# What to do with old Series 3??



## theinfamous (Oct 22, 2007)

I now have two Premier units with Stream and no longer need my old Series 3.
So what should I do with the old box?

1. Can I harvest the hard drive to expand one of my Premiers?

2. Smash it with a bat like in Office Space?

3. Open it up and reverse engineer it?

4. Give it away?

5. Put into a crate and store at the Area 54 warehouse?

6. Sell it? How much?

7. Other?


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## jrtroo (Feb 4, 2008)

Is it lifetime service? The resale for that is pretty good. If not, you will likely get an offer for $99 for lifetime, or can ask tivo. Then sell. Check eBay for pricing.


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## theinfamous (Oct 22, 2007)

It doesn't have lifetime.


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## tatergator1 (Mar 27, 2008)

theinfamous said:


> 6. Sell it? How much?


The big question is "Does the unit have Lifetime?" If so, you should easily be able to get at least $200 for it and possibly up to $300 depending on any drive upgrades.

If it doesn't have lifetime, you could consider calling Tivo to try and get $99 lifetime on it and then sell it. Tivo seems to be fairly generous in allowing the $99 lifetime on older Series 3 units.

Otherwise, the other 6 options are probably equal,depending on your current mood. Feeling adventurous, open it up. Having a bad day, grab your baseball bat. Feeling charitable, give it away to another Series 3 owner via Craiglist.


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

theinfamous said:


> I now have two Premier units with Stream and no longer need my old Series 3.
> So what should I do with the old box?
> 
> 1. Can I harvest the hard drive to expand one of my Premiers?
> ...


As much as I'd like for you to sell it to me dirt cheap, I'd advise you to leverage your Premiere ownership and _*threaten*_ to cancel the sub on the S3 to get them to sell you lifetime for it at $99.


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## cr33p (Jan 2, 2005)

unitron said:


> As much as I'd like for you to sell it to me dirt cheap, I'd advise you to leverage your Premiere ownership and _*threaten*_ to cancel the sub on the S3 to get them to sell you lifetime for it at $99.


Or you could always ask them nicely about the 99 deal, I didnt even ask the lady I talked to last week. She offered.


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

cr33p said:


> Or you could always ask them nicely about the 99 deal, I didnt even ask the lady I talked to last week. She offered.


Which is why they call it CSR roulette.

And why it sometimes pays to call back instead of accepting the first answer.


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## uw69 (Jan 25, 2001)

If you are unable to get the $99 lifetime deal (you should be able to) I would suggest selling the parts. Hard drive, power supply, OLED panel (if this is the original S3) all have value on the used market place.


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

uw69 said:


> If you are unable to get the $99 lifetime deal (you should be able to) I would suggest selling the parts. Hard drive, power supply, OLED panel (if this is the original S3) all have value on the used market place.


Did the OP say there was anything wrong with the unit? Or just that he was no longer using it?


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

theinfamous said:


> I now have two Premier units with Stream and no longer need my old Series 3.
> So what should I do with the old box?
> 
> 1. Can I harvest the hard drive to expand one of my Premiers?
> ...


Okay, if it's an original S3, with the OLED display on the front, model TCD648250 or TCD648250b (never understood where the b came from), you should sell it to me cheap so I can conduct experiments to determine what is and is not necessary to be able to use a 2TB internal hard drive.

Newbies trying to hexedit partition maps and headers is probably not an optimal arrangement.


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## Alvysyngr (Dec 1, 2003)

I'm on hold now - according to 'Lauren' my account doesn't qualify for an upgrade (been a loyal customer since 2001 btw) She said she is going to see what she can do but WTF??? I have two lifetimes and had paid for 2 monthly boxes for 7+ years - geez

edit: Lauren was super sweet and tried 3 times to get me the discount but nada....because when I had hardware failures in 2005 on my 2 monthly boxes (and they comped me 3 months ea to come back) when I swapped out the drives. So a total of 6 months of free service to come back made me ineligible. I am so pissed but now I'll just hunt for a lifetime

Anyone want to buy a couple S3 HD's SUPER cheap in the NY area?


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

Alvysyngr said:


> I'm on hold now - according to 'Lauren' my account doesn't qualify for an upgrade (been a loyal customer since 2001 btw) She said she is going to see what she can do but WTF??? I have two lifetimes and had paid for 2 monthly boxes for 7+ years - geez
> 
> edit: Lauren was super sweet and tried 3 times to get me the discount but nada....because when I had hardware failures in 2005 on my 2 monthly boxes (and they comped me 3 months ea to come back) when I swapped out the drives. So a total of 6 months of free service to come back made me ineligible. I am so pissed but now I'll just hunt for a lifetime
> 
> Anyone want to buy a couple S3 HD's SUPER cheap in the NY area?


What exactly are you or were you trying to do?

If you want $99 lifetime on those HDs, I'm pretty sure buying a Premiere is involved.

Did both of those HDs fail, and did you replace the entire units or just the hard drives?


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## Alvysyngr (Dec 1, 2003)

unitron said:


> What exactly are you or were you trying to do?
> 
> If you want $99 lifetime on those HDs, I'm pretty sure buying a Premiere is involved.
> 
> Did both of those HDs fail, and did you replace the entire units or just the hard drives?


You're right - they said if I buy a premiere they would make one lifetime for $99

These are 20hr Tivo HD's month to month and I replaced them with 2 OLED lifetimers


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

Alvysyngr said:


> You're right - they said if I buy a premiere they would make one lifetime for $99
> 
> These are 20hr Tivo HD's month to month and I replaced them with 2 OLED lifetimers


I think we're using different definitions of "replace".

Do you have one TCD652160 which is currently retired, and another which is scheduled to be when the annually paid subscription expires?


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## Alvysyngr (Dec 1, 2003)

unitron said:


> I think we're using different definitions of "replace".
> 
> Do you have one TCD652160 which is currently retired, and another which is scheduled to be when the annually paid subscription expires?


I have two that were sitting in a closet that I cancelled about a year ago


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## replaytv (Feb 21, 2011)

theinfamous said:


> I now have two Premier units with Stream and no longer need my old Series 3.
> So what should I do with the old box?
> 
> 4. Give it away?


give it away to some nice person in Detroit from this website. They can use it for parts. There are a lot of people on this site that have been very helpful to others for free, so they deserve a free Tivo to use for parts. I live in Denver, so am not asking for this Tivo.


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## wpatters1229 (Nov 11, 2003)

I just have an old series 2 in the bedroom and now that comcast is totally digital it will only record on one tuner. Would love to find a good working series 3 to replace this so I can record on two tuners or at the very least watch live tv while recording. Seems like much over $100 is not worth it. Just recording standard no HD. Anyone out there with such a unit?


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## squint (Jun 15, 2008)

They are <$50 on Craigslist without a lifetime subscription.


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

squint said:


> They are <$50 on Craigslist without a lifetime subscription.


That depends on at which Craigslist you look, and that's before you watch and see if they go unsold for a while and then start haggling.

I tried to get him to tell me which part of Cal he's in so I could take a look for him, but so far, crickets.


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## szwjunk (Jun 3, 2004)

Having just jumped on the Summer Special deal on a Roamio, I too will soon have a Series 3 to sell - _with lifetime service and a 1TB upgraded drive_. I don't need two TiVos, and I definitely don't need to pay Verizon every month for two extra Cablecards... 

After I sell this S3 on eBay/Craigslist how do I remove it from my TiVo account online? Does the new owner have to create an account on TiVo.com and "activate" it? Or, even though I sell it, does it remain on my account?

I searched for this info in the forums, but it didn't seem to be a question that had been asked before... nor was there any sign of this question appearing at TiVo.com in the FAQ pages or Support forums.

Thanks!

Steve


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## squint (Jun 15, 2008)

The new owner should create an account and have it transferred but some people aren't interested in transferring shows between TiVos and don't take this step.

I've never sold a TiVo (yet) but past discussions suggest that units you purchased remain on your account in some form (perhaps as inactive devices?) unless you jump through certain hoops to get them completely removed. So, yeah, it's come up before but I couldn't tell you offhand what search terms to use.

New owners of secondhand lifetime units only have to have the TiVo call in from their zipcode to transfer it to their account.


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## bareyb (Dec 1, 2000)

The first HD TiVo box I ever bought was acting funny (or so I thought) and I returned it to Best Buy and swapped it for a new one. It's STILL on my account 8 years later as "This device can not be activated because it's been activated on another account" or some such thing. But it's still there. I wonder if they deactivated it what would happen? Could I then activate it on my account?


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## DougJohnson (Dec 12, 2006)

szwjunk said:


> After I sell this S3 on eBay/Craigslist how do I remove it from my TiVo account online? Does the new owner have to create an account on TiVo.com and "activate" it? Or, even though I sell it, does it remain on my account?


I did this earlier in the year. After selling it on ebay, I called TiVo and told them I had sold it. They gave me a number to give to the buyer that would allow them to transfer it to their account. A week or so after the buyer received it, it disappeared from my account. -- Doug


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## szwjunk (Jun 3, 2004)

Many thanks to all who took the time to reply to my question about transferring a TiVo to a new owner - it's much appreciated.

Steve


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## tyd450 (Jul 21, 2014)

i saw one for sale on ebay and the seller stated that he was offered the $99 lifetime upgrade deal from Tivo and he would have that transferred to the buyer. I called TIVO and they said that the upgrade offer itself could not be transfered. But obviously the seller could pay to upgrade then the lifetime would transfer. I think the buyer on that one is going to get screwed.


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## squint (Jun 15, 2008)

That guy was basically asking $150 for a Tivo HD without lifetime. It's come up before here and the suggestion to pay the $99 and then sell it was seemingly ignored. Well, the reason we suggested the seller buy lifetime first is because no one's going to pay $150 for a Tivo HD that might qualify for $99 lifetime.


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## buscuitboy (Aug 8, 2005)

squint said:


> The new owner should create an account and have it transferred but some people aren't interested in transferring shows between TiVos and don't take this step.
> 
> I've never sold a TiVo (yet) but past discussions suggest that units you purchased remain on your account in some form (perhaps as inactive devices?) unless you jump through certain hoops to get them completely removed. So, yeah, it's come up before but I couldn't tell you offhand what search terms to use.
> 
> New owners of secondhand lifetime units only have to have the TiVo call in from their zipcode to transfer it to their account.


I have bought and sold a few lifetime TiVOs over the years and what I wound up doing is initially putting the TiVo on a secondary account/email. Then move it over to my main email. I can then use the MRV feature with all my other normal TiVos.

When I went ahead and sold them, they would completely disappear from my main account/email. They were still on the secondary account (since that is where the lifetime purchase was made), but I don't really use it except for this reason and the purpose of possibly selling my units down the (& then not wanting them showing up on my main account in any way). Just a thought & suggestion to pass along.


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## jwbelcher (Nov 13, 2007)

buscuitboy said:


> I have bought and sold a few lifetime TiVOs over the years and what I wound up doing is initially putting the TiVo on a secondary account/email. Then move it over to my main email. I can then use the MRV feature with all my other normal TiVos.
> 
> When I went ahead and sold them, they would completely disappear from my main account/email. They were still on the secondary account (since that is where the lifetime purchase was made), but I don't really use it except for this reason and the purpose of possibly selling my units down the (& then not wanting them showing up on my main account in any way). Just a thought & suggestion to pass along.


Similarly I'd put the S3 on a secondary account prior to selling it. You are assured its off your main account before transferring the box - and the account - to the new owner. At that point, its up to them how they want to deal with moving it to their main account, but you no longer have to worry.


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