# hooch disk from Tivoheaven



## garballo (Jan 13, 2007)

Hi As anyone used the hooch CD from Tivoheaven to configure a new Hard drive for use in a Tivo, on reading the paperwork it seems a straigtforward proccess, but I wonder if anyone has used this method. ken


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## Blacque Jacque (Dec 26, 2006)

I have, works a treat. A 10 minute job. :up:

If you have a broadband connection you can save yourself the postage & download it.


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## mikerr (Jun 2, 2005)

Isn't that disk quite "dangerous" legally?

It is distributing the tivo OS for money...


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

mikerr said:


> Isn't that disk quite "dangerous" legally?
> 
> It is distributing the tivo OS for money...


But its surely only reproviding an image to Tivo owners who lost it due to hard drive failure. Therefore it isn't actually giving them anything they don't actually own the rights to use software wise.

I can't really see how the legal issues are much different from imaging the Tivo operating system on to a whole new hard drive and selling it to a customer. And don't forget that Tivo itself failed to provide customers with any restore CD set etc at point of sale, so realistically what other choice do they have when the manufacturer itself has withdrawn any after sales support.

Also the Hooch CD seems to supply TivoWeb, Cachecard drivers and a load of other stuff too.

I really can't see Tivo Inc taking legal action for breach of its software copyright in such a set of circumstances.


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## blindlemon (May 12, 2002)

I will not sell Hooch to somebody who I believe doesn't own a UK TiVo, so as Pete says, the image is effectively a backup of something they have already paid for.

What is being charged for is the Hooch program istelf, which automates the drive creation process and www.dvrupgrade.com have been selling a similar product called InstantCake for years.


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## Raisltin Majere (Mar 13, 2004)

Pete77 said:


> I can't really see how the legal issues are much different from imaging the Tivo operating system on to a whole new hard drive and selling it to a customer.


There probably isn't a difference.



Pete77 said:


> I really can't see Tivo Inc taking legal action for breach of its software copyright in such a set of circumstances.


I think they turn a blind eye. Just because they don't, doesn't mean they can't


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

blindlemon said:


> What is being charged for is the Hooch program istelf, which automates the drive creation process and www.dvrupgrade.com have been sellintg a similar product called InstantCake for years.


Precisely.

It is merely the proprietary Hooch installation system software that you are selling. You aren't charging anything for the other software on the CD. Ideally you would have some kind of contractual rubric that customers assent to on the website by clicking box x and confirming that the customer owns an existing UK Tivo and has rights to use the Tivo software.


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## blindlemon (May 12, 2002)

By clicking "Buy it Now" they are confirming that a) either they have a UK TiVo or b) are stupid enough to waste their money buying a product that includes a distribution of software for hardware they don't own 

It would be a bit like paying to download the firmware for an Apple router when yours was made by Belkin - possibly technically in breach of some agreement, somewhere, but practically entirely nugatory as you have no way of running it.

</waits for some smart-alec to chime in with the news that Apple routers are made by Belkin...>


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

Raisltin Majere said:


> I think they turn a blind eye. Just because they don't, doesn't mean they can't


But in terms of civil litigation there is an almost unlimited number of things most of us could be hauled in to court on if somebody wanted to go to the time and expense of taking a case.

However meanwhile back in the real world most people usually only do go to court if you are costing them a significant financial loss by some action or other that you yourself are taking.

So I can't see how saving Tivo from being sued over its own reprehensible failure to supply customers with any Tivo image restore set on CD at point of sale or via its current UK customer service centre or UK website could be something that it would possibly want to take legal action against another party over.

If Tivo was actually selling its own PVR10UK image downloads on its own website for customers to buy then clearly things might then start to take on rather a different complexion. However as things stand that seems to be a wholly improbable development.


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## Raisltin Majere (Mar 13, 2004)

I'm not sue what your point is?

I'm pretty sure they could (attempt to) put a stop to people distributing their software, they choose not to.

There are probably various reasons for this, I would guess the main one being that the software is useless without the hardware*. They probable figure that people buying these products with an image on have already got the hardware and that hardware (with original software) has been paid for. 


*I'm no expert but I guess it *could* be possible to change the software to run on other hardware. If it were do-able though I'm sure we wouold have heard of some smart alec running the latest software on a PC.


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

The point is that people only normally take civil legal action, which is usually costly time consuming and laborious, when someone else is doing something that is damaging their business commercially.

And the point is that Tivo have pulled out of the UK marketplace for new customers and have not provided their own solution of any kind for existing customers who need to replace a failed hard drive. And the argument that your machine has had its Lifetime when the hard drive fails would not I think be legally convincing when the Tivo is a mini Linux PC and standard servicing and maintenance of PCs normally includes periodically renewing their hard drives.

These kind of questions are mirrored every day of the week on Bit Torrent software downloads. In the real world a copyright owner only sues someone who is taking actions denying them their own new products sales. And clearly in this particular case the distribution of the Tivo software image is not having that effect.


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## blindlemon (May 12, 2002)

Pete77 said:


> In the real world a copyright owner only sues someone who is taking actions denying them their own new products sales.


In fact the opposite could be argued, if using it allows a TiVo owner on a monthly sub to continue using their TiVo


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## Raisltin Majere (Mar 13, 2004)

I think we're arguing the same point.

I'm not saying they should take legal action, I'm saying they probably could take legal action to protect their intellectual property rights.

Whatever their reasons, they have chosen not to do so. For that, we should be thankful.

Also, distribution aside, I think in the states they have a legal right to make a backup, we have no such luxury. So I suppose they could, if they chose so to do, attempt to stop us making backups of our drives.


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

Raisltin Majere said:


> I think we're arguing the same point.
> 
> I'm not saying they should take legal action, I'm saying they probably could take legal action to protect their intellectual property rights.
> 
> ...


In civil litigation there are infinite possibilities. For instance we could decide to try to sue Tivo for its negligence in not providing us with a set of backup Tivo media or any website to download them from.

These theoretical possibilities matter very little indeed, because there are so many of them and the scope for claims and counter claims by one party against another are wide ranging. But what usually matters is how much money is at stake and if anyone can actually be bothered to go to the time and expense of going to court.

Your mistake I think is to view it all as being an absolute kind of offence like the criminal law. Howeve the civil law doesn't work like that as there is no Police force or Crown Prosecution service paid by the state to act as gamekeeper.

And as blindlemon points out any attempt to claim by Tivo here could almost certainly be offset by a counter claim for the time and energy expended free of charge to Tivo by blindlemon and others to keep a Tivo service running and income stream arriving with Tivo that might otherwise not have gone on arriving due to their apparent negligence in failing to provide customers with adequate restore set media.


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## blindlemon (May 12, 2002)

Well, I wasn't exactly claiming that - but resurrecting an ailing TiVo could certainly be of benefit to TiVo Inc. :up:


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

blindlemon said:


> Well, I wasn't exactly claiming that - but resurrecting an ailing TiVo could certainly be of benefit to TiVo Inc. :up:


Call it my political spin on the matter then. And you know what politicians are like.


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## Hunty (Nov 6, 2001)

Taking the post back on topic,  

I have used Hooch and its fantastic, really easy to use and takes less than 10minutes  

if your in any doubt then just do it you will not be disappointed.


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## Late_sleeper (Oct 27, 2002)

Does it make setting up multiple TiVos on a network easy ie all the different ip addresses and mac addresses required?


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

Late_sleeper said:


> Does it make setting up multiple TiVos on a network easy ie all the different ip addresses and mac addresses required?


That isn't that tricky anyway as long as you know how to use Telnet and the nic_config_tivo command. Provided that is you set them up and add them to the network one by one and not all at one go.

No doubt blindlemon will be along shortly to clarify whether Hooch makes things even easier. Although I can't think why it should.


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## Raisltin Majere (Mar 13, 2004)

I would imagine not. Mr Lemon can't know what netowrk settings his customer's use.

I think all cachecards have the same MAC(?), so as pete says, it's fairly simple to amend the IP of each tivo.


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## blindlemon (May 12, 2002)

An old version of the cachecard drivers installer used to assign the same MAC address but newer versions assign a random one AFAIK.

However, if you image multiple TiVo drives from the same backup (as you will if you use Hooch to create multiple drives) then it would be a good idea to change the MAC address on subsequent machines by editing* /etc/rc.d/rc.net* at the same time as you change the IP address.


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## Late_sleeper (Oct 27, 2002)

Thanks for the replies guys, all that assumes knowledge of Telnet, nic_config_tivo and /etc/rc.d/rc.net (whatever they are)

I have four Tivos alltogether two with cachecards at the moment and two use the modems. Two of my hard disks have gone down so I need to replace them but I am considering adding cachecards to the other two Tivos at the same time.

Last time I bought two drives together on Ebay and had a nightmare setting them up. Eventually managed it with help from this forum.

I thought maybe buying Hooch would help this time but I assume it just sets up everything that would be on a preconfigured drive anyway so wouldn't really help me.


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

Late_sleeper said:


> I thought maybe buying Hooch would help this time but I assume it just sets up everything that would be on a preconfigured drive anyway so wouldn't really help me.


I don't know that there is a vast difference between what is supplied on the fully pre-configured Tivo hard drives of Tivoheaven (purveyed by a certain forum member known as blindlemon) and those from Tivo Central (purveyed by forum member mikerr). Tivoheaven has a rather flashy and impressive website though while Tivo Central does not yet have a website, perhaps giving some the impression that www.tivoheaven.co.uk is more than a one man band (albeit a very expert one man band) as also is Tivo Central (products only found on the certain auction website place) and for that matter www.tivoland.com (run by forum member healeydave)

But in answer to your original question I don't think Hooch will make it any simpler to set up the Tivos to have different IP addresses and MAC IDs on your network but if you get stuck I'm sure one of us here can guide you through it. The key thing is that when you put the Tivos newly equipped with Cachecards on your network you should have temporarily disconnected the ones that already have them so that there is no possibility of them having the same IP addresses and MAC IDs and all hell breaking loose. But if you put the newly Cachecarded machines on the network and then Telnet to them people here should be able to talk you through it all.


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## blindlemon (May 12, 2002)

Wherever you buy a preconfigured drive from (or if you use Hooch) then the IP and MAC addresses will always be the same unless a) the vendor agrees to change them prior to shipping the drive or b) you change them, yourself.

To do it yourself you only need to connect *just the TiVo you wish to change* to your network, telnet to it and edit the file rc.net that resides in /etc/rc.d. This can easily be done with the editor 'joe' installed by some vendors (and Hooch). If you used Hooch to create the drive the sequence would be:-

(on your PC from a command prompt

*telnet 192.168.1.200
*
(at the TiVo bash prompt)

*rw
cd /etc/rc.d
joe rc.net
*
(use the editor to change the IP address to one of your choice and the MAC address to anything unique on your network)

*crtl-K + x 
restart

*

Job done


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