# R15 Mods



## Bobbykewl (Feb 15, 2006)

With DTV now only leasing equipment, for those of us who fully own our R15, is there still going to be any group still interested in "hacking" (upgrading hard drive, cloneing it, etc) this unit? I haven't seen anything about the reward offered by one hacker for such "upgrades". Was he silenced by DTV? I'd love to play around with it, but am not rich enough to risk trashing the boot sectors or something on the drive. :lol:


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## Earl Bonovich (Nov 15, 2005)

1) There will always be people intrested in tweaking the units. 
2) Provided someone figures out how to get a different drive in there.... It will just follow the TiVo montra... don't use your OEM drive... (thus put it back in there)
3) The units are not "that" expensive, that those really into the hacking, couldn't afford to buy it out right.

I am not sure if Weakness is still offering the $20k for the upgrade solution...

It is just that the box is a new territory with a minimal road map. Give it time, people will figure something out.

Remember, "most" of the hacks that are there now for the TiVo are building off the Linux kernal, or turning on features that where disabled by the GUI.


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## Wolffpack (Jul 29, 2003)

If you want to "play" with your unit, you take the original drive, make a copy and store the original never to be accessed until you return the unit. So it would take a spare drive or two.


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## TheTooleMan (Apr 9, 2006)

Wolffpack said:


> If you want to "play" with your unit, you take the original drive, make a copy and store the original never to be accessed until you return the unit. So it would take a spare drive or two.


How would you copy the original drive? Can you connect it to a PC and read it as another HD?


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## TheTooleMan (Apr 9, 2006)

I had hoped, when I subscribed for the first time to DirecTV and got my R15, that the USB ports would let me connect to a PC and read the hard drive of the DVR, copy files from it, and burn them to DVD via my PC's DVD burner. So far, everyone says the USB ports don't work at all. I haven't tried to attach a cable yet - partly because I don't think I have a USB cable with the proper ends to make the connection. So my most desired hack would be...

Turn on the USB ports!


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## Wolffpack (Jul 29, 2003)

TheTooleMan said:


> How would you copy the original drive? Can you connect it to a PC and read it as another HD?


Any bit level HD copy/clone program can make a copy and it is bootable and will run fine. You just have to make sure the new drive your copying to is at least 160GB

I boot up under Linux and use 'dd' to copy from one to another. I would not boot into windows with the R15 drive installed as windows will see the drive as a FAT32 parition and may write files to the drive without your knowledge. For example Recycler and System Volume Information directories.


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## Earl Bonovich (Nov 15, 2005)

TheTooleMan said:


> Turn on the USB ports!


Technically speaking... they already are...

You just can't do anything with them yet.


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## TheTooleMan (Apr 9, 2006)

Wolffpack said:


> Any bit level HD copy/clone program can make a copy and it is bootable and will run fine. You just have to make sure the new drive your copying to is at least 160MB


160 MB? Or is that 160 GB? I would think most files I copy from the R15 HD would be larger than 160 MB. What is the reason for this minimum size?



Wolffpack said:


> I boot up under Linux and use 'dd' to copy from one to another. I would not boot into windows with the R15 drive installed as windows will see the drive as a FAT32 parition and may write files to the drive without your knowledge. For example Recycler and System Volume Information directories.


Would you connect the R15 HD to the system board like any other IDE drive? Would DOS under Windows 2000 write the additional files?

Does the R15 store any system files on the HD, or is that all in the R15's RAM or ROM?



Earl Bonovich said:


> Technically speaking... they already are...
> 
> You just can't do anything with them yet.


As the man in orthopedic shoes said, "I stand corrected."
:lol:


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## dodge boy (Mar 31, 2006)

the ability to choose which "O.S." to run... I.E. NDS, or Tivo...... :lol:

Turn on RF remote access!


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## Clint Lamor (Nov 15, 2005)

dodge boy said:


> the ability to choose which "O.S." to run... I.E. NDS, or Tivo...... :lol:


Uhhh not sure TiVo themselves would be very happy with that move as they wouldn't gain anything from it. Outside of that I would bet you could get Linux to run on it, heck they have Linux running on every other freakin thing out there including many smart phones. Then you could run MythTV or Freevo or something else. :lol: I think thats one heck of a mod though


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## Wolffpack (Jul 29, 2003)

TheTooleMan said:


> 160 MB? Or is that 160 GB? I would think most files I copy from the R15 HD would be larger than 160 MB. What is the reason for this minimum size?


Opps, GB.



TheTooleMan said:


> Would you connect the R15 HD to the system board like any other IDE drive? Would DOS under Windows 2000 write the additional files?


Yes on the mount, no on the writing. While it's a type of FAT32 filesystem it has some extensions.



TheTooleMan said:


> Does the R15 store any system files on the HD, or is that all in the R15's RAM or ROM?


There are a handful of files. Looks like one could be SLs and another the info for MYVOD entries. Plus the actual video streams themselves.


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