# What do you guys think of starting a fund for 4TB roamio upgrade developement?



## blackjackel (May 10, 2004)

I'm thinking that the only reason that a solution for installing 4tb drive on a roamio hasn't been released is because there is little incentive for someone to research how to do this.

Also, it is likely that someone out there has the knowhow to be able to do this, but just dosen't have the time to do it... but if there is a monetary incentive, they might be willing to take more of their off time to do it.

Woud you guys be up for starting a paypal donation fund?


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## jmbach (Jan 1, 2009)

That and the fact that the one person (ggieseke) whom I know has the knowledge and ability to do this has a regular job that takes up most of his time. One thing about programming, it is important for the programmer to have a roof over his computer to keep it dry, electricity to run it, and nourishment to keep his mind sharp. (and maybe a little beer to improve creativity)


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## Cybernut (Oct 1, 2013)

Wow!! Talk about a lurker! What I find amazing is that blackjackel has been a member of this site for 10 years and finally made his first post today. Well, that should call for at least some consideration on ggieseke's part ;-)


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## nooneuknow (Feb 5, 2011)

jmbach said:


> That and the fact that the one person (ggieseke) whom I know has the knowledge and ability to do this has a regular job that takes up most of his time. One thing about programming, it is important for the programmer to have a roof over his computer to keep it dry, electricity to run it, and nourishment to keep his mind sharp. (and maybe a little beer to improve creativity)


+Like :up:

The OP makes it sound like they are looking to create a PayPal fund, without addressing how to make sure this "fund" goes to the deserving party or parties. Maybe there's some easy way to do that. But, I have my doubts.

I recall a Premiere PROM project from another forum, where all kinds of expensive equipment/hardware was bought with donations, only for it to all end with it being confirmed a wash, while the person who did the work got to keep all the equipment purchased with the donations. It was hundreds of dollars (perhaps over a thousand) that it took to buy all that equipment.

I guess trying to make any comparisons, or imply donations won't guarantee success, would be comparing apples to bowling balls...

Since I figure ggieseke is going to be the one to write it, the most obvious way to provide incentive/funds, IMHO, would be to grab a copy of his free DVRBARS program, and click on the PayPal donate button. I'm pretty sure you can add a note to your donation, stating your interest in the 4TB+ project.

While he knows how it is done, he has principles/values/morals, and won't release anything that he doesn't write from the ground-up. It's one thing to copy somebody else's work, and another to start from scratch.

Dvr Backup And Restore Software for Windows (DvrBARS)
http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=503261

I have heard rumors the author of JMFS (Comer) is allegedly working on something:

Premiere Drive Upgrade Instructions - with all-in-one jmfs Live CD
http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=455968


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## RusRus (Apr 8, 2013)

blackjackel said:


> I'm thinking that the only reason that a solution for installing 4tb drive on a roamio hasn't been released is because there is little incentive for someone to research how to do this.
> 
> Also, it is likely that someone out there has the knowhow to be able to do this, but just dosen't have the time to do it... but if there is a monetary incentive, they might be willing to take more of their off time to do it.
> 
> Woud you guys be up for starting a paypal donation fund?


Maybe I'm just naive but why would someone want a 4tb HDD? Does anyone download and save so many programs or am I missing something???


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## Cybernut (Oct 1, 2013)

RusRus said:


> Maybe I'm just naive but why would someone want a 4tb HDD? Does anyone download and save so many programs or am I missing something???


I don't have a Roamio but I upgraded my Premiere to a 4TB recently. Of course many people would want a 4TB, and if a 5 or 6 TB comes out soon people will want that. You can never have enough hard disk space - so that you don't have to as frequently download and archive as with say a 1 or 2 TB. And yes, I do download and save a lot of my recordings. That's what bluray discs and mammoth hard drives are for.


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## ggieseke (May 30, 2008)

I'm still working on it, but my job has been crazy lately and PayPal doesn't have a "donate spare time" option.

Until TiVo rewrites more of the code 5 or 6 TB drives won't be possible. Roamios try to use a new 64-bit partition table on drives over 3TB but the rest of the box doesn't understand it yet. The current 32-bit partition table limits you to just under 4TiB.


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## L David Matheny (Jan 29, 2011)

RusRus said:


> Maybe I'm just naive but why would someone want a 4tb HDD? Does anyone download and save so many programs or am I missing something???


As Cybernut said, many of us might want more just because it's possible. But with so much capacity in one drive, the real question becomes: How much programming are you willing to lose in one hardware disaster, when the hard drive fails and all of your recordings go to that big bit bucket in the sky?


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## nooneuknow (Feb 5, 2011)

ggieseke said:


> I'm still working on it, but my job has been crazy lately and PayPal doesn't have a "donate spare time" option.


If only one such button could exist. It might help more than the money button! 

While "time is money" is often true, it doesn't mean "money is time".

I understand, and I sure hope that everybody else does. I'd rather have them be patient, than try to prod somebody to do something of questionable ethics (like copy Weaknees), or prod somebody into kludging something together, then releasing it into the wild, motivated by getting some donations out of it.

I'd rather wait for a quality program done right, by somebody I know and trust, than worry about unforeseen issues and consequences, or something that the next TiVo software update could "disagree" with (although that's one thing that could be hard to insure against, never knowing what TiVo might do/change down the road).

I'd hope that anybody who thinks they have figured it out, refrain from releasing it into the wild, until they have a pool of willing testers who understand the risk, and importance of proper testing. Then again, that seems to be expecting more than what we get from what TiVo sends out (sometimes).


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## nooneuknow (Feb 5, 2011)

L David Matheny said:


> As Cybernut said, many of us might want more just because it's possible. But with so much capacity in one drive, the real question becomes: How much programming are you willing to lose in one hardware disaster, when the hard drive fails and all of your recordings go to that big bit bucket in the sky?


Also very true. I have old 7200RPM PATA drives that ran 24/7 for almost a decade, were pulled and stored for ~3 years, and still power right up, with all data intact, and pass every test I throw at them. I miss that reliability that has been sacrificed in the name of platter density (as well as lower production costs), and how you get that same higher density, even if you order a new platter drive of extremely low capacity.


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

ggieseke said:


> I'm still working on it, but my job has been crazy lately and PayPal doesn't have a "donate spare time" option.
> 
> ...


What I want is "donate energy" button so I can get back some of what my niece and nephew-especially him-vampired out of me the past 2 decades.

You already knew that, right? The reason kids have so much energy is that they drain it from all the adults around them?


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## blackjackel (May 10, 2004)

Cybernut said:


> Wow!! Talk about a lurker! What I find amazing is that blackjackel has been a member of this site for 10 years and finally made his first post today. Well, that should call for at least some consideration on ggieseke's part ;-)


Haha, I never realized that I registered back in 2004, I must have been considering a TIVO back then and decided it was too expensive to bother, so I never got it...


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## blackjackel (May 10, 2004)

I have a solution, the ethics of which might not be 100%, but I'll let you guys decide that.

I purchased a Preformatted 4TB Tivo drive, and I'm right now experimenting with making a RAW image format from my old drive. If it works, and I need the following for it to work:

1- The RAW image must be re-imaged back to the original drive, and the TIVO must then recognize it, this way I can make sure the process works.

2- The RAW image MUST be compressed, IE, if the RAW image is 4TB then this obviously can not work. The new drive is empty with no shows on it, so if it compresses, it shouldn't be larger than a few gigs.

3- I must be able to send the RAW image file to people.

4- The RAW image file might not work on drives that are not exactly the one I have, I bought a western digital AV 4tb drive (the ones that are optimized for 24/7 audio video play). We'll have to test that to see if it works for other manufacturers.


Now, I paid a certain amount of money to be able to get this drive, and I'm taking the difference from the amount of money I spent on the formatted drive from one I could have just purchased unformatted on newegg or something, and that difference is $98 (rounded up).

I'm thinking of charging like $20 bucks a person until I make the $98, then I'll release the image for free. This is where the ethics come into play. I'm not sure if this is 100% ethical, but I think people should be able to format their drives and play it on their tivos themselves if they want to.

What do you guys think?

edit: math error.


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

blackjackel said:


> I have a solution, the ethics of which might not be 100%, but I'll let you guys decide that.
> 
> I purchased a Preformatted 4TB Tivo drive, and I'm right now experimenting with making a RAW image format from my old drive. If it works, and I need the following for it to work:
> 
> ...


I do not know how those who are creating commercially available 4TB drives for TiVos are doing it, so I don't know what, if any, Intellectual Property of theirs may be involved or how, so I don't know if there are any questions of infringement of any copyright or patent of theirs in your proposed actions.

_*However*_, I feel almost certain that the source from which you purchased this drive is one of the sponsors here at TCF, which means they help make this place available to us, and hurting their bottom line might not be in our overall best interests.

Also, there is another consideration you seem to have overlooked.

I don't know what kind of deal these people have worked out with TiVo to re-distribute TiVo's Intellectual Property, that's between them and TiVo, but since you don't mention having worked out anything between your lawyers and TiVo's lawyers, I'm guessing you don't have anything worked out with TiVo, and you may find yourself on the unpleasant end of one or more lawsuits.


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## blackjackel (May 10, 2004)

I have good news. The following steps are a sucess:

1- It copied the drive sucessfully and I managed to re-image the same drive and run it with TIVO.

2- I've started imaing the 4TB drive and so far at 75% of the completion the file is only around 500mb big!

3- Since the image is so small, I could use services such as dropbox to send it to people.

4- This is the only variable that I cannot test since I don't have a 4tb drive that is not the WD AV drive. But I think it should work fine.



unitron said:


> I do not know how those who are creating commercially available 4TB drives for TiVos are doing it, so I don't know what, if any, Intellectual Property of theirs may be involved or how, so I don't know if there are any questions of infringement of any copyright or patent of theirs in your proposed actions.
> 
> _*However*_, I feel almost certain that the source from which you purchased this drive is one of the sponsors here at TCF, which means they help make this place available to us, and hurting their bottom line might not be in our overall best interests.
> 
> ...


- The person (I think it is person?) who did the hard drive format has 0 claim on the content of the hard drive, there is a concrete reason that I don't want to go into.

- I'll contact TIVO legal regarding copying of their hard drive format. There should be no actual TIVO content on the drive other than the format of the drive itself. I'll see what the legality of selling it is and if they have contracts with 3rd party tivo distributors, if they have no contract with them then it should be fine for me to move forward.

- I don't buy the whole bottom line of the forum sponsors since developing tools to format 4TB TIVO hard drives would do the exact same thing and hurt their bottom line in exactly the same way. Should we stop trying to develope our own tools to do what they charge to do? I don't think so. I was originally going to charge 5 people $20 bucks till I release the code file for free, but I could do say 7 people, and donate the extra $40 to the forum


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## waynomo (Nov 9, 2002)

blackjackel said:


> ...Should we stop trying to develope our own tools to do what they charge to do?...


If I understand your first post, you didn't develop a tool. You purchased a HD from somebody else and are only try to figure out a way to copy it and send it to somebody else.


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## jrtroo (Feb 4, 2008)

Reverse engineering something you paid for so you can sell the content they produced, even if not patented, is not ethical in my book. Seems you are already recognizing the issue there, and don't have the same personal qualms I do. 

When you say this is the exact same thing, it really is. Now, if you were developing your own tool, then have at it, go ahead and sell to cover costs or ask for general donations as Comer did with his tool.


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## blackjackel (May 10, 2004)

Good news everyone! The file is ready and its pretty tiny! I want to speak to TIVO prior to releasing it first, so stay tuned.

edit: Spoke to TIVO, they have no contract with any 3rd party TIVO repair shops, meaning it's completely legal to do what I'm proposing.



waynomo said:


> If I understand your first post, you didn't develop a tool. You purchased a HD from somebody else and are only try to figure out a way to copy it and send it to somebody else.


I never said I did, it was just an argument to say that developing a tool and doing this would be the exact same thing for the bottom line of the companies that support this forum.



jrtroo said:


> Reverse engineering something you paid for so you can sell the content they produced, even if not patented, is not ethical in my book. Seems you are already recognizing the issue there, and don't have the same personal qualms I do.
> 
> When you say this is the exact same thing, it really is. Now, if you were developing your own tool, then have at it, go ahead and sell to cover costs or ask for general donations as Comer did with his tool.


I'm only doing it to cover costs. I plan on releasing it for free to everyone. Matter of fact, I did hours of works to get this thing going ( 1- finding the correct software to copy drives in RAW format, 2- copying the original drive 3- Re-imaging the original drive to see if this raw-copy method works. By the way, copying the 4tb drive alone took a whole 24 hours for my computer to crunch) and I'm not charging anyone for all that extra work I did, I'm only charging for the cost of having the drive formatted the way it is.


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## Cybernut (Oct 1, 2013)

blackjackel said:


> I'm only doing it to cover costs. I plan on releasing it for free to everyone. Matter of fact, I did hours of works to get this thing going ( 1- finding the correct software to copy drives in RAW format, 2- copying the original drive 3- Re-imaging the original drive to see if this raw-copy method works. By the way, copying the 4tb drive alone took a whole 24 hours for my computer to crunch) and I'm not charging anyone for all that extra work I did, I'm only charging for the cost of having the drive formatted the way it is.


As ggieseke pointed out in the other thread and others in this thread, this action of selling it, even if ONLY to first 5 people and to recoup the costs of your work is unethical in my books too. You bought something knowing full well it was someone else's proprietary work and now you have simply devised a way to replicate that - and even if it's true that you are not trying to profit from this but simply trying to recoup the costs...that is simply an unethical action...because the time and money you've sunk into this was decided by you...you should feel happy that you've been able to devise this way and just not try to share this...and not try to recoup costs. It's like taking a book, scanning into pdf and then peddling the pdf (someone else's work) to justify the time-money costs incurred to convert to pdf. If others want the book, they can and should buy the book themselves. Anything else is trying to disseminate proprietary technology developed by someone else, that they obviously invested far more capital to develop than you did.


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## ggieseke (May 30, 2008)

For what it's worth, someone bought a Premiere XL and had it shipped to me during the early development stages of DvrBARS. Thanks, Jim - THAT'S a community.

Others have supported ethical development of 3rd-party apps, and I've spent about 2K myself in the last year.

$100 bucks? Really?

In case I haven't been clear I oppose theft of intelluctual property.


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## blackjackel (May 10, 2004)

Cybernut said:


> As ggieseke pointed out in the other thread and others in this thread, this action of selling it, even if ONLY to first 5 people and to recoup the costs of your work is unethical in my books too. You bought something knowing full well it was someone else's proprietary work and now you have simply devised a way to replicate that - and even if it's true that you are not trying to profit from this but simply trying to recoup the costs...that is simply an unethical action...because the time and money you've sunk into this was decided by you...you should feel happy that you've been able to devise this way and just not try to share this...and not try to recoup costs. It's like taking a book, scanning into pdf and then peddling the pdf (someone else's work) to justify the time-money costs incurred to convert to pdf. If others want the book, they can and should buy the book themselves. Anything else is trying to disseminate proprietary technology developed by someone else, that they obviously invested far more capital to develop than you did.


Didnt those people rip off the proprietary work of TIVO? I contacted TIVO and they said that they have NO contract with ANY 3rd party vendors.

This means that those vendors ripped off TIVO's proprietary work to sell it to me, right? Does this mean that they are unethical too?

If not, then why am I the one that's being unethical if I am essentially doing the same thing that they are doing?



ggieseke said:


> For what it's worth, someone bought a Premiere XL and had it shipped to me during the early development stages of DvrBARS. Thanks, Jim - THAT'S a community.
> 
> Others have supported ethical development of 3rd-party apps, and I've spent about 2K myself in the last year.
> 
> ...


I don't understand why developing an app to do the exact same thing I'm doing is ethical while what I'm doing is not. The end result is exactly the same, and the same intellectual property is being replicated.


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## waynomo (Nov 9, 2002)

blackjackel said:


> I never said I did, it was just an argument to say that developing a tool and doing this would be the exact same thing for the bottom line of the companies that support this forum.


Didn't you start with a drive from a third party?


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## jmbach (Jan 1, 2009)

blackjackel said:


> Didnt those people rip off the proprietary work of TIVO? I contacted TIVO and they said that they have NO contract with ANY 3rd party vendors.
> 
> This means that those vendors ripped off TIVO's proprietary work to sell it to me, right? Does this mean that they are unethical too?
> 
> ...


Not sure what the 3rd party vendors have done but in any event, two wrongs don't make a right.

What is being discussed is not what the third party has done but what you intend to do.

It is true that you are copying some ones work and selling it. If you asked the 3rd party you bought the drive from if you can do this and they gave you permission then there is no problem.

The idea of a program that will copy and expand or back up a TiVo drive is similar to programs that do the same for computer drives. It is commonly accepted that as long as you taking the drive out of your computer and copy the data to a larger drive and expand it so that the OS uses the whole drive and put it back in the same computer, there is no foul. However if you take that same drive and start putting it in several machines without the OS manufacturers consent, then a foul has been committed. The 3rd party vendors may not have contracts with TiVo but they might have asked for permission for what they are doing.

Since you brought up the ethical implications of what you propose to do, then you have doubts about it as well. Perhaps what you are looking for is some one to bless your proposed intent to make you feel better about what you are going to do. I am not sure you are going to get it here.



blackjackel said:


> I have a solution, the ethics of which might not be 100%, but I'll let you guys decide that.
> ...
> What do you guys think?


And remember, you asked the question first. So don't ask the question if you don't want to hear the answer.


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## nooneuknow (Feb 5, 2011)

I really wanted to sit on the sidelines...

I really don't care if somebody clones a 3rd-party pre-partitioned drive, compresses it down, and shares the image.

It is the selling of it that bothers me.

Are you going to provide technical support and a warranty to go with the image?

Do you really believe that only selling enough copies to pay for the product you purchased makes it any more right than selling as many as you can?

I have a lot of thoughts on the matter, but want to keep things simple and civilized. I also don't want, or expect, answers to the questions I posed. They are questions that you need to ask, and answer, yourself.

I'd trust anything that ggieseke comes up with, over any other source. I know he'll build it from scratch, and do it right. I'd have no problems with paying for that.

There's "doing it", and then there's "doing it right". I don't feel that WeaKnees or DVR_DUDE do the best they can do. They make drives work, but seem to not care about an optimized and optimal structure. That can lead to shorter drive life, and operational/performance issues as the drive contents fragment.

That's why I'm running on 3TB drives, and didn't just buy a 4TB WK drive, then clone it to two more blank 4TB drives for my other two TiVos.


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## eboydog (Mar 24, 2006)

I would donate $20 to the person who knows how to format prepare a 4tb drive and releases that info, I wouldn't pay a dime to someone who is selling a sector copy of Weaknees 4tb Roamio drive kit. 

If i really thought I needed a 4tb drive I would buy Weaknees solution but paying someone to rip off Weaknees work is wrong.


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## blackjackel (May 10, 2004)

Alright, well, a bunch of people apparently think that selling a copied drive to recoup costs is morally bankrupt, while I disagree, I feel that I should respect what the community believes.

Maybe there are people out there that agree with me that didn't post on here for the fear of being ostracized, but without any opposing support I can't go on doing something the forumgoers think is a crappy thing to do.

Now, I could simply move the operation over to ebay, or craigslist, but I won't.

I do have one last question, what if I used my own image to duplicate the drive for myself for other tivos in the house? Would that be morally wrong too? (I don't have any other tivos, I'm just asking to see what you guys would think)


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## eboydog (Mar 24, 2006)

If I purchased the Weaknees 4tb Roamio drive solution, I would make a sector based backup for my own use so that if the drive would go bad, I would have backup solution since it's not as easy to just throw in a 4tb drive and continue on. I would keep that to myself for my own use since I paid Weaknees for that privilege.

You are more than welcome to do as you please, If you are seeking group approval, do the hard part and figure out the process to configure a raw 4tb harddrive to be accepted by the Roamio. Taking advantage of a grey area where someone else has done the technical work and making profit off their work is simply wrong even if there isn't a legal roadblock to stop you, many of the advancements of expanding our Tivo hard drives has always been on a honor system were hardly few if any parties involved has made substantial profits on distributing information that if Tivo really wanted too could be stopped due to legal issues of copyrights, patents and such.

I might suggest that without knowing you personally, you know deep down what you propose is wrong and you are hoping that there would be a group mob mentality that would make you feel better about it if a large number of TiVo users wanted a maximum drive expansion regardless of the morality question.

If I had the technical knowledge of how to modify a 4tb hard drive to be accepted by the Roamio I would work on it as being disabled and retired, I have more than enough time to devote to such a project. Perhaps you could take the image you have and discover the technical modifications that allow your drive image to work, if you could demonstrate your technical prowness in such, heck I would send you $20 to encourage you to release the mod into the wild.

Best regards!


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## waynomo (Nov 9, 2002)

You never did answer the question of where you got a working HD from.


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## nooneuknow (Feb 5, 2011)

blackjackel said:


> Alright, well, a bunch of people apparently think that selling a copied drive to recoup costs is morally bankrupt, while I disagree, I feel that I should respect what the community believes.
> 
> Maybe there are people out there that agree with me that didn't post on here for the fear of being ostracized, but without any opposing support I can't go on doing something the forumgoers think is a crappy thing to do.
> 
> ...


I know that when I purchased some upgrade drives from a reputable online reseller, I did not agree to any terms about what I could or couldn't do with the drives, nor did a copy of any terms come with the drives.

I'd guess that there might be a reason for that. Perhaps it has to do with the open-source software that TiVo uses, even though TiVo got away with making it proprietary (or was allowed to make it proprietary).

"TiVoization" is a term that has its own wikipedia page.

As somebody already said, some things are an "honor system".

If anybody saw your proposal, and supported it, without wanting to do so publicly, they'd have sent you a PM (Private Message).

You really need to lay off the way you are passive-aggressively looking for support, or approval. It's likely going to push people away, than bring them in.

Clone for your own use, if you want to. Think twice before posting that you have, in public. Consider that the seller knows the serial number of the drive you bought pre-imaged, and they have a record of that much. Then, consider that the image that went to that S/N might have had a "watermark" added.

Nobody is going to say you can't sell that original, prepared, drive to somebody else (or sell it with the TiVo it is in). Make sure to have proof you sold that drive, if you do (who you sold it to & drive S/N). The ethical thing to do next, is to eliminate any clones/images made from that drive. If ethics aren't your thing, then be careful how much you share about any hypothetical clones/images you might have retained, and what you choose to do with them.

Where this all kind of does get gray, is if even if you buy a prepared drive, then just sell it without using/cloning/making an image, how do you know the person you sold it to isn't going to do whatever they please with it? If you sell it as part of a TiVo sale, what responsibility, if any, do you have to say they can't do whatever they please with the drive inside? See, it's not all black & white. Yet, the ethics are a big deal for some.

I think that the bigger names in prepared drive selling likely make sure their drive images are identifiable, so they can at least track down people on e-Bay (and elsewhere) selling clones as their own work, and take legal action.

At the same time, the inability to stop people from buying one drive, then cloning it for themselves, friends, and family, likely results in the price of each drive being higher than it would be if they could protect against that.

This whole subject matter was discussed in the original Roamio hard drive upgrade thread. It got pretty heated. I tend to take a middle-ground on it, while some go extreme one-way, and others go the extreme other-way. If that starts happening here, I'll likely excuse myself from the discussion.


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## waynomo (Nov 9, 2002)

nooneuknow said:


> I know that when I purchased some upgrade drives from a reputable online reseller, I did not agree to any terms about what I could or couldn't do with the drives, nor did a copy of any terms come with the drives.


You buy lots of things that don't come with printed out terms yet it is still illegal to copy them and still them.


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## nooneuknow (Feb 5, 2011)

waynomo said:


> You buy lots of things that don't come with printed out terms yet it is still illegal to copy them and still them.


I never said otherwise. You just bumped things to a whole new level, by bringing legality to the discussion, as opposed to the moral/ethical discussion that was going on.

I'm not going to engage any further (on this path). It's always the same thing once it gets this far. I've seen it far too many times before. A lot of things that nobody can prove get debated, then it degrades to accusations and name-calling. A big waste of time, based on the countless times I've seen it all before.

About the only new thing that comes to mind is that a stock Roamio ships with a blank drive, with no partitions or software, whatsoever. Older TiVos actually shipped with a factory-prepared drive, containing partitions and software, before the Roamio.

I'm not sure how much of anything that may, or may not, change. It's just the only new thing to bring to the otherwise "same old arguments".


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