Help Toshiba series 2 RX-60 DIED

[Hopelessgirl]

I'm a noobie here with questions. I have read many posts in efforts of trying to fix my Tivo but am not a computer techie geek. I have Macintosh computer that I primarily use and a PC that's my kids play around with.

I have a Tivo Toshiba RX-60 series 2 that I bought years ago. Had service with Direct TV but not actual subscribed Tivo service- used it back then as a DVR and DVD player. I went to Dish and never could use the Toshiba as a DVR and used it mainly as a DVD player , never plugging into a telephone line.

Went back to Direct TV , thinking that it would be the same as before to use as a nice DVR/ DVD- plugged the telephone line in and WHAM! it died! it downloaded some upgrade (i guess from the change of digitial TV earlier this year) and now it only powers up with the welcome screen and never going anywhere after that. HD sounds like its in overdrive! :(

I've seen these type of posts here before but I don't know how to move this to SATA , yada, yada, yada- I can download the CD but that's all I can do!

Please advise if this is even fixable at this point. What do I do? Do I send in my unit and if I do, how much and is it guaranteed that it will be back to normal as originally? I do want to subscribe to actual TIVO service and get rid of DirectTV, go to cable modem (with cable card) and eventually use a PVR software type with double tuner in the other rooms to record.

I don't think I can fix it by myself without destroying it further. Do I try to use InstantCake? Why do I read of so much failures with InstantCake? Do I just donate to the local Goodwill?

Please advise and help! Thank you!!

[zx9re]

Well, I'm not an expert either but I have to say, downloading the image and burning that to a CD was very easy. I bought my own HD and followed the instructions to a "T", and have been more then pleased with the outcome (upgraded the latest Series 2 with the stock 80gb drive to a 500gb recently)

I dunno about the older units or even the non TiVo units, but through my research it seems that people with the latest Series 2 DVR seem to be having the easiest time with this process !

Since you are willing to either buy a replacement drive then the image, why not just buy the drive ready to go from here and install it ? If its as easy as a TiVo model it will take you 10 mins.

But I also see a ton of these newer TiVo Series 2 units going on Kijiji or Craigs List or Ebay for between $50 - $90... it's almost more economical for you to just go that route, get a more updated machine to boot then maybe you will find 80gb of stock drive space is enough ?

I'd say save your $ and go that route, pick up a good used one and consider a ready made drive upgrade from here later on if you can't live with the 80gb of space ?

Cheers... :D