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.
  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