# Connecting via serial cable\PPP



## ColinYounger (Aug 9, 2006)

Hello...

I've bought myself a TiVo Serial Cable from PaceLink to try to connect my TiVo to my laptop. I've googled and followed three different varieties of instructions (including Black Widow) and failed each time.

Symptoms? The Incoming connection fails to show an 'unknown user' and HyperTerminal fails to show garbage - it's like the TiVo isn't actually using the serial port. I've got the dialling prefix at ,<hash>211, etc. The TiVo is unhacked except for having a 200Gb disk.

I'm using XP SP2 and suspect I'm missing something *really* obvious. Is there a definitive FAQ\Run through somewhere that I've missed, or has someone got experience in doing this?

Thanks for helping someone who thought he was a techie.


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## ColinYounger (Aug 9, 2006)

I've found a thread (1014379) which I'm going to check out.


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## aerialplug (Oct 20, 2000)

I managed to get serial PPP working but it was a horrendous job getting it to work. It worked for about 2 weeks and then stopped mysteriously. I gave up and bought a turbonet card - I haven't looked back since (apart from the TiVo logs which show that it's still trying every minute to get the serial PPP connection going over the serial cable!)


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## lenwuk (Oct 3, 2004)

I tried for weeks to get serial PPP working following Black Widow instructions and other sources but never managed it.
I settled for a Bash prompt over the serial cable, then bought a cachecard.
If you want to keep your sanity - give up now . . .  

Regards, Len


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## davey971 (Apr 4, 2004)

CoinYounger said:


> I've bought myself a TiVo Serial Cable from PaceLink to try to connect my TiVo to my laptop. I've googled and followed three different varieties of instructions (including Black Widow) and failed each time.


I've just bought the same cable from the same company.

Have you been able to get a basic serial connection running? I've just been trying and haven't been able to. I'm wondering whether a null-modem adaptor might be needed.

I've not tried one yet (I can't find where I 'filed' my adaptors ) but thought this might help you.


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## lenwuk (Oct 3, 2004)

As far as I remember the cable should work "as is".
I assume you've successfully started a Bash shell by amending rc.sysinit(.author)?
What terminal program are you using?
I found that Teraterm worked well.

Regards, Len


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## davey971 (Apr 4, 2004)

The pacelink lead is fine.
I found my problem - it was between the keyboard & the chair


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## ColinYounger (Aug 9, 2006)

Apologies for the delay in responding - Real Life(tm) got in the way again.



lenwuk said:


> I settled for a Bash prompt over the serial cable, then bought a cachecard. If you want to keep your sanity - give up now . . .


What sanity?  I'm not wanting to dive in big style until I've had a play at the bash prompt (i.e. can see a need, upgrading my router to accept more connections, la-de-la-de-da). But I haven't got a bash prompt yet...



davey971 said:


> Have you been able to get a basic serial connection running? I've just been trying and haven't been able to. I'm wondering whether a null-modem adaptor might be needed.


I was wondering the same thing while reading through various guides... But no basic serial connection yet.



lenwuk said:


> As far as I remember the cable should work "as is".
> I assume you've successfully started a Bash shell by amending rc.sysinit(.author)?
> What terminal program are you using?


Good news on the cable, davey971! As for starting a bash shell... urm, no. And I;m using HyperTerminal at the moment which has worked for other needs like this so far.



davey971 said:


> I found my problem - it was between the keyboard & the chair


OK - want to 'fess up? My problem's still here.


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## davey971 (Apr 4, 2004)

Apologies for the delay in responding - been on hols.

Sending you a PM now.


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## inbead (Jul 13, 2004)

OK, I have a Toshiba SD-H400 on which I have used Killhdinitrd and want to do some other stuff.

Is the serial cable which came with my tivo going to work or do I need to buy the one from 9th tee? Also, Can I use terraterm to get access? My tivo has a Linksys USB wireless adapter which it uses to get access to program guides.

Thanks in advance.


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## davey971 (Apr 4, 2004)

I've only connected to a Thompson Tivo, but assuming the serial on the Toshiba SD-H400 is the same it should work. 

With the standard TiVo serial lead you will likely need a null-modem adapter to enable direct connection to the PC. 

Once the physical connections are in place there seem to be two options: (1) The 'insert tivo powercord and press enter' method (2) changing rc.sysinit(.author) to setup bash on the serial port. 
Both methods are documented on various websites 

TeraTerm should be okay too - if that doesn't work try Hyperterminal. 

Hope this helps.


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## Ian_m (Jan 9, 2001)

davey971 said:


> (1) The 'insert tivo powercord and press enter' method ....


I don't think that method works with the 2.5.5, that was the previous version of S/W.


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