# Series 2, dying hard drive question



## comcastblows (Dec 22, 2007)

Hello all, 
I really haven't been back here since my first upgrade some 6 years ago... But thanks for the all the past info, that one took my 40 hours up to 226, and it's been great.

Now I think I'm facing my poor series 2 tivo hard drive failing. I have a cause of the random pauses/studders/glitches during playback and live tv. I assume from looking around on here that means that I'm buying a new ide hard drive. 

My question this... I think when I did the upgrade last time, I think I swapped for a 250 gb drive. Since I really don't need all that space anymore (as I have a second tivo), I was looking at 80 and 160 gb drive prices. When I checked out the upgrade instructions, it looks like I need to use a larger drive for the upgrade. It that true? 

How can I go about scaling back to smaller drive? At this point, I'm really not concerned about saving the data, I just want to get a new working drive in there asap. Any thoughts?

Thanks!


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## section128drunk (May 6, 2007)

from my understanding instantcake will work on any driver larger than the factory original, winmfs which is new since your last program needs a drive the same size or larger than the drive that created the image.. if it's a common series 2, a trip to goodwill may find a donor unit you can get a factory drive from for dirt cheap


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## comcastblows (Dec 22, 2007)

Thanks for the reply. So it's turn up an old working unit for a donor 40gb image, or pay $40 to the instantcake folks? Are you saying that instantcake will work as the original drive was only 40gb and I'd like to use an 80 or 120? Eventhough I don't have that drive/image anymore?


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## section128drunk (May 6, 2007)

yes instantcake works standalone for any size drive as big or larger than the factory shipped drive , any other solution requires an original image or begging for one


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## comcastblows (Dec 22, 2007)

Thanks broke drunk. I appreciate the straight forward answer. It's just sad that the price of replacing a hard drive on an SD tivo is about the same as just replacing the entire tivo on ebay  I might as well trash it and buy a daul tuner unit for about the same price as the replacement drive and instantcake, right?


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## section128drunk (May 6, 2007)

comcastblows said:


> Thanks broke drunk. I appreciate the straight forward answer. It's just sad that the price of replacing a hard drive on an SD tivo is about the same as just replacing the entire tivo on ebay  I might as well trash it and buy a daul tuner unit for about the same price as the replacement drive and instantcake, right?


IMO if it's NOT a Product Lifetime tivo, it's a parts machine once it breaks


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

comcastblows said:


> Thanks broke drunk. I appreciate the straight forward answer. It's just sad that the price of replacing a hard drive on an SD tivo is about the same as just replacing the entire tivo on ebay  I might as well trash it and buy a daul tuner unit for about the same price as the replacement drive and instantcake, right?


Search Craigslist for an S2 dual tuner, don't pay more than $30 unless it's got lifetime.

Lots of S3 HDs on there going for $50.


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