# Series 2 upgrade question



## scole250 (Nov 8, 2005)

I purchased a pre-upgraded 300GB Series 2 Tivo (TCD540...) from Weaknees a couple of years ago, but it's starting to show the systems of a hard drive failure, pixelation/audio out of sync/jerky video, and I want to upgrade the drive before it fails. I've read a bunch about using the tools at www.msflive.org, but I'm still not clear on a couple things.

1. It currently has a single ~300GB drive. I read something about a limit to the number of times you can upgrade, but I not sure I got what they meant. Can I upgrade that to a bigger one, 500GB or 750GB?

2. I also read a post suggesting it's not a good idea to copy from a suspected bad drive. True, if so, what are my options? Truncated copy?

Thanks,

Steve


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## classicsat (Feb 18, 2004)

The limit is based on how many times the stock file system can be expanded. Chances are it is expanded once, which is the limit for Series 2s. However, I think MFSLive can break that limit by expandig the expansion.

You can also do the truncated system only copy, or use Instantcake.


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## scole250 (Nov 8, 2005)

Shame on me. I get a "F" in trouble shooting :down:. I thought the video and audio problems were due to a failing hard drive in the Tivo, but after replacing the drive, the problem was still there. I then bypassed the digital cable box that was feeding the Tivo and the problem went away. It was much easier to replace the cable box. But on the bright side, I now have more capacity and I learned some new stuff :up:.

Update...
I used InstantCake to build the new hard drive. The Tivo works fine except I can't download Unbox videos to this dvr anymore. Amazon and Tivo did try to help, but they couldn't figure out what was wrong and Tivo said that since it was not the original hardware there's nothing else they can or will do .


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## lafos (Nov 8, 2004)

Did you check out the DVRUpgrade forum? If this is an InstantCake issue, I'd think there'd be more posts.

Don't be mad at TiVo for this. If they tried to support all the modified, upgraded, and hacked machines, they'd go insane (and out of business).


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## scole250 (Nov 8, 2005)

I'm not mad at Tivo or DVRUpgrade. The upgrade went smooth as silk and I just wish the Unbox downloads would work. Tivo did try to help and DVRUpgrade did respond, they just haven't seen this before. I might bail on the new drive and put the old one back in since it apparently wasn't bad after all.


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