# Question about plugging IDE TiVo drive into computer with SATA ports



## timckelley (Oct 15, 2002)

Hello, this question is a general question for the future - I'm not running into this problem right now.

My series 1 and series 2 TiVos both have IDE drives in them, but it seems like SATA is becoming the way for the future, and my newest computer has mostly SATA ports in the motherboard, though it does have one IDE port for the master hard drive, and I think the CD might have an IDE port.

What if down the road, my computer has only SATA ports, and what if I have an IDE TiVo drive fail? Would I have the ability to use some sort of adapter to plug a new IDE drive into a SATA port in my computer, for purposes of installing the TiVo image, and the put the new IDE drive back into the TiVo? Would that work?

Of course the other question is: are IDE drives going to become so obsolete that down the road, it will be difficult to even buy a new IDE drive to repair an ailing TiVO?


----------



## litzdog911 (Oct 18, 2002)

I'm not too worried about IDE drives becoming obsolete anytime soon. But rather than try to use my SATA-based PC for Tivo upgrades, I just use an old PC with IDE drives. It doesn't take much processor horsepower to run the Tivo upgrade software tools.


----------



## timckelley (Oct 15, 2002)

litzdog911 said:


> I'm not too worried about IDE drives becoming obsolete anytime soon. But rather than try to use my SATA-based PC for Tivo upgrades, I just use an old PC with IDE drives. It doesn't take much processor horsepower to run the Tivo upgrade software tools.


Well, my old PC has a bad motherboard, so I can't even boot it. But I guess if the time comes, old archaic computers ought be easy to come by for a dime a dozen.  IOW, computers depreciate in value really fast, so old ones should be dirt cheap.


----------



## rock_doctor (Oct 22, 2000)

I know how you feel. I just purchased a quad core w/ absolutely no PATA connections. Lucky, I have an old P-233mhz computer that I am holding onto for future upgrades or when I need a floppy drive. I guess you could use a HD enclosure...

You could keep an eye out for another computer at a yard sale. Would be a nice linux box to play with.... Ubuntu is excellent

mark


----------



## rbtravis (Aug 9, 2005)

timckelley said:


> Well, my old PC has a bad motherboard, so I can't even boot it. But I guess if the time comes, old archaic computers ought be easy to come by for a dime a dozen.  IOW, computers depreciate in value really fast, so old ones should be dirt cheap.


consider this as an investment
http://www.pcgears.com/default.aspx?oid=192685


----------



## timckelley (Oct 15, 2002)

rbtravis said:


> consider this as an investment
> http://www.pcgears.com/default.aspx?oid=192685


Thanks, this was the question of my OP. I didn't know about these converters. I assume then, that the TiVo software would install just fine across these converters? It's possible though that I'd potentially need two if I want to copy data from one drive to another. I suppose it could potentially be cheaper to just get a 5 year old computer that somebody wants to dispose of.



rock_doctor said:


> Lucky, I have an old P-233mhz computer that I am holding onto for future upgrades or when I need a floppy drive.


Both of my computers have no diskette drive. But my old broken one with the nonbootable damaged motherboard does. Ironically just a few days ago when I replaced one of the hard drives in my ailing series 1 (dual hard drive model), I couldn't get the utility CD to work, and I also couldn't get a successful burn onto another CD. So I decide to use the diskette utilities I had made a couple years ago. So I harvested the diskette drive plus the narrow IDE cable that connected to it out of my broken computer and temporarily installed it in one of my good computers. It'd be nice to permanently install it, but the only bay I think I could put it in doesn't have a removable panel on the front of the case where I could expose the diskette slot. So I just temporarily had it dangling next to the open case while I ran the utilities and then I disconnected it when I was done.

I guess I'll hang to that floppy drive and it's cable in case I have a future need for it.


----------



## classicsat (Feb 18, 2004)

You could use a USB-IDE adapter or box. All the recent upgrade CDs are USB capable (most of them anyway).

Yes, computers capable of upgrading are cheap or free. I have a Celeron 500 system I got for free, which I use for my TiVo drive playing. I have a dedicated 3.2GB FAT drive (as hdd, CDROM as hdc, so the TiVo drive can be hda) to store my images and other TiVo hacking files and utilities (plus Puppy Linux), separate from the system drive.


----------



## WO312 (Jan 24, 2003)

classicsat said:


> You could use a USB-IDE adapter or box. All the recent upgrade CDs are USB capable (most of them anyway).
> 
> Yes, computers capable of upgrading are cheap or free. I have a Celeron 500 system I got for free, which I use for my TiVo drive playing. I have a dedicated 3.2GB FAT drive (as hdd, CDROM as hdc, so the TiVo drive can be hda) to store my images and other TiVo hacking files and utilities (plus Puppy Linux), separate from the system drive.


I just did an upgrade for my son. We used 2 USB-ide adaptors (one was an external usb enclosure that we removed the drive from temporarily), and WinMFS. Worked like a charm and never even had to open the computer. Or leave Windows.


----------



## timckelley (Oct 15, 2002)

WO312 said:


> I just did an upgrade for my son. We used 2 USB-ide adaptors (one was an external usb enclosure that we removed the drive from temporarily), and WinMFS. Worked like a charm and never even had to open the computer. Or leave Windows.


Don't you still have to run linux commands (by booting to linux, using the MFS utility) disk, in order to load the image on the new drive(s)? And when you do, in the hdx term, where x designates primary/secondary/slave/etc, how do you determine x, when the drive is plugged into a USB port?

It would indeed be nice to do upgrades/repairs without opening the computer.


----------



## SNJpage1 (May 25, 2006)

I bought a ide to sata connector to connect one of my ide drives to a sata port. It worked great. However when I tried to do it to a second one it didnt see it so I guess you can only connect one. If you have a open PCI slot you can also buy a pci ide controller that will allow you to add 4 IDE drives to the controller. I have one of them also and works great.


----------

