Absolute Beginner

[DaveHollinshead]

Hi Everyone,

I didn't know anything about TiVo until I came across the OzTiVo page by accident. That was on Thursday, by Friday I had been emailing with George and now my unit is ordered and should be delivered once the hard drive brackets come into stock :) .

As a Linux virgin, I was wondering a couple of things.

I have a 120 gb Seagate that I use as an external drive for my Windows machine, can I use this drive in my TiVo? I have read somewhere about a signature being written to the drive if it is connected to a Windows machine. Will the current image override this?

Is there any thing I can do with the drive before the unit arrives? I know I can load the image onto the drive, but is there anything else I can do?

I can see that this is going to be an interesting project and I hope I can rely on this forum and the mailing list for advise and help during the tricky stages.

I'm sure I'll be back :D

Dave

[DavidSymons]

Hi Everyone,
Hi (fellow) Dave,



I didn't know anything about TiVo until I came across the OzTiVo page by accident. That was on Thursday, by Friday I had been emailing with George and now my unit is ordered and should be delivered once the hard drive brackets come into stock :) .
Ahh. TiVo-itis. Fast onset too. Know it well. It gets worse. No cure :) .



I have a 120 gb Seagate that I use as an external drive for my Windows machine, can I use this drive in my TiVo?
TiVo's require a Parallel ATA drive. If your external case is connected by USB/Firewire it's most likely to be PATA but if it's a Serial ATA (SATA) drive it won't work. If it's a SCSI case then it won't work in the TiVo.

Some more info regarding drives can be found here:

http://minnie.tuhs.org/twiki/bin/view/FAQ/WhichTypeOfHDD



I have read somewhere about a signature being written to the drive if it is connected to a Windows machine. Will the current image override this?
Restoring the OzTiVo image will overwrite everything on the drive. There shouldn't be any issue that it's previously been used for Windows (apart from that being an abuse of a disk drive in itself).



Is there any thing I can do with the drive before the unit arrives? I know I can load the image onto the drive, but is there anything else I can do?
You could download SeaTools from the Seagate website and run a surface scan on the drive. Recommended because the TiVo doesn't like drive errors and performs erratically if it encounters them. By the way it took 9 hours to scan my 120Gb drive.



I can see that this is going to be an interesting project and I hope I can rely on this forum and the mailing list for advise and help during the tricky stages.
While the is TiVo on its way, get to know the information on the OzTiVo website (particularly the BeginnersFAQ) so that you can avoid asking a FAQ on the list. Be warned though - this will make the TiVo-itis worse :) .



I'm sure I'll be back :D
Read you then.

Cheers, Dave.

[DaveHollinshead]

Hi Dave,

Thanks for the reply. I have been reading the How to and FAQ pages on the web site, it all seems straight forward. Although with no Linux experience its going to be an interesting project.

The disk I have is a PATA drive, its one I brought last year form the local computer fair. I have down loaded the Seatools and will run it over the the drive, I will then load the image onto it in readiness for the arrival of my new "project" :D

Cheers
Dave

[zollymonsta]

Hi Dave,

If you follow the instructions on minnie you'll have no issues. I don't know anything about linux myself and it was easy-as to set up.