upgrading my TiVo, any experience with this? (1 Viewer)

[Keith_R]

Hey all, I currently own a 40 hour Series Two SA TiVo which has served me faithfully going on a year. I'd like to get more hours though and am thinking of upgrading my current unit with one of the kits availiable online (probably from Weaknees). I'm a little afraid to do it though for fear that I may run the risk of ruining my TiVo.

Do any of you have experience with this? is it fairly simple to do? I'm not the most handy person and have had little to no experience working with computer hardware, will it still be pretty simple for me to do?

Please share all positive and/or negative experiences you may have had with this. Thanks!

 

[Keith_R]

Hey all, I currently own a 40 hour Series Two SA TiVo which has served me faithfully going on a year. I'd like to get more hours though and am thinking of upgrading my current unit with one of the kits availiable online (probably from Weaknees). I'm a little afraid to do it though for fear that I may run the risk of ruining my TiVo.

Do any of you have experience with this? is it fairly simple to do? I'm not the most handy person and have had little to no experience working with computer hardware, will it still be pretty simple for me to do?

Please share all positive and/or negative experiences you may have had with this. Thanks!

 

[Robert_J]

The Weaknees kits are probably the easiest upgrades out there. If you can work a screwdriver and have at least 2 working fingers to un-plug the old drive and plug in the new one, you can do it.

-Robert

 

[Robert_J]

The Weaknees kits are probably the easiest upgrades out there. If you can work a screwdriver and have at least 2 working fingers to un-plug the old drive and plug in the new one, you can do it.

-Robert

 

[Chris Gerhard]

I have done about a dozen TiVo upgrades and it is indeed easy and therefore the Weaknees fees unjustifiable for most people. If you are completely uncomfortable with doing computer upgrades, you might be one of the exceptions. The Weaknees upgrade kits are reputed to be fine but if you are just buying an add-on drive, the upgrade method used my WeaKnees is still something that is called BlessTiVo which prepares an additional drive to be added to any TiVo. The TiVo upgrade experts at TiVo Community generally seem to prefer a method using MFSTools called MFSadd which prepares A and B drive together and does some things differently leaving a more stable upgraded TiVo. I can say that I have used both techniques and find no difference in performance but based on comments from more technical people than myself, I would no longer use BlessTiVo.

My advice, go over to the TiVo Community Upgrade Center and read about doing it yourself and see if saving some money is worthwhile for you. Some people have screwed things up big time so it is not without risk if you decide to proceed on your own.

Chris

 

[Chris Gerhard]

I have done about a dozen TiVo upgrades and it is indeed easy and therefore the Weaknees fees unjustifiable for most people. If you are completely uncomfortable with doing computer upgrades, you might be one of the exceptions. The Weaknees upgrade kits are reputed to be fine but if you are just buying an add-on drive, the upgrade method used my WeaKnees is still something that is called BlessTiVo which prepares an additional drive to be added to any TiVo. The TiVo upgrade experts at TiVo Community generally seem to prefer a method using MFSTools called MFSadd which prepares A and B drive together and does some things differently leaving a more stable upgraded TiVo. I can say that I have used both techniques and find no difference in performance but based on comments from more technical people than myself, I would no longer use BlessTiVo.

My advice, go over to the TiVo Community Upgrade Center and read about doing it yourself and see if saving some money is worthwhile for you. Some people have screwed things up big time so it is not without risk if you decide to proceed on your own.

Chris

 

[Mike Slade]

I would agree. If you are comfortable installing computer components, upgrading a TiVo is pretty easy. I was a bit aprehensive about upgrading mine but the instructions over at TiVoCommunity.com walk you right through it and make it very easy.

 

[Keith_R]

I completed my upgrade last night. I purchased one of the Weaknees kits and went to town. The process was very easy and I was very happy with my kit, the only snag I had was in disconnecting the old drive.

On my old drive both the power supply and IDE cable were extremely hard to get out. I spent quite a time getting them out because for some reason they were really stuck in there. Unfortunately, in the process of removing the cables, the metal bracket the TiVo rests on cut me pretty deep on my left thumb from me clenching down and the motion. I guess I didn't realize how sharp those edges are:b .

Other than the cut the rest of the process went pretty smooth, in fact much better than I expected.

I more than tripled my capacity from 40 hours to 205 hours with this upgrade.

 

[MannyE]

Easy as cake with the Tivo Community instructions, so even if you have baboon hands grafted on where your real hands used to be, the kit from Weaknees should make it possible! After a year your Tivo is out of warranty anyway, so have at it!

I used the instructions from the Tivo Community Forum to do it myself and it was very easy! Worked the first time. Just go slow and easy and make sure you have a nice clear work area where you can put your desktop up at eye level. It makes life easier.

 

[Dave Scarpa]

I also used the Weakknees kit to upgrade to a 248 hour Tivo. Of course I'll never use all of that but now I enjoy everything I do record in the best quality. The upgrade has been going strong for 7 months now. The only thing I worry about is the tendency to have the unit go Blue screen of death and freeze on the initial bootup. I try not to have the unit reboot itself too often. I found that the HMO option tended to hang the machine sometime so I stopped using it.