# Need to know the basics of replacing the hard drive in my old DTV Tivo?



## dirtball (Mar 15, 2009)

I have been looking over the forms here at this site and can not find the bare bones instructions on how to replace the hard drive in my Tivo. I do hope that it is legal to do, and I do not want to piss anyone off here at the site by asking.......But can some one point me in the right direction. I have an old Hughes HDVR2. I also have the "green screen of death." Would anyone be able to point me in the right direction to find the directions to install a new hard drive into this unit? I was thinking of putting a 320 HD into it. 

1) Is there a specific type of Hard Drive I must use? 

2) Can I just drop in a new hard drive, or is there software that must be installed onto the drive or anywhere else to make it work?

3) I understand there are companies that sell plug and play Hard Drives. Are they TRULY plug-n-play?

The wife is starting to get pretty upset about the Tivo being broken. The unit has been dead for a few months now and she is getting kind of crazy.


Thanks for reading my post. I understand you must see several messages for help like this every day. I appreciate your time and thank you for any information you could share to shed some light on this matter for me. 

Dirtball


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## rbtravis (Aug 9, 2005)

For tools you need a torx 10 and torx 15 driver. You need a Parallel ATA hard drive with a Directv Tivo Image. If you have a PC you can buy a CD from DVRupgrade, if no PC you can buy a pre-imaged hard drive from DVRupgrade. Make sure the image is for a Hughes HDVR2. Unplug the unit and leave the unit unplugged for 1/2 hour before starting. With the Torx 10 driver remove the four screws securing the top to the Directv Tivo. After removing the top, remove the power connector carefully from the existing drive. Be careful not to dislodge the connector from the Front panel to the mother board. Remove the short PATA black connector from the drive. With the Torx 10 driver remove the two screws located on the front of the tivo disk facing the front panel. After removal
push the hard drive 1/4" of a inch toward the power supply. Lift the hard drive out of the Tivo. With the Torx 15 driver remove the screws holding the drive in the carrier and remove and replace the drive. reverse the procedure and you are done.


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## mr.unnatural (Feb 2, 2006)

These procedures are a bit dated but will still work for your S2 DTivo:

http://www.newreleasesvideo.com/hinsdale-how-to/index9.html

There are other procedures posted in some of the sticky threads here for upgrading Tivo drives. You should check out the weaknees.com and DVRUpgrade.com websites for others. Also, check out the MFSLive.org website for WinMFS and MFSLive upgrade utilities.


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## robomeister (Feb 4, 2005)

Check out www.mfslive.org. That site contains the most up to date tools for upgrading any TiVo, if you already have an backup image.

If you ask nicely, someone on this site or mfslive.org will provide you with a working image for your TiVo. Be as specific as possible when requesting an image, it helps to get the right thing for your TiVo. Otherwise there will be crying when it doesn't work.

Hope that helps,
robomeister


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## FlaUsa1 (Dec 20, 2003)

Robomeister, 
Do you happen to have a pointer to a Compatability list somewhere for the mfslive linux boot cd? I have a LInux server, on a Dell Poweredge 2650 I would like to use for the HD upgrade process. It's an SMP system w/RAID. And the only system I have that has enough free space to create a full Tivo system image (Backup) on right now. Ultimately I will be replacing the 5 year old original drive. 

Thanks


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## robomeister (Feb 4, 2005)

I'm not sure I follow the question here.

The www.mfslive.org website has 2 free products.

WinMFS works on Windows XP with SP2 or higher and Windows Vista machines.

MFSLive Boot CD is just that, a bootable CD with its own Linux environment. It works in virtually any PC as long as you can boot from a CD.

To do any upgrade, you need to be able to attach the hard drives to the computer in some way. You can either open the machine and attach directly to the IDE/PATA cable or use a USB to IDE/PATA adapter. I've used both methods using both WinMFS and the MFSLive Boot CD. The latest boot CD has drivers that work with the USB adapters.

So, if you are going to use the MFSLive Boot CD, it doesn't matter what OS is on the PC. If you are trying to create an Linux environment on your PC to do upgrades, well, that is outside of my area of expertise. I'm sure it can and has been done, just not by me. 

I mostly use the WinMFS program, unless I encounter something that it cannot do, which happens occasionally.

Good luck,
robomeister


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## FlaUsa1 (Dec 20, 2003)

The kernel on the boot cd must have enough modules to support the hardware. "SMP Large" works well. But many boot images do not support real SCSI.


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