# Possible to format used drive and install in Tivo?



## Mikeyis4dcats (Oct 2, 2003)

I don't recall where, but I seem to recall that if a drive had been used in a PC it may not be useable in a Series 2 Tivo.

Can anyone confirm this?


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## litzdog911 (Oct 18, 2002)

You can use your PC's hard drive just fine. The software imaging tools (e.g MFSTools or InstantCake) will reformat the drive for Tivo's file format.


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## HomeUser (Jan 12, 2003)

There are a lot of warnings about not booting Windows with a TiVo drive in the computer. The warnings are for drives all-ready setup to run in the TiVo. What happens is Windows writes a signature on the drive this signature corrupts the existing boot section of the TiVo software making the software not runnable in the TiVo. Reloading the drive with un-corrupted TiVo software makes the drive (or a PC drive) usable in the TiVo.


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## croup (Feb 23, 2007)

I used a PC drive to upgrade mine just fine
Make dure you reformat the drive to fat32 prior to writing the tivo image to it.


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## ttodd1 (Nov 6, 2003)

You don't have to reformat it first MFTools with take care if it. You need a fat32 partiion only if you are making a backup of an image.


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## Alessan (Feb 23, 2002)

ok problem I ever ran into was using an old PC that the BIOS didn't support the hard drive. Other than that, I have upgraded many tivo hard drives with no problems


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