Series 3 Australian/NZ TiVo Hard Disk Upgrade

Use this topic for Australian/NZ Tivo HD Upgrade (TCD663160,TCD663320)

If you cannot find what you need here then search the forums. If you cannot find what you need in these forums the now inactive mfslive forums may cover additional issues . This is a repost of my original post in those forums.

When you have done your upgrade then post your experiences here.

These instructions take you through the process of upgrading a Tivo Series 3 with a larger hard disk.

The first step is selecting your hard disk. Have a look around the forums here to find more information on choosing a hard drive. There are topics all over the Internet. Once you have one then you need to install it.

The tools needed are a Torx 15 screwdriver bit to remove the screws.

This is what the back of the Tivo looks like. You need to remove the screws circles in red.
Attachment 580

My Tivo 320 (TCD663320) HDD is stuffed. It is a Western Digital 320GB AV-GP and only lasted 18months. I didn't create a backup image beforehand. Can anyone create one for me or point me to one?
Thanks!

AddictivKaos did you get a TiVoHD hard drive image? I can provide an image from a TCD663160 (TiVoHD 160) if you still need it.

@Skolink Thanks for the offer! I managed to use ddrescue to rescue enough of my original hdd onto a new 500GB hdd. My Tivo is up and running again.

My original Western Digital drive was only 18months old - it is a shame that the hdd manufacturer doesn't offer the retail warranty (3yrs), instead when it is in the Tivo you only get 12months.

I have not seen any references to the WD10EURX so I thought I would comment on my experiences.

Drive info;
Western Digital AV-GP Green Power WD10EURX-73FH1Y0
Product of Malaysia
14 Feb 2012
Purchased for AU$137

My TiVo is a TCD663160 running software version 11.3b5-01-2-663 and purchased in March 2009.
The old drive was a WD1600AVJS-63WNA0, Product of Thailand, 04 Jul 2008 and still working fine.
The screws on the back of the case and on the disk tray were Torx T10 but the screws under the drive were T15.

I booted my PC standalone and ran WDIDLE3 on the new drive to find it was disabled out of the box.
I used it to set the timer to both 8 and 300 seconds to establish that WDIDLE3 does work with this drive before setting it back to the default 'disabled'.

HDDScan said that AAM was not supported on this drive but not an issue as this drive is very quiet.

I ran the Seatools Long Generic test which took 2hr 30min to verify that the drive was fine.

I connected the old and new drives and ran WinMFS beta9.3g which took 44 min to copy my drive.
I expanded the drive but did not SuperSize it.

The above was run on my Win XP SP3 PC (E5700 @ 3.00GHz with 2GB memory).

I placed the new drive in my TiVo and it booted normally.
I soft booted it and it was fine (as you would expect with IDLE3 disabled).

It has only been running for 24 hours so this is not exactly an exhaustive test but it has recorded 6 programs and I have watched 2 of them.
It appears exactly the same as before except that I now have 200 hrs of HD recording space.

Note that this is an 'Advanced format' drive using 4K instead of 512 sectors.
There are a few posts speculating on potential issues but I could not find posts with actual problems so I decided to 'suck it and see'.
I would be interested if anyone with knowledge of my version of the Linux kernel would care to comment on these 'advanced format' drives

Hi All,

I recently completed a successful upgrade of my Tivo - one of the original ones with the 160GB HDD - using information on this site and others, so here is a summary of my experiences.

Before actually performing the upgrade, I purchased the following items.

• A Seagate Barracuda ST2000DM001 2TB Serial ATA Hard Drive - 7200RPM, 64MB, SATA 6Gb/s. ~$97 from Centre.com. Link.
• A set of Torx screw drivers (since I didn't have any). I chose ones with long shafts as recommended. ~$15 from Bunnings. Link.
• Two SATA cables (to connect my original Tivo drive and my new drive to my PC) + one MOLEX-2 SATA Power cable. Sub total ~$15. Link and Link.

The other thing that could be a problem for people is a computer that you can get into easily/take apart, and easily connect/re-connect hard-drives. Bare in mind you'll need to connect 2 SATA drives (data and power) to your PC and bootup from CDRom.
It may also be worth digging up an old PS/2 keyboard to use with the JMFS environment (see below). JMFS did not recognise my USB ports, and without it I would not be able to enter the required commands.

I also downloaded the JMFS ISO from here, and burned it to a CD. I also grabbed WinMFS from here, and put it on a USB stick.

I followed the instructions here, and also referred to this helpful guide, which has some photographs, although uses are more manual method.

That was all the preparation! On to the actual upgrade tasks.

1. I decided to put my Tivo in standby mode, though you probably don't need to do this.
2. I disconnected my Tivo cables (aerial, network cable/USB wireless modem, power).
3. I used the #10 Torx screw driver to remove the 6 screws from th Tivo cover. I had to gently pull the cover sides away from the Tivo to get the cover off, as they catch otherwise.
4. I then disconnected the SecureConnect SATA cable (data+power) from the original Tivo HDD. The SecureConnect cable is threaded through a neat little plastic tidy, so I removed it from the tidy and tucked it out of the way.
5. I then used the #10 Torx screw driver to take the screws out of the HDD mount. There is a screw near the face of the Tivo that you really need a long screw driver shaft for. The ones I purchased worked perfectly.
6. I removed the drive+mount from the Tivo.
7. I then opened my PC. I disconnected my windows HDD from the SATA1. Using the SATA cables I connected the Tivo to SATA 1 and the new HDD to SATA 2. I connected the MOLEX-SATApower to a spare power connect and then to the respective HDDs. I got the JMFS CD ready.
8. I plugged my PS/2 keyboard into my PC.
9. I turned on the PC and popped JMFS into the CD drive.
10. My PC booted up from CD. It took a while to load up JMFS.
11. JFMS detects which drive has Tivo on it, so it is quite easy to use.
12. I selected the Copy operation, making sure to have the original 160GB Tivo HDD as the source, and the new 2TB as the destination.
13. The copy took between 1hr 15m and 1hr 30m for the 160GB.
14. After being returned to the JFMS menu, I then selected the Expand option. This runs almost instantaneously.
15. Quick Note - I didn't read the instructions properly and used JFMS supersize. DON'T do this. It DOES NOT work. I wasted time putting everything together again, starting Tivo (yawn), seeing no HDD size increase, re-reading guides, taking everything apart again, and using WinMFS as per instructions.:mad:
16. The next step is exit JFMS (shutdown) - DO NOT USE JFMS Supersize.
17. I then disconnected the original Tivo HDD from my PC SATA1. At this point I used the #15 Torx screw driver to unscrew the HDD bracket, and then put the original Tivo HDD away safely in the baggie from the new HDD.
18. I reconnected my Windows HDD to SATA 1.
19. I restarted my PC, removed the CD, and booted up into Windows.
20. Once in Windows, I navigated to the USB and started the WinMFS exe file.
21. In WinFMS I selected the NEW Tivo drive (it recognises which one is Windows and which has Tivo on it).
22. I then selected Supersize, Yes (or On - can't recall) from the tools menu. It runs almost instantaneously.
23. I then exited WinFMS.
24. I used the #15 Torx to screw the NEW Tivo HDD to the HDD bracket.
25. I used the #10 Torx to screw the bracket back onto the Tivo.
26. I connected the SecureConnect SATA cable to the new HDD and secured the cable in the plastic tie.
27. I replaced the Tivo cover and used the #10 Torx to screw in the 6 cover screws.
28. I reconnected the Tivo, turned it on and made a coffee while the thing s-l-o-w-l-y booted up.
29. Once it was up I checked the system info and found that recording time had gone from: 30hrs HD & 60hrs SD to 400hrs HD and 800hrs SD.
30. Tivo only had to rescan channels, but otherwise all my wishlists, season passes, likes and recorded programs were intact.

Done!

Just a note on the HDD. I didn't research this properly, but I think I was lucky. Some HDDs suffer from issues with power management, and I have not noticed anything with the new Seagate drive. Some people have also noticed noises from heads parking, which I also have not noticed. The guides recommend that you research your HDD selection carefully and understand the implications of your choice. Having said that, I'm happy with the Seagate (so far ;)).

Thank you to writers of instructions and guides above, and to creators of JFMS and WinFMS.

I hope this post is useful to someone.

Cheers.

tenB4Midnight

Hi All,

I recently completed a successful upgrade of my Tivo - one of the original ones with the 160GB HDD - using information on this site and others, so here is a summary of my experiences.

Before actually performing the upgrade, I purchased the following items.

- A Seagate Barracuda ST2000DM001 2TB Serial ATA Hard Drive - 7200RPM, 64MB, SATA 6Gb/s. ~$97 from Centre.com. Link.
- A set of Torx screw drivers (since I didn't have any). I chose ones with long shafts as recommended. ~$15 from Bunnings. Link.
- Two SATA cables (to connect my original Tivo drive and my new drive to my PC) + one MOLEX-2 SATA Power cable. Sub total ~$15. Link and Link.

The other thing that could be a problem for people is compare that you can get into easily/take apart, and easily connect/re-connect hard-drives. Bare in mind you'll need to connect 2 SATA drives (data and power) to your PC and bootup from CDRom.
It may also be worth digging up an old PS/2 keyboard to use with the JMFS environment (see below). JFMS did not recognise my USB ports, and without it I would not be able to enter the required commands.

I also downloaded the jmfs iso from here, and burned it to a CD. I also grabbed WinMFS from here, and put it on a USB stick.

I followed the instructions here, and also referred to this helpful guide, which has some photographs, although uses are more manual method.

That was all the preparation! On to the actual upgrade tasks.

1. I decided to put my Tivo in standby mode, though you probably don't need to do this.
2. I disconnected my Tivo cables (aerial, network cable/USB wireless modem, power).
3. I used the #10 Torx screw driver to remove the Tivo cover. I had to gently pull the cover side away from the Tivo to get the cover off, as it catches otherwise.
4. I then disconnected the SecureConnect SATA cable (data+power) from the original Tivo HDD. The SecureConnect cable is threaded through a neat little plastic tidy, so I removed it from the tidy and tucked it out of the way.
5. I then used the #10 Torx screw driver to take the screws out of the HDD mount. There is a screw near the face of the Tivo that you really need a long screw driver shaft for. The ones I purchased worked perfectly.
6. I removed the drive+mount from the Tivo.
7. I then opened my PC. I disconnected my windows HDD from the SATA1. Using the SATA cables I connected the Tivo to SATA 1 and the new HDD to SATA 2. I connected the MOLEX-SATApower to a spare power connect and then to the respective HDDs. I got the JMFS CD ready.
8. I plugged my PS/2 keyboard into my PC.
9. I turned on the PC and popped JMFS into the CD drive.
10. My PC booted up from CD. It took a while to load up JMFS.
11. JFMS detects which drive has Tivo on it, so it is quite easy to use.
12. I selected the Copy operation, making sure to have the original 160GB Tivo HDD as the source, and the new 2TB as the destination.
13. The copy took between 1hr 15m and 1hr 30m for the 160GB.
14. After being returned to the JFMS menu, I then selected the Expand option. This runs almost instantaneously.
15. Quick Note - I didn't read the instructions properly and used JFMS supersize. DON'T do this. It DOES NOT work. I wasted time putting everything together again, starting Tivo (yawn), seeing no HDD size increase, re-reading guides, taking everything apart again, and using WinMFS as per instructions.:mad:
16. The next step is exit JFMS (shutdown) - DO NOT USE JFMS Supersize.
17. I then disconnected the original Tivo HDD from SATA 1.
18. Next, I used the #15 Torx screw driver to unscrew the original Tivo HDD from the mount. I placed the original HDD in the antistatic bag from the new NEW HDD and put it away safely.
19. I then reconnected my Windows HDD to SATA 1.
20. I rebooted the PC and removed the JFMS CD from the CD drive. The computer booted into Windows.
21. I inserted the USB stick with WinFMS and started the WinFMS executable.
22. In WinFMS I selected the new Tivo HDD (which is easy, as WinFMS recognised and labled both the Windows and Tivo drives accordingly).
23. I then turned on the Supersize option (through Tools, Supersize, Yes [or On - can't recall]). This completes almost instantaneously.
24. After that, I exited WinFMS and shutdown the PC.
25. I disconnected the new Tivo HDD from SATA 2, and then screwed it into the Tivo HDD bracket using the #15 Torx.
26. I then screwed the mount back onto the Tivo using the #10 Torx.
27. Next, I reconnected the SecureConnect cable to the new Tivo HDD and secured the cable in the plastic tie.
28. I then replaced the Tivo cover and screwed in the 6 covers screws using the #10 Torx.
29. It was then time to see if it worked. I reconnected the Aerial, HDMI and power and waited for Tivo to s-l-o-w-l-y boot up.
30. I checked the Tivo system information and found that the recording time had gone from 30hrs HD / 60hrs SD to 400hrs HD / 800hrs SD, as expected.
31. I had to rescan for channels, but all my recordings, wishlists and season passes were intact.

The Tivo has been running for a few days now, and all seems fine.

Just a note on the HDD. I did not research the drive properly and just looked for a SATA 2 capable drive. After subsequent reading I found out that some drives have issues with green/power saving features, and some can be quite noisy due to sounds of heards parking and hitting the plates.
I appear to have been lucky as I have not noticed any problems with the Seagate, nor have I noticed any noise. It's worth checking your drive choice against availble information to ensure you won't have any unwanted consequences and also to find out if you need any additional steps in the process.

Finally, thank to those tireless souls who have produced the various guides I referenced and the awesome utilities used in the upgrade process.

I hope this post is useful to someone.

Cheers.

tenB4Midnight.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Skolink

AddictivKaos did you get a TiVoHD hard drive image? I can provide an image from a TCD663160 (TiVoHD 160) if you still need it.

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Hi, I have the same issue a dead 300 GB hard drive from a model TCD663320, is it possible to get a copy of the image (or one that might work), as my HD is completely dead and I bought a new drive thinking I could get data off the original in time, but the original drive is really really dead now. Thanks in advance.

Hi - I am a NZ Tivo user who is delighted and extremely grateful that I am able to continue using my two machines. Given that they now have a future, I figured I would upgrade the HDDs in both, using a couple of WD Purple 1TB units. The first one was no drama as it had no recorded material which I wanted to keep, so I just used Winmfs to restore the truncated backup from the original drive on to the new one. The second upgrade was more tricky as I wanted to keep a lot of recorded material, so used the mfscopy tool in Winmfs, with both drives connected to my laptop via Unitek USB-SATA adaptors. All went well until approx. 50mins in, and showing ETA of approx. 30mins, the blue LED on the destination drive's adaptor stopped flashing, then went out altogether, whereupon it was apparent that the drive had stopped spinning. Have tried a couple of times more with same result - always at what seems to be the same point. Hooking the new drive up to the Tivo and booting up, I see the titles of all of the recorded programs, but only a few of them actually have the material there when I select them. Does anybody have any ideas why the copy may be failing to complete, and what I may be able to do to get around this? It has been suggested to me by a knowledgeable person over here that I may have a better shot using JMFS and with the drives connected direct to SATA, rather than via USB. However, I only have a laptop with no optical drive.

Any help would be appreciated - thanks.

It would appear you have a hard disk that is beginning to fail. There *IS* a way to try and recover it to another intermediate hard disk using something known as ddrescue on a Linux boot CD but in my experience if you have errors like described it may be too far gone unfortunately.