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Upgrade or hack TiVo/Direct TV satellite receivers

First off let me say this, if you hack or upgrade your DirecTV TiVo

you are probably voiding the warranty.

Don't say I didn't tell you.

Second, nothing on this page is going to teach you how to steal TiVo or get TiVo for free, so don't ask.

That being said, the reason why you can upgrade or hack your TiVo/Direct TV satellite receiver is, TiVo software is based on Linux and it uses regular hard drives like the one found in your computer. Because of this, there are more than enough people interested in

reverse engineering TiVo's operating system and tinkering with the hardware. TiVo has actually somewhat embraced the plethora of  TiVo upgrade and hack information out there, probably figuring it bolsters TiVo's cult following.

Why hack or upgrade TiVo?

The most basic TiVo hack is replacing the original hard drive with a larger one and/or adding an additional hard drive, or both. All for the idea of boosting the available record time. Obviously, the more hard drive space available, the more stuff you can record.

Although it just depends on what you want to do and how comfortable you are doing it. For example, you can install a network card and turn your TiVo into a web server or video server. Those type of upgrade kits and parts are available aftermarket, for the extensive hack fanatic.

You can even hack the Linux kernel itself, but you would need to know a thing or two about Linux to do that, of course. For the scope of this article though, we will concentrate on how to upgrade TiVo for more storage space, which is an upgrade that relative newbies can do with the simple step-by-step instructions available. It's also the hack that most people want to do.

If you are comfortable installing a hard drive in a computer and have a decent grip on the concept of master and slave drives, a TiVo hack should be no problem. You need not know anything about Linux and you need no more tools than you would use to install a hard drive in a computer.

I ended up going with a Sony SAT T60, which is a unit that got discontinued. I got this one from eBay, but you can find refurbished units like this at Yahoo!, uBid, or any of the other auction sites.

There is actually an easy and hard way to do it, the hard way involves a second Linux box and actually knowing Linux. The easy way is to use a utility to "bless" your new drive, from a PC, such as the Msf Tools from Hinsdale's Guide website. For obvious reasons this article concentrates on the easy way.

Before we start, let me mention, you should not attempt to add a new drive to your DirecTV TiVo until AFTER you have backed up the original drive "A" in your TiVo. If you don't, you will not be able to restore your TiVo if something goes wrong, or TiVo makes some change to the system that requires you to go back to your original setup.

Basically DirecTV TiVo's are very similar to a computer in that, they have the capacity for 2 hard drives. The main drive with the TiVo software installed is the A drive and the second drive, if installed, is the B drive.

So the rules are the same as if you were making changes to your computer... backup, backup, backup before you even think about making any changes.

This is your warning!

TiVo Hack - My Story

The upgrade is actually fairly straightforward if you follow the instructions. The Sony SAT T60 I got from eBay came with a 40GB hard drive (which afforded me about 48 hours of record time at basic quality) and version 1.3 of the TiVo software installed, if I remember correctly.

I went ahead and purchased a Quantum hard drive to replace the Quantum drive in the TiVo since that is the recommendation from the hack instructions, although any brand of IDE hard drive will work.

Again our first step in all of this will be backing up the current A drive that contains the TiVo software. That way I can pull the original drive out, put it away, and use the backup as the new A drive. Like I said before, these are just hard drives, like the ones in your computer, so they crash, and you would be well served to have a way to restore your original setup.

The main thing to remember in this is you need to make sure you get a replacement drive large enough to hold the copy of the original drive A. For example, if you have a 40GB drive A right now, you should buy at least a 40GB drive for the backup.

Keep in mind, if you don't get the same brand drive that originally comes in your TiVo (which is a Quantum in most cases) you may want the new one to be slightly larger, because even though they may be labeled as being the same size, hard drive sizes can vary just a bit and you'd rather have more than enough.

If you're wondering whether you get to use that extra space left over if you use a larger hard drive for backup, the answer is yes, but it'll take a couple of extra steps. Otherwise, it doesn't matter what size drive you buy to backup the "A" drive, your TiVo will only "see" it as the same size as the original. In other words, if you use a 60GB drive to replace your 40GB original, while it will work, it will look like the original 40GB drive to the TiVo.

The way to make that extra space of a larger drive usable, explained in this article involves a disk to disk transfer, which is the most time consuming method for an upgrade. It takes about 4-8 hours, but I'll get to keep all my settings and recordings, although the main reason I choose this method is because it's the most simple way to add two new drives. If the whole hacking  process looks kinda overwhelming, you my want to try just adding a B drive to your existing A drive, that is the most simple upgrade of all.

Note: There is a faster way which involves making a copy of your TiVo software to the C: drive on your PC, but it is a little more involved. If you just must know how it is done (or just want to see how it works) it is covered in the Hinsdale's Guide.

Continuing with the hack instructions, I powered down the TiVo and let the hard disk stop spinning. The TiVo has Torx screws so I used a Torx screwdriver to open the box and proceeded to remove the hard drive. Once removed I attached the original TiVo drive to the secondary IDE channel in your PC as the master, then attached the backup drive as the slave.

I booted my PC with Mfs Tools Boot Floppy which I downloaded from the  Hinsdale's website, which basically creates a Linux environment. Using the Mfs Tools Boot Floppy, I backed up my original 40GB TiVo disk to the 80GB replacement hard drive. Once the back up was finished, I removed my original TiVo disk and stored it away. Then I made the new back up disk the master, and added the second disk as the slave.

Expanding my new A drive and "Blessing" the new B drive

I booted with Mfs boot disk again, entered the commands at the command prompt as instructed, which ran a script on Mfs Tools boot disk. The script "blessed" my second upgrade disk, making it usable in a TiVo, and "married" it to my first backup/upgrade disk, so they can now operate as one unit.

Once TiVo disks are "married", you can't just separate them, it will make your TiVo lock up. You'll have to use the Mfs boot disk again and run a script to "divorce" them.

When it married the two disk together, the script also expanded my replacement A drive by making the leftover space usable. That's the great thing about the Mfs Tools as you have several options available to you as far as expansion of your TiVo goes. With Mfs Tools you can hack any TiVo. You can even split up and replace the drives of a dual drive TiVo. Hinsdale's website is well documented and made the hack painless.

Once finished I put my new disks back into the TiVo, and booted up the machine. My TiVo restarted and - voila! - I had a supersized TiVo.

I was pretty excited too since, when I started out I had 48 hours of  recording time at basic quality (40GB @ 1.2 hrs/GB). My new 80GB disk would give me 96 hours of record time at basic quality and with the additional 80GB from the B drive I added, I would have a total of 192 hours!

I can now record any and everything I want to my hearts content. Now that's sweet.

The absolute best TiVo upgrade site:

Hinsdale's Guide

Older hack info worth a look:

http://www.tivofaq.com/hack

Lots of pictures of an upgrade done on a standalone TiVo (it's a standalone but mostly everything still applies):

http://www.steveconrad.co.uk/tivo/upgrade.html