Crazy Tivo deal

Today my series 2 60 hour Tivo died. It kept rebooting every few minutes then I tried unplugging and plugging in the power. After that now the Tivo does not turn on.

So then I go to Compusa to return something and they have a stack of the 40 hour tivos by the counter with a big managers special 69.99 sign. So I decided 70 dollars for a 40 hour was pretty good and I go to buy it. Well when they scan the Tivo it comes up for 35.00 dollars. I even pointed out to the sales person the big sign saying they were 70 dollars but they didn't care the computer says it's 35.00.

Now I just need to go back and get one of the 200GB HDDs they were selling for 80 dollars and figure out how to upgrade this thing

It would be nice to get the shows off my old tivo HDD too but I haven't figured out what's wrong with it yet.

Mmmm.. great deal, Matt!

That sounds like a hot deal. I wonder if it's something that they will eventually "fix" in the system.

Anyway, if you buy a lifetime sub or pay for 12 months of service, TiVo is giving away 40GB refurbs.

Yeah I saw that before I bought one. I will be moving soon and may have to get direct tv so I didn't want to get the lifetime subscription.

From what I can tell it doesn't look like it is possible to get the shows off the HDD without it being in the Tivo.

Could you just throw the old drive in the new tivo and get the shows off of it that way?

Not according to the info I have read. The info I found makes it sound like the files are encripted somehow.

If it's a stock tivo, yes the video is stored encripted. Unless you can get it to boot again, it's most likely a lost cause.

When I plug it in both the LEDs on the front stay on and I can hear the audio. I pulled out the HDD and it passes the diagnostic tests from the manufacturer. Also the fan comes on but I get no video out or response from the remote.

The only other thing I wanted to check was the PSU. Does anyone know a website that has what voltages I should get ?

Assuming the tivo's were of the same software revision, it is possible to save your shows. You need to plug the drives into a computer and copy everything over in linux. There are iso files that are prepared specifically for doing this. It's the same tool as when you upgrade your drive size.

Oh, and it IS time-consuming. Those shows can be huge.

Do you have a link to the procedure ? I thought I read that I couldn't do that because of the encription.

I thought you could only turn off the encryption? The current shows would stay encrypted since you recorded it whilst it was still enabled but new shows would be fine.

That is what I had read also I would be interested to hear if I am wrong though

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I thought you could only turn off the encryption? The current shows would stay encrypted since you recorded it whilst it was still enabled but new shows would be fine.

That is correct.