# Dead hard drive in Hughes HDVR2



## captapollo (Sep 3, 2006)

Hi all,

I have 2 Hughes HDVR2's. I got them both from Circuit City a little over 2 years ago, with the extended warranty. Recently, my wife's unit was acting up, called support, rebooted it, and it stayed on the starting up screen indefinately. Now, CC can't replace it due to policy changes with DTV, and they said sorry, but sent me a $100 refund. So, it is now dead and has no warranty, so I took the hard drive out with the intention of running Spinrite on it, but the computer would not even recognize the drive, I did set the jumpers correctly, I work in IT. So the hard drive is dead, and there is probably nothing wrong wtih the rest of the unit. What I am wondering is can I clone the hard drive from my working DTivo to a new hard drive for my wife with something like Ghost and plug it in and expect it to work? Or please point me in the right direction to go.

Thank you,

John.


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## wscannell (Dec 7, 2003)

Use these instructions: http://tivo.upgrade-instructions.com/index.php

You will need to do a "Clear and delete everything" on the newly loaded drive to get the image to work in the other TiVo.

You can either use the linked boot disk or the ptvupgrade.com LBA48 boot disk.


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## goony (Nov 20, 2003)

Ask this question in the 'Underground' forum and you get some decent answers.

In your shoes, I would

1) Clone the working drive to another drive using 'dd' or (better) 'dd_rescue'. (You can make a Knoppix or mfstools boot CD and completely disconnect your regular hard drive in your PC - that way it won't get messed up and Windoze won't mess up a Tivo drive). 'dd' is a block-for-block copy and ignores any OS that might be present.

If you don't have another drive of the same size then you need to use 'mfstools' (which is Tivo-aware) to clone your original drive to a larger capacity drive. (Well, you _could_ dd to a larger drive, but then it wouldn't act any larger than the original drive and you would be wasting space.

2) Take the newly fixed unit and do a "Clear and Delete Everything" - I think that is necessary because the smartcard no longer matches the info that is on the hard drive. That will cause a marriage between the smartcard and the DirecTV/Tivo software.

3) Before you do either of the above two steps... check out the Zipper to 'enhance' the unit with networking features - if you do that to both units then you can transfer shows between them and other neat stuff.


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## goony (Nov 20, 2003)

Or, to keep it simple, just do what *wscannell* suggested!


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## captapollo (Sep 3, 2006)

WOW, that was fast.

Thank you very much. I will investigate all these options. I like the idea of "copying and other neat stuff".

Thanks again.

John.


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## captapollo (Sep 3, 2006)

Thanks again for the help. If I should post the following elsewhere, please let me know. Here's what I have done and where I am at now.

I read alot! I bought Instantcake and the lba48 cd and followed the zipper instructions. It is up, but I don't have a usb nic yet, and the phone line is NOT plugged in. I obviously have not followed all the zipper steps yet since I can't talk to it over the network yet. I am going to buy the Linksys usb200m ver 2 from CompUSA tomorrow.

I am able to navigate the menus with the remote. When I go to system info, somehow it says it has made a successful phone call and that my account is in good standing. However my zip code is wrong, and no local channels have shown up (duh), and I am not receiving anything. It says to call for ordering info.

Question is, what do I do next in order to get this up and running. My card is legal and I never turned it off even though the DTivo has been down for 2 months now. I really want to get this one up and running, because when it is working, I am going to upgrade mine and apply The Zipper to it also for all the neat features.

I am a Linux noobie, but not gun shy, I am a Network Admin, so can follow most instructions.

Thanks again for saving my DTivo, DTV stinks because they stopped doing Tivo's except for HD, and I can't afford HD yet.

John.


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## puffdaddy (Mar 1, 2006)

captapollo said:


> Question is, what do I do next in order to get this up and running. My card is legal and I never turned it off even though the DTivo has been down for 2 months now.


Make sure your HDVR2 is powered up and connected to the sat feed (you should be able to watch channel 200, and see the DirecTV lady blather on about the "DVR Plus"), call 1 800 DIR-ECTV, and enter 722 when the automated lady starts talking.

This should send a re-auth message into the sat stream, which should fix your card and give you access to all channels.


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## captapollo (Sep 3, 2006)

So after doing what Puffdaddy says above, will this automatically set my zip code? Do I still need to run guided setup to fix this? What about the phone line? I think I understand that the hacks I am installing will get all the information from the internet now (or off the satelite) and that I only would need the phone line for pay per view purchases. I know I need to finish the zipper instructions after I get my nic this evening, is that all there is to it? Or if I need to go read somewhere else, please direct me.

Thank you.

John.


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## captapollo (Sep 3, 2006)

I purchased the nic this evening, instazlled it, rebooted, and everything is working. Finished the zipper instructions and it seems all is OK. I can't wait to do this to my second DTivo.

Thanks again.

John


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## goony (Nov 20, 2003)

Congrats and welcome to the world of networked DTivos!


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## captapollo (Sep 3, 2006)

Thanks goony. Now all I have to do is figure out the exact procedure to upgrade my working DTivo while keeping all my settings. I know I will be saving the original drive as a backup, that is for sure! 

Time for more reading.

John.


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## russwjohns (Oct 8, 2006)

Will this procedure work for a series-1 D-Tivo, like my Philips DSR-6000 which recently took a dump?

A few weeks ago I heard the HD heads click loudly in a seeking mode while I was transferring some saved episodes of 24's season 4 to tape. Being familiar with that sound before older WD HD's lost access to the boot sectors and went south, I began a session of saving episodes to tape, but a day later the unit locked up and rebooting stuck on the "starting up" splash screen and I couldn't detect the HD spinning up.

I've got some new HD's for replacement purposes. Will there be any problems with the access card - AC if I can use this HD replacement procedure with the Philips unit?

I've read FAQs and searched here for info and came across some threads wherein they talked about "RID" and "non-RID" D-Tivo units and remarrying AC's but I couldn't find the definitions. Will this be an issue? I have service for two boxes, a D-Tivo and a std DTV receiver.

About a month ago I bought a Samsung D-Tivo unit to replace my orig Hughes e-10 DTV receiver. It didn't come with a card, so might I be able to marry that card to the Sammy?

LMK if I should just ask these questions in a new thread

thanks,
...russ


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## Doomster (Nov 6, 2003)

goony said:


> Ask this question in the 'Underground' forum and you get some decent answers.


Where is the Underground forum? I used to have a link to tivofaq.com but now it's dead.

I have a similar problem - one of my Tivo boxes seems to have a problem. It's not HD related but something wrong with either the power supply or the disk controller. I have some shows on the HD that I'd like to recover so I'd be interested in your solutions too.



> In your shoes, I would
> 
> 1) Clone the working drive to another drive using 'dd' or (better) 'dd_rescue'. (You can make a Knoppix or mfstools boot CD and completely disconnect your regular hard drive in your PC - that way it won't get messed up and Windoze won't mess up a Tivo drive). 'dd' is a block-for-block copy and ignores any OS that might be present.
> 
> If you don't have another drive of the same size then you need to use 'mfstools' (which is Tivo-aware) to clone your original drive to a larger capacity drive. (Well, you _could_ dd to a larger drive, but then it wouldn't act any larger than the original drive and you would be wasting space.


I'd like to make a clone of the HDs in my Tivos and then install the Zipper on the new HDs so I can network between Tivo boxes.

But does dd_rescue or mfstools work on 2 HDs? Two of my DirecTivo (DTV) boxes were upgraded using Weaknees HD upgrades and they consist of 2 120Gb HDs that are used rather than 1 250Gb HD.

Would dd_rescue/mfstools be able to clone to a 250Gb HD from 2 120Gb HDs?



> 2) Take the newly fixed unit and do a "Clear and Delete Everything" - I think that is necessary because the smartcard no longer matches the info that is on the hard drive. That will cause a marriage between the smartcard and the DirecTV/Tivo software.


But wouldn't this delete all the shows that you have just copied onto the new HD?



> 3) Before you do either of the above two steps... check out the Zipper to 'enhance' the unit with networking features - if you do that to both units then you can transfer shows between them and other neat stuff.


If the Zipper was installed on both, how do you transfer shows between them? Does the Zipper add a new selection in the Tivo menu? And I thought you couldn't transfer shows because each show that's recorded has some kind of code unique to the motherboard that marries that show to the particular DTV box

BTW, I'd be very interested if I could do this. I have one bad Tivo box and another one that has non-functioning RCA output jacks.


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## willardcpa (Feb 23, 2001)

Doomster said:


> Where is the Underground forum? I used to have a link to tivofaq.com but now it's dead.....


Back out to the main Tivo Community screen. Down towards the bottom is an area called "Underground Playground" the third forum there is called "Tivo Underground". That is the "underground forum.


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## russwjohns (Oct 8, 2006)

russwjohns said:


> Will this procedure work for a series-1 D-Tivo, like my Philips DSR-6000 which recently took a dump?
> 
> I've read FAQs and searched here for info and came across some threads wherein they talked about "RID" and "non-RID" D-Tivo units and remarrying AC's but I couldn't find the definitions. Will this be an issue? I have service for two boxes, a D-Tivo and a std DTV receiver.


I found info about the RID in another thread relating to swapping AC's, so the DSR-6000 is a non-RID device, while the Samsung SIRS-xxxxx has a "Receiver ID" number.


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## ruexp67 (Jan 16, 2002)

Doomster said:


> But wouldn't this delete all the shows that you have just copied onto the new HD?


Yes, but they should still be on the original drive which would go back into the original Tivo. If the drive is dead on a tivo, all the shows are lost from that tivo already.



Doomster said:


> If the Zipper was installed on both, how do you transfer shows between them? Does the Zipper add a new selection in the Tivo menu? And I thought you couldn't transfer shows because each show that's recorded has some kind of code unique to the motherboard that marries that show to the particular DTV box


Once configured, you will see the remote Tivo listed at the bottom of your Now Playing List. If you select it, it will show you the NPL on the remote Tivo and allow you to transfer the show to the local tivo. You can queue up as many shows to transfer as you like, but they will only transfer one at a time. (although if you have both tuners recording on the local Tivo, you can still transfer a show, you will see three red dots at the same time.  ) You cannot transfer a show that is recording on the the remote tivo.


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## iiigoiii (Oct 12, 2006)

by the way, you can sometimes get a dead HDD to work for a short while (long enough to back it up or copy it) by placing it in a different physical orientation (upside down or on edge). i've done this with failing computer hdds before, and did it today with an apparently completely failed tivo drive.

right side up, the bootable CD did not even find it. putting it on edge in my computer allowed me to get it to work long enough to do a backup.


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## willardcpa (Feb 23, 2001)

iiigoiii said:


> ....right side up, the bootable CD did not even find it. putting it on edge in my computer allowed me to get it to work long enough to do a backup.


Hmmm, I wonder how the bootable CD knew it was on edge instead of right side up.  
Oh, I get it right side up its only about an inch high, but on edge its about five inches. That would make it easier to find.


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