# A few basic questions about upgrading with instant cake



## True Colors (Oct 19, 2006)

Okay...... help me out here. I may need to put a new drive in my Humax DRT800 tivo. 

I need to purchase an internal hard drive. How do I know if I should purchase an EIDE drive or a sata drive?

Also, in order to write to this new drive, will I need a docking station? Or will this new internal drive have a USB port that I can use to connect it to my PC?

Is there some particular hard drive model or brand that you recommend? If I do this I will probably get a terabyte sized drive.

After I get the correct hard drive selected and purchased, then I need to go to the instant cake website, and download the iso image, and burn that to a CD, correct?

After I get my instant cake CD, i simply 
- connect the new internal hard drive to my PC
- put the instant cake disk into my CD drive
- turn on the PC, follow the instructions
- crack open the humax box, install the hard drive
- plug the humax in and let it boot up

Am I missing anything in all that?

Thanks,

TC


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## mr.unnatural (Feb 2, 2006)

True Colors said:


> Okay...... help me out here. I may need to put a new drive in my Humax DRT800 tivo.
> 
> I need to purchase an internal hard drive. How do I know if I should purchase an EIDE drive or a sata drive?


Open up the Tivo and look at the drive, although I'm pretty sure you'll be needing an IDE drive.



> Also, in order to write to this new drive, will I need a docking station? Or will this new internal drive have a USB port that I can use to connect it to my PC?


Check out some of the tutorials for using MFSTools to understand how to configure the drives for installing a backup image.



> Is there some particular hard drive model or brand that you recommend? If I do this I will probably get a terabyte sized drive.


I don't recall if the Humax has the LBA48 limitation in the kernel that prevents you from using a drive larger than 137GB, but I rather doubt it. Based on the current availability of IDE drives your selection may be somewhat limited. The good news is that you can use any IDE drive as long as it is the same size or larger than the original drive.



> After I get the correct hard drive selected and purchased, then I need to go to the instant cake website, and download the iso image, and burn that to a CD, correct?


That is correct.



> After I get my instant cake CD, i simply
> - connect the new internal hard drive to my PC
> - put the instant cake disk into my CD drive
> - turn on the PC, follow the instructions
> ...


As I recommended above, check out a tutorial for using MFSTools. There should be instructions for using InstantCake on the DVRUpgrade website, IIRC. If not, look at some of the sticky threads at the top of some of the forums. I'm pretty sure you'll find instructions for performing a hard drive upgrade if you take the time to look.


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## classicsat (Feb 18, 2004)

To add:
All Series 1s/2s use PATA drives. Series 3s use SATA.

You would connect the drive to your computer with an IDE connection from your motherboard, or a USB to IDE adapter. The adapter can be a dock, case, or standalone adapter. You will need to obtain that separate form the drive.

Current Series 2 software versions have an LBA 48 kernel, so can use any size drive, so long as the boot/kernel/root partitions wholly reside below 137 GB, on 1xx/2xx models (except HR10-250). 5xx and higer models can have the B/K/R partitions anywhere on the drive.


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## bhornby (Jan 7, 2010)

Most new drives, at least 500gb or so up, are SATA drives. If you upgrade, use 1tb for Series 2 and larger for 3 and above, or it is likely not worth your while. Suitable 1tb drives cost $75-100 range on Amazon or wherever. For Series 2, Series 2 is PATA, but the PATA-SATA adapter that plugs into front of the drive is cheap, $3+. You then have an equivalent 1 tb PATA drive you can plug into desktop IDE cable for the Instantcake upgrade and then directly into the Series 2. 

I had understood from other information that 1 tb was maximum for Series 2 Tivos, if that is not the case then I would be interested to learn more.


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## mmihalik (Oct 10, 2000)

I used MFS Tools for my first TiVo upgrade many years ago, and again when I had to replace some malfunctioning drives a few years after that.

Just before Christmas, my trusty Hughes DirecTiVo failed yet again due to a faulty hard drive in a 2-drive system. The SMART report indicates that this failure was after approx. 35,000 hours.

Finally got around to a repair yesterday. I hastily rounded up a replacement drive and while revisiting MFS Tools and the lba48 developments of recent years, I came across InstantCake. Initially hesitant until I checked out the forums, I decided to pay the $20 and give it a try. It looked to be a bit more convenient for me, even though I still had the original Hughes drive for my TiVo.

Best $20 I spent, but a learning experience as well.

I replaced the defective drive, and swapped in a 250GB I had lying around to replace the failed drive that was partnered with the still good 160GB. Alas, after reinstalling, going thru the setup again, the DirecTiVo worked for less than 30 minutes. Everything checked out OK temperaturewise, but the unit rebooted after awhile, and continued to do so a few times before I unplugged the unit.

Today, I considered what might be wrong, and realized that I did not really know the status of the substitute drive. I downloaded the Seagate SeaTools, and was pleased to see that this bootable CD would test not only Seagate drives, but drives from other manufacturers as well. When testing the 250GB drive, it immediately found some errors with the short tests. A more extensive test confirmed the initial findings.

So I went back to the other drives I had on hand, and found a few more 250GB drives. Today was spent doing long tests on the drives before dedicating to the DirecTiVo.

InstantCake was again put to use to rebuild the replacement drives after the SeaTools test to confirm all was OK. My replacement drives are now a 250GB Master/160GB Slave combination.

I have to say that InstantCake was quite easy to use. Just be sure you follow the instructions exactly. It's helpful to have a basic PC with 2 IDE channels to use for this - one channel for the boot CD/DVD drive, and the other channel to connect the new hard drives. Fortunately I had one that was no longer being used for anything else, and was used for previous TiVo upgrades.

Sorry for being wordy, but I wanted to show my satisfaction with the InstantCake product. The website has a lot of info to help you pick the right product for your TiVo. The added lba48 support is welcome.

And thanks to Hughes and TiVo for the extended life of my now 9 year old DirecTiVo; its siblings are an unmodified Philips DirecTiVo, and my original, but upgraded Philips unit won in the TiVo contest way back in the late 90s that is still working nicely. Another spare, uninitialized Hughes unit waits in reserve.

Alas, no HD TiVo units for me as yet; the Motorola HD-DVRs from Verizon and my Moxi take care of that for now. I keep hoping for a new TiVo HD unit to make an appearance; hopefully soon.


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## ptsailor (Nov 20, 2002)

New Question from a different user...

I have two Series 2 boxes.. a 140 and a Dual Tuner 649. The 140 was dead and replacing the hard drive with an instantcake image that I purchased worked great. In fact, it worked so seamlessly that I'd like to bump up the size of my Dual Tuner. 

I've got another PATA 500GB laying around, but have one question. The DVRUpgrade site lists their Series2 InstantCake images as compatible with a number of devices (including both the units mentioned above) but when I get ready to install the image, the prompts indicate that it's going to install a -140 image. 

Are there images series specific, or model specific? (Do I need a new image from them for the 649 model?) Disappointing if the latter, since their compatibility matrix seems to indicate a single product for all models within a series. 
Also, even if the -140 is installed, will the unit boot to the point that it notices that it has a outdated vers. and install an update anyway? Or will it not get that far?

Thanks for any guidance!


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## mmihalik (Oct 10, 2000)

I went to the site and proceeded thru the order process but without actually completing the order. It looks like 2 different files are available for download, each with a different name - 1 for the 140, and a different one for the 649 model.

Since one is single tuner and the other is dual tuner, I would conclude that the images are different. Sort of makes sense, since I don't think older 1 tuner software would know anything about a newer 2 tuner unit.

Then again, I'm not exactly sure how TiVo configures it's software.


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## ptsailor (Nov 20, 2002)

mmihalik said:


> I went to the site and proceeded thru the order process but without actually completing the order. It looks like 2 different files are available for download, each with a different name - 1 for the 140, and a different one for the 649 model.
> 
> Since one is single tuner and the other is dual tuner, I would conclude that the images are different. Sort of makes sense, since I don't think older 1 tuner software would know anything about a newer 2 tuner unit.
> 
> Then again, I'm not exactly sure how TiVo configures it's software.


I don't disagree with anything that you've said... but still wonder if the 140 image would be sufficient to boot the Tivo, recognize the wireless adapter, and then update itself to the current (and correct) 649 image.

If not, then I may decide to go through an old style Hinsdale/MFSTools update to keep settings and shows..


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## HomeUser (Jan 12, 2003)

ptsailor said:


> I don't disagree with anything that you've said... but still wonder if the 140 image would be sufficient to boot the Tivo, recognize the wireless adapter, and then update itself to the current (and correct) 649 image.
> 
> If not, then I may decide to go through an old style Hinsdale/MFSTools update to keep settings and shows..


No the 140 image *WILL NOT WORK* in the 649.

If you use the original drive out of the 649 as the source and copy / expand it using MFSLive or WinMFS you can keep your settings and existing recordings.


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## mmihalik (Oct 10, 2000)

Only way to know for sure is to try, or peruse the discussion forums at DVRupgrade.

The safer bet is to use you existing image and use the Hinsdale/MFSTools. It's really only a matter of how much time you want to devote.

Also, another thought - the 140 sofware might only report the unit as a 140 or some frankenmonster TiVo. I doubt the 140 software would know anything about future units.

For $20, the decision would be simple for me - I'd just buy the software and be sure, or if I had the time, go the MFS Tools route. If you want a learning experience, try your method, and cross your fingers that nothing bad happens.


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## mmihalik (Oct 10, 2000)

HomeUser said:


> ... use the original drive out of the 649 as the source and copy / expand it using MFSLive or WinMFS you can keep your settings and existing recordings.


Now that is pretty slick!

Quite an improvement over the last time I used MFSTools a few years ago.


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## ggieseke (May 30, 2008)

I used WinMFS and a USB-PATA adapter to upgrade my 649. Plugged in the factory drive, ran a truncated backup, plugged in the new 500GB drive & ran the restore. It was quick, easy, and I didn't even have to reboot my PC or open the case. :up:


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