Until InstantCake, your only alternative to upgrading from scratch was to purchase an upgrade kit or send your unit for professional installation or repair -- many are happy with this solution and appreciate the value of the expertise DVRupgrade has provided since we invented the first upgrade kits and services for your TiVo, and an industry to follow.

However, if you want to be a 'do-it-yourselfer' you don't need to do it from scratch; no confusing how-to's, no inaccurate and convoluted interactive guides, no wading through cryptic technical discussion groups, and most importantly, no scary adventures which could result in damaging your TiVo!

With InstantCake™, you can have your cake and eat it too. Use our custom CD, your own hard drive and your own computer, and quickly build an upgrade kit customized for your TiVo for just pennies-per-hour of storage! How technical is the process? If you can connect a disk drive to your PC as a secondary IDE master, and can configure your PC to boot from CD-ROM on the primary slave, then you can do it yourself, and save money and time! (Series3 and TiVo HD versions also support SATA devices)

The CD must be booted from your PC's CD-ROM drive, and it will ask you several simple questions. InstantCake will then create a replacement drive kit on one or two standard hard drives that must also be attached to your PC on the secondary IDE channel.

Your original TiVo hard drive is never required during the TiVo upgrade process and we recommend you keep it in a safe place.