# Upgrade Question on Hard Drives



## jagsgo (Jan 9, 2010)

Hey guys love the site and appreciate all the feedback you guys have given me over the years. I have a question. I'm about to get my hands on a new Premier Series 4 TiVo with 4 Tuners. It still has its original 320 GB hard drive in it. Will I be able to straight up swap it out with my WD10EADS 1 TB hard drive from my Series 3 TiVo that I have right now?? I'm trying to avoid having to use any software or Sata to USB cables. I'm not the most technical savvy on this stuff. I guess what I'm saying is will the Premier be able to work and function normally if I just take the normal hard drive out and put in this WD10EADS hard drive in it? 

Thanks a lot guys for responding to my question. 

Jason


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

jagsgo said:


> Hey guys love the site and appreciate all the feedback you guys have given me over the years. I have a question. I'm about to get my hands on a new Premier Series 4 TiVo with 4 Tuners. It still has its original 320 GB hard drive in it. Will I be able to straight up swap it out with my WD10EADS 1 TB hard drive from my Series 3 TiVo that I have right now?? I'm trying to avoid having to use any software or Sata to USB cables. I'm not the most technical savvy on this stuff. I guess what I'm saying is will the Premier be able to work and function normally if I just take the normal hard drive out and put in this WD10EADS hard drive in it?
> 
> Thanks a lot guys for responding to my question.
> 
> Jason


I don't think there's a 4 tuner TiVo that comes with a 320GB drive.

Unless you mean the original Premiere, which came with a 320GB drive and has 2 cable tuners and 2 broadcast tuners, but is not considered a 4 tuner unit because it can only use 2 of them at once--so it can only record a maximum of 2 shows at any time.

That model is the TCD746320, and if it doesn't have a lifetime subscription you shouldn't pay more than $50 at most, and that's if you're feeling charitable, as the introduction of the Series 5 Roamio line has brought S4 prices way down, in some cases below S3 prices.

The EADS should work, but you'll have to hook the 320 and it up to a PC at the same time to "Xerox" the 320 to the 1TB.

Unlike the new S5 TiVos, the older ones cannot handle hard drive upgrade and replacement themselves, but need considerable help from us puny humans.

There seems to be a way to handle it that would only require hooking up one drive to a PC at a time--you need to read the DvrBARS thread

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=503261

and it wouldn't hurt to read the older jmfs thread as well

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=455968

and it just occured to me that the EADS may need to have Intellipark disabled on it, since it's a Caviar Green, and for that you need to hook it directly to a SATA port on the PC motherboard and run the

wdidle3.exe

utility


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## jagsgo (Jan 9, 2010)

Unitron, 

Thanks for replying. Sorry I meant the Premier TCD 750500 model that has 75 hours of HD content available. But anyway I already disabled the Intellipack stuff and used that software called WinMfs I believe. I did all this already when I was installing this hard drive on my Series 3 HD which is where it's still at. My question is would I be able to just swap this hard drive into the Premier or will I have to do any modifications to it again?

Thanks 

Jason


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

jagsgo said:


> Unitron,
> 
> Thanks for replying. Sorry I meant the Premier TCD 750500 model that has 75 hours of HD content available. But anyway I already disabled the Intellipack stuff and used that software called WinMfs I believe. I did all this already when I was installing this hard drive on my Series 3 HD which is where it's still at. My question is would I be able to just swap this hard drive into the Premier or will I have to do any modifications to it again?
> 
> ...


WinMFS and the MFS Live cd only work on TiVos up through the 3 different Series 3 models, the original and the HD and HD XL.

When they brought out the S4s, they changed some stuff about the file system and hard drive layout so that WinMFS and the MFS Live cd can't do anything with S4 and S5 drives except screw them up.

There's a reason I went to the trouble to point you towards the jmfs and DvrBARS threads--that reason was so you could learn enough about what's involved in replacing S4 drives to do it properly.

Since Intellipark is already disabled, you can use the EADS "as is"--jmfs, and, I assume, DvrBARS, should overwrite whatever's currently on the drive like it wasn't even there.

And the S4 you mention comes stock with a 500GB drive, so make sure the seller knows what they have and what they're selling and make sure you know what you're buying.

If your HD got the recently mistakenly sent out 11.3 version of the S3 software, you might want to check the deal TiVo is offering to replace it with a Premiere, including transfer of lifetime.


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## jagsgo (Jan 9, 2010)

Appreciate the help Unitron. I see what you mean now. I will read up on those links you posted. Thanks a lot.


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## jagsgo (Jan 9, 2010)

Hello guys,

I have 2 questions for anyone who can help me here. 

I looking at Hard drives on amazon for the Tivo Premiere Series 4 its model is TCD 750500. The first is one here WD AV-GP 2 TB AV Video Hard Drive: 3.5 Inch, SATA II, 64 MB Cache - WD20EURS

1) my question is will it matter if its sold by Amazon itself? or in this case the hard drive is from this company called SD Peripherals. I have heard that there's a difference?

2) My other question is will the factory stock hard drive in Tivo Premiere TCD 750500 be able to function in a Series 3 HD Tivo? I'm gonna have to run all that software stuff in the hard drive right?

Anyway thanks guys for taking the time to read my post and help.


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## ggieseke (May 30, 2008)

1) I've heard of people getting burned on the WD20EURS when it comes from Amazon resellers instead of straight from Amazon. Refurbs, etc. I'd stick with major resellers or go with the WD20EURX.

2) The drive itself will work, but you will have to load the correct Series 3 software on it.


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

jagsgo said:


> Hello guys,
> 
> I have 2 questions for anyone who can help me here.
> 
> ...


The WD20EURX is basically the WD20EURS upgraded to 6Gb/s from the RS's 3Gb/s.

You can buy it directly from newegg on sale for a few more days.

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=515772

I have not yet personally used one, but those around here who have seem to be doing as well with them as with any other drive.

See here for info on how to test the drive before you put it into service.

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?p=10051743#post10051743

Instead of re-using that Premiere 500GB drive (you should put it on the shelf in case you ever need the image or need to re-install for troubleshooting diagnosing), just get an extra 2TB for the S3 HD as well.

The "partners" who are selling drives through outfits like Amazon seem to be selling drives which started life in external enclosures (with shorter warranty periods, so maybe they came of the line with a slightly lower QC rating in the first place), so you'll probably find yourself SOL if you need to make a warranty claim, as removing the drive from the enclosure voids any warrantly WD offered on it.


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## jagsgo (Jan 9, 2010)

I just wanted to thank everyone for helping me upgrade my TiVo Premier. I installed a WD20EURX into it and expanded and Supersized it. Thanks so much to whoever created this program. One more question though. Can I use this jmfs boot cd to expand and supersize my original 500GB hard drive?


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

jagsgo said:


> I just wanted to thank everyone for helping me upgrade my TiVo Premier. I installed a WD20EURX into it and expanded and Supersized it. Thanks so much to whoever created this program. One more question though. Can I use this jmfs boot cd to expand and supersize my original 500GB hard drive?


The original 500GB drive, if that's the one that came in the TiVo, should already have be as expanded as it can get--that is, there's no more space on the drive into which to expand, unlike the 2TB drive's next 1.5TB after you copied the 500GB onto it.

You can probably use jmfs to supersize, but you might want to check the jmfs thread for someone mentioning success in doing so on that particular TiVo model, since I think it wasn't released until after jmfs was written.


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