Official InstantCake Discussion Thread (Series1 and Series2 Units Only)

[Lou Jacob]

This is a revised and reprinted version of the Official Discussion Thread hosted at DVRplayground (http://www.dvrplayground.com/forum/thread/11896/Official-InstantCake-Discussion-Thread/?page=1) from November, 2005. That thread is now locked and is archived, however the discussion may be continued here. If you want to refer to any specific posts, please link to them in your questions, and a moderator will help to migrate the relevant material over to the new forums. Thanks again for your support!

Official InstantCake Discussion Thread

Although InstantCake is a DIY product and is offered without warranty or support directly from DVRupgrade, we've created this thread as a way to consolidate common support issues. We'll respond here and there and we hope other users of the software will as well. I think you'll find that most common problems are easily solved and there are only a few problems that people have. Remember, InstantCake is widely used by thousands of people, so if you are having a problem, be rest assured that it can be solved by following the advice in the subsequent pages.
In the spririt of minimizing the often repeated questions asked here, please take a moment to do a few things before posting your InstantCake questions in the official support thread, or elsewhere on the forum:
Please read the InstantCake release notes (http://www.dvrupgrade.com/forums/showpost.php?p=8&postcount=2) for your specific InstantCake product.InstantCake is similar on all products, however there are differences depending upon the type of TiVo you have. You should absolutely review the release notes prior to attempting your installation.
Please read the InstantCake installation instructions (http://www.dvrupgrade.com/forums/showthread.php?t=5).Even if you have a general product question, the answer may very well be here; its only one page, and there are even screen shots of the program in operation.
Please use the search feature (http://www.dvrplayground.com/search) of the forums.Believe it or not, InstantCake has been available now for almost four years. That means there is a very good chance that your question has already been asked, and answered in this forum. Try the search feature (http://www.dvrplayground.com/search) before posting your question, you may be happy with what you find!
Don't be afraid to post your questions, but please provide enough detail so that they can be answered!
It should go without saying that many people have different perspectives, and are at different levels of computer knowledge and skill. Nonetheless, try not to make too many assumptions when posting your questions. Sometimes, what you consider to be an unimportant detail is a key one -- so if you don't have the time to document the actual problem you are having, please don't expect anyone to spend much more time trying to solve that problem.
Share your newly-found knowledge! If you figure something out that you think others may benefit from, please post it here!
Please write a testimonial. We always appreciate your testimonials and if you post one here (http://www.dvrupgrade.com/forums/showthread.php?p=21#post21), we'll be forever grateful.Note that this is a technical support thread designated for the support and usage of InstantCake products. This is not a product information thread, nor is it a technical support thread for upgrade issues which have nothing to do with InstantCake; if you have a different question, please create a new thread and hopefully, a member of the community will respond!

[hardyboyj]

I just completed the InstantCake instructions (recently purchased) to upgrade my Tivo to 2 x 500Gig drives. I received the Congratulations! message but then received the following 3 lines:

umount2: Device or resource busy
umount: /dev/hdb: not mounted
umount: /var/log/mount: Illegal seek

then

/#_

Am I good to go and install the 2 drives into my Tivo?

Thanks,

J-G

[Lou Jacob]

I just completed the Instantcake instructions (recently purchased) to upgrade my Tivo to 2 x 500Gig drives. I received the Congratulations! message but then received the following 3 lines:

umount2: Device or resource busy
umount: /dev/hdb: not mounted
umount: /var/log/mount: Illegal seek

then

/#_

Am I good to go and install the 2 drives into my Tivo?

Thanks,

J-G

It sounds like things are fine. The /dev/hdb: not mounted error could be an indication that your CD-ROM was not connected properly (it should be configured to be the primary slave (/dev/hdb), but some have reported that it will work with other configurations (but you will get that error).

It won't hurt to try with both of your drives, but if things don't work, you'll want to go back and review the instructions and ensure that your drives and CD device is connected properly. Good luck!

[hardyboyj]

It sounds like things are fine. The /dev/hdb: not mounted error could be an indication that your CD-ROM was not connected properly (it should be configured to be the primary slave (/dev/hdb), but some have reported that it will work with other configurations (but you will get that error).

It won't hurt to try with both of your drives, but if things don't work, you'll want to go back and review the instructions and ensure that your drives and CD device is connected properly. Good luck!
Thanks Lou for the quick response. I tried installing the 2 drives and my Tivo simply stays on the main boot-up screen and never goes to the gray screen saying "one more minute...". I tried connecting the drives on the different IDE cable connectors on the Tivo with the same result. I've read somewhere that it makes no difference which IDE connector you connect the master or slave drive to. Could you confirm this is the case or should the drives be connected in the same way as they are when connecting them inside a computer, meaning the middle connector is master and the end connector (on the IDE cable) is slave on the Tivo?

I also tried a different ribbon cable on the Tivo, different ribbon cables on my computer and as a last resort I tried the upgrade on a different (newer) computer (although with the same CD-ROM drive) with the exact same message. After installing the drives in my Tivo I still get the same result with the main Tivo screen and nothing else.

I will try the upgrade using a different CD-Rom drive to see if it resolves the problem. I am quite sure I've followed the instructions to a tee but will double check everything again when I try the new CD-Rom drive.

I've re-installed the original hard drive (shipped with the unit) with the same ribbon cable I've been using in my dual drive setup and the Tivo works fine. Just so you know I decided to upgrade my Tivo using Instantcake after one of the 2 previously upgraded hard drives (I originally used MFS Tools, qunlock etc.. but that was pretty complicated) died on me.

My guess is I'm going to see the same results even with the new CD-Rom drive. I'm including some extra information in case you see something that doesn't look right.

The drives I'm trying to upgrade to are both 500 Gig Seagate Ultra ATA/100 drives. The version of Instantcake is ver 1.0e.

I can't understand why the Tivo isn't booting up correctly, especially when the Instantcake upgrade seems to be working (other than the three weird lines at the end).

Thoughts?

[Lou Jacob]

The problem does not sound like it is related to your CD-ROM drive, but you do need to ensure it is configured as the primary slave (/dev/hdb), and that the target drives are configured as secondary master and slave. If you are unsure of the way to set your specific drives, check the label (or the manufacturer web site) for the proper jumper settings; we don't recommend using "cable select" to do this.

Also, you may want to try using the software with just one drive, just to reduce the variables; perhaps there is an issue with one of the drives, or your unit - so reducing the variables is always a good idea.

Again, get your initial configuration sorted out, first; it still sound like you haven't pinned those down yet.

[hardyboyj]

I re-checked to make sure the CD-ROM drive is configured as primary slave and it was and when I do the dual drive update the Tivo still does not start-up.

I've tried both drives using the "1 drive option" and still get the same message at the end but each drive boots up properly (individually) in the Tivo .

I'm stumped. Could it be that there's a flaw in my download (or version) of Instantcake that would only allow for a single drive upgrade to work?

I am still hoping to get both drives working.

Thanks,

hardyboyj

[Lou Jacob]

I've tried both drives using the "1 drive option" and still get the same message at the end but each drive boots up properly (individually) in the Tivo .


Nope; it sounds like the software is working just fine. You need to check your jumper settings (use the label on the drive or check the manufacturer's web page to get that sorted out) to ensure your master and slave settings are correct. Also check your IDE cable (maybe its defective). It could also be a problem with your TiVo or the drives which could be preventing the unit from powering up with the two drives (bad power supply, perhaps).

These are all variables you need to eliminate...

[hardyboyj]

Nope; it sounds like the software is working just fine. You need to check your jumper settings (use the label on the drive or check the manufacturer's web page to get that sorted out) to ensure your master and slave settings are correct. Also check your IDE cable (maybe its defective). It could also be a problem with your TiVo or the drives which could be preventing the unit from powering up with the two drives (bad power supply, perhaps).

These are all variables you need to eliminate...

Thanks again Lou for the pointers.

After re-checking that the CD-Rom drive is setup correctly and both hard drives have the correct master and slave jumpers set correctly, and after replacing the IDE cables on both the Tivo and the PC I'm using (3 different ones - just to make absolutely sure) I've decided to live with the single 500 Gig drive in my Series 1. The new drives themselves are definitely not the problem because they have each been tested as single drives in my Tivo and both work fine. They also run through the dual drive Instantcake upgrade process fine.

The problem could be with the Tivo's power supply but that would be a weird coincidence since the same Tivo has been working with 2 drives in it for the past 5 or so years and I am upgrading because the 120 Gig drive went dead on me. Perhaps the bigger size hard drives take more juice than the 100 Gig and 120 Gig combination that I had in there before therefore surpassing the power supply's maximum output power?

In any case Instantcake did its job.

Now that I have that spare 500Gig drive kicking around, is there any chance I could convince DVRUpgrade to give me Instantcake for my series 2 Tivo I have in my basement? Kinda like a 2 for 1 deal?

Over and out.

hardyboyj

[Lou Jacob]

The new drives themselves are definitely not the problem because they have each been tested as single drives in my Tivo and both work fine. They also run through the dual drive Instantcake upgrade process fine.

I wouldn't go so far as to say that. The only way to rule out the drives is to run the manufacturer's diagnostics on them; just because they work individually in a TiVo doesn't mean that there isn't something wrong with them (and just because they don't work together means there is something wrong with them).

Now that I have that spare 500Gig drive kicking around, is there any chance I could convince DVRUpgrade to give me Instantcake for my series 2 Tivo I have in my basement? Kinda like a 2 for 1 deal?

Sorry, no. We always prefer you purchase a kit or our recertification services, however I hope you recognize the value of the InstantCake product (and the support we've provided you in spite of the fact that it is an unsupported product) and are willing to pay for it should you be upgrading a second unit.

[mdpawson]

About a month ago, my hard drive died on my Series 1 DirecTivo (Philips DSR6000R01). I bought a new hard drive (Seagate 300gb) and used Instantcake, following the instructions found at http://www.dvrplayground.com/forum/thread/11010/Series1-InstantCake--stuck-at--quot-Welcome.-Powering-up...-quot--screen---Try-this/
for using a large drive on series 1.

Everything has worked fine for a month, and then yesterday my tivo abruptly stopped working. I turned on the tv, hit "display" on the tivo remote to see what it was watching, and that caused a reboot - the "powering up" screen was immediately followed by "cannot load kernel". Powering down and rebooting always gets me the same message.

I popped the drive and ran seagate's diagnostics on it (short and long diagnostics), and it doesn't find anything wrong with the drive.

My tivo was getting fairly full before this happened - is there a usage size limitation that still trips it up despite installing PTVbake-special and tivoflash? Are there any workarounds for this? If it's just a corrupt kernel is there any way to restore that without losing the content on the drive?

Just to clarify - I know how to reinstall InstantCake and "start over" with my TiVo. I just want to make sure that if there's something I'm missing with the big drives on series 1 - a configuration item, or a bit of software, that's going to cause it to fail when it gets to 150 GB or 290 GB or some measure of "too much" content, that I can do that right this time instead of just losing everything all over again in another month. The install that failed after a month followed step by step the instructions referenced in the above link, except that in "Part 3" the instructions have you picking an older kernel - that didn't work for me, but when I picked the later kernel, it did. Otherwise, I followed the instructions verbatim.

Thanks in advance.

[patl]

It looks like DirecTV has pushed out a new software revision (3.5c) to my Phillips DSR6000R, replacing my 3.5b InstantCake installation and preventing my large drive from booting.

Can I buy a 3.5c version of InstantCake any time soon?

[mdpawson]

patl - how can you tell that Directv pushed 3.5c to you? I can't get my Series 1 DSR6000 (with 300 GB drive and InstantCake 3.5b) to boot anymore {see prior post}. While I can't tell if I got the update pushed to me, it seems like that would be a plausible explanation for why my system stopped working last week. If a software update from Directv is the problem, wouldn't that suggest that everyone with a Series 1 TiVo, InstantCake, and a large drive is about to have their systems stop working?:eek:

[patl]

Well, I admit I am inferring that is what happened... It's kind of a long story.

I "upgraded" both my Tivo and a friend's last year. She called to tell me her Tivo won't boot (stuck at "just a few more seconds please"). Apparently, her season passes stopped working a couple of weeks ago, so she called DirecTV for support. Eventually, they explained she needed a new version of the software, and either did something on their end or had her do something to obtain the upgrade. Then her TiVo would not boot.

After making fun of her for calling DirecTV instead of me, I came home to find I had a power outage today... And my own hacked Tivo won't boot.

From reading other message boards, the InstantCake 3.5b installation should disable upgrades unless you manually set the dialing prefix. Unfortunately, I cannot remember whether I did that. I probably did. You probably did, too :)

Anyway, I am "downgrading" my TiVo by reinstalling InstantCake 3.5b. But it would be nice to have an InstantCake 3.5c, just to pick up whatever the heck changes it might have.

[mdpawson]

Lou - Is that a correct read on what's going on? New software version (3.5c) got pushed from DirecTV and messed with our 3.5b installations? If so, my guess is that our choices are to either reinstall 3.5b and suppress the upgrade, or to hope for a 3.5c InstantCake to come out? How do we go about doing the former while we wait for the latter?

[Lou Jacob]

Lou - Is that a correct read on what's going on? New software version (3.5c) got pushed from DirecTV and messed with our 3.5b installations? If so, my guess is that our choices are to either reinstall 3.5b and suppress the upgrade, or to hope for a 3.5c InstantCake to come out? How do we go about doing the former while we wait for the latter?

No, its not entirely correct. If you used InstantCake 3.5b, your unit should not have upgraded unless you somehow made a daily call through the network or the phone line. So in effect, the upgrade has not been "pushed" in that you have to initiate on your end to trigger an upgrade to 3.5c.

If you reinstall InstantCake 3.5b, and leave the settings as-is, everything should be fine.

If you choose to wait until 3.5c is available, you can do that too - and if 3.5d comes along, it will be the same issue, so I'd advise you follow the recommendations we make in the release notes.

[mdpawson]

Lou - thanks. I don't think I changed any of my settings to undo the blocking of directv software updates, but I guess I must have. Should I be running without my phone line plugged in? I had assumed it needed to dial home periodically in order to verify subscriptions and get program guides - does all that come down on the satellite feed?

All - 3.5c has been released today, and if you have downloads remaining they've upgraded them to 3.5c.

[Lou Jacob]

Should I be running without my phone line plugged in? I had assumed it needed to dial home periodically in order to verify subscriptions and get program guides - does all that come down on the satellite feed?


Please leave the phone line disconnected (program guide information comes down from the satellite).

I have the sneaking suspicion that you didn't read the release notes (http://www.dvrupgrade.com/forums/../dvrupgrade-support-center/index.php?x=&mod_id=2&id=115) (or maybe removed those dialing prefixes); don't worry, you wouldn't be the first, but folks, please read the Instructions and Release notes.

Release notes, they should be read! :-)

[nynnja]

I just used instant cake to upgrade my Tivo series2 to a 160GB hard drive. Everything seemed to be working well until I fired up the Tivo and now I'm stuck at the "Welcome, Powering up..." screen. Restarted and it's still stuck after 30 mins. Any thoughts?

It's entirely possible that I had a jumper set wrong. The position was different from the old one to the new one. It's moved beyond the welcome screen now. Here's to hoping it works now.

[Lou Jacob]

I just used instant cake to upgrade my Tivo series2 to a 160GB hard drive. Everything seemed to be working well until I fired up the Tivo and now I'm stuck at the "Welcome, Powering up..." screen. Restarted and it's still stuck after 30 mins. Any thoughts?

It's entirely possible that I had a jumper set wrong. The position was different from the old one to the new one. It's moved beyond the welcome screen now. Here's to hoping it works now.

Can you be more specific about those jumper settings? The drive should have been set to MASTER when you used InstantCake; you should not have had to change the jumper to install it in your TiVo.

Did you have your drive configured differently and/or use the 'advanced' mode of InstantCake?

[nynnja]

The jumper on the new drive was in the same position as the old drive. However, on the new drive this position meant "Master w/slave present". So the instant cake install worked, but once in the Tivo it must have been looking for the second drive. I removed the jumper and all is well. The Tivo set up continued and it's running smoothly now. The lesson here being "read ALL the fine print" ;)

Thanks.

[MarkG]

Ok, i bought InstantCake last night to replace a dead HD and worked on it for way longer than i'm sure it should have taken.

Anyways, after several attempts to fix the issues, i'm at a loss. My error message as it comes up is:

/dev/hdc: no such device or address
Restore failed: unable to open destination device for writing
can not continue - - processing aborted

/#_

ANY help would be VERY much appreciated! Especially by my wife :) She's struggling without her TiVo in our bedroom.

edit: thought i'd update with more information. I'm upgrading a S2 TiVo unit, 50040 if memory serves on the model number. CD drive is to slave, new HD is to master and nothing else is plugged in. The HD is a seagate 160 GB....any other info that would help, please let me know!

[Lou Jacob]

Ok, i bought InstantCake last night to replace a dead HD and worked on it for way longer than i'm sure it should have taken.

Anyways, after several attempts to fix the issues, i'm at a loss. My error message as it comes up is:


ANY help would be VERY much appreciated! Especially by my wife :) She's struggling without her TiVo in our bedroom.

edit: thought i'd update with more information. I'm upgrading a S2 TiVo unit, 50040 if memory serves on the model number. CD drive is to slave, new HD is to master and nothing else is plugged in. The HD is a seagate 160 GB....any other info that would help, please let me know!

That is a common mistake. You may *think* target drive is set up for /dev/hdc, but your PC has assigned it a different device name. Perhaps it has given an SATA raid controller or some other peripheral the priority.

Here is another thread (http://www.dvrplayground.com/forum/thread/11246/-dev-hdc---No-such-device-or-address/) you can use as a reference (there are a lot of them in the archives.

Couple of ways to fix it... if the version of InstantCake you are using supports 'advanced' mode, supply the correct device name. OR, twiddle with your PC's BIOS to rearrange the device assignments so that your secondary IDE controller assigns the drive letter to /dev/hdc.

[MarkG]

That is a common mistake. You may *think* target drive is set up for /dev/hdc, but your PC has assigned it a different device name. Perhaps it has given an SATA raid controller or some other peripheral the priority.

Here is another thread (http://www.dvrplayground.com/forum/thread/11246/-dev-hdc---No-such-device-or-address/) you can use as a reference (there are a lot of them in the archives.

Couple of ways to fix it... if the version of InstantCake you are using supports 'advanced' mode, supply the correct device name. OR, twiddle with your PC's BIOS to rearrange the device assignments so that your secondary IDE controller assigns the drive letter to /dev/hdc.

first of all, thank you for an EXTREMELY quick reply! Unfortunately it has caused me to think that I may be way out of my league. You lost me at, "you may think" As far as it being given different device names, I didn't change any names. I just took my comp apart, set the cd-rom and HD drive to the settings I read in the instructions and started up the comp with instantcake in the drive.

As far as tweaking my comp's BIOS, ya, i'd probably do more harm than good. I'm at work right now so I can't try going into advanced mode just yet (it does support advanced mode) but will toy with it a bit. I haven't read the other thread you put up yet but am on my way there now. Thanks again! Hopefully i can stumble my way through this so its not a waste of $20 for the program! :rolleyes:

[Lou Jacob]

first of all, thank you for an EXTREMELY quick reply! Unfortunately it has caused me to think that I may be way out of my league. You lost me at, "you may think" As far as it being given different device names, I didn't change any names. I just took my comp apart, set the cd-rom and HD drive to the settings I read in the instructions and started up the comp with instantcake in the drive.

As far as tweaking my comp's BIOS, ya, i'd probably do more harm than good. I'm at work right now so I can't try going into advanced mode just yet (it does support advanced mode) but will toy with it a bit. I haven't read the other thread you put up yet but am on my way there now. Thanks again! Hopefully i can stumble my way through this so its not a waste of $20 for the program! :rolleyes:

I think you'll find that there is little harm you can do poking around in your computer's bios to better understand the settings, as long as you don't 'save' any changed settings without knowing what they mean.

Please understand (and this is more for others who may be reading this) that InstantCake is expected to be used by those who do have this sort of comfort level with their PC's.

With all of that said, if you are unable to get your PC to do what you want it to do, or are not comfortable messing with it, we've always offered a full trade-in of the InstantCake purchase towards the purchase of a kit, so either way you are covered.

[MarkG]

I think you'll find that there is little harm you can do poking around in your computer's bios to better understand the settings, as long as you don't 'save' any changed settings without knowing what they mean.

Please understand (and this is more for others who may be reading this) that InstantCake is expected to be used by those who do have this sort of comfort level with their PC's.

With all of that said, if you are unable to get your PC to do what you want it to do, or are not comfortable messing with it, we've always offered a full trade-in of the InstantCake purchase towards the purchase of a kit, so either way you are covered.

well, thats good b/c i may be using that trade-in b/c after reading through that thread you pointed me to, i now know im pretty much screwed! :D I do have a pretty high comfort level with my PC. I have training on the hardware side, I've built a number from the ground up....but software side, i'm not very proficient. To be honest, i can't even remember how to get to my bios off the top of my head. Its like F8 while the comp is starting up, right?

I may put my head together with my afternoon receptionist. She's a college student studying programming so she may be able to help me out. If not, I may be putting the extra money down on the kit and just adding this HD to my computer for the heck of it.

Regardless of the outcome, you're help has been very much appreciated!

[Lou Jacob]

well, thats good b/c i may be using that trade-in b/c after reading through that thread you pointed me to, i now know im pretty much screwed! :D I do have a pretty high comfort level with my PC. I have training on the hardware side, I've built a number from the ground up....but software side, i'm not very proficient. To be honest, i can't even remember how to get to my bios off the top of my head. Its like F8 while the comp is starting up, right?

I may put my head together with my afternoon receptionist. She's a college student studying programming so she may be able to help me out. If not, I may be putting the extra money down on the kit and just adding this HD to my computer for the heck of it.

Regardless of the outcome, you're help has been very much appreciated!

Thx, but again, you may just be more intimidated than anything else. If you are technically minded, you should have no problem. The short version of the issue is this...

... on most PC's with two IDE controllers, the InstantCake boot CD automatically assigns the device name "/dev/hdc" to the secondary master, and "/dev/hdd" to the secondary slave. Similarly, it assigns, "/dev/hda" and "/dev/hdb" to the primary master and slave, respectively.

In your PC, something else is going on -- I've seen it before; sometimes, RAID/SATA devices take precedence - it may just be a matter of either turning them off (temporarily) from the BIOS. OR, finding out what those devices are being assigned to... eg /dev/hde or /dev/hdg, perhaps? IF the version of IC you are using supports advanced mode (you should see this after the program is running and it should ask you whether to use basic or advanced mode) you can supply that device name, instead of going with the defaults.

Some have been able to 'witness' the device name assignment during the boot up of the InstantCake CD, you can see it go by on the screen. Others just "guess" until they get it right. As long as you disconnect your Windows or main OS drive (or any other drives) while you are doing this, there is little damage you can do.

I have a feeling you'll be fine, so don't give up quite yet. And PLEASE post your results!!!

[MarkG]

And PLEASE post your results!!!
Will do!!!

[danmcd]

I've no whitebox PCs at home - I use the ones at work for InstantCake chores.

I'm about to gain full-time access to one that has no graphics card, and will therefore be always a serial-console machine. Does the Linux packed with InstantCake recognize when a machine is headless and switch its /dev/console to use one of the serial ports?

Thanks,
Dan

[Lou Jacob]

I've no whitebox PCs at home - I use the ones at work for InstantCake chores.

I'm about to gain full-time access to one that has no graphics card, and will therefore be always a serial-console machine. Does the Linux packed with InstantCake recognize when a machine is headless and switch its /dev/console to use one of the serial ports?

Thanks,
Dan

I don't know as I've never tried that, but my guess is that it won't. What you can do, though is download the free LBA48 CD (http://www.dvrupgrade.com/dvr/stores/1/lba48_support.cfm) from our site and see if that works; the LBA48 CD is the core of most of the InstantCake distros.

[danmcd]

I don't know as I've never tried that, but my guess is that it won't.

I already have both the LBA48 *and* InstantCake, so I guess the answer is "just try it".

I haven't used Linux much, but other UNIX variants detect the lack of a keyboard/screen at device configuration time and move their output to one of /dev/ttya, /dev/ttyb, or their moral equivalents. I will try it sometime, and report back here with the results. (Headless boxes are VERY useful in tight-space situations, not to mention you can script a headless console with something like expect.)

Thanks,
Dan

[Lou Jacob]

I already have both the LBA48 *and* InstantCake, so I guess the answer is "just try it".

I haven't used Linux much, but other UNIX variants detect the lack of a keyboard/screen at device configuration time and move their output to one of /dev/ttya, /dev/ttyb, or their moral equivalents. I will try it sometime, and report back here with the results. (Headless boxes are VERY useful in tight-space situations, not to mention you can script a headless console with something like expect.)

Thanks,
Dan

Yes, please let us know. I would not expect the Linux distro that is part of our boot CD's to contain too many niceties; it is a very stripped down implementation and contains almost the bare minimum.

I do agree though; in a previous life, I use to use a handheld PIM (I think it was an HP, but it might have been a Sharp Wizard) as a serial console when trouble-shooting VME-based Sun 4/70 workstations running SunOS.

[MarkG]

I have a feeling you'll be fine, so don't give up quite yet. And PLEASE post your results!!!Sorry its taken me a few days to get back in here to post results. Well, i got into the comp again with the identical settings on the hardware and went into advanced mode. Didn't mess with my BIOS at all at this point. Followed the directions on the Advanced settings and it worked perfect on my first attempt. Started "baking" in like two minutes. The TiVo is up and running perfect!

Only slight issue is that the linksys usb connection that i have to wire direct to my router doesn't seem to work. That being said I don't think i ever used it on this TiVo before it messed up, it works fine on my pioneer burning dvr i have in the family room though. So, it could just not be compatible with THIS TiVo.

[Lou Jacob]

Sorry its taken me a few days to get back in here to post results. Well, i got into the comp again with the identical settings on the hardware and went into advanced mode. Didn't mess with my BIOS at all at this point. Followed the directions on the Advanced settings and it worked perfect on my first attempt. Started "baking" in like two minutes. The TiVo is up and running perfect!

Only slight issue is that the linksys usb connection that i have to wire direct to my router doesn't seem to work. That being said I don't think i ever used it on this TiVo before it messed up, it works fine on my pioneer burning dvr i have in the family room though. So, it could just not be compatible with THIS TiVo.

Glad you got the InstantCake piece of things to work. As for the USB Ethernet issue, it may just be that your unit needs to be updated to the latest version of the TiVo software. The version installed by InstantCake on your particular unit is 7.2.0. The current version, 8.X, has support for more adapters, so yours may work fine with that update (you can use an older 1.1 adapter, or the phone line, to let it update, in the meantime...

[Ctcwired]

I downloaded InstantCake..... I bought it from www.dvrupgrade.com.................

Problem, when it asked me if I am ready to clear my drive I hit y and hit enter...

/dev/hdc: Read-only file system
Restore failed: Unable to open destination device for writing.
tpip: error opening /dev/hdc: Read-only file system

Cannot continue -- Process aborted


NOTES: I formated the drive with fat32 before I put it in this computer.... could that be the problem????

[Lou Jacob]

I downloaded InstantCake..... I bought it from www.dvrupgrade.com (http://www.dvrupgrade.com).................

Problem, when it asked me if I am ready to clear my drive I hit y and hit enter...

/dev/hdc: Read-only file system
Restore failed: Unable to open destination device for writing.
tpip: error opening /dev/hdc: Read-only file system

Cannot continue -- Process aborted


NOTES: I formated the drive with fat32 before I put it in this computer.... could that be the problem????

Please take a look at these posts starting on page 3 (http://www.dvrupgrade.com/forums/showpost.php?p=287&postcount=21). Looks to be the exact same problem: drives not connected properly.

[stonelyson]

I have the similar problem on my both 500GB and 250GB drive.

Installed on a single 500GB and it fail after 7-10 days , Try again with 250GB and it fail after 10-14 days....

If you found a solution please let me know...

I also posted a new thread on my issues.

http://www.dvrupgrade.com/forums/showthread.php?t=141

Thanks

[adangelo72594]

I am using a Asrock P4vm890 motherboard setup to Instant cakes specs(The master slave crap) and, everytime i try to make a HDD for my TiVo it says Uknown VIA southbridge(that is my chipset), and to contact some email address that flicks off the screen to fast to write down. Should i Try the install on a different computer with a more common Chipset? Or is there a fix or something... Someone Please help

[Lou Jacob]

I am using a Asrock P4vm890 motherboard setup to Instant cakes specs(The master slave crap) and, everytime i try to make a HDD for my TiVo it says Uknown VIA southbridge(that is my chipset), and to contact some email address that flicks off the screen to fast to write down. Should i Try the install on a different computer with a more common Chipset? Or is there a fix or something... Someone Please help

That does sound like a PC compatibility problem. Pretty sure I've run InstantCake on PC's with the VIA chipset, but there something else with your motherboard BIOS that is causing problems. If you have a different PC, I'd try that.

[adangelo72594]

does it matter that im using a 40gb HDD im just trying to replace the odl one with a new one of the same. i dnt want any bigger everyoens like oh mer it has to be bigger is that true orno

[Lou Jacob]

does it matter that im using a 40gb HDD im just trying to replace the odl one with a new one of the same. i dnt want any bigger everyoens like oh mer it has to be bigger is that true orno

The recommendation is to use a drive larger than your original. If you are using a drive that is the same size as your original, you may not have a successful installation because InstantCake tries to create a slightly larger swap space, and on a drive the same size, it may not work.

[adangelo72594]

to tell you the truth im going to work on getting it to not fail the VIA southbridge BUT after that i will see if the 40gb is enough

[bcj]

I'm trying to reuse the 80GB drive from my R10. I know it may not work because it obviously is not larger than itself. At the end of Instantcake I get the following messages.

Restore Done !
Not enough extra space to expand on A drive.
CONGRATULATIONS! Software installed....

Did I suceed or fail ?

Thanks in advance.

[boa999]

For Hardyboyj who is having problems getting his 2nd drive working.
This is old school stuff but is often overlooked.

Assuming you are not using a special CSEL IDE cable remember this:

40 wire IDE cables the center is master and the end is slave
80 wire IDE cables the center is slave and the end is master

Not only do you have to get the jumpers right you need to pay attention to where and on what.

This is my first reply so I hope I am doing this quick reply thing right

[Rick Travis]

40 wire IDE cables the center is master and the end is slave
80 wire IDE cables the center is slave and the end is master

Not only do you have to get the jumpers right you need to pay attention to where and on what.

This is my first reply so I hope I am doing this quick reply thing right
Center should always be slave with master on end because master terminates the chain. if master terminates the chain you would have trouble reading slave data on 40 conductor cable you described.:)

[drjohn14]

Am posting for first time and just want to give a few warnings I found out the hard way. The first is never use a dell cumputer that is amd based but use pentium based or just stay away from dell. The second is to stay away from sony cd rom drives. I was able to get sony to download a Toshiba tx 20 instant cake but not Phillips 212. I tried 4 different sony cd rom drives and kept getting message that it could not find directory on the cd. I then tried a Top D cd rom drive and was able to bake my cake without problems. Also if you dont seem to get a cd to boot with a burner program, try IMGBURN. I tried 6 different burners including Nero, Maxburn winxpburn and several other burners but IMGBURN was the only one that was I able to use to get my CD to boot with. Also make sure your CD disc is iso9660 compatible.
I realize that this info is probably "old Hat" for most of you but I spent considerable time researching and reading and R&D before I was able to do my first unit. Hope this helps someone else. drjohn

[Lou Jacob]

Am posting for first time and just want to give a few warnings I found out the hard way. The first is never use a dell cumputer that is amd based but use pentium based or just stay away from dell. The second is to stay away from sony cd rom drives. I was able to get sony to download a Toshiba tx 20 instant cake but not Phillips 212. I tried 4 different sony cd rom drives and kept getting message that it could not find directory on the cd. I then tried a Top D cd rom drive and was able to bake my cake without problems. Also if you dont seem to get a cd to boot with a burner program, try IMGBURN. I tried 6 different burners including Nero, Maxburn winxpburn and several other burners but IMGBURN was the only one that was I able to use to get my CD to boot with. Also make sure your CD disc is iso9660 compatible.
I realize that this info is probably "old Hat" for most of you but I spent considerable time researching and reading and R&D before I was able to do my first unit. Hope this helps someone else. drjohn

Thx for your post. I have heard some stories about older Dell boxes being difficult to deal with, especially with the Series1 InstantCake version which does require a two-IDE system (newer versions of InstantCake have an 'advanced mode' which lets you get a bit specific with the IDE drive assignments).

I've also seen that burning at slower speeds and with higher-quality media can make a big difference. I think I've posted before that the most common cause of "decompression errors" is a bad burn, or a faulty CD/DVD drive.

Glad you were successful, in spite of the headaches.

[vhkounel]

I ordered, downloaded and burned ISO/InstantCake (6.3e). I have a DirecTivo Series 2 HD-DVR (HR10-250). I am having difficulties getting this to work. I have used PTVnet before and it worked fine so I was thinking that that drives were hooked up correctly but no such luck.

I have (2) Tivo drives hooked up to my HP PC through ATA 133 PCI card.
Here is my set up (ATA Diagnostics):

Primary Channel:
Drive0 not found
Drive1 not found

Secondary Channel: (my Tivo Drives)
WDC WD2500LB-55EDA0
ST3400832A

CD Rom is plugged into my mother board and jumper set to SLAVE.

If I start with the InstantCake CD, it boots up, runs though its script. I select "hda" - Tivo Primary Master and "hdb" Tivo Primary Slave (this was the same setting that I used with PTVnet and they worked fine). I then get the error:

"/dev/hda: No such device or directory Restore failed: Unable to open destination device for writing."

I then moved the connector (from my Tivo drives) to the other slot in my ATA card and change to "hdc" and "hdd" and get the same error.

I then tried starting with the PTVnet CD first and then inserting the InstantCake CD when promted and got the following error:

"CDROM not mounted properly or you are not using a standard InstantCake CD..."


I then tried the following set up:
I have (2) Tivo drives hooked up to my HP PC through ATA 133 PCI card. I also connected my CD Rom Drive (set it to slave) to the ATA 133 PCI card. When I first boot up, the screen shows:

Primary Channel:
Drive0 not found
TSSTcorpCD/DVD

Secondary Channel: (my Tivo Drives)
WDC WD2500LB-55EDA0
ST3400832A

After this screen, I get a "Disk Boot Failure. Insert System Disk and Press Enter" Also, when I look at the Bios, I am set to boot CD Rom (1st Floppy, 2nd CD Rom, 3rd HDD). I also tried the MASTER and CABLE SELECT jumpers on the CD Rom and got the same error. My Bios lists:
First Channel Device 0 - None
First Channel Device 1 - None
Second Channel Device 0 - None
Second Channel Device 1 - None
Third Channel Device 0 - None
Third Channel Device 1 - None

Any tips on what I should do first (I may just send my hard drives to DVRUpgrades to fix if I can not figure this out.)


Thanks, Bill

[TheSaint]

I did a PTVNet/InstantCake install for a single drive for my HR10-250. I note that this has backdoors enabled, which sort of surprised me. So I think tivoapp is being mod'd by InstantCake to do this. So I have other hacks I want to apply to tivoapp so I copy it and bring it up in a hex editor for modification (Ultraedit is what I like). So I expect that the backdoors bytes should have been modified, but they don't match what I have documented from the post below:

http://www.dealdatabase.com/forum/showthread.php?p=285833&highlight=location+patches+6.3e#post285833

So what gives? I'm not sure what the disconnect is here. So does InstantCake/PTVnet only provide the stock 6.3e tivoapp or is it being modified? Doesn't InstantCake/PTVnet completely wipe out what was on the disk used such that any previous hacks I had would no longer exist?

Thanks,
TheSaint

[Rick Travis]

Instantcake provides you with a new Image, No hacks, it is just like a new drive, PTVnet enables telnet, FTP, Tivowebplus and Enables USB with certain ethernet adapters enabled. That is all, If you used it without reading the Info I am afraid you lost all previous hacks. Sorry, it is well explained in the documentation.:(

[Rick Travis]

I ordered, downloaded and burned ISO/InstantCake (6.3e). I have a DirecTivo Series 2 HD-DVR (HR10-250). I am having difficulties getting this to work. I have used PTVnet before and it worked fine so I was thinking that that drives were hooked up correctly but no such luck.

I have (2) Tivo drives hooked up to my HP PC through ATA 133 PCI card.
Here is my set up (ATA Diagnostics):

Primary Channel:
Drive0 not found
Drive1 not found

Secondary Channel: (my Tivo Drives)
WDC WD2500LB-55EDA0
ST3400832A

CD Rom is plugged into my mother board and jumper set to SLAVE.

If I start with the InstantCake CD, it boots up, runs though its script. I select "hda" - Tivo Primary Master and "hdb" Tivo Primary Slave (this was the same setting that I used with PTVnet and they worked fine). I then get the error:

"/dev/hda: No such device or directory Restore failed: Unable to open destination device for writing."

I then moved the connector (from my Tivo drives) to the other slot in my ATA card and change to "hdc" and "hdd" and get the same error.

I then tried starting with the PTVnet CD first and then inserting the InstantCake CD when promted and got the following error:

"CDROM not mounted properly or you are not using a standard InstantCake CD..."


I then tried the following set up:
I have (2) Tivo drives hooked up to my HP PC through ATA 133 PCI card. I also connected my CD Rom Drive (set it to slave) to the ATA 133 PCI card. When I first boot up, the screen shows:

Primary Channel:
Drive0 not found
TSSTcorpCD/DVD

Secondary Channel: (my Tivo Drives)
WDC WD2500LB-55EDA0
ST3400832A

After this screen, I get a "Disk Boot Failure. Insert System Disk and Press Enter" Also, when I look at the Bios, I am set to boot CD Rom (1st Floppy, 2nd CD Rom, 3rd HDD). I also tried the MASTER and CABLE SELECT jumpers on the CD Rom and got the same error. My Bios lists:
First Channel Device 0 - None
First Channel Device 1 - None
Second Channel Device 0 - None
Second Channel Device 1 - None
Third Channel Device 0 - None
Third Channel Device 1 - None

Any tips on what I should do first (I may just send my hard drives to DVRUpgrades to fix if I can not figure this out.)


Thanks, Bill

your regular C drive should be primary channel master
your CDrom should be primary channel slave
your tivo master should be secondary channel master
your secondary tivo drive should be secondary channel slave
your tivo master is HDC
your Tivo secondary drive HDD
you are setting up TiVo for two Devices
Hope that helps. :)
set up jumpers on drives as master with slave present (not cable select) or slave on both the primary and secondary channel and have the bios set to boot from CD rom

[TheSaint]

Instantcake provides you with a new Image, No hacks, it is just like a new drive, PTVnet enables telnet, FTP, Tivowebplus and Enables USB with certain ethernet adapters enabled. That is all, If you used it without reading the Info I am afraid you lost all previous hacks. Sorry, it is well explained in the documentation.:(

I wasn't expecting any hacks I previously had with this. I expected it to be a clean image. So how did I have backdoors enabled with this? That's what puzzled me.

[Lou Jacob]

I wasn't expecting any hacks I previously had with this. I expected it to be a clean image. So how did I have backdoors enabled with this? That's what puzzled me.

Its a clean image and tivoapp isn't modified. The kernel used is slightly different, because it makes things easier on the development side, but it does nothing to modify the software, like tivoapp.

[TheSaint]

Its a clean image and tivoapp isn't modified. The kernel used is slightly different, because it makes things easier on the development side, but it does nothing to modify the software, like tivoapp.

Lou,

Can you think of any conditions using PTVNet then InstantCake that backdoors could have been enabled? Don't you have to modify tivoapp to enable backdoors? The disk I used was previously hacked but shouldn't your software have completely overwritten the disk and installed fresh? From what you are saying I can't see how it could have completely cleaned the disk and have backdoors still enabled. Any ideas? Very puzzling indeed.

Thanks!

[Lou Jacob]

Lou,

Can you think of any conditions using PTVNet then InstantCake that backdoors could have been enabled? Don't you have to modify tivoapp to enable backdoors? The disk I used was previously hacked but shouldn't your software have completely overwritten the disk and installed fresh? From what you are saying I can't see how it could have completely cleaned the disk and have backdoors still enabled. Any ideas? Very puzzling indeed.

Thanks!

What I can tell you is that neither of them actually make any modifications to tivoapp. If your backdoors are enabled, its either a function of the kernel mods required, or something else that is being run. I really don't have any experience with the 'backdoors' issue nor have we made any mods to tivoapp with either of those products.

[klgood1]

I just recently downloaded InstantCake for a TCD240 Series 2 Tivo that I'm fixing for a friend. Her hard drive died, so I needed a good image to use. I've previously used InstantCake on a Humax T800 with no problems.

However, when I boot the TCD240 InstantCake CD, it loads everything, and then goes to a prompt. My other disc walks me through everything, but this one is saying to use with standard upgrade guides. Am I missing something? The drives are connected properly -- I booted with the T800 IC cd just to confirm.

I've used MFS Tools in the past with the Hinsdale guide, but it's been years and I really didn't want to relearn that all again, that's why I bought an Instant Cake CD. Any tips would be greatly appreciated.

[Lou Jacob]

I just recently downloaded InstantCake for a TCD240 Series 2 Tivo that I'm fixing for a friend. Her hard drive died, so I needed a good image to use. I've previously used InstantCake on a Humax T800 with no problems.

However, when I boot the TCD240 InstantCake CD, it loads everything, and then goes to a prompt. My other disc walks me through everything, but this one is saying to use with standard upgrade guides. Am I missing something? The drives are connected properly -- I booted with the T800 IC cd just to confirm.

I've used MFS Tools in the past with the Hinsdale guide, but it's been years and I really didn't want to relearn that all again, that's why I bought an Instant Cake CD. Any tips would be greatly appreciated.

Are you certain that you didn't use one of the boot CD's instead of the InstantCake CD? I don't fully understand what you've described when you said, "loads everything" vs "walks through everything" but it sounds like you are comparing two different products.

[klgood1]

Lou, you're right -- I was using a boot cd image. I'm an idiot. I must've picked the wrong image when I was in a hurry to burn my instant cake CD yesterday. :o

[UnclePat]

Hello!

I had an older Sony SVR3000 running version 4 of the Tivo software (with a few hacks installed). The hard drive started making noise (I think the bearings are going to go any time now), so I got a new drive (120Gb) and purchased InstantCake.

I ran the InstantCake installation without issue, and when I put the drive in the Tivo unit, everything seemed to boot fine.

However, the Tivo will not respond to any commands from the remote control.

It does respond to commands from the front panel, so I know the Tivo is not locked up.

I put the old drive back in the Tivo, and the everything (including the remote) works fine, so I'm confident it isn't a hardware problem.

I've searched both this forum and others, and cannot figure out what is breaking the remote. Do you have any suggestions?

Thanks in advance.
Pat

[Lou Jacob]

Hello!

I had an older Sony SVR3000 running version 4 of the Tivo software (with a few hacks installed). The hard drive started making noise (I think the bearings are going to go any time now), so I got a new drive (120Gb) and purchased InstantCake.

I ran the InstantCake installation without issue, and when I put the drive in the Tivo unit, everything seemed to boot fine.

However, the Tivo will not respond to any commands from the remote control.

It does respond to commands from the front panel, so I know the Tivo is not locked up.

I put the old drive back in the Tivo, and the everything (including the remote) works fine, so I'm confident it isn't a hardware problem.

I've searched both this forum and others, and cannot figure out what is breaking the remote. Do you have any suggestions?

Thanks in advance.
Pat

Sounds like your remote is programmed on a different "channel" than the default for the software on your unit. Every TiVo & Remote have the ability to emit / respond to different remote codes so that you can have multiple units and multiple remote without creating conflicts.

Two ways to solve the problem... You can change the codes emitted by your remote (check TiVo's web site for instructions on programming your remote), OR you can make a change to the TiVo so it responds to the codes your remote is currently emitting. To do that, use the front panel to navigate to the "system information" screen -- if you look closely at that screen (you might have to page down) you will see the remote code that is programmed on the TiVo (it will probably be 1, 2 or 3); then press any button on your remote and on the TiVo is should change to whatever your remote is set to... then, you should be done...

[UnclePat]

Thanks, Lou, for the quick response.

The "System Information" screen on the Tivo shows that the Remote ID is "not set". Hitting buttons on the remote while this screen is up does nothing.

I've gone to the Tivo site and found the documentation you mentioned. I've reset the remote and played with the "DVR 1-2" switch as described. The remote still does nothing.

I considered doing a guided setup, but, alas, the "thumbs down" button on the remote doesn't work.

I put the original drive back in the Tivo, and the remote still works fine.

Any other suggestions?

Thanks in advance.

Pat

[rawson819]

The recommendation is to use a drive larger than your original. If you are using a drive that is the same size as your original, you may not have a successful installation because InstantCake tries to create a slightly larger swap space, and on a drive the same size, it may not work.

Just wanted to clarify the above statement. If I replace a previously baked drive, does the new replacement drive need to be larger than the current drive (250 GB) or just larger than the original (40 GB) drive that came with the unit?

Thanks.

[Rick Travis]

Just wanted to clarify the above statement. If I replace a previously baked drive, does the new replacement drive need to be larger than the current drive (250 GB) or just larger than the original (40 GB) drive that came with the unit?

Thanks.
I believe 40 gb is the requirement, although I have run the new version (6.2a) on 40 gb drives:)

[rawson819]

Thanks for the reply Richard

[UnclePat]

Thanks, Lou, for the quick response.

The "System Information" screen on the Tivo shows that the Remote ID is "not set". Hitting buttons on the remote while this screen is up does nothing.

I've gone to the Tivo site and found the documentation you mentioned. I've reset the remote and played with the "DVR 1-2" switch as described. The remote still does nothing.

I considered doing a guided setup, but, alas, the "thumbs down" button on the remote doesn't work.

I put the original drive back in the Tivo, and the remote still works fine.

Any other suggestions?

Thanks in advance.

Pat

I think I've figured out my problem. The Sony doesn't natively use the "peanut" remote. When the previous owner hacked it, he must have hacked it to use the "peanut", rather than the Sony remote. Since I don't own a Sony remote, I'm going to have to figure out how to make the "peanut" remote work.

Thanks for the suggestions.

[Lou Jacob]

I think I've figured out my problem. The Sony doesn't natively use the "peanut" remote. When the previous owner hacked it, he must have hacked it to use the "peanut", rather than the Sony remote. Since I don't own a Sony remote, I'm going to have to figure out how to make the "peanut" remote work.

Thanks for the suggestions.

That does not sound good. Installing the "wrong" software on any unit is HIGHLY discouraged (and frowned upon by TiVo). Although many folks prefer the peanut remote over the Sony remote, I think your best solution is to get the right remote for that unit. Whoever sold you that unit did a number on you.

[UnclePat]

That does not sound good. Installing the "wrong" software on any unit is HIGHLY discouraged (and frowned upon by TiVo). Although many folks prefer the peanut remote over the Sony remote, I think your best solution is to get the right remote for that unit. Whoever sold you that unit did a number on you.

Thanks, Lou. I understand what you're saying. However, the unit has been working well for over a year (with the peanut), so I've definitely gotten my money's worth. Another option would be for me to simply "dd" the old hard drive partitions onto the new drive (making my InstantCake purchase worthless), but unfortunately they are different sizes.

I'm sure I'll figure something out.

[jallread]

Hello,

This is my first post. I have a Tivo TCD240040 and I want to upgrade the drive with a 500GB one. I went out to Best Buy and bought a Seagate PATA/100 500GB Hard drive model #ST3500641A-RK. I used the instant cake version instantcake-IC2-TCD240-7.2.0-oth-01-2-140.iso that I downloaded and used back in October on an 160GB Samsung drive that worked fine. I set up the primary slave on my cdrom and secondary master for the 500gb drive. My bios recognized both drives. I booted instant cake and continued to bake my cake. I noticed when it was finished, I received many errors to the effect of "msf_read_inode corrupt trying back up." This message scrolled my screen with different node numbers. The Instant Cake did finish and stated my hours for the drive around 530 hours give or take... Anyway once installed in my Tivo, I got the "Powering Up" screen then followed by the "Almost finished screen" then it rebooted back tot the "Powering up" screen and proceeded to repeat the cycle. Does anyone have any idea what I am doing wrong? The Tivo works fine with the other drives. All help is appreciated. TIA

Johnathon

[Lou Jacob]

Hello,

This is my first post. I have a Tivo TCD240040 and I want to upgrade the drive with a 500GB one. I went out to Best Buy and bought a Seagate PATA/100 500GB Hard drive model #ST3500641A-RK. I used the instant cake version instantcake-IC2-TCD240-7.2.0-oth-01-2-140.iso that I downloaded and used back in October on an 160GB Samsung drive that worked fine. I set up the primary slave on my cdrom and secondary master for the 500gb drive. My bios recognized both drives. I booted instant cake and continued to bake my cake. I noticed when it was finished, I received many errors to the effect of "msf_read_inode corrupt trying back up." This message scrolled my screen with different node numbers. The Instant Cake did finish and stated my hours for the drive around 530 hours give or take... Anyway once installed in my Tivo, I got the "Powering Up" screen then followed by the "Almost finished screen" then it rebooted back tot the "Powering up" screen and proceeded to repeat the cycle. Does anyone have any idea what I am doing wrong? The Tivo works fine with the other drives. All help is appreciated. TIA

Johnathon

If you are getting errors like that, then something is definitely wrong and the drive shouldn't be expected to work in your TiVo.

First and foremost, run full diags on your hard drive. I've said it before and I will say it again; doesn't matter whether your drive is new, or was working in a PC - ALWAYS run diags...

Secondly, ensure your jumpers are correct and not set to CS (cable-select)...

Also check your IDE cables, and anything else that could be loose -- stranger things have happened...

Also, you might want to reburn your CD; perhaps it was damaged since you last used it?

Its probably something simple, but eliminating the most common problems will usually result in success...

[jallread]

I did what you told me to do. I downloaded the latest version of Seagate's hard drive utilities and sure enough the drive had errors on it. I replaced the drive, installed instant cake and set the tivo back up and now everything works fine. Of course the extra recording space is very nice. Thanks again for the help.

Johnathon

[jasch]

I've been a customer of Instant Cake for years (I have about 15 different versions), and today I have been stumped by my first error I cannot explain:

Starting restore
Uncompressed backup size: 1453 megabytes
Restore failed: Decompression error

I tried with two different computers, and two different copies of Instant Cake, both failed on the same hard drive (a 400mb Seagate, which I pulled from a TDC5400, and wanted to re-image).

I know the HD is perfectly fine, because I was able to partition it and format it using Seagate Utilities, but Instant Cake fails with the above error.

I know it's not the PC, or ribbon cables, because I tried using a 80GB drive to restore the image and it worked beautifully.

Any ideas?

Thanks in advance.

[ThomasMiddlebrooks64774]

Can I use instantcake on existing drives and have it keep the shows I had recorded?

[Rick Travis]

No, Instantcake makes the Tivo look new,all shows are lost. Sorry:(

[ThomasMiddlebrooks64774]

Thanks for the quick response.

Ok, second question then.... what can save the shows? I genned up a brand new drive with instantcake and I think it is up and running fine but I would like to transfer the shows from the old drive over.

[Rick Travis]

Go to www.MFSlive.org that will contain info on copying disks. I do not know if you can just copy shows and not the image. You will have to research that yourself. :)

[ZaakOConan64304]

Hi all,

I just used instantcake on my SA2 TiVo and it worked fine!

I am attempting to get into debug mode on the serial port, serial works,
I need the password as it is not "factory" as it was.

INFO:
SW-ICAKE-S2SA-DL-140
InstantCake for Series2 Standalone TiVo Units (download)

Thanks
Zaak

[Lou Jacob]

As of last night, we released an updated version of InstantCake for the HR10-250, utilizing 6.3f of the software.

In addition, we've released an updated version of PTVnet for 6.3 which will work with 6.3f of the software (previous versions will not, and I've just posted more details on that in the PTVnet Official Discussion Thread (http://www.dvrupgrade.com/forums/showthread.php?t=17)).

Note that:

1) Any orders in our cart have been updated so that folks who've previously purchased PTVnet or InstantCake of the 6.3 variety, now have access to the current versions. If you have purchased within the past 90-days AND have not used all of your download links, you will have access. If you've purchased outside of the past 90-days OR have used all of your download links, I'm sorry, you'll have to repurchase to gain the latest version. But remember, if you upgraded a unit with a previous version of InstantCake, it can 'organically' update to the latest version over time, so there is no need to repurchase or reinstall anything unless you want to.

2) We've also done some work on The Slicer this weekend and confirmed that until late today, any attempt to use The Slicer on a 6.3x to 6.3f migration, if you were using the default DHCP PTVnet configuration, would have caused problems (for the same reasons as described above). Late this afternoon, we put a fix in place (The Slicer downloads a patch from our server during the installation process) to allow migrations to work. SO, if you are sitting with 6.3e or earlier, and a PTVnet installation, and are considering the use of The Slicer, it does work fine. But use a serial cable, just in case, because if you don't, you are on your own.

[rich47]

I have a HDVR2 DirecTivo unit that I want to upgrade with more recording capacity. I have upgraded a Tivo once before using Hinsdale's how-to, but I recently came across your site. Can you outline the differences between InstantCake and Hinsdale? Can I use InstantCake
and preserve the recordings on my current hard drive? Thanks for your advice.

[Lou Jacob]

I have a HDVR2 DirecTivo unit that I want to upgrade with more recording capacity. I have upgraded a Tivo once before using Hinsdale's how-to, but I recently came across your site. Can you outline the differences between InstantCake and Hinsdale? Can I use InstantCake
and preserve the recordings on my current hard drive? Thanks for your advice.

Please review the Instructions for InstantCake (http://www.dvrupgrade.com/forums/showthread.php?t=5), that gives the best overview of the product there is.

In short, you cannot preserve your recordings and use InstantCake because it is designed so that you don't use your original drive, at all...

[rich47]

Is it possible to use a "used" hard drive with InstantCake? I've read through the posts and have seen answers that could go either way. Here's what I have in mind:

-- I want to install a new 500gb drive into an already upgraded directivo (it currently has a 160 gb drive). I am planning to use the Hinsdale how-to so that I can retain the existing recordings.

-- Can I then use InstantCake on the old drive and insert it into another directivo? The instructions call for a blank drive, but I've also read a post that says InstantCake essentially makes a drive blank. Please clarify this for me.

Thanks.

[Rick Travis]

Yes you can use instantcake on a used drive but it is not a good idea. The tivo you install it in will have a sorter life span. make sure you do a sector by sector scan to be sure there are no defective areas. Tivo keeps 2 copies of the system on the drive, one for the active boot and one for a future upgrade. It does not do a true format, only appears such. :)

[Bobington]

I pretty desperately need a downloadable Image of IC for the S3 HD. DRVUpgrade apparently cannot ship CD's outside the continental US.

[franknthomas]

Hi Lou, Sorry if this is well known question, but I am about to attempt an update of a TCD649 Tivo Series 2 unit and I wanted to validate what seemed to be in the following. When I set up the hard drive and put it in the Tivo, it will still be able to receive automatic software updates, right?

if you upgraded a unit with a previous version of InstantCake, it can 'organically' update to the latest version over time, so there is no need to repurchase or reinstall anything unless you want to.

[RFMax]

Lou,

Can you think of any conditions using PTVNet then InstantCake that backdoors could have been enabled? Don't you have to modify tivoapp to enable backdoors? The disk I used was previously hacked but shouldn't your software have completely overwritten the disk and installed fresh? From what you are saying I can't see how it could have completely cleaned the disk and have backdoors still enabled. Any ideas? Very puzzling indeed.

Thanks!

I just had the same issue on a fresh baked drive for my Philips DSR7000 using PTVNet and slipstreaming in IntantCake when prompted to do so.. Suspecting I'd done something wrong I baked two more drives and neither display "backdoors enabled". The "enabled" drive is a Seagate 500 gig, the non "enabled" a Seagate 160 gig.

Any thoughts?

Thanks!

[MatthewCardillo66956]

I recently purchased the downloadable InstantCake disk ISO for converting my TCD540040 Series 2 SA Tivo.

Having burned the image to a disc, I am unable to boot from the image. Boot-from-CD is enabled in my bios and has worked in the past with other media.

When I insert the disc into the drive while booted into Windows, an autorun opens my browser and loads the DVRUpgrade.com homepage. :confused:

This is what I'm seeing in the root of the disc that I created:

Autorun.inf
isolinux
ptstart.exe


Should there be more files at the root level of this disc image to make it bootable?

The Autorun.inf file just has the following in it:

[Autorun]
open=PTStart.exe http://www.dvrupgrade.com

Please let me know if there's something I'm doing wrong with burning this iso image or if the image itself is incomplete.

-Matt

[Lou Jacob]

I recently purchased the downloadable InstantCake disk ISO for converting my TCD540040 Series 2 SA Tivo.

Having burned the image to a disc, I am unable to boot from the image. Boot-from-CD is enabled in my bios and has worked in the past with other media.

When I insert the disc into the drive while booted into Windows, an autorun opens my browser and loads the DVRUpgrade.com homepage. :confused:

This is what I'm seeing in the root of the disc that I created:


Should there be more files at the root level of this disc image to make it bootable?

The Autorun.inf file just has the following in it:


Please let me know if there's something I'm doing wrong with burning this iso image or if the image itself is incomplete.

-Matt

If your CD isn't booting, it is one of two problems:

1) you are not burning the CD properly
2) you don't have your PC BIOS configured properly

It sounds like you've ruled out the PC BIOS issue by trying with another CD that is bootable.

But you've not provided any information on how you are burning the CD; that is likely the problem...

Please provide some more info on what steps you've taken when burning the CD.

[JELaVallee]

If your CD isn't booting, it is one of two problems:

1) you are not burning the CD properly
2) you don't have your PC BIOS configured properly

It sounds like you've ruled out the PC BIOS issue by trying with another CD that is bootable.

But you've not provided any information on how you are burning the CD; that is likely the problem...

Please provide some more info on what steps you've taken when burning the CD.

Lou,

I burned the ISO image in question for Matt on my MacBook Pro (Tiger/10.4.12) using the native Disk Utility.app to load and burn the image. I've done this a number of times with other isolinux based images for creating boot CDs and not had a problem.

Going to confirm with Matt that he has his BIOS's bootloading order setup correctly and will let you know, but he has apparently booted from other CD's on the system he's using to do the InstantCake upgrade.

We're using the instantcake-IC2-TCD540-7.2.0-oth-01-2-540.iso image.

thanks,
Etienne

[Lou Jacob]

Looks like some folks are having problems with the dial-in numbers when they attempt to go through guided setup. This isn't specific to users of InstantCake, or all DirecTV TiVo users. But it does look like some folks have problems which are being discussed here at TCF. If you are having a problem with dial-in, you may want to check out this thread:

Working *FIX* for all DTIVO Dial In Problems. - DTV shuts down DTIVO setup lines! (http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?p=6178499#post6178499)

Don't be misled by the title, DirecTV has not shut down their setup lines from what is being reported there...

[Lou Jacob]

A few folks have complained of reboot loops on their TCD540 units after they updated to 9.3 of the software from TiVo. It has been suggested that the problem may be related to InstantCake, however given that InstantCake simply uses the standard MFStools, embedded in a script, if this were absolutely the case, then any upgraded unit would potentially be affected by this software update. With only a few folks reporting the problem, it is difficult to say whether this is just a case of a random problem associated with the software update, or perhaps an underlying hardware problem.

In either case, we've test our own unit using InstantCake, and allowed it to organically update to 9.3 without any obvious problems. For good measure, we've updated the version of InstantCake in our library to 9.3 and it is currently available on our site. For those who have purchased InstantCake within the past 90 days, and not exceeded their download limit, we've updated the version as a courtesy, as well.

The release notes (http://www.dvrupgrade.com/dvrupgrade-support-center/index.php?x=&mod_id=2&id=116) have been updated to reflect this version change, as well.

Cheers,

Lou

[texaskiwi]

I installed PTVnert and instant cake on two DSR704 with two 500mb hard drives each. I have not installed anything else on these drives.

I bought Directv cards and installed them , However Directv could not activate either of the DVRs.

They are "escalating the Ticket" I'm afraid they will ask me to connect a phone line and install over my new instantcake, PTV software.

Has anybody had trouble with the latest versions of the software with Directv activation. Could the two 500mb hard drives be too big and causing problems?

Any ideas?

[Lou Jacob]

I installed PTVnert and instant cake on two DSR704 with two 500mb hard drives each. I have not installed anything else on these drives.

I bought Directv cards and installed them , However Directv could not activate either of the DVRs.

They are "escalating the Ticket" I'm afraid they will ask me to connect a phone line and install over my new instantcake, PTV software.

Has anybody had trouble with the latest versions of the software with Directv activation. Could the two 500mb hard drives be too big and causing problems?

Any ideas?

Two 500GB drives will work fine, and there is no reason why you should be having any problems. Perhaps its related to the cards you are using, but even if they tell you to make a phone call, that shouldn't make a difference. You may need to make an initial phone call when going through your guided setup, but its just a test call and it shouldn't affect things either.

Activated or not, the unit should work fine on channel 100 or whatever they are using as preview channels these days...

Make sure your satellite connections are plugged into the satellite receiver correctly!

Lou

[texaskiwi]

Two 500GB drives will work fine, and there is no reason why you should be having any problems. Perhaps its related to the cards you are using, but even if they tell you to make a phone call, that shouldn't make a difference. You may need to make an initial phone call when going through your guided setup, but its just a test call and it shouldn't affect things either.

Activated or not, the unit should work fine on channel 100 or whatever they are using as preview channels these days...

Make sure your satellite connections are plugged into the satellite receiver correctly!

Lou


Thanks Lou, channell 100 and 200 are working fine, they just couldn't get any other channels to work. If they ask me to connect a phone line I won't worry.

[jrb2971]

my tivo. is a series 2. I upgraded it before from 80hours to add another (drive 2) 160g. But my system is acting up.. not loading or hanging often. I wanted to move my 2 drive system to a single 300g that i have. Will you program do this?
mfstools isn't working

[Lou Jacob]

my tivo. is a series 2. I upgraded it before from 80hours to add another (drive 2) 160g. But my system is acting up.. not loading or hanging often. I wanted to move my 2 drive system to a single 300g that i have. Will you program do this?
mfstools isn't working

One (or both) of your drives is most likely bad. We have no software products that can change that fact or help you attempt to save the content, especially if a drive is bad.

Your best bet would be to use InstantCake on a new, and thoroughly tested, drive. Alternatively, you could run diags on your two drives, and if one of them is still good, you could use InstantCake on that one.

[jrb2971]

One (or both) of your drives is most likely bad. We have no software products that can change that fact or help you attempt to save the content, especially if a drive is bad.

Your best bet would be to use InstantCake on a new, and thoroughly tested, drive. Alternatively, you could run diags on your two drives, and if one of them is still good, you could use InstantCake on that one.

I bought instantcake. I put my two drives (from my tivo) into the pc as hda (primary master) and hdb (primary slave), the new drive as hdc (secondary master 300g, plenty o room) and the cdrom as the last (secondary slave). Instantcake had no menu options for going from a 2 drive system (80g and 160g) to a 300g.

So I attempted to look for any repair utils. I didn't see any in the menu choices (or briefly in the instructions). I pulled everything out, put in the cdrom drive and the 300g drive. Baked myself I guess a new tivo drive. Then, I noticed that mfstools was on the cdrom. So I went back to the original configuration above and just tried mfstools to combine the 2 drives into the single big drive. No luck. I read about the mfsrestore option switches and pulled out the x switch. it worked then. I guess for some reason mfstools thought 300g wasn't enough space. But without the x option it works.. so i am not using the full 300g, but atleast i have my two drives into one now. It should be ready in 4 hours I guess.. but I didn't end up baking it.. just fudging it...

any thoughts? thanks again

[jrb2971]

so i put the 300g drive back into tivo.. it just sits on "welcome. powering up..."
oh darn

I guess I'll just try to create a new tivo drive with instantcake
maybe there is a way to get my shows of the old drives?

[Lou Jacob]

so i put the 300g drive back into tivo.. it just sits on "welcome. powering up..."
oh darn

I guess I'll just try to create a new tivo drive with instantcake
maybe there is a way to get my shows of the old drives?

I still think your best bet is what I suggested in post #93...

Lou

[InspectorGadget]

My Series 1 DTiVo (SAT-T60) with LBA48 from IC 3.5c just got hosed by the 3.5d update. WHY MUST THEY UPDATE US??? Are you going to have an IC with 3.5d on it? I think my filesystem is hosed now so I'll have to start over.

What are my alternatives? Rebuild with IC 3.5c, let 3.5d download again, and then copykern the LBA48 kernel back on?

Is there any way to prevent future updates on this model more elegant than completely disconnecting your phone connection? Ordering PPV through the DTiVo is half the reason I have a TiVO.

- The Inspector

[Lou Jacob]

My Series 1 DTiVo (SAT-T60) with LBA48 from IC 3.5c just got hosed by the 3.5d update. WHY MUST THEY UPDATE US??? Are you going to have an IC with 3.5d on it? I think my filesystem is hosed now so I'll have to start over.

What are my alternatives? Rebuild with IC 3.5c, let 3.5d download again, and then copykern the LBA48 kernel back on?

Is there any way to prevent future updates on this model more elegant than completely disconnecting your phone connection? Ordering PPV through the DTiVo is half the reason I have a TiVO.

- The Inspector

Using CopyKern in that way should work. You can probably do it with your current system with 3.5d on it, but your database may already be corrupt, so doing a clear and delete everything might be a good idea. We really don't know if the modified kernel will work with 3.5d, but I'd guess it will.

To prevent updates, just unplug your unit from the network or phone line and ignore the 'nag messages' if you receive them. Order your PPV movies using directv.com (or by calling).

[InspectorGadget]

Thanks for the response, Lou.

Will you eventually come out with an IC w/3.5d? (after testing, etc?)

Also...

To prevent updates, just unplug your unit from the network or phone line and ignore the 'nag messages' if you receive them. Order your PPV movies using directv.com (or by calling).

Yeah, I did mention that I know this; I just wish someone in the community would come up with a less kludgey solution. It's Linux, after all... See, it's not the ordering that's the issue; it's the coordinated recording that's the critical feature.

I'm dyslexic and have a very faulty short-term memory and it's extremely stressful copying parameters in setting up a manual recording. When I try to do it, I make mistakes literally half the time! This is why I graduated to TiVo from VCR recording -- I would mis-record half the time because of some little setting I would get wrong, or AM/PM, day of the week, date backwards, etc. And my wife would NEVER even try to do it manually, and she uses PPV a lot currently.

So this is an open request of all the intelligent TiVo hackers out there to find a more technical solution to the update prevention.

BTW, anyone know what was in the S1 DTiVo 3.5d update?

[careys]

Using CopyKern in that way should work. You can probably do it with your current system with 3.5d on it, but your database may already be corrupt, so doing a clear and delete everything might be a good idea. ....


Since this has affected me also today, it has probably also affected others. Would one of you mind providing the short instructions on how to use Copykern to copy the LBA48 kernel over onto the existing download of 3.5d ? (i'm thinking just tell me where to look to find the "long" instructions.

If my Tivo has already gotten to the place of continually rebooting, do you think the Copykern on that system would yield any benefit, especially if you have to do Clear and Delete everything?

Finally, how would I know when to "catch" the 3.5d download such that I could do Copykern after redoing with IC with 3.5c on it and before it starts to reboot after?

Thanks,

- Carey

[ronsch]

The easiest technical solution to prevent an untimely upgrade is to use the bootpage utility and specify the parameter upgradesoftware=false. Works like a charm.

The point at which you pull the drive to do the copykern is immediately after the software install/database update has taken place and the TiVo jumps back to the "Welcome...Powering Up" screen. Just pull the power plug at that point. That requires you to control when that takes place and that is accomplished by keeping the "upgrade software=false" in place until your ready.

[careys]

Thanks ronsch. I found the LBA48 CD image here and I will try the copykern later today. If I get the huevos, I will try to modify the bootpage to turn off updates also.

If that doesn't work, well, I guess I will re-image to 3.5c and follow all the above.

TiVo is not as fun as it used to be - for me.

[InspectorGadget]

The easiest technical solution to prevent an untimely upgrade is to use the bootpage utility and specify the parameter upgradesoftware=false. Works like a charm.


I have heard conflicting reports about "upgradesoftware=false". Do you have first-hand experience? Please elaborate.

In my understanding the upgrade will happen in the alternate root space but the "upgradesoftware=false" prevents it from automatically rebooting. So how do you know the upgrade happened, in order to synchronize the LB48 kernel replacement you outlined above? Is there some status change in the current root space that you can flag and somehow signal?

Sometimes my TiVo reboots sponaneously so I need to know ASAP after an upgrade comes down even if I do have automatic reboots suppressed.

[Lou Jacob]

I have heard conflicting reports about "upgradesoftware=false". Do you have first-hand experience? Please elaborate.

In my understanding the upgrade will happen in the alternate root space but the "upgradesoftware=false" prevents it from automatically rebooting. So how do you know the upgrade happened, in order to synchronize the LB48 kernel replacement you outlined above? Is there some status change in the current root space that you can flag and somehow signal?

Sometimes my TiVo reboots sponaneously so I need to know ASAP after an upgrade comes down even if I do have automatic reboots suppressed.

Just unplug your phone line (and disable the daily-call through the network, if you've enabled it) and the 'pending restart...' which ultimately triggers the update of your software, will not occur...

[ronsch]

I have heard conflicting reports about "upgradesoftware=false". Do you have first-hand experience? Please elaborate.

In my understanding the upgrade will happen in the alternate root space but the "upgradesoftware=false" prevents it from automatically rebooting. So how do you know the upgrade happened, in order to synchronize the LB48 kernel replacement you outlined above? Is there some status change in the current root space that you can flag and somehow signal?

Sometimes my TiVo reboots sponaneously so I need to know ASAP after an upgrade comes down even if I do have automatic reboots suppressed.

Yes, I have first-hand experience. This method is currently holding off the upgrade to 3.5d on my DSR6000 and did so for a couple of months last year with 3.5c.

I will post more information when I can review my notes at home. I don't want to leave out a step. Lou's method will also keep the new software from being implemented. It needs that phone call home to trigger the process.

[ronsch]

Okay. Sorry about the delay. Read this entire post twice before you enter any commands.

The command to inspect your boot page options is
bootpage -p /dev/hda

This will tell you at a minimum which partition is your active one, hda4 or hda7.

Assume your active partition is 7. To stop any upgrades you would do:

bootpage -P "root=/dev/hda7 upgradesoftware=false" /dev/hda

That will prevent rc.sysinit from calling InstallSw.tcl during the boot process that follows the phone call. I leave my DTiVo in this state all the time. You can look in rc.sysinit and see where this happens.

If anything besides "root=/dev/hdax" is shown to be present with the bootpage -p, include it in the string you give to bootpage -P each time.

When your ready for the upgrade to happen you would do the following:

bootpage -P "root=/dev/hda7" /dev/hda

Force a call home.

After the call completes force a reboot.

You should see a message to the effect that the TiVo software is being upgraded.
As soon as that completes the TiVo will begin another reboot. You pull the power plug as soon as that happens so the new kernel doesn't get to hose your large drive.

Pull the drive and place in your PC.

I always check to make sure killinitrd doesn't need to be rerun and make sure cachecard drivers don't need to be reinstalled(if you have a cache card) or just do both - it doesn't hurt anything.

Perform the copykern process as documented.

You also need to make sure your hacks get reinstalled if they aren't under /var.

Next, if these apply to you, copy over your rc.sysinit.author, .profile, .bash_logout and/or any other modified files you have in partition 7 to partition 4, which will be your new active partition.

Put the drive back in the TiVo and you should be good to go.

Of course if your current active partition is hda4 when you start this process, swap the fours and sevens.

You will also want to repeat the bootpage commands at the top of this post to prevent any further upgrades from happening without you knowing about it.

[bimmerman]

I am having an issue running this.

I have the DVD drive as boot 1

HD as boot 2 and I am getting the message

/dev/hdc: Read-only file system
Restore failed: Unable to open destination device for writing.

Cannot continue -- processing aborted.

/#

I am using an older E machine since my custom setup does not use IDE cable. In the boot it does not list master/slave for the CD/DVD rom, but I have set as first to boot.

I also have the Instatcake burnt to DVD, does that make a diff?

[Lou Jacob]

I am having an issue running this.

I have the DVD drive as boot 1

HD as boot 2 and I am getting the message

/dev/hdc: Read-only file system
Restore failed: Unable to open destination device for writing.

Cannot continue -- processing aborted.

/#

I am using an older E machine since my custom setup does not use IDE cable. In the boot it does not list master/slave for the CD/DVD rom, but I have set as first to boot.

I also have the Instatcake burnt to DVD, does that make a diff?

You don't have your devices connected properly; remember, CD-ROM needs to be primary slave (/dev/hdb) and hard drive needs to be secondary master (/dev/hdc).

Please see instructions for more details and note that some (but not all) versions of InstantCake have an advanced mode where you can specify the devices (see the boot splash screen - F1, F2, F3 - for more details)

[bimmerman]

After several tires I finally got it up and running. Now I can not get past the set up screen where it wants to dial out.

I have tried *401 but that does not work. I do not have a home phone so I was wondering, if I take the box to someone house and use there phone will I later be able to set it up to connect via wireless adapter?

[Lou Jacob]

After several tires I finally got it up and running. Now I can not get past the set up screen where it wants to dial out.

I have tried *401 but that does not work. I do not have a home phone so I was wondering, if I take the box to someone house and use there phone will I later be able to set it up to connect via wireless adapter?

*401 won't do anything for you; ,#401 will (sounds like you are using a TurboNet card or a CacheCard?).

Go ahead and start a new thread with any follow-up questions regarding TurboNet and/or networking in general, this is no longer an InstantCake discussion (which is good news for you!).

Lou

[bimmerman]

Could it be in part that i might be using an older version of the instantcake? if so how can I update it?


The Tivo software is 5.3-01-02-540

The old drive works fine with the adaptor.

[bimmerman]

If I buy a new copy of instantcake will it install the newest software?

[AlexJaloway69551]

I bought instant cake software today for my Series 2 TIVO. I downloaded the instant cake iso file on my computer and uncompressed the files into a separate directory. I then burned the files and the subdirectories on a CD. I burned it as a data (following the instructions). I configured the drives with the new drive at secondary master, the hard drive disconnected, and the CD drive on the primary slave. When I reboot with the CD, the message gives me "no operating system" or "need reboot files."

I burned the CD 3 times. I purchased instant cake software 4 years ago and still have the disk. However, it only handles drives around 120G. If you use a 250G, it will only give you 120G space. That is why I bought the updated instant cake version today.

In any event, I put the CD (with the old instant cake software) in the computer and rebooted. It worked and gave me the prompt to start the upgrade.

What I am doing wrong with burning the CD?

Thanks for your help in advance.

[Rick Travis]

use Nero and burn as an iso file. Its an image and has to be burned as such, no need to separate files

[AlexJaloway69551]

Thanks for your quick reply.

When using NERO, I initially burned the iso file to a CD. When checking the CD, the only thing that exists is the iso file. NERO lists the type as "image file."

In NERO, I went through the data file screens and could find no other options.

Using the CD with the .iso file gives me the same error. "No operating system."

What am I doing wrong when burning the file?

Thanks in advance for your help.

[bimmerman]

Try using Image burn, you can download it free and it is very simple to use.

[Rick Travis]

Remember Directv Tivo series 2 uses Mips II microprocessor. It appears as a blank disk to the 8086 family of machines. try booting it, if it does not boot try recording it at a slower speed. remember your CDrom drive should be \dev\hdb the primary slave and the target drive should be \dev\hdc secondary master, both drives should be configured as such :)

[robusdin]

Just got Instantcake - planning on doing a new 120 Gb hard drive for a standalone series 2 whose 40 Gb drive died.

Question - does the new drive HAVE to be formatted as FAT32? It's NTFS right now. Just wondering, as I'll have to do it before I start the process....

--*Rob

[robusdin]

....I managed to get the drive formated to FAT32 even though it was 120 GB. Was able to run Instantcake and all went well! We now have resurrected our TIVO!

Thanks Instantcake!

--*Rob

[Lou Jacob]

....I managed to get the drive formated to FAT32 even though it was 120 GB. Was able to run Instantcake and all went well! We now have resurrected our TIVO!

Thanks Instantcake!

--*Rob

Glad you got it working; just so you know, you didn't need to format the drive at all. We recommend testing it before you use InstantCake, but the InstantCake software takes care of the partitioning of the disk and the installation of the TiVo software so that you don't need to worry about it.

Lou

[InspectorGadget]

Why did a new IC drive flip boot partitions? (And go into a reboot cycle??)

I finally rebuiilt my SAT-T60 DTiVo's 320GB Seagate with a new IC 3.5d on Tuesday. Stock IC installation, I checked with "bootpage" and saw it was booting from partition hda7. Worked OK Tuesday night, Weds. night.

This morning, it was in a reboot cycle. Sometimes it got as far as the CacheCard init, and threw write errors before rebooting. I replaced the drive cable with a brand new one just to make sure but no change.

Finally I pulled the drive and looked at it with "bootpage" and it says it was booting from hda4 now! Oh, is this what IC does when you first boot the drive for configuring and then rebooting? Does it flip boot partitions?

So assuming the hda4 boot is OK, what would cause a new IC installation to start a reboot cycle? Don't tell me my drive is bad!!?? It's been running in an OPEN CASE all its lifetime, only about 6 months.

[Lou Jacob]

Why did a new IC drive flip boot partitions? (And go into a reboot cycle??)

I finally rebuiilt my SAT-T60 DTiVo's 320GB Seagate with a new IC 3.5d on Tuesday. Stock IC installation, I checked with "bootpage" and saw it was booting from partition hda7. Worked OK Tuesday night, Weds. night.

This morning, it was in a reboot cycle. Sometimes it got as far as the CacheCard init, and threw write errors before rebooting. I replaced the drive cable with a brand new one just to make sure but no change.

Finally I pulled the drive and looked at it with "bootpage" and it says it was booting from hda4 now! Oh, is this what IC does when you first boot the drive for configuring and then rebooting? Does it flip boot partitions?

So assuming the hda4 boot is OK, what would cause a new IC installation to start a reboot cycle? Don't tell me my drive is bad!!?? It's been running in an OPEN CASE all its lifetime, only about 6 months.

The two things you are observing are unrelated.

The first time InstantCake is configured on a drive for your type of unit, the bootpage is set for a different partition then the one that is ultimately used for the running system. The reason for this is that we use the alternate partition to boot from, just once, so that the eproms on the TiVo can be flashed -- this allows the software modifications we use to run.

So, if you watched your unit, the very first time it booted, with the InstantCake drive, you will have seen that it started booting on /dev/hda7, then the eprom flashed, then the boot partition was swapped and the unit rebooted. Then it came up on /dev/hda4, and you were fine...

As for the reason its in a reboot loop now... you may not want to hear this, but the most common cause of this IS a bad drive. It does not matter whether your case is open or not, or how long you ran your drive for. The only way to know for sure is to run diagnostics on your drive....

[InspectorGadget]

The only way to know for sure is to run diagnostics on your drive....

I've been running "badblocks" all night off the IC boot (badblocks -v /dev/hdc 625xxxxxx) and it hasn't reported any bad blocks yet. BTW, what is the default blocksize in the altered "badblocks" function on the DVRUpgrade IC distribution? Is it correct that the final argument is the total # blocks on the drive? (If the default blocksize is 1024 instead of 512, I may have overdone the total blocks...)

I guess I'll run it with -w next since it looks like I'll have to rebuild the drive (or another drive) anyway.

[Kalor]

I used the IC software to create a new Tivo Drive from a Maxtor 200GB. The Bake went fine and reported no errors. Now the drive is in my machine and i am getting choppy video and recordings. Any Ideas?

[Lou Jacob]

I used the IC software to create a new Tivo Drive from a Maxtor 200GB. The Bake went fine and reported no errors. Now the drive is in my machine and i am getting choppy video and recordings. Any Ideas?

First and foremost, you should have run full diagnostics on your hard drive to ensure there isn't a problem with the hard drive you are using.

Secondly, keep in mind that your TiVo will be busy, the first several hours after installing your drive (populating its database with guide data), so its possible that it is overloaded with activity and that can sometimes cause problems - that is not common though so it is more likely that the problem could be the hard drive, perhaps a bad or loose cable, or maybe even something else with the hardware.

In the end, it doesn't have anything to do with the InstantCake software as that is just a set of scripts use to prepare your drive for installation in your TiVo, so now what you need to do is eliminate any other variables which could be contributing to the problem.

[Kalor]

Lou,
I Apologize for not including this in the first thread. I ran a full and complete diagnostic check on the drive using Maxtors diagnostic tools before running the IC software on it and the drive checked out fine. It has now been 2 days since I installed the replacement drive in the Tivo. The live TV portion seems to be ok but I am still getting skips in the recordings of about 1 second. Especially if I am recording 2 shows at once. Could it be that the processor can't handle Recording 2 shows at once on a drive this size?

Also I have checked and the Tivo has its full 2 week schedule downloaded and has the same software revision and settings as before I updated the drive now. So their shouldn't be a large amount of activity.

[InspectorGadget]

Kalor, and all who have mysterious drive or system behavior problems:

See my post a few above. I had a reboot loop and Lou thought it was a bad drive (which is often the case with that symptom). Well, I did a passive badblocks test on the full drive and it found NO problems. So I replaced the drive cable and guess what? It worked fine. It's been working flawlessly now for a couple of weeks without reinstall or doing anything to the drive itself.

It's a long shot but it's a really easy thing to try replacing the drive cable. I got an EIDE cable and just looped it under the drive chassis to avoid any kinks.

Also, when you're pulling drives from the TiVo, be VERY careful unplugging the drive cable. I've damaged two cables this way and didn't figure it out until I tried a cable replacement. Make sure the cable you use has a strain relief piece still on at the drive end (or whichever end you unplug).

Of course YMMV but it might be worth a try before replacing the drive if it comes down to that.

[Kalor]

Inspector Gadget,
Thanks for that advice Acutally what you say about the cable makes since this still has the original cable from 3 years ago which most definately could be bad. I'll give this a try and let you know.

[Kalor]

Ok. Does Tivo Need a Special IDE cable if you replace the cable?

[zapster]

Over on the TivoCommunity forums it was mentioned that:

we are considering an 'advanced' mode of the next release of InstantCake which will allow users to specify the location of the CDROM device (flexibility == complexity in many cases, so we'll have to figure out how to make it as easy for as many people as possible).

Was the advanced mode incorporated into InstantCake for Series 1 Tivos? It would be great if the user could select the CD and HD locations at the start of the process.

[RavX]

Hello,

I have a DirecTivo Series 2 - Hughes SD-DVR80. It has been rebooting itself/skipping/etc. so I'm pretty sure the HDD is going. A friend of mine pointed me to InstantCake as an easy way to get a new drive up and running. My issue is I am not sure which version to get. When I plug my model into the wizard it lists two versions - 6.2a and 6.4a as available downloads.

I have tried searching tivocommunity and this site for differences between the two but have had no luck - perhaps I am using the wrong terms in my search.

Can anyone summarize the differences between these versions and which of these I want? My friend also suggested I use Zipper in conjunction with InstantCake on the new drive - does that make a difference as to which I chooses as well?

I have zero experience modding or hacking Tivos so I'm just trying to ensure I do this right.

Also, is there a way to copy my saved shows from the failing drive to the new one easily? I apologize if these are novice questions and/or if they don't belong in this thread.

Thanks in advance!

[Lou Jacob]

Over on the TivoCommunity forums it was mentioned that:



Was the advanced mode incorporated into InstantCake for Series 1 Tivos? It would be great if the user could select the CD and HD locations at the start of the process.

No; not sure if it was the same thread, but that version of InstantCake has not been modified in quite some time. There is a discussion on TCF which also details how to edit the scripts so you can specify different device names (an alternative to the advanced mode offered in newer versions). If that doesn't work for you, then we recommend you get a PC with the required dual-IDE channels, or just consider a kit and not worry about it.

Hello,

I have a DirecTivo Series 2 - Hughes SD-DVR80. It has been rebooting itself/skipping/etc. so I'm pretty sure the HDD is going. A friend of mine pointed me to InstantCake as an easy way to get a new drive up and running. My issue is I am not sure which version to get. When I plug my model into the wizard it lists two versions - 6.2a and 6.4a as available downloads.

I have tried searching tivocommunity and this site for differences between the two but have had no luck - perhaps I am using the wrong terms in my search.

Can anyone summarize the differences between these versions and which of these I want? My friend also suggested I use Zipper in conjunction with InstantCake on the new drive - does that make a difference as to which I chooses as well?

I have zero experience modding or hacking Tivos so I'm just trying to ensure I do this right.

Also, is there a way to copy my saved shows from the failing drive to the new one easily? I apologize if these are novice questions and/or if they don't belong in this thread.

Thanks in advance!

The main difference between 6.2a and 6.4a is that 6.2a has some 'hidden' functionality that can be enabled to allow you to use MRV between multiple units upgraded for your network. There is an article about this in the 'articles' area of this site, but if you are a newbie and this doesn't mean much to you, then I'd recommend you just go with 6.4a and be done with it.

Since you have zero experience, the DIY software approach may not be your best bet, but it will work for you if you spend the time to read and learn the ins and outs. You have to decide whether its worth your time, vs paying a little more to have someone else do it for you.

If you ARE going to go the DIY route, and you want to network your unit so that you can access it via the web, then all you need are PTVnet and InstantCake for your particular unit.

You can use the zipper instead of the zipper, but you'll have your work cut out for you and that is not something I can offer you any assistance or guidance with - there is plenty of info at TCF about that.

But if you are comfortable with a PC, InstantCake will work fine on a hard drive of your choice and allow you to upgrade your TiVo to a larger drive.

[zapster]

No; not sure if it was the same thread, but that version of InstantCake has not been modified in quite some time. There is a discussion on TCF which also details how to edit the scripts so you can specify different device names (an alternative to the advanced mode offered in newer versions). If that doesn't work for you, then we recommend you get a PC with the required dual-IDE channels, or just consider a kit and not worry about it.

I have a PC with the required IDE channels. Problem is rearranging all of the cables would be a major project.

Is InstantCake based on open source code?

[RavX]

The main difference between 6.2a and 6.4a is that 6.2a has some 'hidden' functionality that can be enabled to allow you to use MRV between multiple units upgraded for your network. There is an article about this in the 'articles' area of this site, but if you are a newbie and this doesn't mean much to you, then I'd recommend you just go with 6.4a and be done with it.

Since you have zero experience, the DIY software approach may not be your best bet, but it will work for you if you spend the time to read and learn the ins and outs. You have to decide whether its worth your time, vs paying a little more to have someone else do it for you.

If you ARE going to go the DIY route, and you want to network your unit so that you can access it via the web, then all you need are PTVnet and InstantCake for your particular unit.

You can use the zipper instead of the zipper, but you'll have your work cut out for you and that is not something I can offer you any assistance or guidance with - there is plenty of info at TCF about that.

But if you are comfortable with a PC, InstantCake will work fine on a hard drive of your choice and allow you to upgrade your TiVo to a larger drive.

Thank you very much for the quick response Lou! I have a few followup questions which I would be happy to take to PMs if it is not a fit for this thread:

If I were to go with 6.2a would I have to unplug my DirecTivo from the telephone jack to avoid automatic "Call-ins"? I know I am running 6.4a via DirecTv on my failing drive and did not know if I were to create a new drive with 6.2a if it would try to update automatically and cause issues if I had enabled the USB ports.

I will definitely look into PVTnet and compare it to Zipper - while I am a novice at dealing withi upgrading Tivos I do have computer hardware experience etc. from building my own PCs. I am hoping I would be able to pick this up pretty easily. I will also review the articles you have here per your suggestion.

My last question is - Is there any features inherent in InstantCake that will enable me to salvage my saved shows on the failing HDD currently in my Tivo? Feel free to PM me if these are not relevant to the thread. I don't want to derail it in any way.

Thanks again!

[DRSpalding]

Hey,

Friday, I finished resurrecting my DSR6000 (down with a dying drive A) and currently running with the old v2.5.2 original HD. I used the DSR6000 InstantCake 3.5d and made a primary drive out of the older WD 120GB secondary I used to use. How did we ever like 2.5.2? It is so slow!

All seems well now, except that in the System Info and the Info page on TivoWeb, the account status shows up as monthly subscription when my unit is actually a lifetime subscription.

Could it be that I actually have a DSR6000R instead and if that is the case, is that an actual problem? I.e. since I have the InstantCake for a DSR6000, is it different from the newer DSR6000 releases?

A general question now. I set the unit to dial via the network using ,#401 to test the network out of my home network. How do I now get the unit back to "never call, never fail" mode? After poking about, I see that there are a couple of scripts in /ptvupgrade/bin that seem to fit the bill: upgrade_off and upgrade_on. Can I run them safely?

Thanks for any help you can render.
Dan

edit:
After digging around in the back of my cabinet, I have come to realize that I have a DSR6000R01! Dammit. Is that now the likely culprit for the ailment I describe? I feel foolish, because I had always assumed that it was a standard DSR6000, not an R01 model. Can someone tell me the differences in the InstantCake software (I have the TWP ISO) and if I can fix/resolve the issues w/o having to reimage a drive?

[leecallen]

I am new to TiVo hacking, but fairly experienced with Linux.

I recently replaced a Series 2 with an HD TiVo. Now my goal is to use the old Series 2 as a simple media player, without a subscription, showing videos I download from the 'net. With a bigger disk of course. I plan to use it with the 'tivoserver' program, if all goes well.

I purchased & downloaded:
SW-ICAKE-S2SA-DL-240 InstantCake for Series2 Standalone TiVo Units
SW-SLICER-S2DT-DL-240 The Slicer
SW-LBA48-DL-240 LBA48 Boot CD version with Enhancements

If I just image my disk using InstantCake, all is well: Tivo works great with my wireless adapters (DLink DWL-122, TiVo AG0100) and my wired adapter (LinkSys, model number unreadable).

The problem occurs when I try to apply the patched kernels using Sapper, or working directly from the LBA48 CD and installing any of the patched kernels. The network adapters are either "not found" or crash the system.

I suspect the problem is a mismatch between the InstantCake kernels & drivers (9.3.01) and the patched kernels from the LBA48 CD (versions 7.2.2 and earlier).

Does that makes sense?
Can I obtain an InstantCake for version 7.2.2? I don't think the purchasing process offered any choices.
Is there a better solution?

I am now thinking this may not be the best approach to my requirement, but I am $45 into it and I really need to make it work.

Thanks for any & all help.

[Lou Jacob]

Can I obtain an InstantCake for version 7.2.2? I don't think the purchasing process offered any choices.
Is there a better solution?


No sorry, the only versions available are the ones we offer on our site.

I can't really comment on the rest of what you are bringing up because its not something I've ever done, and its quite beyond the scope of InstantCake.

You might want to create a new thread, or maybe post over at TiVoCommunity, indicating what you are attempting to accomplish and review the best ways to do it, but again, InstantCake is only for imaging your drive and it sounds like you already got that far...

Lou

[leecallen]

Would it be possible for you to email a 7.2.0 version of IC? I can provide proof that I purchased it. Or I could provide an FTP server to put it on.

The thing is, I have spent $45 on utilities that are apparently incompatible, and I don't see any way out of this.

Thanks.

[Raj]

I'm new to the Tivo Scene. Any advice would be welcome as I've imaged a brand new HD and the unit is still power cycling with the welcome screen.

Model : Toshiba RS-TX60 . Series 2.

I have tried the following.

1. Original image failed HD check using Maxor utils. Do not know if the unit failed due to a combination of problems.... as two lights were on the machine for a while before I checked.
2. new drive low level formatted and checked with Maxtor Utilities subsequent to the reimaged hard drive being installed the first time and failing.
Drive check passed and the imaging has been tried with another HD 120GB as well at the new one with is exactly the same size as original Maxtor 160GB
3. tried the trick with holding the eject button whilst powering up to eject and there is no dvd in the dvd drive.
4. Tried booting with new image with no dvd connected to the board.
5. Tried reseating power cables after removing the dvd unit from the the motherboard.
6. Tried swapping out the IDE cables on both units, ie the HD and the DVDRW , with new ones.
7. Image has been rebuilt on HD using two different pc's first a Duron machine and latest one an old IBM PIII Machine to avoid problems that have been attributed to image creation failure due to AMD chipsets.
8. Tried downloading Instant Cake - 565 version again and reburning on another dvd drive.

have not been able to go to kickstart no matter what I do as the unit consistently stuck on two yellow lights as soon as it's connected to power.

WELCOME display used to show on LED FRONT Panel when booting from original drive but now does not come up with imaged units. .

Power supply seems ok.

Two points to note. -

1. Only thing wierd is that the component out connection shows no image on TV but composite outs connection does.
2. never connected to Tivo after first startup so probably on original firmware version. (NOT SURE IF INSTANT CAKE image would fail due to this)

waiting for helpful input from LOU or anyone on this Forum... thank you.

Raj.

[Lou Jacob]

It does sound like more than one problem. Note that step (8) wasn't really necessary because if you are able to UNZIP the ISO without errors, then you got a clean download.

Since you verified that your original drive was defective AND you verified your new drive as not being defective; and were successful imaging the drive without errors (on two PC's, no less) then it's safe to say that the problem you are currently having is no longer drive-related and that it is something else.

Next step would be to have the unit repaired. Since you already have a drive for the upgrade, your best bet would be WeaKnees (http://www.weaknees.com).

Lou

[fadedace]

I had a bad hard drive in my hd10-250 directivo, so I downloded the instantcake 6.4a cd and went through the whole process and loaded everything onto a maxtor 160GB drive.

After I put the new drive into the tivo though it stays on the "Welome. Powering up..." screen forever.

Any ideas what could be wrong, or what my next steps should be in debugging?

Thanks

[Raj]

Thanks for the quick response Lou.

This is not a DirecTV unit... is it correct to assume they will repair it under the PVR section?

Raj

[Lou Jacob]

Thanks for the quick response Lou.

This is not a DirecTV unit... is it correct to assume they will repair it under the PVR section?

Raj

Not really sure as I have not been to their site in awhile. But send them an email if its not clear, and I'm sure they will clarify.

I had a bad hard drive in my hd10-250 directivo, so I downloded the instantcake 6.4a cd and went through the whole process and loaded everything onto a maxtor 160GB drive.

After I put the new drive into the tivo though it stays on the "Welome. Powering up..." screen forever.

Any ideas what could be wrong, or what my next steps should be in debugging?

Thanks

It could very well be that there is more wrong than just a bad hard drive. See the previous poster (Raj) list of steps taken and also see my previous posts in this threads about the variety of things to try to rule out any other possibilities.

Lou

[leecallen]

I managed to find a 7.2.0 version of IC and that solved my problems. All is well now, and my TiVo is happily hacked.

[chillsyo56]

I downloaded the Instant cake for my Toshiba RS-TX60 and it did not work. The tivo won't even start up and just power cycles just like the only other person I have seen who tried the Instant Cake for the RS-TX60 which he described above. (quoted)

I have the same problem, which makes me think that this download isn't even compatible with the RS-TX60 and that I just got ripped off. Has anyone actually ever used the download with a Toshiba RS-TX60 and had it successfully work? I tried all the things the previous guy I linked to tried, and it seems like it is not even close to compatible...

I know that it does not work because before I tried the Instant Cake disc, the tivo would boot up and let me get to the second part of the guided set up, where it would freeze at the preparing stage (I'm assuming from the bad sectors detected in partition 10 which contains my system files). Now it won't even get to the "Almost there" part of bootup and just cycles power on and off. The instant cake didn't even come close to working. If you have any suggestions as to what I could try to even get the tivo to bootup using Instant Cake, I will listen but it seems like the instant cake does not work at all with the RS-TX60.

When I downloaded it said it was for both Toshiba RS-TX20 and RS-TX60, so they are different so maybe the Instant Cake will work in the RS-TX20 but you have perhaps not tried it in the RS-TX60? Like I said if anyone has actually gotten the Instant Cake to with with their Toshiba RS-TX60 please let me know, but I have not seen anyone have it work in all the research I've done, only have the same problems I and the person I quoted have had.

I'm new to the Tivo Scene. Any advice would be welcome as I've imaged a brand new HD and the unit is still power cycling with the welcome screen.

Model : Toshiba RS-TX60 . Series 2.

I have tried the following.

1. Original image failed HD check using Maxor utils. Do not know if the unit failed due to a combination of problems.... as two lights were on the machine for a while before I checked.
2. new drive low level formatted and checked with Maxtor Utilities subsequent to the reimaged hard drive being installed the first time and failing.
Drive check passed and the imaging has been tried with another HD 120GB as well at the new one with is exactly the same size as original Maxtor 160GB
3. tried the trick with holding the eject button whilst powering up to eject and there is no dvd in the dvd drive.
4. Tried booting with new image with no dvd connected to the board.
5. Tried reseating power cables after removing the dvd unit from the the motherboard.
6. Tried swapping out the IDE cables on both units, ie the HD and the DVDRW , with new ones.
7. Image has been rebuilt on HD using two different pc's first a Duron machine and latest one an old IBM PIII Machine to avoid problems that have been attributed to image creation failure due to AMD chipsets.
8. Tried downloading Instant Cake - 565 version again and reburning on another dvd drive.

have not been able to go to kickstart no matter what I do as the unit consistently stuck on two yellow lights as soon as it's connected to power.

WELCOME display used to show on LED FRONT Panel when booting from original drive but now does not come up with imaged units. .

Power supply seems ok.

Two points to note. -

1. Only thing wierd is that the component out connection shows no image on TV but composite outs connection does.
2. never connected to Tivo after first startup so probably on original firmware version. (NOT SURE IF INSTANT CAKE image would fail due to this)

waiting for helpful input from LOU or anyone on this Forum... thank you.

Raj.

[sgtsquatlow]

Hey, i have had the exact same problem with the rs-tx20. I just downloaded the instant cake iso again and found out that the first time i downloaded it, it was almost 60mb smaller than the second one i recieved. I reburned the image and ran through the process again and it worked great. So i would recommend redownloading the image, mine was 210mb zipped so i would try that.

Hope it helps.
Sgt Squatlow

[chillsyo56]

Hey sgtsquatlow, thanks a lot for the response. I had read previously that if you had no problems with the .iso and unzipping it then the download worked properly, so I didn't try downloading it again. But sure enough, I tried downloading it again and this time it downloaded at a size of about 210mb while the previous download was only about 168mb. I burned it again and tried it and sure enough now the Tivo works again. I got scared at first because it didn't work but then I remembered to switch the jumper on the hard drive back from master to CS (cable select) and now my Tivo works perfectly. Thanks a lot for the suggestion, and I take back anything I said about Instant Cake being a ripoff.

[chillsyo56]

Note that step (8) wasn't really necessary because if you are able to UNZIP the ISO without errors, then you got a clean download.
Lou

Hey Lou, you might want to re-think that suggestion, because I had no problems unzipping the ISO and even had it go through and work completely saying my Instant Cake was done. But that was only 168mb and made my Tivo not boot and power cycle. When I re-downloaded it it was about 210mb and that was the only image that worked.

Might I also suggest that with the download links you provide exactly how big the image should be, because I had read this post before downloading and thought that it must not be compatible with the RS-TX60 because it unzipped and did everything as if it was complete, but it certainly was not.

[sgtsquatlow]

Hey, no problem. The problem was way bugging me too. dvrupgrade.com really just needs to fix their servers (im assuming the problem lies with them) so the clients connection knows how big the file is supposed to be. That would probably solve alot of issues.

[fredz]

My old series 2 tivo died again the other day. A few years ago I had a hard drive fail and I used instant cake on a new drive to get it going again. Well, just the other day I found my tivo hung, I unplugged and re-plugged it and it was stuck at the grey "Welcome Powering Up" screen. I assumed that it was a hard drive fail again. So I pulled out my original 40GB harddrive and used PTVbake-special with the same Instantcake image that I had used a few years ago (I said no to the options of expanding the image to fill the drive, and also no to the option of increasing the swap space -- which should make it work on the 40GB drive). The bake completed successfully without any error or warning messages. However, when I put the drive in the tivo and powered up; it was still stuck at the "Welcome Powering Up" screen. So, what does this mean?

Does it mean that the old drive is bad (even though the bake seemed to be able to write it)?

Does it mean that the old 40GB drive was not big enough to hold the image and if I get a new larger drive it will work?

Does it mean that the the drive and image is good and that there is something else broken on the tivo that is preventing it from booting up?

Does it mean something else?

Finally, what can I do as my next step to get my tivo back?

P.S. I don't want to go out and buy a new drive if I am not fairly confident that it will get it working.

Thanks,

Fred

[Lou Jacob]

My old series 2 tivo died again the other day. A few years ago I had a hard drive fail and I used instant cake on a new drive to get it going again. Well, just the other day I found my tivo hung, I unplugged and re-plugged it and it was stuck at the grey "Welcome Powering Up" screen. I assumed that it was a hard drive fail again. So I pulled out my original 40GB harddrive and used PTVbake-special with the same Instantcake image that I had used a few years ago (I said no to the options of expanding the image to fill the drive, and also no to the option of increasing the swap space -- which should make it work on the 40GB drive). The bake completed successfully without any error or warning messages. However, when I put the drive in the tivo and powered up; it was still stuck at the "Welcome Powering Up" screen. So, what does this mean?

Does it mean that the old drive is bad (even though the bake seemed to be able to write it)?

Does it mean that the old 40GB drive was not big enough to hold the image and if I get a new larger drive it will work?

Does it mean that the the drive and image is good and that there is something else broken on the tivo that is preventing it from booting up?

Does it mean something else?

Finally, what can I do as my next step to get my tivo back?

P.S. I don't want to go out and buy a new drive if I am not fairly confident that it will get it working.

Thanks,

Fred

Run PC diagnostics on the drive you think may have failed; that will confirm whether or not your assumption was correct...

[fredz]

Run PC diagnostics on the drive you think may have failed; that will confirm whether or not your assumption was correct...

Which diagnostics? From the hard drive manufacturer? Will that erase everything that might be on the drive (if it is good)? Since this drive is formatted and written in linux, can I use windows based diagnotics or do I need to get diagnostics that are linux based? Also, which drive did you want me to test: the drive that was in the tivo that I think failed, or the 40GB drive that I am trying to load with instantcake?

[Lou Jacob]

Which diagnostics? From the hard drive manufacturer? Will that erase everything that might be on the drive (if it is good)? Since this drive is formatted and written in linux, can I use windows based diagnotics or do I need to get diagnostics that are linux based? Also, which drive did you want me to test: the drive that was in the tivo that I think failed, or the 40GB drive that I am trying to load with instantcake?

You should test BOTH drives with the manufacturer's diagnostics. The first one because if its not bad, then you probably have something else wrong with your TiVo. The second one because why put a drive that might be bad in your TiVo?

Take a look at this article (http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=416062) which contains links to the manufacturer's diagnostics and additional info, as well.

Lou

[fredz]

You should test BOTH drives with the manufacturer's diagnostics. The first one because if its not bad, then you probably have something else wrong with your TiVo. The second one because why put a drive that might be bad in your TiVo?

Take a look at this article (http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=416062) which contains links to the manufacturer's diagnostics and additional info, as well.

Lou

I tested both drives and the 40GB that I was trying to bake, failed both the quick and long tests. However, the drive from the tivo that I had suspected as bad actually passed both the quick and long tests. I then got out my volt meter and checked the outputs from the power supply: all the pins had the correct voltages. So I think that this means that the drive and the power supply are good. That only leaves the mother board, correct? Is that a replaceable component? Would I loose my lifetime by replacing the motherboard? Are my assumptions correct, or is there still possibly something wrong with either the drive or the power supply?


Thanks in advance:

Fred

[Lou Jacob]

I tested both drives and the 40GB that I was trying to bake, failed both the quick and long tests. However, the drive from the tivo that I had suspected as bad actually passed both the quick and long tests. I then got out my volt meter and checked the outputs from the power supply: all the pins had the correct voltages. So I think that this means that the drive and the power supply are good. That only leaves the mother board, correct? Is that a replaceable component? Would I loose my lifetime by replacing the motherboard? Are my assumptions correct, or is there still possibly something wrong with either the drive or the power supply?


Thanks in advance:

Fred

There you go; now you know the problem is related to the TiVo (not the software you are using). Please reference the thread I mentioned previously for help in troubleshooting your TiVo and please also consider our repair services as an option.

Thx!

Lou

[vasilemj]

Hey Lou. I'm experiencing the same issues that MarkG had outlined on page 3 of this thread. However, I am having difficulties with my SATA drive. I purchased a 750GB Seagate DB35.3 SATA drive as well as the recommended SATA to IDE adapter sold on Weaknees.

Is the resolution the same...merely guess what the drive has been assigned? /dev/hde? /dev/hdf? /dev/hdg...

Is there a better way to find out what has been assigned? Any way to stop, pause, or print out the quick scroll that InstantCake goes through?

Or should I have other concerns being that this is a SATA drive? Anything special I need to know about the InstantCake process when using a SATA drive?

Thanks for any insight you can provide.

[morob1]

Hello All, I am a novice at Instant Cake but I am attempting to upgrade a Phillips 612 going from the two original 30 gig drives to a one new WD 160 gig drive. I downloaded the software loaded it on the drive, it seemed to recognize the entire size of the drive (says Congrats with 173 hours of time), gives me the following errors;


umount2: Device or resource busy
umount: /dev/hdb: not mounted
umount: /var/log/mount: Illegal seek

then

/#_


I mount the drive in Tivo and it does not go beyond the opening screen. I have tried two different computers with 4 different cd roms and have what appears to be a good install but then it will not boot up. I have checked and rechecked jumper settings and now I am about to jump out a window. Does anybody have an idea what might be going on?

Thanks, Rob

[Lou Jacob]

Hello All, I am a novice at Instant Cake but I am attempting to upgrade a Phillips 612 going from the two original 30 gig drives to a one new WD 160 gig drive. I downloaded the software loaded it on the drive, it seemed to recognize the entire size of the drive (says Congrats with 173 hours of time), gives me the following errors;


umount2: Device or resource busy
umount: /dev/hdb: not mounted
umount: /var/log/mount: Illegal seek

then

/#_


I mount the drive in Tivo and it does not go beyond the opening screen. I have tried two different computers with 4 different cd roms and have what appears to be a good install but then it will not boot up. I have checked and rechecked jumper settings and now I am about to jump out a window. Does anybody have an idea what might be going on?

Thanks, Rob

The error you are seeing is related to an attempt to automatically unmount the CD-ROM device which is supposed to be configured as /dev/hdb (the primary slave); in your case, it may be that you've not configured your CD-ROM correctly. The software may or may not be working properly as a result of that, but from your description it does sound like its working ok.

First and foremost, you should ensure that the drive you are attempting to use is good - run diagnostics on it. Secondly, make sure your TiVo is actually working OK - install your old drives in the unit and make sure they still boot - if they don't, you may have damaged your TiVo.

Lastly, make sure you are configuring the CD-ROM and target hard drive as directed - if you've hooked up the CD-ROM as the primary slave, you shouldn't see that error and you'll know that the software ran as it was intended to do...

[morob1]

Lou, I do have the CD drive as primary slave it also checks out in the Bios. The Tivo will boot with the old drives so I do not think that is the issue. In the Bios I have disabled the primary CD drive (I have two on the primary cable) as I could not get InstantCake to run without the drive attached for some reason. I did run diagnostics on the drive before loading InsantCake and it checked out (its a brand new 160g Western Digital). Could there be an issue with it being such a large drive on a Series One Tivo? Thanks for your reply!


Rob

[Lou Jacob]

Could there be an issue with it being such a large drive on a Series One Tivo?


No, it's definitely not too big.

What is the make and model of the drive you are attempting to use?

[morob1]

Lou, As I am not at home I believe this is the correct model number;

Western Digital Caviar Blue WD1600JBRTL

I hope this helps!

Thanks again,

Rob

[Lou Jacob]

Western Digital Caviar Blue WD1600JBRTL


I can't tell you for sure, but my guess is that the drive is not compatible with your unit. We've seen some other reports of compatibility problems with the "Caviar Blue" model in Series2 units, so its quite possible its a problem in the Series1, as well. I'd try a different drive and see if that makes a difference.

[morob1]

Lou, Perhaps I will see if I have a different drive around the house and give it a try.

Thanks agaiin,

Rob

[jlmanson@sbcglobal.net]

:( I just bought a refurbished TiVo series 1 Philips HDR312 from Surplus Computers. This unit came without a hard drive which I had to supply. I purchased InstantCake for the Series 1 online and burned the ISO to a CD. I have followed the instructions for configuring the hardware. I put the CD in and booted the system. No problems there. When it gets to the screen that says:

[ Just hit <ENTER> and we will begin baking your InstantCake!] and I press enter I get another message that reads [ mount: /dev/ is not a block device
/etc/rc.d/rc.S: /cdrom/.live/bin/PTVbake: No such file or directory

What have I done wrong?

Sincerely,
Jim

[Lou Jacob]

:( I just bought a refurbished TiVo series 1 Philips HDR312 from Surplus Computers. This unit came without a hard drive which I had to supply. I purchased InstantCake for the Series 1 online and burned the ISO to a CD. I have followed the instructions for configuring the hardware. I put the CD in and booted the system. No problems there. When it gets to the screen that says:

[ Just hit <ENTER> and we will begin baking your InstantCake!] and I press enter I get another message that reads [ mount: /dev/ is not a block device
/etc/rc.d/rc.S: /cdrom/.live/bin/PTVbake: No such file or directory

What have I done wrong?

Sincerely,
Jim

You've not setup / configured your PC correctly...

[dirtball]

I can't tell you for sure, but my guess is that the drive is not compatible with your unit. We've seen some other reports of compatibility problems with the "Caviar Blue" model in Series2 units, so its quite possible its a problem in the Series1, as well. I'd try a different drive and see if that makes a difference.

I just bought TWO Western Digital ,WD Caviar Blue, WD3200jbrtl Hard drives on the advice of several folks at TIVo community forum and now I am reading that there are compatibility problems with these drives. Is this true? CRAP I bought two to fix my two Hughes hdvrs. I have already opened the box on one of the drives. Any advice would be helpful!

Do not mean to be dumping on you and I thank you for your time. I was going to download the InstantCake software tonight, but now there are doubts on weather I am doing the right thing.

Thanks for your time and any insight you might have to offer.


Dirtball

[Lou Jacob]

I just bought TWO Western Digital ,WD Caviar Blue, WD3200jbrtl Hard drives on the advice of several folks at TIVo community forum and now I am reading that there are compatibility problems with these drives. Is this true? CRAP I bought two to fix my two Hughes hdvrs. I have already opened the box on one of the drives. Any advice would be helpful!

Do not mean to be dumping on you and I thank you for your time. I was going to download the InstantCake software tonight, but now there are doubts on weather I am doing the right thing.

Thanks for your time and any insight you might have to offer.


Dirtball

I do not have enough experience with these particular drives to make any generalizations - I would recommend you update this thread (http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=422153) with your results. Hopefully, you can return the drives if they do not work in your unit, however.

[dirtball]

Well thanks for the info. I am going to make these SOBs work. I am planning to do the transplant on Sunday. Will post the out come. Thanks for all you do.................



No good deed goes unpunished.......

Dirtball

[dirtball]

I have tried every combo of jumper settings on the CD. and have moved the Hd around to try every option and I geting the message


Just hit <ENTER> and we will begin baking your InstantCake!] and I press enter I get another message that reads [ mount: /dev/ is not a block device
/etc/rc.d/rc.S: /cdrom/.live/bin/PTVbake: No such file or directory


any suggestions?

working with Western Dig. 320 Blue ..... and 6.4 hdvr2 DTV Hughes unit


Do I need to format the drive first?


Thanks
Dirtball

[Lou Jacob]

/etc/rc.d/rc.S: /cdrom/.live/bin/PTVbake: No such file or directory

any suggestions?


That is an indication that your PC isn't configured correctly. Your CD-ROM needs to be the primary slave (/dev/hdb) and the target hard drive needs to be the secondary master (/dev/hdc).


Do I need to format the drive first?


Nope.

[dirtball]

You were right. My PC was not set up right.

I attached the..............

I guess I do not need to tell you how I did it, You already know. BUT........


The Key was that I had to attach the Hard Drive ribbon/cable to the CD-ROM and attach the CD-Rom ribbon/cable to the Hard Drive, get your jumper right,(on the HD and CD-ROM), go to the SETUP screen(when booting up the PC and change the routing to hit the CD-ROM then the C drive (CD-ROM,C)and then I was able to bake a cake.

I think I did the last step??????

I did have a friend look at the download and he fooled around and found the right file on the download and made the CD into a boot disk. It would be nice if that was explained in the directions.

Its all good!

301 hours, up and running a Hughes HDVR-2 with a Western Digital 3200jbrtl 320 gb HD

Once I got the PC right the boot disk took over and the cake baked itself.


Thanks Lou "You Da Man"

Dirtball

[Lou Jacob]

You were right. My PC was not set up right.

I attached the..............

I guess I do not need to tell you how I did it, You already know. BUT........


The Key was that I had to attach the Hard Drive ribbon/cable to the CD-ROM and attach the CD-Rom ribbon/cable to the Hard Drive, get your jumper right,(on the HD and CD-ROM), go to the SETUP screen(when booting up the PC and change the routing to hit the CD-ROM then the C drive (CD-ROM,C)and then I was able to bake a cake.

I think I did the last step??????

I did have a friend look at the download and he fooled around and found the right file on the download and made the CD into a boot disk. It would be nice if that was explained in the directions.

Its all good!

301 hours, up and running a Hughes HDVR-2 with a Western Digital 3200jbrtl 320 gb HD

Once I got the PC right the boot disk took over and the cake baked itself.


Thanks Lou "You Da Man"

Dirtball

Glad you got it working. Every PC is different, however you are right, the key is setting the CD-ROM to be bootable (as well as having it as the primary slave). I think that is in the directions, but I will check to ensure that its clear.

So, the Caviar Blue drives you listed in your earlier post worked for you in your Series1?

Lou

[dirtball]

Yes, the Hughes HDVR-2 upgrade with the Western Digital 3200jbrtl 320 gb HDs went well.


Thanks!

[RedlightG20]

I just purchased the InstantCake TWP ISO.

I "burned" the ISO to a USB flash drive, and booted from it. (I don't have any blank CDs handy so I thought I'd try this).

InstantCake boots up ok, and I get to the splash screen. After hitting ENTER, I'm getting the following error, which I've seen a few posts already about:
mount: /dev/ is not a block device
./rc.S: /cdrom/.live/bin/PTVbake: No such file or directory

I assume it is hard coded to point to the cd-rom, but is there any way to get it to instead point to the USB flash drive from which I am booting?

If not, I can go buy some blank CDs, but perhaps this might be a nice feature for future releases as flash drives become more and more prevalent. I personally very rarely burn CDs (which is why I have none around the house ;))

[Lou Jacob]

I just purchased the InstantCake TWP ISO.

I "burned" the ISO to a USB flash drive, and booted from it. (I don't have any blank CDs handy so I thought I'd try this).

InstantCake boots up ok, and I get to the splash screen. After hitting ENTER, I'm getting the following error, which I've seen a few posts already about:
mount: /dev/ is not a block device
./rc.S: /cdrom/.live/bin/PTVbake: No such file or directoryI assume it is hard coded to point to the cd-rom, but is there any way to get it to instead point to the USB flash drive from which I am booting?

If not, I can go buy some blank CDs, but perhaps this might be a nice feature for future releases as flash drives become more and more prevalent. I personally very rarely burn CDs (which is why I have none around the house ;))

The version of InstantCake you are using, as well as all versions designed for Series1 units, is hard-coded with the expectation that you will be using /dev/hdb (the primary slave) as your 'source' -- typically this would mean your CD-ROM drive, but if have a way to assign that to your USB device on your particular PC then you could try that. Doesn't seem likely, though.

Alternatively, you can try to edit the script so that it uses whatever device is associated with your USB-key, but it will probably be a lot easier if you just get yourself a blank CD, which is how things are designed to be used...

[jdkullmann]

I've been using InstantCake to keep my 3 Series 1 HDR-112's working for years. I just replaced a drive again in one but noticed that Tivo has changed or is about to change the dial in numbers.

I'm not sure but it seems that might cause a problem when they actually switch over as InstantCake will be trying/using the old non-working numbers during the initial setup. I know the first call is to an 800 number but if that is changed also it seems like a problem

Does anyone know if these number changes will affect the current InstantCake versions and/or if new ones will be coming out to cope with the phone number changes?

[BigO]

Is there a difference in HR10-250 and HD10-250.
What size ( Mb ) is the download for InstantCake
6.4a for HR10-250. I am having trouble downloading
to computer. Keeps cutting off short of full download.
Tried 3 times.1st time>49mb, 2nd time>81mb and 3rd
time>124 mb.Will not unzip.Tells me to download again!
Thanks

[Lou Jacob]

Is there a difference in HR10-250 and HD10-250.
What size ( Mb ) is the download for InstantCake
6.4a for HR10-250. I am having trouble downloading
to computer. Keeps cutting off short of full download.
Tried 3 times.1st time>49mb, 2nd time>81mb and 3rd
time>124 mb.Will not unzip.Tells me to download again!
Thanks

The HR10-250 and the HD10-250 are the exact same units. Not sure what the exact size of that file is, but if you get the full zip file, you won't get any CRC errors when attempting to unzip it. It sounds like you don't have a stable internet connection. As stated in the README, try not to use a wireless connection and definitely ensure that you don't have a download manager active or your download will fail!

Lou

[BigO]

I went to my Daughters house and downloaded with DSL and it completely downloaded.
251mb .How do i burn a ISO file to CD.I have burned a bunch of regular files to CD but not a ISO file.Thanks for your help!Oscar

[Lou Jacob]

I went to my Daughters house and downloaded with DSL and it completely downloaded.
251mb .How do i burn a ISO file to CD.I have burned a bunch of regular files to CD but not a ISO file.Thanks for your help!Oscar

Check out the README for info on ISO burning (or just google it); it's no different doing so for this ISO and any other (ie, it's not a TiVo-specific thing).

Lj

[trc11]

Is there a cd for InstantCake 6.4a? I'm purchasing a bare drive from DVR upgrade and plan on install PTVnet as well as InstantCake. I understand that PTVnet must be installed first and then install InstantCake.

Do I need to also purchase Universal Boot?

The way I understand is it's better to buy a bare drive without InstantCake installed if I plan on running PTVnet?!

Right?

Also, are is there some kind of instructions to creating a ISO into a CD.

I have the PC skills but have never created a CD from an ISO file.

Thanks,

Tim

[careys]

...Also, are is there some kind of instructions to creating a ISO into a CD.

I have the PC skills but have never created a CD from an ISO file.

Thanks,

Tim

Your CD burning software should have a section in the help file which explains how to create a usable CD from an ISO image. Its usually a very simple process of choosing a "burn from ISO option".

[David15]

Re-checked to make sure the CD-ROM drive is configured as primary slave and it was and when I do the dual drive update the Tivo still does not start-up.
I've tried both drives using the "1 drive option" and still get the same message at the end but each drive boots up properly (individually) in the Tivo .

[Lou Jacob]

Re-checked to make sure the CD-ROM drive is configured as primary slave and it was and when I do the dual drive update the Tivo still does not start-up.
I've tried both drives using the "1 drive option" and still get the same message at the end but each drive boots up properly (individually) in the Tivo .

Not much information to go by here, but it sounds like your TiVo will not work with two drives in it, but is working fine with single drive configurations? Have you checked all the obvious things such as:

1) running diagnostics on each drive to ensure there is nothing wrong with either of them?

2) checked jumpers on both drives to ensure they are set correctly when installed in the dual-drive configuration?

3) checked your IDE cable to ensure there is nothing wrong with it?

Its possible there is something wrong with your TiVo that is preventing it from working with both drives, but any of the aforementioned issues is more likely to be the issue.

Lou

[memry]

Purchased IC, and can't restore a 40GB drive? Any workarounds for this, can I get the older image that allowed this?

[Lou Jacob]

Purchased IC, and can't restore a 40GB drive? Any workarounds for this, can I get the older image that allowed this?

No. InstantCake for the TCD540 unit requires that you use a hard drive larger than the original. Please see the release notes for full details and explanation.

[bulsatar1]

Hello,

My board only has 1 IDE channel on it. I disconnect all of my sata drives and jumper my Seagate Barracuda (120 gb) to master and my dvd rom to slave. I connect these to my board through a normal split ribbon cable with my hard drive on the first and dvd on the second. When I go to my bios, my hard drive is set to IDE 4 master and my dvd is set to IDE4 slave. I have tried to have it autodetect to the IDE 1 (which is normally reserved for my sata drives, but blank when they are disconnected) however it won't.

I am completely lost when it comes to linux. Is there anyway to get my drives recognized so I can get this to work? I have read already that when you get the "mount: /dev/ is not a block device" that it means instantcake doesn't know where your drives are (ie. not set up correctly for the software), however since I only have 1 IDE channel how would I go about doing this?

I appreciate any help with this but please use simple and detailed explinations as I have absolutely never looked at anything in linux until I looked at instantcake.

Thanks in advance :)

(instantcake for series 2 Tivo brand)

[Lou Jacob]

Hello,

My board only has 1 IDE channel on it. I disconnect all of my sata drives and jumper my Seagate Barracuda (120 gb) to master and my dvd rom to slave. I connect these to my board through a normal split ribbon cable with my hard drive on the first and dvd on the second. When I go to my bios, my hard drive is set to IDE 4 master and my dvd is set to IDE4 slave. I have tried to have it autodetect to the IDE 1 (which is normally reserved for my sata drives, but blank when they are disconnected) however it won't.

I am completely lost when it comes to linux. Is there anyway to get my drives recognized so I can get this to work? I have read already that when you get the "mount: /dev/ is not a block device" that it means instantcake doesn't know where your drives are (ie. not set up correctly for the software), however since I only have 1 IDE channel how would I go about doing this?

I appreciate any help with this but please use simple and detailed explinations as I have absolutely never looked at anything in linux until I looked at instantcake.

Thanks in advance :)

(instantcake for series 2 Tivo brand)

In a situation like this, we recommend you consider purchasing a kit. You really should have two IDE controllers when using InstantCake and even though with some versions its possible to get around that, it's not so straightforward for those without the technical experience. We state all of this up front, and sorry if you missed it, but we do offer a full trade-in credit of your software purchase towards the purchase of a kit. Alternatively, you may want to find/borrow a PC which meets the requirements for the software...

Lou

[bulsatar1]

Yeah, I had a friend that was way more fluent in Linux than I was and we ran into a problem with the mounting. For some reason my cdrom was set to hdj and my harddrive was set to hdi however when I tried to mount the cdrom, it wouldn't recognize it.

Anyway, I gave my harddrive to my friend and and he has a computer with 2 ide channels to work with so hopefully there will be a good resolution to my situation :)

[Lou Jacob]

Yeah, I had a friend that was way more fluent in Linux than I was and we ran into a problem with the mounting. For some reason my cdrom was set to hdj and my harddrive was set to hdi however when I tried to mount the cdrom, it wouldn't recognize it.

Anyway, I gave my harddrive to my friend and and he has a computer with 2 ide channels to work with so hopefully there will be a good resolution to my situation :)

That will probably do the trick.

FWIW, PC's with SATA and IDE controllers in them can label the devices like that...

[derausgewanderte]

Goal: replacing original 80Gb with a single spare 160Gb.
I think have successfully imaged the hdd. I have an older PC still with two IDE channels. I hooked up CDRom to primary slave and new drive to secondary master. Nothing else. The new drive is a spare SATA Seagate and I am using a SATA2IDE adapter that plugs to the back of the drive. There is a switch to set the drive to master on the small board. This is how I hooked it up to the PC and instantcake found the drives at the correct positions. It completed the installation OK. When I opened up my TiVo I was surprised to see that the original WD drive in there had the jumpers set to Cable Select and not Master. According to everything I've read here it should be set to Master, not?
The TiVo boots up and hangs at powering up. This is probably related to incorrect mapping of the partition I guess. Of course it could also be an incompatibility with the SATA2IDE adapter. Only after I purchased that I found the thread with working adapters. Before I buy a verified working adapter I'd like to find out whether there is anything else I can try to get this to work.

any hints/comments are welcome.
thank you

[zx9re]

I can't tell you for sure, but my guess is that the drive is not compatible with your unit. We've seen some other reports of compatibility problems with the "Caviar Blue" model in Series2 units, so its quite possible its a problem in the Series1, as well. I'd try a different drive and see if that makes a difference.

Hmm, I hope not! I just upgraded our Series 2 TCD69080 to a brand new WD Caviar Blue 500gb unit. Used InstantCake via download and all went perfect ( thank you ! )

The unit is currently populating its guide and catching up on seasons pass recordings... one thing I did notice however is that the box reverted back to software 9.2a from 9.2b.

I've read some horror stories here on units getting corrupted when the update comes in, but have not read a post that has affected our newer model Series 2, keeping my fingers crossed!

Cheers...

http://i245.photobucket.com/albums/gg54/kikisdvr/TIVO/After.jpg
http://i245.photobucket.com/albums/gg54/kikisdvr/TIVO/Drives.jpg

[Trymor]

I purchased InstantCake 6.4a for Series2 DirecTV Units (download)
DSR704

Made a drive and installed it in my DirecTivo. Did NOT attach the phone line. I have all my channels in the guide, but any time I try an view a channel, it says to call customer service to subscribe.

System Information shows:

IRD of DSR7000/17.
Software version 6.4a-01-2-101
Service Number 301-0000-xxxx-xxxx
DTV account status: Closed
Call DirecTV

Aren't the last 3 numbers of the software version supposed to match the first 3 numbers of the service number?

What happened? Did I miss something?

[Lou Jacob]

I purchased InstantCake 6.4a for Series2 DirecTV Units (download)
DSR704

Made a drive and installed it in my DirecTivo. Did NOT attach the phone line. I have all my channels in the guide, but any time I try an view a channel, it says to call customer service to subscribe.

System Information shows:

IRD of DSR7000/17.
Software version 6.4a-01-2-101
Service Number 301-0000-xxxx-xxxx
DTV account status: Closed
Call DirecTV

Aren't the last 3 numbers of the software version supposed to match the first 3 numbers of the service number?

What happened? Did I miss something?

As long as you purchased the version listed for the DSR704, you are fine. When DIRECTV/TiVo moved to 6.4a, the IRD info and 'last 3 digits' rule no longer applies because they merged components of the code that were similar, and did not pay attention to the IRD info. The same thing happens on HDVR2 and SD-DVR Hughes models. So in other words, you are fine from that perspective.

As to why your account status is 'closed' that is another issue. Was everything working fine with your original drive? Have you gone back to confirm that there isn't a problem with your unit, the access card, the card reader or perhaps your account isn't in good standing?

Did you verify that your satellite settings are set up correctly? IE Correct dish type and LNB configuration are properly selected? Remember, if your unit isn't getting the full signal, than your account status cannot be determined from the data stream...

Lou

[Trymor]

Everything is set up properly, signal strength is around 90% and I get a couple 'test channels'.

The unit worked fine before the drive died with a few clicks at powerup before it quit trying.

It has been a few months since I had it hooked up and working. I don't know how to test the card/reader, but can I assume I am ok to attach the phone line or call DirecTV since the software version not matching the service number, and the different IRD no longer matters?

Thanks.

Edit: I took out and re-inserted my card. I receive ONLY my locals. Every other channel shows my card # and receiver # and tells me to call customer service. I can do that, but I want to make sure it's not going to cause problems first...

[Lou Jacob]

Everything is set up properly, signal strength is around 90% and I get a couple 'test channels'.

The unit worked fine before the drive died with a few clicks at powerup before it quit trying.

It has been a few months since I had it hooked up and working. I don't know how to test the card/reader, but can I assume I am ok to attach the phone line or call DirecTV since the software version not matching the service number, and the different IRD no longer matters?

Thanks.

Edit: I took out and re-inserted my card. I receive ONLY my locals. Every other channel shows my card # and receiver # and tells me to call customer service. I can do that, but I want to make sure it's not going to cause problems first...

It really does sound like you have the wrong dish type selected. Have you gone through the 'satellite setup' to ensure you've got the right type (round, oval, etc?) selected?

[Trymor]

Edit: Everything seems fine now. I left the following as documentation of the last thing I did. Apparently, this time I just had to wait longer for the higher channels to come in.

Thanks for the product!



I did the 'clear and delete' again, went through the setup and made sure I selected the proper dish (round). Now system info says my account is open and in good standing, but I still only receive my locals. I forced the receiver to make a phone call. My DVR service level says P:-

[dogdish]

I've used InstantCake a couple of times before with great results. This time I'm having a problem. I'm updating a Series 1 DirecTivo (DSR6000R) that is currently running with 2 drives.
I purchased the InstantCake with TWP, thinking I might add the network card sometime. I assumed that it would work with or without a turnbonet card. Is that correct?

Anyway I baked a 160G WD1600AAJB drive as a single drive, replaced the two drives with that one but it didnt get past the "powering up" screen. I though it might be a jumper problem but no jumper configuration worked. Now I'm stumped. Could it be a bad drive? Or should I have used the vanilla Instantcake instead of the TWP version? Is it OK to replace the 2 drives with a single drive? (That's my goal because the two drives get quite hot in that old series 1 box)

Any advice appreciated.

thanks
/maurice

[Lou Jacob]

I've used InstantCake a couple of times before with great results. This time I'm having a problem. I'm updating a Series 1 DirecTivo (DSR6000R) that is currently running with 2 drives.
I purchased the InstantCake with TWP, thinking I might add the network card sometime. I assumed that it would work with or without a turnbonet card. Is that correct?


Yes. Will work fine, whether or not you have a network card installed.



Anyway I baked a 160G WD1600AAJB drive as a single drive, replaced the two drives with that one but it didnt get past the "powering up" screen. I though it might be a jumper problem but no jumper configuration worked. Now I'm stumped. Could it be a bad drive? Or should I have used the vanilla Instantcake instead of the TWP version? Is it OK to replace the 2 drives with a single drive? (That's my goal because the two drives get quite hot in that old series 1 box)

Any advice appreciated.

thanks
/maurice

WD1600AAJB is a Western Digital Caviar Blue drive - others (including myself) have been reporting issues with that particular line of drives in Series1 units; there are a few threads around here referencing that, as well as at TiVo Community Forum.

Unfortunately, the only way around it that I know of is to use a different type of drive (we don't use WD Caviar Blue in anything anymore...)

Lou

[dogdish]

That was it! Thanks Lou. I used a 200G Maxtor drive and it worked fine.

Its a pity the WD Blue drives are a problem, because they are the most common IDE drives at the moment.

[Lou Jacob]

That was it! Thanks Lou. I used a 200G Maxtor drive and it worked fine.

Its a pity the WD Blue drives are a problem, because they are the most common IDE drives at the moment.

That is unfortunate. We have a good supply of Seagate DB35 drives and WD AV drives that work just fine. I can assure that WD Blue drives are not common around here!!!

[TallDoode]

Hi,

I have been an instant cake user for years, but have never tried with SATA. I need to replace my HD in my Series 2 and only SATA drives are readily available any more. So I bought the converter from Weaknees.

When I try to Instantcake the drive, it is failing probably because my CD is being "seen" as hdi and the script only looks for devices up to hdh. The SATA drive is being seen as HDA however.

When I boot Instantcake, all goes well till it searches for the drive, then I get:

hda: lost interrupt

a few times, then it says "unknown partition table". Then it goes to the "lets build a cake" screen.

When I hit Enter I get:
/etc/rc.d/rs.S /cdrom/.live/bin/PTVbake no such file or directory.

Looking at the boot screen before this, I think it is because the CD is HDI and isnt being found. I do not get an "advanced" screen.

Any options here? I have tried using the SATA drive as IDE using the converter but that failed with the same message because I only have one IDE conntector on the motherboard. When I do this, the CD is HDI and the HD is HDJ. This is probably just a matter of editing the boot script to look for higher drives in /etc/rc.d but how can I do that when it is on a CDROM?

Thanks,

dave

[Lou Jacob]

Hi,

I have been an instant cake user for years, but have never tried with SATA. I need to replace my HD in my Series 2 and only SATA drives are readily available any more. So I bought the converter from Weaknees.

When I try to Instantcake the drive, it is failing probably because my CD is being "seen" as hdi and the script only looks for devices up to hdh. The SATA drive is being seen as HDA however.

When I boot Instantcake, all goes well till it searches for the drive, then I get:

hda: lost interrupt

a few times, then it says "unknown partition table". Then it goes to the "lets build a cake" screen.

When I hit Enter I get:
/etc/rc.d/rs.S /cdrom/.live/bin/PTVbake no such file or directory.

Looking at the boot screen before this, I think it is because the CD is HDI and isnt being found. I do not get an "advanced" screen.

Any options here? I have tried using the SATA drive as IDE using the converter but that failed with the same message because I only have one IDE conntector on the motherboard. When I do this, the CD is HDI and the HD is HDJ. This is probably just a matter of editing the boot script to look for higher drives in /etc/rc.d but how can I do that when it is on a CDROM?

Thanks,

dave

InstantCake for Series2 (or should I say the underlying CD) only supports PATA drives, so you have the right idea using a converter. I know the one we offer works fine, but I cannot speak for Weaknees one; it should work fine.

Chances are that you haven't identified the device properly. You can edit the scripts and run them after editing (they are copied into the RAMDISK). Take a look in /.live/bin and you'll find the PTVbake and PTVbake-advanced scripts (on some versions) which you can edit and save and then manually run. When you reboot, the changes won't be saved (since its on the ramdisk).

You might also try turning off SATA devices in your PC, they could be getting in the way of the IDE being assigned to lower drive letters...

Lou

[TallDoode]

InstantCake for Series2 (or should I say the underlying CD) only supports PATA drives, so you have the right idea using a converter. I know the one we offer works fine, but I cannot speak for Weaknees one; it should work fine.

Chances are that you haven't identified the device properly. You can edit the scripts and run them after editing (they are copied into the RAMDISK). Take a look in /.live/bin and you'll find the PTVbake and PTVbake-advanced scripts (on some versions) which you can edit and save and then manually run. When you reboot, the changes won't be saved (since its on the ramdisk).

You might also try turning off SATA devices in your PC, they could be getting in the way of the IDE being assigned to lower drive letters...

Lou

That did the trick - turned off SATA in the BIOS and the HD came up as HDA and the CDROM as HDB. The "Cake" is baked and going to transfer it to the TiVO.

On a side note, when I did a Google on PATA to SATA and TIVO, (didnt even know they existed) Weaknees was the top link. Sorry about that. If it is any consolation, I have bought all three InstantCakes for my Series 1, Series 2 and HD TiVo's :-) Next time I will check here first.

Thanks very much Lou!

dave

[Lou Jacob]

That did the trick - turned off SATA in the BIOS and the HD came up as HDA and the CDROM as HDB. The "Cake" is baked and going to transfer it to the TiVO.

On a side note, when I did a Google on PATA to SATA and TIVO, (didnt even know they existed) Weaknees was the top link. Sorry about that. If it is any consolation, I have bought all three InstantCakes for my Series 1, Series 2 and HD TiVo's :-) Next time I will check here first.

Thanks very much Lou!

dave

I wish I could say I was surprised that our #1 competitor garners all the top links on keyword searches. Unfortunately, our site (or more specifically, our cart) ain't so search-engine friendly. But that's OK...

Thanks for your support!

Lou

[TallDoode]

Quick question - I did a search but didnt find anything but it could be my search parameters.

After I Caked the new drive, I am seeing TiVo and Live TV okay, but it is telling me my TiVo is not activated any more. I have Lifetime on this TiVo. Even on my TiVo Account it says I only have 3 Activated TiVo's (and I have 4 total) but it shows me all four of them. When I use the TiVo Update and then try to schedule a program, it says my channel information has run out.

I have repeated the guided setup but that didnt help. I have never had this problem with InstantCake before where it "deactivated" my TiVo. I am hesitant to call TiVo to troubleshoot it because I am not sure if adding a new drive invalidates my Lifetime subscription.

Anyone else experienced this? Is it something I can fix myself or do I have to call TiVo?

Thanks,

dave

[TallDoode]

Quick question - I did a search but didnt find anything but it could be my search parameters.

After I Caked the new drive, I am seeing TiVo and Live TV okay, but it is telling me my TiVo is not activated any more. I have Lifetime on this TiVo. Even on my TiVo Account it says I only have 3 Activated TiVo's (and I have 4 total) but it shows me all four of them. When I use the TiVo Update and then try to schedule a program, it says my channel information has run out.

I have repeated the guided setup but that didnt help. I have never had this problem with InstantCake before where it "deactivated" my TiVo. I am hesitant to call TiVo to troubleshoot it because I am not sure if adding a new drive invalidates my Lifetime subscription.

Anyone else experienced this? Is it something I can fix myself or do I have to call TiVo?

Thanks,

dave

Never mind. The third restart was the charm. It is working now.

Cheers,

dave

[Kartman]

About three years ago I purchased and used InstantCake to upgrade my Series2 from a 40GB to a 160GB HD. It now appears that the HD has died(Stuck on Welcome Screen). I do not have a working TiVo hard drive to boot my TiVo. Can I use InstantCake to create a Fresh TiVo boot drive?

[Lou Jacob]

About three years ago I purchased and used InstantCake to upgrade my Series2 from a 40GB to a 160GB HD. It now appears that the HD has died(Stuck on Welcome Screen). I do not have a working TiVo hard drive to boot my TiVo. Can I use InstantCake to create a Fresh TiVo boot drive?

Yes, that is what InstantCake is designed to do!

[paavola]

I purchased Instantcake IC2 SIRS-6.4a-01-2-381 to build a new drive for my Directv Samsung SIR-S4120R. Everything seemed to be going great: instantcake reported success, the drive booted up and worked with live TV (even local channels after an authorization resend from DTV's website). I configured the phone settings and made a phone call successfully. Unfortunately, the dvr won't work. It tells me to activate my dvr service and the system information reports account in good standing but inactive dvr. I called Directv tech support and they tried to activate it from their side too. It's very frustrating to be so close to success. Any suggestions?

[paavola]

This turned out to be a trivial setting problem. Something was wrong with my satellite settings. I though I'd set it, but either I didn't or it didn't stick. Went through the satellite guided setup again and success.

[kpcompguy]

i purchased instantcake for my series two but it wont boot. I extract the iso file and burn to disc with nero. It looks like everything is there but my pc wont boot off of it. I am new to linux so bear with me. I know i have my bios set correctly because my ptvupgrade boots fine. Someone please help me. I love my tivo and am lost without it. Thanks

[kpcompguy]

Ok, figured that out. Apparently i didn't know you had to burn the iso file as an image. Now I get one failure. I syas "restore failed -destination drive too small to store entire backup" or something to that effect. It then has me hit enter to continue and then after about 20 sec it say my cake is baked. But when I put it in my TiVo it goes from powering up screen to a grey screen and freezes.

[Lou Jacob]

If you are getting an error during the the restore process, you'd be best to heed it! Remember, you SHOULD be using a new drive that is larger than your original... Best to take a step back and re-read the instructions - its also possible you may not have things connected to your PC as you expect.

[kpcompguy]

Thanks Lou, figured it out. Went to drive size info and found out that I cant use a 40 gig to replace the 40 gig. It says that I will have to use 60 gig or bigger. I am ordering a 250 gig right now. I am sure that it will work fine. Instantbake is quite easy to use once I schooled myself on linux a little and did some research on burning ISO images. I will repost after I get my new HD. But thanks for the help.


P.S.: for anyone having problems with instantbake booting, make sure you are burning the ISO file as an IMAGE. I haven't seen anyone else post this so maybe I am the only clueless person when it comes to this but maybe it will save someone else some grief. Also make sure you DON'T use winace to extract the files. It will break up the ISO file into individual files. I used winzip after wasting about 6 cd's. Winzip works fine.

[kevorkian]

Ser. 2 single tuner 540 ( lifetime sub ) upgraded from 40 gig to 750 gig pata baracuda 7200 with instacake.

Did C&DE after upgrade as required.

ran guided setup and was fine for about a week. Now the tivo will not reconize that it has guide data.

when going to the "find programs" it displays an error about guide data has run out .. it connects to tivo service OK ( at least whats reported in the menus ) .. I HAVE guide data when I change dates in the guide.

Yet I get the error about it .. and it will not record anything new.

I have done a "delete guide data" last night and it still will not reconize the fact that it has guide data.


Something about the new larger drive that is causing this ?? it DID work after the first c&de and guided setup. But I suspect that it was never able to load more then the initial priming data from the first call.

I remember reading a long time ago that adding a larger drive should also increase the size of the swap partition .. But could not find any current references ..

Any ideas ??

[rvbrewer]

puged in the hard drive and put in the cd rebooted and it did all it chcking and then it said to hit enter when I did I got this mount: no medium found /etc/rc.d/rc.s:/cdrom/.live/bin/ptvbake: no such file or directory what is this
Edit/Delete Message

[Lou Jacob]

puged in the hard drive and put in the cd rebooted and it did all it chcking and then it said to hit enter when I did I got this mount: no medium found /etc/rc.d/rc.s:/cdrom/.live/bin/ptvbake: no such file or directory what is this
Edit/Delete Message

How are your CD-ROM and hard drive configured?

[rvbrewer]

How are your CD-ROM and hard drive configured?

It boot from cd rom frist then hard drive

[Lou Jacob]

It boot from cd rom frist then hard drive

I'm sorry, but I'd some specifics to be able to help you here.

Have you reviewed the instructions and connected the CD-ROM as the primary slave (/dev/hdb) and the hard drive as the secondary master (/dev/hdc) as documented?

The original error message you supplied has been posted here several times before - it is always an indication that the CD-ROM and/or hard drive are not connected and configured as you might expect, so confirming these details is important.

Please provide as much information as possible about what you are doing and the steps you have taken - the more you can tell us the more we can help you.

Lou

[kpcompguy]

Got my new HD today. baked it and all is good. Thanks for the help Lou. Instant bake is a godsend. Although next time I will order a Hd that is a little quieter. This one makes too much noise.

[KyleOrl]

OK, here's my situation.

I have a series 2 Tivo model 540400. Hadn't been using it for a while because I had comcast DVR service, but decided I didn't want to pay for it, so I hooked up my old tivo box. It was stuck on the "welcome, powering up" screen so I took out the drive and checked it... dead as a doornail.

Luckily, I have an extra 40GB drive in an old, unused desktop, so I downloaded and burned a copy of InstantCake, hooked up the drives as instructed, and started it up. Everything gets going just fine, then run into this error:

"Restore failed: Error restoring MFS data.(80.88% compression)

Cannot continue -- processing aborted"

I've tried restarting a few times and this error always seems to happen after 770 of the 1010 megabytes are restored. I tried reburning the disc and it still happens in the same place. I haven't been able to find any solutions to this problem with some basic googling, so any help you can give will be very appreciated.

[KyleOrl]

Is anyone able to help with the issue I outlined in the last post? Is it a physical problem? Should I try another hard drive? PLEASE HELP!

[Lou Jacob]

Is anyone able to help with the issue I outlined in the last post? Is it a physical problem? Should I try another hard drive? PLEASE HELP!

Have you tried any or all of the things previously mentioned in this thread?

Reburning at a slower speed and/or with a different brand of CD recordable media?

Do you have access to a different PC, or perhaps a different CD-ROM drive?

Have you tried a different IDE cable?

Usually, its one of these things...

[KyleOrl]

A new IDE cable and a new burn to a CD-RW seems to have done it, but when I plug the HD into my Tivo, I still get cycling on and off before the "Welcome, Powering Up..." message can go away. Does this mean my problem is in something other than the hard drive? That there's a problem with the new hard drive? That the InstantCake didn't actually work?

[Lou Jacob]

A new IDE cable and a new burn to a CD-RW seems to have done it, but when I plug the HD into my Tivo, I still get cycling on and off before the "Welcome, Powering Up..." message can go away. Does this mean my problem is in something other than the hard drive? That there's a problem with the new hard drive? That the InstantCake didn't actually work?

From your previous post, you indicated that you ran diagnostics on your original drive and it was dead. Did you run diagnostics on your new drive?

If you did, and it was fine, and your system is still stuck on the "Welcome, powering up..." then it may very well be that there is something else wrong with your unit.

[infin]

i purchased the instacake software last year for a series 2 dvr, i was wondering if this can be used for multiple models or only the one that it was purchased for?

this is what my account shows:
InstantCake for TiVo TCD240 Models (9.3.2a)


can it be used with a different model series 2 also? like TCD540040?

also if i cant use the disc i have, any discont to purchase the newer version since i have a previous version?

[Atari]

Bear with me, this is an old disk set. I also feel I have asked this question before and had it answered but I cannot find it (or me) in this forum. It's bee awhile.

Step 1: CDROM is Secondary Master, Drive 1 is Primary Master, Drive 2 is Primary Slave.
These are set according to the instructions printed onscreen after booting the disc.

Step 2: Boot from PTVlba48 disc

Step 3: Hit enter to boot

Step 4: A screen telling me how to set up my drives (see step 1) is followed by press enter to continue.

Pressing enter does nothing. I cannot move beyond this screen. I seem to remember being instructed from this forum to enter some commands at the boot prompt but I cannot find notes or references or anything. Please help. Beyond this step, it seemed that everything was easy.

Thank in advance.

[Atari]

After posting my question, I did a little more searching and found some info that may help. My Instant Cake CD (from 2007) boots just fine but hangs at press enter to continue. After posting on DVRPlayground, I was pointed to the PTVlba48 ISO workaround (http://www.dvrplayground.com/forum/thread/11896/11010/?page=1). Unfortunately that also hangs at the press enter to continue as described above.

I have tried the CD drive as the primary master and slave since I can find documentation instructing both. Neither make a difference although they are set to cable select. I'll try moving the dips next just in case.

[Atari]

Note to self: Do NOT use USB keyboards with Instant Cake. A PS/2 keyboard is required.

Additional thoughts: This is why we don't use our real names. To spare us the embarrassment of these simple little mistakes.

[hvdv]

I am new to this forum and a novice on Linux. hence my selection of InstantCake.
I ran the instantcake software on various single IDE hard drives 160GB or bigger and at end of the installation the program said it was successfull, but it did not work in my Philips HDR12 TiVo.
However the software worked fine in my TiVo with IDE drives 120GB or smaller. What do I need to change to get the larger drives to work?
Please advise
Hans

[GoalieEd]

Hi. I've got Instantcake TWP installed on my Phillips Series 1 Tivo and a cachecard installed. I can telnet into the box at the DCHP assigned address, and access the web viewer by http'ing to the same address, but I can't get an FTP connection established by ftping to the address. Here's the command and response

ftp 192.168.1.79

Connected to 192.168.1.79

and that's it. No prompt comes up on what to do and then the ftp program shuts down after a minute of apparent hanging.

Any suggestions?

[nodakskip]

Hey guys sorry if this has been asked before.

I have an old 120 gig hard drive that I think was formatted already to use windows. I tired to use this on instantcake to use as a test. It says that its done and it was very quick. My guess is I have to unformat this HD to work for instantcake to work fully.

Is it better to find a program to erase all info on the HD then try it again? Most sites I have seen is for un formatting and recovering info off a HD. I just want to un format it completely.

[unitron]

Hey guys sorry if this has been asked before.

I have an old 120 gig hard drive that I think was formatted already to use windows. I tired to use this on instantcake to use as a test. It says that its done and it was very quick. My guess is I have to unformat this HD to work for instantcake to work fully.

Is it better to find a program to erase all info on the HD then try it again? Most sites I have seen is for un formatting and recovering info off a HD. I just want to un format it completely.


Instant Cake, when it puts an image on the drive, will put a new partition table (or the apple equivalent) on as well, so you don't really need to un-format it. Whatever hasn't already been overwritten by Instant Cake will soon be overwritten by recording shows.

The probable reason it seems to have worked quickly is that there isn't that much to put on the drive if you're putting on an image of a Tivo with no shows recorded.

The way to test it is put it into the model of Tivo the image is for and see if it boots and runs.

[Don544]

I am attempting to use Instantcake for the first time in the advance mode because my system has only one ide port and instant cake does not seem to recognize my secondary add on ide board. I seem to have no problem configuring single drive and cd as the system boots , allows me to choose advanced mode, accepts my drive designation and then begins restore process.The restore process proceeds and seems to hang at intervals for a short time and then proceed again to the end.
At the end of the process I get this message, cleaning up restore please wait a moment, after a few moments a new message appears ,restore failed error fixing volume list.
Then proceeds to tell me to finish and shut down system.
This has happened with four drives all of them pass manufacturers smart tests and needless to say they do not work when installed in the Tivo.
I have tried the cd as both the primary slave /hard drive primary master and the cd primary master hd as slave.
System is 4gb ram quad core amd with main sata drives disconnected as suggested.
I am going to go in the attic and see if I have a system still around or at least a motherboard so I can build one with the suggested dual ide but in the meantime I would appreciate any suggestions.

[vitama]

My series2 froze 2 weeks ago; it has never gotten past the grey "powering up" screen since then. I tested the WD drive with their DLG utility and it was fine. I've tested the power supply voltages and they also seem fine. Is it possible that the hardware is OK and it's just corrupted software on the drive? If so, can I use InstantCake to re-image the drive? I've read all the instructions and can't quite figure out if Instant Cake will work for this purpose, with no new drive in the picture.
Thanks...
- Mark

p.s. I forgot to add that I can't run any kickstart codes; the TiVo panel never flashes yellow at startup. I've also called Tivo Support but they had no other suggestions for me, other than calling WeakKnees.

[TalonTsi90]

Hopefully this will help some people, or not. This most likely will be my only post.

My background is basically that i am a system builder level in knowledge and rollout. I currently run 3 completely custom built machines (Win7) and one commercially built machine (XP). I also work in IT for the Gov.

<rant>

I CANNOT believe that a program still exists that requires the use of nearly 10 year old equipment. I was about to go off on my credit card company to demand they reverse the $40 charge for IC.

</rant>

My main system is a water cooled 3.4GHZ overclocked AMD running on a DFI mobo, 8 gigs of RAM, 1.25 TB of storage. My wifes machine is also a AMD/DFI machine with 3 gigs of RAM and 250 GB of storage and my web server is an AMD/MSI running 750 GB of storage, the email server (only non custom built machine) is an almost 9 year old PIII based Celeron 1.2GHZ 512RAM that i run with nothing hooked up (no monitor/KB/mouse).

I attempted to use my wifes machine because it runs IDE (my other two are strictly SATA, web server does not have a CD-ROM either). I think i read a post from 3+ years ago where someone commented not to use an AMD machine. What ever that has to do with anything, i cant figure out. A processor is a complex math calculator, and thats about it. It doesnt care whether you run Linux or Windows, or what size your HDD's are.

So, i got a Series 2 TiVo from a friend and the hacker/modder in me promptly tore it down to through in a 10 times bigger drive that i had absolutely no use for. Once i got the NTFS partition deleted the install seemed to go a bit further, but still hung on installing vlinuz. So after letting it sit for about 10 minutes i decided to plug a monitor into my email server and install a temp CD-ROM. Boot it up and literally in less than 10 minutes its telling me to power down and install to my TiVo.

WHAT THE HELL??!!!??!?!?!!

Why in the world would that make a difference? I realize that the TiVo is the hardware that matters, and this one is about 6 years old, but still, the software isnt that old, nor should it care WHAT machine i attempt to build a HDD on.

Like i said, i most likely wont post anymore on here, because i dont need the help, i just came here to see if i needed to make the CD bootable or not, and decided to try and burn it without being bootable and it worked.

However, if anyone wants me to work on their HDD (assuming its not against the rules here) PM me and we will work it out.

[jbljax]

I bought the IC download and burned the image, etc., then bought two of the above drives. (Have two drt-400's)

Problem is, I'm not sure if IC will work on as large a drive as that, plus I still have to get and IDE-SATA adapter to bake them on my Dell XPS-410. Even DVRUpgrade folks say they 'haven't tested IC on drives as large as 1Tb.' What the heck? They sell 1Tb upgrade drives - how do those get imaged?

Nothing I've read reassures me that the drives are usable for this application, and the IDE-SATA adaption concerns me some, too. I'd rather return them than get stuck with something I can't use.

Anybody got any advice?

[toobleu]

I have a Hughes SD-DVR40 that I want to upgrade to a larger disk. I bought a Western Digital AV-GP WD7500AVDS 750GB SATA disk drive, a Koutech IO-ASA120 IDE to SATA II device adapter, and InstantCake 6.4a for Series2 DirecTV TiVo Units. I verified the operation of the disk drive with the IDE adapter by performing a disk test on the combination. I then loaded InstantCake on the disk drive, following the directions, without any problem. However, when I connect it to my DirecTV Tivo unit, it will not boot. I get the grey Welcome Powering up screen, but it won't go past that. I can faintly hear the disk spin up (it is incredibly quiet) and perform a few seeks at power-up, but then I don't hear any more seeks. I then tried an older 160Gb SATA drive with the same IDE adapter. After loading InstantCake without any problems, I installed it in the Tivo unit, and it booted with no problem.

Is there a size limit on the disk that will work with the DVR40? I did not see any such limit posted on the DVRupgrade site, but perhaps I missed it. If the 750Gb drive should work with the DVR40, is there something else that I am missing?

Thanks

[nicktivo]

Hi there,

I'm using InstantCake to "bake" a new 500GB (DVR specific) Seagate hard drive (ST3500312CS).

The hard drive is mounted on hda and therefore, I'm using the advanced mode. I'm also using a SATA to IDE adapter, as InstantCake wouldn't recognize the drive on a SATA cable.

It seems to go well, but at the end, when it's saying "Cleaning up restore. Please wait a moment.", it hangs forever and never completes.

Is this step necessary, or will the hard drive work in the Tivo without it? Does anyone have any ideas what I can do to fix this?

I hope this forum is still checked!

Thanks!

[avmech]

I just baked 2 new WD 160G hard drives for my HDR612. All was going nicely through guided setup until the phone call. I am using a turbonet card and the ,#401 dialing option as it was before. I connect, download, but it stays at hanging up forever! I tried a reboot and I also tried accessing the Tivo through the TWP all without success. Is there a way to force the hang up? I am desperately missing my Tivo, so any help is appreciated.

Avmech

[ktmdms]

If you were to do that people might actually be able to install the Tivo images with InstantCake to USB connected drives instead of having to mess around with jumpers on their CDROM and hard drives, etc. It's amazing to me that you won't/haven't taken the couple of hours to do this already. It would make life easier for all involved.