In this video i show you how to remove a tivo hard drive. Tivo series 2 tcd540080 hard drive replacement ifixit. The opportunity for the first test appeared only one day after we received our copy of version 6. Increase recording capacity over sixfold by replacing the stock tivo 320gb drive with a 2tb drive while preserving all your current recordings. If you are experiencing any of these issues, there is a good chance your tivo hard drive has some kind of problem. For instructions, see how to restart or powercycle a tivo device. My question involves upgrading a tivo hd hard disk. Looking online most people said the power supply or hard drive was going bad. This software version includes the following features and enhancements. To speed up installation, you can restart it manually. You can use winmfs to restore a tivo image on a new hard drive. New tivo bolt ota gives you a reason to finally cut the cord. Download and install a tivo topc program to the pcs desktop, such as the tivo desktop software program see the link in resources.
Then use your pc to boot and run the software that will upgrade your new drive. Follow the command prompts to install the tivo topc program onto the pcs hard drive. It is possible that the cause of these problems is something other than a defective hard drive, but in our experience, a drive problem is by far the most common cause. By the way, tivo software at present will not support a 3tb drive, so do not. It also provides instructions on how to replace a faulty hard drive which typically manifests itself as a tivo freezing or continually rebooting. Includes the tivo image, so you can upgrade yourself even if your drive has crashed as opposed to the two preceding options.
I am trying to use the recommended software for this task, which is either winmfs or mfslive. Tivo bolt ota for antenna a great way to save and still get your overtheair, recorded and streaming tv. The most common part that fails in a tivo is the hard drive. However, tivo units have limited ram and older ones have small processors, and the menu slowdown navigating now showing, changing season passes, scheduling a recording, etc may. Add a second hard drive to your tivo tired of having to erase old shows from your tivos puny hard drive. Wd20eurs is the drive to get to upgrade your tivo hard drive.
According to tivo, the hard drive can store up to 300 hours of hd recordings naturally, standard definition broadcasts will take up less space, and the two usb 3. I did some reading and decided to try formatting the hard drive myself since the hydra software supposedly broke the autoformatting feature. The tivo series 1 set has a maximum single hard drive size of 7 gigabytes. While on the system information screen, also verify that your tivo dvr is running software version 9. I will also show you how to clone the drive on the tivo and backup the. The primary focus is in backing up tivo drives, and adding extra video storage capacity.
Grab the hard drive data cable from both sides of the connector and unplug it from the hard drive. A simple step by step guide to upgrading the hard drive capacity of a tivo bolt, tivo premiere premier dvr, tivo hd dvr, tivo series 3 dvr, virgin media tivo uk, tivo roamio, tivo roamio ota, tivo romeio or tivo series 2 dvr. Tivo usb wifi 5 adapter support updates to the user interface to support wireless setup and management on tivo mini vox when using the tivo usb wifi 5 accessory. Most recent hard drives support this series of tests. A dvr hard drive can be a great way to store your favorite movies or series in a digital file format.
No longer is it necessary to bless a new drive for use in a tivo roamio like it was in previous tivos unless the drive is 3tb in size. Familiarizing yourself with the various hard disks for dvr recording and playback can help you find the. Tivo has a built in hard drive testing tool commonly known as kickstart 54. My tivo premiere 4 is 5 years old, and the drive seems to be acting wonky. The mfs or media file system is a proprietary file system used on tivo hard drives for fault. Add a 1tb 1 tera byte or 2tb hard disk to a tivo premiere premier, 1 or 2tb, tivo hd or series 3 1tb and. At first it didnt list any drives and that was because i had sata2 shut off in the bios.
Dvr expander is not compatible with tivo edge because tivo edge does not have an esata. On this site, we try to get into the details of each relatively common problem that tivo users experience. Other tivo upgrade resources, in order from hard and technical to easy and. Other simple utilities not directly related to tivo upgrades are included. A guide to upgrading your tivo bolt, tivo premiere, tivo roamio. An 80gb hard drive on one of our busy storage servers decided to pack it in. If youre having problems with your tivo, this information may help you to determine the source of the problem.
To do what you want requires learning how to use the software from the upgrade forum, or sending your machine off to weaknees. Next, unscrew the hard drive from the dvr and disconnect the cables connecting the drive to the dvrs circuit board. When done you can format the hard drive with a osx or windows disc or with partitioning software. The western digital my book av dvr expander is available in a 1 tb size. Since the hard drive is the primary moving part inside a tivo, its the part most likely to fail over time.
The drive in my tivo hd has failed what are my options. Tivos new bolt ota looks like a great product, but the company has trouble competing on price. I have an esata dual port sata hard drive dock and would like to simply pop the old tivo drive into one slot, the new 2tb drive in the other slot, and have trueimage clone the original to the replacement. If not, is there another acronis product that can accomplish this task under windows or an acronis booter. I have attached the two hard drives original tivo drive and new replacement drive using selfpowered usb mounts, which both plug into the two usb. On a tivo, it contains four primary different types of information. We think aft stands for automatic frequency tuning. I have found several programs for transferring recordings off of and back to the tivo. Download and install a tivotopc program to the pcs desktop, such as the tivo desktop software program see the link in resources.
To perform a kickstart code, pull the plug to power down the tivo. Tivo dvrs, remotes, upgrades, parts, and repairs for all tivo, directv, bolt, roamio, premiere and other dvr models. Installing a new hard drive in your dvr howstuffworks. Even with the special firmware and tweaks on dvr hard drives, most drives dont last longer than four years due to the contant, 247 reading and writing. Tivo kickstart codes enable certain diagnostics at boot time. Instantcake tivo upgrade software pay to download an image and burn to cd. You can use a dvr hard drive with various electronics. The first test was to unplug everything and see if it is overheating.
The hard drive should be easy to spot most look like a rectangular case. Drive image files can be created with various compression levels without stopping windows and stored in a variety of places, including removable media. Once the software is downloaded, the last status on network connection screen will show pending restart. Some of the sure signs your tivo hard drive is failing include strange noises coming from your tivo, a pixelated picture or frequent reboots. Since it was cool to the touch i then looked at the hard drive. The software platform delivers monitoring, recording and auditing of all user activity on critical endpoints. I love my tivo, but im probably not buying the new one. For information on updating your software, go to tivo experience 3 software version information and tivo experience 4 software version information. General description of the tivo roamio pro series5 tcd840300. All tivo models, except series 1 models, can now address large drive sizes with a maximum of two hard drives a few models can only accommodate a single hard drive.
This upgraded unit is only different from the roamio plus in that it has a larger hard drive and it ships in a silver cardboard box. Remote info for the series5 and series6 black tivo peanut remote irrf. A tivo dvr serves a function similar to that of a videocassette recorder vcr, in that both allow a tv viewer to record programming for viewing at a later time, known as time shifting. This is the tivo drive if you are copying your tivo drive to a bigger drive like in my case. Even though they run the same basic software as other series2 units, the. You can check your new tivo hard drive software capacity in the system information menu. Ever wish you could use that friggin esata port tivo taunts you with on the back of your series3. Unlike a videocassette recorder, which uses removable magnetic tape cartridges, a tivo dvr stores tv programs on an internal hard drive, much like a computer. Add a 1tb 1 tera byte or 2tb hard disk to a tivo premiere premier, 1 or.
I would like to be able to eventually copy programsdata from the unit to a computer. Tivo kickstart codes and information tivo superstore. Mfs tools is a set of utilities for those who wish to get the most out of their tivo. Follow the command prompts to install the tivotopc program onto the pcs hard drive. But, then the new, bigger, drive didnt show up when i was trying to select the destination drive. How to find the tivo software version for your device. Drive image and backup software to create exact image of a hard drive, partition or logical disk. Tivo usb wireless adapter device driver for linux and windows. Tivo drive stuttering is a bad drive 99% of the time and can be easily fixed with a replacement drive. The tivo got hung up on the starting up screen for a few hours. Additionally, some codes can help with setup issues. I put the hdd back in the tivo and i am getting the same issue. Additionally, this page describes how to replace your existing drive with a larger hard drive, how to replace your existing drive with two larger hard drives, and how to expand your.
I figure the easiest way to save it current recordings is to copy them to my desktop and then copy back after the upgrade with the tivo desktop software. The definitive guide to upgrading your tivo premiere part i. The new roamio can accept a blank drive and during the booting process will automatically install the tivo software on this drive including any hard drive space updates. This page describes how to use mfstools to backup the hard drive of your tivo which saves a complete backup of the tivo software and all of your season passes.
Hack your tivo by slapping on a massive external drive. How to use a tivo hard drive in your pc or mac youtube. I am replacing the original 500gb hard drive in my tivo premiere series 4 with a new wd 1tb hard drive. However, while this is true for the roamio model, it is not true for the premiere model. Most of these applications are reverse engineered from software found on the tivo itself, as many of the early tivo programs were little more than. Backup, upgrade, add, or replace tivo drive using mfstools.
Tivo drive image software free download tivo drive image. Pc with sata disk interface and two free sata connectors to connect the old and new disks. Tivo has always used a special type of hard drives made specifically. The last of these, programming, takes up the vast majority of the space on the drive.
How to access the tivo hard drive over the network toms. Once the expander is plugged into the esata port on your tivo box, it will be married to that box. I cleaned and formatted my hard drive, took close to 12 hours. I know that the unit is part of the network but do not know how i can see. If i was to upgrade my tivo though i would go with at least a 1. Prior to trying spinrite we were still able to access the drive intermittently but it was impossible to copy data or run a file undelete utility. How to upgrade your tivo series 3 hard drive share your. The adapter users the broadcom bcm4320 airforce one. Once inside, disconnect the hard drive and remove the four torx screws holding the drive sled in. I have also found a program for cloning the old hard drive.
A disk driveyou can replace the drive thats in your tivo with a new one or add a. You may need to remove the hard drive from a special mounting bracket inside the dvr. Sporting either a 512gb or 1tb hard drive still no ssd guys. Doubleclick on the icon of the tivo topc program once it has fully downloaded. Go through the guided setup as if you got a new tivo. With the western digital my book av dvr expander for tivo boxes, you can increase the recording capacity of your tivo box. A guide to upgrading your tivo bolt, tivo premiere, tivo. Upgrading tivo roamio hard drive without loosing data. I was originally told that all i had to do was install the new hard drive into the tivo and it would automatically format the hard drive to work in the tivo. The hard drive is the basic storage item on any dvr. Doubleclick on the icon of the tivotopc program once it has fully downloaded. Western digital blue wd2500aajb 250gb 7200 rpm 8mb cache ide ultra ata100 ata6 3.