Probably least important, here are my upgrade notes from May 2000:

I purchased a brand new 14 hour TiVo and preformed the upgrade prior to ever turning it on (virgin backup).  I used a fairly new Gateway computer to do the backup.  I backed up the A drive to a Quantum LCT15-15GB drive and then used this as my A drive and stored the original safely in a box.  I then installed an IBM 76.8GB drive as the B drive.  I ended up with 110 hours 59 minutes at Basic and 30 hours 58 minutes at Best.

Step by step:

Following section 3.8 in the TiVo Underground FAQ, I downloaded the Dylan disk at the web site listed and saved that file to a directory called Dylan.  I then unzipped the file with WinZip which created 4 separate files.  I put a formatted floppy disk in my A drive of my PC and then opened up Windows Explorer and run the program MakeBoot.  This took about a minute and made a bootable Linux floppy.  

I then opened up the Gateway computer.  After the case was off, I found the two IDE cables.  They were marked PRI for Primary and SEC for Secondary on the motherboard.  I then made a quick sketch or where both of the cables plugged in so I would have no problems when I put the PC back together.  The Primary plugged only into the hard drive.  The Secondary plugged into the CD-ROM drive and the Zip drive.  Then I unplugged the drive end of both cables and left the other end plugged into the motherboard.  To make things simpler, I labeled each cable Primary and Secondary.  The cables extended out of the case enough so that the new drives could be worked with while sitting on some big books beside the computer.

I opened up the Tivo using a T-10 Torx driver.  Be careful with the warranty sticker and you will not damage it.  Once open, I unplugged the IDE and Power cable going to the A drive.  I then used a T-15 Torx driver to unscrew the drive bracket.  I then removed it from the TiVo and set the TiVo out of the way.  Following the TiVo Underground FAQ section 3.5, I hooked the original TiVo drive to the mid connection on the Secondary IDE cable and then hooked a power cable from the PC to the drive.  Then I carefully unpackaged the Quantum LCT15-15GB drive and hooked it to the end IDE cable connection on the Secondary cable and then hooked another power cable from the PC to it.

I put the Linux floppy in the A drive and then turned the PC on and immediately pressed F2 which is how you get into the BIOS settings.  I checked and drive detection was already set at Auto and it already properly showed the two drives in the list.  I then exited out of the BIOS setup and let the computer reboot from the Linux floppy.  After a lot of stuff on the screen, I got the login prompt.  I typed root and pressed Return and got the Linux prompt (#).   This is so neat that you can get Linux on a single floppy!

Continuing with section 3.8, I entered the command 'dd if=/dev/hdc of=/dev/hdd bs=1024k' and then pressed Return.  Nothing came back on the screen but the drive indicator light started blinking.  I did not use the 'conv=noerror' in the dd command.  I wanted to see if any errors were present but it would not hurt to be in there like the FAQ shows.  So, 2 hours and 45 minutes later it finished and showed 13066+1 Records in and out.  Good deal.

I also wanted to have a backup that I could burn on a CDR so I immediately started the backup as explained in section 3.14 of the FAQ.  This backup took 2 hours and 20 minutes to complete.  I did a 'ls -lt' at the unit prompt and it shows that the file size is 578,986,828.  Nearly 579MB.  I thought it would be larger but that is great.  That will fit on one CDR.

I did not have a disk to Bless at the time so I removed the bracket from the original TiVo A drive and installed it on the new LCT15-15 drive.  I remounted this back in the TiVo and hooked the IDE and power cables back up.  I started the tivo up for the first time and went thru guided setup.  Everything was perfect.  Guided setup took the normal amount of time.  After about 3 hours of calling and indexing, the Tivo was working with the new drive installed.  I let it rest over nite and then rebooted the TiVo and forced a daily call.  I received the 1.3 update.  Breath a sigh of relief.

I found a IBM 76.8 GB drive that I had bought for a PC but I decided to use it for the B drive in my TiVo.  So, following section 4.6 in the FAQ, I connected the IBM drive to the Primary cable and set the jumpers on the drive to Slave.  I typed 'BlessTiVo /dev/hdb' and about 2 seconds later it showed that the drive was blessed.  Wow that was fast.  I turned off the PC and removed the drive.

Since I did not have one of the nice brackets, I used two large o-rings to support the drive in the TiVo.  Try to get a bracket.  I hooked the IDE and power cable up and powered it up.  In a minute or so, TiVo was on and showed 110 hours 59 minutes Basic and 31 hours 58 minutes Best

Well, that's it.  It works fine.  And really simple.  You just have to follow the instructions.

A big thanks to everyone that helped on the FAQ and the Dylan and BlessTiVo disk.

Copyright © 2000 9th Tee Enterprises. All rights reserved.