# New Drive for Series 2 (TCD140060)



## MJedi (Jun 17, 2002)

Hello all,

My Series 2 (TCD140060) with Lifetime hung and now it's stuck at the Powering Up screen. Both lights in front stay lit. I replaced its power supply a while back, so I'm thinking it's the hard drive that died this time since it's many, many years old. And looking at Weaknees' troubleshooting page, a bad power supply won't display anything, so that supports my theory. 

It's been a while, so I don't know what drives work in a Series 2 these days. The one I'm looking at is a WB Caviar Blue WD2500AAJB. Will this work in my TiVo? Thanks!


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## HomeUser (Jan 12, 2003)

Yes, the WD drive should work in a Series-2 TiVo. There are posts in reviews that others are using the WD2500AAJB drive in the Series-2 TiVo. You will need a image for your 140 model TiVo

If both the red and green lights on the front panel are on the problem my be elsewhere I suggest you download and run the drive manufactures "boot from CD" diagnostics on the suspected bad drive that is currently in your TiVo before buying a replacement drive.


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

MJedi said:


> Hello all,
> 
> My Series 2 (TCD140060) with Lifetime hung and now it's stuck at the Powering Up screen. Both lights in front stay lit. I replaced its power supply a while back, so I'm thinking it's the hard drive that died this time since it's many, many years old. And looking at Weaknees' troubleshooting page, a bad power supply won't display anything, so that supports my theory.
> 
> It's been a while, so I don't know what drives work in a Series 2 these days. The one I'm looking at is a WB Caviar Blue WD2500AAJB. Will this work in my TiVo? Thanks!


You do know that you can get a 500GB PATA drive for less than twice what you'd pay for a 250GB PATA and you can use an adapter and put a 1TB SATA drive in that S2 for about what you'd pay for a 500GB PATA?

(although not just any drive and adapter, of course, you know it's not going to be that easy with a TiVo)

The adapter thread is here

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

and lots of good info on drives is here

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=370784


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## MJedi (Jun 17, 2002)

unitron said:


> You do know that you can get a 500GB PATA drive for less than twice what you'd pay for a 250GB PATA and you can use an adapter and put a 1TB SATA drive in that S2 for about what you'd pay for a 500GB PATA?
> 
> (although not just any drive and adapter, of course, you know it's not going to be that easy with a TiVo)
> 
> ...


Yes, I am aware that I can get a larger drive in it for the same price. However, this Series 2 is no longer my primary TiVo. I only want to keep it alive because it has the Product Lifetime Service. And because of that, I get a Multi-Service Discount on my other 2 TiVo's (Series 3 and Premiere.) Without it being active, I'm being charged the full amount. The Series 2 also serves as a Guest Room TiVo. So, I don't really want to put a lot of effort into making it better. I just want it to work. Thanks for the links though. 

EDIT: Searching the adapter thread, there is no mention of an adapter that works for my specific model (TCD140060) and the Weaknees adapter does not work with it either, so it seems I'm stuck with PATA drives anyway.


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## MJedi (Jun 17, 2002)

HomeUser said:


> Yes, the WD drive should work in a Series-2 TiVo. There are posts in reviews that others are using the WD2500AAJB drive in the Series-2 TiVo. You will need a image for your 140 model TiVo
> 
> If both the red and green lights on the front panel are on the problem my be elsewhere I suggest you download and run the drive manufactures "boot from CD" diagnostics on the suspected bad drive that is currently in your TiVo before buying a replacement drive.


Thanks for the confirmation. I have an InstantCake image for my 140 from the last time I replaced the drive. I will do the drive diagnostics as well.


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

MJedi said:


> Yes, I am aware that I can get a larger drive in it for the same price. However, this Series 2 is no longer my primary TiVo. I only want to keep it alive because it has the Product Lifetime Service. And because of that, I get a Multi-Service Discount on my other 2 TiVo's (Series 3 and Premiere.) Without it being active, I'm being charged the full amount. The Series 2 also serves as a Guest Room TiVo. So, I don't really want to put a lot of effort into making it better. I just want it to work. Thanks for the links though.
> 
> EDIT: Searching the adapter thread, there is no mention of an adapter that works for my specific model (TCD140060) and the Weaknees adapter does not work with it either, so it seems I'm stuck with PATA drives anyway.


Did you try the WK adapter in it yourself, or are you going by someone else's experience with their own 140?

If the 140 won't work with JMicron chipset adapters they'll probably still be okay with a Marvell chipset adapter, the way the unltra-finicky S1s will, but that raises the question of whether they have any S1 heritage in them, and if so, is it enough to prevent them from working with a Caviar Blue, since the S1s refuse to.

You might want to be sure someone else has successfully used a Caviar Blue in a 140 before buying one.


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## MJedi (Jun 17, 2002)

unitron said:


> Did you try the WK adapter in it yourself, or are you going by someone else's experience with their own 140?


From the Weaknees site about their SATA to IDE Adapter:
"Works with all Series2 TiVos except the Philips HDR-series (Series1), SVR2000, TCD130040 and TCD140060."


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

MJedi said:


> From the Weaknees site about their SATA to IDE Adapter:
> "Works with all Series2 TiVos except the Philips HDR-series (Series1), SVR2000, TCD130040 and TCD140060."


Apparently it doesn't like the JMicron chipset, but I'd be very surprised if it doesn't work with the Marvell chipset adapaters that work in S1s.

Do the 130s and 140s have an LBA48-aware kernel? Can they use anything bigger than 137GB?


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## robomeister (Feb 4, 2005)

The TCD140 has an internal space issue. There is not physically enough room to put a SATA drive with the SATA to PATA adapter attached on the drive bracket. The TCD140 and TCD130 units were based on the Series 1 DirecTV internal layout and has enough room for 2 drives, but they are jammed up against the front panel. I have tried to use an adapter in these units, with little success.

As stated in another post, having 2 lights on constantly at startup is an indication of a bad motherboard. I have a TCD140 that does this and replacing the power supply and hard drive had no effect. You might need to do a complicated and risky security chip transplant into another TCD140 to get it to work again. I want to do this someday, when I have access to a soldering expert.

The TCD140 and TCD130 are Series 2 TiVos, so they are LBA48 capable. I have one with a 320GB drive, works fine.

HTH,
robomeister


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