# Has anyone tried swapping HD's between units?



## cabanaboy1977 (Nov 16, 2005)

I know Earl tried to upgrade the R15 using a bigger drive and it didn't do anything. But has anyone who has gotten a replacement R15 tried to swap HD to see if would come up? If I does there maybe some hope of not losing all your settings/recordings if it's a hardware (no HD issue). If no one has maybe someone can try next time they get one.


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## Clint Lamor (Nov 15, 2005)

cabanaboy1977 said:


> I know Earl tried to upgrade the R15 using a bigger drive and it didn't do anything. But has anyone who has gotten a replacement R15 tried to swap HD to see if would come up? If I does there maybe some hope of not losing all your settings/recordings if it's a hardware (no HD issue). If no one has maybe someone can try next time they get one.


I wonder if you can take a drive and do an image of it to another drive? If you can do this then it may be just figuring out how the partition table is and changing that.


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## cabanaboy1977 (Nov 16, 2005)

Kanyon71 said:


> I wonder if you can take a drive and do an image of it to another drive? If you can do this then it may be just figuring out how the partition table is and changing that.


That sounds like it could work. I would be great to get more space but I was more curious about xfering the HD. I know the UTV's had issues with tuners going out and powersupplys going out but it would be great if the HD didn't marry to the system and would allow us not to lose recordings.


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## CCarncross (Jul 19, 2005)

If weeknees doesnt have a solution for it yet, I'm pretty sure its not that easy....


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## Clint Lamor (Nov 15, 2005)

CCarncross said:


> If weeknees doesnt have a solution for it yet, I'm pretty sure its not that easy....


Tell that to a hacker who has something to gain by doing it.  Actually better yet tell the hacker there is NO WAY he can do it because he just doesn'thave the skillz lol that should get em going.  I have never opened mine to even look inside so I can't say how hard it would be.


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## Wolffpack (Jul 29, 2003)

If anyone is thinking of trying this beware. Booting Windows with a Tivo HD in it renders the Tivo drive unbootable. Remember as soon as windows boots it stores info on the HD.


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## Earl Bonovich (Nov 15, 2005)

From what I have been told... DirecTV tried REALLY hard... to lock the drive down.

As with their VOD model of pushing content down... they wanted to make it very difficult to simply mount the drive into a computer.

I would agree with the comment... If Weakness hasn't figured it out yet...
Then it is pretty darn difficult... not saying that it will "never" be done... but...

There is also a possibility that someday DirecTV will tell us how to upgrade them... I mean after all... isn't that what TiVo did?


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## Clint Lamor (Nov 15, 2005)

Earl Bonovich said:


> From what I have been told... DirecTV tried REALLY hard... to lock the drive down.
> 
> As with their VOD model of pushing content down... they wanted to make it very difficult to simply mount the drive into a computer.
> 
> ...


I honestly think their upgrade path will be an external USB drive. Seems to be the way TiVo is going. You know come to think of it once that drive comes out for their machines I wonder if they will lock those machines down?


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## walters (Nov 18, 2005)

Earl Bonovich said:


> From what I have been told... DirecTV tried REALLY hard... to lock the drive down.
> 
> As with their VOD model of pushing content down... they wanted to make it very difficult to simply mount the drive into a computer.
> 
> ...


I must admit I came into all this a bit late (end of 2000), but I'm fairly certain it's _not_ what TiVo did. I truly believe the TiVo hacker pioneers reverse-engineered the filesystem to be able add drives and/or partitions. Helped, of course, by the fact that TiVo used such a well-known OS with source available.

Oh, and there's no doubt it's hackable. But if the USB drives come out soon enough that fact would be moot.


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## Earl Bonovich (Nov 15, 2005)

Hmm... I was always under the impression that the "hackers" just refinded the techniques and made it very easy to do.... but that TiVo worked with them to do the initial increases...

I could be wrong...


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## Wolffpack (Jul 29, 2003)

Tivo's OS filesystems are Linux based. You can see the OS, see drivers, see modules. However, all of the shows, guide data, season pases, todo lists and such are stored under the MFS (as I understand it, Multimedia File System). Which was custom designed by Tivo so that any PC could not gain access.

The entire "tivoapp" was reverse engineered and routines written to view, add, delete and update objects in the MFS. Expanding the default 30 minute buffers to 60 was as simple as changing a few hex values in tivoapp. Finding those locations were the hard part. Disabling encryption is accomplished by the same process.

One of the biggest pieces was the process to allow "foreign" processes and programs to run. Accomplished by many means over time. If you don't have a "monte" or haven't "killinited" your OS, Tivo will wipe any changes you have made from the unit.

Everything and anything is hackable. If DTV offers capabilities that are in line with what the Tivo units were offering, then the demand for hacking will be very low. If DTV doesn't, then rewards for hacks will continue to be offered.

If only NDS/DTV would have taken some of the effort the spent on securing the unit and used that instead on testing/refining the unit.


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## cabanaboy1977 (Nov 16, 2005)

Earl Bonovich said:


> From what I have been told... DirecTV tried REALLY hard... to lock the drive down.
> 
> As with their VOD model of pushing content down... they wanted to make it very difficult to simply mount the drive into a computer.
> 
> ...


Earl, do you know if the drive can be swapped from one R15 to another? That was my main purpose here. I know with UTV the drives married with the reciever so you couldn't swap the drives from one UTV to another if it was a no HD hardware failure. I'm not sure if you could do this with a Tivo since I never had one.


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## walters (Nov 18, 2005)

You can boot a TiVo drive in another box, but it won't show you any of the recordings. It will force you to clear and delete all. The data is encrypted with a key on the motherboard.


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## RunnerFL (Jan 5, 2006)

Kanyon71 said:


> I wonder if you can take a drive and do an image of it to another drive? If you can do this then it may be just figuring out how the partition table is and changing that.


This has been done by someone on another board. Not sure if we can name that board here though.

He took the 160gb drive out of his R15 and did a dd copy to another 160gb drive and it worked fine.


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## Earl Bonovich (Nov 15, 2005)

cabanaboy1977 said:


> Earl, do you know if the drive can be swapped from one R15 to another? That was my main purpose here. I know with UTV the drives married with the reciever so you couldn't swap the drives from one UTV to another if it was a no HD hardware failure. I'm not sure if you could do this with a Tivo since I never had one.


I don't know.... Maybe I will try to get my hands on a third R15 and give a shot...

Any of you disgruntel R15 users out there want to swap?
I have a few DTivos sitting in the closet (4 actually)


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## RunnerFL (Jan 5, 2006)

Wolffpack said:


> If anyone is thinking of trying this beware. Booting Windows with a Tivo HD in it renders the Tivo drive unbootable. Remember as soon as windows boots it stores info on the HD.


According to this person from the other board that is not the case with the R15 drives. He's booted both Linux and Winblows with it and no ill effects.

If I had a spare 160gb drive, or bigger, I'd try it myself. But I have no reason not to believe this person.


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## cabanaboy1977 (Nov 16, 2005)

RunnerFL said:


> This has been done by someone on another board. Not sure if we can name that board here though.
> 
> He took the 160gb drive out of his R15 and did a dd copy to another 160gb drive and it worked fine.


Was he able to put the new imaged drive back into the R15? Did he swap HD between two R15's to see if they still worked in the other R15?


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## Earl Bonovich (Nov 15, 2005)

cabanaboy1977 said:


> Was he able to put the new imaged drive back into the R15? Did he swap HD between two R15's to see if they still worked in the other R15?


If it is the same peson I am thinking of...

They basically put the drive into a PC... booted into a Linux Kernel and Windows... but really could do or see anything on the drive (they didn't slide a new image or anything on to it)

I also know that some tried to put a "blank" hard drive in the R15 to see if would do what the UTV did and format and install... didn't work either.


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## cabanaboy1977 (Nov 16, 2005)

Earl Bonovich said:


> If it is the same peson I am thinking of...
> 
> They basically put the drive into a PC... booted into a Linux Kernel and Windows... but really could do or see anything on the drive (they didn't slide a new image or anything on to it)
> 
> I also know that some tried to put a "blank" hard drive in the R15 to see if would do what the UTV did and format and install... didn't work either.


Ok, that makes more sense, they just looked at it. I'd try swapping drives on two of my three but they are all in use and I don't want to risk it deleting everything on drive. I wish I had thought of this when I first got them. I hope someone out there that has gotten a replacement can try this cause it would be great if it worked. We wouldn't have to worry about losing shows/settings for non HD issues.


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## Wolffpack (Jul 29, 2003)

What board aren't we suppose to mention here? I know TCF doesn't allow DealDatabase to be mentioned as they're sponsored by Tivo but I wasn't aware DBSTalk had any such rules.


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## Earl Bonovich (Nov 15, 2005)

I'll ask... the admins... BRB


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## RunnerFL (Jan 5, 2006)

cabanaboy1977 said:


> Was he able to put the new imaged drive back into the R15? Did he swap HD between two R15's to see if they still worked in the other R15?


According to him he was able to dd copy from one 160gb drive to another and he booted with the copy. He said nothing about trying the drive in more than one R15.


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## RunnerFL (Jan 5, 2006)

Wolffpack said:


> What board aren't we suppose to mention here? I know TCF doesn't allow DealDatabase to be mentioned as they're sponsored by Tivo but I wasn't aware DBSTalk had any such rules.


I figured better be safe than sorry.


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## Earl Bonovich (Nov 15, 2005)

Just got the word..

www.dealdatabase.com is allowed so long as it doesn't cross over into theft of service conversation.


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## Wolffpack (Jul 29, 2003)

That's talk is verboten at DDB also.


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## RunnerFL (Jan 5, 2006)

Earl Bonovich said:


> Just got the word..
> 
> www.dealdatabase.com is allowed so long as it doesn't cross over into theft of service conversation.


So it's ok to post a link to that thread or just say it's on http://dealdatabase.com/forum in the "Series 2" area?


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## Earl Bonovich (Nov 15, 2005)

you can go ahead and post the link... and any other link to dealdatabase.com

PROVIDED that it doesn't refer to THEFT of service.


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## Earl Bonovich (Nov 15, 2005)

Wolffpack said:


> That's talk is verboten at DDB also.


It most certainly is... and take IT much more seriously then other sites... (which is a good thing)


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## RunnerFL (Jan 5, 2006)

Ok well here you guys go. I made a mistake, it's not in the "Series 2" section it's in the "newbie" section.

http://www.dealdatabase.com/forum/showthread.php?t=46234


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## cabanaboy1977 (Nov 16, 2005)

RunnerFL said:


> Ok well here you guys go. I made a mistake, it's not in the "Series 2" section it's in the "newbie" section.
> 
> http://www.dealdatabase.com/forum/showthread.php?t=46234


Thanks!


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## Earl Bonovich (Nov 15, 2005)

I've actually never seen "that" particular thread... just since reference's to it I guess.

thanks for the link..

[looking around] where is that spare 200gb drive, darn... only have 3 120s[/looking around]


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## RunnerFL (Jan 5, 2006)

One thing that was never answered in that thread that was asked though is how will we know if we were actually able to put a 200gb drive in it and use it to capacity? There's nothing in the R15 that shows us how many hours are available, only the percentage meter.

I guess if you show 70% avail on a 160gb and get more avail if you are using a 200 you can assume you were successful. <shrug>


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## Clint Lamor (Nov 15, 2005)

RunnerFL said:


> One thing that was never answered in that thread that was asked though is how will we know if we were actually able to put a 200gb drive in it and use it to capacity? There's nothing in the R15 that shows us how many hours are available, only the percentage meter.
> 
> I guess if you show 70% avail on a 160gb and get more avail if you are using a 200 you can assume you were successful. <shrug>


Never really thought about it. Good question. I guess you would have to use the % Available to tell if the number get's larger then when you started you either where successful or you accidentally wiped everything out. :lol:


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