $147. I don't think $50-$60 is an unreasonable markup to install modified tivo software.

It's dishonest to evaluate DVR_DUDE'S pricing as a percentage markup. He's provided added service. He's entitled to a dollar markup to cover his time.


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## Robbdoe1 (Dec 29, 2008)

lew said:


> He's only doubling the price if he sells you a bare drive. He's selling you a drive with modified tivo software loaded on it. Modified software which isn't readily available.


"I won't support the guy who doubled the price either"
I'm speaking of IC going from $20 to $40. I have no problem with DVR_DUDE. I never used his service but I find his prices to be accpetable to me.

Robb


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## TivoRocks193 (Aug 10, 2005)

jcaudle said:


> His prices are cheaper than either weaknees or DVR upgrade for a similar priced drive.


For people who don't know how to install a disk image, those places are great. I fully recommend them for people without the technical expertise to install a disk image.

For the rest of us (assuming there is any of us left), $80 for a disk image is still way too high. Even DVR upgrade charges less for their CD images, granted they don't support 2TB (yet).


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

I've been using my two DVR_Dude drives since late Spring/early Summer. they were a good value. but also mine are for the Premiere. When I had my TiVoHD and S3 boxes I used winMFS and supplied my own drives. There were no tools like that for the Premiere.
Anyone that feels comfortable removing and installing hard drives, and with windows, will haveno problem upgrading a tiVoHD or S3 box using winMFS.


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## lew (Mar 12, 2002)

aaronwt said:


> I've been using my two DVR_Dude drives since late Spring/early Summer. they were a good value. but also mine are for the Premiere. When I had my TiVoHD and S3 boxes I used winMFS and supplied my own drives. There were no tools like that for the Premiere.
> Anyone that feels comfortable removing and installing hard drives, and with windows, will haveno problem upgrading a tiVoHD or S3 box using winMFS.


The hacked (hybrid) image which allows you to use a 1.5 or 2.0T drive in a TivoHD isn't readily available. winMFS is easy to use. A stock TivoHD image won't work on a drive much bigger then 1T (if yo want to use the full capacity). A Tivo HDXL image won't work properly in a TivoHD.

I agree winMFS is easy to use. Based on personal experience some of the USB-SATA adapters don't work properly with some computers.


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## comer (Aug 7, 2003)

Some people use OpenOffice (free :up, some MS Office (excuse me, how much? ). For some it's worth it. It's an open market - the price is as high as people are willing to pay. 
I don't think this discussion leads anywhere, really. Whatever your preference is - the solution is available. You want to get some $$ saved at a cost of straining your brain and hands a little - go DIY. If you want to reduce finger movements to a minimum - go pre-installed.


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## comer (Aug 7, 2003)

By the way, looks like it works for THD as well, albeit without "supersize" yet. Look here.


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## wp746911 (Feb 19, 2005)

we should really update the faq...


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## Dave_N (May 4, 2006)

As someone who has done both an upgrade and purchased from DVR_Dude, it really is about trading time versus money. My TivoHD upgraded disk died, and I had to go back to the orig. In the meantime I ordered a premiere and a DVR_Dude 2TB upgrade. With 3 kids in fall sports, the inability to find the hours required for the upgrade, researching acoustic modes etc, made the DVR_Dude upgrade reasonable. 

Different strokes for different folks at different times.

Dave


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## retiredqwest (Sep 7, 2010)

comer said:


> By the way, looks like it works for THD as well, albeit without "supersize" yet. Look here.


Actually I went back and ran Winmfs against the 2TB JMFS copy and turned on Supersize and it cranked upto 318 hrs.

And this was on the Tivo HD not the S3.

And I've tried JMFS on 4 hard drives so far and they all booted up and soft booted correctly.


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## lew (Mar 12, 2002)

We didn't really answer the OPs question. Tivo_Dude is legit. He has 100% feedback. He occasionally posts on TCF. He's using the correct drives. OP questioned his use of 5400 rpm drive. That's preferable. Fast enough. Quieter. Lower power. He's offered drives for the Premier and 1.5 and 2 Gig drives for the TivoHD long before the techniques were publicly available.

His prices are much lower then other vendors selling plug n play drives.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

My 1TB and 2TB drives from DVR DUDE were 7200rpm drives. I think they were Hitachi drives. I see he's using all WD drives now.


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## szatkoff (Jan 31, 2002)

Dave_N said:


> As someone who has done both an upgrade and purchased from DVR_Dude, it really is about trading time versus money.


This.

I purchased my 2TB drive for my Premiere from DVR_Dude. This install took all of 5 minutes. I would purchase from him again.


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## Phantom Gremlin (Jun 20, 2002)

jcaudle said:


> His prices are cheaper than either weaknees or DVR upgrade for a similar priced drive.


His prices are *much* cheaper than either weaknees or DVR upgrade for a similar priced drive.


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## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

aaronwt said:


> My 1TB and 2TB drives from DVR DUDE were 7200rpm drives. I think they were Hitachi drives. I see he's using all WD drives now.


I've had good luck with both Hitachi and WD drives, and considerable bad luck with Seagate. I like the WD drives, though, because they run much cooler and take less power. On the TiVo, this is of modest consideration, but still more than zero. On my RAID arrays, it's a pretty big concern.


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## Chimpware (Jan 30, 2002)

Just bought a 1 TB drive from DVR-Dude for my Tivo HD, that was acting strangely and failed drive tests. Drive installed very easily (less than 20 minutes) and works great. Only issue is that Comcast cannot seem to get the Data ID updated for the Tivo yet and cannot figure out what's wrong on their end.

Oh well, certainly not the drives fault. If you are thinking about upgrading DVR_Dude saves a lot of time for a little money. I am someone who has done drive upgrades in the past on my own, but no longer having a Windows or Linux box running regularly in the house made this a little more difficult.

As an aside, the same drive from WeakKnees would have cost over twice as much, so price seems good compared to competition.


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## missdona (Apr 19, 2004)

I've purchased 3 (2 1.5TBs and 1 2TB) upgrades in the past two years from him. They've all worked flawlessly and he delivers very quickly. I recommend him to my friends and wouldn't hesitate to go with him again.


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## Adam1115 (Dec 15, 2003)

Chimpware said:


> Just bought a 1 TB drive from DVR-Dude for my Tivo HD, that was acting strangely and failed drive tests. Drive installed very easily (less than 20 minutes) and works great. Only issue is that Comcast cannot seem to get the Data ID updated for the Tivo yet and cannot figure out what's wrong on their end.
> 
> Oh well, certainly not the drives fault. If you are thinking about upgrading DVR_Dude saves a lot of time for a little money. I am someone who has done drive upgrades in the past on my own, but no longer having a Windows or Linux box running regularly in the house made this a little more difficult.
> 
> As an aside, the same drive from WeakKnees would have cost over twice as much, so price seems good compared to competition.


I had the same problem with Comcast when I had a drive fail. The only fix was to have them swap the cards.


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## jdmass (Dec 1, 2002)

Another happy DVR-Dude customer. I've done my own upgrades to my Series 3 boxes, but I bought a 1TB from him for my Tivo Premiere since I didn't want to hassle with the still somewhat experimental nature of upgrading that platform. The drive was a 7200RPM WD Green SATA and the Tivo image has functioned flawlessly (aside from known Tivo Premiere bugs) thru two software updates.

His price is very reasonable for what he offers: a very minimal level of effort for expanding your Tivo. And much lower than the competition.


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## jcthorne (Jan 28, 2002)

Would certianly be interesting to see if DVR_Dude can come up with a working 3TB drive solution. Anyone know if MFS file system can support addressing drives that large?

I'd be buying yet another drive from him if the 3TB option comes available.


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## Boston Mangler (Nov 25, 2004)

Just upgraded my Tivo HD to a 1TB from DVR dude. The drive is a Western Digital.

The install was super easy and the only minor glitch i had was that i had to call my cable company (time warner) to reauthorize my cable card. They did it over the phone and it only took a minute.

Anyway, i am very happy with his product and service!


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## Chimpware (Jan 30, 2002)

Adam1115 said:


> I had the same problem with Comcast when I had a drive fail. The only fix was to have them swap the cards.


You're kidding???? I will not go through that, I will cancel the premium stations before I go trough the pain of switching the cable card just because I upgraded/replaced the drive.

DRM BS is such a PITA. No wonder people just torrent everything. The only ones who have to deal with the issues are the legit people. Stupid model.


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## shwru980r (Jun 22, 2008)

Chimpware said:


> You're kidding???? I will not go through that, I will cancel the premium stations before I go trough the pain of switching the cable card just because I upgraded/replaced the drive.
> 
> DRM BS is such a PITA. No wonder people just torrent everything. The only ones who have to deal with the issues are the legit people. Stupid model.


If you don't use a cable card, you won't get guide information for most of the channels. You might as well downgrade your service to their basic network package.


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## jcthorne (Jan 28, 2002)

Many have gone OTA and internet in lou of CATV service because of all the cable card, tuning adaptors and DRM issues. We did 3 yrs ago and never looked back. $100 a month in my pocket paid for that OTA antenna and internet bandwidth long ago.


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## Chimpware (Jan 30, 2002)

shwru980r said:


> If you don't use a cable card, you won't get guide information for most of the channels. You might as well downgrade your service to their basic network package.


Ummmm dude, you need to read the whole post. I have had a cable card in the Tivo for 2 years. I just recently upgraded the drive and it stopped working.

Anyway. I did end up having to have a Tech at the house, but all he did was call the info in, same as I did 3 separate times, but miraculously it worked. He told me that the system the Tech Support people have access to us not the same as the Field Tech Office and this happens a lot. Anyway he did a great job and was done and gone in 10 minutes.


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## lamotte (Oct 11, 2004)

willing be ordering from the dvr_dude as soon as my pension check post later this month. from what i have read in his reviews on ebay and on line here i have no doubts everything will glo very smoothly. 

can hardly wait to finish my upgrade later on. my last upgrade will come early next spring. found a 50 foot tv tower really cheap and will be add two antenna one to grab station in toledo and the other will be on a rotor to grab both ft wayne and lansing both are about 60 miles away. distance in about the same for the toledo stations: up:


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## Chimpware (Jan 30, 2002)

As a follow-up to the issue I had regarding pairing Data ID with Host ID in Comcast System. After 3 separate calls, and speaking with a "supervisor", they could not remedy the situation so I made an appointment with a Tech. The guy showed up at my house, I explained the issue to him, he called the service depot, got the Data ID changed and all was well. He was here less than 10 minutes.

He did nothing I did not do, but he did say the field techs have different system access than the telephone reps. Wait a waste of my time and their money.


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## MikeAndrews (Jan 17, 2002)

lamotte said:


> ...found a 50 foot tv tower really cheap and will be add two antenna one to grab station in toledo and the other will be on a rotor to grab both ft wayne and lansing both are about 60 miles away. distance in about the same for the toledo stations: up:


Where did you find the tower? I need one, too.

I guess I need to set up a Craigslist search.


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