# Hard drive question regarding S2 TiVo



## timckelley (Oct 15, 2002)

Hello, I'm shopping right now for a hard drive to transplant into one of my S2's to replace its defective HD. I think I read somewhere people suggesting getting a a SATA-to-IDE adapter, but I'm wondering: why bother with that? There are plenty of IDE hard drives for sale on Amazon, so is there any reason I shouldn't just buy an IDE hard drive? (I'm leaning towards Western Digital, as I've had reasonable experiences with that brand.)

Question 2: I'm no expert in all the lingo, but a lot of the drives for sale say they are EIDE, and from my reading, it's very similar to IDE, and mostly compatable. Would EIDE work fine (with no adapters needed) in my old S2 TiVo? Also, I could be wrong, but does EIDE spin faster than regular IDE, possibly generating more heat in the process? If so, maybe for safety sake, I should avoid EIDE?


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## robomeister (Feb 4, 2005)

For Series 2 TiVos, any IDE or EIDE drive will work. Just remember to set the jumpers to the same settings as the drive you removed from the TiVo. Some of the S2s are picky about that setting.

Hope that helps,
robomeister


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## timckelley (Oct 15, 2002)

Thank you; that is indeed helpful.


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## -pc (Sep 12, 2012)

Hey Robomeister,
Drop Send would be fine. my email is [email protected] 
thanks again for the assist.


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

timckelley said:


> Hello, I'm shopping right now for a hard drive to transplant into one of my S2's to replace its defective HD. I think I read somewhere people suggesting getting a a SATA-to-IDE adapter, but I'm wondering: why bother with that? There are plenty of IDE hard drives for sale on Amazon, so is there any reason I shouldn't just buy an IDE hard drive? (I'm leaning towards Western Digital, as I've had reasonable experiences with that brand.)
> 
> Question 2: I'm no expert in all the lingo, but a lot of the drives for sale say they are EIDE, and from my reading, it's very similar to IDE, and mostly compatable. Would EIDE work fine (with no adapters needed) in my old S2 TiVo? Also, I could be wrong, but does EIDE spin faster than regular IDE, possibly generating more heat in the process? If so, maybe for safety sake, I should avoid EIDE?


EIDE is an updated version of IDE that allows for larger drives, but it's been been 2 decades since it was adopted as a standard, and the drives that use the 40 pin connector and ribbon cable in later years moved on to what's known as the ATA interface, even though the physical connection remained the same.

Nowadays they're all referred to (unofficially) as PATA, meaning Parallel ATA, which came about after SATA, or Serial ATA, came on the scene. It's sort of like once upon a time a clock or watch was a clock or watch, until digital came along, and then the previous types with a dial and hands started being called analog to better specify which type you meant.

I'd be surprised if any PATA drives are still being made, and even if there's any new old stock available it's probably old enough that the manufacturer's warranty is long expired.

Plus there's a lot of drives, both PATA and SATA, being passed off on Amazon as more desirable than they actually are--called new, but actually pulled from external enclosures, which means no manufacturer's warranty on the drive itself by itself, or "refurbished" when they've really just been pulled after running for several years and at most checked to see if they still spin up.

The other sellers that sell on Amazon are a lot worse for that than Amazon itself, but I doubt if Amazon itself still has any new, never used PATA drives in stock.

You'll get a much better GB/$ ratio, even after also paying for a Marvel or JMicron chip based SATA/IDE adapter, going with a 1TB SATA (or a pair of them*) than a no bigger than a rare 640GB (or a more rare than hen's teeth 750GB) IDE/PATA drive.

Adapter thread here:

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=416883

*TCF sponsor weaKnees sells what they call Twin Breeze brackets, along with a special IDE cable and a thing that delays power to one drive til the other one gets spun up, for Series 2 TiVos that let you use both a Master and Slave drive on the TiVo's single IDE connector header/controller without having to kludge up a way to hold both in place to the single drive bracket installed at the factory.


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