jason Posted November 27, 2006 Report Share Posted November 27, 2006 On November 4th, my Series 2 Tivo died. It turned off, tried to turn back on, and never got past the orange screen with the black bar at the bottom and the text "Welcome. Powering up..." I was sad. Googling the problem, I found that it was indicative of a hard drive failure. I called Tivo and they confirmed. I could replace the unit from them for $149.00. I declined, having seen new Tivos (the two tuner variety) at Best Buy with a signifigant rebate for the low price of $69.99. More research showed the same model without the rebate available for the same price at the Tivo website. I called Tivo back and asked and they told me that the only way I could purchase the new one at the low price was by signing up for new service (1yr for 19.95 a month, 2yrs for 14.95, and 3yrs for 12.95). My current rate is 12.95 a month, as I had signed up prior to the msot recent pricing increases. Frustrated that I couldn't get a new Tivo with my existing service, I asked to cancel my account. Luckily for me my call got dropped the first time and the second time I hung up after waiting 30 minutes. Back to Google, I found some sites claiming that putting a new drive in your Tivo is relativley easy. I found a software kit called Instant Cake (http://www.dvrupgrade.com/dvr/stores/1/instantcake.cfm) that lets you boot from a CD and copy fresh Tivo software onto a hard drive. Figuring worst case I'd be out $20 for the software I picked up a drive and set to it. Opening my Tivo required a size 10 and 15 torx screwdrivers. The inside of my Tivo was super empty and easy to navigate. The CD booted perfectly and the install went fantastically. I popped the drive back in my Tivo andd powered it up and got the fantastic Tivo song! In the end, for $70 total I trippled my Tivo's storage space (40gb drive to a 120gb drive) and kept my low pricing plan. I totally recommend this to people who want more space or have a Tivo with a dead drive they want to fix. I've read that you can put two drives in a Series 2 Tivo with a special mounting bracket, the only issue being that Tivo sometimes has trouble generating menus on really high capacity storage configurations (400Gb+). One thing to be cautious of: the factory hard drive in the Tivo is SUPER quiet. My new 120Gb Seagate Barracuda is not so quiet, and from what I can tell now that I can hear the thing from across the room, it never spins down. Spend a little more and get a QUIET drive. You'll thank yourself later. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JoeyN Posted November 27, 2006 Report Share Posted November 27, 2006 *moved to the hardware area* Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
General Zot Posted November 27, 2006 Report Share Posted November 27, 2006 Thnx for the info man, never know when this sort of thing comes in handy. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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