# Can you use a Windows drive in a Tivo



## TerpBE (Jan 23, 2003)

I remember a few years ago there was a problem if you had a new drive connected and ran Windows, it would do something with the partitions which would make it so that you could no longer use the drive in your Tivo. Is this still the case?

I just got an external drive that I may eventually want to put in my S3, but for now I'd like to use it with my computer. If I do, will I still be able to use it in my S3 in the future?


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## Tobashadow (Nov 11, 2006)

My S2 in the living room is using a drive out of my windows box from 2 years ago.

I opened the drive in partion magic and deleted the partions then set it up for the S2 and installed it.


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## windracer (Jan 3, 2003)

TerpBE said:


> I remember a few years ago there was a problem if you had a new drive connected and ran Windows, it would do something with the partitions which would make it so that you could no longer use the drive in your Tivo. Is this still the case?


That was only if it had the TiVo software on it and you accidentally booted into Windows with it attached. Then the software would no longer boot in the TiVo and you'd have to re-image it from scratch. It didn't do anything physical to the drive that a re-image wouldn't fix.

So yeah, you can use it as a regular drive in your PC. Then image it with a TiVo backup and stick it back in your TiVo, no problem. Tools like WinMFS make this very easy.


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## TerpBE (Jan 23, 2003)

windracer said:


> That was only if it had the TiVo software on it and you accidentally booted into Windows with it attached. Then the software would no longer boot in the TiVo and you'd have to re-image it from scratch. It didn't do anything physical to the drive that a re-image wouldn't fix.


Ok, thanks...I couldn't remember the details, but that makes sense.


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## lessd (Jan 23, 2005)

windracer said:


> That was only if it had the TiVo software on it and you accidentally booted into Windows with it attached. Then the software would no longer boot in the TiVo and you'd have to re-image it from scratch. It didn't do anything physical to the drive that a re-image wouldn't fix.
> 
> So yeah, you can use it as a regular drive in your PC. Then image it with a TiVo backup and stick it back in your TiVo, no problem. Tools like WinMFS make this very easy.


With Windows XP SP2 or higher, Vista or W-7 this is no longer a problem as Windows will not see any TiVo drive, only if you run the Windows Computer Management software (part of all versions of Windows) can you have such a problem as that software will try to partition the drive for Windows use.


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## mr.unnatural (Feb 2, 2006)

windracer said:


> That was only if it had the TiVo software on it and you accidentally booted into Windows with it attached. Then the software would no longer boot in the TiVo and you'd have to re-image it from scratch. It didn't do anything physical to the drive that a re-image wouldn't fix.
> 
> So yeah, you can use it as a regular drive in your PC. Then image it with a TiVo backup and stick it back in your TiVo, no problem. Tools like WinMFS make this very easy.


There wasn't a problem booting into Windows with the drive attached. The problem arose when Windows tried to assign a drive letter to the Tivo drive. This wrote data into the boot sector of the drive that prevented it from booting when placed back in the Tivo. As long as you didn't let Windows assign a drive letter it didn't affect the drive.


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